This is an continuation of this thread, which was rightly closed by the Mods since we were getting further and further away from a factual answer. Per the Mods suggestion, I’m willing to continue discussion in here for those interested. All speculation from both sides of the issue is appreciated; however, hard facts and/or cites, if you have them, are most welcome.
A starting topic: Why wouldn’t PeTA want to continue peacefully for their own good, and resist their wants to push their morals on the average meat-eating, milk-drinking citizen who “lives and lets live”? (referring to humans, of course.)
In the other thread, no one was able to provide any evidence that PeTA engages in any illegal or violent activities. Despite your above statement, speculation is not welcome here. Here we expect people to back up their accusations. We can have a debate about the validity of their position, but stop misrepresenting what they do and say.
I wasn’t misrepresenting what they say; I feel that I was, in fact, euphemising it with respect to the Milk Sucks campaign (which was cancelled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving expressed concern that it encouraged under-age drinking; bottle openers with the slogan “Milk Sucks” were passed out)and the recent campaign comparing the murder of women on a B.C. pig farm to the treatment of animals killed for food, to mention a few instances. As I said in the other thread on this topic, I feel that PeTA is not a bad organization in most respects, but why would they feel compelled to dictate how others must eat and live within legal bounds? There is a website where I get some of this information: http://www.petasucks.cc/ . Mind you, I would never stoop to say that PeTA “sucks”, but the information on the site offers convincing and interesting rebuttal to PeTA’s platform, as well as this site. http://www.angelfire.com/in/xinfernos/peta1.html
In the previous thread I saw no mention of the link between PETA and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Here’s some quick info with sites per Chula’s request:
http://www.sit-rep.com/forum.asp?file=167
It’s funding arsonists.
On April 20, 2001, PETA donated $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front to “support their [sic] program activities.” One need look no further than ELF’s Web site to see what those activities are: The page features a building engulfed inflames. According to James Jarboe, domestic-terrorism chief of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, ELF is “the largest and most active U.S.-based terrorist group” and has already caused more than $43 million in damage since 1996.
And while scouring PETA’s financials, Berman’s folks also found that:
It donated $70,200 to the defense of Rodney Coronado, an ALF member convicted of a fire-bombing at Michigan State University. He pleaded guilty to similar crimes at Oregon and Washington State universities.
In 1999, PETA gave $2,000 to David Wilson, an ALF activist who once bragged about the movement’s expansion into “wildlife actions.”
In 2000, PETA gave $5,000 to the “Josh Harper Support Committee.” Harper is an ALF member arrested on numerous occasions. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,63246,00.html
PETA’s sympathies for ELF actions were apparent in a recent speech by PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. “I think it would be great if all of the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow,” he said.
In my opinion, yes, PETA is too militant, but I’m unsure if I can say “for its own good”. It is possible that its donors support a more militant PETA, and by supporting ELF PETA increases its funding.
I work at a Children’s Research Hospital and we use animal models, which PETA is against. 50 years ago a child with Leukemia has an extremely high chance of dying. Today chances of survival of Acute Leukemia is something like 90%+, thanks animal models. And this is just one disease.
Joe K, “euphemizing” is not the word you were looking for. You accused them of not behaving peacefully, which you cannot back of with any facts.
Because they believe the laws ought to be changed. There are many laws that ought to be changed, and people are well within their rights to organize to try to achieve this.
I didn’t say they weren’t being peaceful, Chula. I didn’t say they were being peaceful, either. I just posed the question in my OP adding “peacefully” as an action of their own perogative. I can understand, however, how you might have misunderstood this.
I do believe, however, that PeTA should further their own cause less offensively and refrain from attacking law-abiding citizens who see differently than they. I base this statement on the cited sites (pun intended) given above. And, if PeTA activists themselves do not engage in violence, they certainly condone it by associating with ALF and ELF, as cited above.
Oh Lord, yes. Its a common problem, people of good sense and better intentions being overwhelmed by True Believers in thier midst.
The movement that became PETA derives from an academic awareness, especially common in the biological sciences, that some experimenters were being pointlessly cruel in experimentation upon animals, especially primates, especially chimpanzees. I found their point well grounded, and worthy of consideration as a moral issue. Some of the horrors visited upon bunny rabbits (yes! bunny rabbits!) in order to test cosmetics are heart breaking.
Cruelty is just plain wrong, the soul recoils in horror. Clealy, some animal experimentation is necessary, if no other course to an AIDS vaccine is feasible, I say go for it. But to inflict cruelty without regard for suffering is wrong. I have no texts for this, no cites, I state it as fact, dogma, if need be.
Its probably not very nice to raise animals in order to skin them, but thats pretty small potatoes (so to speak) in comparison to hunting whales for unneeded food. But assaulting and/or humiliating someone for thier poor taste in flaunting thier consumerism by wearing fur goes beyond the bounds, there is no urgency that impels such behavior
Elucidator is spot on. Probably the single most galvanizing event in the history of the animal rights movement was the publication of the book Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher. Two chapters in the book were particularly captivating: one detailed horrifying conditions in slaughterhouses, and one detailed horrifying experiments in the laboratory.
I encourage folks to find a copy of the book, if you’re interested in the motivations of AR activists. As a sample, here’s a Web page about egg-laying hens (I chose the site because it’s an organization explicitly founded on Singer’s principles).
A lot of AR folks I’ve talked to, and read about, define violence a little differently from how most folks do: AR folk consider violence to mean acts that cause pain or suffering to beings that can experience pain or suffering. Whereas most folks don’t talk about violence against, say, pigs as an evil in itself, AR folk don’t consider violence against a building as an evil in itself. They make a strong distinction between destroying property and hurting humans and animals, and consider the latter unacceptable whereas the former is only a problem inasmuch as it hurts humans and animals.
That said, PETA definitely exagerrates and misrepresents facts in order to make their point. A lot of AR literature makes the claim that medical science isn’t advanced by the use of animal models. IMO, such a claim is so obviously spurious that it only hurts their cause. I think an honest discussion would question whether the clear benefits of animal research allow us to cause harm to a great number of animals.
They are certainly not what they seem. They’ve gone way beyond simply wanting ethical treatment for animals. They want unreasonable rights given to animals. Even at the expense of people. They’ve very much become anti-people rather than pro-animal. Or, they’ve become pro-themselves more than pro-animal.
They would consider doing things like donating time or money to ASPCAs and animal shelters or finding homes for strays not only not useful, but totally wrong, because that’s just propogating an evil system. They want the system changed.
I guess then, that in their minds they aren’t too militant, because militant action is the only way to achive such radical changes. But they are too militant for their own good because the more action they take the more people will see them for what they are. An animal rights group that will use terrorist-like tactics if necessary.
I am a huge animal lover, but I find PETA selfish, self-righteous, and absolutely wrong.
Just a correction: the most militant animal-rights people in my community work closely with the animal shelter on finding homes for animals, on prosecuting abuse cases, and the like. They write articles for the local paper talking about the tragedy of pet overpopulation and about how it’s necessary for everyone to spay and neuter their companion animals. They also write diatribes about how meat-eaters can’t be environmentalists, about how eating a chicken is morally equivalent to eating a baby (I’m oversimplifying on that one, but that’s what it came down to), and so forth. I don’t know for certain that they’re PETA members, but one of them has an email address eerily similar to PETA’s web site address.
And at least one of our board members at the humane society was a huge PETA advocate, and certainly a PETA member.
I think you’re simply wrong on the item above: AR and AW folks have a lot of arguments, but they also occasionally recognize their common ground and can work together on it.
I can’t make a decision on PETA until I know whether (a) they expect to be taken seriously, and their campaigns are meant to be taken at face value, or (b) they know many of the things they undertake are ridiculous, but believe it to be necessary to garner publicity for more rational animal rights causes.
I’m leaning towards (b), because many of the things they’ve done have been absurd (demanding that Fishkill, NY change its name to “Fishsave”? ). I’d like to think that they have a sense of realistic change.
They certainly are to someone like myself. When I think of animal charities, I think more of groups like the SPCA. To me, animal abuse is a jerk who doesn’t know how to properly care for a pet (sometimes even to the point of intentional mistreatment). I’ve had pets all my life and wholeheartedly support a group that looks out for them. And heck, I’d even go as far as to say I oppose cosmetics testing on animals.
But that’s where I draw the line. I love eating meat, drinking milk, wearing my leather shoes, and I think the human race would be much worse off without the medical breakthroughs animal testing has produced.
One thing that bothers me about PeTA is that they don’t want to just be vegans themselves, but somehow force that lifestyle on the rest of us. They’re very reminiscent a of the anti-alcohol prohibitionists of a century ago.
On a more practical note, the relation of domestic farm animals to their human keepers goes back to the very earliest stage of civilization. I’m not sure what PeTA imagines would happen if we suddenly ended all meat and dairy production, but I doubt that domestic cattle are suited to a life in the wild, perhaps wandering over the Serengeti plain. They’re not wild animals, and probably wouldn’t have a very good chance living in the wild.
I do agree. Trying to imagine what would be my position if I believed what PETA’s folks believe, I think I would consider that strays and abandonned pets are really very minor issues as compared to the mass slaughter of pigs, cows, etc…And that being worried about these issues would be very hypocrital, since there’s no objective reason to feel concerned with the well-being of some pets and at the same time ignoring the genocide of sheeps.
What really galls me-I know I keep repeating it-was Ingrid Newkirk’s (PETA founder) comparison of the six million Jews perishing in the Holocaust with six billion broiler chickens dying every day. THAT to me, is a hideous thing to do.
And a lot of their causes are idiotic. Have your cat eat a vegetarian diet. Drink beer instead of milk. Got Prostate Cancer? I may not be a fan of Guilani, but I found THAT particular ad to be pretty disgusting.
Actually, Guinn, just a side note: I read of an experiment some time back about vegeatian diets and presumed “carnivores”. Turns out, dogs can do just fine on a soy based fake meat, but cats need a particular protien that can only be found in meat/fish/mice.
And drinking beer instead of milk, well, that idea has some merit. Assuming one doesn’t drink a whole lot of milk.
I remember an animal right activist who was called on this during a TV live show, after having mentionned he owned a cat. He stayed silent for a moment, and eventually stated he intended to train his cat to eat veggies instead of meat.
As for their cause being idiotic, as I wrote in another thread, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in the future they would succeed. More and more people are becoming vegetarians, are grossed out by the idea of actually killing an animal (even people who eat meat) and feel concerned about the well being of animal raised for food.
So, it’s very possible, IMO that at some point in the future killing animal for food will be considered as an utterly barbaric practice, and that our grand-grandchildrens will think to us with disdain, wondering how we could have felt justified to do something so obviously wrong. Especially since new technologies could allow for cheap and convenient alternatives to animal products.
The thing is PeTA has a perfectly valid point. All decent people are against abuse. They certainly have not done a good job of making their point.
I suppose what they do gets good press in the journals that matter to them and so that is good enough.
How in the heck do I explain AR to the folks in my village in Panama? It seems to me that going whole-hog (so to speak) with AR is simply a rich-people’s eccentritiy.