Perhaps the most common manifestation of flagrant disregard for the truth comes when anti-science/anti-animal research individuals describe the nature of research and the character of researchers. Their descriptions stray far from the actual truth, which is that scientists are completely normal, kind and sensible people who have given their lives over to the pursuit of knowledge and the betterment of humans and animals and that their research projects involving animals are humane, ethical and responsible. In other examples, they either directly lie, or mislead through omission, regarding the productive and vital contributions that animal research has made to the life of people and animals around the world.
But the lying doesn’t end there. A recent post from a Southern California activist stretches the bounds of truth by lying not just about debatable points but about basic, documented facts themselves.
Jan Austin Smitowicz wrote recently about his “experiences” while being involved in a series of protests at the homes of UCLA investigators in 2007. Smitowicz correctly sets the stage for these protests in that they followed a series of bungled attempts to exact serious harm on faculty researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles.
In his piece, Smitowicz starts his departure from the truth when he describes these events:
It was the summer of 2007 and things were getting hot in the Los Angeles animal rights world. At the end of June, an incendiary device was left under the posh BMW of a UCLA primate vivisector, Arthur Rosenbaum. It failed to ignite; even so, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was offering a $110,000 reward to any information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. A reward of $60,000 (UCLA contributed $30,000 to each of the reward offers) was still being offered for a similar incident from the prior summer, when an incendiary device was left on the porch of a different UCLA primate torturer, Lynn Fairbanks. The FBI claimed the device—which also failed to ignite—was left on the wrong porch, that of an elderly neighbor. How bad that looks for the radical(s) who performed the action, right? I’m confident it’s a complete fabrication by the FBI–it wouldn’t be the first time…
What makes this particular assertion so bizarre is that the Animal Liberation Brigade and Justice Department (both monikers for animal rights terrorists groups) openly and gleefully claimed responsibility for the events via the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, as they would for similar attacks that continued from 2007 to 2009.
Either Mr. Smitowicz is lying, or he is asserting that the Animal Liberation Front is. I suppose another possibility is simply that Smitowicz’s sense of reality is less than fully formed.
Nevertheless, this comment only portends a series of truly stunning lies regarding a series of protests that Smitowicz claims to have participated in. He doesn’t mention the date of the protests in question, but he gives a variety of details regarding the protest that are blatantly untrue.
He describes the start of the protest:
The first demonstration was at the Westwood home and neighborhood of Joaquin Fuster…
Joaquin Fuster doesn’t live in Westwood. Real activists know exactly where he lives because they have been to his home many times, but it’s most certainly not in Westwood.
His memory of events only gets worse from there. He next describes a protest, apparently at my home.
When we arrived at UCLA primate torturer David Jentsch’s lovely blood-money house in Santa Monica, the scene literally took our breath away. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. His entire block was barricaded off on both ends. There was an entire line of cops in full riot gear—helmets, padding, batons—stretching across his entire front yard. Cop cars everywhere. Helicopter chopping the sky overhead. Two big city buses were parked at the end of the street; they were empty, and I don’t know if they brought the cops, or if they were there to hustle us all off to prison. Because believe me when I tell you they really, REALLY wanted to arrest us. To say the cops had hard-ons for us doesn’t even begin to describe it. Clusters of them on every corner and at each barricade. Lines of them surrounding his house. It looked like a fucking war zone, but no—just an animal abuser’s house in Santa Monica on a pleasant, warm Sunday afternoon! I counted oversixty police officers, and that was just the ones in uniform. Sixty-plus cops—for twelve activists. More than five cops for every one nonviolent, peaceful protestor. Good to know our tax dollars are being well spent to repress legitimate dissent, eh?!
One scarcely knows where to begin. First, as I said, Smitowicz doesn’t make clear the date of this purported activity, but I never experienced a demonstration at my home until the middle of 2009 (after the car bomb that Mr. Smitowicz probably thinks I set myself!).
Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, just about every other fact reported above is blatantly wrong.
I have not, at any point during my career in Los Angeles, lived in Santa Monica, nor anywhere near it.
There have never been sixty police officers responding to an animal activist demonstration at my home, and they have never responded wearing “full riot gear”. Moreover, they never responded with a helicopter at the scene.
The picture below, taken by the picketers, shows the typical police response at my home – SIX officers (not sixty) – in standard uniforms. One wonders where Smitowicz learned whatever math skills he used to count the sixty officers.
This picture, taken by the picketers themselves, shows the most vigorous police response at a protest at my home. There were not 60 officers, and they were not in riot gear.
I will agree with one point he made above, however, and that is that the officers very much wanted to arrest those protesters who were in violation of the law. These picketers routinely violated municipal codes relating to focused picketing of a residence and disturbing the peace, which is why a group of 9 of them were arrested in 2010 during a protest. The group went on to sue the University and police in federal court for these arrests, and they lost that lawsuit in 2011. The judge dismissed most of the claims of the activist on the (lack of) merits.
With all this inaccuracy, it’s not surprising that the post goes on to add even more in the way of ridiculous nonsense, when he describes the behavior of the protesters during the event:
We walked up and down Jentsch’s block, single-file, keeping close together for at least the psychological illusion of safety and protection… Every so often we would stop and raise our fists in unison, not uttering a sound. We educated the killer’s neighbors. One of them came out of her house and walked alongside us, across the street, for a solid ten minutes, clapping and thanking us for being there, telling her neighbors that it was beautiful that we were there for the animals. Bless her heart!
When we’d get to the front of Jentsch’s house, where the line of riot cops stood holding their batons and trying to intimidate us like the terrorists they are, we adopted a new tactic: the entire length of his house, we stood in line facing the cops and slowly shuffle-stepped sideways, staring into their eyes through the plastic of their protective shields—our eyes, the only parts of our faces visible above our bandanas. When our line was fully in front of the house, just feet from the cops, we’d stop and throw up our fists and whisper together, “ANIMAL LIBERATION!”
Lots of whispering and quiet protest, right? Once again, we can use photos taken by an activist attending the protest to assess the accuracy of this statement.
Picketers “whisper” in unison at my home
More “whispering”
As I referred to in the title to this post, there are lies, and then there are damned lies. This is the latter.
But in a world where those opposed to scientific progress and research are so determined to stretch the truth in characterizing science and scientists, it’s really no wonder they lie so blatantly about the facts of their direct action campaigns.
I simply encourage the reader to know that, if you can’t trust someone to tell the truth about even the most basic facts, then you can’t expect them to tell the truth about anything, and you should discard all their assertions into the same waste bin and move on.
unlikelyactivist 
If you turn around 10 times then you can see sixty police offers
Nicely put David, I’d also add that the animal rights activists conveniently ignore the fact that many of your neighbors showed their support for you when they were confronted by the activists http://speakingofresearch.com/2011/04/20/fostering-a-neighborhood-response-to-animal-rights-extremism/
I guess they don’t want to admit just how unpopular they and their message are.
They certainly do not. Amongst the omissions are the times at two separate investigators’ homes when the neighbors were so fed up that they allegedly turned high power water hoses on the protesters. That’s how much the welcome the “education”.
Only a very small percentage of animal activists do this sort of disgusting behavior; it’s those few bad apples that makes everybody look bad. I did try to reason with some of these people to stop, but I got nothing but hateful responses-obviously fixated on their mania. I don’t know. Maybe a lot of these protestors are living off of Social Security Disability – if they have that much time and energy to harass people they should have their checks removed since they can work for a living. And if they do work for a living if their employer finds out about participation in such protests, they can end up getting themselves fired for conduct unbecoming the company’s image. And if they cross the line to the point of harassing others the law can be invoked and their freedom lost, along with everything else (home, family, etc). And imagine the SHAME and DISGRACE it brings their families.
Here’s a document showing Animal Welfare Act violations at UCLA, just from ONE inspection, demonstrating inadequate BASIC care for the animals–and the Animal Welfare Act excludes the vast majority of those individuals used in vivisection (rats and mice)–there’s a difference between making a mistake and downright lying, David
http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/ca/res-fr-ca-ucla-viol-2010.html
Now, Romeo, let’s not lie by omission, OK? I invite EVERYONE who reads this blog to go to the USDA website where inspection reports are housed. http://acissearch.aphis.usda.gov/LPASearch/faces/Warning.jspx
Click “accept”. On the next page, place UCLA’s ID number (93-R-0435) in the box and click search. Finally, click the tab labeled “Inspection Information”, and you will see ALL THE inspection reports for the past several years.
In case you don’t want to look yourself, let me summarize:
Dec 9, 2009 NO VIOLATIONS
Dec 16 2010 6 violations (see below)
Jan 4 2011 (a check up) NO VIOLATIONS
Jun 29 2011 NO VIOLATIONS
Nov 15 2011 NO VIOLATIONS
As for Dec 16 2010, I urge everyone to read the inspection report itself. In no case will you see any finding of an animal in pain or suffering. Instead, some of the violations were “paint peeling” and other paperwork issues. Some were confusion about procedures for the surgery room. NOT ONE FINDING involved the inspectors finding an animal mistreated or evidence of such. These were mostly paperwork issues and misunderstandings that were all corrected within 1 month. So, while the the USDA was right to identify these issues and the University was prompt to act, there was no harm to animal welfare.
So, ROMEO, maybe you want to be fully transparent about the USDA findings, by also mentioning report after report of NO FINDINGS. But of course, that wouldn’t serve your purposes, so instead, you lie by editing the truth.
Don’t these “activists” have anything better to do with their time. If these people have the time to do this sort of thing, maybe many are living off of disability. If they have the time to do these protests, they can certainly work for a living and should have their disability removed. ALSO: I hope you realize life in the wild for monkeys and chimps is hardly a bed of roses, but quite brutal. A favorite food of chimpanzees is monkey meat – they stalk, grab and eat baby monkeys – ripping out the flesh while the baby is still alive, because it tastes good to the chimps. Chimps chowing down on fresh LIVE baby monkeys. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuhXKvxz4-U
So that’s your excuse for torturing primates is it? because they eat baby monkeys this makes it ok to experiment on them causing terrible suffering. And because life for a wild monkey ‘is quite brutal’ that is also an excuse for experimenting on monkeys and causing terrible suffering? Your comments are a joke.
I did something real good for animals. I donated $50 toward low cost spay/neutering organizations. I also have a spay/neuter license tag which helps fund low cost and free spay/neuter clinics. Less homeless animals it’s all good!
Funny how memory goes astray in some people….maybe somethind scientists should study to see in this is pathological and could be cured. That may solve some AR problems…
well done David to put all that back in perspective. It is great hat you actually take the time to read the nonsense and fight it back!
Cetude – aka Luke Thomas , Satanist …. I hope you arranged for yourself to be spayed. The condition you suffer from may be hereditary!
You are no more representative of the ALM than other sociopaths I could mention, whose condition was not quite as apparent or easily identifiable as your own!
How’s your pen-pal, the Queen of England??
One thing that has to be considered is that in all likelyhood Smitowicz knew exactly what he was writing was false. It’s not intended for those who particicpated, but for those they hope to recruit with stirring tales of David-V-Goliath tussles in the name of the cause.
Jan Austin Smitowicz is Karl Rove on election night.
Thanks for jogging my memory, the post has been edited to reflect the truth (I simply got the name wrong, my bad).
No, your article is still wrong (Dr. Rosenbaum did not live in SM either). Whether you made an error or whether you are intent on lying (my money is on the latter), one thing is very clear: the truth (the objective factual basis of things) matters nothing to you. Whether by ignorance or deceit, when one plays so loose and easy with the facts, you have to draw into question the veracity of the whole of what you say. No reasonable person should trust anything you have to say.
Then I suppose the same goes for you–your ilk have been saying the same things about vivisection for decades, and every single undercover investigation shows the same vicious brutality and violations (one of which I showed above), thereby proving the extent of lies and misinformation.
Matt Rossell of In Defense of Animals worked inside the Oregon “Health and Science” University’s Primate Research Center for two years, taking undercover video footage.
OHSU says the EXACT same things Jentsch is telling you about vivisection at UCLA. I’m sure we’d see the same kinds of things if they opened the labs. As we say–nothing to hide? Let the media inside (without prior warning so you can clean up) to film what’s going on, and see what happens to your support….
We all know that these USDA inspections are toothless affairs because the laws and regulations are written by and for researchers who view animals as mere tools and nothing more. “Animal welfare’ is a legislative term that makes it possible for “farmers” to castrate pigs without anesthesia, debeak chickens, and carry out all manner of other cruel procedures on animals that would make most good people sick to their stomachs if they witnessed it. No one is fooled by the USDA’s definition of adequate animal welfare in a laboratory either. It is, quite frankly, meaningless.
I am not going to comment about the protest but I think using disability as a shaming tool is neither scientific in nature nor in the spirit of a good debate. You do not no the nature of his disability and it is insulting to all persons with disabilities to suggest their livelihood support be revoked for participating in constitutionally protected behavior no matter it may be.
Sounds like they can work for a living to me. These people are not disabled. By any means. Just wasting our tax payers’ dollars collecting a government paycheck while committing criminal activities. I’m working with a law maker to get a bill filed to revoke disability if a person commits a felony. And committing crime is has NOTHING to do with “constitutionally protected behavior” as you put it. Elections are over now. Time to get to work.
I suspect the majority of the NIO clan is living off of disability- which is why they have the time to harass other people. Normal people with JOBS will not engage in these criminal activities because IF their employer finds out they will get FIRED. It brings shame to the company, and is a liability issue. As a manager I would not hesitate to fire an employee if I found out they were engaging in criminal activities which includes harassment. So expect a future Federal bill filed on rescinding disability checks/social assistance if they committed a felony. Expect a lot of criminal activities to cease when it comes to the bottom DOLLAR.
Thank you for posting this; it is indeed very classless and inappropriate to 1) assume that just because people care about something other than themselves, they MUST be disabled,
and
2) use someone’s potential disability as a shaming tool.
There is an overpopulation of Rhesus monkeys in Central Florida (Silver River). If you all need monkeys – we got them here–maybe you all can contact someone and have them trapped and removed-they are PESTS, and quite dangerous aggressive pests at that. They INVADED Florida. http://www.wildflorida.com/articles/Wild_Monkeys_in_Florida.php
PS There are perhaps THOUSANDS of these Rhesus monkeys all over Central Florida – not only are they aggressive they spread diseases. People can get their face ripped off if they feed them (it’s against the law to feed them). If you all need monkeys, we have them all over Florida – maybe you all can contact someone to get rid of them? I would absolutely FREAK if I seen one of these nasty monkeys in my back yard! One thing about Florida-there is NO SHORTAGE of invasive vermin! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRQhj4xfrH8&feature=related
“One thing about Florida-there is NO SHORTAGE of invasive vermin!”
Civilized humans, of course, being the biggest and most populous invasive vermin!
I find it highly, HIGHLY telling that not only did Jentsch not respond to my comment asking him if he does indeed force primates into crystal meth addiction and then make them withdrawal–he didn’t even allow the comment to be posted! What are you afraid of, David? People simply knowing the truth about what you do? Why hide it if your work is so very noble and amazing??
Will be surprised if he lets this comment get posted; if he doesn’t I’ll just post a blog about that in and of itself, which is certainly worthy of the effort, as it’s so very indicative…
–Love and Liberation–
Jan @ TheRewildWest
lol, what a hater.
Karen your rather annoying and largely uneducated, you haven’t a clue on what these scientists carry out, why they have to experiment, and you seem to be forgetting that humans AND animals benefit from the medications that are made, and then put to use in the field or theatre.
Your argument against “cruelty” and severe abuse in the experimentation world I would accept, as that is truly below the line, however to attack people continuously because they are trying to improve medications and operations “not just in people that have deliberately made themselves ill” but also those that are vegans and vegetarians to the general public, that suffer from (hereditary illness) then your arguments to poor documentation based on out of date data is irrelevant.
Tell me Karen what is it you wish for in the experimentation world and please remember that not all experimentation’s can be shown on “synthetic models”. There is still a long way to go in this world as yet.
Do you wish to see no surgical operations (vivisection) performed on animals? or no medicines/chemicals performed on animals?
If the answer is completely no, then please explain that to the children’s parents that have hereditary neurological disorders, cancer or born deformed,or to a patient that has been run over by a car and urgently needs medical care.
When you wish to argue about animal experimentation then you need to start focusing one’s attention on those that are forcing the government and scientists to look for new cures and medications, such as the obese, the environmental destructor, the polluter, all of Mother Natures enemies.
Your arguments and documentation is all one sided, you never show the real side. I do believe that it should be shown. David I do not know, never have met him, however have viewed his work, I have seen others conclusive experimental successes in patients too.
Why are you not attacking those that smoke Karen? drink? eat fatty foods? those that take narcotics? (you’r all mixed up and don’t know what your fighting for or where to start) and that is why your leader is prison and that is why your fight and arguments are mainly dismissed as negative.
James
There are no standard treatments for hereditary neuropathies. Treatment is mainly symptomatic and supportive. Medical treatment includes physical therapy and if needed, pain medication. Orthopedic surgery may be needed to correct severe foot or other skeletal deformities. Bracing may also be used to improve mobility.
Although there are no real treatments apart from a handful such as deep brain stimulation that is proving successful in many NDD sufferers I think that we all should really say thank you to those that have helped to look for a form of relief whilst treatments are being looked into.
Regarding narcotic treatment then why not Karen target your aggression at those that are taking the illegal drugs, and those that are funding it.
You may get somewhere and then these experimentation’s surrounding the use of illicit drugs would decrease.. Should we also cease all pharmaceuticals including those that actually benefit animals that you fight for?
Do you take medications Karen?