Just in case the textbook anti-PETA rhetoric comes into the thread…
This is why people hate PETA.
Yes, PETA does some crazy shit, but as with many things there are two sides to the story which is difficult to see when you get bombarded by anti-PETA stuff as is common on e.g. Reddit.
Anti-PETA efforts by the meat industry:
Sites like www.petakillsanimals.com are run by the Center for Organizational Research and Education, which is a lobbying platform for the fast food, meat, alcohol and tobacco industries. They also target the humane society, even John Oliver did a piece on them and their founder Richard Berman. That’s just one outlet for their misinformation-campains, they are also cited in lots of blogs and “news articles” as well, so it’s not always very obvious.
They are the driving power behind all the misinformation and PETA-hate that is spread around. PETA is actually doing a lot for animal rights, that’s why they are such a big target for smear campaigns:
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[Their biggest victories] (https://www.peta.org/about-peta/milestones/)
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[All victories sorted by recent] (https://www.peta.org/about-peta/victories/) (several per week!)
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See also http://www.petakillsanimalsscam.com/
PETA and their kill-shelters:
PETA kills animals because unfortunately there are no better places for them. Blame the puppy mills and irresponsible short term owners that give up their pets a few days or weeks after getting them because they had no idea what they got themselves into. Those people create more pets than there are places for them, so instead of having them become strays and further add to the problem, PETA put down those they can’t adopt out. Because PETA accepts all animals, even those that other shelters turn away in order to not sully their adoption numbers, PETA shelters end up with many more “hopeless” animals. See more here.
The case of the mistaken dog (and how PETA doesn’t steal and murder pets):
A farmer asked PETA to euthanise a pack of stray dogs that were aggressive and violent towards the farmer’s cows. Upon arrival, PETA found the pack of stray dogs, took them to the shelter and put them down, as a free service. Unfortunately it turned out, that one of the presumed stray dogs was a pet-chihuaha called Maya, that was not sitting on the porch, as often claimed, but running freely with the stray pack, without leash or collar or supervision. PETA fucked up, because they didn’t wait the 5 day grace period to give the owners time to look for and collect their pet. That’s why they had to pay a fine and apologized for it. http://www.whypetaeuthanizes.com/maya.html
The monkey selfie:
The monkey took the picture himself btw, the photographer just left the camera lying around. I am not saying the monkey should be copyright holder and it’s an open-shut case, but it does raise the question about the photographer having ownership over something that was voluntarily and independently created by an animal. What if a painter would leave his brushes lying around and an animal would create a painting? The artist actually sees it the same way and settled for a compromise with PETA followed by a joint statement. This was a landmark case in copyright law.
PETA equating milk to racism:
White supremacists actually use milk to demonstrate their superiority over “inferior” (their words, obviously) lactose intolerant ethnicities. That’s the reason behind their campaign on the issue.
Final thoughts (I promise):
PETA does a good job at raising issues and are one of the most successfull organisations to fight for animal rights. The granting of rights is the only real way to protect animals from unneccessary cruelty. Animal welfare will always be arbitrary, both in what species are worthy of protection, and the extent of protection they are worthy of. You cannot consider yourself an animal lover without recognizing the importance of that.
Sometimes PETA (intentionally?) overshoot, that happens when you try to move the border of current perceptions (i.e. animals are objects to be used for food, clothes, entertainment). I am not here to defend their tone or (lack of) tact, and there are a number of (sometimes downright stupid) PETA-campaigns I disagree with. I’m not trying to convice you to become their friend, but at least judge them for what they are doing, not for what they are said to do.
Most of the criticism of PETA you read on Reddit comes straight from the mouths of the Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), formerly known as the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF). It’s basically a corporate propaganda organization with donors like Tyson Foods, Wendy’s, and Coca-Cola. They also run campaigns claiming obesity isn’t that major of a problem and that you can eat 10 times as much mercury from fish as experts recommend. The vast majority of the animals PETA euthanizes are suffering and are brought to PETA’s shelter by their owners specifically to be put out of their misery, but the CCF distorts that into “PETA is stealing people’s pets off the streets” and Reddit gobbles it up.
The media also knows that PETA is an easy target. Years ago I read an article in one of the British tabloids (the Sun or the Mirror) with a headline something like, “PETA blasts child’s bunny wedding!” But if you actually read the article, what happened is a kid dressed up some bunnies in wedding outfits, the “journalist” reached out to PETA and asked them to comment, and PETA said something like, “we don’t support dressing rabbits in costumes because it may be stressful for them.” And that was the end of the story, but that wouldn’t get clicks so they distorted the headline to make it sound like PETA was protesting or attacking the kid on their own accord.
For the record, I think there are perfectly legitimate criticisms of PETA, like the sexist imagery they use in some of their ad campaigns and their welfarist (as opposed to abolitionist) approach to advocacy. It just gets to me that so many redditors claim to be rational and free-thinking but then read literal corporate propaganda about PETA and swallow it whole without a second thought.
Info continued here if anyone is interested… https://sh.itjust.works/comment/2252698
PETA kills animals because unfortunately there are no better places for them.
Man that’s rrrrough
It’s also as often false as it is true. There is still such a massive demand for rescue dogs that people will pay a premium for them. There are foster households that are far from overfull. There are high-risk dog ranches that have room for more aggressive dogs, even human aggressive dogs.
Yes, there are times where you just cannot logicially find a match for a rescue. But there are also times where they put down a pet just miles away from someone who would foster or adopt them.
Unwanted animal euthanization rate in the US is arguably at an all-time low. And yet, PETA’s euthanization rate is still high, high enough that groups like the AKC are openly criticizing them for it.
That’s why it’s important to reuse the scotch fillet, backstrap, topside roast and brisket.
PeTA has a main goal and that is for full emancipation of animals from humans. No pets, no livestock, limited interaction.
That is why their kill shelters are so high. They don’t want people to have pets. This is not misinformation but a fact they proudly share.
They directly fund terrorism. This was a fact they proudly shared.
The reason their kill shelters are so high is literally in the info dump above. If you don’t want to read that’s fine, but you have no valid argument till you do.
Bro, there are more pet animals in shelters than people wanting them and breeders still breed more. What do you do if you have a thousand dogs, growing more, in animal shelters? Build more shelters? Or do you start breeding people who want to adopt dogs?
PETA kinda sucks sometimes but their opposition are almost always bad faith neo-nazis or sheep reactionaries ignorantly parroting all their talking points because they saw the first half of a headline once and used that knee-jerk reaction as evidence of their expertise.
I wouldn’t say their opposition is always bad faith neo-nazis, but the anti-vegan/anti-PETA movement definitely has a few bad seeds they should be burning out. There is no reason to combine ethical meat-eating with neoconservativism. It’s bloody stupid.
The fact that they aren’t should tell you everything that you need to know.
So I should discard my own far-left views because I see a far-right group with that one same bullet point?
Let’s try it on you. Here’s some info about growth of veganism in the alt-right. Ready to support small time ranchers yet?
I don’t like veganism because it’s libshit, personal responsibility bullshit that tricks people into thinking they’re making a difference. Am I even remotely surprised that moral superiority shit is taking off in the alt-right? Not at all. The instant they started going after minority groups for eating traditional foods is the moment it stopped even having the façade of being a leftist movement. It’s basically diet greenwashing.
Frankly, I think it’s just an honest mistake. I wouldn’t call it “libshit”. Veganism carries all of the hallmarks of the things I dislike about the Religious Right, religious zeal bleeding into policy decisions until “I think it’s immoral” becomes “the world will fall apart without it”.
I see no difference between that and the “sex before marriage ruins families” attitudes, or some middle-eastern countries’ reasons for banning alcohol. Etc.
Lmao why is this comment downvoted but the one saying that most people who dislike PERA are neo-nazis is upvoted? Tells you a lot about how out of touch people on here are.
Because it’s actually true. A LOT of the narratives come from the worst people. It’s like with greenpeace, there’s plenty of shit to dislike them for, you don’t have to make shit up but more often than not that’s what ends up happening. You don’t have to support someone to point out that their oppositions are literal nazis. Basic dialectics.
I think dismissing an entire opposing view point as Nazis is one of the lowest forms of discourse there is, and unfortunately it’s very pervasive on Lemmy.
I don’t know if it’s naive teenagers or just a lot of out of touch people with fringe views, but it’s worse than reddit sometimes.
Why even quit reddit for this site if this is the kind of shit that gets upvoted. At least there you have plugins that root out the shitheads.
If that’s why you think people were leaving reddit you’re an idiot. Go back.
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