Day: December 8, 2014

There was a moment during the animal rights rally I attended – the purpose was to support the destruction of the carriage trade in New York – when one of the speakers said the ban was a “win-win” situation for everybody. She was from PETA. The carriage horses would all be set free to graze and socialize with one another, she said, the carriage drivers would all have jobs driving those ugly green taxis in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Queens.

“They have no reason to complain,” said the speaker, “it’s all arranged, they’ll all have jobs.”

Since I know that neither of this statements is true – it is far from certain that there are places for the horses to go, and there are many licensing issues that would keep the drivers out of those green cars, even if a single one would want to drive one.  It was yet another of those surreal moments. Is a cab the same thing as a horse carriage?

I looked around at the 30 or so reporters recording these statements and taking notes, and I felt a bit discouraged at the failure of most journalists in New York to seek out the truth about the carriage trade controversy or to try and tell it.

I am a writer now, not a reporter, but I could barely keep my mouth shut, even thought everybody else did. At that moment, the speaker locked her eyes onto me, and I knew she recognized me. I saw the anger and contempt in her eyes.

If I had spoken, I would have said that the people speaking do not know anything about the carriage drivers, and how could they, none of them have ever spoken to a single one of them or visited them at their work. The carriage trade is not just a job, it is a culture, a tradition, a way of life.

It is an immigrant culture, founded primarily by people from poor countries who grew up around horses, and whose parents and grandparents most often worked and lived with horses. This work is often passed on from one generation to another, the carriage drivers talk of this broken chain of dreams, they dare not pass it onto their children and grand-children, that has already been taken from them and cannot be returned.

The carriage drivers are America, really. Standing in line with the carriage drivers, waiting to be admitted into the City Hall plaza, I heard Irish brogues, Italian, Carribean dialects, the gutteral twangs of the Bronx and Brooklyn, Long Island and New Jersey. They are  not “random people,” as one animal rights leader called them. They are very real people. They came with their families, their sons and their daughters.

The carriage trade is about family and community, about old, sometimes ancient connections to animals, it about freedom from the corporate shackles so many Americans find themselves in, the freedom of individuals to work outdoors, to interact with people who see romance and magic in the world – there was none in the animal rights rally I attended, just grim anger and false claims of morality and a smug kind of righteousness. I’m not sure who these people are, they clearly are not about the rights of animals.

I know by now that the animal rights people pushing the carriage ban know nothing about horses or the people who drive them, but I was surprised to see that the reporters crowded around me didn’t either. It’s not hard to see that the people in the carriage trade are individuals, creatives in many senses of the term. There are poets and dreamers and musicians and animal lovers and Irish blarney-spouters and students, many drawn to the culture and lifestyle of the individual.

How dare these people, I wonder, and their mayor, presume that they can simply pretend they can push all of these people out into green cabs in the outer boroughs and then lie to the world by claiming everyone has won? What kind of journalist listens to this mush with a straight face and passes it along for truth?

I am not a spouter of patriotic slogans, not a flag waver, but this is a country built in the idea of the freedom of the individual, the right to pursue our own culture, our own values, our own traditions and way of life. All we have to do is stay within the law and not harm others, and that is what the people in the carriage trade have done.

Traditions and rituals are important, often considered sacred. They bind us to one another, to our past and our future. The shape and burnish our souls and memories. This effort to ban the carriage trade is not just about jobs, despite the signs carried during the rally today. It is about so much more than that.  When you see them, you see their love of the horses, but more than that, you see the love of their lives and their work. That is precious, that is not for anyone to take from them without cause or reason.

There is so much more at stake here than jobs.

I love many of the carriage drivers I have met, I especially love my good friend Nina Galicheva, a brilliant photographer and designer in New York and a chronicler in images of the carriage trade’s hard and bitter struggle to survive in New York, often against overwhelming odds.

The carriage drivers often talk about their “angels,” people who have appeared out of nowhere to help them in their struggle, people who appeared when things looked the bleakest for them. Nina is one of those angels, her sensitive photographs have captured the carriage trade and the controversy about the horses more poignantly and memorably than anyone has. Whenever we see one another, we both break out into laughter and start taking photos of each other, Nina usually laughs first, we both are fair game, we know it.

“Nina,” said one of the carriage drivers a few month ago, “she is one of our angels, one of the people who appeared almost magically to comfort and inspire us.”

She is coming to visit Bedlam Farm soon, she needs to get some photos of snow for notecards she wants to make, we have plenty of it here already. I love photographing some of the angels that have flocked to the carriage  horses, there are poets, videographers, teenaged bloggers, horse lovers, dog lovers in New Jersey. Nina has inspired me to photograph every one of them.

Nina has great strength and character, she was out of work for a long time this year, and has found work again, but she never stopped venturing forth from her small apartment, working in all  kinds of weather, all kinds of situations, to capture the drama of the New York Carriage Horses, one of the most important issues ever in the animal world in America. I am fond of angels, Nina makes me believe in them.

I believe the rally I saw in City Hall Plaza in Manhattan yesterday was historic, it marked a turning point not only for the carriage horses, but for the future of animals in America. On the train back upstate, I read the media coverage of the two rallies I attended yesterday – one by animal rights groups in support of the mayor’s ban, the other to oppose it and support the carriage trade.

The media stories all said there were two opposing rallies, but they made no effort to capture the feel and tone of either. The carriage trade has really bounced back from the despair and shock they were in earlier this year, when the new mayor said his most urgent priority was to banish them from New York City. They are despairing no longer.

And the war against the horses has sparked a new narrative, a new social awakening among people who know horses and who love animals, they came to City Hall Plaza from everywhere to stand with the carriage trade, the feeling there was righteous, very powerful, articulate and sure. These were not battered people any longer, they were confident and very determined. They will not be dislodged by politicians with fuzzy agendas and ideologues who profess to love animals but exploit them to hate and batter people.

The crowd was outraged, as the New York Times was on Monday, as I have been, at the idea that hundreds of people should have their work and sustenance and property taken from them without cause or any kind of just due process. The carriage trade is truly iconic, much loved by so many people all over the country and much of the world. Many small business owners appeared at the rally, stunned at the idea that the city government would intrude on a well established business that is heavily regulated, consistently profitable and beloved by so many people.

The work and lives of the people in the carriage trade have been invaded in a brutal and extra-legal way. They have committed no crimes, broken no laws, violated no regulations. The rhetoric at the animal rights rally I attended yesterday morning was, once again, shocking ignorant about the rights and needs of horses, their statements revealed a complete ignorance about animals, and grossly distorted or misrepresented the truth about the horses lives in New York.

I will write more about this day tomorrow, it was an important day, a good day for animals and for the people who love them and wish to see them have real rights, especially the right to survive in our world. This rally did not mark the end of the carriage trade, it signaled a new beginning for the rights and welfare of animals.

I went to New York City yesterday with Maria, she held the artwork she designed for the horses and marched for the horses and stood with Pamela Richenbach, the co-director of Blue Star Equiculture, an organic farming center and the retirement  home for the New York Carriage Horses and other draft horses.

Many strong women showed up at a rally to protest the mayor’s bill to ban the carriage trade, which was introduced into the New York City Council on Monday. Some strong men  (and women also) came to the rally in the form of many members of the Teamsters Union also showed up to save the 300 jobs in the carriage trade.

The carriage drivers are Teamsters, and the Teamsters know how to stage a rally. Lots of energy, confidence, enthusiasm, it had a strong and good feeling about it. They smell a great victory.

Several hundred people came to fight for the carriage trade, just an hour or so after animal rights demonstrators held their own rally to support the mayor’s ban. I attended that rally, or perhaps infiltrated it might be a better word. Some people stared at me, figured out who I was, and muttered my name and a few curses to one another, but nobody really bothered me. It was fascinating to see the contrast in the two rallies. More about that later.

The bill to ban the carriage trade and push the drivers into green cabs that work in the outer boroughs was introduced, but had only two sponsors, a very mild show of support for a measure so important to the mayor.

The carriage trade got another boost yesterday from the New York Times, who has not deigned to bother much with the carriage trade controversy in recent years. In a strong editorial, the paper said the ban was foolish and hypocritical and ought to be dropped. All three newspapers support the carriage trade and oppose the ban, the first time all three have agreed on anything since 911.

Many of the carriage drivers and their supporters thanked me for writing about them, it was a humbling thing, it meant a lot to me. It was a wild day at City Hall, in between these two opposing rallies, there were sit-ins, die-ins and street protests against the NYPD involving the recent death of a Staten Island man in police custody.

It was interesting for me to see how journalism has changed. Both rallies were tightly produced and choreographed, the many reporters present took a lot of photos and videos but didn’t ask many questions or challenge any of the things they were hearing. Mostly, the media in New York simply relays arguments from one side or the other.  It was hard for me to keep my mouth shut at times, especially at the animal rights rally.

Truth is hard to find but needs to live and breathe. It is a miracle, really, that the mayor and his supporters in the movement that claims to speak for the rights of animals seem not to have persuaded a single New Yorker in a year-long campaign to gather support to ban the carriage horses. An amazing thing, this is the power of the horses, they are not leaving New York City.

It was democracy teeming, Maria and I saw more people demonstrating around City Hall than live in our town. I love the energy and mayhem that hover in New York. Many followers of the blog were there, many lovers of horses and animals. I loved seeing Maria show off the art she designed to evoke the spirit of the horses from the spiritual and artistic side. It was so good to be there together. Exhausting too, we got back to the farm around 9 p.m. (we left at 5 a.m.) and reveled in the quiet and peace. I love going to New York, I love leaving.

I saw my many friends in the carriage trade, took a lot of photos, have a lot of things to say, perhaps tomorrow. One thing I do want to say tonight: the difference in the carriage trade from January, when I first met them, to now, is astonishing them. In January they seemed defeated and discouraged, overwhelmed by the intensity and cruelty of the attacks on them, and by a new mayor’s promise to banish them from the city on his first day in office.

I am grateful for the chance to write about this, it is so important to me and the animal lovers and to the future of animals. I will sleep well tonight, not only because I am tired but mostly because the carriage drivers are so brave and determined now. Good for them.

They are not defeated and discouraged any longer, they are focused, determined, angry,  organized and increasingly savvy about how to defend and protect themselves. They have drawn supporters from the ranks of animal lovers all over the country and much of the world. The effort to ban them seems mired now, more than 66 per cent of New Yorkers support the carriage trade, along with the Chamber of Commerce, the Teamsters, the Working People’s Party and all three papers.

“We have had enough,” carriage driver Steve Malone told the cheering rally – and there was a lot of noise there today. “We have been here for more than a hundred years, we will be here for another hundred years.” I didn’t believe that was possible when I first met the carriage drivers in January, I believe it is almost a certainty now.

 

I felt a bit like Red this morning, confrontations and convictions are a part of his daily work. Every day, one sheep or another takes him on, every day he makes a stand, stands up for himself, combines confrontation with exhilaration. There are people in the world who believe it is cruel and abusive for working animals like Red to work for humans like me. I am going to New York today to stand up to them and to stand with the New York Carriage Drivers.

Sadly, they must spend their Christmas  holidays fighting for their work, their sustenance, their traditions and way of life, their families and their future. I feel a mix of sadness and exhilaration this morning. Sadness because confrontation seems such an elemental part of human nature, and I would much prefer a world in which honest and hard-working people – the carriage drivers are that, at least the ones I know –  were free to live their lives peacefully and freely.

In New York, we will most likely be shouting over the heads with the people on the other side. People who live with animals and love them and seek a particular and ancient way of life know the stakes are big in New York, this is our big stage, the whole world is watching. The animal rights people and the carriage trade people will not speak to one another, everyone will shout over the heads of the other, hoping to reach the people beyond.

In a sane world, we could all sit down at some warm restaurant and slug it out, but this issue has gone way beyond that, good people of faith, heart and reason are beginning to speak out. The carriage drives are my brothers and sisters, I am not in their labor union, but I am in the larger union, the one in which people and partners share the joys and travails of the earth together. I am so happy to be going to New York to stand up for the carriage drivers, I am so sorry it necessary. I wish them a better Christmas than this one of conflict and uncertainty.

My best wish is that the arrogance, ignorance and cruelty of human beings is challenged and defeated here, that would be a great Christmas gift for everyone. Off to the train. I’m leaving my best camera behind, I just couldn’t risk it, but I have a good one and will capture what I can of an event that I really believe is historic. We are undertaking a new social order, fighting for our rights and the true rights of animals, launching a movement that treats humans and animals with love, and respect and leaves both their dignity and purpose.