Do you own a bar, a brothel, or a stack of heroin bricks?

 Reply

And I know lots of people get pissed because they at times go after kids. Lawdy lawd not the chillum! Waaahh they show your kids ugly pictures of inside out pigs and you get all mad. Well you know what? Maybe if kids knew where their food came from they wouldn't be so shocked. I remember when I was a kid we had an obligatory trip to the farm. The pig oinked at me with sad eyes and I became a vegetarian from that day on.

 Reply

[www.consumerfreedom.com]

(or just go read the New Yorker profile of Newkirk from a few years back)

These people are completely crazy yet have used the media to legitimize themselves. Imagine if the AP and Reuters called up the Socialist Workers of America for a quote everytime they ran a story on the economy?

 Reply

This is a philosophy that truly hates humanity. And Newkirk herself doesn't even try to hide that fact. She's proud of it!

 Reply

But in any case I never said they were perfect, but like Banjo Kitten said at least there's a dialogue now. Before there wasn't really anything, now there's really only one loud, screeching voice, which is sad. But it's better then nothing.

The fact is that whether or not Newkirk is crazy or the organization is crazy, people like yourselves would paint them as such because they dare to question man's authority over animals, in the same way people like yourself would shittalk socialists because they dare reject capitalism. They're painted as weird so they run with it and guess what? It works for them.

So just keep being outraged, because really it's helping.

 Reply

Factory Farming is terribly unhealthy for humans. E Coli is no joke. It was the animal crazies who started talking about it.

Again, I don't agree with all of their positions--they go to the edge so that perhaps we find a middle.

 Reply

Working Dogs

...Optimally, humans should be relied upon for support of the disabled rather than working dogs and other animals-it is too common for animals to be exploited and abused.

And whether or not Newkirk/PETA is crazy IS the point. Their beliefs are at the radical fringe, yet the media are complicit in turning them into a respectable voice on any animal issue. Should the AP go interview a bunch of UFO watchers every time they do a story on Nasa's Mars rover? Hell no!

And why do you assume I must be some right wing conservative capitalist because I think PETA is full of shit? Just because this group is trying to upend the status quo doesn't mean every liberal has to fall for it.

 Reply

Furthermore the media is not portraying them as a rational voice. They parade them out as the token "crazy" animal activist so people like yourself can go "rabble rabble rabble" and give them ratings. Just like how you see media coverage of a protest and they show footage of the Black Bloc minority, or when they cover a story in the hood and get the most ghetto person they could find to interview.

Also I didn't assume that you were a right-wing conservative anything. You wrote in a tone that suggested the Socialist Workers of America were this crazy organization and then later on you substituted the SWA w/ UFO watchers as if they were synonymous. Hence my assumption about your stance on capitalism.

And I know there are worse things out there, but I don't understand this argument about how every group has to fight every cause.

I removed myself from the animal rights group on my campus in college after a semester because whenever I would try to bring up the detrimental effects of the "we are the masters of animals" mentality on people of color, I would be met with blank stares. I realized then that reason never wins in a shouting match. Trust me- I am no blind supporter of PETA, but it was after I left those meetings that I started to view PETA with some respect. Like it or not, many of PETA's supporters suck. Many do not care about the suffering of people. But that doesn't mean their fighting of these causes doesn't benefit those same people they couldn't give a shit about. If arguing "this chicken is like your precious chihuahua" works at making vapid people take up some sort of cause, so be it. At least PETA inspires the "take your dog to the salon" demographic to do something because in all likelihood, their money (if it didn't go to PETA) would be more likely spent on a new (leather-free!) handbag then resolving world hunger because that's far removed from their lives. Their precious pets are not.

@terlett_trash: Yes I know you're not advocating factory farming but you still have to be careful since food with labels "free range" are not actually subject to government regulations to prove they are so, or so says a family friend who used to head Jersey's organic certification team.

Those dubious statistics come from the most dubious of organizations- the UN!

[www.fao.org]

[ag.ca.gov]

 Reply

Ther's a certain segment of society that is absolutely obsessed with shit like dog spas and Barbaro, yet couldn't give a crap about actual human suffering. Fuck these people.

 Reply

I don't know if that WAS a reference to "Johnny Dangerously," but I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity if it was. Carry on.

 Reply