Sep
04
Peta wants you to screw the principle
Me and my bad hair with Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA
Like most vegans, I was a vegetarian before I made the leap into veganism. At that time, one of my favorite animal rights group was PETA and I would plaster my social networking profiles with PETA promos. I have met Ms. Newkirk, and admire her ability to speak so passionately from the heart on animal welfare issues- even though our philosophies/beliefs are not the same.
Since making the evolution to veganism, I’ve since lost my devotion to the group due to their stance on animal welfare. See, PETA advocates for the more humane treatment of farmed animals and it’s this policy that I disagree with (among a host of others). It may seem strange to think that a vegan would be against advocating for the more humane treatment of farmed animals and, realistically speaking, I’m not. But more humane treatment means that the animal is still going to die. I advocate for no animal use – and it’s this unapologetic (consistent) stance that PETA’s President, Ingrid Newkirk, has an issue with. In a recent Times article she has this to say:
The goal for many activists is simply to get more people to eat less meat. “Absolute purists should be living in a cave,” says Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). “Anybody who witnesses the suffering of animals and has a glimmer of hope of reducing that suffering can’t take the position that it’s all or nothing. We have to be pragmatic. Screw the principle.”
Something that a lot of people fail to realize is that when you are talking about veganism, you are talking about life and death. If, as a vegan, you say to someone, “Please eat less meat,” then you are essentially saying that less is good enough. And that just isn’t true. Using less animals is still using animals. Eating dairy and not “red meat” is still consuming animals. Being a vegetarian that wears leather shoes or carries a stylish leather bag is still consuming animals. Doing those things less isn’t going to solve the problem. In fact, it will make the problem worse.
What? How can people consuming less animals make the problem worse you ask? Well, no matter how many times a week you consume a steak the cow still died. So even if you only have steak once a month, the animal was still slaughtered. The idea that consuming less provides people with “good feelings” that they are doing something to help solve the problem. So they will never really move beyond eating less animals.
Only with a consistent vegan message (and a United Vegan Movement – not Candy-Coated Veganism) will true change happen.
OETA has killed more dogs then micheal vick ever did yet blabber about compassion in their stupid ads and protests
PETA are a bunch of hypotcrits and total losers and should be disbanded they are screwballs especialy
Ms newkirk needs to have her head examened she is clean out of her mind if she belives this animal rights poppycock
PeTA’s campaigns against McDonalds and KFC ask these corporations to substitute “more humane” methods of killing. From their web site: “Since 2002, PETA has been urging major food retailers to switch from the standard form of poultry slaughter, electric immobilization, to a less cruel method called “controlled-atmosphere killing” (CAK).”
I have never been able to get this question answered: If McD and KFC actually used controlled-atmosphere killing, would Peta stop their campaigns against them and encourage people to patronize these companies because they complied?
Seems like a waste of time to me if they have been doing this for eight years with no results. Maybe that time would have been better spent encouraging people to go vegan and not to get involved with how an animal is killed. Dead is dead.
Everyone who watched ‘Meat the truth’ know this sad face of Peta.
I agree with you on peta. I dislike them for many reason, but then many omnivores think that peta is this extreme radical group.
In an ideal world I’d love it if I could tell people to killing animals and they would all listen, but that is not reality. If I’m talking to a person about veganism and they talk to me about just eating less eating healthier and I know they are not interested in going vegan I encourage the eating less. I feel I’m still pushing them in the right direction, giving them information and reasons on and for veganism and hopefully eventually they’ll give it up completely.
I think you catch more flies with agave syrup, so I don’t get in people’s faces anymore because then they group me in with the crazy vegans and they stop listening.
While I am all for a consistent vegan message as opposed to an “eat less meat” message, let’s be honest about this. To begin with, if consumer demand for meat declines, so will the number of animal slaughtered. But the bigger issue is this: How many of us went from being leather-wearing omnivores to vegans overnight? I know I didn’t. As my awareness evolved, so did my diet and lifestyle. I stopped wearing fur long before I gave up veal. And I stopped eating beef well before I stopped eating chicken, fish, dairy, eggs, and honey. Same goes for wearing leather, silk, and wool. Let’s give people the opportunity to evolve at their own pace, rather than not getting there at all.