Category Archive: Livestock

  1. PETA Putting Vegan Theater before Homeless Pets

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    PKA syringe picPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) runs an animal shelter out of its Virginia headquarters, but the poor dogs and cats that end up there probably would rather go just about anywhere else. According to records on file with the Commonwealth of Virginia, nearly 90 percent of the pets unfortunate enough to end up there never breathe free air again, courtesy of PETA killing them.

    So if PETA isn’t investing in finding adoptive homes for the unfortunate abandoned pets of its hometown, what is it doing? What it has always done: Vegan propaganda stunts for the goal of “total animal liberation,” the philosophy that (as PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk put it) “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” Over the past week or so, PETA has played its typical sexualization games in Pittsburgh, used Breast Cancer Awareness Month as an excuse to scaremonger against meat and dairy consumption, and seen a complaint by an allegedly less-than-credible source against a hog farm rejected by authorities as baseless.

    A Pittsburgh suburb finds itself in PETA’s crosshairs over a series of road bollards (pillars) that look like male genitalia. PETA, never failing to capitalize on an opportunity for free, sexualized press to pimp its radical ideology, proposed putting advertisements on the bollards that proclaim veganism the solution for male bedroom performance. We’d suggest that the numerous descendants of omnivores —at least occasional eaters of animal products make up roughly 99% of the U.S. population — prove PETA’s penile press stunt puerile.

    Not content to take just one bit of medical information out of context, PETA used its most recent McClatchy-Tribune column to claim that women can beat breast cancer by going vegan. There isn’t much evidence to back that claim up, and if PETA really does care about breast cancer treatment, it would be a shift. PETA has taken bold stands on behalf of lab rats used in medical research, including research on potential treatments and cures for breast cancer, and has even encouraged people to not support medical charities that might find cures using animal research.

    And PETA saw its hopes of shuttering an Iowa pig farm essentially dashed by local humane investigators who found none of the allegations supported. A group truly interested in animal welfare rather than press stunts for animal liberation might have been more skeptical of the source of the allegations: The Quad City Times reported that the source was a former employee who had been denied unemployment insurance upon firing because an administrative law judge found he had been involved in “incidents involving alcohol, failing to perform work duties, mistreating a mentally disabled co-worker and harassing a Hispanic co-worker.”

  2. Pet Killers Can’t Even Name Their Own Meatless Kind Correctly

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    PKA syringe picPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) — last seen killing nearly 90 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year — likes to trot out celebrities who have supposedly given up meat, dairy, and eggs and “gone veg” to make the inaccurate claim that all the “cool kids” are PETA types. But one of PETA’s latest attempts to prove the impossible has put soy-egg substitute on the notorious organization’s face: PETA named Dax Shepard its “Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity,” but he’s a meat-eater.

    Like one-time vegan NFL footballer Arian Foster, he confessed to eating poultry. We’d like to welcome Shepard back into the 98 percent of us who aren’t vegan, though ultimately what he eats is his business, not ours or PETA’s.

    Mischaracterizing Shepard’s dinner menu  isn’t PETA’s worst error — that dishonor must go to either PETA’s aforementioned pet shelter of horrors, its giving a sizable grant to an arsonist, or the group’s shameless propagandizing of children — but it does suggest an interesting question: With all the chattering classes’ talk of people “going veg,” do people actually stick to a vegan or vegetarian diet?

    We recently tasked Opinion Research Corporation (CNN’s pollster) to find out. The company surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,000 Americans to determine how many tried and failed to follow the PETA diet. Only six percent bothered to try veganism. An additional 18 percent gave up meat while holding onto dairy and eggs.

    So, are these folks all still faithful to the PETA ethic? The sizable majority isn’t. Our findings discovered that 82 percent of those who tried to give up meat (both vegetarians and vegans) eventually gave in to its flavorful temptations. Perhaps bacon, the “gateway meat,” played a role.

    Indeed, a majority of trialists didn’t make it a year, with 36 percent caving within one month. Of our sample, only 3½ percent were still vegetarian or vegan. (This is in line with polling conducted by vegetarianism advocacy groups, which has shown vegetarians to comprise less than 5 percent of the U.S. population.)

    Ultimately, puff pieces purporting to prove that pork, poultry, and porterhouse are leaving the American table lack support. While PETA, its animal liberationist comrades at Humane Society of the United States, and foodies like the New York Times’ Mark Bittman proclaim the vegan hour is nigh, in reality their message isn’t breaking through.

  3. Are We All Vegans Now?

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    Fried FoodClaiming that vegetarianism is just about to break through, this time is a classic animal liberationist tactic to peer-pressure omnivores into giving up their milk, bacon, and eggs. We covered a story last week that said all the cool pre-tweens were going veggie—a report that was full of more holes than Swiss cheese. Now the Voice of America claims that the nation’s meat tooth is dying and all the cool newspapermen are “going veg.” (Should they fall off the wagon like Ozzy Osbourne or treat themselves to the occasional meaty snack like NFLer Arian Foster, there doesn’t seem to be the same media swarm as an “I’m vegan now!” declaration.)

    But the animal liberationists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shouldn’t put down the puppy-killing needles to celebrate the “vegan nation” yet. Economic stresses, namely the ongoing long stagnation and the drought that killed much of the nation’s feed-stock, are responsible for much of the decline in meat consumption. If those pressures lift, expect Americans to resume normal, meaty dinner service.

    It’s clear that even if we’re eating a little less meat, Americans aren’t falling in line with Humane Society of the United States Food Policy Director and ex-PETA flack Matt Prescott’s repulsive view farmers are running concentration camps. Meat is more expensive and consumers have less money, so they’re scrimping and saving. At the same time, cheese consumption is nearing record highs. Certainly, if people want to be vegetarian it’s their free choice, but it doesn’t look like the PETA/HSUS lifestyle is calling the masses to the vegan sliver of society.

  4. PETA’s Death Toll Nears 30,000 Pets

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    PETA Kills AnimalsSince at least 1998, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has operated a pet “shelter” — more than the misnamed Humane Society of the United States can claimUnfortunately the dogs and cats that are taken into PETA’s shelter are usually killed. And those that were sheltered in 2012 are no exception: According to Virginia state regulatory filings, PETA — the group that preaches “total animal liberation” and that would ban bacon, butter, and Beyonce’s Big Game halftime show — killed 89.4 percent of the dogs and cats it took into its shelter.

    The 1,647 cats and dogs PETA employees killed last year bring the animal rights group’s total body count to 29,398 since 1998. PETA has committed this slaughter despite the fact that the group’s president, Ingrid Newkirk, has claimed that “We could become a no-kill shelter immediately.” The self-described “press sluts” are more interested in lettuce-clad “lobster liberation” and offending Holocaust survivors than finding adoptive homes for the pets in its care. PETA even bought a walk-in freezer to store the bodies. That’s probably not the “forever home” most people would hope for.

    What makes it scarier for pet owners is that this highest of hypocrisies isn’t completely out of character for PETA. Newkirk has said that in her ideal world, “companion animals [what the rest of us call “pets”] would be phased out.” A PETA staffer wrote in a Florida newspaper that the community should become “no-birth,” putting puppies and kittens on the path of the dodo bird. And — perhaps desperate not to be shamed by the performance of city dog catchers — PETA stood in the way of an ordinance to reduce pet killing in its hometown.

    If you are outraged by PETA’s shameful, lethal behavior, please go to PETAKillsAnimals.com and sign our petition asking the Commonwealth of Virginia to strip the group of its status as an animal shelter.

  5. Disgusting PETA Campaign Bench-Slapped in Europe

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    One of the most repulsive examples of the shameful behavior of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is its “Holocaust on your plate” campaign that compares livestock farming with one of the worst genocides in human history. It’s something when that’s only “one of” the repulsive examples; however, PETA’s record of killing over 27,000 pets since 1998 and of providing support to violent extremists necessitates the qualifier.

    In a typical display of the group’s absolute contempt for human decency and good sense, PETA took the campaign to Germany in 2004. As part of atonement for its national sins and to prevent any chance of reviving sentiments that led to Hitler’s evil regime, Germany forbids trivializing the Holocaust. So, when PETA brought the “Holocaust on your plate” campaign to Germany, the Central Council of Jews in Germany filed for an injunction to stop PETA’s campaign. It was granted.

    PETA appealed to Germany’s highest court, losing there in 2009. Not content to let German law and respect for the victims take precedence over its disgusting campaign, PETA appealed again to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Deustche Welle reports that an ECHR panel has now ruled against PETA. Score one for human dignity, and none for the self-described “press sluts.”

    Or at least, score none for PETA itself, because one of the campaign directors managed to “fail upwards” in the perverse world of the animal rights movement. Matt Prescott, then a “youth outreach coordinator” for PETA, directed the campaign when it debuted in the United States nine years ago.

    Prescott’s campaign earned him wide-ranging rebukes. A United States Holocaust Memorial Museum spokesman said that “Prescott was not honest with us about how he would be using the images. He did not say that it had anything to do with animals […] we would not have given permission for that.” The Boston Globe called PETA’s display “a disgrace.”

    So, where does the brain behind such a repulsive exhibit and dubious tactics end up? Why, at the mother-ship of the animal rights movement, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) — not to be confused with any local pet shelter — where Prescott is the Food Policy Director. There, Prescott directs corporate campaigns that pressure food retailers into offering more vegetarian options and expensively produced animal products (as he also did for PETA).

    That’s right: Despite all HSUS’s “moderate” positioning, it hired a man who said to a newspaper that “Anybody who eats meat is guilty of holding the same mindset that allowed the Holocaust to happen.” He’s not alone among HSUS types in making the demeaning connection of the ultimate human suffering with food production: Holly Cheever, part of HSUS’s veterinary arm and a longtime animal rights activist, reportedly said that “slaughterhouses are a kind of Auschwitz” at an animal rights conference. “Moderates” these radicals are not.

  6. Milk Malice Too Extreme for Anti-Milk Extremist

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    In today’s Los Angeles Times, guest contributor Chris Woolston examines the science behind dietary milk recommendations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture advises drinking three glasses per day; a Harvard scientist recommends one or two. And in the moo-juice abstinence corner, Woolston quotes the radicals at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as the animal rights point of view, but then follows with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) without informing readers that it’s essentially the lab-coated arm of PETA. For these two hand-in-hand animal rights groups, nutritional advice is primarily driven by ideology, not science.

    PCRM, you might remember, has a long history of anti-milk crusading, which includes being blasted by the American Medical Association for starting a “milk panic” and having a spokesman wildly claim that milk marketing has “institutional racial bias.” Naturally, Woolston found plenty of hyperbolic quotes from the animal rights activists to season his piece with. But interestingly, PCRM’s scaremongering about the supposed milk-cancer “link” isn’t convincing everybody—including PCRM’s founder, Neal Barnard:

    The PCRM website says that milk raises the risk of breast cancer, but even Barnard isn't convinced. "Breast cancer is unclear," he says, adding that he doesn't often look at the organization's website.

    It would certainly be saying a lot to claim that PCRM’s web content is more scientifically unreliable than Barnard, who has called cheese “dairy crack … the purest form of the [milk] drug.” But that seems to be the case. And if Barnard doesn’t even review his own group’s website from time to time, we have to wonder who does. (If we had to guess, most of PCRM’s web traffic probably comes from the headquarters of PETA and the Humane Society of the United States.)

    In the end, Woolston concludes, proper milk recommendations “may be somewhere between two extremes.” Fancy that: moderation. It certainly beats abolition.