Every now and then I find myself in the position of being somone who believes in a cause but severely dislikes an organization dedicated to the cause. I want to yell at said organization: OMG get out of my cause, you just make things worse! Such is how I’m feeling about PETA at the moment.
Just so we’re clear on where I stand here: I am very much behind anti-animal cruelty activism. I find many of the ways humans treat and mistreat animals despicable. I am not down with animal testing, not down with fur, not down with the way food animals are handled, and not down with the idea that because we have opposable thumbs, we have the right to act in any way we please toward non-humans. I support some extreme measures to put a stop to these things. And I’m all in favor of messages that don’t dance around a subject and say flat out: this is wrong, it needs to end.
Having said that, PETA is working my damn nerve, they are wrong, they need to end it.
In case you’re unaware, this is the latest in a long line of PETA wrongness:
Click the image to see the blog post announcing this atrocity of an ad campaign.
There are plenty of people out there talking about the reasons why this shit is unacceptable. Even vegans cannot countenance this.
And let us not forget PETA’s ill-advised use of racist and sexist language and imagery to try and win converts to their side. I know when I see someone dressed up like a KKK member, I want to listen to their views with an open mind.
As a person who cares about animals, and as a person who does not shy away from extreme forms of activism, I still feel compelled to say: PETA, stop with your bullshit. Being racist, sexist, and fat-phobic is never, ever cool. Never. No seriously. Stop. Your official statement on this matter is full of some of the most asinine fuckwittery I’ve come across that I cannot even bear to grace it with less vulgar words. Because you, PETA, are just a fountain of vulgarity right now, and that is not cool.
Quit doing things to push away people who would otherwise be passionate supporters of your cause. We want to help animals, too, but being in any way associated with you right now is repulsive to me.
I’m going to donate to the Humane Society until I feel clean.
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I’ve never been a PETA fan and I think the organization is irretrievably screwed up. They’re clearly measuring success by how many mentions they get in the media, not by actually changing how animals are treated (which even Greenpeace, also a bit of a LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME organization, does a better job on affecting). They value human beings not even as equal to, but as less than other animals. I personally value human beings more highly, but I can accept disagreement on this so long as humans are at least equal to other animals.
PETA tried to buy some playground equipment for a neighborhood park in Duluth, Minn., recently. They wanted to buy teeter-totters with a similar ad on them: A fat child gleefully chomping on a giant hamburger with the slogan “Tot teetering on obesity? GO VEG!” To their credit, the neighborhood association passed on the offer, even though they are pretty well strapped for cash.
Here is a photo of the teeter-totters. Just looking at it makes me go ARRGH.
It’s especially not a good idea to be limiting a small child’s diet to vegan, considering how picky little kids are and the difficulty in getting them to ingest enough B12 in the form of pill supplements to support their still-developing nervous system. Sure, your kid won’t be obese, but he’ll probably also be malnutritioned.
I know plenty of healthy vegan kids. Most vegan parents I know put way more thought into their kids’ diets then pretty much any other parents I know. (Google a bit, and you’ll find a whole lot of info on how a vegan kid’s diet should be balanced, and a ton of blogs of vegan parents discussing what they feed their kids.)
And on the actual topic of the post: I’m on a vegan message board, and it gets discussed whenever PETA pulls something ridiculous like this, and there are generally about two people defending PETA and twenty criticizing them. (This particular ad also led to a whole lot of “Huh?” reactions from people trying to figure out what that message actually means — no one could come up with an explanation that actually made all the words there make sense.)
Yeah, my objection was the shaming and mockery of the fat kid, not the encouraging of kids to be vegetarian/vegan.
Seeing things like this make me want to eat ice cream. PETA makes my brain hurt and if I’m gonna have that it might as well be brain freeze!
Is there a vegan-accepted source for B12 besides daily supplements in the form of pills or yeast additives? I was an open-minded eater as a kid, raised in a household where many meals included no meat at all, but I definitely would have balked at being forced to take a pill every day when I wasn’t sick and wouldn’t have to if I could just drink some milk instead.
Nutritional yeast is a good source, and there are lots of tasty uses for it in food. (It doesn’t taste exactly the same as cheese, but it’s got a sort of cheesy flavor, and it tastes good sprinkled on top of pretty much anything where parmesan cheese would taste good.) Also, just about every breakfast cereal is fortified with B12, as are a good number of brands of soy/rice/almond/etc. milk. There’s some evidence that seaweed is a good source, and I know lots of vegan toddlers who love to munch on sheets of nori. (It grosses out every adult, but two-year-olds seem to love it.) I’ve also seen supplements for kids made to look and taste like gummy bears.
I know lots of vegan toddlers who love to munch on sheets of nori. (It grosses out every adult, but two-year-olds seem to love it.
This is funny. Just yesterday one of my friends posted a video on FB of her two-year-old caught in the act with an entire sheet of nori stuffed in his mouth. She reports that it is like crack for kids.
Yeah, I e-mailed Amp on this yesterday. Just to give you an idea on how broad-based the revulsion to this is, I picked it up from Free Republic.
What’s nori? Is it that black seaweed that the Japanese wrap around rice in various things? I love that stuff. Good source of iodine as well IIRC.
Yep. Good source of lots of nutrients. And, as chingona’s friend noted, toddler crack.
“(It grosses out every adult, but two-year-olds seem to love it.)”
“Is it that black seaweed that the Japanese wrap around rice in various things?”
Maybe it’s nitpicky, but no, seaweed doesn’t gross out every adult…who’s grown up eating it. That top statement leaves out, for example, most everyone from Korea/Japan or of Korean/Japanese descent who grew up eating traditional foods. Plus lots of people have grown to like it who are not East Asian.
And of course, not only Japanese people eat seaweed that way, nor only Japanese and Koreans.
I don’t want to derail, but I don’t like seeing my people ignored.
Sorry, I meant that the plain nori (rather nori used in a dish with other foods) tends to disturb most adults I’ve known, even ones who will happily eat sushi or other foods made with nori. But you’re right, my statement did ignore a lot of people.
OK, I don’t think this is really the place to debate the impact of vegan diet on children. It might be better to discuss PETA. (Otherwise, this will eventually become an argument on animal rights qua animal rights rather than the disgusting behavior of this organization.)
This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest PETA for YEARS has been nothing but a bunch of spoiled little brats with too damn much money and too much time on their hands. like those whiny snots at Berkley during the 60’s this nitheads do more harm than good and only care about THIER interest I have YET to see anything positive come out of all of PETA’s stupid,childish,RACIST,sexist,and assinine behavior. And the worst part is they don’t even care I agree PETA is just about air time and the radical side of it and nothing more F##K YOU PETA!!
Am I the only one who’s starting to think PETA is some kind of gigantic joe job aimed at completely discrediting the animal rights movement? I’m just struggling to see any other way one organisation can be so consistently offensive.
They used to do actual activism a long, long time ago. My opinion is that they are just about getting money from donors by getting media exposure. The animal rights thing is just the plausible denial.
What Nick said.
Yeah, they are like cartoon characters–I find them very embarrassing and constantly have to disassociate myself from them.
Just think, if PETA were a U.S. soldier instead of a private organization, it could be facing criminal charges.
Yeah, my sister who raised vegan kids found sources of B12. I don’t know if nori was one of them.
I did at one time but alas, no.
I was eating cookie-dough ice cream (mmmm… delicious dairy products) when I ran into this idiotic billboard again. I just wanted to say that I am not fat and I LOVE MY MEAT and that not all vegetarians are skinny like PETA makes them out to be. But I guess the thing that REALLY gets me ticked is the fact that PETA, an organization that is SOOO against cruelty, would sit here and call obese women whales. While many PETA employees are fat, they choose to sit here and say to the meat-eaters that going veg. will make you lose weight, which is clearly not true in every case. Seriously, PETA is pathetic. Making fun of other people’s problems is no mature way to further your cause. If anything, they are chasing potential members away!!! With these harsh, disgusting, CRUEL ads that PETA puts up, I am forever convinced not to ever support PETA.
I was with you up till the point where you said you were against animal testing.
seriously, animal testing is important–and the safegaurds surrounding the treatment of lab animals are extremely strict and conservative. please, please DO NOT feed the meme that animal labs are cruel places that exist only to torture animals. a lot of very important research goes on in those labs. Animal testing is an integral and important part of our scientific knowledge of the world. Unless of course you DONT think we should be trying to cure terminal diseases, Don’t think we should be studying the effects of the enviromental change, don’t think we should test out new vetinary practices before trying them out on your pet…
Please, feel free to campaign for and speak out against those who abuse animal testing or do not follow the strict guidelines set down for the treatment of lab animals–the scientific community doesn’t want them either as unecessary suffering DOES skew results–but DON’T for the love of all you hold holy tar and feather the vital work animal labs do in the medical (that includes vetinary science!) and environmental fields.
We do not have a good alternative to animal testing–computer models are just not up to snuff yet. believe me–with all the expense (time and money) and bother of an animal lab, if there was a viable alternative that didn’t involve pure human test subjects (which would STILL not be a good way of testing vetinary stuff, btw)–we would be using it.
If you are still with me and still not convinced, go here: http://www.pro-test.org.uk/ and poke around a bit.
Personally, I think PETA is an anti-animal rights movement that is sabotaging the entire movement intentionally.
Thanks about the info about it’s use in non-Japanese cusines, Katie. I have no experience with Korean food and little with anything other Asian cusine except for Chinese and Japanese.
In response to lisag – I’m in strongly favor of animal testing for medical and scientific research too. I assumed the angry black woman was referring to animal testing of cosmetic products, which in the US is often done in ways that are painful to the animals – and produces unimportant data. I do not see a pressing need for developing newer, better kinds of lipgloss – nor do I think such developments would advance humanity. The site lisag linked has more information:
I don’t buy makeup or hair products tested on animals because I think it’s unnecessary and I’ve heard many of the animal-testing methods for cosmetics are cruel.
I am wholly against animal testing for non-medical and scientific purposes and I’m against medical/scientific testing that doesn’t abide by the highest standards and isn’t strictly necessary. I’ve seen much evidence of abuse and unnecessary animal experiments to know that it does go on and apparently there’s not such great oversight. Or perhaps there wasn’t in the past. I will own that animal testing is currently one of the best ways to develop drugs and treatments, but I still feel that there should be more work done in further minimizing or even eliminating the need for it. Therefore my stance remains that I am against animal testing.
That’s certainly a reasonable position. Heck, I used to DO animal testing, and that’s basically my position as well. In fact, that’s the position of everyone I used to work with, AFAIK.
It’s a necessary evil, and there’s no comparison. (we’re really not even close to eliminating the need for it.) But if someone designs a computer that works as well, nobody is going to go on guillotining rats for the fun of it.
Everyone is doing what they can. Animal testing gets so expensive that there is a huge motivation to avoid it when possible. Computers are used, when possible, to do the initial screen based on molecular modeling. In vitro testing next (in petri dishes). Animal testing only then. Usually on rodents because they’re small and cheap. the animal testing that gets the biggest press (primates) is also the most rare.
I’d research the HSUS before you donate; they don’t give much money to shelters, they support legislation that seriously hampers responsible dog breeders, etc. Your money is probably best spent at your local shelter.
This is the first article on this site that I can whole heartedly agree with.
The problem with stopping Peta(or even redirecting their message) is they have all the money.(34,000,000 revenue in 2009) I can’t think of any cause except maybe the National Rifle Association(I am not sure where this site stands on the second ammendment, but I think it should make its official stand pro I can’t think of any greater tool of gender equalization than the firearm) that has the money to do bizzare things like sue seaworld for slavery under the 13th ammendment(that almost seems insulting to black people somehow doesn’t it?) over killer whales performing at their parks.
Hollywood and Pamela Anderson (she doesn’t really act I am not sure if I can count her as hollywood) just continues to pour more money into it even though it has lost its capacity for rational thought.
If you really want to donate to animals donate to your local shelter or to the American Humane society. Your money will go to something better than a teeter-totter that insults obese children.
Overall, their campaigns have made me less pro-animal rights. This is completely unfair, but it is really how I feel.
The Onion summed it up best with a cartoon along the lines of – PETA: we won’t rest until women are treated as badly as animals.