Search Results for: Joshua Rockwood's Great Victory

There is a deepening sense in and around Glenville, N.Y. that Joshua Rockwood’s arrest last February by local police on 12 counts  of animal cruelty was a mistake, a miscarriage of justice.

When farmers and animal lovers like Joshua Rockwood get caught in the increasingly irrational and hysterical net of the movement that claims it supports the rights of animals, but does not, there is very rarely a feeling of fairness or thoughtfulness in  media coverage.

Joshua can testify to the horrific experience of having a mug shot broadcast all over TV and the Internet while people who knew nothing about him or animals were quoted day after day calling him an abusive monster and torturer in front of his friends, family, and community. When he was essentially cleared of all of the changes, there was only one reporter in the courtroom.

Reputation and peace of mind are easily taken away, but not easily returned.

As a former journalist and one who loves the practice of journalism, I was pleased to have been sent the writing of columnist Chris Churchill of the Albany Times-Union this morning, it wasn’t just that he saw through the quite obvious injustice of the charges. He was direct,  balanced and thoughtful about the story in the way journalists are supposed to be, and increasingly, are not.

Animal rights issues are not subjects reporters have learned to be nuanced or thoughtful about, it’s just too easy to put up grainy photos of animals who don’t look good, people soak it up, politicians bask in the glow of loving animals. I confess to feeling quite lonely when I started writing about Joshua Rockwood’s case, I did not see my conclusions and beliefs showing up much of anywhere else.

Many very angry people pointed that out to me every day.

When I became a reporter, my editor told me my job was to afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted. I don’t see that idea reflected very often in the cultural diaspora we call the media and very rarely in coverage of issues relating to animals. As it turns out, blogs are gaining in influence. They matter now.

Churchill was one of the very few mainstream local journalists to question the arrest when it happened, or even think much about it.

“I’ll make my opinion clear right at the start of this one,” Churchill wrote in the Times-Union this morning. “Joshua Rockwood should never have been charged or arrested. What happened to him was a clear case of government outreach – however well-intentioned. And although all of the charges have been largely dismissed, the stench of this case will linger.”

Good reporters are like that, they have sensitive noses for things that don’t smell right.

I can’t speak to the intentions of the police or prosecutor. Mostly, both just seemed to be pandering to the mob,  ignorant about the real lives of farmers or animals.

But I do imagine the case is significant, and will shape the way we think about what the abuse of animals really means and the need for prosecutors and police officials to not simply parrot and reflect extreme notions of the animal rights movement and seek a healthier balance when they make their decisions. This is a very real conflict, this struggle between people who have pets and people who live with animals, and government ought to understand both sides.

The Times-Union is the biggest newspaper in the region and in the state capital, so Churchill’s column matters. Since the trial, the district attorney’s office has defended its prosecution of the case in a muddled and half-hearted way. They don’t seem either chastened or shaken by the drubbing they took, but insisted they were acting in good faith.

The assistant prosecutor who was at the court hearing told one reporter the case was “just.” People with animals are responsible for taking care of them, he said, and Joshua didn’t make sure his water tanks didn’t freeze in – 27 temperatures. The reporter, quite typically, did not ask him why the charges were dismissed if they were just, or why Rockwood’s many cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens are still living with him on the farm and have never required treatment of any kind or been removed.

I wanted to ask him why the police didn’t ask Joshua if he needed help, rather than hauling him off to jail to be booked and post bail.

The young, red-faced prosecutor may have been delighted to get away from his stinkpot of a case – the police just do not look good here – but he did raise the right issue: what is “just” in a case like this? To be just means to act in a way that is morally right and fair.

There is no simple consensus about justice when it comes to the world of animals and their rights. The animal world is in the midst of a fierce and deepening conflict between the animal rights movement and people and farmers like Rockwood or the New York Carriage Drivers or so many others who live and work with animals.

The animal rights movement was founded on the idea that animals and people are equal and need to be treated in precisely the same way. If you had running water last winter and your horse or dog or cow doesn’t, even for a few hours, then you are a criminal. If your bedroom is heated, and your sheep sleeps in a cold barn, you are torturer and abuser.  People with pets generally have never seen a horse or elephant or carriage horse, they support the idea of animal rights but have  no idea what the real lives of animals are like.

A horse on almost any farm is safer and healthier than almost any horse in the wild, subject to predators, savage internal rites of survival,  disease, starvation and intense elements. Any one of the nine billion animals trapped in the mostly horrid industrial animal farms in America would be happy to live on Joshua’s farm, to range freely and eat grass and high quality grain.

We have lost perspective when the town of Glenville sends a police squad out to Joshua’s farm and commits to spending many thousands of dollars in a false and hopeless cause. There is nothing just in that. “It’s not like we want to do that,” one Glenville police sergeant told me last year, “we all have better things to do.”

In our time, animal politics and media coverage of animal-related issues are largely shaped by urban and suburban people who are political about animals but seem to know little or nothing about them. In the 1940’s, 90 per cent of Americans lived on farms or in rural areas and understood that cows and horses can do some time without water and usually do in their natural environments. Today, 90 per cent of Americans live in congested areas along both coasts. It seems the farther they get from the real lives of real animals, the more certain they become about how they should live.

No animal in the wild has heated water available to them 24 hours a day.

The Glenville police and the politicized small animal vet who accompanied them did not seem to know this, nor did they know that almost no farm has a heated barn for animals like cows or sheep or pigs. Any large animal vet will tell you (or would have told them) that pigs and sheep and work horses don’t like to be confined and heated confinement in closed spaces, they can be dangerous to their respiratory systems.

No farmer can guarantee their animals the perfect, life-protected environment that the animal rights theologians believe should be guaranteed by law to every animal who lives with people. Nature and the weather and animal biology intervenes – as it did to Joshua Rockwood, an unusually conscientious and ethical farmer. There is no outdoor heating system for water that cannot freeze in sub-zero temperatures.

The job of the farmer or animal lover isn’t to guarantee a perfect, accident free life, but to pay attention and respond when trouble occurs. Joshua made certain his animals had fresh and potable water, that’s why two vets certified that they were healthy and hydrated days before their arrest. The police didn’t care. That isn’t a question of justice but competence and laziness.

As a former police reporter, I have the greatest respect for the police and the difficult work they do. But the bloated-coffers of the increasingly extremist animal rights movement have led to the passage of countless laws designed to redefine what it means to be cruel to an animal or to neglect them. The police have once again been drawn into a conflict they are not prepared to cope with, and shouldn’t be asked to. There is real crime in Schenectady County, lots of unsolved murders and robberies.

In most states, the standard for abuse is, or was, simple: willful and sustained neglect to the point of grievous injury or death to an animal. Joshua Rockwood’s arrest meet neither of these criterion. His animals were fine, none died during that awful winter and none were injured. Nothing else is really the business of the police or the secret informers of the animal rights movement, now a plague on our very ideas of fairness and  civil liberties.

Joshua Rockwood should get a medal from the Chamber of Commerce for raising healthy food so carefully and in such environmentally sensitive ways. He is the future, not a criminal.

For centuries, there has been a sanctity about or relationship with our animals, some of us do better than others, but if we do not hurt them – grievously and seriously – then it is no one’s business how we live them and what decisions we make about them. That long-standing ethic kept the police and government out of this kind of trouble, and would be a good model for them to return to.

Joshua not only had to endure the nightmare of arrest and prosecution and near financial ruin, he was compelled to give thousands of dollars to the horse rescue farm that helped impound his horses for no reason anyone can yet explain. That does not seem just to me, either. Justice will be served when the police and the district attorney apologize to Rockwood and explain what steps they are taking to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Do not hold your breath.

This is  now an intense, sometimes bitter political issue. When the police raided Joshua’s farm on the basis of untrained and unqualified secret informers, they are taking sides in a volatile disagreement. At stake is whether or not working animals can remain in our everyday lives, and whether any sane and honest person dares to live with them.

The animal rights movement is a liberation movement, not a rescue or welfare movement for animals. In every single case they are a part of  – the raid on Joshua’s farm, the move to ban the carriage horses, the seizures of pets like dogs and cats, their long and often dishonest campaign against the circus elephants, their campaign to bar ponies from being ridden by children, their opposition to any kind of work or entertainment animals might do for people – their goal is exactly the same: remove and liberate animals from people, who they do not like or trust, and send them to rescue farms and preserves or put them down.

In almost every case, these animals will never be seen again by most human beings, or go to extinction and slaughter, the more likely outcome.

This is the movement that the police in Glenville, N.Y. and the Schenectady County District Attorney have entwined themselves with  and embraced. They have not explained why.

Chris Churchill was honest and correct in his column about the Rockwood case, but I would add one thing to it: the stench of this case will not go away until there is an open and honest discussion about disturbing and irrational notions of abuse,  and about the future of animals in our world.

Joshua Rockwood’s sweeping victory gives reason to hope.

 

 

 

Hunter Rockwood And His Pony. Let’s Bring Them Together Again

 

I want to thank once more you good people who have, in two days, brought Joshua to the gates of a great victory for love, animals, freedom and truth. In less than two days, you have raised $10,000 for this young farmer, money that will enable him to get his impounded horses back and also negotiate an arrangement that will bring his ordeal to an end. It is unfortunate that he will have to pay so much money for this, or that this nightmare has cost him so much money. it seems unjust to me and so many others, but it is, in fact, a small price to pay to bring his world back together.

If it matters, each of you ought to know he could never have navigated this awful experience without you, every farmer and animal lover now knows there is help for them when their way of life is threatened. I believe in government, but government is supposed to protect honest and law-abiding people, not persecute them.

They have stumbled here.

Joshua needs less than $2,000 to achieve his gofundme goals, which are explained on his funding page. I don’t need to explain them again here.

” I hope you get your horses back, justice for you and your family,” wrote Gail Thompson-Allen, who donated $350 this morning. “I truly admire you for standing up for the true rights of animals and family farms everywhere.”

There are $5, $10 and $20 donations, from all over the country, Joshua has touched a deep nerve in his struggle for his farm, his family, his reputation and livelihood.

I believe he will get what he needs by the end of the day, a remarkable outpouring of love and community. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that people are not good, given the chance. This is our news, they can keep theirs. We don’t act out of hatred or rage, that is the province of others. We act out of community and a love of animals and a respect for the dignity and well-being of people.

Speaking of brothers and sisters, Blue Star Equiculture of Palmer, Mass. has offered to come to New York State and help bring Joshua’s horses back to him, once they are released, in their big trailer with their big and blue truck. A beautiful gesture. Community is much stranger than cruelty and anger.

I am not a religious person, but I can’t help but think, two weeks after Christmas, of my reading about Jesus Christ this year and his notion of the just one, of people who stand at the gates of a new kingdom, a kingdom of love and compassion and truth. I think of this when I think of Joshua, he is no saint and would be horrified at the suggestion, but he is a just one. He is standing up for his truth and his life, and that makes him our brother. Everyone sending him a contribution or supporting him in any other way is a brother or sister to him, as we are to one another.

The animals are calling to us for a new way of saving them and keeping them in our world, in that sense Joshua has become an unwilling and reluctant prophet. He is much admired and much supported. One more day to go, I think, and he will be where he needs to be. Thanks for your help. We are standing at the gates, about to walk through. That’s how it feels to me.

“Joshua, small family farms are our future. Please stand strong.” – Verne DuGas, on Joshua Rockwood’s gofundme page.

If you wish to feel good this morning, to be reminded of how good people are when given the chance, if you wish to be reminded that their news is not our news, then go read some of the comments on Joshua Rockwood’s gofundmepage.

And then, if you are so inclined, help us bring his horses back to West Wind Acres Farm, and help a conscientious young farmer keep his farm and put his life back together. Yesterday alone, Joshua’s supporters raised $6,000 to help him negotiate a good end to his legal situation and to bring his three horses back to the farm.

It is so stirring to see those contributions, most of them small amounts, from ordinary, hard-working people, come pouring in.

“I was a shepherd for many years,” wrote Suzanne Tietjen,” I can see anyone with animals being caught in your position. Thank you for showing courage and not giving in.”

Joshua has shown great courage, he could have cut a deal long ago, he refused to admit to anything he had not done. He did this out of principle, but also to take a stand that would make it difficult for anyone to do this to any other farmer. But he needs help to get to the finish line.

He needs about $5,000 more over the next few days to work out a legal arrangement that will put this behind him, and permit him to return to his life as a farmer, to rebuild his damaged business. Last February, Joshua was arrested and charged with 13 counts of animal cruelty. He was accused of having an unheated barn, of having frozen water tanks (it was – 27), of failing to provide adequate shelter for his pigs. None of his animals died during the awful cold wave, none were starving or dehydrated, none suffered any illness or injury.

I saw them all, his animals were alert, healthy, well-fed and content. It was, I saw, an outrageous injustice. It was Orwellian.

“Orwellian” is an adjective that describes a situation, idea, or societal condition that the author George Orwell believed was destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It refers to a practice or attitude that includes a brutal practice of media manipulation, control by secret surveillance and fanatical propaganda,  it uses misinformation, denial of truth, overreach by authority, and the branding of people as “unpersons,” targets and victims who are forced to live apart from the moral community of people, and whose work and property can be taken from them at any time.

The legal definition of  animal abuse is willful and criminal neglect resulting in death or injury. it is not frozen tanks in a cold wave.  It is not the opinion of secret informers driving by in the dark to spy on their neighbors. This is not Stalinist Russia. Joshua Rockwood is an ethical farmer and animal lover, I would never support someone who abused animals, neither would you. He is innocent of these charges.

This week along, more than 100,000 cows starved or froze to death in the American Southwest, taken by awful storms and cold. No farmer in Texas was charged with animal cruelty, on top of their other troubles. Nothing happened on Joshua’s farm that did not happen to countless farms all over the Northeast, including mine. And not one of his animals were harmed. This happens all over the country, every winter. Water tanks freeze, livestock does not need heated barns, they are not even healthy.

Joshua’s many supporters have raised $66,000 so far to help pay for his enormous legal fees, to improve the infrastructure of his farm, to keep his farm and business going while he goes to hearing after hearing. He needs to get to $72,000 to conclude this case in a way  that I believe will give comfort and  joy to every farmer and true animal lover in America.

“Keep up the good fight,” urged Carol Grigg’s on Joshua’s gofundme page today, “a lot of people are standing with you. Hope you get your horses back soon.”

For all of us, this is money well spent, it could change the awful dynamic that has threatened the future of animals in our world, persecuted many innocent people,  and given far too much power to the animal rights movement, a movement that knows nothing about animals and cares nothing about the people who own, live and work with them.

We live in angry times, people are prone to rage and conspiracy theories about the government, I don’t share those views. I think the police are caught in yet another impossible situation for them, and are trying to do their best, even if wrong. I’m not into hating or rage.

We need perspective, now more than ever. The truth is, we are all responsible. We are all as much to blame as the people who took Joshua’s horses from him. We have surrendered our responsibility to speak for the animals we love and turned it over to feckless politicians and extremist ideologues who have taken a necessary movement and turned it into a coalition of hate groups. Check out the definition of a hate group for yourself, it fits the people who targeted Joshua Rockwood perfectly.

Secret informers – Joshua will never know who his accusers are or get to confront them, as murderers do  – drove by his farm, called the police, who raided his farm, arrested him on magical charges of cruelty and impounded three of his horses. He will  need to pay thousands of dollars to get them back even if he is cleared of all charges  – at least $9,000, and that will clear the way for him to negotiate an end to this injustice. That figure is far lower than it once was.

Joshua very much hates asking anyone else for money – he is sometimes too proud for his own good – but he has been very nearly ruined by this experience, between legal costs, damage to his business of selling healthy food to people, improvements he must make to prepare his farm for winter, keeping his family and farm intact.

He has used every penny he has received and then some, in order to survive. He won’t ask for more help, but I know he would put it to good use. It will make him whole and send a powerful message.

With your help, he can put this behind him and return to his life, to growing his business, to repairing the damage to his life. Joshua’s case is being watched by farmers and animal lovers all over the country, his victory will be our victory, it will give hope to every farmer or animal lover or carriage horse driver or pony ride operator who finds him or herself a target of a movement with no boundaries, ethics, or mandate. For perhaps the first time, farmers and animal lovers are using social media to reach out to one another and make a powerful statement – one that police and prosecutors everywhere will hear.

“I have heaters in my stock tanks also,” wrote Dena Lee on Joshua’s gofundme page this morning. “They do sometimes freeze in the bitter cold. Anyone who makes derogatory remarks about that is an idiot!..I’d rather see this type of farming any day over cramming animals into a sterile barn where they are unhappy their entire lives.”

Everything about this case felt wrong and smelled wrong to me from the beginning. It is wrong. You can help right it by supporting Joshua through the final days of his ordeal. I so look forward to knowing that we formed a community of conscientious and good people and brought him through it. What a happy day that will be, and we are close.

You can help here.

Joshua Rockwood has triumphed, a great victory.

In just a few days, he has raised the $16,000 he needs to prepare and improve his farm for the winter. I imagine he will end up with more than that, Joshua is important to me and to many other people. He is a humble and brave man, he has won a great victory for truth, justice and community. Champagne tonight on this farm.

This is the second true victory for the rights of animals and people in just a short time. Last week, the unthinkable happened in New York City, the mayor dropped his ludicrous effort to ban the New York Carriage Horses. Joshua’s ultimate victory might be unthinkable to some people as well. I believe it will happen.

Just after noon, the fund passed $16,000, his goal, and I am proud to celebrate. This is the sixth day of the funding project, I suspect will continue to rise, 371 people have contributed so far from all over the country.

“Joshua, I am a vegetarian and have been for 41 of my 58 years,” wrote Leslie Exeter, who donated $40 this morning. “However, my respect and regard for animals transcends that personal choice. People like you – who raise, care for, and house animals humanely and appropriately, in as healthy and natural an environment as possible and with the utmost regard for their well-being, even if for the meat they ultimately provide – deserve my respect and support as well. Good luck to you and to your family.”

Aleen Thomas donated $25 and wrote: “Could have been me – horses lived out 24/7. They stayed healthy until late 20s-early 30s and I stayed healthier tending to them and breaking ice/hauling water in the winter . . . thoughts are with you. Keep looking forward.”

Joshua did not win a victory for the “left” or the “right” in his successful and ongoing gofundme project. He won a victory for the idea of treating people and animals with respect and dignity. And for the beleaguered farmers of America. forgotten and abused.

Nearly 400 people from all over the country and from every part of the political spectrum donated small amounts of money to help him buy the tire tanks of water and eco-friendly Greenhouse Shelters he needs for the winter and has painstakingly researched and chosen for his farm, West Wind Acres.

Conservatives and  liberals alike – farmers, housewives, ordinary people, farriers and truckers,  horse and dog animal lovers – bristled at the heavy-handed overreach of the police and local government in their disruption of his life and livelihood, and at the Orwellian contempt for human rights shown by the people who claim to support the rights of animals, but do not. It is not progressive to take away the freedom and property of innocent people in the name of loving animals.

When I step back and think about Joshua Rockwood and his story – hard to to do because I cannot claim to be completely objective about it any longer – I think it is really a story about how Americans no longer really know one another, and the institutions who govern and police our lives do not know us.

Animal rights activists have sharply criticized me for not respecting the decisions of law enforcement and animal rights police in this case, but the real difference between them and me is that I know Joshua Rockwood. So do the hundreds of people who have come to his hearings and supported him. They are correct when they say it could have been us, and it will be us if this witchhunt and hysteria over so-called animal abuse is not stopped.

I hope the people who persecuted Joshua in such a cruel and unthinking way never know the awful experience of having one’s home and farm invaded by the police and various strangers who claim to love animals but seem to know nothing about them.

His work on his farm, his life and family, his peace of mind have all suffered or been shattered by this unwarranted ordeal. Three of his horses were seized – in my mind, stolen would be a more accurate term – and are now being held ransom for tens of thousands of dollars. I don’t know if they will ever get back to him.

The American experiment – our Revolution – was, in so many ways, an experiment in community. Our legislators were us, we lived side by side with the farmers who fed us, we lived with the animals who worked with us, our police and prosecutors knew us, what we were like. Our laws were passed by neighbors and fellow citizens, they reflected our needs and concerns.  That isn o longer true. The secret informers who nearly ruined Joshua’s life did not know him or meet him or have the courage to look him in the eye, the police were strangers, the animal rights activists who supported his arrest did not know him or his animals, had no idea what he was like.

One of the most interesting realities about this case is that no one who does know Joshua believes he  mistreated or neglected his animals. No real farmer in the world would have arrested him for having an unheated barn and frozen water in temperatures that fell to – 27 degrees. Hundreds of farmers have sent him money and driven long distances to attend his hearings. Neighbors, friends and customers have rallied to his cause – the most important testimony there could be.

His arrest and persecution is a profound failure of the justice system and local government.

Joshua’s community – Glenville, N.Y. – is a prototype of the new American community in so many ways. A fast-growing mix of new housing, surrounded farms and endless malls have created an ugly and prosperous mix, people do not care for farms. The animals sometimes gets loose, they smell the manure spread on the fields,  real estate developers drool over the land for new housing developments.

Joshua’s arrest was more like an invasion from an alien world than it was a justifiable exercise to protect animals from cruelty and abuse.

The real community emerged after his arrest to support him, raise $48,000 for legal fees and now, another $16,000 or more to help prepare his farm for the winter, and from the secret informers who seem to now be an integral part of our criminal justice system. If someone accuses you of murder, you will have the right to confront him or her in court. If someone accuses you of not having running water for your animals for a few hours in a brutal winter, you will not.

Joshua was arrested even though two separate veterinarians came to the farm to inspect his animals just before the police raids, both found them to be healthy, hydrated and well cared for. Every one of his hundreds of pigs, cattle, sheep and chickens got through the winter, not a single one died or was malnourished or seriously injured.

Joshua stands accused of 13 counts of animal cruelty, after six months of anxiety and legal proceedings, of interruptions of his farm business and staggering legal fees, there is still no trial date even scheduled. He is determined to stand and fight against this wrong, me and many others are just as determined to stand and fight with him, however long it takes.

It is good and useful to know that social media can be used for good as well as bad, to support people as well as attack them.

Joshua is a good man, a loving father and husband, a conscientious and serious-minded farmer concerned about healthy food and Mother Earth. He does not deserve to be persecuted, or driven off of his farm by secret informers, animal extremists, and ignorant and self-interested ideologues. He is not alone, there are many victims of this new Inquisition.

It is a gift to be able to support him. He can thank you himself for your help, I wish to say that you all have lifted the spirits of many in the world and given hope to many people.

In the age of the billionaire SuperPacs, individuals matter. Community matters. Truth and justice matter.

You have all helped score a victory for all of those things. Thanks and admiration to you. A great and important victory.

Joshua can use every penny he receives.  You can continue to contribute to his fund here.

Good morning, a very full day at Bedlam Farm. My new writing class, a short story class really, debuts in its new home today at the Pompanuck Farm Institute outside of town. Got a full house, the same group as last time with a few new additions. Pompanuck is a beautiful space for teaching writing, this is a wonderful group of students. I love teaching, I love this class, Pompanuck will be exciting.

We are into Day Three of Joshua Rockwood’s gofundme crowdsourcing project to get his farm ready for winter and to move forward with  his plans for improving his farm by adding four tire water tanks and some Greenhouse Shelter for his pigs, cows and cattle. Eco-sensitive stuff, smart stuff. Joshua does his homework.

The progress on his farm – he grows and sells meat and produce locally – was interrupted by the bond-headed authorities in his town, who might support a young and idealistic businessman rather than conspiring to destroy his work and livelihood. He was charged with 13 counts of animal cruelty and abuse, mostly for having a farm in a bitterly cold winter.

Great progress on the project, Joshua is seeking $16,000 for his projects, he has raised about $9,000 already. About $7,000 to go. I am very optimistic, he deserves and needs all the support he can get. He was arrested in March, his case has not yet come to trial and he is burning through many thousands of dollars in legal fees. It costs a lot of money to be falsely accused of a crime in America.

And it is happening to a lot of people, the lunatic fringe of the animal rights movement has been running amok, this is the beginning of the new awakening about the real rights of animals and the real rights of people. The New York Carriage Horses won a great victory this week when the  arrogant mayor who has been trying to ban them ducked and ran. Hopefully, Joshua will be the next great victory.

If you can help out and spread the word, that would be great.

Maria is taking her mother to the opera at Hubbard Hall in our town today, it is a two-and-a-half hour performance of Rigoletto. I’ll go and see as much of it as I can, I don’t think I can sit still for that long. I’m excited about today. More later.