THIS CAME IN AS A COMMENT BUT DESERVES TO BE A POST!!
SHOCKED AT NATHAN WINOGRAD'S COMMENTS AT MARCH 24, 2012 ALBUQUERQUE, NM WESTERN STATES CONFERENCE I am elated to have discovered this blog. I participated in the Albuquerque, NM "Western States No-Kill Conference" held Saturday, March 24, 2012. Nathan H. Winograd spoke on "Building a No Kill Community." WAS I EVER SHOCKED AT NATHAN WINOGRAD'S demeanor and "YOU'LL DO IT MY WAY OR NO WAY ATTITUDE!"
In front of concerned people- many of us long-time animal rescuers, Nathan very rudely rejected ideas and questions. Nathan stated (as did his fellow presenter Michael Mountain) that it is useless to try and educate and/or actively involve our young people on the issues of saving the lives of millions of innocent dogs and cats. Additionally, Nathan made negative remarks about the T-N-R programs! What a shocker! How can you even begin to stop the HOMELESS and EUTHANIZIA issue if you never take steps to prevent the problem from the onset? Michael Mountain made some very "cutting" remarks about "crazy cat women" and made it appear during his presentation that he (Mountain) is "above" the rest of us in his (Mountain) intellect, his dress ... basically that those of us who are trying to save these animals lives are just beneath him (Mountain.)
THERE WERE NO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ALBUQUERQUE ANIMAL CONTROL (WELFARE) DEPARTMENT AT THIS MARCH 24 CONFERENCE. THERE WERE NO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ALBUQUERQUE MAYOR'S OFFICE. THERE WERE NO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ALBUQUERQUE CITY COUNCIL. THERE WAS NO MEDIA COVERAGE ... NOT TELEVISION, NOT NEWSPAPER, NOT RADIO. IF WINOGRAD and MOUNTAIN HAVE SO MUCH "POWER" IN THE NO-KILL COMMUNITY, WHY DIDN'T THE TWO OF THEM ASSURE THAT THE ABOVE-MENTIONED REPRESENTATIVES WERE IN ATTENDANCE? As one of the women setting beside me stated "We should have saved our $100.00 (paid to register for this conference) ... Used our $100.00 toward our T-N-R project ... Our 100.00 would have paid to spay/neuter several cats. Of course, Nathan Winograd was selling his books ... as fast as he could sign them! (FYI: Many of your PUBLIC LIBRARIES have Winograd's book(s) on their shelves. You DO NOT have to purchase Winograd's books and therefore PAD WINOGRAD'S POCKETS!) I am glad that I attended this conference ... because I now know first-hand that the "glowing B.S." I had been fed is indeed ..... Apparently, Winograd believes that he is a GOD. As a Licensed Paralegal and B.S. Criminal Justice Degree, I worked for criminal defense attorneys for years .... on a daily basis, exposed to the same INFLATED ego that Winograd displays.
As for Winograd and Mountain's "better than thou" attitudes ... we are NOT "crazy cat women". All of the rescuers that I work with are intelligent, stable, well-educated, hard-working, tax-paying citizens. Many of us are single-parents who have raised our children without any help from the system (the same system that Winograd and Mountain make their livings from.) We work 60-70 hours a week at our employment, balance our children's school and sports activities, are furthering our college education ... ALL THE WHILE dedicating every single spare minute and spare penny to our T-N-R projects; our dog and cat adoptathons; presenting to local civic groups; and working toward cooperation with our local Albuquerque Animal "Welfare" Department.
I left this conference shaken and in shock! I spent Sunday praying about the belief's and hope and inspiration that I have tried to hold-on to throughout the years of working at my job all day ... and then setting up all night setting T-N-R traps. In tears each time that an Albuquerque Animal Control ("Welfare") van passes me on the street (cages full of innocent dogs and cats) . Possessing the knowledge that at least 400 loving, innocent, full of life and at one-time hope dogs and cats are being SLAUGHTERED by Albuquerque Animal Control (Welfare) Department. Rather than Winograd and Mountain padding their pockets to stand in front of these trusting conference attendees and blowing smoke, Winograd and Mountain could have better utilized their time to meet with the Albuquerque City Politicians and Albuquerque Animal Control (Welfare) Department to STOP THE KILLING! To all of you participating in this blog and to the FOCUSED animal rescuers out there, please DO NOT allow the Nathan Winograds and Michael Mountains to alter or mislead your belief in the true mission that we are trying to accomplish. WE ARE NOT ABOUT THE MONEY!! Thank you for reading this. Have a GREAT Day!
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41 comments:
007 says:
While I can appreciate the writer's comments regarding Winograd and Mountain and for realizing No Kill is about these folks and others of their ilk keeping the money flowing in so they do not have to get real jobs, I take great offense at the writer's blatant no kill attitude regarding hard working animal control officers enforcing the Federal, State, and local animal laws.
The writer may have had her/his eyes opened to some degree, but it is apparent that she/he is still drinkng the No Kill Kool-Aid by blaming animal control for the problems that they do not cause. I sense the writer believes there are enough homes for all the animals or that the best solution is to merely s/n and set them free to suffer from injuries and die from a lack of vet care after encounters with stray dogs, cars, hateful people, accidental poisonings, etc.
In theory, TNR is great, but the reality is quite different for most of these animals. S/N, vaccinate 1 time, and set them free only to die from something like flea and tapeworm infestations. Boy isn't that a good idea!
There are better ways to help and/or spend your money on the millions of homeless pets besides the cruelty of TNR.
Again, the writer may not support Winograd/No Kill Nation crap and Mountain's Best Fiends, but he/she certainly is heavily involved in something nearly as damning as the above-mentioned pieces of trash.
Winograd is a joke.
If you really want to know about him, take a look at his very brief stop at a tiny shelter in upstate New York, that almost went broke because of him.
You can see their IRS 990 forms here:
http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Form990&EIN=150624378&Year=2010
You'll see him on the payroll in 2002 and 2003 (not 2001 when he claims to have started there). You'll notice he's the highest paid director the shelter has ever had before or since.
If you look at the balance sheet section you'll see a steady decline in their cash assets until a couple of years after he was gone. He just spent all their cash while claiming that No-Kill is cheaper.
A sham and a shame.
007 I appreciate your comment but I really didn't want to scare this person off. You know that I am not a fan of trap neuter and release but rather promote trap neuter and RETAIN.
It takes awhile for it all to sink in and start making sense if you were a believer before. Please give ChangTu a chance to "catch" up on all. And after I did the post I discovered that there is a new blog http://changshimmemittenz.blogspot.com/
Realizing the true "No Kill" can be overwhelming and we need to be there to answer questions for ChangTu.
The fact is, if you have a good product, it's easy to sell. There's no need to speak ill of your competitors to sell your product because it will sell itself. So hopefully people are starting to see that his slash and burn tactics are merely distractions from his poor product.
Mr. Winograd's product continues to fail communities. Whether it be in Washoe where dogs are let loose because citizens are forced to make an appointment weeks later and NHS losing money every year, Austin with it's ever increasing taxpayer cost, the Philadelphia disaster, or Delaware with his misguided legislation, there is no substantial market that it has been successful. He can blame everyone but himself, but until he accepts the obvious, that it does no good to become no-kill overnight if organizations lose money to the point of going bankrupt. Then there's no one left to help the animals.
Just this weekend I was listening to one of his minions Mike Fry on Animal Wise radio, who stated:
"One of the ways you raise your budget is by adopting more animals out, because then you get those adoption fees back, and those fees help you raise that budget".
How's that working out for them???
Nevada Humane is waiving adoption fees.
http://www.nevadahumanesociety.org/pdf/Less%20Adoptable%20News%20Release%203-19-12%20Final.pdf
Austin is currently offering FREE adoptions.
https://www.facebook.com/austinpetsalive
So is it any wonder people are starting to doubt the truthfulness of their statements.
On the subject of TNR, I actually believe it can be a PART of the solution. TNR is acceptable on a limited basis, preferably in rural settings where it doesn't place neighbor’s dogs in danger of rabies quarantines and injuries. Where kids aren't place in danger of rabies or having to get treatment (yes, kids are more likely to try and pet a cat than a raccoon). The colonies also have to be at a controlled level so it can be monitored properly. Unfortunately in Delaware, animal welfare leadership has distorted the limited purpose of TNR, and bullied animal control into no longer picking up cats that are a nuisance or doing damage, and my concern is that people are going to get frustrated and take it out on the cats. 5-6000 extra cats and their offspring in this first year will surely try some resident’s patience. And once their patience reaches the tipping point, even more kittens will have been born as a result. So yes, less will be euthanized, but more will be killed in other harsher ways like under the wheel of a car. Not humane in my book.
I agree with Jake, but have not seen anywhere that TNR has not been abused. I am firmly against animal abandonment no matter the title used.Most animal controls are already doing many of the things he promotes and his constant rediscovering of the wheel is tiresome. He's trying to get a toe hold in Sac and we remain vigilant. Oreo sent me the link to a HSUS release to stop the bickering. I took my blog private, but we are up and running to invited guests. I'm hoping I sent the invite to Jake
In Christ's Love
Chap
TNR is nothing but outside hoarding now. It has been distorted by "No Kill". Chap, I understand about your blog, however, keep in mind that you can't win a war when the soldiers are hiding.
Ha! Winograd and Mountain really spilled the beans with this little show.
If you remember, it was Michael Mountain who first gave the indication that Best Friends Animal Society had gone corrupt and had gotten involved with Rick Berman, the Center for Consumer Fredom breeder and dog fighter lobbyist (and every other kind of animal abuser profiteer lobbyist)
When Mountain was president of Best Friends he was editor of their trashy, lying magazine and PUBLISHED LINKS TO RICK BERMAN'S PROPAGANDA SITES and spread Berman's lies in the BF magazine helping Berman and all the animal torturers further their interests in hurting and killing animals for money!
Rick Berman represents ANIMAL TORTURERS AND KILLERS! Why was Mountain doing Berman's work through Best Friends?
Because Berman HANDS OUT MONEY to the corrupt and greedy, and Mountain is a suckbag of greed. Mountain also thought he could smear other groups that actually did help animals and he'd be rolling in the $$$.
Mountain in later issues had to print retractions and apologies for his lies, including fraudulent articles he was having writers seed into the magazine.
Michael Mountain (not even his real name!) has been nothing but a bloodsucker off pets and the humane/rescue world, just flattering his own ego and trying to tell other people what to do and PROFIT FROM IT!
He was one of the group who started Best Friends as a previous religious cult, and when they didn't make money that way, then they decided to go into the animal business because they saw lots of potential cash.
He is a co-owner of the PRIVATE corporation that funnels all the money from sales of Best Friends merchandise into the pockets of the founders. He lives off the donors' donations.
He also gets his medical insurance paid by donors, his house, he's cashing in.
Mountain was the son of a rich British public relations (advertising bullshit) promoter.
BERMAN/WINOGRAD/MOUNTAIN. A bunch of greedy crooks. That's bad enough, but their victims are the animals.
The only reason Winograd and Mountain smear other groups is so they can get the donations to other groups. They want to steal other groups' donations! It's a greed fest!
They also slam other groups to help Rick Berman and his clients keep on torturing animals for profit.
These two are nothing more than con artists and liars, and if anyone is stupid enough to give them a dime, then all they are doing is help these two con artists hurt animals.
They call me Chap, where have you been? Pet cats are being thrown outside and called feral to die outside so No Kill can artificially reduce their "euthanasia" numbers.
One of Winograd's No Killer followers, a dog fighter in Georgia until she nearly got arrested and was fired, was running animal control and "disappeared" all the cats. Many of them were pets. It is thought that she used them as bait for her husband's and friends dog fighting endeavors.
When will anyone remember or recognize the cats who die painfully and anonymously thanks to this No Kill scam?
They Call Me chap, I looked at your blog. I realized it was a negative experience when I read one of your commenters who rescues ONLY totally purebred German Shepherds and complains when a shelter identifies a Shepherd mix as "pure" because it's a pain for her to drive and then not collect her purebred Shep to resell.
Do you think Christ would turn away a Shep mix because it wasn't "pure" enough?
That isn't rescue. It's dog dealing by an obvious breeder who's a part of the problem. Winograd style.
And Christ NEVER HID or "Went private.". He spoke out loud and clear for the weak and victimized, which is what these pets are.
I get a little aggravated at "christ" being tossed around like it makes everything ok.
"Nathan very rudely rejected ideas and questions. Nathan stated (as did his fellow presenter Michael Mountain) that it is useless to try and educate and/or actively involve our young people on the issues of saving the lives of millions of innocent dogs and cats. "
Want to know why?
BECAUSE WINOGRAD AND MOUNTAIN ARE WORKING FOR RICK BERMAN, who is a lobbyist for BREEDERS, puppy mill breeders, dog fighters, lab animal dealers, factory farm runners, and every other psycho animal torturer profiteer.
They have always lobbied AGAINST humane education.
Yes, that includes the AKC (and its legislative dept of which Barnette Barnette was part of) because the AKC is a puppy mill business!
Of course they don't want the younger generation learning about the animal abuse these profiteers commit! It might mean more laws and less money for the animal torturers.
How long is it going to take the rescue community to understand that Winograd and friends are FRAUDS. They are working for the profiteers, NOT the pets.
This has been known for some time now. I can't believe how gullible some people are. But I suppose this is how con artists keep going. Some people don't do their homework, and believe the con artists' lies. And the con artists keep cashing in.
Mike Fry and his mother MAKE A LIVING being Winograd's propagandists and running a "sanctuary" that no one seems to understand what they actually do.
Like the Best Friends business, the leaders and "managers" get salaries, benefits, and often houses, cars, and all expenses paid.
They profit from all this.
If they actually accomplished anything, they would deserve a salary. But all they seem to do is lobby for corrupt Winograd and boost his income, and cover for his lies as well as support his abusive techniques!
" then setting up all night setting T-N-R traps. In tears each time that an Albuquerque Animal Control ("Welfare") van passes me on the street (cages full of innocent dogs and cats) . Possessing the knowledge that at least 400 loving, innocent, full of life and at one-time hope dogs and cats are being SLAUGHTERED by Albuquerque Animal Control (Welfare) Department"
NO THEY AREN'T!
It is Winograd's employers, the BREEDERS and PUPPY MILLERS, and their efforts to prevent things like spay neuter laws and education, that are slaughtering those animals.
Winograd has duped you into blaming animal control instead of his rich friends the breeders!
The breeders want to have no laws so they can keep cashing in and cheating on their taxes, and getting rescuers to go broke cleaning up after the breeders and a lawless environment where nothing is done to reduce the birth rate!
Rich men playing games to gain more money and attention.
"Michael Mountain a.k.a. Hugh Mountain and known by his religious name Father Aaron, is the son of the founder of Granada TV, Sydney Bernstein. Michael Mountain co-founded The Process, Church of the Final Judgment with Robert DeGrimston a.k.a. Robert Moore or Moor a.k.a. Christ. The church first incorporated in Louisiana in 1968 and Michael has continued to this day to be the President. The Process has changed it's name several times and is now Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah. Here you will find more than 20 of The Process founders, Mary Anne De Grimston and her inner-circle, living on a 23,000 acre ranch called Angel's Canyon (Manson called his ranch Devil's Canyon.)
When Sydney Bernstein died in 1992, Michael Mountain became an heir to his fortune. Over the years he has contributed large amounts of money to The Process Church. To this day, much is written about their connections to the Son of Sam murders, the Manson murders, the Zodiac killer, human and animal sacrifices and many more heinous crimes. Whether or not these accusations are true is still under investigation."
Winograd is living in his million dollar plus house with his father-in-law (under investigation for securities fraud) paying the bills.
Mountain/Bernstein inherited a pot of money.
I am absolutely shocked that anyone would give these two $100 to let themselves be abused and tricked by these two arrogant scanmers.
Look at http://bermanexposed.org/ and see what you also support when you support Mountain and Winograd.
I wish we could just go back to having a few neighborhood cats, forget the outdoor hoarding. I agree with Honesty's "Retain." As far as closing the blog, he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
The Saying: HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY WILL LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY.
Who Said It: Demosthenes
When: 338 B.C.
The Story behind It: In August of 338 B.C., the Athenian orator and statesman Demosthenes was an infantryman at Chaeronea, where a great battle took place between the Athenians and the Macedonians. The Macedonians were victorious, and 3,000 Athenians died. Demosthenes fled from the battlefield and was subsequently censured because of his desertion. To anyone who later called him a coward, Demosthenes retorted, "The man who runs away may fight again." From that line is derived the modern day version "He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day."
The ol Chap is here for the war, not the battle.
Anon, I do understand your stance but I do have to defend Chap. Although I believe that you don't win wars when your soldiers are hiding, I also believe that you need to pick your battles. Chap won't be able to reach out beyond his own readers and that is a shame because he had a lot of good things to say.
At least Chap is making a stand and we should support him for doing so. I also think he may have information that he doesn't want the other side to see but would like to post it on his blog. Let's not eat our own if we can just accept how they want to fight their battles. As long as we are fighting, that is what matters.
And thanks for the info. Any links you can provide will be greatly appreciated. I know there is a major article in the works about Best Fiends and hopefully some of your info will be included.
You guys should look into what's going on in Fresno, CA. It seems the no kill movement has just won a major battle by getting the local SPCA to walk away from its contract. Now the no kill rescues are going to work with the city council to develop a no kill shelter....The Fresno SPCA was handling animal control for about 50 years and did it for 3 mil a year and deals with 50k animals a year.
Michael Mountain started coming out with the Rick Berman propaganda in the BF magazine within about a year before he stepped down as president. He not only published the links to the Berman torturer's lying propaganda sites, Mountain even published a photo showing some sort of billboard or something similar giving Berman's websites to drill it into the mind of the unsuspecting, gullible reader. Mountain also threw in his own cheap, low lies slamming other humane groups, in hopes that Mountain could distract the gullible from donating to actually help animals, and instead send money to Best Friends to line his and his fellows' wallets.
Of course Mountain never revealed that these sites were run and owned by Berman, the lobbyist FOR animal torturers and killers, including the AKC and their puppy mill business and fellow breeders, the Feld family and their Ringling Brothers torture chamber for elephants, Petland that sells AKC puppy mill puppies, and all the others who make money abusing and killing animals.
It was Mountain performing public relations work for Berman at Best Friends' donors expense. Here they thought their donations were going to the animals, and instead Mountain was spending donations on providing advertising and propaganda for Berman and the animal torturers.
By the next issue, Mountain already had to print retractions and apologies for his lies.
He also was seeding FAKE STORIES into the magazine. Propaganda to give their donors a false sense of hope and make them feel like the useless Best Friends was doing anything, which it NEVER DOES. One of the stories was a completely fake account of how "adoptions had gone up" at Philadelphia shelters because in the last Rocky movie, Stallone is portrayed adopting a dog from a shelter. It was a complete total lie. Adoptions hadn't gone up at all. Mountain had to print a retraction and an apology for that too.
Mountain took Best Friends down the path of lying and producing false illusions (as well as smearing other successful humane groups) to try to trick people into sending money to Best Friends. Where it gets divided among the founders and their sleazy sidekicks.
Even now, after he is gone (but still profiting from donations to Best Friends) the whole organization just produces manipulative lies designed to trick people into sending them money.
Their website promotes hoarders, their magazine publishes fake crap that they hope will confuse people so no one notices that Best Friends is doing NOTHING but findraising so they can stuff their pockets via salaries, benefits, houses, and everything else you can think of! They send out merchandise catalogs and shill shirts and mugs and vitamins and all that, which goes into a PRIVATE CORPORATION for the personal financial benefit of the founders. They hire lawyers to SUE whistleblower employees that expose BF fraud. They make employees sign legal statements that they will help hide what BF is doing behind the scenes, which is to disgustingly abuse donations and put animals last. And more, more, more, it goes on forever.
Best Friends counts on people NOT looking behind the curtain, never challenging their lies, buying their shill advertising package, sucking down the lies and pretenses on their website, their magazine, their mailings.
They got rid of more than 500 animals from the sanctuary and no one knows where the animals went. All because it was "too expensive" to maintain the animals as they hire more managers, lawyers (to sue their own staff) and lobbyists, and increase salaries and fat benefits, and do less and less every year.
They dumped pit bulls rescued in Katrina with a killer who tortured and killed them while Best Friends let him use their website to promote himself and make more money.
They support a fake rescue that just makes money off pit bulls, and is connected to the Aryan Nation, and BF threatens people who ask questions about the bad things that scumbag is doing to pits.
They turn animals away every day and let them die in bad ways, while they call other people killers.
They have "candle light vigils" with DOG FIGHTERS that even wear their logo caps, trying to get their hands on seized pit bulls so they can breed and fight them, while they pretend to be "rescue groups."
They even hurt the people who WORK FOR THEM, the ones who actually do try to help the remaining animals on the peanuts they are paid after the founders and managers and lobbyists and lawyers cash in.
Best Friends has become just a big ego trip and big money maker for a cult-like group of selfish, egotistical, arrogant losers. In the end, the ones who lose the most are the animals.
In 2004, the Rocky Mountain News revealed the founders of Best Friends as a bunch of cultists who drifted from one enterprise to another, looking for the magical magic of money.
Mountain then wrote some kind of completely distorted, deceitful "history" of the cult that was apparently totally made up by him to make themselves look better and cover up some disgusting truths.
One of the cult members who left wrote a piece that revealed what a propagandist, and bluntly, LIAR, Michael Mountain is- he just makes up stories to get sympathy and support. He's manipulative, and he seems to be able to especially manipulate women by telling sentimental, emotional stories that aren't true but get their false confidence.
http://skeptical
theurgist
.blogharbor.com/
blog/_archives/
2005/8/22/1159059.
html
"I recall Michael Mountain (Father Aaron as he was in the 1970s) as a charming man who was often irreverent, and fun to be around. The Best Friends account of the early days shows he still has the ability to charm, even if, as with the C of $ story about Hubbard, the truth and the facts have some distance between them.
It might be unfair to critique details almost 40 years after the events happened, but I feel otherwise. When someone publishes 8,000 words of well-spun baloney, a theurgically (and otherwise) skeptical person like myself can't resist teasing it a little"
It seems that there are people who don't seem to understand the profiteering aspect of animals. Just because someone spins a story that plays to your sympathies, don't give them your money until you find out what they are really about.
This is how hoarders are funded, and how scam artists hurt animals for their own profit. People just gullibly get suckered by lies and propaganda. Best Friends is working that to the max.
AS far as this "conference," when people are paying $100 a ticket for a bunch of baloney from experienced baloney throwers, they really need to examine their gullibility meters. They got taken.
Michael Mountain's father was a government propagandist for a while. Spinning lies for a regime. Creating stories to trick people into supporting the rich and powerful.
I've seen Mountain promoting Ryan Clinton, someone who seems to turn his back to the suffering that no kill winograd style has created, and is trying to completely ignore the Rick Berman/puppy mill/animal abusers for profit connection to Mountain and Winograd. If Ryan Clinton is such an upstanding guy, as he claims, why is he involved with the likes of Mountain and Winograd? Why does he ignore the animal abuse and killing? What is Ryan Clinton involved with? Does he get a cut of the income? Is Ryan Clinton just another Berman propagandist?
Any intelligent person can't ignore the harm to animals that Winograd and his puppy mill gang has created. Does Clinton just intentionally ignore it because of ego, or because he's on the team?
There is so much dirt whirling around this group and the puppets that seem connected to them, and lots of dead animals that seem to just keep getting ignored, like the Don Chambers pit bulls and the dead animals at PACCA.
After Mountain left Best Friends (again, he still profits from donations and receives money through Best Friends, as well as benefits and I think a house) he sent out some kind of mass-mailing that appeared to use Best Friends mailing list. It whined for people to give him money because he was starting a new non-profit but it didn't discuss even one thing that Mountain was actually doing or even planned to do. The thing just basically demanded that people send him money.
How did he get his hands on Best Friends mailing list? Probably through the corporation that he gets money from, from the sale of all Best Friends merchandise (when people think falsely it's helping the animals.)
Michael Mountain and his fellow Best Friends founders were exposed in a 2009 book by a fellow cultist about their Process Cult.
These sickos beat children who were hungry and wanted food!
http://circlesphere
.blogspot.com/
Instead of spending money on helping animals, Best Friends spends its money on LAWYERS suing whistleblower employees.
http://circlesphere.
blogspot.com/
2008/04/
kindness-
revolution-in
-action-best.html
"a cursory Internet search uncovers that Best Friends' origins hail from The Process, Church of the Final Judgement, as evidenced by the Louisiana articles of incorporation filed as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. The current Utah corporate filing as Best Friends Animal "Society" nicely rids Best Friends from its undesirable Process Church stain in an "Out, Damn Spot" maneuver. But the Process Church connection is maybe not as damaging as a rather unsavory lawsuit Best Friends has currently running in Kanab's local court against a former employee.
How many animal rescues do you know that would choose to spend money on legal fees to protect their image rather than saving animals? How would donors feel if they knew the hard earned cash that they donated is not being used to care for animals but to pay for lawyers? Not too thrilled, imaginably. Yet this is exactly what Best Friends is doing."
This is the Best Friends of Michael Mountain and the other cultist founders still there. He and his fellow Process church cultists Battista and the rest may be hiding in the background more, with a lot of lawyers and advertising people putting on a show for the public, but it's the same people doing the same rotten things. None of this is about helping animals. It's about control and money.
More on Michael Mountain and friends Best Friends games
"Muzzling Employees
Interestingly, however, Bronson's agreement with Best Friends also included a less traditional "non-disparagement" clause. According to the agreement, Bronson is prohibited from "disparaging, either verbally or in writing, Best Friends Animal Society, or its founders, directors, and officers."
Non-disparagement clauses are still hotly debated in the legal profession. It is uncertain whether such clauses would hold up in court; after all, silencing people's opinions could be construed as an impingement on freedom of speech. It is not surprising that big corporations such as Amazon.com would engage in such tactics--trading dollars for silence. But catching a seemingly innocuous charity in this kind of practice seems incongruent. In addition, the non-disparagement clause is not stated to be mutual; it only protects Best Friends. This certainly seems unfair; might it even be construed as ... unkind?
As if it is not sufficiently disturbing that Best Friends bribes its potentially disgruntled employees into silence, it is even more alarming to see the charity actively attempting to enforce its muzzle policy through the courts. Bronson is being sued, in part, for having breached the non-disparagement clause: "Best Friends is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Bronson has disparaged and is continuing to disparage Best Friends."
Equally concerning is the tone of the complaint; several pages are dedicated to disparaging information about Bronson that seem unnecessary to the complaint. Typically, attorneys take all emotion out of court filings; yet this filing reads as a defense for a wrongful termination lawsuit instead of a simple breach of contract.
Although Best Friends did not fire Bronson for cause, it uses the complaint as a forum to divulge Bronson's alleged failings as an employee. It smacks of childish tit-for-tat; you disparage me, I'll disparage you and make it public record. On top of it, one has to wonder why Best Friends would have paid Bronson 20k to walk away if it had proper cause to terminate his employment. Kindness? Mmmm"
"All lawsuits have a game of chess component; it appears Best Friends sought to intimidate Bronson into silence. After filing its complaint, Best Friends apparently approached Bronson with a settlement agreement; this time attempting to bribe him into silence by offering to drop the lawsuit as the proverbial carrot.
But Best Friends miscalculated Bronson's wherewithall, and its strategy to silence Bronson backfired. In a most hilarious move, Bronson followed Best Friends' lead: He filed an amended settlement agreement with the court on October 24, 2007 as a vehicle to make his experiences at Best Friends part of public record. It makes for a lengthy, but interesting read."
Here is the link to that read. Not what Best Friends makes its donors believe, is it? Mountain and gang produce the propaganda (with their cohort Winograd) but what is the TRUTH behind it?
http://www.
docstoc.com/
docs/615715/
Best-Friends-Animal-
Society-Lawsuit
Early documents about Mountain's Process Church cult
http://www.docstoc.
com/docs/3553095/
Michael-
Mountains-
Process-Church-
Days
In his propaganda (lies) that he told the Rocky Mountain news, he claimed they lived in "Mayan ruins." Sounds romantic and spiritual doesn't it? Well, that's a propagandist's trick to dupe the reader into a certain sympathy and lead the reader to believe things that are not true.
In actuality they were just squatters in an empty salt mine, not contributing to society or doing anything but being selfish and lazy.
No Kill is being plagued by the same propagandizing. These people are just telling false stories and lies to get poor people to send money, or rescuers to get them to go bankrupt cleaning up after the breeders.
All the dead and suffering animals just get ignored, the abuse and disease get ignored, and the propagandists keep piling up more lies and more false stories to promote themselves and get more money.
Here is an interesting show of Best Friends lobbyists trying to delete the unsavory aspects of the founders and their intents, and sanitize Best Friends history, past and current
Too bad all the cultists are still taking donors money!
http://en.
wikipedia.
org/wiki/Talk:Best_
Friends_Animal_
Society
Micheal Mountain is posting crap online with the signature "I am the 99 percent"
Well he is the heir of a mega rich propagandist/television company capitalist millio bilio aire!!
He's the 1 percent!!!
And he's begging for money and taking $100 from people so he can be arrogant for pay?
Why do people believe lies from someone like this?
Winograd is bad enough, who could believe that clown, but Mountain?
Does anyone know anything about one of these Best Friends founders, maybe in the religious cult, named Virgil Barstaad. He has been or still is chief accounting officer for Best Friends.
He has some girlfriend named Liz who lives on Long Island.
Who is a Mary McDonald, married to one of the founders?
Mary McDonald is married to Virgil Barstad, or however his name is spelled.
Barstad was one of the members of the cult and founding members who has been on Best Friends payroll until 2011. Now he is on a pension thanks to donors.
Mary Mcdonald went to Best Friends after her divorce and married Virgil in 2001. She's from New York.
Liz is some friend of theirs from Long Island.
Mary's brother is some NY city detective. Doesn't make me feel very good, especially with the bad behavior that Best Friends has exhibited in NY. I hope family relationships are not being expolited for $$ and to attack others.
Mary also seems to be on the payroll at Best Friends, in the welcome center.
Needless to say, she and her husband live off the donations to Best Friends.
I have seen her and her friend Liz attack some poor reviewer at Amazon who dared write the truth about this bunch of scumbags, and the idiot reviewer seems to be one of supposedly their own, a No Kill type! They attack their own. The founders and their wives don't want the truth getting out because if there are fewer donations, it may mean less money for them!
I am not sure if they also profit from the private corporation that takes in the money from Best Friends merchandise sales.
Here is a page that examines some of the problems that the Better Business Bureau found with Best Friends
http://yesbiscuit.
wordpress.com/2010
/09/06/best-friends-
animal-
society-does-
not-meet-bbb-
standards-for-
charity-
accountability/
Among other things, Best Friends seems to be pulling the same scam that No Kill Pasado's Safe Haven was busted for, taking money for sponsorships of animals that they claim are at Best Friends, but who seem to have disappeared.
http://yesbiscuit.
wordpress.com/
2010/09/06/best-
friends-animal-
society-does-
not-meet-bbb-
standards-for-
charity-
accountability/
The Pasado's Safe Haven woman spent nearly a million dollars of donor money building herself a fancy house. Some of the board turned her in, and there were all kinds of problems and she was charged.
One of her managers was involved with Winograd in King County WA stalking and harassing the shelter staff with Brenda Barnette. Not the sleazy ex-Best Friends lawyer, the other one, who abandoned Pasado's Katrina rescues with a hoarder where some died in the cages they were delivered in, while the manager and the Pasado's president threatened people who begged them to rescue their own dogs, mostly pit bulls. ANOTHER No Kill scam! Kim Sgro was the name of the manager who was stalking and harassing the King County shelter staff with Barnette and the Best Friends person so they could sleaze in and take the money.
Here is how this Best Friends scam worked. Better Business Bureau caught them, despite the fact that Best Friends denied doing it.
http://
exfriender.
wordpress.com/
2009/03/01/the-
50000-dog/
Nepotism is rampant at Best Friends, and it is coming with fat paychecks attached.
I have seen reports from qualified people being denied jobs at Best Friends so family members of the cult founders can get big checks and benefits, all courtesy of the donors who think their money is going to help animals.
Example is here. Gregory Castle is now CEO. Remember that Best Friends doesn't do anything for animals nationally, they don't help farm animals or wild animals, they help very few dogs and cats, fewer every year because spending on programs is no higher than '08 despite more money coming in and it actually went down in '09 despite more money coming in. They can't even get a felony animal cruelty law passed in Utah.
"Gregory Castle's background more than 10 years back is a complete mystery; certainly he is not a recognized top-notch animal welfare professional. He has some vague history in church and accounting prior to his work with No More Homeless Pets in Utah.
Recently BFAS conducted a nationwide search (via a pricey head-hunter) for a Chief Marketing Officer and a Chief Development Officer -- both jobs with salaries up to $180,000. Gregory Castle's wife, a nice lady with breast cancer and no marketing experience, landed the CMO job."
And all they seem to do is bully people! In addition to those salaries they also get all kinds of extra benefits, including HOUSES paid for by donors and maintained by volunteers!
"You guys should look into what's going on in Fresno, CA. It seems the no kill movement has just won a major battle by getting the local SPCA to walk away from its contract. Now the no kill rescues are going to work with the city council to develop a no kill shelter....The Fresno SPCA was handling animal control for about 50 years and did it for 3 mil a year and deals with 50k animals a year"
I think the Fresno SPCA is brilliant. Let the loudmouth hoarder No Kill wackos deal with the mauling pit bulls. Let them do the dirty work instead of telling other people what to do.
Fresno SPCA can concentrate on good adoptions of fine family pets, community programs, and really help animals and people. Their membership will increase.
People in Fresno getting attacked can sue the No Kill wackos and their dog fighter friends and hold them accountable. And just watch the No Kill wackos rape the taxpayer for money so they can abuse animals. They'll be scrutinized every second, and they'll get busted for their crimes.
At the end of the day, the No Kill Paradigm was designed by Richard Avanzino (sp) of Maddie's Fund. Winograd has successfully implemented No Kill and has gotten this revolution off the ground. Attacking Winograd will never stop us from saving cats and dogs and showing the world that killing them for your convenience is wrong.
Oh Kay, Kay, Kay, get out of that tub filled with Nathan's koolaid and sober up. He has no successes and you know it. Maybe in a shelter that handles a couple of hundred pets a year, but his program has literally fucked up more shelters than anything.
Have you forgotten PACCA in Philly?
And BTW don't pull your holier than thou bullshit here, not when there are the likes of Spindletop, Boggs Mountain, and all operating under the No Kill Equation with his followers dumping dogs to suffering and death. If there are killers in this world, it is those who followed this vile and evil breeders plan called NKE.
Stubbydog (to change the perception of the pit bull) was the nonprofit Michael Mountain was cofounding with Cary and Landon Pollack. They screwed a bunch of women out of eleven thousand dollars plusp by walking out on a pit bull/therapy dog project. Their other projects include (but are not limited to) Zoe/Earth in Transition, and a whale sanctuary which may have been without the Pollack's.
I've read Sex Love Fear Death by Tim Wyllie. They beat a child for taking a handful of raisins.
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