Journal doublem's Journal: International Eat an Animal for PETA Day 15
If you haven't heard by now, PETA has started yet another offensive ad campaign:
http://www.masskilling.com/mdh.html
This one really reaches bottom-they are using Holocaust terminology, quotes, and pictures to liken the "slaughter" of animals to the slaughter of the Jews by the Nazis.
I've already received a letter from a child of Holocaust survivors who is, of course, extraordinarily offended. But here's the thing: PETA is known for this kind of outrageous publicity stunt-and that's what it is, an outrageous publicity stunt-and while I am also offended and outraged, there is absolutely nothing we can do that will make PETA change their ad campaign. I'm sure they knew exactly what they were doing, have a plan in mind, and, if they withdraw the campaign, will do it according to their deadlines and their decisions.
So let's make up our own outrageous publicity stunt. Let's designate Saturday, March 15th, as International Eat an Animal for PETA Day. Everybody set the date on your calendar, and either go out and enjoy a great steak, or cook one at home. Or cook up some chicken or fish or anything else that PETA wouldn't want you to eat. And let's let PETA know how their ad campaign has affected us.
Send a letter to PETA something on the order of this one: (You can cut and paste, but you can also write your own.)
Dear PETA,
I found your new ad campaign, "The Holocaust on your plate," offensive and outrageous. But I don't expect your organization to suddenly develop any sense of tact or human decency, so I thought I'd tell you what your campaign has wrought:
March 15th has been designated "International Eat An Animal For PETA" day. On that day, I'll be chowing down on a juicy steak, or chicken, or perhaps I'll have lobster-fresh, of course, chosen from the tank specifically for me. Maybe I'll have a plate of ribs at my local barbecue restaurant. Then there's that great seafood restaurant with the poached salmon and the delicious crabcakes. I could take my family there.
America's a free country, and you have the right to say what you want, no matter how offensive I think it is. But as a result of your insensitivity to those millions of people who died in the real Holocaust, and to the survivors and their descendants, I and my family will show PETA the same kind of insensitivity.
And have a great, meat-filled dinner, while we're at it.
Chew on that.
Fellow webloggers: Please feel free to join in and put up your own letter for your readers to grab. Here are the contact addresses.
http://www.peta.org/about/contact.html
Obviously, the above letter needs to be changed for the international crowd. There are more country contacts on the page.
It's like my father taught me: Don't get mad. Get even.
-- Meryl Yourish, at http://www.yourish.com
Message Sent (Score:1)
Days like that.. (Score:2)
Meat meat and more meat!
woohoo!
Sponsor a Veggie (Score:2)
Nullify the PETA moral crusade by sponsoring a PETA member by eating three times as much meat as you would normally. Offer to stop if they start eating meat. By remaining a veggie, they are leading to more animals being eaten.
Re:Sponsor a Veggie (Score:2)
"I went on Atkins to piss of PETA"
I like it, I like it.
Canned Response from PETA (Score:2, Informative)
Thank you for offering your thoughts on our "Holocaust on Your Plate"
Campaign. I want to explain further why we decided to do this campaign
and why we think it's so important.
As a Jew, and on behalf of the Jewish people in the PETA office, some of
whom came up with the idea for the creation of this project, please let
me assure you that the intention of the display is to decrease the
amount of cruelty in the world, not to minimize the human suffering that
occurred during the Holocaust.
It might help for you to know that this project is funded by a Jewish
philanthropist who has spent the last 25 years working with prominent
Jewish organizations that highlight the atrocities that took place
during the Holocaust. This donor is one of many compassionate people who
recognize the moral and ethical imperative of making the public aware of
the parallels between what was done to Jews and others in World War II
and what is being done to animals kept in intensive confinement systems
and slaughtered for food today.
The concept of our campaign originated with Nobel Prize-winning Yiddish
author and vegetarian Isaac Bashevis Singer, who said, "In relation to
[animals], all people are Nazis; for [them], it is an eternal
Treblinka." As you may know, Singer fled Europe as the Nazis were coming
into power and lost most of his family in the Holocaust. He became a
vegetarian as a result of what he lived through and what he saw. He
spoke out in favor of vegetarianism until his death in 1991. His
argument was that it doesn't matter who the victims are-we must speak
out against all atrocities and cruelties and help to stop them.
While the exhibit is shocking and very hard to look at, please consider
visiting our Web site MassKilling.com, where you'll read what many
Holocaust survivors and their families have said about the fact that it
is not only appropriate, but necessary to learn from the Holocaust and
apply these lessons to help the weakest among us today: the animals. We
honor victims of the Holocaust by remembering what they went through,
doing our part to lessen violence on all levels, and by making sure that
we learn from this history.
As a child, I read about and studied the Holocaust, and one of the
things that has stuck with me for years has been the stunning reality
that as 11 million people were spit on, mocked, beaten, and gassed,
millions more-those who were not in fear for their lives-looked on and
let it happen because it didn't affect them directly. PETA is asking
people to stop this from happening today.
Most animals raised for food each year in the United States live on
"factory farms," where to maximize profits, producers raise the most
animals in the least amount of space possible. Overcrowded in small
cages or stalls, most never see the sun, breathe fresh air, or feel
grass beneath their feet. Frightened infants are torn from their
distraught mothers. Chickens have their beaks cut off; cows have their
horns pulled from their heads; pigs are castrated-all without
painkillers. Then these animals are crowded into filthy, slippery
transport trucks in all weather extremes and taken to slaughterhouses
where they are strung up by their legs and have their throats slit-often
in full view of each other. The entire time, these self-aware animals
live and die in fear and pain. All we are asking people to do is
consider and reject what animals are being forced to go through every
day just because people don't relate to them.
Dr. Helmut Kaplan, a scholar and philosopher, said, "Our grandchildren
will ask us one day: Where were you during the Holocaust of the animals?
What did you do against these horrifying crimes? We won't be able to
offer the same excuse for the second time, that we didn't know." The
Holocaust happened because people turned a blind eye to cruelty. Will we
now turn our backs on cruelty and injustice again? Every time a person
sits down for a meal, he or she chooses whether to support the holocaust
against animals or to help end it. We shouldn't choose which atrocities
to oppose. As human beings, we should oppose all atrocities.
The idea that just because animals are different or can't speak for
themselves, they shouldn't be considered living, breathing, sentient
beings worthy of life is the same mindset that allowed the Holocaust to
happen. Philosopher Theodor Adorno, a German Jew who fled Nazi Germany
in the 1930s, wrote, "Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a
slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals."
I hope this helps to clarify the rationale behind this campaign. Please
do let me know if you have further thoughts or questions. To learn more
about Judaism and vegetarianism, please visit JewishVeg.com.
Sincerely,
Matt Prescott
Youth Outreach Coordinator
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Re:Canned Response from PETA (Score:3, Insightful)
They just hurt my brain.
Just because a number of Jewish people were involved in the site, doesn't make any less offensive or degrading to human suffering.
I'm Christian. That does NOT mean what I do is OK with all other Christians, or that what other Christians do is OK with me.
I'm a White American, that does NOT mean Bill Clinton and George W. Bush get my blanked approval for whatever they do. Contrary to the "Same race == same views" logic espoused by PETA, I do NOT agree with everything other white men do. The KKK is at the top of my "If their hearts were on fire I'd let them burn" list.
I'm disgusted that PETA even bothered to use the race of some of the people involved to justify their campaign. It's a weak, and pathetic argument to justify a crass and exploitive grab for attention.
Humans are, in a manner of speaking, animals. We're part of the food chain, and you know what, there are a lot of other animals that kill and eat their fellow creatures. The main difference for humans is that we do our best to minimize the suffering of the animals as they get bumped off. You think a Lion cares how much the gazelle suffers when it tears its throat out and starts eating it while it's still struggling?
Re:Canned Response from PETA (Score:1)
I guess PETA doesn't understand that because one member of a faction is for something, that makes it right.
The anti-Israel movement doesn't say "well it's alright since there are Arabs in the IDF". And the Pro-Israel movement doesn't say the terrorists may be right since there are Christians in PLO and Hamas.
Re:Canned Response from PETA (Score:1)
K
Re:Canned Response from PETA (Score:2)
Something tells me the people who grew up hearing stories of the Holocaust from their Parents / Grandparents / Great Grandparents would be happy with comparing human life to the life of a chicken.
Another Reply (Score:2)
From:"info"
Subject: Thank you for e-mailing PETA
Date: 03/04/03 21:40
Thank you for contacting PETA. If this is an emergency and an animal is
in imminent danger, please contact our office by telephone at
757-622-7382. Please listen to the recording for emergency instructions.
If you are inquiring about your membership status or monthly pledge, or
if you have questions regarding your membership in general, you will
receive a personal response from a staff member within two business
days.
We read all letters and value your comments and suggestions. Your input
is important to us and will be shared with the appropriate staff
members. Due to the tremendous volume of mail we receive, we cannot
respond personally to all inquiries. However, if you have requested
information to be sent to you, and you provided a mailing address,
please be assured that we will be sending the item(s) right away.
Suggestions and cruelty notifications will be passed along to the
appropriate staffers.
Please explore the following links to see if they can help you:
Many questions we receive are answered on our Frequently Asked Questions
page at http://www.peta.org/fp/faq.html or at http://www.AskCarla.com.
Please take a look.
For information about PETA, please go to:
http://www.peta.org/about/index.html.
If you would like to receive information and updates from PETA, please
click here http://peta.org/view.asp?code=infosignup for information on
our e-mail news lists.
For safety reasons, we do not open any e-mail attachments. If you have
sent an attachment, please resend your message within your e-mail.
Thanks again for your feedback and interest in animal rights.
Sincerely,
The PETA Staff
We need your help! Support PETA's vital campaigns to save animals.
http://www.peta.org/j/index.html
Re:Another Reply (Score:2)
Thank you for contacting PETA. If this is an emergency and an animal is in imminent danger, please contact our office by telephone at 757-622-7382. Please listen to the recording for emergency instructions.
Really wanna do something to piss of PETA? Let's everybody call that emergency number and tell them an animal is in danger, I'm about to go grocery shopping and I intend to buy 50 lbs. of meat for the coming barbecue. They'll have to slaughter another animal to give me that.
All I'm going to say... (Score:2)
Shocking and offending, while accomplishing the unwritten goal of getting publicity, does nothing for vegetarianism, or animal rights in general. The average person in the US is not going to become vegetarian just because they see pictures of slaughtered jews. Hell, I work with people who live next door to a slaughterhouse, and yet they eat chicken and pork every single day.
My decision was my own, and I'm glad I made it on my own; PETA's tactics had nothing to do with it. However, I would encourage you to research the benefits of vegetarianism, and ask yourself if you really need to eat animals to live a happy, healthy life.
Also, to those on here who are on the Atkin's diet; a very close friend was on that diet, and while it initially worked extremely well for weightloss, his health detoriated rapidly once he weaned himself off of it. While he was on the diet, he felt extremely sluggish, and needed tons of sleep (digesting beef makes you very tired). I for one don't think it is a healthy diet, and many doctors agree with me on that point. But again, make the decision that is right for you.
Re:All I'm going to say... (Score:2)
While we disagree on the issue of a vegetarian diet, I want to say that I respect your decision, and the way you've chosen to approach the topic in this forum.
I think the way you're approaching being meat free is far more likely to stimulate real thought and discussion than PETA's methods, and far more likely to win people over to a meat free lifestyle.
I want to make it clear that I have nothing against Vegetarians and Vegans. It's a life choice that I can respect.
I am offended by PETA.
I'm probably going to bring up my religion a number of times in this thread. I'm Christian. I don't get in people's faces, I don't run round damning my non-Christian friends to Hell, and I try not to lecture people on their morals.
I am, however, deeply ashamed of the far Right and their extremism. They give me and my faith a bad name, just as PETA paints Vegetarians in a bad light. The truth be told, I think PETA does far more harm, and turns more people off to a Vegetarian lifestyle then they will ever convert. Their net impact is damaging.
Until I read the post above, I did not stop to think about the way advocating this "Eat an animal for PETA" would come across to most Vegetarian. I apologize for that oversight on my part. Given the reference point I mentioned above, I should have known enough to think about it.
That said, I feel the need to press on. I am disgusted with PETA, and want to express that in a way PETA might actually understand.
If God didn't want us to eat animals... (Score:2)
...why did he make them out of meat ?
Join PETA now (People Eating Tasty Animals) !
Furthermore... (Score:2)
And subsequently lied about and repeated their "An anonymous Jewish philanthropist sponsored the campaign, so there can't be anything offensive about it!" excuse.