USARK on NPR's Diane Rehm Show Today!

USARK on NPR's Diane Rehm Show Today!
USARK (United States Association of Reptile Keepers)
Join the Diane Rehm Show on NPR TODAY February 1, 2012 from 11am-12noon EST. Guests will include HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle, USARK CEO Andrew Wyatt, Zuzana Kukol from Rexano Exotics and Tim Harrison. It will be a live call in show. Please call in with good questions. You can also email or Tweet questions in. It is a discussion, not a debate.
1-800-433-8850
drshow@wamu.org
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/20...al-industry-us

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I will be listening, but I will definitely not be calling in. Maintaining my bearing, tact, and being respectful while asking Wayne Pacelle a question might be pushing the limits of my self-control. I admire and commend Andrew Wyatt and the others for being able to sit in the same room and have a civil conversation with him...

Well, that went about as well as I expected it to. Wayne Pacelle is a professional public personality and politician. His primary tactic is, if you don't let your opponent talk, they can't refute anything you say.
Unfortunately, the host of the show let him get away with it, and then even let him have the last word.
Disappointing.

I knew it would be aggravating but I listened to the whole thing. Wayne is such a tool, definitely came across as the previous poster said "professional public personality and politician". I was the most annoyed when he asked if people should be able to own big cats and (I believe Andrew) started to say his expertise was in reptiles and Wayne cut him off and said basically "you don't need to know anything about them to be able to say people shouldn't keep them".

I have to just give points to everyone for NOT losing their temper with the man. I would've started shouting him down after the third time I was interrupted.

I only caught the last half, but it was very frustrating to listen to. :mad:

since the first thing he did was attack the opposition i almost thought of this as another political debate. we should demand copies of his tax return lol

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Originally Posted by Dragoon

since the first thing he did was attack the opposition i almost thought of this as another political debate. we should demand copies of his tax return lol

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HSUS is a non profit :rolleyes: so all their expenses are public record.

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Originally Posted by mikel81

I knew it would be aggravating but I listened to the whole thing. Wayne is such a tool, definitely came across as the previous poster said "professional public personality and politician". I was the most annoyed when he asked if people should be able to own big cats and (I believe Andrew) started to say his expertise was in reptiles and Wayne cut him off and said basically "you don't need to know anything about them to be able to say people shouldn't keep them".

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From the perspective of a layman - someone who is not familiar with snakes or exotics in general as pets - Wayne comes across very confident, very polished and very believable.

Very brutal to listen to from the standpoint of a reptile keeper. Wayne may be a tool, but to the casual listener, he is a believable tool who is in his element when it comes to this type of format.

When Andrew would try to make a point, Wayne would very deftly counter and parry it.

Again, when you look at this through the eyes of someone not in the hobby, it was not a banner day for the keeprs of exotic pets.

Will this be posted on the NPR site?

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Originally Posted by babyknees

Will this be posted on the NPR site?

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It already is. You can listen to it at Diane's website.

:(


I'm just so disappointed. We just can't get anywhere. I'm getting really discouraged.

Going to go back and listen to it, but the minute I saw the guest speaker list I knew it'd be trouble. For an organization such as H$U$ they have to have a pretty smooth character heading up their operation. Disheartening, I've seen antics like this in the courtroom, especially seeing the comment on big cats when the specialization is in reptiles.

Pacelle is a well paid professional liar. I figured he would take apart anyone he was "discussing" anything with, ESPECIALLY if the host was friendly towards his agenda.

I can't get the thing to play yet, but I'd wonder why a pointed question like "When will you begin lobbying to outlaw dogs, who kill 20+ people a year, 40 times more people than ever killed by pythons, or cats, who impact the natural environment across the entire united states... since those are your points against pythons?"

It really is bothersome no one on our side really seemed to call in... but i assume that means npr seams to have a bias on this subject... cutting andrew off cutting suzanne off and always allowing wayne to get the last word, and i like npr....

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

"When will you begin lobbying to outlaw dogs, who kill 20+ people a year, 40 times more people than ever killed by pythons, or cats, who impact the natural environment across the entire united states... since those are your points against pythons?"

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"Soon."

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Pacelle is a well paid professional liar. I figured he would take apart anyone he was "discussing" anything with, ESPECIALLY if the host was friendly towards his agenda.

I can't get the thing to play yet, but I'd wonder why a pointed question like "When will you begin lobbying to outlaw dogs, who kill 20+ people a year, 40 times more people than ever killed by pythons, or cats, who impact the natural environment across the entire united states... since those are your points against pythons?"

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I fully understand this - but I have a horrible feeling the little toad would spin it to look like it is reptile keepers seeking to ban cats and dogs as some kind of revenge if that question came up.

The problem when arguing with devious, amoral, deceitful little swines is they have none of the rules that decent people have in these situations.

:rage:

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Pacelle is a well paid professional liar. I figured he would take apart anyone he was "discussing" anything with, ESPECIALLY if the host was friendly towards his agenda.

I can't get the thing to play yet, but I'd wonder why a pointed question like "When will you begin lobbying to outlaw dogs, who kill 20+ people a year, 40 times more people than ever killed by pythons, or cats, who impact the natural environment across the entire united states... since those are your points against pythons?"

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You need to listen to the show. Pacelle has faced these questions before and he is very deft at spinning the argument around. He poked very subtlely at Wyatt for awhile and then when Andrew went after HSUS, the host admonished Andrew. Pacelle knows what he is doing............

Every time Andrew tried to nail him, he calmly swatted it down and found an angle to shove it back in his face. While the answers would not wash with many people in this community, an audience of laymen would see Pacelle as a selfless, concerned and compassionate animal lover and Wyatt and the gal from Vegas as selfish people who value their right to possess another creature over the well-being of the creature. Period. Wayne always does this and only a very skilled debator taking part in a structured debate with rules would be able to turn him on his ear.

This is the problem with debating someone like Wayne. He's done this a million times. He danced circles around Wyatt.

Frankly, going on NPR and having a "discussion" with someone as slick as Wayne Pacelle is not going to ever end up good for this hobby. There are too many things we take for granted as members of this hobby that John Q. Public has no knowledge of. Pacelle knows where the pressure points are.

I noticed that on Wayne's blog he referred to it as a debate whereas in everything USARK has posted they said "this is a discussion"...

Like I said, he's a paid professional experianced liar.

To clarify, I'd like to see those types of questions asked him more often, not necasarily only in this instance. From all the notes I've seen, the host was already going to make it a HSUS = good type of debate to begin with. If she was going to not allow any sort of aspersions on ONE side, she shouldn't have set it up with anyone but HSUS to begin with...

But then, the media has been in HSUS/PETA's pocket a long time.

It was a shame so many people wanting to call in were screened out.. I was watching as people lined up ready to stand up for us were waiting and were rejected and rejected... :(

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Like I said, he's a paid professional experianced liar.

To clarify, I'd like to see those types of questions asked him more often, not necasarily only in this instance. From all the notes I've seen, the host was already going to make it a HSUS = good type of debate to begin with. If she was going to not allow any sort of aspersions on ONE side, she shouldn't have set it up with anyone but HSUS to begin with...

But then, the media has been in HSUS/PETA's pocket a long time.

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I didn't get that it was set up to favor one side or the other. I think people are saying that because Pacelle is so smooth at this sort of thing. When you are dealing with people new to this issue, or the general public as a whole, your points need to resonate and be easily digestible. Wayne knows how to make a sound bite. Once Wyatt has to get into all the little details, most lay people are going to tune out. So you get this discussion where Wayne makes a quick slick comment, Andrew hems and haws and answers and then Wayne quickly ripostes.

Again, it was more of a case of a person with experience in this type of format dancing circles around someone with less skill. People have commented elsewhere that if they hadn't of known better, Pacelle would have convinced them of his POV.

She gave Andrew opportunities to address comments Wayne made. The problem was that Wayne has been at this long enough to know how to quickly and effectively dance and bob out of the way.

I missed it because of my crazy schedule, but just logged on and left some points. I'm also keeping a running update on this topic in my blog.

The past two days I've heard back from a few Senators I've written about all this although it remains to be seen what they are going to do about it. That is still unknown. One said he'd give my thoughts to Fish and Wildlife, the other said she'll use my letter in committee (hopefully she'll use it to get the legislation rescinded and not for the opposite). I wish they would have told me if they agree or not so I'd know where they stand on the issue.