Letters to the Editor
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it's more than just general asceticism and self denial, non meateaters specifically are often portrayed as lacking and are believed to lack
physical and specifically sexual vitality, as well as being out of touch with nature while meat eaters are vital, healthy, and "in touch". It's hard to image "ideas" more worthy of mockery.
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I will live to see the day when an American citizen
Is sentenced to death in an American court for a crime against an animal at the same time that the death penalty for murdering people is being abolished. I just want you to understand that. That is where the lunacy of PETA leads. That's where all the "Pets are People", "My Dog My Child" thinking winds up.
I'll make ya a deal, nuts. Keep abortion at the same time we don't get the gas chamber for animal cruelty. Because I'm afraid that the day you PETA flakes get your way, the pro-lifers will rise up and eventually have their way with you.
(Thank God I'm older than most of you. I will die before you fuck up this whole country for good)
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Thanks for the tip
DurianJoe. I just wrote to my reps about the downed animal bill: http://www.farmsanctuary.org/get_involved/update_downed_animals08.html
I might even give Farm Sanctuary a donation. I love organizations that don't make me feel objectified to get their point across.
I think the problem is that PETA has consistently and deliberately used questionable tactics, and resorted to personal attacks against those who brought it to their attention. I think their antics actually harm their cause and cheapen the publics view of the problems they are supposed to be working against.
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obviously peta is drawing the pus to the surface
aren't they
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@beigelights
I've told PETA the same things you said. We agree. But you know, there's alway a wild fringe that if it serves no other purpose, makes the more moderate groups socially acceptable.
Farm Sanctuary is a wonderful group. If you're ever in California or New York, you can visit there sites and meet the animals and even stay at a B&B.
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Did you know Gloria Steinem married an animal rights activist?!?!?!?
I JUST found this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bale
Gloria, feminist icon, married David Bale, animal rights activist. You see, we can live in peace!
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@ Amazon 45
I'm not calling you repressed or a prude for not liking sex in media - but I think your logic is completely off.
FIrst, a sweeping catagorization that any sex in media is automatically 'exploitation'. Sexuality is a huge factor in everyone's life, so it would be absurd to tell people they can't include sexuality as a mode of expression.
Second, yes, sexuality is lowest common denominator. But it's a common fallacy that LCD is inherently for stupid or dumb people. People's higher interests are wildly different. Some people like ballet, some physics, some history - it is simply impossible to market mass media to people's higher interests because they're heterogenous. People's base interests, like sexuality, are things every human being on earth can relate to. It doesn't necessarily mean it's dumb. So your insistence that your refusal to patronize anything that uses sexuality as proof of your higher intelligence is, well, nonsense.
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Healthy Sexuality
Wow! I didn't know that healthy sexuality is about impossibly perfect women showing skin to sell products.
I must be having unhealthy sex because neither I nor my partner (not that you care about HIS sexuality) is perfect, and we aren't running out to buy beer and new cars before we come. Neither of us is airbrushed or wearing pancake makeup during sex either! Neither of us diets 24/7/365, has had plastic surgery, or gets our teeth whitened with toxic chemicals!
Thanks for telling us how nonsensical and feminazi-ey us wimmin folk's objection to using women's bodies to sell stuff is...
You really put us in our places!
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I'm omnivorous
Is peta against cunnilingus?
I mean, there are some very tasty morsels I've eaten in my life.
That said, I will be charcoaling a nice thick porterhouse this evening~~medium rare.
As a sop to the saps, I'll have a large side of vegetables of some sort as, I really like many types of green ones.
I'll also have a nice cold glass of milk.
Oh, the brutality of pulling on Elsie's udders.
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"Oh, the brutality of pulling on Elsie's udders."
"In a healthy environment, cows would live in excess of twenty-five years, but on modern dairies, they are slaughtered and made into ground beef after just three or four years. The abuse wreaked upon the bodies of dairy cows is so intense that the dairy industry also is a huge source of "downed animals" — animals who are so sick or injured that they are unable to walk even stand. Investigators have documented downed animals routinely being beaten, dragged, or pushed with bulldozers in attempts to move them to slaughter.
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The veal industry was created as a by-product of the dairy industry to take advantage of an abundant supply of unwanted male calves. Veal calves commonly live for eighteen to twenty weeks in wooden crates that are so small that they cannot turn around, stretch their legs, or even lie down comfortably. The calves are fed a liquid milk substitute, deficient in iron and fiber, which is designed to make the animals anemic, resulting in the light-colored flesh that is prized as veal. In addition to this high-priced veal, some calves are killed at just a few days old to be sold as low-grade 'bob' veal for products like frozen TV dinners."
Source: http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/dairy/
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sex and sensationalism
Sex sells. PETA has taken a lot of flack from feminists within the animal rights movement for some of its tactics, like its use of supermodels and the "We'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign. However, most of what PETA does (protecting and rescuing animals, writing letters to the heads of corporations, promoting veganism and a cruelty-free lifestyle, etc.) wouldn't get attention. The media thrives on sex and sensationalism--not balanced debate on serious moral issues.
In her 1991 book, The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol J. Adams notes that throughout human history, beginning with the hunter-gatherer tribes, meat has been associated with male violence and masculinity, people with power, the aristocracy, etc.
Meat is associated with male virility, whereas vegetable and nonmeat foods are viewed as women’s food. "Meat is a symbol of patriarchy" writes Adams bluntly. She cites a fictional illustration from Mary McCarthy’s Birds of America. Miss Scott, a vegetarian, is invited to a NATO general’s house for Thanksgiving. Her refusal of turkey angers the general.
According to Adams, "Male belligerence in this area is not limited to fictional military men. Men who batter women have often used the absence of meat as a pretext for violence against women."
Adams compares "The Rape of Animals" to "the Butchering of Women," as well as "Sexual Violence and Meat Eating." She quotes the organizer of a "Bunny Bop" in which rabbits are killed by clubs, feet, stones, etc. as saying, "What would all these rabbit hunters be doing if they weren’t letting off all this steam? I’ll tell you what they'd be doing. They’d be drinking and carousing and beating their wives."
The Feminists for Animal Rights newsletter (Vol. VI, Nos. 1-2, 1991) for example, cites EarthSave as stating that taxpayer subsidies to the livestock industry in California for 1991 totaled $24 million, while the yearly budget for child welfare was only $125,000.