In the last part of this series, we will look at the money trail. In doing so, we will detail the identity, motivation and the not-so-clear connections that continue to put horse slaughter up as “a necessary evil.”
The horse slaughter lobby is a set of fronts and organizations (in some cases comprised of just one or a few individuals) that make a monetary profit out of defending the existence of horse slaughtering, either directly or indirectly, or that use it as an excuse to further a concrete political agenda, which in almost every case implies an economical profit, be it merely from lobbying or by certain industrial strategies related to cutting down production costs.
The object that drives the horse slaughter lobby is money. It has never been about equine welfare, humanity, professionalism or reliability. Like in most political issues, those defending horse slaughtering are in it for the money or for the prospects of monetary earnings in a variety of forms, from obtaining campaign donations to the renewal of a Public Relations contracts or the obtainment of power to shape legislation to their own advantage.
Over the years, the horse slaughter lobby proved to be a formidable force, successfully blocking any attempt at ending the needless butchering of American horses despite the overwhelming opposition and repulsion the practice draws on regular Americans. Its strength and resources are substantially greater than what could be initially expected, given that the horsemeat business represents only a tiny fraction (about 0.3% at best) of the total revenue of the overall horse industry. Readers may be tempted to conclude the Belgian-owned horsemeat corporations are responsible of the compounding and strength of the horse slaughter lobby but this does not seem to be the case. Although the horsemeat industry is generally regarded as a multimillion dollar business, these corporations are rather quite small in comparison to other sectors like manufacturing car seats or a pizza franchise.
Although the foreign-owned horse slaughter corporations were initially involved in lobbying efforts to shield their activity from litigation and legislative efforts they are no longer active in US politics. Since the closure of the three former US plants and their strategic relocation across the borders, the Belgian horsemeat companies have shown little to no interest in moving back to the United States despite having opportunities and money to do so. Why? And, if the foreign-owned horsemeat industry is no longer behind legislative efforts on horse slaughter then, who funds the horse slaughter lobby? For what purpose? To answer such questions we need to understand the background of the horse slaughter industry in America.
They became involved in the US because the basic infrastructure was already in place, prices were low and exportation was easy. With globalization and improved infrastructure around the world (particularly in Mexico and South America) and the cheapening and optimization of air and sea freight, that initial edge has been made irrelevant. The same quality product, without drug residues, could be sourced from other countries at a much lower cost and without fighting tight regulations and opposition by the public.
For example, when Velda NV abandoned the Natural Valley Farms plant in Saskatchewan after having its license suspended, instead of looking for a new plant to continue killing American stock they simply moved all operations to an already existing plant they had in Australia (Metro Velda Pty. Ltd.).
Similarly, Chevideco operates plants in Argentina, Brazil and Romania (apart from its Mexican one) and recently, while attending the meeting organized last March in Missouri’s Mountain Groove by Wallis’ Unified Equine LLC to solicit money for building a horse slaughter plant in the town (theoretically for Chevideco to kill horses), the President and General Manager of the Belgian company, Michael Beukelaar and Olivier Kemseke, were adamant in stating that they will invest no money or assets whatsoever in building the plant, being interested in a turn-key lease-only operation they can drop at any time at no cost should any inconvenience arise. Such stance is an intelligent one since the Belgian horsemeat companies are well aware the US government will not make any effort to adapt its regulations and legislation to make them compatible with EU drug reside and traceability standards and, should the European Commission ever decide to take action to bar poisonous American horsemeat from entering the food chain, they could absorb the impact of such ban by simply walking away.
In other words, the foreign horsemeat corporations were in the US because they were benefiting from low prices resulting from a throw-away culture some Americans have acquired toward horses. If these companies are provided an economical advantage elsewhere, they will go there. The fact the meat would not be “genuine American flavor” is not really an issue; they can always put up a cowboy or a wild horse sticker in the polystyrene tray. Once it is understood the Belgian horsemeat corporations have little or no interest in coming back to the US, it is evident why they don’t seem to actively participate in local American politics.
Who does fund the horse slaughter lobby then? To answer that we need to follow the money.
Who really benefits from horse slaughter in America? The killer buyers? They do benefit from horse slaughter, indeed they seem to do quite well, although they are not the power behind the horse slaughter lobby, just the workers doing the dirty work. Instead, we are looking for people of social and economical status, capable of getting a hold of politicians and controlling them. Let’s keep following the money trail.
The answer to the above question comes after examining data collected by USDA at one of the US-based plants regarding the breed of slaughter bound horses. According to such data, roughly 70% of horses slaughtered are quarter horses, followed by 21% thoroughbreds and other breeds. Since quarter horses have a strong, muscular conformation, are relatively heavyweight and numerous (meaning lower prices) they are indeed preferred by the horsemeat corporations, which therefore maximize the ratio of “raw matter” obtained per dollar spent purchasing the animal. However, the fact that quarter horses are slaughtered in numbers greater than any other breed is not just a mere consequence. In fact, almost any piece of pro-slaughter propaganda, misinformation and horse-butchering eulogy published in the past ten years can be traced back to the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA), despite the efforts of the Amarillo-based breed registry to conceal their origin by developing a network of think-tanks and phony “non-profit” organizations.
Bingo! We’ve just found one of the main forces behind the horse slaughter lobby. But, why would a breed registry advocate the brutal butchering of the very reason of its existence? And how is it possible for a single organization of that apparently irrelevant nature to amass such an incredible amount of political power? The answer is rather easy: money, under a couple layers of politics and ideology.AQHA is by far the most important breed registry in the world, with over 3 million horses registered. Over the years, AQHA has grown into becoming a pure for-profit corporate complex, with their top officers being people of prestige in rural America politics. Like many political entities, it is more concerned about its self-preservation than to the duties or mission that brought it to life in the first place. It no longer carries out the function of a breed registry, i.e. assuring horses registered are of pure breed, maintaining standards and prevent fraud. Instead, AQHA has become a money-making machine.
The logic behind this money-making scheme is quite straight-forward: Boost foal registrations at all costs in order to increase revenues. AQHA obtains most of its funding (at least on paper) through registration fees. By promoting indiscriminate breeding they increase registration numbers and thus the amount collected in fees, which are revenues later divided between the organization’s managing board and its network of fronts.
During the last 20 years, AQHA has been promoting the indiscriminate, systematic, irresponsible overbreeding of horses in order to achieve its revenue goals. It wasn’t all that long ago when officials of AQHA and its subservient, satellite registries like APHA, NCHA and a few others were blowing their horns about huge facilities where they were conducting industrialized horse cloning in order to preserve a champion’s legacy. The numbers speak out for themselves: According to AQHA, in 2010, despite the economical instability, high unemployment and elevated fuel prices (further hurting the live horse industry), over 83,000 new horses were registered with the organization. Two years before, in 2008, about 140,000 animals were registered. During the years of the housing spree and the cheap credit fest the numbers were even higher.
Sadly, no one thought of the critical flaws in the push for mass production.Horses are not commodities; they live many years and eventually the exponentially growing number of foals would hamper new registrations. The solution devised by AQHA officials, ruled therefore to be “final”, is also quite simple: make room for more. This is where slaughter comes in. Horse slaughtering provides AQHA the means to maintain a steady flow of registrations by providing an easy, convenient outlet to get rid of the excess foals bred every year as a result of its overbreeding policy. Under their concept, the slaughtering of older horses provides room for new ones from which more revenue is extracted in the form of registration fees. In addition, horse slaughter enables AQHA pro breeders (especially those in and near the organization’s top echelon) to get winner horses without much of an effort; obtaining a champion is just a question of arithmetical probability and churning babies like crazy. Those that fail to perform as expected, don’t have the desired color, markings, character or that simply are poorly trained or get injured are taken to the slaughter auction and tossed in a killer truck. Problem solved.
Horse slaughter rewards these mass breeders by providing cash for their “byproduct” horses, further encouraging the practice (regarded by AQHA as its “secondary market for horses”, to quote AQHA failed backyard breeder and Sue Wallis’ favorite follower, Dave Duquette) to the point many breeding operations obtain more money from selling for slaughter than from sales of horses for traditional purposes. Many AQHA breeders currently breed primarily to sell horses at kill auction, with the traditional activities of selective breeding and training of horses for riding, racing or ranch work as purely secondary or even anecdotal. They bred hundreds of mares and sell the offspring to the killers, raking an average of $500-600 per head. If some turn out to have good traits and prospects to be “champions”, they can sell them for $5000 or more or keep them for internal use until they got injured beyond recovery or get tired of them. Their breeding strategies involve nothing more than simply turn out a stallion with a hundred mares in a very large pasture and wait till the foals grow up; keep the best two and cull the rest, tossing them like garbage in the next kill auction.
As sad as it is, for AQHA horses are nothing than disposable commodities. In this sense, AQHA has effectively turned the noble bond between horse and rider into a standardized meat producing operation in which horse breeding is no different than raising beef cattle for McDonalds.
To a lesser extent this also applies to a group of individuals within the thoroughbred racing industry, with the notable difference being that the industry acknowledged horse slaughter is damages its image and has taken some steps in the right direction, such as supporting the passage of a federal ban on horse slaughter or devising non-slaughter policies at racetracks. However, despite such good intentions, many thoroughbreds are still slaughtered as a consequence of some trainers adopting AQHA’s throwaway practices and managing to get around the tracks’ no-slaughter policies by means of a series of deals allowing them to ship directly to the killers right off the track stalls, in the face of the passiveness of racing authorities and the Jockey Club.
So understanding that the AQHA’s directors and their friends are padding their pockets with blood money still doesn’t explain how this rather small bunch of folks can mobilize such a strong political force nationwide. For that answer, we dig a little deeper.
Since 1960, agribusiness corporations, notably the meat industry, have been fighting any piece of legislation or activity that either tries to regulate it or require them to adopt higher standards in their production mechanisms. On their sights are any laws aimed at the humane treatment of animals, pollution management or banning the use of certain chemical compounds, since these impact either spending money on infrastructure or abandon practices maximizing their profits and lowering their production costs. Similarly they have been trying to silence the exposure by concerned individuals of practices involving animal cruelty.
In general, agribusiness confronts anything that remotely questions on legal, ethical, medical, scientific or social grounds not only its practices, Agribusiness, particularly the meat industry, reacts aggressively to both stronger regulations and anything that is remotely related to the humane treatment of animals or environmental protection. From livestock feedlot laws and urban waste management to horse slaughter, agribusiness always vocally opposes any piece of legislation, behavior or concept that supposes a step forward in the right direction, effectively deploying a zero tolerance policy that has become its defining signature.
The rationale behind such zero tolerance policy to preserve its economical interests and power position, agribusiness must deny any ideas generally identified as “animal welfare” or “environmentalism” from gaining a foothold in the minds of both policy makers and society. It does so by employing vast amounts of resources in direct political action and the media.
Our modern, information-saturated society is quite susceptible to fear, so it is not surprising that agribusiness resorts to fear as its main tactic. At the forefront of the “fear” argument is the slippery slope justification. This tactic consists on scaring both policy makers and society by making them believe that, if legislation proposed for a very specific issue is passed, those supporting the law will go in for more and, like a slippery slope, the country will fall in an spiral of concessions which will eventually ban all forms of agriculture. This argument may be shaped to any form and adapted to the needs of any specific issue.
This is where AQHA’s unwanted horse myth came from: If horse slaughter is banned, all the “unwanted horses” will not have anywhere to go and thus will be abandoned, creating further problems for the government and the public alike. Not far behind is the argument that if horse slaughter is banned, the “animal rights activist” will then go after cattle, swine, chickens and all forms of meat.
These slippery slope arguments are overly bizarre and ridiculous, yet agribusiness keeps using it as the base of its lobbying efforts, despite the fact animal welfare is an overstated threat for its own interests. What does this have to do with horse slaughter, which is not a national meat industry like beef, pork or poultry and why is the issue being represented by the agribusiness lobby since it plays such a tiny role? We’re almost there…
Way more important than the obvious falsehood, cheapness and bizarreness of the agribusiness lobby slippery slope argument is that agribusiness unquestionably fights fiercely anything put before it. Even more relevant is that agribusiness has enough resources to fund the necessary actions to keep AQHA’s slaughter pipeline open but also to feed all the phony fronts, lobbyists and assorted political accomplices living off horse killing lobbying activities. When taking both factors together, it doesn’t take much to figure out agribusiness will pick AQHA’s horse slaughter issue as if it were its own and not only fight it all the way for AQHA and friends but also pay for all associated costs; the deal couldn’t be better for AQHA while the Belgian horse slaughter companies get a free ride through the entire American political system at the expense of the US meat industry.
So American agribusiness is footing the bill of the horse slaughter lobby because of their zero tolerance policy revolving on the slippery slope but… why would they pay for lobbying issues that have nothing to do with them and which don’t pose a real threat, since horses are not part of the American meat industry and the interests of the horse industry have little to do with those of the factory farms?
This is where the “good ol’ boy network” comes in (for those unfamiliar with the term it refers to the form of cronyism predominant in rural America, particularly in Southwestern states). It turns out that many AQHA top officials also hold important positions in agribusiness organizations, in lobbying entities defending agribusiness or simply have some important acquaintance in such entities. The also have positions in government and corporations that don’t belong necessarily to the agribusiness sector; sometimes they are also important ranchers or hold public office in state and local government units. Without any doubt, the horse slaughter lobby has used such positions to their own advantage, gaining the favor of agribusiness and using its machinery for their own gain at the expense of the horse industry. This also applies to all other satellite organizations of AQHA that follow the directives of the Amarillo-based corporation, including American Paint Horse Association, National Cutting Horse Association, Professional Cowboys Rodeo Association and American Horse Council. However, even accounting for the effects of ol’ boy network, this group seems to be still too small to pitch on its own an entire industry sector nationwide in a confrontation against the majority of the American population (80% according to recent polls), opposing the slaughter of horses for dinners abroad. There must be a cofactor for such AQHA’s cronyism to be all that effective.
Agribusiness ended up believing its own lies, slipped down its own greasy slope, bumped its head on the floor and ended up taking its rhetoric for real – that those concerned about the endangered, overexploited environment or about the unethical, amoral brutality our throwaway society dispenses to animals have a hidden agenda to sweep them from existence. They perceive the so-called “animal welfare” or “environmentalism” as such a grave threat that defensive action is no longer sufficient, it is necessary to strike first before “animal rights” can react and thus effectively sweep them from the political and social scene. In its delusions, agribusiness thinks it must wage war. Such psychotic behavior partially explains the unprecedented stream of retrograde and totally bogus anti-animal legislations introduced since 2008, of which the numerous pro-slaughter state bills are an example, arising from a major build-up in lobbying spending by agribusiness.
Agribusiness’ detachment of reality regarding the horse slaughter issue is so big that some individuals within the meat industry, notably those within the influence circle of Sue Wallis and her horsemeat cult, have fantasized with the possibility of not just competing with the well-established Belgian horsemeat cartel for European sales and eventually take over their market but also about creating an domestic market for horsemeat, thus becoming the new kings of agribusiness.
In retrospect, the continuous indoctrination of those surrounding the meat industry, including the closely associated horse industry, have many believing that animal welfare its indeed their enemy and that they must band with agribusiness to defeat it. They account for most of the 20% of individuals in the US that support horse slaughter, even though they most admit they would not eat horsemeat and would not knowingly sell horses for slaughter, all while saying that they consider slaughter to be a form of euthanasia.
Perhaps you’re now saying, this can’t be real. Even if a few Western beef bigwigs have gone nuts and believe there is a conspiracy against them, most of these corporations are big companies that have lots of auditors and experts on their payroll, so they can’t fall so easily for this and spend millions just to keep happy some AQHA guy that knows someone who knows the CEO’s sister. Indeed, it isn’t all that easy. The situation described above can only be understood if we add another factor that turns this rather complex mixture of greed, money and ideology into the entity we identify as the horse slaughter lobby. What can this be?
In one hand we have AQHA and those who directly profit from horse slaughter; they have an evident interest in keeping horse slaughter going for their own gain, however this rather small group of individuals doesn’t have the resources to move all the political machinery to achieve its objectives. On the other hand, we have an agribusiness in war against “animal welfare”. Such agribusiness is, in itself, a gold mine for a class of consummate white-collars racketeers that know how to exploit the vulnerabilities of this type of entities, seeking for help to succeed in the cavernous world of professional politics, and this leads us to the last component of this concoction of interests: lobbyists, professional lobbyists, those who are hired to pimp your cause and procure you the favors of politicians of easy virtue (who at some point of their careers were or will become lobbyists).
We are not talking about the PR or marketing guys employed at a company to represent it or deal with the media, that’s running-of-the-mill staff. We are talking about a true industry with its very own agenda that might very well be detrimental to the customers they represent, acting as an exclusive intermediary between entities seeking to make a point in legislatures for some reason and politicians that hold the key of what such entities want. In other words, lobbyists are middlemen that require you to hire them if you want to have access to politicians and eventually scoring a success in shaping legislation in your favor.
Initially, one could be tempted to think professional lobbyists only grant access, then it is up to the politicians to listen up and take note of your issue, but unfortunately things are usually more complicated. These professional lobby firms are composed of political insiders that worked at, formed part or will eventually form part of both legislatures and executive branches across the nation and hold a monopoly over a product almost nobody else has – personal acquaintances with decision makers. The reverse is also true: lobbyists have acquaintances in industry which can fund a politician’s race or even boost his career if the “right decisions” are taken. Politicians become lobbyists and lobbyists become politicians, in a sort of a legislative mafia. Over the years, this reciprocity between politicians and lobbyists increased to the point that it is already a necessary condition to hire these professional lobby firms for politicians to act on your favor, that is, hiring a professional lobby grants you an automatic win.
And, of course, horse slaughter is no exception. For instance, Charles Stenholm was a former U.S. Representative for Texas’ 17th Congressional District (Abilene). Allegedly a rich cotton farmer, he was nurtured to power by Texas agribusiness, where he got in contact with AQHA’s elite. When his pal Tom Delay backstabbed him and redistricted his area, he went to work for lobby firm Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC to represent agriculture industry customers. Later, he was also hired by the scared Belgian horsemeat corporations and masterminded a plan (that is the backbone of the horse slaughter lobby today) to use his other clients of the American agribusiness sector to lobby for horse slaughter for his own gain. Once favors to agribusiness and his AQHA pals were returned, he made a gambit expecting the Obama administration would pick him for Secretary of Agriculture and thus cross the revolving door again. His plan failed when Obama chose instead former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Another notable example is far-right Senator Conrad Burns which, after losing his seat on the aftermath of his implication on the Tom Delay – Jack Abramoff scandal, went to work as a lobbyist for AQHA.
Granted that lobbyists and politicians are virtually the same thing and that they hold a monopoly, it doesn’t take much to figure how this can be exploited by them in a variety of ways. As an industry, professional lobbying seeks to ever increase its own profits plus its self-replication and, like any company, it looks for to expand its horizons and create new market venues for its products. This is of special importance in the particular case of horse slaughter.
We mentioned before the Burns-Delay-Abramoff scandal. Such political corruption scandal revolved on a series of actions taken by politicians acting in concert with Abramoff to harm a target entity (notably gambling interests) or group of individuals in order to force them to take political action, which required the hiring of Abramoff and his associates in order to be effective, Abramoff presenting himself as their “savior”. This effectively creates, through a racket-resembling scheme, a false demand for lobbying services which resulted in a stream of revenues for the parties involved. The result of such false lobbying effort was, in practice, irrelevant once the money was cashed in, but usually victims were lured into keep the lobbying effort, using the same tactics of a typical advance-fee scam. The same happens with the horse slaughter lobby, using American agribusiness as the target victim of the scheme.
Professional horse slaughter lobbyists, which have as customers agribusiness interests for other issues not related to horse slaughter, easily convinced their customers that anti-slaughter legislation is a threat and, by playing on their fears and offering them false information, engineered an artificial demand for their lobbying services which otherwise would not be necessary. That results in monetary profits for such lobby firms in a similar way Abramoff, Burns and their associates orchestrated a series of hits on gambling interests to force them into hiring Abramoff’s lobby firm.
The situation becomes even direr if we take into account many presumed agricultural producer associations, such as the Farm Bureaus, are actually de facto PACs (Political Action Committees) with their own hidden agenda, revolving around the employment of lobby firms associated to their managing boards. Perhaps the best example of such phenomenon is AQHA itself. Apart from the fact that many of its top breeders and officials profit directly from slaughtering horses, some of its upper echelon also figured out there was a lot of money to be made out of agribusiness by covertly turning AQHA in another PAC and tethering their operations to those of one or more professional lobby firms (such OFW). Their success in this regard is more than evident, as demonstrated by the stream of shady pro-slaughter fronts spawned out of AQHA and OFW PC since 2005, all consistently feeding on agribusiness funding. This scheme applies to some degree to most players of the horse slaughter lobby, like the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which is a de facto PAC for OFW’s own interests at the National Cattleman’s Beef Association. Something similar occurs with its equine branch, the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) which is an AQHA PAC inside the AVMA PAC.
Without any doubt, professional lobbyists have masterfully exploiting the vulnerabilities of the American agribusiness which, trapped in a web of fake interests and ideological lies, ended up funding a network of lobbying entities by using horse slaughter as an excuse for their own existence. Even if horse slaughter is eventually banned, the lobbyists would continue pushing for the repeal of the ban as long as there is money to milk from their agribusiness cash cow. This is the only way to explain how an entire industry that is unrelated and does not obtain any profit from horse slaughtering is so determined to defend the interests of the tiny fraction of individuals that really do, and continue to assist foreign competitors which are not even interested in coming back to the US. This is also the only way to explain on its entirety the ever-increasing amount of absolutely bogus anti-animal and pro-slaughter legislations introduced every year.
We commented before how AQHA’s business logic had two critical flaws, the first one being that they need to kill their stock of horses to keep the flow of foal registrations going. The second is that killing horses looks bad. The AQHA had to come up with a way to sugar coat the issue and make it acceptable to the public. To do so, AQHA and its lobbyists at OFW had to convince the general public of the following premises:
No matter how you look at it, horse slaughter is good, for you, for us and even for horses. Following such a premise, the AQHA and its pro-slaughter fronts claim that horse slaughter is actually a “secondary market” for horses and that horse slaughter is good for horse owners because it helps maintain a bottom price for horses. Ironically, economics supposedly dictate that increasing the offer of something causes a drop on its value so AQHA, by artificially increasing the number of horses bred each year, is precisely contributing to reduce their market value, hurting horse farms that bred for real purposes instead for bulk meat supply. Another example is their claim about slaughter being good for horses since otherwise they would be abandoned and would slowly die of starvation.
Another line in their lobby remarks is that horse slaughter is not slaughter but rather euthanasia and is thus acceptable to our society in a similar fashion euthanasia is acceptable to kill abandoned dogs and cats. Although euthanasia (from Greek eu, good, and thanatos, death) actually means ending a life to relieve pain and suffering when the subject is injured or sick beyond recovery, AQHA, OFW and all their associated fronts have spun the term to refer to all kinds of death, regardless how painful, slow, brutal or unnecessary it might be. To back up such bogus claim, they resort to made-up “science” and thus asked their AVMA buddies to develop a report on “acceptable methods of humane euthanasia” which was coincidentally released when the first versions of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act were in consideration. The report is actually a collection of killing methods, from poisoning to brain microwaving which lauds captive bolt stunning as an “acceptable euthanasia method” as long as the head is restrained prior to impact and immediately followed by exsanguination, conditions that in any case are rarely (if ever) met in a slaughterhouse due to the chain production nature of the operation. Since slaughter is actually “euthanasia”, according to their logic, it is “good” and it can therefore be used to dispose of “excess” horses that are “unwanted” in the same way dogs are killed at the city pound without anybody raising an eyebrow. The fact that horse slaughter is as close to real euthanasia as being stabbed with a bayonet is to a peaceful death is omitted by covering the issue with a white coat to make it look “scientific” because the AVMA, the “veterinarians”, say so, so it must be true. According to the AQHA, slaughter is correctly called “processing.”
The entire process of painting the AQHA’s stance on horse slaughter into an acceptable process, with the aid of lobbyist and PR folks can be seen in an interview of the former AQHA President, Peter Cofrancesco III.
The trail of blood money, from the political machinery within the beltway to the lobby promoters to the national and state organization to the fake non-profits to the breed associations lead straight to the doorstep of the AQHA. The workers are the roughly 60 killer-buyers that do the dirty work while the others rake in the benefits. The money from the actual slaughter process is about as much as would be made by a large used car lot, but the ever increasing circle of involvement up the trail of money involves millions upon millions of dollars.If you ever wondered why the slaughter industry, involving little more than 1% of the total number of American horses, has created such a political monster – now you know.
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