Bravo for Colorado Governor Bill Owens for highlighting the public relations scam that is perpetrated by PETA. This article about a recent radio interview makes obvious the total lack of concern of this group (and others of its ilk, including the (In)Humane Society of the United States) for genuine animal welfare in terms of relieving suffering of animals.
(Take note: I said something nice about a Republican.)
18 comments:
I'm trying to live life peacefully and you post these things that raise the hair on the back of my neck.;)
I didn't realize the situation is CO was so dire. Poor Moo-Moo's. To be freezing and hungry is horrible. I'm proud of the national guard. I wonder if hypothermia is a slow death or if you just fall into a freezing sleep. I hope the cattle survive.
I almost stopped breathing, but you've said nice things about me, too. While not a Republican, I generally guess I'm a bit more conservative than you.
But you should watch out. First, Michael Boyles. Now PETA. You're generating loads of publicity.
Thanks for the link to the Center for Consumer Freedom. Very interesting information. As a public health practitioner, I am often inundated with "big govt can solve all of our health problems" attitudes (which I wholeheartedly disagree with by the way).
Always investigate your sources. Number one rule of journalism or being an intelligent reader of the media. The Center for Consumer Freedom is not run by consumers but by the restaurant, alcohol, and tobacco industries. SourceWatch is a good website that helps with this, but I still have to google up connections myself to be safe.
This is from SourceWatch about CCF:
"The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) (formerly called the "Guest Choice Network") is a front group for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries. It runs media campaigns which oppose the efforts of scientists, doctors, health advocates, environmentalists and groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, calling them "the Nanny Culture -- the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, anti-meat activists, and meddling bureaucrats who 'know what's best for you.'"
They would like you to believe that eating fast food regularly won't make you fat if they could.
Moreover, what exactly could PETA do that the National Guard couldn't do better in such an extreme situation? It would be better for the National Guard to do it who are professionally equipped and trained. I actually monitor CCF to be aware of propaganda fed into the media by them.
Everything else they have written about PETA has never admonished them for anything. Their "astonishment" is such a ridiculous facade. CCF doesn't care at all about the freezing cows. CCF just wants to attack PETA.
Fast food is one of the big financial supporters of CCF. And what fast food you know that doesn't have animal byproducts? Almost non-existent.
CCF isn't for consumer freedom, they are against consumer choices and want people to back away from choosing as a consumer not to eat meat and against people being properly informed enough to realize that things like fast food and cigerettes aren't good for you.
Whew! Did I ever claim to be a responsible objective journalist? I'm just another blogger! ;-)
PETA is one scary organization! But watch out for the Center for Consumer Freedom - they periodically get so oppositional, they make PETA look a little too powerful.
Misty the weird-assed vegan here. Some questions that come to mind...is everyone saying that they were saving them for some other cause? Other than being eaten, I mean. Are they planning on letting them live out their full and natural lives (15-20 years or more) or are they, indeed, going to be slaughtered at the age of 2 (most likely, since that's the outer edge of how long beef cattle are allowed to live). Are they desperate to save them for their own sake or because they are saving money for some animal flesh broker? I know Peta can be over the top, but they inspire questions from time to time that people would prefer not to answer...
In my mind, there is an enormous ethical difference between providing care for and raising animals intended for meat that are going to eventually be humanely slaughtered, and total indifference to living animals who one knows are suffering. The first can be done fully respectful and congnizant and responsibly in view of animal welfare, the second cannot.
Well, mentally just correct the typos in my last message, ok?
Gonna have to vote with PETA on this one. If people were that concerned about the cows, they wouldn't be eating them; the ONLY reason they're out there freezing is because they are next year's crop, so it's pretty nervy of them to scream about how "uncaring" PETA is while eating their steaks. Now, if I were in Peta's place, I would rescue them under the condition that I be allowed to remove the death sentence from their heads. Just my two cents, as usual, from your local hippie left wing blogging triathlete...
So it's okay to let an animal die a painful miserable death NOW just because you know they will die within two years anyway?
I'm afraid we have to agree to disagree on this point. It's NOT okay in my personal ethics to knowingly allow domestic animals to be in pain and suffering, even if their eventual fate is meat. Furthermore, I haven't ever known any profitable professional farmer, rancher, or dairy producer who has considered it okay to allow animals unrelieved suffering, even though I've been involved in animal agriculture most of the last 35 years.
I should add that furthermore, not all those animals were destined for meat within two years, not by a long shot. Seed stock (breeding cows and bulls) live long past maturity - many live quite a few years, sometimes into their 20s.
What I don't understand is, if shooting a bolt through a cow's head and then slitting its neck and letting it drain from a meathook is more human than freezing, then why don't they do that now instead of letting them freeze to death?
Um, how do you get the bolt out to the cow that is stranded in snowdrifts, exactly?
Yes, I believe that captive bolt killing is immediate and humane. The draining part is immaterial if the animal is already dead, btw.
And just for the record, if I weren't willing to do the killing of animals raised domestically for meat myself, I wouldn't eat meat either.
Good question. Still, seems more efficient to just get it over with now than spend all those resources to 'rescue' them and then kill them anyway. While your and my concern is for the animals, I highly suspect political concern is motivated by lost profits. PETA's mission includes withholding support for animals-for-meat industry; it always has, and it works to end human (not nature's> cruelty to animals. So in that sense, they are being consistent in their refusal to be involved. It's a bad situation, and if the cows weren't being raised as a crop, it wouldn't be happening.
Well, we seem to have come full circle - despite expenditures over $22 million per year, this instance shows that PETA (for one) was unwilling to assist one iota in proving better access to hundreds of thousands of animals to help relieve their immediate, conscious suffering.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/4314.htm
That's not the type of organization that I would ever choose to personally support (this among other reasons I won't belabor here).
thanks very much for the link! Well, I would point outthat according to this link, the request for assistance wasn't in line with their stated mission to focus on the exploitation and abuse of animals. As well, CCF Director of Research David Martosko made comments about how PETA was enjoying the lost revenue for beef producers, so I still believe that is Governor Williams' greatest concern, not really the animals' welfare. This is just going to be one of his anti-liberal talking points in the future.
Well, yeah, it doesn't seem to me that PETA's mission and activities support their title and their public relations efforts.
That doesn't mean that everyone else in the world or even in this controversy is ultra-ethical either....
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