PETA demonstrates the "bare" facts

[Pah]

Please delete if beyond bounds and please accept my apologies if so.

The following are captions to pictures. (not salacious but they are, tastefully, nudes) It seems the Chinese have a sense of humor

Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal group (PETA) posed a naked protest in front of Pielespana, the International Leather Fashion Exhibition, in central Barcelona, Spain January 22

Lisa Franzetta(center), a representative of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), painted herself
like a tiger to protest against animal rights abuses in South Korea, Jan 07, 2005

Animal-rights activists, representatives of PETA, Christina(L) and Lisa Franzetta, got naked and then held signs reading "Only Animals Should Wear Fur" on a South Korean street, Jan 07, 2005. They were detained by police 2 hours later

 

[lilithu]

It seems the Chinese have a sense of humor

Chinese?

PETA sucks. They used to be a good organization but got taken over by radicals. Now they do way more harm than good, humorous nude women not withstanding.

 

[Pah]

Chinese?

Reported in a Chinese newspaper

 

[SoulTYPE]

pah, where is the "beyond boundaries" part? Nothing wrong with that post, you are providing a source for your article.

 

[Circle_One]

They (PETA) do that (the naked thing) quite often. They hold a naked race once a year to protest the wearing of animal furs.

 

[huajiro]

You have to say one thing, these people are naked and it looks very cold....my hat goes off to them.

 

[Scuba Pete]

my hat goes off to them.

Only your hat???

Yeah, they don't look completely comfortable.

I could never do this as I am TOO self conscious about how I look.

However, MOST of them need to get out in the sun more!

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Only your hat???

LOL!!

I wanted to give you karma for that NetDoc, but I have to "spread it around" some more first.

 

[Valjean]

Lilithu -- What are these radical changes you mention?

 

[Scuba Pete]

Well,

I have had my board spammed by a few PETA members and one threatened to "close me down" if I didn't let them keep spamming. Of course, a few weirdos always make the rest look bad. Take TVOR for instance...

 

[Druidus]

Wow... PETA has been taken over by radicals. But, and I don't want to appear shallow, naked women are always ok in my book.

 

[Green Gaia]

PETA, good or bad? I don't know.... but they do bring a attention to the issues, and I think that's all they're worried about.

 

[Pah]

You have to say one thing, these people are naked and it looks very cold....my hat goes off to them.

Someone ought to superglue corn husks to them - I was gonna say tar and feather them but I suppose they don't eat meat.

 

[Valjean]

It's my impression PETA's agenda and methods have been pretty stable for a long time. I haven't noticed any major changes. PETA aknowledges that some of the stunts and slogans are rather odd or provocative, but maintains that initiating a discussion about a subject most people try hard not to notice sometimes calls for unusual publicity stunts.

 

[lilithu]

It's my impression PETA's agenda and methods have been pretty stable for a long time. I haven't noticed any major changes. PETA aknowledges that some of the stunts and slogans are rather odd or provocative, but maintains that initiating a discussion about a subject most people try hard not to notice sometimes calls for unusual publicity stunts.

I don't mind their publicity stunts, even when they dumped a dumptruck full of pig manure onto a busy intersection of Los Angeles in order to protest factory farming. I thought that was a clever way to get the point across. What I don't appreciate is their extreme agenda. The idea of animal rights as opposed to animal welfare means that animals have the same right to life and liberty as humans do. Therefore, it's not just that they're against eating meat or wearing furs. It's also no biomedical research, no zoos or aquariums, ultimately no pets.

From Ingrid Newkirk, PETA's founder, "There is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They're all mammals."

Also from Newkirk, "Even if animal research produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it."


And even if one agreed with these more extreme positions, which I do not, can one condone violence as a means of achieving their ends? There's plenty of evidence showing that PETA funnels money to ALF (animal liberation front), which is a terrorist organization regardless of how noble they think their cause is. PETA acts as public relations intermediary for ALF, and PETA money has been used to pay legal fees of ALF members when they get caught.

"Activist Roger Troen, who was eventually convicted of the break-in, is a member of ALF. PETA came to Troen's undeserved rescue, paying from its tax-exempt war chest his $27,000 of legal fees and $34,900 fine. PETA's connections with ALF are numerous -- its major grantees include longtime ALF ringleader and former Earth First! Journal Editor Rodney Coronado, who was sentenced in 1995 to 57 months in federal prison for the 1992 arson of a Michigan State University laboratory. Since his release, Coronado has openly admitted to at least six other arsons."

http://www.dailyemerald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/11/14/3fb4fbaf5066c


Plus, not only are they too extreme, their actions are irrational. They end hurting the ones they're trying to protect.

In 1999, PETA killed 1,325 cats and dogs that it supposedly "rescued" from the streets. That's almost 3.5 times more than they successfully placed in homes. And that's a kill rate far higher than some of the local shelters. You would think that PETA of all people would run no-kill shelters.

In 1998, ALF opened pens at a fur farm near Rochester, MN, freeing more than 2,500 minks. According to wire reports, many of the animals were either caught by neighbors or HIT by CARS.

I haven't looked into this subject for a while so I don't have more recent examples on hand. But since we both agree that PETA has been stable for a while, I assume that little has changed with them. They know how to pull off publicity stunts and get celebrity endorsements. But if one is truly interested in animal welfare, there are far better, more responsible organizations to be supporting.

 

[Scuba Pete]

They do have an "ends justify the means" complex. After my interactions with them, I would never support them. Ever. (Which is a really, really long time).

 

[Circle_One]

The idea of animal rights as opposed to animal welfare means that animals have the same right to life and liberty as humans do.

I don't see the radicality (I don't even know if that's a word ) in thinking animals deserve rights just as humans do, I believe that as well, does that make me a radical..well I suppose it does.

Therefore, it's not just that they're against eating meat or wearing furs. It's also no biomedical research, no zoos or aquariums, ultimately no pets.

Alot of zoos, aquariums, circuses, etc. treat their animals far worse than people know. Often mistreating them to the point of abuse, malnourishment, etc. And biomedical research on animals is NOT NEEDED. There are over 450 OTHER METHODS of medical research that can be used that are more cost-efficient, less time consuming, cruelty free and actually produce better results than animal testing. Consider the fact that less than 2% of diseases found in humans are found in animals, or even moreso, that results from tests in animals and humans agree only 5-25% of the time. Flipping a coin would be 50% effective, and therefore MORE accurate than animal tests.

When people think of animal testing, more often than not, they think of testing on rats, guinea pigs, mice, etc. but labs also test on monkeys, rabbits, cats and dogs, needlessly, especially considering the natural makeup of a lot of the animals they test on are basically nothing like our own and produce results in these animals that are not the same as results shown in humans. EX. Thalidamide. Thalidamide was tested on rats and dogs. In both cases, the animals showed no side effects whatsoever, but when put on the market...well, I'm sure we've all heard of the Thalidamide babies, which led to the recalling of the drug less than a year after it was put on the shelf. Hundreds of drugs are pulled of the shelves of pharmacies each year after they produced "unexpected" results in humans that were not shown in the lab. 88% of stillbirths are caused by drugs that have passed animal tests.

Another example of why animal testing is not accurate: Things that are poisonous to us, such as Arsenic, Hemlock and Deadly Nightshade are not poisonous to many lab animals whereas things safe to us, such as lemon juice are.

Aside from all of this, an estimated 25-50 billion animals are killed worldwide in labs each year, with something like 33 animals dying every second. One every four seconds in the U.K alone.

Sorry for the long post all, but I'm strongly against animal testing and when the topic is brought up, I tend to ramble like this.

 

[Valjean]

PETA is an organization. It has members, a mission, a code of ethics, a non-profit tax status.

ALF is not an organization. It has no membership. It consists of anyone who scrawls "ALF" at the scene of an action. PETA has no control over or affiliation with ALF.

If ALF does something PETA, UCS, PCRM or others agree with, these organizations will support them. This does not, however, constitute an alliance.

Confusing the actions of Stokely Carmichel (Sp?) or Malcolm X with those of Martin Luther King would be a mistake, though all were working toward similar goals.

Making broad generalizations about the Animal Rights movement might be similarly problematic.

Gandhi, King, and PETA reject the notion that the end justifies the means.

 

[lilithu]

PETA is an organization. It has members, a mission, a code of ethics, a non-profit tax status.

ALF is not an organization. It has no membership. It consists of anyone who scrawls "ALF" at the scene of an action. PETA has no control over or affiliation with ALF.

If ALF does something PETA, UCS, PCRM or others agree with, these organizations will support them. This does not, however, constitute an alliance.

Did you read the article I linked to? PETA funnels money - sent to them by people thinking that they are supporting PETA, not ALF - to ALF members. PETA money pays for ALF legal expenses when their members get put on trial for arson etc. You can argue that ALF is not an organization, fine. Most terrorist organizations do not constitute organizations in the conventional sense. But that doesn't negate the fact that PETA money goes to defend people who break into research labs, destroy years worth of research (which only means that they will start over again and use even more animals), "liberate" animals with no understanding that most of them cannot go back into the wild, destroy property, and burn down buildings.

 

[Valjean]

"Because a human life, by virtue of human consciousness, is more valuable than the life of a lower animal"

This pretty much sums it up. Humans are superior, might makes right, animals are "lower".

These same arguments could be seen everyday, c. 1860, in papers across the country. William Lloyd Garrison was a terrorist and rabble rouser.

I do not argue that animal experiments cannot benefit mankind, nor can I argue that Dr Joseph Mengele's experiments did not produce valuable data. I can argue that experimentation on black persons, rather than rats and guinea pigs, would produce much more relevant medical data, but I suspect you would draw a line here, and declare such an investigation immoral.

What qualities of "lower animals" withholds you from extending that line to equally sentient but more powerless beings?