Yellow E-Journalism

[wahine]

Okay, this just really pissed me off. My brother told me to got to www.peta.org and to check out what their front page was.

These imbeciles are comparing the Holocaust to the death of cows.

There a bedamned difference! People have consciences and the knowledge between right and wrong, animals can only be trained. Cows are food.

If cows are starving, it's bad, but it isn't the same and it's so #$^ &$^@ %!^#$& to compare it to the loss of HUMAN life.

Post your opinion.

[Elvellyn]

I don't really get how they made that connection. The Holocaust was a genocide. Cows are cows. They are food. COws and people are not the same thing.

Note that the website says that the cows are killed for food, which means they were killed for a reason, unlike the mindless slaughter of Holocaust victims.

[Insidious Rex]

Well remember PETA is an extemist organization. So dont expect any less from them but that kind of extreme exploitation. Its obvious the two things are so apples and oranges. But that being said you can dredge up dozens of legit articles about the horrors of the beef/chicken/pork industries. Everyone knows really horrible things happen every day to allow us to eat like royalty. The competition between different live stock processing companies is so intense that they have to run their slaughter machines 24 hours a day 7 days a week at incredible speeds. And often times a cow will not be dispatched (killed) before its dangled from its ankles flailing and skinned alive then plunged into boiling hot water. And all so we can have a hamburger and only have to pay $1 for it. Now Im a big fat hypocrit because I eat meat and I like it. But at least Im not in denial about what kind of practices Im supporting. I just wish it could be done more humanely I guess.

[Dúnedain]

Yeah I saw a news spot about this last week. They are getting a lot a bad PR for such a comparison, not that PETA had good PR. I understand the whole animal rights stance and I do agree with it to an extent, but when they do something like this it totally bashes everything they stand for and lessens their credibility in my opinion...

[cassiopeia]

While I'm not against killing animals for food, I am concerned about the conditions the animals are kept in. That is why I am a vegetarian.
The website is comparing the techniques of killing animals and the conditions they are kept in; to the poor people during the holocaust. They're talking about a mass slaughter, which occured during the holocaust and occurs in slaughterhouses. But it does seem a little extreme to me.

[Coney]

Post your opinion.

I'm glad I'm not a Hindu.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

GEE-ZA-LOO! That is...that's....that's just...[Charlie Brown]Good grief![/Charlie Brown]

[jerseydevil]

This has been on the news for the past month. John Stossel even did a piece on them. The woman who heads PETA is just as crazy as those nut cases who claimed they produced a human clone.

[jerseydevil]

Has PETA Gone Hog Wild?
Animal Rights vs. Human Rights

Commentary
By John Stossel
ABCNEWS.com

Feb. 7 — What's up with the animal rights activists? They'd rather save a lab rat than allow potentially lifesaving research into diseases that kill us humans. And they spend money on legal fees for people who've done things like firebomb research centers.

PETA President Ingrid Newkirk says we shouldn't drink milk, and PETA is suing the Milk Board for what it calls deceptive advertising. PETA says the ads are deceptive because they show happy cows in green meadows.

"Almost no cows have a blade of grass or a tree," Newkirk said.

"Some of them are on mud," Newkirk said, "which means when it rains, they're living up to their hocks in manure."

But in nature, cows walk around in mud. If there weren't farmers taking care of them, the cows' living conditions might be worse. And many cows do live in green fields. You see them all over America.

Farmers want healthy animals — a healthy chicken lays more eggs, a happy cow gives more milk. That's why some dairy farmers even give their cows waterbeds to sleep on. Newkirk says that only a "vast, vast minority" are treated that well.

Still, it shows that the farmer wants a healthy cow, too, right?

"It's economics, that's all it is. If it ruins the leather …" Newkirk said.

Economics is OK. A happy cow, a healthy cow, more milk, more meat.

‘Concentration Camps for Animals’

PETA also wants us to stop eating turkey, because, according to Newkirk, the turkeys have nothing but "stress, pain, disease, fear, and in the end, a traumatic death." She says turkey farms are "like concentration camps for animals."

I think that's an insult to the people who were in concentration camps.

She told me: "If you go to these turkey farms, turkeys are crammed together so tightly, and they're transported in all weather conditions, only to be hung up by one leg and have their throat slit. That's not kind."

But nature isn't kind either. Lions hunt down zebras and start to eat them while they're still alive. And while life on a turkey farm is no picnic, wild turkeys have tough lives, too. In the wild, they would fight, and die slowly, suffering as much pain as turkeys on a turkey farm.

PETA says we shouldn't wear fur, either. Some of its members stormed the runway at the recent Victoria's Secret fashion show to protest a model who poses for fur ads.

At a protest in Boston a month later, PETA activists doused themselves with red paint — to represent the animal's blood — and then slithered over Macy's store windows, smearing as much of the paint as possible to protest Macy's selling fur coats.

That protest cost Boston-area taxpayers money. The Boston Sanitation Department had to come to clean up the sidewalks. When I asked her about this Newkirk said, "I'm sorry, John, but I think somebody has to give the animals a voice."

PETA has gotten some very famous people to be the animals' voices. It's a trendy charity; celebrities such as Alec Baldwin and Alicia Silverstone appear in PETA ads.

Activism or Terrorism?

Some of their ads encourage us to protest research on animals. Even though animal testing has led to penicillin, organ transplants, the cure for polio, PETA says medical research involving animal testing must not be done.

Newkirk said, "It's totally immoral, and I would no more experiment on my neighbor's child than experiment on an animal."

Newkirk said that all animals feel pain, and feel afraid, and "it's rubbish research."

Other animal rights activists advocate not just civil disobedience, but force.

Robin Webb asked a crowd to destroy a New Jersey laboratory that uses animals to do research on diseases like AIDS and cancer when he spoke at an event for Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty.

PETA says it does not fund terrorists, but when arsonists who blew up a research lab in Michigan were caught, PETA paid $45,000 for the legal defense of arsonist Rodney Coronado.

"We gave him money for his defense because it is America and you are entitled to a legal defense and he's a fine young man and a schoolteacher," Newkirk said.

Coronado doesn't seem to have any remorse for his action. He's out of jail, and a few months ago the Center for Consumer Freedom taped him urging others to burn buildings down.

"I wish I didn't have to stand up here and talk about and justify and encourage direct action — encourage breaking the law, encourage burning down buildings that are built for life's destruction, but I do," he said.

He's the fine young teacher PETA's defending? The guy blew up a building. He didn't just speak his mind, he spoke with a bomb.

Now you know, when you make your contribution to PETA, that's where some of it goes.

Give Me a Break!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Well, I don't really follow the news (unless you count accidentally leaving the TV on... ), so it's no wonder I didn't hear about it before.

[Erawyn]

Comparing it to the Holocaust is fairly idiotic... PETA really bothers me actually because they do/say things like this so frequently and really make it impossible for the mainstream to take them seriously. Which is a shame because animal rights are important.

But nature isn't kind either. Lions hunt down zebras and start to eat them while they're still alive. And while life on a turkey farm is no picnic, wild turkeys have tough lives, too. In the wild, they would fight, and die slowly, suffering as much pain as turkeys on a turkey farm.

This however is ridiculous, because life for a wild turkey is natural, and how it's supposed to be, whereas life in a turkey farm is full of tortures imposed on them by humans treating them like inanimate objects.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Erawyn
This however is ridiculous, because life for a wild turkey is natural, and how it's supposed to be, whereas life in a turkey farm is full of tortures imposed on them by humans treating them like inanimate objects.

We have developed whole lineages of wild life bread specifically to serve as food. They have been designed specifically for consumption and they are now freaks of nature. No wild turkey has breasts so big that they cant even mate. Normally female cattle dont give milk 12 months a year and go into shock if they arent milked enough. These are all frankensteins we have created to serve us primarily for food. And unfortunately this means that there is no easy answer to this like "free them all" or "dont eat meat". We just need to learn to be more humane even if it means more expensive food.

[Coney]

No wild turkees have breasts so big that they cant even mate.

o_O

So how do they?..y'know?....Well they must find some way

*struggliing to stay PG-13*

Well.........turkeys don't grow on trees do they!

[Baby-K]

So how do they?..y'know?....Well they must find some way

Everything is electronic nowadays! One of these fine morns we'll all wake up & see little microchips roosting in the chicken / turkey coups.

PS - ever heard of Danny? State of the art equipment now available to turkeys worldwide!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Coney
o_O

So how do they?..y'know?....Well they must find some way

*struggliing to stay PG-13*

Well.........turkeys don't grow on trees do they!

The farmer has to do the duties. With an eye dropper. (Or perhaps they use a turkey baster *laugh*)

[congressmn]

Originally posted by Coney
I'm glad I'm not a Hindu.

I am a hard-core non vegetarian devout HINDU

[Coney]

Originally posted by congressmn
I am a hard-core non vegetarian devout HINDU

Keep ya turban on

I meant that it would be even more upsetting for those that hold animals sacred.

[Legolas_Frodo_Aragorn]

Well...slaughter houses are horrible to animals (a reason why im a veggietarian) but that is in no way comparable to the holocost. This was genocide of the jews. This was one species killing the themselves in mass concentration. The holocost involved brainwashing of the german people and youth ( ie hitler youth) and is not comparable to anything!