THE HYPOCRISY AT PETA
The following story is from This is True dated 17 July 2005. It is Copyright 2005 Randy Cassingham, all rights reserved, and reprinted here with permission:
"Ethical" Defined
After more than 100 dead dogs were dumped in a trash dumpster over
four weeks, police in Ahoskie, N.C., kept an eye on the trash receptacle behind a supermarket. Sure enough, a van drove up and officers watched the occupants throw in heavy plastic bags. They detained the two people in the van and found 18 dead dogs in plastic bags in the dumpster, including puppies; 13 more dead dogs were still in the van. Police say the van is registered to the headquarters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the two occupants, Andrew B. Cook, 24, and Adria Joy Hinkle, 27, identified themselves as PETA employees. An autopsy performed on one of the dogs found it was healthy before it was killed.
Police say PETA has been picking up the animals -- alive -- from North Carolina animal shelters, promising to find them good homes. Cook and Hinkle have been charged with 62 felony counts of animal cruelty. In response to the arrests PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said it's against the group's policy for employees to dump animals in the trash, but "that for some animals in North Carolina, there is no kinder option than euthanasia." (Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald) ...Oops, my mistake: that's "Playing God" Defined.
In his author's notes section, Cassingham had more to say about this story:
The more I learn about PETA, the less I think of them. The story of them killing animals isn't even unusual. According to PETA's own filings, in 2004 PETA killed 86.3 percent of the animals entrusted to its care -- a number that's rising, not falling.
Meanwhile, the SPCA in PETA's home town (Norfolk, Va.) was able to find loving homes for 73 percent of the animals put in its care. A shortage of funds? Nope: last year PETA took in $29 million in tax-exempt donations. It simply has other priorities for the funds, like funding terrorism (yes, really). But don't take my word for it: I got my figures from http://www.PETAkillsAnimals.com -- and they have copies of PETA's state and federal filings to back it up. The bottom line: if you donate money to PETA because you think they care for and about animals, you need to think some more. PETA literally
yells and screams about how others "kill animals" but this is how they operate? Pathetic.And you know what I wonder? PETA's official count of animals they kill is 86.3 percent. But if they're going around picking up animals, killing them while they drive around and not even giving them a chance to be adopted, and then destroying the evidence by dumping the bodies in the trash, are those deaths being reported? My guess: no. While 86.3 percent is awful, the actual number is probably much, much higher. How dare they lecture anyone about the "ethical" treatment of animals!
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Adding to Mr. Cassingham's story, I would like to offer the following commentary:
For the few of you who have followed my writings from my days as a college newspaper editor, you know that I have little tolerance for PETA.
I have long thought this organization was a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Or more accurately, a hamburger short of a Happy Meal. Their antics are degrading, self-centered propaganda designed to focus attention on ... on what ... Their cause? No. They want the attention to fall on themselves. They are happiest in the spotlight. They pretend to be martyrs for a cause because they want the spotlight to be on them and their lettuce bikinis or their throwing pies in the faces of rodeo princesses or whatever. They want the spotlight.
The animals are merely a ploy, a means to an end, to get the attention they want. PETA has done nothing to contribute to the politic dialogue. How could they? How can you talk to someone who'd rather throw bricks (figuratively speaking) than think?!
And now we learn this.
And it proves that animals really are just a means to an end. Once they've got their attention, the PETA people no longer need animals, so they can do with them what they please.
Now, I could be wrong, but this is the perception that PETA has always put forward with their silly antics. And I know there's hypocrites in every organization and blah blah blah. But these were PETA employees, disposing of pets PETA picked up to distribute to "loving homes." If these two were just rogue agents of PETA, then why didn't any other PETA employee confront the pair? Really, if this had happened at McDonald's that McDonald's had been taking pets from a local shelter, killing them and then dumping them in a dumpster, don't you think PETA would've been protesting? Heck, who wouldn't be protesting that? So why aren't protesting this?!
They've always been outlandish, and it just seems that their bizarreness is nothing more than shouting "Hey, Look at ME! Hey, Look at ME" into a microphone.
It's time that we all did ourselves a favor. It's time for all of us, especially those in the media, to ignore these attention-starved fools. That way, we'll be doing ourselves and the animals a real favor.
If you're an animal lover, you've been betrayed by PETA. It won't be the last time.
