The carriage horse controversy in New York has sparked a new understanding of animals, and a new look at our notions of animal rights and animal survival.

What does it mean to be abused?

How can animal lovers support the work of domesticated and working animals, how can we support the idea that they belong in our everyday lives?

Animal rights is not just about removing animals from people, it asks for a new and wiser understanding of animals than as piteous and abused creatures.

It asks us to love the people who live and work with animals as well as the animals themselves, from carriage horse drivers to pony operators to farmers and dog and cat lovers.

Animal lovers are beginning to understand that if they wish to help animals, they need to better understand where their money is going. And precisely how it is being used. I now only contribute to local organizations who can demonstrate that they give their money to animals, not politicians, and are transparent about accounting for it.

I choose organizations like Blue Star Equiculture, a draft horse rescue and retirement farm. They do not lobby to elect politicians, but actually save and house animals. They are a perfect model for people wondering how to help animals in a humane and meaningful way. You can see the animals they are helping for yourselves and they don’t harass and persecute innocent farmers and hapless animal lovers.

In New York City, the great drama over the future of animals continues to be played out. If it looks like a duck, and quacks, they say, it is probably a duck. A platoon of agents and investigators are exploring the motives and boundaries between the mayor of New York, the animal rights groups who spent millions to elect him, and possible crimes of bribery and malfeasance.

The mayor betrayed not only the carriage horses – seeking to ban them without evidence or reason – but also the carriage drivers and horse owners. He seems to have forgotten that he took an oath to represent them too, not just millionaire real estate developers who give him and his private causes lots of money.

His scandal is also the scandal of the new lobbyists of the animal rights movement, drunk on the contributions of animal lovers who think they are saving animals, but in fact are increasingly lining the pockets of hungry and pliant politicians, and secretly manipulating the political process.

Are they, as a result,  ignoring the real needs, rights and welfare of the animals they say they are protecting? Are they misrepresenting their goals and expenses? Is the money going where well-meaning people think it is going? If the mayor’s actions might be illegal, what about the groups funneling so much money to him and others in the name of animals?

No right is worth anything to an animal that can no longer live in our everyday world, and is banished to slaughterhouses, private preserves and inevitably, extinction.

Animal rights organizations like the U.S. Humane Society, the A.S.P.C.A., NYClass, PETA, collect tens of millions of dollars from small donors – animal lovers – who believe their contributions are going to aid animals. It is becoming increasingly apparent that much of this money – the biggest percentage, in some cases – is going to salaries, administrators, lobbyists, marketers, and political campaigns. The animal rights movement has shifted, almost in sync, from animal welfare to political lobbying. That is real story behind the deepening scandal in New York City.

If the mayor’s sudden obsession with banning the carriage horses smelled funny from the beginning, what about the disposition of millions of dollars taken from people who think they are helping animals, but are not? The website of NYClass is marked by wrenching photos of stricken horses. But you will not find any accounts of where your money has gone or is going.

PETA took in more than $33 million in contributions in 2010 alone, but check out where most of the money has gone. Do the people donating money to PETA know that it kills more pets each year than any other single known entity or organization in America? Or that it spend thousands of dollars to try and pressure Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to use human rather than cow milk to make its ice cream?

It seems a logical extension of this scandal to question whether or not the epidemic mis-representation of funds from many animal rights organizations might touch on fraud. If the mayor’s campaign against the horses might be bribery – this has yet to be determined – then what is the use of millions of dollars to influence political campaigns and elections rather than save and rescue animals?

You can study the website of NYClass, the primary force behind the mayor’s carriage horse ban effort, for yourself. The site suggests donations will go to save carriage horses from abuse and protect animals in trouble (like abandoned chimps.) But there is no abuse of carriage horses, according to the police and every other agency who has investigated their care, and very few abandoned chimps.

Nowhere on the site does NYClass explain that their goals are essentially political, they mean to install their own city government committed to carrying out an agenda that no rational or experienced veterinarian, behaviorist, trainer or animal lover believes is appropriate or necessary. This in a city with staggering social problems. Suddenly, it makes sense why the mayor who took so much money from this group has made banning healthy and safe horses his mystifying “number one priority” since taking office.

You will also not find any evidence of a single animal in New York City that has been saved, rescued or re-habilitated by the money you might be thinking of sending.

The slogan of NYClass is “we love animals and we vote.” It ought to be “we are taking your money to re-shape the city government so it will do just what we tell it to do.” I wonder how many donors would have contributed to that?

The legal dictionary says a bribe is the giving of money: “to persuade someone to act in one’s favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement.” This is why city and federal investigators are finally exploring the ties between the carriage horse ban and his political donors.

What is fraud? “the wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.”

The investigation into the assault on the carriage trade has just begun. I am beginning to see – and hope –  that it may continue for some time, and go some distance. It already seems clear that the trail of money will go well past the mayor and his campaign.