“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.” – William Faulkner

“A sudden epiphany, carriage horses are just city horses.  They love their life and their city, just as much as any New Yorker loves NYC. I wish all of the energy, and political power that has gone into banning the carriage horses could be redirected to help horses that are truly in need.   There are over 160,000 that went to slaughter in Canada and Mexico in 2013.   One out every one thousand horses that come out of the starting gate at an American race track are fatally injured.  The wild horses are being rounded up and sold to slaughter.  Banning carriage horses in my opinion is unnecessary.”  – Janine Jacques, Equine Rescue Network.

__

Good people in our culture are increasingly confronted with a new and a chilling reality in our culture: truth does not seem to matter. Fact-checkers are the jesters of our political and civic culture, they almost literally piss in the wind. Truth cowers in shame as lies dance in the open and preen.

Argument matters, so does hatred and judgment. The very idea of ethical truth, invented by the Great Greek Philosophers, has been upended, stood on its head. We see it in politics every day, we see it in the animal world every day. Mark Twain said that a lie can travel halfway around the earth while the truth is putting on its shoes.

The animal rights movement, the social order that was supposed to fight for the rights of animals, seems to have been rotted away from the inside out, abandoning truth for cruelty, persecution and the never bending ideology of the fanatic. Lying is a form of insanity, people who lie can very often no longer help themselves. All we can do, as Faulkner urged, is raise our voices for honesty and truth and compassion and hope it is stronger than lies.

I believe it is, my life is centered on it. Facts matter. Truth matters. That is the true significance of the New York Carriage Horse controversy, it is about the horses, for sure, but it is about much more than that. It is about the freedom of all of us to live our lives in a just and truth world.

Last week, a volunteer for NY Class came up to a New York Carriage Driver and tried to spit on her, then ran away. This is where argument and debate has gone in our civic life. This is what happen when lies are louder than truth, and when truth sometimes struggles to breath. The carriage drivers, simple people who love to work with animals in the outdoors for the most part, have become the new Centurions of truth, whether they wish it or not.  If they perish, truth will weep and bleed.

When he comes to horses, Janine Jacques is the latest in a long line of truth tellers who have flocked to New York City to see the carriage horses for themselves, to see if they are well-cared for, attached to people, comfortable and safe in their work and on the streets of New York City.

Janine Jacques is the leader and founder of the Equine Rescue Network, much of her life is devoted to understanding, rescuing and evaluating horses. Recently, she stopped by unannounced at a New York Carriage Horse stable, just as I did more than two years ago. She was expecting to be treated with suspicion, even hostility, as I did, and was surprised to be welcome and taken all through the stables, as I was.

She knows much more about horses than I did, and knew what to look for – the medical charts, the hay and water, the posture of the animals, their coats and sheen, the way their eyes and tails moved, their bellies and hocks. She wrote an account of her findings here, and it is must reading for anyone who cares about the future of animals and of the horses, for anyone who cares about the weight of truth and it’s ability to resolve conflict.

Truth is important, it brings people together by resolving issues of disagreement. Without truth, there is eternal conflict, harassment, anger, even war. A score of respected veterinarians, horse lovers, trainers, behaviorists, writers have flocked to New York to seek out the truth about the horses. Every day, people stand before cameras in New York City and simply lie: the horses are abused, they say, underfed, overworked, poorly cared for.

Janine found out what all of us found out: the horses are healthy, they are safe as any horse can be, they are loved and well cared for, and happy to be able to fulfill their destiny and work among people.

Almost every rational being in the city knows by now that these claims against the carriage drivers are false, everyone but the mayor and the people who call themselves supporters of animal rights.

Jacques found that out for herself, as did I. These are the lucky horses, she fears for the carriage horses if they are banned and sent out into the horrific maelstrom that is the life of horses in American today. As a rescuer of horses, she knows full well what all the money and energy could have done for horses in America that are truly in need. You can read the details of her report here.

I hope you do get to read it. The truth can heal. It can make us free. It can heal and salve the awful wounds that divide us. If people all over the world spoke up for truth and compassion, it would change our troubled world. The carriage drivers speak for all of us.