Wowza, Alec Baldwin weighs in on Michael Vick - great read about the hypocrisy

I am not a vegetarian but I will say that this article made me think in a different light about the whole Vick situation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/michael-vick-black-sheep_b_260990.html

Michael Vick: Black Sheep or Scapegoat on Animal Rights?

Several years ago, I was attending a fundraiser for an animal rights organization hosted by a prominent couple who lived in the Las Vegas area. Like me, the husband had been pulled through the door of the animal rights movement by his significant other, but had become a dedicated vegetarian after being exposed to the facts and opinions of the animal rights community regarding meat production and consumption. He told me that his conversion was particularly tough, as he had grown up in Texas. I suggested that not eating meat in Texas must be a special kind of blasphemy. He said, "Shoot, man. We used to barbecue the whole herd and throw away half!" I just started at him, unblinking, for about five seconds.

I recalled that exchange when I saw that Michael Vick signed with the Eagles.

I have supported and/or worked with a number of animal rights groups, both local and national. Whether it be donating to pet adoption facilities like the North Shore Animal League on Long Island, opposing the carriage horses in Central Park, hosting fundraisers for the Performing Animal Welfare Society in San Andreas, California or appearing in video programs for PETA, protecting the rights of animals has been important to me ever since my ex-wife introduced me to Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, the founders of PETA. I learned about issues involving the crash-testing of live animals by Detroit carmakers, the use of monkeys and other animals in medical experimentation and the testing of everything from medicines to machinery to make-up for the purposes of measuring product liability. I learned about how meat is produced and slaughtered, how milk is "manufactured" and, thanks to Dr. Neal Barnard and the Physicians for Responsible Medicine, how childhood obesity and related illnesses have soared over the past 25 years due to the poor diets of kids hooked on fast food. I learned about the horrific abuses of animals in circuses, zoos, rodeos, thoroughbred horse racing and anywhere that animals are used in performances. Meeting an unimaginably dedicated soul like Pat Derby or Ed Stewart of PAWS changed my life.

What Vick did is, obviously, senseless and reprehensible. But I believe Vick, as a wealthy and talented athletic superstar who performs his job out in the open before crowds of amped-up and highly opinionated fans, suffers an unfair disadvantage as compared to, say, the heads of a meatpacking plant or the directors of a medical research lab where animals are suffering the cruelest imaginable abuses behind walls and doors that remove them from our sight and, therefore, judgments. Vick did horrific things and he deserved to be punished. He served his time and now I wonder what good does it do to exile him in shame and not let him show his example of how one can be rehabilitated after that kind of behavior. If Vick returns to his true form as an NFL pro, that platform can mean real progress for the animal rights movement. Or do some people really not want to open that conversation? Vick is one man who, along with his friends, brutally tortured and killed many innocent dogs and called it a sport. Each day in this country, millions upon millions of animals are suffering lives of daily abuse in factory farming, but we turn away because that animal, unlike Vick's dogs, ends up on a grill and then on our plates. Animals that are not raised as pets suffer in ways that you and I don't really want to know. And in economic hard times like now, support for groups like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and other prominent players in the animal rights movement, drops precipitously.

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would have shined more light on just how widespread and commonplace the underground dogfighting circuit is -- from local neighborhoods to dozens of pro athletes...

sadly, it seemed like he was just the lightning rod and while he was away the general public forgot about the issue entirely...

I'm sorry but comparing medical research labs (of which I work in one) to MICHAEL FUCKING VICK is sick and disgusting. We have VERY STRICT rules on how we treat our animals. Nor our we doing research just to make a quick buck or because we are perverts who enjoy blood and guts. This article makes me WANT TO PUKE!!!
:rant:

I think Baldwin has a very valid point. We are all too happy to crucify Vick for what he has done because it was a heinious crime and yet everyday we make choices to eat food or use products that come from animals that probably lived in conditions that are equal to or even worse than what Vick's dogs suffered thru. This isn't a bust on your particular organization - there are groups both in testing and food industry where they do their part to ensure animals have humane conditions. But for the general population, they don't think about where the burger came from they are eating or the shampoo they are using but they are happy to villify Vick even though he has served his sentence and seems to want to repent for his past ways.

Mind you, Baldwin I believe is also a part of PETA (he mentions his ex-wife Kim Bassinger who was major league PETA). ALthough I'm not the biggest fan of PETA and probably won't stop eatting animal products, the article did make me think of the hypocrisy.

but you're right...there can be bad research facilities and ill-treatment of animals on farms, etc., but there is NO humane way of dog fighting, none.

People who try and make excuses for Vick or who say others are just as bad make me want to puke...it's because he's a celebrity adn we are obsessed with celebrities in this country,a s if they are somehow better people...face it, they became famous beacuse they're worse people, people who will do anything to get ahead.