PETA Piper Picked A Peck Of Pesky Peabrains
By Carrington Vanston // 2004 May 05
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is a cult that was founded by Ingrid Newkirk, who is still their cult leader. There are about 750,000 members of PETA worldwide. Today's topic is "PETA are anti-human hipocrits." Discuss.
PETA's public tenants are that every puppy, kitten, doe and calf should live its life free from torture and abuse. I can get behind that. Everyone who's not a raving sadist can get behind that.
But PETA is not needed for that. For that, we need (and already have) the Federal Animal Welfare Act. All the horrific images and tales PETA spreads about animal cruelty--and let me be clear here, these things disturb and anger me as much as they would any rational person--are opposed legally and judicially by existing legislation. There are already legally empowered, publicly supported bodies in place to fight such activities, monitor animal treatment, promote animal care education, and uphold the law.
So why does PETA exist? Because it's not here to fight for animals. It's here to fight against humans.
PETA opposes fishing, dog shows, keeping goldfish, and it has even taken an official stance against honey. They also oppose the use of seeing eye dogs. That's nothing against the blind, however, because to PETA all humans are less important than dogs or chickens or bees.
PETA also vehemently (and, though the Animal Liberation Front, violently) opposes animal shelters. Why? Because shelters euthanize animals. But PETA's own headquarters takes in over two thousand stray animals per year, and then euthanizes almost two-thirds of them. Fucking hypocrites.
PETA also claims--and let me be clear here too, this also disturbs and angers me as much as it would any rational person--there is no ethical difference whatsoever between the killing of chickens and what holocaust victims went through. PETA even has a commercial which shows images of concentration camp victims on one side of the screen and chickens and cows on the other. Since PETA considers all animals as the equal of (or, more accurately, as better than) all humans, they claim to see no difference between killing a chicken or killing a Jew.
PETA also equates their goals with those of the woman's rights movement and the emancipation of slaves. Such trivialization deserves not debate, only scorn.
We infect animals with diseases that kill them, sometimes horribly, and doing so saves human lives. That's the trade. Good for us, crappy for them. Welcome to the food chain.
PETA uses something called the PETA Foundation, or the Foundation to Support Animal Protection, to funnel money to anti-human terrorist groups like the Animal Liberation Front. In fact, PETA and the ALF are as different as night and day...literally. During the day they use microphones and buckets of fake blood, and during the night some of those same people use ski masks and firebombs.
The ALF uses vandalism, property destruction, and arson against humans on the behalf of animals. PETA says they "neither condemn nor condone" terrorist acts, but that they "understand" them. Oh, and they also financially support them. But I suppose paying for the bombs doesn't mean you condone their use. Oh no.
PETA is also against using animals for medical experiments. It's easy to persuade the public to think of animal testing as a terrible thing involving needless cruelty to the cute and fuzzy bunnies to improve moisturizing creams. But let me put it in a bit of perspective.
ALL biomedical advances in the past fifty years have come as a direct or indirect result of animal experiments. Every single one of them. That includes the development of insulin, which keeps over 10 million type-A diabetics alive each year. It also includes vaccines for anthrax, chicken pox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza b, hepatitis a, hepatitis b, measles, mumps, polio, rabies, rubella, smallpox, tetanus, whooping cough, and yellow fever. It also includes medicines like anti-inflammatory drugs, anticoagulants, chemotherapy, cycllosporine, pain killers, penicillin, and streptomycin. It also includes artificial hearts and hips and knees. It also includes pacemakers, medical procedures like anesthesia and angioplasty, and the transplantation of hearts and kidneys and livers and corneas.
Over and over PETA spokespeople will claim (by "claim" I mean "lie") that no biomedical research performed on animals can result in cures and procedures for humans. They hope you don't know that wave upon wave of anthrax epidemics devastated us humans until testing on sheep resulted in a treatment. They hope you don't know that the reason we no longer read every year about thousands and thousands of infants and children with the defective bone growth called rickets is thanks to testing performed on dogs. They hope you don't know that testing on cats gave us anticoagulants, and that there are scores of other examples. In short, they hope you don't know much at all.
In 1952, nearly 58,000 cases of polio were reported in the U.S. alone. Why weren't there tens of thousands of diseased and paralyzed victims of Polio last year, including perhaps some of your family members or friends? Because studies on rabbits, rodents, and monkeys found a way to prevent it. Just like animal studies found ways to prevent the severe fetal defects caused by rubella (thanks, monkeys), and the fatal fever of diphtheria (thanks, horses).
Currently, studies on fruit flies have brought us close to discovering the genetic and environmental factors of breast cancer, a leading cause of death of woman. But of course, PETA has come out strongly and angrily against such testing on fruit flies. PETA claims fruit flies have the same rights as humans. I'd love to meet someone whose mom has breast cancer who wouldn't swat a fly, or ten thousand flies, to save her life. What kind of anti-human asshole would you have to be to make that choice?
To play fair, I'll admit I've been using euphemisms like "studies" and "testing" in place of perhaps more accurate terms like "killing." So let me put it this way: we intentionally infect animals with diseases that kill them, sometimes horribly, and doing so saves human lives. That's the trade. Good for us, crappy for them. Welcome to the food chain.
It may not seem like it at the moment, but I actually do love animals--some more than others, but all of them in general. I love them not only because they are delicious, but because I feel a kinship with them as fellow denizens of this planet. We share many genes with them. We share many traits and goals with them. We share more in common with any animal you could name than we do with any rock or chair or pencil or cloud. Animals are alive, like us. Animals feel pain, like us. They eat and fuck and try to stay alive, just like us.
But I'd kill every puppy in the world, or every kitten or every chimp or every koala bear, to save my mom or my friend or myself or you.
If you love animals and want to protect and promote their welfare, I encourage you to support animal care education through shelters and responsible agencies. I encourage you to boycott pet stores in favor of animal shelters if you wish to own a pet. And be sure to spay or neuter those pets once you get them.
If instead you want to support PETA, then fine. But don't be a hypocrite. For PETA it's not enough to not eat meat and not wear fur. Supporting PETA means not using insulin or owning a pet. It means not living in a home built from materials containing animal products (no bricks, cement, plaster, or insulation for you--enjoy the draft, Woodsy McWoodsman). It means building your own furniture, since anything you buy in any common furniture shop is going to employ animal based glue. You'll have to give up your VCR too, as magnetic tapes use animal based products. Oh, and you'll have to throw away your computer's hard drives and floppy disks for the same reason. Be sure to avoid antibiotics and painkillers, and if you head to a hospital be sure you make your stance clear: you insist upon no anesthesia, and none of those minimally invasive laprospopic surgical techniques for you. Oh no, you'd rather have a much higher chance of death and an extra couple months recovery time instead of that yucky low risk, back to work in a couple of days stuff.
Stand your ground, PETA supporters! Avoid all animal based products and procedures developed through animal testing. I really hope you do. That means you'll all be dead in a few years, and the rest of us can go out for burgers to celebrate.
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Carrington Vanston is a humorist and atheist. Or vice versa. He wrote and directed the long forthcoming feature film Duck Duck Goose. He has written two tiny plays which had two tiny productions: The Sound Of Two Hands Typing and Stark Raving Happy. He speaks three languages fluently, but two of them are English with a silly accent. The third is English with a slightly less silly accent. He can pronounce his full name backwards, he has a favorite mathematical equation, and he wants that $2 you owe him. Carrington should be stored in a cool, dry place, and may explode if heated.