No Kill Now!
Having been introduced to the bizarre mind-warp that is “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” back in 1985 and 1986 when they used every dirty political trick to have my boss then, Richard H. Lambertsen, denied tenure, I’m not surprised a bit as revelations of their program come to light. PETA’s not-so-public goal is to end all “abuse” of animals by humans, which translated into plain English means that they aren’t likely to be satisfied until every last domesticated species goes extinct. Once you’ve got that basic orientation in mind, every otherwise odd fact about the behavior of PETA organizers and shelters becomes explicable. Any step toward there being fewer dogs and cats around advances PETA’s apparent goal of extinction, therefore the absolutely atrocious record that various PETA-run animal shelters have in placing animals in adoptive homes suddenly makes perfect sense.
For more information on the disjunct between PETA’s carefully crafted PR and the rather grimmer reality behind their actions, see the No Kill Now! web site and their article on PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk.
Isn’t Newkirk on record as saying, “The bottom line is that people don’t have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats … If people want toys they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship they should seek it with their own kind.”? Then I guess that imported inanimate objects made into toy cats and dogs with real fur from real (and abused) cats and dogs are okay, then?
In 2002 the Animal Liberation Front, another lunatic outfit, broke into a University of Minnesota lab and, in the subsequent mayhem, “liberated” the donated brain cells of a family friend from a petri dish.
I don’t get it.
“I don’t use the word ‘pet’. I think it’s speciesist language. I prefer ‘companion animal’. For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people
had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship – enjoyment from a distance.”
— Ingrid Newkirk, Harper’s Magazine, August 1988
hm, I see I forgot to include my own comment on Newkirk’s drivel. Well, here it is: I think she’s a loon. No, wait, that’s a disservice to loons, which are fine & handsome birds. Call her “stark staring bonkers,” and it’s still too mild. She’s never repudiated or even softened the quoted position, and P’e’TA has never distanced itself from her, so it appears that’s still P’e’TA’s official position. So you don’t need to use soft phrases like “aren’t likely to be satisfied.” P’e’TA won’t be satisfied until there are no more pets.
Kristine and Wolfwalker,
Thanks for the quotes.
I see other folks have had run-ins with the PETA crowd, too. What always gets me are the PETA rank-and-file who do not know what the PETA goal actually is, but climbed on the bandwagon for the anti-fur and anti-puppy mill campaigns and won’t listen to any criticism of PETA.
Here’s a show from Penn & Teller, poking fun at PETA.
Over on “Dispatches from the Culture Wars”, a PETA member opined that my comments here were “stupid”. I linked to my comment just above about the rank and file, and have expanded a bit upon that:
What I meant by “this issue” wasn’t generic commentary on PETA, but specifically the inability of the ignorant rank-and-file to entertain criticism of the record of statements of the PETA organizers that their intended aim is the extinction of domesticated animals. The rank-and-file generally want to treat PETA as an animal welfare organization, which it manifestly is not, rather than the animal rights organization with a radical agenda that it manifestly is. PETA’s policies coincide with some programs that are also concerns of legitimate animal welfare agencies, such as the spay and neuter programs for pets and campaigns against puppy mills. But those “good” actions are pretty much just a conventional front on the radicalized agenda that is at the core of PETA. PETA has no problem implementing those because each brings closer, in their view, the day when dogs and cats will become extinct.
The rank and file generally simply don’t want to believe that anything beyond a standard animal welfare viewpoint is at issue. Some dig into it and find out that, yes, there really is a radical agenda there and either embrace that or leave PETA. Those are fewer in number than the ones that decide to employ the “shoot the messenger” strategy.