PETA targets ‘Nutcracker' kids
By David Weber, Boston Herald

Animal rights advocates will single out small children at performances of "The Nutcracker'' in the next few weeks by handing out fliers saying "Your Mommy Kills Animals'' to youngsters whose mothers are wearing fur.

"Children can't look up to a mom in a battered-raccoon hat or a crushed coyote collar,'' said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "Maybe when they're confronted by their own children's hurt looks, fur-wearers' cold hearts will melt.''

The fliers include a color drawing of a woman plunging a large bloody knife into the belly of a terrified rabbit. The fliers urge kids to "ask your mommy how many dead animals she killed to make her fur clothes."

"And the sooner she stops wearing fur, the sooner the animals will be safe. Until then, keep your doggie or kitty friends away from mommy - she's an animal killer.''

Does PETA really expect to be taken seriously or are they just part of a huge inside joke that annoys the hell out of everyone else? If a tree fell on a PETA member, and they begged for help from their furry friends, would the animals give a shit?

More

"If we really believe that animals have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then, of course we're going to be, as a movement, blowing things up and smashing windows ... I think it's a great way to bring about animal liberation ... I think it would be great if all of the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it's perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows ... Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it."
- Bruce Friedrich, PETA's vegan campaign coordinator, at the "Animal Rights 2001" conference

"Serving a burger to your family today, knowing what we know, constitutes child abuse. You might as well give them weed killer. "
- Toni Vernelli, then-coordinator of PETA's European operations

"Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it."
- PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, in the September 1989 issue of Vogue

From both a moral and a legal standpoint, there are far too many objectionable things about PETA to list here in detail. But the following "top ten list" is a good start:

* PETA is not an animal welfare organization.
PETA spends less than one percent of its multi-million dollar budget actually helping animals. The group euthanized (killed) more than 1,300 cats and dogs in 1999 alone, preferring to spend its money on cheap publicity stunts and criminal defense, rather than finding the animals suitable homes.

* PETA assaults common decency.
PETA's leadership has compared animal farmers to serial killer (and cannibal) Jeffrey Dahmer. They proclaimed in a 2003 exhibit that chickens are as valuable as Jewish Holocaust victims. They announced with a 2001 billboard that a shark attack on a little boy was "revenge" against humans who had it coming anyway. They have branded parents who feed their kids meat and milk "child abusers." In 2002 PETA organized a campaign to sabotage a popular Thanksgiving hotline, which provides free advice about cooking turkeys. The group has even contemplated (literally) dancing on the grave of Kentucky Fried Chicken's Colonel Sanders.

* PETA receives rock-bottom ratings from charity watchdogs.
Charity Navigator, the nation's largest nonpartisan evaluator of non-profit organizations, gives PETA a rating of one-star ("poor"). It says PETA "fails to meet industry standards and performs well below most charities in its cause." PETA's "Foundation to Support Animal Protection" -- now doing business as "The PETA Foundation" -- was one of just 23 organizations nationwide to receive zero stars ("exceptionally poor").

* PETA peddles its "animal liberation" food agenda through a medical front group that pretends to offer objective nutritional advice.
A group misleadingly named the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has duped the press into believing that it is an association of conscientious doctors promoting good nutrition. In fact, it is a PETA front group. PCRM and PETA share money, offices, and staff. The American Medical Association calls PCRM a "pseudo-physicians group," has demanded that PCRM stop its "inappropriate and unethical tactics used to manipulate public opinion," and argues that PCRM has been "blatantly misleading Americans" and "concealing its true purpose as an animal ‘rights' organization."

Taking a page out of PETA's press book, PCRM has labeled U.S. school lunches "weapons of mass destruction" because they include meat and milk. PCRM's president, a psychiatrist named Neal Barnard, recently duped Newsweek into covering his "study" (of seven people) supposedly demonstrating that a vegan diet helped prevent type-2 diabetes. In 2002, PCRM was cited in major newspapers more than 550 times. It was identified as an animal-rights organization in only a handful of those cases.

* PETA exploits sick people.
PETA famously suggested that drinking milk causes cancer, in an advertisement mocking then-NYC Mayor Rudy Guliani with the words "Got Prostate Cancer?" PETA has also erected a billboard reading: "Got Sick Kids? Drinking milk contributes to colic, ear infections, allergies, diabetes, obesity, and many other illnesses." In 2003 the group held a demonstration in front of a Toronto-area hospital that was under a SARS-related quarantine, spuriously alleging that animal husbandry has something to do with the epidemic's spread. Upon hearing that Charlton Heston had fallen ill with Alzheimer's Disease, Ingrid Newkirk suggested that PETA would "toy with the idea that both Alzheimer's and CJD [Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease] are related to meat consumption." According to a profile in The New Yorker, she considered "renting billboards that would display a large picture of a gaunt Charlton Heston foaming at the mouth."

* PETA propagandizes children.
PETA's website for kids puts a skull and crossbones next to the logo of Disney's Animal Kingdom and tells the horror story of a fast food restaurant employee who "had taken a patty into the potty with her, then returned and said she had peed on it." It hands out trading cards to kids that allege drinking milk will make them fat, pimply, flatulent, and phlegm-ridden. PETA also has a child-themed website, and a kiddie-oriented magazine, called GRRR! Kids Bite Back. The name is significant, as it is intended to prep children to identify with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which has long-used the phrase "bite back" in its promotional materials. In fact, as early as 1991, convicted ALF arsonist and PETA grantee Rodney Coronado was calling his own crime spree "Operation Bite Back." PETA also sends "humane education lecturer" Gary Yourofsky into high schools -- and even middle schools -- to promote the "animal liberation" agenda. Yourofsky is a convicted ALF criminal who has said he would support burning down medical research labs even if humans were trapped in the flames.

* PETA distorts religious teachings.
Not only does PETA oppose the age-old Jewish tradition of Kosher slaughter, but the group's leaders maintain that Jews have misinterpreted their own sacred texts on the subject. They also claim, ignoring mountains of scripture to the contrary, that Jesus was a vegetarian. PETA celebrated Easter in 2003 with a billboard depicting a pig, reading "he died for your sins." PETA also insists (again, selectively ignoring contradictory evidence) that Muhammad "was not a meat-eater." In his speeches to adolescents, Gary Yourofsky regularly compares himself to Gandhi and Jesus Christ. PETA's in-school presentations include the application of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" to birds and turtles -- not people.

* PETA opposes life-saving medical research.
PETA has repeatedly attacked groups like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, for conducting animal testing to find cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases. When asked if she would oppose an experiment on five thousand rats if it would result in a cure for AIDS, Newkirk responded: "Would you be opposed to experiments on your daughter if you knew it would save fifty million people?" In addition to opposing any and all medical research that uses animals, PETA also insults medical professionals by arguing, with a straight face, that animal testing is a counterproductive means of finding cures for human diseases.

* PETA devalues human life.
PETA's efforts to treasure every mosquito and cockroach invariably lead them to hate human beings for using bug spray and RAID. Ingrid Newkirk argues that as human beings, "we're the biggest blight on the face of the earth."

* PETA openly supports violence and terrorist activity.
PETA has long-standing ties to militant groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). The FBI calls these criminal groups a "serious terrorist threat."

For more of the low down on PETA check out Activist Cash

posted by awiggins | 03:24 PM