Hey now, I’m surrounded by people who have been involved with animals more than 40 years and have yet to be like curlcoat!
I don’t like PETA because of some of its positions (I’m an omnivore veterinarian). They go… well, they go against what I do, sometimes.
And regarding HSUS… while I prefer people to help local humane societies, I can’t really be too mad at them, considering they helped my alma mater fund parts of their shelter program, from which I and many of my classmates benefited. In fact, the curly-haired veterinarian in the first picture… her position and her rotation was funded in part by a big grant from the HSUS.
You seem to suffer from the misapprehension that PETA is about the animals. PETA is a self aggrandizing hype group. The most extreme elements of PETA are all there are. Everyone else in the world offends them. Don’t swat that mosquito, you barbarian murderer!
What matters is not that animals might suffer less, what matters is that they (PETA membership) get to feel the warm glow of moral superiority.
There’s very little in my life worth working up a good case of hatred. Not good for my health.
While I appreciate all efforts to respect and care well for animals and recognize the connection between people who are abusive to animals and people who may also be abusive to people, I do think PETA takes it case to extremes.
Any acts of physical, psychological, or economic terrorism, regardless of the purported purpose, indicates to me yet one more part of the problem - people who form groups and attempt to force their will on others.
The photos of damaged animals which I’ve been subjected to by well-meaning types I consider pornography of the most digusting order.
As with most well-organized groups these days a great deal of misguidance seems to have crept in.
I don’t think you know where the irony in that is. I didn’t look thru that whole link because, you know, I’m not going to waste the time, but I didn’t seen anything about the HSUS giving anything to local shelters. I did see them posting what local shelters and rescue groups are doing themselves, which makes me think that the HSUS wants to take credit for that.
If there is anything there that you think proves your point, you are going to have to actually present it.
Earlier I’d talked about how I’d depended on HSUS resources for doing my job when I worked for a local, unaffiliated humane society. You seemed to think that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and thought you were educating me by telling me that “the HSUS has zero to do with your local shelters” (which is either incorrect, or is exactly the point behind my pointing out that my humane society was unaffiliated, depending on what you meant). I linked to some of their online resources. Rather than look through them, you just repeat your position.
Try this even more direct link to see some of the resources available. If you need, here’s an even more direct link to one very specific example of the kinds of resources I’m talking about: it’s an article on how to set up a room for prospective adopters to meet animals.
To forestall a specific goalpost move you might try: HSUS does not provide direct financial assistance to animal shelters, nor did I ever claim that they did. The resources they provide are mainly in terms of free expertise. Those resources are extremely valuable, and as I said, I used them all the time. Everyone I know who actually, y’know, works for an animal shelter really appreciates the resources HSUS makes available.
Yes it does. That you seem to think that I am going to ignore 42 years of living with this sort of thing and believe some, er, dork on the internet. And that I am going to waste any time on him. Yes, I am going to “just repeat my position” because, if for no other reason, I am certainly not going to believe anything you cite coming from the HSUS itself! If you go to PETA’s website, or any of their partners in crime, don’t you think you would see the same sort of thing you are seeing on the HSUS site?
Besides, I didn’t say that the HSUS might not have propaganda to send your shelter (which would have been silly since propaganda is a way of life for them and for PETA), I said they don’t have their own shelters and they don’t support any others, in the context of financial support. I’m sure that the HSUS would be quite happy to have your shelter run the way they want it to - all pets spayed and neutered, all breeders so heavily regulated that it is next to impossible to have a litter and all puppy mills outlawed. At that point, where will you get your next pet?
LHOD, if you can’t see that the goal of the HSUS is the complete eradication of puppies (and kittens, and probably unicorns too, the evil bastards), it’s because you’re just too brainwashed to see the light when gifted with curlcoat’s all-powerful perception.
Hey, has anyone ever seen curlcoat and Starving Artist in the same room?
So because continuing to test for no good reason makes me uncomfortable, I should either use no health and beauty products at all because of past animal suffering, or completely reject all animal welfare concerns and pick out stuff from companies who destroy rabbits’ eyes with highly concentrated chamicals to test whether getting a cosmetic in the eye hurts?
I’m not against animal testing if it’s done responsibly and for justifiable reasons. I work in medical research, though I’m involved on the human end of the testing process.
I simply personally try to avoid cosmetic/beauty products that are currently being tested on animals, as it’s just not something we need to continue with any longer, at least for many products. The majority of the chemicals we use in cosmetics have either been used/tested for a long time (petroleum jelly, beeswax, all kinds of common stuff) or have not undergone sufficient testing to establish safety and yet we put them on anyway!
I will not, however, let myself be ensnared by the perfect being the enemy of the good. Sure, animals suffered and died to show the effectiveness/safety of some random chemical in the lotion I put on last night, but that doesn’t mean I have to be all or nothing about this - reject every single beauty product or the “sins of our fathers” are on my head, or give it all up and become a foie gras and steak-devouring, fur-coat-wearing, radical on the other side of the spectrum.
My choices at the beauty counter have no effect on anyone around me, but hopefully they do keep a few more animals from harm. I do not preach to anyone about how I feel. (NB: I acknowledge that I’m posting here, but my involvement in these threads is pretty limited, and I do not preach in-person or otherwise off or online.) I don’t have “save da widdle animals!” posts on my (non-existent) Facebook page or hippie bumper stickers on my car. I came into this thread, on the second post no less, to express my disdain and contempt for PETA. I acknowledge the benefits that animal testing has brought and, unlike members of PETA, express a desire for responsible and necessary animal testing.
Good grief. How can you run with that goalpost on your back? Every cite you’ve given has led eventually back to a lobbying firm hired by the restaurant industry; you’ve got nothing other than innuendo and guilt-by-association nonsense of the highest six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon order, whereas I’ve shown the active support HSUS gives to animal shelters. Yes, HSUS does a lot more than support shelters; but every shelter worker I’ve known has appreciated HSUS’s expertise and guidance.
That’s not at all true - that cite is just the only one you bothered to look at. Or commented on anyway.
No, what you have shown is the HSUS saying that they are supporting shelters.
I was a shelter worker - I hate the HSUS, particularly since they don’t have any expertise at all, and their guidance only applies to whatever fits their agenda. Some of the cites I gave you included shelter workers who stated they had never had anything from the HSUS, and another was about how the HSUS didn’t follow thru on the promises they made regarding the Katrina animals. But all you can talk about is one site from restaurant people, who don’t like the HSUS because they keep interfering in the livestock industry, which is a legitimate gripe. However, I don’t care that you are one of the hundreds of thousands that are taken in by their slick propaganda, it just proves again that that masses are asses.
You’ve offered three cites in this thread. I just went back and checked. I commented on all three. You’re right, though, that only two of them go back to consumerfreedom.
Simply untrue. I linked to specific examples of the expertise they offer. Did YOU look at these cites? They’re not propaganda, they’re advice on increasing adoptions.
As near as I can tell, this is a lie. I only see three cites from you:
The only reason there’s any doubt is, again, that a particular lobbying firm is being well-paid to create confusion on the issue, through innuendo and deception. Anyone familiar with the facts knows that this is true, just as there’s a huge difference between the Sierra Club and Earth First!, or between Focus on the Family and Operation Rescue, or between Bill Gates and John Galt.
PETA are 100% against animal testing in all forms. The use of animal testing and animal products were essential to the understanding of insulin. Millions would have died without it in the US alone. The fact that someone so high up in PETA uses a product that had animal testing and products being so essential to its understanding and production is nothing more that an acceptance that animal testing and the use of animal products are valid scientific techniques that have a place in our pursuit of healthcare.
Either that or it is a massive piece of hypocrisy.
For the record, without animal testing and the use of animal products it is highly likely I would be dead, as I have been an insulin-dependent diabetic since 1993. When someone tells me that animal testing for scientific/medical purposes is wrong I simply ask them “are you saying you’d prefer it if I was dead?” Because in my mind that is exactly what those people are saying and watching them struggle for words to justify their stance is always very amusing.
