I’d promote sustainable farming and eating humane, locally-grown and produced food, including meat and animal products. Even people who don’t give a toss about animals might think twice about ingesting high levels of antibiotics and hormones or little bits of illegal immigrants’ bodies that have gotten caught up in the meat grinder due to unsafe working conditions (a la fast Food Nation).
This. The problem is that PETA’s goals are so completely unrealistic, and, even if achieved, would almost certainly do more harm than good to the ecosystem and the species in question, that what people see when they look at PETA is a bunch of extremist wackos who they want nothing to do with.
As long as PETA thinks that we should basically abandon all animals to the wild, there is no hope for their cause. They need to be more realistic about what’s possible and responsible before they can help anyone.
I’m reading"The Omnivore’s Dilemma" right now, (highly recommended, btw) which, in one section, talks about a farm in VA that basically has re-created the whole food chain on it’s property, to the advantage of all the animals and plants living there. The land itself has greatly improved, and the animals are healthy and happy their whole lives, killed humanely and sold locally. This is what we need to be talking about when we talk about animal rights, not “abandon your shit-tzu to the wild and let the deer population do what it will” sort of crap. Looking crazy isn’t going to win many people to your cause.
PETA= People eating Tasty Animals.
They are a bunch of idiots-they seem to think that a cow means as much as a human. I do not want to cause animals unnecessary suffering, but I like a good stak. By PETA’s warped logic, we ought to be equally concerned with the "pain’ we human inflict on vegetables!
Consumer freedom is a loathsome scam of a lobbying group. “Adoptable” as applies to animals is irrelevant when you’re talking about an area like the southern US, where an animal shelter with a 30% adoption rate is doing an awesome job: there are way, way more dogs and cats being born than there are homes for them. And when that story about the euthanized animals came out, I predicted that the result would essentially be conviction on littering charges. People raked me over the coals for the prediction, calling me all sorts of repulsive names. Turns out I called the case exactly: the employees (a couple of losers) were found not guilty on all animal cruelty charges, as was completely predictable, but were found guilty of improper disposal of a carcass, or something like that.
I’m no PETA member. I think their organization is at least half a home for publicity whores, real life trolls, the people who revel in the fact that their tactics make them the most-discussed nonprofit on this messageboard (seriously, try searching the board for any other nonprofit, you won’t get nearly as many hits as you do for PETA). But my 6-year stint in an animal shelter opened my eyes to the other side of PETA: while the publicity whores are out being idiots, there’s a part of PETA that supplies material support to animal shelters, that investigates and documents cruelty, and that engages in behind-the-scenes negotiations with fast-food corporations to improve conditions for meat animals.
The publicity whores are obnoxious and I can’t stand them, but I’ll give props to the folks within PETA who are doing real work.
As for what I’d do if I were serious about their goals: I’d stop giving them attention.
Maybe PETA should practice what they preach. For an organization that abhors using animals for any purpose, the sure like to use them in their ads. The Simon Covell ad posted up thread is a good example. Though I’m sure they have some rationalization for why they are allowed to do it. Also, stop comparing animals in factory farming to the holocaust.
I’m sure a special forces team made of the best of the best from several different countries, a rainbow coalition if you will, would make a stop to that idea.
Did they or did they not kill the animals?
Are you talking about the case in eastern NC? If so, the facts were something like this:
- The PETA employees got animals from shelters in eastern NC that they considered to be horrible places.
- These shelters had no provisions for euthanasia.
- The shelters claim PETA said they’d adopt the animals out in shelters near DC.
- PETA claims that they said they’d euthanize or adopt the animals at their discretion.
- Astonishingly, truly astonishingly, there was no paper trail whatsoever. I can’t get over this one. The municipal shelters–the government employees–gave the animals in their care to PETA without having a single signed piece of paper.
- The losers employed by PETA decided that it was dumb to take animals from one overpopulated area to another overpopulated area, and they euthanized some portion of the animals (possibly all, I forget) in the van behind a grocery store.
- They used proper intravenal injections of Fatal Plus, the euthanasia method recommended by the AVMA, HSUS, and other professional organizations.
- They dumped the bodies in the grocery store dumpster.
- Some local dumbass charged them with animal cruelty in addition to improper disposal laws, apparently never having read NC’s animal cruelty statutes.
- The dumbasses were fired by PETA (I think), found not guilty of animal cruelty (of course), and found guilty of improper disposal.
- The scam artists at activistcash/consumerfreedom (same organization, different names) tried to parlay this into mass murder of animals by PETA hypocrites.
- PETA has been consistent in its support (you read that right) for euthanasia of unadoptable animals, as long as there’s a pet overpopulation problem in our country; they’re also strongly in favor of spay/neuter programs and spay/neuter ordinances.
Well, since they believe that humans and non-human animals should have the same rights, do they advocate forced sterilization of humans in places where there is an overpopulation of humans?
I don’t believe you’re entirely accurate on the first part of what you say. If you’re genuinely interested in finding out more about what they think but are having trouble navigating their website, I’ll do that grunt work for you; but if you’re just interested in attacking them and will treat me as their proxy if I do that grunt work, I’d just as soon not, since as I stated I’m not in agreement with them.
Yeah, the Center for Consumer Freedom is a pure propaganda site.
Please do, I would love to hear it:)
What do you think about animals hunting, chasing, and tracking down other animals to eat? Is this their nature? Is this because they feel a need to do this for survival? Why dont they walk around and find a pretty leaf to eat? Why can’t our species do the same as these animals? Some species are vegetarians by nature, makeup, and geographic locations, but others are meat eaters like ours by nature, makeup, and geographic location.
Please try and persuade me against this view on the way things work.
I’d make it into a research organization that worked on developing alternative ways to test drugs than through animal testing.
Yes to all of that.
The issue, as far as my previous post was concerned, was not even about whether or not humans should eat meat. The issue was precisely with your terminology, your insistence that animals “were put on this earth for us to use.”
Animals were not “put” here for any reason at all, and certainly not for us to “use.” They evolved, along with human beings, and exist as part of the earth’s ecosystem. Some humans eat animals, some don’t. Some animals eat other animals, and some don’t. But there’s no purpose to all of this except continued existence; there’s no teleology, no ultimate reason for animals to exist. They were not “put” here by some sentient being as tools for human use. They simply are.
I’d think a good first start for the new PETA would be to forswear all animal products, including medical ones. For starters, Mary Beth Sweetland could stop using insulin and the members could refuse tetanus shots and live vaccines that use horses or eggs as cultures, no antivenin shots, etc. No pig-valve heart implants either. Obviously, no leather or wool clothing, no down-filled jackets, or the like.
Are the PETA people all vegans? Somehow I doubt it. If they actually required their members to be serious vegans I think it would go a long way toward adding to their credibility. Of course, it would also drop their numbers (and funding!) significantly.
The other thing they could do is to reallyrenounce their links with the ALF types that burn labs, harass researchers and the like. I’ve seen at least one episode of Penn & Teller where they busted PETA for funding some anarchist type that was burning labs whenever he got the chance. PETA disclaims all responsibility for the terror tactics used by some animal groups, but never quite gets around to the unequivocal condemnation that such actions deserve.
I guess it would boil down to PETA starting to practice what they preach.
There are a lot of animal groups, like SPCA and the like, that I respect and support. PETA comes across to me as nothing more than a bunch of hysterics and trust-fund babies with nothing better to do.
Regards
Testy
There will never be viable alternatives to juggling seals. NEVER, I say! :shakes fist:
I’d prefer them to preach a little less, but this is a strong point. It’s possible to hold an animal-rights position and to make allowances for the use of insulin etc.: you can distinguish between pleasurable uses of animals (eating meat) and lifesaving uses of animals (taking insulin). If PETA isn’t going to make their distinction for other people, it’s obnoxious to make it for themselves: it smacks of vanguardism.
Certainly that’s a lot of what they do, but I’d argue they are more than that. Obnoxious as their methods are, I don’t know of any other organization that has been effective at convincing fast-food chains to make specific improvements to how their meat animals are raised, for example. The fact that they have these successes tells me that some folks in PETA are somewhat savvy.
Ridiculous! Penguin juggling is close to gaining recognition as an Olympic sport, and domestically, otter juggling is on the rise. And don’t get me started on beavers, or we’ll be here all day.
What? PETA’s policy of convincing attractive women to pose naked is one of the only ideas of theirs I support. I wish it would just catch on with other advocacy groups.
“Hello, Eliza Dushku here for the National Rifle Association. Like many people I enjoy hunting deer in a responsible manner. So I’m out here in the woods wearing nothing but this garter belt and fishnet stockings to demonstrate these important safety rules.”
I love how they somehow know that every dog and cat’s “strongest desire is to be free”.
I don’t think that’s my Luna’s strongest desire. I think she’s lazy and would rather not have to do hard physical work for her food.
For that matter, any time the cats want to switch roles with me they can. I’d be happy to stay home and sleep and play all day while they go out and work, if they’d rather do that.
You really need to be watching Dollhouse.
I’m not convinced that PETA is doing anything other than what they’re supposed to be doing. ISTM that the organization’s real purpose is to get ink, and they get tons of ink. How often do you have the conversation about how stupid they are with your coworkers? Every week, probably. And yet, in that conversation, someone inevitably says “These guys are nuts, but y’know, I don’t think we should really test cosmetics on animals…” They’re pushing one end of the spectrum of the animal-rights debate way, way, way out – making the “rational center” much further as well.
–Cliffy