Schumacher Furs has been doing business in downtown Portland, Oregon for 112 years — but not for much longer. After an intimidation campaign that has lasted for months, animal rights thugs have managed to drive it away.
The situation is familiar to anyone who has lived in a city with a large moonbat population: sanctimonious kooks with far too much time on their hands single out a business upon which to focus their general hatred of civilization. They set up camp on the sidewalk, heckling and intimidating anyone who tries to go in the store. The police do nothing unless there is actual violence. Eventually the business is forced to close up shop, and moonbats can rejoice in their victory over economic productivity.
In addition to picketing Schumacher Furs, a cult calling itself In Defense of Animals has threatened the owner and his family. There have also been bomb threats against the store. Says the owner:
I don’t feel safe entering my own store.
He is not revealing the new location of his store publicly, except to say that it will be on private property so that moonbats can be kept away.
What will be next, after progressives have driven furriers out of business? Eight people were killed when Al Sharpton and friends decided to go after Freddy’s Fashion Mart in Harlem for being owned by a Jew. Maybe moonbats will decide to firebomb hardware stores for selling American flags.
Cross-posted at Moonbattery.
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I disagree with the sign in the window, but I also strongly disagree with strong arming businesses for political or ideological agendas.
Comment by Richard Nixon — 11/29/2006 @ 2:27 pm
That’s the tough thing about the First Amendment- it’s easy to like it when you agree with the issue at hand, and hard to take when you don’t. But it’s what makes our country great. I wish there hadn’t been bomb threats, but peaceful protest is the mark of a democracy, and even if you’re wearing a dang chinchilla coat, you should be glad that we’re free to do it.
Comment by Badinia — 11/29/2006 @ 2:54 pm
i actually respect those buggers.
they’ve got balls.
though i could care less about a fur store in MY community, i think everyone deserves their right to assemble and peacefully protest.
if other people in the community WANT the fur store to stay, why don’t they set up weekly counter-protests?
if they don’t, then they obviously aren’t as invested as they say they are.
theres plenty of things i don’t want in MY town (a strip club is one), and i hope that i’ll always have the right to protest it (if one moves in).
as much as i hate to admit it, its gotta be fair across the board. if i want to voice my opinion, i have to let others do the same.
Comment by stan — 11/29/2006 @ 3:17 pm
Well what the sign says is what happens to mink. I think the protestors have a point myself if that is his attitude.
Comment by Brian Cass — 11/29/2006 @ 4:30 pm
The last I checked protesting was completely legal. He couldn’t stand the heat, he got out of the kitchen.
Times change, businesses have to change with those times. Fur is no longer seen as a modern way to make a buck. Many, many large companies have stopped the practice of selling fur.
There was time when segregated businesses were protested and shut down. Do you mourn because their capitalist rights were trampled?
The public makes it’s voice heard by dollars spent and businesses supported.
The people have spoken.
Comment by Neckdeep — 11/29/2006 @ 4:32 pm
Fur is produced very cruelly. The only thugs are those who make it and those who sell it.
Fur comes from animals who are either trapped in the wild or raised in cages in fur factories — often referred to as “fur farms” or “ranches.” Altogether, roughly 40 million animals are killed for the fur trade each year. Millions of additional animals, including dogs, cats, and endangered species, are caught accidentally in traps each year. Both trapping and ranching cause animals to suffer extreme cruelty.
Many people think that by buying “ranched” mink, fox, and chinchilla, they are avoiding the cruelty that goes along with trapping. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, England, one of the United States’ closest allies, has banned fur farming outright for ethical reasons.
FUR FARMS:
Mink and foxes comprise the vast majority of animals who are raised in fur factory farms. They live their entire lives in tiny, dirty, wire mesh cages, where they are prevented from expressing nearly every basic instinct and behavior. Mink are semi-aquatic animals who in the wild spend considerable time in the water; yet, in fur factories, they are given no access to swimming water. Foxes in the wild run and dig in search of food; in fur factories, they are prevented from ever touching soil or taking more than a few steps. These unnatural and stifling conditions foster repetitive neurotic behavior like pacing, head bobbing and weaving, and spinning.
Standard killing methods in fur factories are gassing and neck-breaking for mink, anal electrocution and poison injection for foxes, and neck-breaking and genital electrocution for chinchillas.
TRAPPING ANIMALS FOR FUR:
Millions of wild animals are trapped each year for their fur using steel-jaw leghold traps, body crushing Conibear traps, and strangling snares. The steel-jaw leghold trap is the most commonly used trap in the United States despite being considered “inhumane” by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the World Veterinary Association, and the American Animal Hospital Association.
The United States is one of the leading trapping countries in the world, even though 89 other nations and eight states have banned leghold traps. Many trappers here consider it a recreational hobby, as the sale of animal pelts to the fur trade rarely brings much profit.
Terrified and often injured animals caught in these traps try to escape by lunging away and biting at the trap and their own limbs for up to several days before the trapper is required to return and kill the animal. Standard industry killing methods include beating or shooting the exhausted animal in the head. Of course, traps cannot discriminate between their victims, and often the animals who are maimed and killed include endangered species and family cats and dogs.
By the way, peaceful demonstrations are legal by the First Amendment. The business was not “strong-armed” by animal protectionists. It had some people outside of the store with signs educating the public. The business antagonized the protesters. In Defense of Animals agreed to the city’s request for the two sides to sit down and talk. The fur store refused!
Want to help fur animals? Help stop the seal slaughter: http://www.walklightly.org/seals.htm
Comment by William McMullin — 11/29/2006 @ 6:20 pm
By the way, the business is not going out of business. They are just moving.
Comment by William McMullin — 11/29/2006 @ 6:23 pm
I thing any business owner should be legally authorized to protect his business from the whacko’s in the same fashion they can protect their business from an armed robber. Shoot to kill is my motto. The dead can’t testify or sue.
Comment by Scrapiron — 11/29/2006 @ 6:48 pm
Perhaps you’d be less glib about the “fur issue” if you watched the myriad internet videos showing these “for fur” animals being genitally electrocuted and skinned alive. It doesn’t take a bleeding heart to oppose that … just a beating one.
Comment by Evan — 11/29/2006 @ 8:10 pm
Evan: Don’t count on it. I just shot a garbage can raiding raccoon and threw his a** over the hill so the dogs or buzzards will get him. No more scattered garbage for him. I could cut off his tail and fly it on my truck. Funny, the six deer around him ran a few feet, came back and smelled him and kept grazing. See, I also could be eating fresh venison tonight.
Comment by Scrapiron — 11/30/2006 @ 4:25 pm
Conservatives and compassion are oxymoronically exclusive terms. It would seem, unless it was them being genitally electrocuted, they’d ask you for a laxative- ie, so they could give a sh!t.
Comment by Goshdarnit — 12/1/2006 @ 12:31 am
There is proof again goshdarnit that only those like you are tolerant and everyone else is wrong. I suppose the conservative priest who opens his church to the homeless on a cold night needs your laxative, or the hundreds of conservatives in my community that just had a charity dinner to raise funds for the homeless need your laxative. Once more you have displayed the typical “if your not with me your against me” attitude displayed by large numbers of angry intolerant liberals. NOTE: I did not say all liberals as I am not as myopic and bigoted as you appear to be, although I still hope to find a glimmer of constraint in you, I still hope to find a part of you that allows for those with differing opinions, but I have not seen it yet.
Comment by Richard Nixon — 12/1/2006 @ 8:26 am
Scrapiron: Though you may be at peace with disposing of ‘pest animals’, it does not negate the fact that most folks who find out about the fur business are very opposed to the standard practices with which fur is obtained. Few people could skin, electrocute, or break the neck of, an animal for a fashion statement. And, to that end, the protestors have educated the public. If the complaint is that protestors have driven away customers, they have done so by telling the truth.
Comment by Carrie — 12/1/2006 @ 1:39 pm
Gregg Schumacher lies. Don’t believe what he says about “bomb threats” and such, or rather, take what he says with a bucket of salt. I know for a fact that he has threatened several protesters physically himself, one a high school student. Even Randy Leonard (city commissioner) went on Lars Larson yesterday saying “the Schumachers are liars.” Why do you think the police and city commissioners have had it with him? The guy is an a-hole.
Comment by sally — 12/1/2006 @ 6:52 pm
Scrapiron: Being glib and attempting to be funny without talent are not against the law but just to let you know you sound like a trailor trash hillbilly. And oh btw leave me your e-mail and we can dialog. I can show you a Vegan who likes a fight. Might be more intresting for you. And by fight i mean intellectually but im more than willing to have a good dust up in the name of stupidity anytime/anyplace. Still glib???
Comment by John Christian — 12/3/2006 @ 11:56 am
am i the only one who thinks it’s kind of funny that all of the people trying to protect lives are called things like goons and criminals
and then they say they only can see one side?
sounds like denial to me
but not everyone grew up the way i did, so i can see that if they grew up learning that animals were there for them to dominate it would be very hard to change their mind by protesting
that causes anger
don’t get me wrong
i think it was a very good cause, the fur industry sends chills down my spine
and actually makes me want to vomit.
im glad someone did something about it.
and i believe darwin when he says that no species is better or worse than another, they simply have different characteristics.
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans, any more than black people were made for whites or women for men”
- Alice Walker
whoo go “moon bats”!
Comment by Kathryn — 12/4/2006 @ 5:06 am
While I don’t believe in wearing fur, and don’t wear it myself, I also don’t believe in this kind of protest. So long as the fur trader is operates inside of the law, it is the protectors who are in the wrong.
If they don’t like it they should take their complaints to congress and get the law changed to ban fur. That’s the American way, democracy, people power and the rule of law. This isn’t medieval Europe.
MLK and Gandi didn’t change the world by threatening people.
Comment by Reader — 7/28/2007 @ 11:10 am