Dan Mathews is in favor of going naked instead of wearing fur. That makes sense considering he is Senior Vice President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He sits down with Alec to discuss his battles (and victories) with the fashion industry and he explains why PETA actually owns stock in Kentucky Fried Chicken.
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This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. PETER, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has made headlines for decades with their aggressive activism, fighting to put an end to the cruel and inhumane treatment of animals in circuses, zoos, laboratories, as well as in the fashion and factory farm industries. Pet has over three million members and supporters, making them one of the largest animal rights organizations in the world. Recently, Peter has been working to defeat the so called ag GAG laws. These laws make it illegal to record undercover videos in factory farms. Ag GAG laws have been defeated in thirteen states, but eight states already have these anti whistleblower laws on their books. Undercover video is one of Peter's primary weapons, but they employ other tactics as well, many of which have been dreamt up by my guests today, Dan Matthews, who has been with the organization for nearly three decades. In the nineteen eighties, Matthews enlisted the stars of the television show The Golden Girls be Arthur Rue, McClanahan and Betty White, to take a stand on wearing fur cruelty is not fashionable. Don't wear fur? Support the people who fight for animal rights. Matthews, now one of Peter's senior vice presidents, went on to create the rather Go Naked than Wear Fur campaign, which featured people, most notably celebrities, shedding their clothes and protests of those who sell or wear fur. You know, I'm from the MTV generation and Pete is all about the case work, going undercover in laboratories and slaughterhouses and circuses and busting places that are run afoul of the law. And there's a lot of that. But um, I'm from the generation that knows that a lot of people are even watching the news anymore. That it was cabled and there was the Internet, there's so much competition for people. Started with Peter whim and what was it like that there was ten of us working out of a house in suburban Maryland outside of d c UM. I was in the basement answering from Rockville with silver Spring from rock from about twenty minutes. Yes, exactly. Our first case where we busted an animal experimenter who was cutting the limbs and the nerves of primates and then using a cigarette lighter and a pair of Plyers to try to get the dead nerves to spring back to life. It was just the most ungodly torture chamber. And that was Peter's first big case fromt Page the Washington Post. The guy got his grant revoked and it's set the stage for us doing so many more cases inside laboratory. That really made Peter's reputation on on a national and international level. What the people referred to was the Silver Spring Monkeys case. That's exactly right. That's what Peter is all about. We are here to show you things you really don't want to see. You believe the Yeah, that's why you're there, That's why. That's why we exist. We are not. I mean, it's fantastic that we now have three million members and Peter India and Peter Europe and Peter Australia. It's great. We never set off to be a large organization. We set off to be the cutting edge organization who just wanted to bring the facts to people and aside from the philosophical idea, just see what it's like for animals in the circus, or in the laboratory or in the slaughterhouse. And we do that primarily through our undercover investigations, but to supplement the investigations to reach the masses. We do not live in intellectual times. We live, you know, in very very um imbecilic times. And in a lot of ways, how does that affect the work that you do? It affects the work we do because if we you know, say I go and meet with uh Nightline or and they say, oh, this footage is too upsetting, we know our viewers are going to change the channel and put on in e true Hollywood story. So sorry, but we're not going to break your cruelty case. I come back to them and say, okay, great, well, Pamela Anderson is doing a photo shoot for our rather go naked? Then where for at our you in? And they line up? So my job you had to play their game to a degree. I would market. I would love to rewrite the rules so that the media was a little bit more intelligent. And I gotta tell you, for all the sensational things involving celebrities or sex that we do, there are fifteen pitches we did that died because they were too serious. So we are just wasn't it always that way? You think it's getting worse over time? Reduce feel it's worse. There were two things that happened. One is with the advent of cable in in the mean, cable has been around since the eighties, but it really really flourished in the early nineties and people had a lot more choices of what to watch. And I remember I had a meeting at ABC News with the producer who told me, we run your cases before, but now the ratings system is such that we know not just what shows people are watching, but the precise moment they changed the channel and we ran a graphic story about rodeos and how the groins get pinched on on the animals, and we lost a quarter of our viewers that when that footage came on. So I'm afraid we're not going to be talking any more serious cases with you. So that's when they started doing hour long specials on Whitney Houston's drug problem and things like that. You know, we My degree is in history and American University and Washington went to study history. And then when you finished the AU, what did you do well? My last year at AU, I had an animal rights group on on campus. We were able to convince the university to stop the poisoning of pigeons and to switch to netting, which was much more effective. We showed your introduction to animals. Actually, my introduction to animal rights was in high school. That silver spring monkeys case that Peter launched was the laboratory run by Dr Edward Taube. And in the wake of that bust, Edward Taube was being honored as the Psychologist of the Year at the Anaheim Convention Center outside of l a UH. And I was right near where I lived, and so my punk rock friends and I went and participated in the protest. And that was the first time. It was Peter's first l A protest. And so I was I think sixteen and so and so you're in high school and you go to this protest. Yeah, my friend's mother heard about it, and so we thought, oh god, you know, we're from the punk generation. Protest was six How was your first exposure? Yeah, yeah, and I so protest which you became known for. What's your first exposure? It was? It became very good at protests eventually, correct eventually, Yes, I just I had a little bit of disdain because I felt like, um, you know, there's always you've got to have new, fresh ways to affect change and protests is one way, and we do that a lot, but there's a lot of other ways ways of of luring people, and especially when it comes to habits. I mean, animal rights issues are about things, the things people eat and what they wear and the products they use. It's much more of a social issue than a political issue. So we're gonna get to that because obviously there are a few subjects which are as complex as this. I mean in me, even in my own life. I mean, you know, you get into a car and a car was filled with leather products, and there are many many people who will say you can get a call of interior, but not maybe the dashboard, or there's gonna be some animal hide in that car somewhere. It's almost unavoidable. It's you know, it's the sort of issue that we have. You know, in Virginia where I live, the roads were paved by slaves. Does that mean you don't drive on them? The just you can't rewrite history. We just try to get people to look in the future and leave bad habits behind one by one or is there a lynchpin you think to wall of this? Meaning? There are people who I talk to who will say I could give up eating meat, but I couldn't give a beating poultry. I could give a beating meat and poultry, but I'll still eat fish. I'm gonna wear leather shoes, I'm gonna carry leather bags, We're gonna carry leather walllets, but I'm not going to go and buy a conspicuously leather founded garment. There are people for whom they live their life, and in terms of practicality, there are gradations of their commitment to animal rights. There are people I know who are full blown, you know, like yourself. They've got the pleather and the vinyl and the wallets and the shoes and the belts and everything totally vegan and so forth. But that takes time, and that's a commitment and traveling and making sure that you have access to your whole wheat bread and sprouts and avocado sandwich the airport. No. No, but you're right, it's not that difficult, but people do perceive that it is difficult. Yeah, I mean, I think it's human nature for us to instantly recognize our differences with our with each other, and that's why we've got so much violence in the world and so much hostility. I think the better side of human nature is to try to recognize what you have in common with somebody and then let it drive from that. That's why I work with Republican meat eaters like Mary Madeline, who helps lead our efforts against the agg gag bills or so. You have people, for example, who are not necessary strict vegetarians, but there's components of the animal rights message that they embrace gag exactly anti zusan circus rodeo exactly exactly right. So I think it's a matter of identifying which issue, because there are certainly a lot of them. You know, some people get involved on one issue and then they evolve and become vegetarian or vegan, or you know, there's people like be Arthur and the Golden Girls who were among our first supporters back in the eighties, and they weren't vegetarian, but they hated for and they hated animal testing, and they helped us get the mink subsidies yanked from the federal crash test dogs. I remember all those things from the early days, which was you know, crash test dogs and pigs. They'd say that this makeup company wanted to be able to walk into a courtroom and they wanted to be able to PLoP down thick reams of documentation where they said, our mascara didn't cause the problem with this woman's eyesight. We blinded fourteen thousand rabbits in order to prove that this stuff has been tested. So that was part of Peter's first achievement in the eighties, as we convinced Avon, Revlon, s day Lauder so many other companies to stop testing yea and that you know, we've we've changed that today. It remains today. It's been threatened in the last few years by China because China has these regulations that require cosmetics and products to be tested on animals. It's the old regulations that the Europe, the EU and the U S used to have. So we went to China knowing that you can't really protest. They're like, you can here. We went there and said, all right, the EU doesn't use animal testing anymore, and in fact it's illegal to test on animals for cosmetics in Europe. The US has largely abandoned it. Please revise your regulations for China, and the Chinese officials, the equivalent of the f d A told us. We don't want to hear from Peter, and we don't want to hear from any one of the companies. But if you go away and gather up all the scientists who change their regulations there, and gather up all the companies and come back to us as a board, as a body, then we will listen. So Peter spent over a hundred thousand dollars establishing this consortia and getting all these scientists and companies together. We went back to Beijing in December, presented them the findings, and to our thrilled amazement, Chinese officials said that that made total scientific sense. They've already initiated research projects at four Chinese universities to fine tune the non animal tests for China, and they say that within five years there won't be product testing in China as well. So it just shows the kind of different hats Peter wears to get things accomplished, But there are great accomplishments of his, whether it's involved with the crash testing. That was a fun one, the crash test campaign. We got to disrupt the GM float into Rose Parade dressed as rabbits and rats. You did, yes, When was that? What he was at and that was back in the mid nineties. UM, we did a whole lot of things to get their attention. One of the final things was GM wanted to sponsor Paul McCartney's US tour, and Paul me being a PETA member, brought their offer to us and we said you should probably refuse and tell them why, and he did, and then he gave us a free ad and the tour program about their animal tests, and that made such huge news that they finally threw in the town. After having killed twenty animals and crash tests, they changed their policy and now they haven't killed any since. No major US auto manufactured test computer models and stuff. But there are those people who find that the methods you've used over the years have been very very u unfair, puerile, asinine, that you've been attacked, as you know, obviously they've really really hit you pretty hard with some of the things, and and of course the most well known examples of that are, you know, flinging buckets of blood on fashion models and the edit tricks is of magazines and so forth on the streets of New York. What was the thinking behind that? Then? I mean, I I'm a supporter of Peter, and I'm a supporter of nearly all of what they do. But at that time when you felt that you had to have that guerrilla style, who was the producer of those events and the author of that script was that you as well? Well? Who was the first person to Peter that said let's throw animal blood on animal winter? Nobody ever threw animal blood. I think people used to spray paint coats on the subways, and whether they were Peter members or not, I have no idea. I carry stickers that say I'm an asshole I wear for and I very subtly put them on people. I stickered Cindy Adams at a party once you did. I did, but I love her so much and I think she's so funny that I saw it in the next party and I said, Cindy, I gotta confess, I don't want to put the asshole stick on you, but I love your column. And she thought it was so funny that she wrote a column about that. You won her over. We have to use aggressive tactics, I think the way you need to still do. Of course we do. For example, what's the current aggressive tactic here? The first I'd like to say that we are a charity. We don't have the ad budget, we don't have the power that any one of the hundreds of targets that we have. We are tiny little flea compared to a guerrilla. That's what we're doing and as a charity trying to seek this change. Unless we're willing to be as aggressive as our adversaries are and the way they market themselves as industries, we would be doomed to fail. Peters aggressive tactics. Which it's just like when there's an aggressive woman, to call her a bit, when there's an aggressive charity, they call him terrorists. Well, um, we we do what we you know, we're not terrorists. We we abide by the law. We do things that are aggressive. I had to um, you know, but I want to just do just for argument's sake, is spray painting people on subways, worrying for coaches that abiding by the law. No, it's not and that's never been a part of our program. Nothing that Peter called for the No. But I think because Peter exists as the edgy group, people just loop any activity in with us. The usual suspects exactly get rounded up and we've you know, we spent years trying to deny certain things, but in the end, it's like, well, let people believe what they want. And there's probably gonna be somebody out there who won't wear her because she doesn't want to have a five thousand dollar coat ruined by paint, and so maybe that's a small victory. So to go back for a minute, Um, you're in l A, you go to the tab protest. When does Peter come into the picture of your life? Well, when I was at AU and we had our animal rights group, um there was I knew that Peter was down the street because I got to know them when their first case broke. So they were on your radar for a well, oh yeah, since they were founded. And so I would go to the Peter headquarters to get literature for our college group, and we did all these things. We showed slaughterhouse footage outside the school cafeteria at lunchtime, anything to ruin somebody's day. And uh, when I got out of college, they just offered me a job as the receptionist and I was so thrilled. I um college degree and I landed a job making ten dollars a year at an animal rights group. I fought Peter, Yes, and what were some of the first things you worked on when they were working on them? Um, we had our first case about the undercover and the meat trade. How there's down cows, how animals who don't even have the strength to watch the down cow. Where she was an issue back then. Yeah, absolutely, that still continues today. It continues today. And I remember that the people who handle our fundraising for people who don't know what the down care wish. She was described that, well, they don't give cows much at a at a slaughter house, there are so many cows who are so sick. They're pumped full of drugs to ward off all the viruses. They get in such clear overwhement, their overweight, their bedraggled, they're over there fed so fast so that they get fat or quicker. Uh, that they are just these miserable, uh you know, genetically modified monsters by the time they go to slaughter and some of them are two weeks to actually walk up the ramp and they're dragged. Some of them are dragged kicking and screaming literally or have pitchforks that that dumped them on the slaughter lines around them and dragged them back then. Uh. In fact, we got a call from a slaughter house worker in Pennsylvania at the Mopac Hatfield Plants, and he called to say that his job was to work right near the kill floor. His job was to cut off the hoofs and lips of cows so that their skin could be peeled back for leather. The cows were arriving on a conveyor belt hoisted up by a hoof to this man, and they were supposed to already be unconscious through a captive bolt in their head, through their throat being split, and because of the quota, because of the system, because of poorly trained, illegally immigrant workers, and faulty machinery, the cows were still fully conscious when they came around to him, and he said he would have to chop off one hoof while the other hoof came around and kicked him in the head. And he complained to the on site plant inspector about this, and he was told to get back to work because they had a quota to keep. So this poor literate, toothless guy called Peter and said, Uh, they're not listening. I'm not a vegetarian, I'm all as much for my own safety as for the animal cruelty, but can you get in here and document this so and bring it to the state Department. We went up. I went up with two Peter investigators, met with him. It was thrilling. It happened to be on my birthday, and I remember it was the most exciting birthday I ever had, going to meet in a motel room, uh, surreptitiously with this guy who remains in my heart one of the biggest heroes I've ever seen. He vouched for these two girls to come in. They had cameras hidden in their bags. As far as the slaughterhouse knew, they were just friends of his. Uh. He was able to tell them where to stand to show what was happening. They were able to do it over the course of a few days, to show that it was routine problems, not a one off problem that wasn't Yes, and the and the evidence they captured on them was in controvertial. It was incontrovertible. And I personally took it to the State Department of Agriculture and in Harrisburg and lodge a formal complaint with the State Department of Agriculture, who apologized for the plant. They aired the footage the week that the World Series was on, So I remember the watching from the motel and it was promos for the game and then teasers for this atrocious slaughterhouse case that Peter was launching. And that is why because of that, that is one of the first cases that led to the agg gag bills. Which have they started trying to do that several years? Was that this was in the early nineties, so it was that long ago, was twenty years ago that industry began to panic about this this captured video, and you began to have the earliest forms of ag gag proposals. That's right. What did proponents of agg gag or in their minds opponents of of this captured video? What did they say back then was the reason they had to have these egg gag bills? And how are the the agg gag bills are seeing no different than twenty years ago? Well, that was one of the first cases and the meat industry was very embarrassed by it. There was obviously no refuting the evidence. Plus, we had this guy who worked there who went on camera in silhouette, but it was confirmed that he was a worker there. Exposing the cruel thing and exposing what the conditions were, so there was no way they could refute it. After that case, there were countless others where we got into slaughter houses in Iowa, in in Texas, a huge horse ranch in Texas, other places in several states. UM And we were always very careful. We only would pursue cases where you were allowed to film legally. Some states you can't film without somebody's permission, so we only chose cases where we could legally film these places so we didn't have unnecessary legal challenges from the facility. Peter has a very uh tight legal department, so when we get in trouble, we know exactly what kind of trouble we're getting into, and we usually avoided at all costs uh and will challenge laws. But and with these investigations, they are always very hand picked. As for the jurisdiction. So where you see the processing of animals, be for lamb or any kind of poetry and so forth, for food. You talk primarily about um cruelty, and you talk about conditions under which they're killed or not killed. You talk about the whistleblower and the the the the the what sounds almost like the skinning alive of this cattle. At the same time, do you concern yourself with the health conditions of the of the product itself, meaning the f d A is charged with and Americans have been told again and again and again they don't seem to be overly concerned about it, unfortunate, but they've been told again and again and again that the product itself has been tainted. Enough here and they're big batches of meat called back because of ecal right, and ecal I is shipped and there are traces of feces and almost over nine of meat paths according to according to the USD is on finding. So the USD is owned finding. There's there's there's can't be aborded, that cannot be avoided because the animals are killed in such uh rapid fire conditions and they they craft themselves during this later process. You can, I mean, you can buy any package of meat and at the time you'll find the coal. I you know that any time you eat me, it's the poop poo platter. When you say that the U s d A, which I do not have a lot of faith, then no. So if it's they're they're and if they're admitting it, you know it. Hep me ten times worse than they're saying when they're there, they're just asleep at the switch. Most of the time. When you say that, the U. S d A Is telling you that of the beef is contemning with some some amount, it could be just an insignificant amount per their measurements of the COOLi why do you think more and more people still eat meat? So what is your work taught you about Americans in their diet of beef consumption. People want a dollar value meal. People are slaves to their habits, and these habits start really early. And that's why the bulk of Peter's resources go to campaigns that are to reach the youth. That's why we have so many things that are may be considered edgy by by older people, but by teenagers who have a great sense of justice and most children, of course love animals. They really respond to it. We have hundreds of thousands of street teamers who are a part of our Youth Arm p T two. We get on concert tours to get stuff to kids. We are very active in high schoo goals and it's one of the reasons I think now there's so much success and there's a you know, back when Peter started, people thought of vegan with somebody from Las Vegas. Now every TV show has one, and it's something that has become a part of our pop culture landscape. And I think a lot of that is because there's a generation now that has grown up with Peter in the background or the foreground. But we've been a cultural force, and I think it has made it something that people discussed at the dinner table. They don't always like what we do, they might have a problem with some of the things we do, but overall people have seen that we're a charity that has made an impact in culture, and now it's a it's an impact that is actually gauge double from the change is not only at the corporate level, but at a society's level. Right here in New York City. Two weeks ago, they announced that it's the first elementary school to go all vegetarians because the demand of kids, the kids, the kids, they went three days a week and the kids wanted it all the time. And so it's great. What about what's been a victory few in terms of circuses and zoos and rodeos, Well, we have been most of performance. That's right. We have been on Ringling Brothers trail all across the country and we have been documenting which of the animals have crippling arthroatis based on their walks and how long has Peter been been going toe to toe with ring At least twenty years, Yeah, I mean since I've been there in eight five. We would do protests, but then we started hiring elephant experts, people who really knew how to assess the health of ane captured video. In three instances, we had video of elephants being beaten as an elephant that drowned, and we filed a complaint with the U. S c A asking that these cases be prosecuted. And under the George W. Bush administration, these cases were allowed to expire without any reaction whatsoever. So when Obama was elected and he hired a new U s t A UH secretary, we had Pink, the singer Pink, who is a big elephant advocate, do a big blitz to get the Obama administration to reopen these cases based on the video evidence. And they reopened the cases and they find Wringling two hundred and seventy thousand dollars and it's sent shock waves through the circus industry. Why do you think people who abuse these animals and Ringling brothers, why do they do that? Because the elephants won't obey the commands unless they are beaten with these bullhooks. It's these sharp metal So this is the most significant aspect of this, which is something I would say over and over again about animals and performance, which is, you know, they don't come out of the womb with a top hat in one hand and a cane in the other. In order to make these animals perform in ways that they were not meant to perform, They've got to be beaten and abused to do that exactly. And I think one of the most amazing whistleblower cases we ever had was from Ringling's elephant handler. We got a call from a guy who worked for twenty years, sorry, eleven years. I I can't kids I say his name right now. Um, it's part of ongoing, ongoing process. But he worked there for eleven years. First he was just kind of a lackey working in the animal compound. Then he became an elephant handler and elephant trainer, and one of his jobs was to rip the baby elephants away from their mother's dragging, kicking and screaming. They tied them down, they beat them until they would stand on one leg, until they would stand on their head. They became completely reliant on the trainers, food deprivation, beatings, shocks to get them to perform these stunts that you see in the arena. And they have to start doing it when their baby independent does ringling or anyone like that. Because I want to be careful in terms of the legality of this. The people that are doing this to these animals in order to make them ready for their close up so to speak, are they wringling employees or the independent and really leases the animal because you would they would. They are very careful to only hire people at their compound who they exactly And this guy worked there for eleven years and he wasn't in the elephant compound at first. But what happened was he told his wife when he got back to the trailer after work about his work and the elephant compound, and his wife said, for years, I don't mind you working at the circus, but I think it's awful what you're doing with the elephants. And they took pictures for years of the training methods, not because they thought they are cruel, but hey, look it's me beating an elephant and tying a baby elephant down. And his wife a few years ago got cancer and on her deathbed said, please release these information. Is the one thing that I asked. He called us and he turned all the year. This was about five years ago, So this is still an ongoing. Yeah, because it fueled so much fire for a whole bunch of legal cases trying to get the federal government to use the Endangered Species Act to stop this this kind of treatment because he's actually endangered at elephants that there, we've now got the goods from their own trainer. On Ringling Brothers had to go on there today's show and talk about how it's just these pictures are misleading. Uh, they're really just gently trying to teach these animals to do things. But people could see that from the photos and the fact that they're separated from their mothers and beaten and shocked. Ringling bys in bulk this gray makeup that they put on the elephants when they're paraded before the crowds to hide the blood and the bruises from hooks from bullhooks, Yes, because they beat him behind the knees, behind the ears, the areas that most sensitive. And they actually put these bullhooks up their sleeves so that only the metal hook comes out, so that people can't see them very casually jab the elephants. Peters working very aggressive legally because in each city, in most cities across the country, they have laws aimed at keeping sick animals from working. And we know that several animals have crippling arthritis and they should not be allowed to work because of those laws, and so we are working with city governments. The problem is that the local animal control they know about dogs and cats, they don't know about exotic animals like elephants who are just passing through town for a week or so. So we've hired elephant's. One of the benefits that Rainly has is that they're always passing through town exactly. And so what Peter has done is we've hired elephant experts and sent them around the country to work with local animal control to recognize these things and to be their ready the inspection. In a minute, my guest, Dan Matthews, Senior Vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals explains why Peter actually owns a stock in Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or Peter as it's known, has gained notoriety with its high profile, attention grabbing, undercover videos and other shock tactics used to change the behavior of large and powerful industries. But as my guest Dan Matthews explains, they don't just fight from outside the system. We were able to pressure Burger King and McDonald's and a lot of others to make some basic improvements. We had to fight hard for McDonald to stop buying meat from slaughterhouses that failed inspection. We look at very molecular level at the government regulations and what the uh and did they agree to that. They did agree to that, but it took seven years of campaigning for even to get them to go to that that basic way. Right now we are trying to persuade McDonald's and KFC to stop boiling chickens alive and the feathering tanks. Why don't they kill them first? Well, in Europe they've changed too much more modern, more humane standards. But they put them in a room, they take out a part of the oxygen. The chickens go to sleep and they never wake up. There's no gas, there's nothing like that. It's just they take out part of the oxygen and they go to sleep. Here we're still using old methods because the factories have been doing it since the fifties. Where they hoist them by a foot into a conveyor belt. There's a spinning blade which is supposed to either chop their head off or slice their throat. But the chickens, who look like little old men, desperately swing to not get the blade exactly, and then they're dumped into the vative. They're bad. Look if they end up alive in the boiling text boil boiling exactly. It's the defeathering tank. And so when you have a chicken McNugget or a KFCA meal, you're eating a bird that was boiled alive. That's how they died. Possibly most likely, yeah, most likely. And we've got all the char and we speak at their shareholders meetings. We're trying to get them to just at least match what is being done in Europe. They're very, very slow to change because it's a you know, a million dollar layout to upgrade their facilities, and why should they have to do that If they can save two cents and show shareholders that they've saved two cents per bird, doesn't matter how despicable their methods are. They think that's progress. And so as a cultural force, PEEDA has been able to infiltrate stockholder We buy shares of stock and all of our adversaries and raise this issue when we try to get more percentages each time, so that shareholders take this issue more seriously. But it takes years. It takes new generations of shareholders to come up and and insist on these changes. But tom, but if they're happening. We also meet with the companies to try to get them to uh switch their methods, and we have some success with that. But what about augmenting or modifying the menus themselves to provide healthier options? Is that your bag at all? It is definitely our bag, and it's other people are doing it as well. But we persuaded KFC in Canada to add a vegan chicken sandwich on their menu, which was a real feat, especially because that guy who owned that that chain was very hostile at first. We do veggie burger giveaways all over the country. We do promotions that every season we go to gas stations whenever there is a gas prices spike in a particular town and offer to help people fill their tank if they try a new vegan thing. And it gets a huge amount of press in these h towns where we do it, we have a pretty good response. I would say, was there ever a time did you ever sit there and look at material and look at evidence and look at a story and you said, we're gonna go in and we're gonna kill these people, and you went in and you got it wrong? That ever happened. Our lawyers are too good for that. Everything that we don't I don't even mean in a malicious way, even accidentally. Did you ever sit there or were you out to now? We're because of the nature of the industries that we target, are very litigious. We are dead solid, absolutely absolutely. Unfortunately, the evidence is always so overwhelming and so hideous that sometimes we have to tone down the worst things because people literally can't stomach them. Like the fox on the Chinese fur farm who skinned alive and the only thing left that's furry is the poor foxes eyelashes still beating as he's gasping. Just it looks like a it looks like a video on video. That's what got Martha Stewart to finally renounce for and host our video expose condemning for. My favorite thing is really reaching people who, um, what was the victory in the fur industry? What what designer Calvin Klein? So Calvin Klein was a hero there. Yeah, that he illustrates really why Peter has to do actions the way we do. When we first started targeting designers back in the nineties, Calvin was the designer who was most visible with Fury'd had a line for nineteen years. We asked to meet, We asked to show him the evidence, and we never got a call back. So I went to his office, UH and case the place. I were all black, so it looked like I might be part of the fashion pact that was there, made friends with a security guard UH, and came back the next day with a dozen other interns and we went up and took over his office and we put literature on all the desks. We were screaming, chanting Calvin Klein kills animals. Uh, somebody spray painted kills animals beneath the Calvin Klein logo. His wall had a Calvin Klein silver and boss logo in his office, in his office at the entry way, and so somebody, So what happened again? I just want to because the people that are your critics talk about those things which your acts of We knew that we had to do something with nobody returning our calls in the fashion world. And I'm not questioning your motive is that I understand what I'm saying. When you deface someone's private property, what happens to you? That there was everybody went to jail, that the cops were called and it was got arrested. Yes, everybody go to rent to jail. Everybody went to jail. But Calvin uh was so more defied by this that he and we did. We timed it because he was about to get some big award and he thought, you know, so Nobel Prize Profashion. He I picked up my phone, uh four days later, and it's Calvin Klein's vice president asking if I would come in for a meeting. I gotta tell you, I was much more nervous going back as an invited guest than as a as a protester, and we sat down and I showed him the video showing how beavers are drowned and underwater traps, and Shinchila's are genitally electrocuted, and all the other hard execution exactly of foxes to preserve them, the pelt and every exactly on the profacot. When I first learned that, I thought I was going to faint. And it's dozens of animals for one coat that that has that kind of suffering. I went back to his office and he said, oh, leave the video and I'll watch it. I said, no, I'm not going to leave the video. I'm gonna stay here until you watch the video. So they had to get somebody to set up the TV. We watched the video and he said he was horrified. He said, I have spent nineteen years avoid that video and now I can't in good conscious use for anymore. And I said, fantastic, But I needed in writing. How did you get so tough? Well? How did you get this way? I grew up in the punk scene. I don't know. Maybe I always get to where you're in Calvin Klein's office saying I'm not leaving until you watch the video. And then well, there was actually needed in writing. I had a copy of for World, the trade magazine, that said that Calvin had just inked a deal for a new line. So after he agreed to do it, agreed to put it in writing, and I said, and what about this? And he said, uh, don't you can't believe everything you read. I'm out of the fur trade. So he called in his communications vice president Lintazoro was her name. I'll never forget, and we did a mutual statement and it was in the New York Times the next day, and it sent shockwaves throughout the fashion world, and it showed that, you know, obviously remained faithful to that. Then he's not only remained faithful to that, but he's become a good friend. And he always tells me the extraordinary He said, you know, extraordinary matter. If you ever worry about going too far, just think of this case. And this is the only way to get people like like me to get our attention. Because in the fashion world we don't care about it. There are people that have swung the other way, who actually take pride in the They're the last remaining bastion of f Yeah and yeah, I mean I met with Michael Cores and said, you're doing broad tail lamb. These are baby lambs who are literally killed as they're born, before there's even the after birth washed off because the afterbirth makes the skin so much softer. These animals the only thing they see in the world is a club coming down to beat them to death in the head. And this is what broad tail lamb is. And how can you and good conscience sell this? And he said, as long as it's not illegal wherever they're producing it, I'll do it. I don't care if there's a market for it, I'll do it. Um. And he, you know, said this to my face. It's actually in my book. I wrote a memoir Committed which to go to this conversation type place about eight years ago, and he's been unrepentant since. That's right. So you're in this, uh what we'll call, you know, the Hollywood Walk of Fame of the animal rights world. Um. And in that group, people wouldn't put you with them. But Animal Liberation Front is, of course another well known organization. Do have you always kept them at arms length? Have you had any kind of contact with them? What's your relationship like with them? Actually, I got involved in animal rights through the Animal Liberation from when I was in high school. I was not involved myself, but they were involved in the tile protest. My best friend in high school, Connie, and I write about this in my book Committed. Because the Statute of Limitations has expired long ago. My best friend Connie would do surveillance outside of City of Hope and outside of other laboratories. You see a riverside before these laboratories were rated, not just to get the animals out, but to get up the documents showing that the research protocols weren't followed and that the animal welfare guidelines weren't followed. This was even before Peter was so known. So that was my link and that's how I got involved with through a direct action sort of point of view. But to me, I mean, I grew up in a Rundown apartment complex that didn't allow animals, and I had a mother that urged us to bring in all the cats that were being abused by bullies in the alley. People are really kids can be really mean to animals, uh, And I just grew up with the understanding that you know, if an animals being abused, you do something about it. I grew up with the idea that you're supposed to react and correct and expose and fight the sort of abuse. So what's your relationship where they left now? Um, there's none. I mean I haven't done. You feel you have to be very careful. I mean when you're talk in one breath. But the caution that you use that you employ in terms of your protest work because of the lititiousness of the Ringling brothers and so forth and other corporations, what's that like for you in terms of your relationship with a canea left you have to keep them in arms like Well, I think it's just it's all different now. Now we have whistleblowers that are on the inside who get us into film. You know, the laboratories that were rated back in the eighties have become bunkers now. I don't think that there's much of a way to get inside. And I think what Peter has done in a very savvy way due to our lawyers, as we are in it for the long haul. We are in an organization that has lots of roots, but we want to be around for the long haul. So we're very very careful to pick cases that spot like whistleblowers findings that are are lawful investigations of cruelty, and they become so successful that now the meat trade is trying to change the law so that we can even work with whistleblowers to get this evidence, of which is the gang bills. People struggle, no doubt with UM achieving a kind of deep, deep, ascended level of devotion toward animal rights and a level of purity in terms of their diet and their consumption and so forth. But if you said to them, here's one thing I think you should give up, what would you say? I would tell them to watch our ten minute Paul McCartney video called Meet Your Meat, which you had had hosted as well at some point, and we put updated it with new footage, and decide for yourself. Decide for yourself what you want to give up. And you may find that you had no idea that that chickens injured that, or that pigs injured that, or you know, just I don't think people should think of it as a devotion to to animals necessarily. It's just like it's just basic respect and as a respect for yourself as well. It is a primal it is I mean, I want to come clean with you and be honest with you, which is I gave up beef in n and I gave up poultry in you know. I mean, I'm I'm a big, big, no hypocrisy supporter of the animals and performance and I'll never go to a circus or a zoo or so forth. I'm big on the crash testing and a lot of things I'm really really strong about. But I would remember that. I mean, I went and didn't need poultry from two thousand and four, and then I snapped and I ate a turkey sandwich in a moment of complete freak out. My friend ordered a turkey sandwich and I was sitting there. It was like a scene from Altered States, where like the primal gene came leaping through me and I ate the turkey sandwich. Well, there's nothing like that flesh ripping sensation. Fortunately, nowadays there's the products that you can get that have that same chewy, grizzly that's what. That's what, that's that's where I went up going. There's so many great ones, especially in New York. There's fantastic restaurants all the town, but Blossom has. You can get a bacon cheeseburger at Blossom. I'm not kidding, and it's really, really, really something. It is good. When did you stop eating meat? I stopped eating meat when I was fourteen, on a fishing trip with my dad. I used to go fishing back. I never went back. The only kind of animal I ever killed was a fish. And so that's where I started. Because I I was I used to get beat up for being gay and for being a punk rocker in high school. And one day between classes, some kid hauled off and slugged me in the stomach and I was doubled over, out of breath, laying on the ground, gasping for air. And I looked up and there was just all these people staring down looking at me and laughing, and I couldn't even speak, I couldn't breathe. A few weeks later, I was on a fishing trip with my dad and I caught a flounder and it was a big, heavy fish. Got him on the deck, two eyes on one side of his head. Somebody omped on and pulled the hook out of his mouth, and I looked down and here's this poor creature gasping for breath, looking up at the circle of people standing around him, and everybody was looking down and laughing at him, and I thought, wait a second, now I'm the bully. I went vegetarian then, except for it took a little a little while longer with chicken, and I went vegan a few years later when I started working at Peter. I want to learn more about that, but it was oh yeah, yeah, But it was the visceral thing that I had just plucked this creature from the bottom of the ocean into this horrible world with these people just laughing at his misery, and I thought, who the hell am I to do that? So that was the turning point moment in my life too. I want to participate in blood and guts. Of course, hamburgers and stuff that you get in the drive through. You don't see the chain of violence that you're responsible for. But it hit me right home that day, and um, that completely changed my my thinking about this issue. My friend Mary Brosnahan is the executive director of Coalition for the Homeless, and she has given her professional life. I mean, she's a grown woman with a child and she's worked for I think twenty five years with Coalition for the Homeless has been her professional career since she was a very young woman, and you, similarly a couple of years shy of being fifty years old. It's hard to believe that the eternally youthful, the Peter pan as I'd like to think of you, of the animal rightsman with Dan Matthews, the great Dan Matthews is almost going to be fifty. But you yourself have given your professional life to one cause and to one group of people. And I was wondering as we as we fade out here, why why have you stayed with Peter all this time? Well, because it goes back to my history degree. I know, I've studied other movements throughout history, and I've studied what made the women's movement finally clicked the civil rights movement, and it was always, without exception agitation. There always had to be a cutting edge group that may not have been popular in its day, but historically was deemed the breakthrough organization to put this issue into the public discourse and finally get some change. And so um. Luckily, I'm a kind of a notious person, so I have no problem being an agitator, but I I, you know, have a really clear focus on what we're doing and what the outcome can be, and what the outcome has been. We've got so many great cases of success now, and all of them show that I had a lot of successes. And I think I just take your obnoxious. But I think you're determined. I think you're committed so beyond the bacon cheeseburger that you could refer to it blossom. What does um one of the great princes of the animal rights movement, the great Dan Matthews, what does Dan Matthews have for dessert? Um, let your go to vegan dessert. I really like sorbet. You can find it anywhere. It's usually good. I know it sounds simple. I know it sounds really faggy, but what can I say. It's that simple. It's exactly no to foodie cutis. I like that stuff. I mean when you find it. I really like ethnic foods. I really like spicy things. I'm not I don't have a big sweet tooth. But you know you can find a Goldenberg's peanut chew in any drug store that's vegan. We have on our website. Even stuff you can find, uh you know at seven eleven or Target that's vegan, but um, you cant. I rarely go to a vegetarian restaurant. I go to wherever I happen to be for a meeting and grab what I can. And now it's getting so easy. It's I think a new generation has decided it doesn't want to make the same mistakes as our grandparents and parents that died of heart disease or got whatever form of cancer and now Alzheimer's. Were just evolving as a species away from a meat based diet, just as we've evolved away from other bad practices in the past. I think we're just evolving emotionally and spiritually away from this idea that animals have to die for us to live. Actually, their animals dying for us is keeping us from living fully. Dan Matthews says he's always been drawn to extremes and find traditional activism dreary. This fall, he'll be working with former TV game show host Bob Barker, who's been a vegetarian for over twenty five years, on Peter's new campaign Food for Thought. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing