PETA have always said and done things that get more attention for themselves rather than the animals they claim to support, however, the recent comments from the head of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk that Vegans “should be living in cave” show just how out of touch with mainstream animal rights PETA have become.
This is not just speaking a case of speaking out against a successful animal welfare organisation. My disagreement with PETA, is for several reasons: they don’t think being vegan is necessary to being an animal rights activist, they give awards to slaughterhouse designers, they take in shelter animals and then kill them, they chase celebrities rather than save animals, and think naked women (or “chicks” in PETA parlance) are powerful, this is all subsidised by tax payers and diverts money from no-kill shelters.
I will talk about these things, because I think it is important for people to know where their money goes when they donate to a charity or buy their merchandise. PETA might call themselves “People for Ethical Treatment of Animals” but they are nothing more than a welfare group.
While PETA-bashing is not new, there comes a time, when you say enough is enough. And this is why:
Firstly, they don’t think being vegan is important to them. I’m sorry, did I miss something? How can any organisation that claims to fight for animals, or at least give that impression, not support veganism. If you aren’t vegan, you don’t care about animals.
The goal for many {animal} activists is simply to get more people
to eat less meat. “Absolute purists should be living in a cave,” says Ingrid Newkirk,
president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
“Anybody who witnesses the suffering of animals and has a glimmer of hope
of reducing that suffering can’t take the position that it’s all or nothing.
We have to be pragmatic. Screw the principle.”
Weekday Vegetarians: TIME magazine
There are no hyphenated-vegans. There is no such thing as Ingrid thinks, as a purist-vegan. You are either a vegan OR you don’t care about animals. There is no such thing as a little bit of cruelty being acceptable, a little bit of rape being acceptable, a little bit of slaughter is acceptable.
It IS all or nothing. If you are Not a Vegan, you have given up your rights to speak on behalf of those whose body you consume, wear, or any other way use.
As this video shows…
Ingrid is concerned about “misery” and “suffering” and “pain” or “anything like that” or “humane euthanasia” when her employees killed 31 animals.
Doesn’t that sound just like the how welfarists describe animals used for food, as long as they don’t suffer when you kill them, it is ok to kill and eat them.
This is not ethical.
PETA’s own website PETA Media Center
Approximately 6 to 8 million animals are handled by animal shelters in the United States each year. Even though some are reclaimed or adopted, nearly 4 million unwanted dogs and cats are left with nowhere to go. Shelters cannot humanely house and support all these animals until their natural deaths—they would be forced to live in cramped cages or kennels for years, lonely and stressed, and other animals would have to be turned away because there would not be room for them.
Turning unwanted animals loose to roam the streets is not a humane option. If they don’t starve, freeze, get hit by a car, or die of disease, they may be tormented and possibly killed by cruel juveniles or picked up by dealers who obtain animals to sell to laboratories.
Good and Bad Solutions
Because of the high number of unwanted companion animals and the lack of good homes, sometimes the most humane thing that a shelter worker can do is give an animal a peaceful release from a world in which dogs and cats are often considered “surplus” and unwanted. PETA, The American Veterinary Medical Association, and The Humane Society of the United States concur that an intravenous injection of sodium pentobarbital administered by a trained professional is the kindest, most compassionate method of euthanizing animals. The American Humane Association considers this to be the only acceptable method of euthanasia for cats and dogs in animal shelters.
LIES. or Creative truth telling?
Many good shelters, struggle to get by on extremely limited funds, that do not kill animals brought in to them. But, housing animals in good conditions costs more money than PETA want to spend on animals, that they could be spending on celebrities instead.
PETA also gives awards to slaughter-house designers.
In 2004 PETA awarded Temple Grandin with a Proggy (progress) Award, as a Visionary. This is part of the reason they gave for awarding a slaughterhouse designer a PETA award:
Dr. Grandin consults with the livestock industry and the American Meat Institute on the design of slaughterhouses! However, Dr. Grandin’s improvements to animal-handling systems found in slaughterhouses have decreased the amount of fear and pain that animals experience in their final hours, and she is widely considered the world’s leading expert on the welfare of cattle and pigs.
Ingrid Newkirk describe this as “I admire her work in the field of humane animal slaughter.”
When you design a more efficient slaughterhouse, the result is animals are slaughtered more efficiently, which means more animals are killed. This does not sound “visionary” to anyone who believes in Animal Liberation.
But then, PETA do take in shelter animals… and kill them, so it is easy to understand how they could be confused between “slaughtering” and “saving”.
As this website PETA Kills Animals
makes clear: Exclusive: PETA’s Pet Killing Program Set a New Record in 2009
During all of 2009, PETA found adoptive homes for just eight pets. Just eight animals — out of the 2,366 it took in. PETA just broke its own record.
The PETA Kill Animals website also features PETA’s kill statistics from 1998 to 2009, and that figure works out to 299/300 animals are killed by PETA.
While no-kill shelters manage to get by on a fraction of the money PETA get, they do, and they do it without killing 299/300 animals brought in by people who think they are doing the right thing.
Although, as PETA themselves do point out, it is expensive providing a basic standard of care for “surplus” (their word) animals, money that could be better spend chasing celebrities.
As Vegina (the well-respected animal rights activist, Ms Glasser) points out in her blog post
playing to the paparazzi , concerning a circus protest,
A celebrity appearance was arranged for the protest. Activists were not told who was coming but it was requested we not do any chanting until she arrived because she was “sensitive to that sort of thing.”
PETA’s use of celebrities is getting in the way of real activists, doing real work.
UK model, Naomi Campbell appearing in this PETA ad, under the banner, “We’d rather go naked than wear fur”, only to turn up on the catwalk a couple of years later, for Dolce & Gabbana wearing a fur coat… Oops.
DITA Von Teese, burlesque dancer and PETA model, loves her fur, and refuses to give them up, despite her work with PETA:
Dita, who wore fox fur when she performed at the Macy’s Passport AIDS benefit last week, told People magazine: “PETA is totally aware of me wearing fur. I’m not working with PETA to tell people to be vegetarians or to stop wearing fur. I am there to strictly speak about spaying and neutering your pets.”
Von Teese won’t give up fur despite working with PETA
Jenna Jameson, PETA model for pleather, yet, kills fish, people see the behaviour of celebrities and it weakens PETAs message, unless their message is “do what we say, and not what we do”.
But then, chasing celebrities is what you do best.
PETA’s 30th Anniversary – Gala and Humanitarian Awards:
PETA’s star-studded, once-in-a-lifetime event will celebrate 30 years of cutting-edge campaigns that have brought about monumental change for animals and are leading to even more progress. This memorable night will feature a celebrity awards presentation, wonderful musical performances and other top-notch entertainment, delectable vegan food, unique silent auction items, and more in a historic and famous Hollywood setting.
Will Temple Grandin be in the running again, has she designed any other ways of efficiently slaughtering animals, that PETA feels she should be award for?
These celebrity fueled events have been described as “Each year it holds a celebrity gala … which is attended by thousands and makes for great PR.” – oh wait, sorry, oh, sorry, that was a description of Scientology.
A website set up, to discredit PETA, I am currently researching who is behind this (another major anti-PETA campaign is funded by CCF, Centre for Consumer Freedom, an organisation that represents the meat and dairy industries), has a PETA vice president quoted on the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”
Where have I heard that “targetting children” phrase before?… oh yes, the Tobacco Industry, in this court ruling, (TOBACCO INDUSTRY: UNLAWFUL, DECEPTIVE AND LETHAL: 2006: US District Court Judge Gladys Kessler’s damning judgment against the tobacco industry), the judge found that, yes, Big Tobacco does target children.
Get them young, and you have a convert for life?
How much of peoples hard-earned dollars are being wasted on this garbage of celebrity worship? Money that people donate a few dollars at time, thinking they are making a difference in the life-or-death of an animal? Would they be disappointed to find out money they slave hard for doing their 60hours a week gets diverted to throwing parties for the rich and famous.
PETA rakes in the money through donations, but do they spend any of it on animals, any, at all? But why spend money saving animals, when PETA could be out there making soft porn to sell vegetarianism?
Vegetarians? Did I miss something? Dairy, eggs, honey, are all vegetarian food products which inflict intolerable cruelty on the cows, chickens and bees involved.
I think you meant GO VEGAN, didn’t you?
PETA quote often uses naked women to promote vegetarianism. These ads and promotions are so ubiquitous, that I will not repeat any more of them here. They use naked women to promote tofu, circuses, fur coats, and many more causes. There isn’t an issue that PETA doesn’t promote using naked women.
But then, PETA’s agenda is never about VEGANISM, as Ingrid Newkirk herself has allegedly said (quoted on the website TMZ)
PETA big cheese Ingrid Newkirk tells TMZ she’s got no beef with steakhouses — she’s been to the STK in New York herself.
STK, a steakhouse restaurant in New York, features foie gras on the menu, menu as of today.
Although, what is more likely, they are promoting PETA, rather than anything to do with animals.
How about some more naked women to promote VEGANISM, and actually make a difference on behalf of animals?
If being naked was a sign of empowerment, why doesn’t President Obama turn up to the oval office in his underwear, and on the topic of empowerment – Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Senator Hillary Clinton, former Governor Sarah Palin and Oprah, these are powerful women, and I notice they often wear clothes.
Comparing womens’ bodies to meat, does more to objectify women, or commodify women than it does to convince anyone to give up meat. It seems like all it would do is convince patriarchal meat-eaters to objectify women even more.
And yet, as a registered charity, what PETA does is tax-deductible. What they do is being subsidised by the tax payers, every publicity stunt, every naked woman, every dead dog, it seems from my perspective, that it is all about how much money PETA can make. And if I am wrong, I will be prepared to stand corrected.
While large groups, such as PETA, ASPCA, HSUS, allegedly kill almost 10 million animals a year, smaller groups do much better with a lot less money, but they don’t get the media.
What can someone say other than to quote Penn & Teller… Bullshit PETA
Attacking PETA though, feels a little strange, I mean, how often do Animal Rights Activists say we need to stop the infighting. On the other hand, I can’t just support someone because they say they are for animals, when clearly they are not. And, they do have some useful resources and by that I mean ‘free’, which does help some people, but there comes a point when they are not just merely getting in the way of real vegans and AR people, but they are doing more damage than good.
And no one should have to unquestioningly support a pseudo-Animal Rights group, just because they say they are for animals.
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Written by RedGlitter of VALA https://redglitterx.wordpress.com/
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