I was inspired to become a writer by the late I.F. Stone who write a newsletter in Washington dedicated to exposing falsehoods and lies by powerful people. He was only one man, and not a large or imposing one at that, but he wrote that the greatest calling of any journalist was to find lies and expose them, to worship the truth and tell it. Fight for justice, he wrote me once, never run from it.

Living on my farm, writing about animals and taking my photos, justice doesn’t come up all that often, I am not a warrior for anything. It does come up when I think of the carriage horses. They have helped us build our world, they are our partners on the earth, they call out for justice, they are in the greatest danger, close to being sacrificed on yet another human altar of selfishness and false righteousness.

I have always believed – and do still – that there are at least two sides to every issue, sometimes more. In my time as a journalist, I only came across two or three indisputable lies, they are rare, as opposed to arguments, which are everywhere in our culture and replicate like flies. Good people can disagree about anything. But lies are different than arguments, facts are different than opinions.

The carriage horses are voiceless, but animals do cry out for the truth to be told about them, their very lives and future depends on it. I respect them as mystical creatures that share our planet, not as dependent tools and balms to comfort us in our disconnected and fragmented existence.

So here is my simple truth based on facts, not arguments:

the carriage horses are not abused, they are neither miserable nor unhealthy, there is absolutely no evidence of any kind that supports this libels and big lies, transmitted every day, and for years. Work is not abuse. Grass is not the measure of the lives of horses, these animals exist in more safety and supervision and greater harmony with their city than at any time in their long history here. They are much safer than they used to be, not less. The truth is right there for anybody to see and find – from the police, from city records, from vets and transportation officials,  from the evidence before our own eyes, even from the S.P.C.A., which oversaw the horses for years, but now wants them gone. There is little truth in most of the angry and hysterical websites and blogs, there is only dark fantasy, manipulation, selfishness and need.

I think of I.F. Stone almost every day, I believe in the truth, there is no “left” and “right” way of looking at the world for me, the truth does not need those labels.  And  I owe it to the horses to speak about the truth, their lives may depend on it. I owe it to myself to say it, because it is the truth, and when a writer hides from the truth, a part of him dies ever time. The horses are not abused, their work is not abusive, they are as healthy as horses anywhere have been and are, much healthier than most.

If they are driven from New York, it will be for reasons other than these, and  the people who do it will be held responsible for their actions, they will join one of humanity’s longest and sorriest lists, that of people who exploit animals out of their own ignorance and for their own needs and drive them from of the world.

Animals that are banished never return, they are both lost and forgotten.