an update on the possums

[threeplusfire]

Dead Possum used in Brasstown festivities because PETA threatens to sue small town

Fucking PETA. I loathe that organization unto my very soul. They are self righteous and idiotic. We're talking about people who raided a dog show and let all the animals loose in the middle of a major city, so they could be struck by cars and killed. The same people who think it's a good idea to use the Virgin Mary in their billboard campaign.

PETA offends me as much as Jack Chick and his little tracts. They are even using his tactics, as seen here in Your Mom Kills Animals! This was handed out to children attending the Nutcracker! Quote from the site:

"Kids will see the bloody truth behind their moms’ pretentious pelts. Accompanied by graphic photographs of skinned carcasses and animals languishing on fur farms, children will read: "Lots of wonderful foxes, raccoons, and other animals are kept by mean farmers who squish them into cages so small that they can hardly move. They never get to play or swim or have fun. All they can do is cry-just so your greedy mommy can have that fur coat to show off in when she walks the streets."

Does that sound like an organization run by reasonable people?

There are many other animal activist groups out there, like the ASPCA and the World Wildlife Fund. They work on education, prevention and conservation without stooping to the crass shock tactics of PETA.

Comments

[neflhim.livejournal.com]

Ah, but include the full evil of the pamphlet you quoted. It was handed to kids attending the Nutcracker. Seems some PETA wag decided that all people attending ballet/opera/theatre were wearing furs, and they deserved to have their kids traumatized for it. Asshats.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Asshats indeed! I'll modify my original post to mention that.

[razorart.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I thought that this was an internet joke when I saw it. I mean, the wording in the pamphlet seems totally absurd.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

They are a bit overzealous. But I found is straight from PETA's main page. I would be a lot more amused if it was a parody of PETA work....

[sammka.livejournal.com]

To be fair, they might have singled out kids whose parents were wearing fur... kids stick with their parents at the ballet, so it wouldn't be too hard. Then again, my mother wears fake furs and has often been glared at by animal rights activists. So you can expect that they'd make some mistakes.

And that pamphlet is just creepy. Next thing, they'll be showing kids pictures of Santa Claus with a hacksaw and telling them that Santa slaughters cute white bunnies for his suit and beats his reindeer with baseball bats.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It's possible they might have showed some restraint. God I hope so.

And after Santa Claus, will they show the Easter Bunny being tormented to death?

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the explicit equation of Holocaust victims with slaughterhouse cattle and pigs (now, why would anybody ever find that offensive after watching that footage in The Eternal Jew?). One of my favorite PETA stories is from a few years back when Melissa Etheridge and her then-partner posed nude for their "Go Naked Instead of Fur" billboard campaign, then discovered PETA's absolutist stance on animal research and backpedaled frantically with, "But, like, but I didn't know that they, like, want to stop all AIDS research done on primates!" (Pity they don't have a large, well-organized website or anything where she could have learned that.) Further proof, if any were needed, that all celebrities are idiots until proven otherwise.

The weird thing is that I saw a long interview with PETA founder/domina Ingrid Newkirk in the New Yorker a year or so ago, and she used to be a ferocious carnivore--she rhapsodized for at least two paragraphs during the interview about the luscious taste of calf's liver and steak tartare, and said if she could do it without being paralyzed by guilt she'd go back to eating liver every day. Hmm.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Now that was by far one of the worst things I've seen them do. How stupid are their PR people? Running campaigns like that will only result in alienation from people who might otherwise support them.

About the interview, what a bizarre moment. PETA members could probably give Catholicism a run for the money with guilt issues, I imagine.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

"PETA--keeping the Humane Society financially solvent since 1985." :-p

[neflhim.livejournal.com]

PETA

People Eating Tasty Animals?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

There was a guy running a parody site with that slogan, but I've forgotten the url. He had an ongoing court battle with PETA over it. :D

[viedma.livejournal.com]

You and I are as one. I loathe PETA with the strength of a thousand supernovas. I wish people would devote half the attention to groups like the local humane society.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Exactly.