I’ve been called a dirt worshiping treehugger by my students, friends, and relatives. I wear my Birkenstocks in the winter as well as the summer, and yes I put wool socks underneath them sometimes. My wife and I give money each year to select environmental non-profits that support the world in which we live. And in some years, copious amounts of money. I support the reduction of logging, the replanting of deforested rainforests, the organic movement. I still use paper in my printers, and I still get a sausage pizza when I feel the urge.
Here’s what I don’t do. I don’t shove my beliefs about the environment down peoples throats, I don’t trip blind people walking with a seeing eye dog, I don’t ram tuna boats with a north sea dredge ship, and sure as hell DON’T FUCKING KILL PEOPLE WHO WORK IN LABS OR FACTORIES WHERE ANIMAL TESTING IS TAKING PLACE.
Fuck you PETA and the vegan tofu fucking horse you rode in on!
Furthermore, supporting through back stage means organizations like ALF is FUCKING ABSURD!
I don’t think they’ve ever actually been charged with killing anyone. They have given money to very violent people who have tried to kill someone (the most sensational of which was possibly the $7,500 PETA gave to Fran Stephanie Trutt, who attempting to murder a medical lab executive). But still, that’s not the same… although I suppose a case could be made of (attempted) murder for hire.
I’m curious about the site you linked to (activistcash.com) which is connected to the “Center for Consumer Freedom”. CCF identifies itself as a coalition of restaurants, food companies and “individuals” opposing radical “food police” groups.
Oddly, neither activistcash.com or CCF in the “About Us” sections of their websites identifies any of the businesses or individuals who are members (CCF invites you instead to view the statements they file with the IRS).
I’m no fan of PETA but I’d like to know who’s doing the attacking here.
True - I was more than a little heated when I wrote it. I’m searching for a considerably more reputable cite, the one I provided was from the other thread in in IMHO.
You can check out the Kernal Corn incidents for more PETA ilk if you’d like. As for if they have specifically killed anyone…I’m search’in…
The esteemed OP appears to suffer from an unexamined premise, to wit: that PETA has fuck all to do with environmentalism. PETA is a limpet clinging to the environmental movement, it is parasitic by its very nature. Environmentalism is rationalistic…one planet, fuck it, game over…while PETA is moralistic.
I am sympathetic this far: needless cruelty to animals degrades us.
(If you remember the Anti-Vivisection League, the original little old ladies in tennis shoes, you are either highly educated or very old…)
Just to be absolutely clear: to date, as far as is known, no animal or environmental activist has actually killed a human being as a political act…not even PETA…right?
I agree PETA does have fuck all to do with environmentalism and you are right about it being non-rationalistic.
I know I should practice more restraint of toungue and pen, but damn it all, I get pissed at orgs like Peta who do shit all for their cause and have been known to hurt people whilst getting to their means.
I’m a vegetarian, and i have some sympathy for many animal rights causes. I’ve read Peter Singer’s classic work, Animal Liberation, and some of his other work on the ethics of animal treatment, and while i don’t agree with everything he says, i think that he argues his case well and offers perspectives that plenty of people don’t think about when they consider the place of animals on our planet.
As for PETA, i’ve always been rather ambivalent about them. On the one hand, i think that some of their tactics and campaigns are misguided at best, and abhorrent at worst. Even if one takes the position that animals and humans should have the same rights (i don’t, but i think it’s a defensible position), surely anyone with two brain cells should realize that you’re not likely to win many people to your cause by comparing chicken cages with holocaust camps.
I’ve also been a bit ambivalent about the way they promote some of their agenda. For example, in making arguments against fur, and against the levels of fat in a high-meat, high-dairy diet, they tend to adopt ad campaigns that use slim, scantily-clad women to make their point. This has led some folks to make the ironic observation: “PETA: Where only women are treated like meat.”
Despite all that, i think PETA does some good work, and i think that some people are so obsessively opposed to any notion of changing human attitudes towards animal use that they see all PETA campaigns as intrinsically loony and misguided. Some people will even dismiss, out of hand, any notion that humans have some sort of responsibility to treat animals, well, humanely. Especially when it comes to issues of experimentation. I’m not saying that there’s a single right answer, only that even bringing the topic up in some circles is sufficient to get some folks frothing at the mouth about “animal rights loonies.”
As for the organization linked in the OP, i thought this was a fairly good indicator of their position:
Oh my god!
Someone bought shares in a company with the intention of trying to change the company’s operating policies! String 'em up!
ALF and ELF have claimed responsibility for arsons in the past. I believe, firmly, that the only thing seperating an arsonist and from becmoing a murderer is luck. Fire is far too difficult to control for me to accept it as a non-violent method of protest.
Anyone using arson as a means of political protest is, at the very least, taking grave risks with the lives of bystanders. I believe that it’s a terrorist act, myself, but I accept that not everyone agrees with that interpretation.
That’s interesting, it never occurred to me that this was the case.
Nevertheless, I agree with you completely, Phlosphr. I find PETA to be a reprehensible group of self-absorbed nutjobs. Their extremism does nothing to make me sympathize with the animal rights cause. I’m a firm believer in the use of animals for medical research. I would hope this would be done in the most humane fashion possible, but I am well aware of the conditions and am not in a position to judge what compromises need to be made. As Penn an Teller noted, that diabetic PETA executive is a complete hypocrite.
Committed Environmentalist here and I too hate PETA with great passion. I love your rant even if it was a little over the top.
PETA gets used as an example by anti-greens to smear all Greens with one broad brush. I find PETA silly, deluded and embarrassing.
Everything from their “Drink Beer not Milk” campaign to their problems with Seeing Eye Dogs drive me crazy.
I wish these people would put their efforts and money into worthwhile groups like the Humane Society. They are always short on cash and help. Better yet, help fight Global Warming and save the Polar Bears along the way.
Yep, Mary Beth Sweetland, PETA vice president, uses insulin created through research done on dogs…“I don’t see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals” what a twat.
I have always been irritated with PETA. When I was in high school, back in Nebraska. PETA came to Omaha. They wanted to come into the elementary schools and “talk” to the kids about animal rights. At least the school district was wise on them and their tactics and told them no. PETA then informed the school district that they were going to protest outside of schools with their propaganda (and even made public that date and school). They picked a school in a blue collar area thinking that they would be able to hand out thier scary pictures, kid-focused literature and whatnot with out their parents there. They thought that since it was a low income blue collar neighborhood that there would be little parental interference. WRONG. Parents took the day off, walked their kids to shcool, grilled hamburgers and hotdogs outside the school. In your face PETA. That school, opting to break with school lunch necessities, removed veggies from the lunch menu that day, with parental blessings.
About the same time, I am thinking it was around Memorial day, PETA members were stalking people at grocery stores that were buying meat and harrassing them in and outside of the stores. They assaulted one woman in the parking lot of an Albertsons and she sustained injuries that required a few days hospital stay.
About 5 years ago, I went to an Earth Day Fair here in Las Vegas. The PETA people has a table set up. I was curious to see what new propaganda they had, I went over. One of the people talking to about how bad animals were treated, killed for leather, food etc… , was wearing LEATHER BIRKENSTOCKS. No, they weren’t the non-leather “veganstocks”. When I had an opportune moment I said “Nice leather shoes you got there.” The look was priceless, she shut up and turned red so fast, I just walked away laughing.
