Credibility PETA Style
In my observation, PETA has very little regard for facts, and one might even say, less for truth. I think this is exemplified in a minor contretemps with the office of Governor Sarah Palin--who its leaders hate for obvious reasons. PETA claimed that Palin's office threatened to sue over a parody on line video game. Palin's office denied any such threat and in a series of frustrating exchanges found out how surrealistic in can be to deal with PETA ideologues. From the story:
And of course, PETA provided no facts and promptly sent the e-mails to the press, accompanied by a press release calling Palin names. But note, it made an allegation it couldn't back up and then used the dust up that followed to get publicity for itself. Ingrid Newkirk and her minions may not be truth tellers but they sure are attention hogs.Here's the full exchange as it happened, according to the folks at PETA:
From: McAllister, William D (GOV) Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 11:26 AM...Subject: The PETA Files--Your website claims we have threatened to sue you. What do you base this on? Be specific.
Bill McAllister, Director of Communications/Press Secretary
Office of Governor Sarah Palin
From: Ingrid Newkirk ...Dear Mr. McAllister, We base this on a phone call. Why don't you ask in your office and be specific as to on what grounds you can sue us? We know that we can use the game as it's pure parody. I thought people in Alaska had a sense of humor? Ingrid Newkirk
From: McAllister, William D (GOV)...That's not very specific. Who called? Name and title given? Did you even attempt to verify it was genuine? Or are facts just cumbersome?
From: Ingrid Newkirk [mailto:ingridn@peta.org]... Do they train you to be rude? [Me: PETA should talk!]
From: McAllister, William D (GOV) [Subject: RE: To answer your enquiry: OK, so the bottom line is, you have attitude, but no facts. Sounds about right.
From: Ingrid Newkirkm Subject: So, are you backing down up there? No, YOU have attitude, and it's a bad one, and so did your legal emissary who must have gone to the same charm school.
From: McAllister, William D (GOV): Our still unnamed legal emissary, huh? Whether or not I'm charming in your eyes, at least I'm accountable.
From: Ingrid Newkirk...You will be when you die, don't you think? Did someone put Red Bull in your water cooler? Are you now saying that no one called from your office, that's my question, or did the person who called overplay his hand, or what, not that I really care any more?
From: McAllister, William D (GOV)...
To answer the question in your subject line, yes, you are sorry. I wouldn't know if the person who (allegedly) called overplayed his (a man, then?--still waiting for more details) hand. No one here knows what you're talking about.
Labels: PETA. Attention Hogs.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:04 PM
17 Comments
17 Comments:
You should have more consideration for PETA. Admittedly, they have not handled some things well, but they are involved in a difficult and thankless task, trying to end terrible crimes of violence against animals.
The way human beings treat animals is cruel, criminal and totally unnecessary. We treat them without regard to their natural rights and without any regard to their wellbeing. Virtually, all violence against animals is biologically unnecessary and should be legally prohibited. Fat chance, I know, considering our inability to stop criminal abortion violence and military violence directed against innocent human beings.
I wish the animal rights movement had more strategic understanding but their hearts are in the right place.
Joe: Sorry, I think that the hearts of most leades of the ARL movement--as distinguished from people who want animals to be treated better--are in the wrong place because granting "rights" to animals would cause tremendous human harm. I certainly believe in animal welfare. And I disagree that humans act "without any regard" to the wellbeing of animals. Just ask the baby seal saved from natural selection by human rescuers. And I deny that animals have natural rights. If that were the case, they would have to honor each other's rights, which of course they cannot do. Hence, if humans grant animals rights, we would have to honor their "rights," but they wouldn't have to honor ours or those of each other.
Human exceptionalism includes a duty to treat animals humanely. We should not be cruel or cause gratuitous suffering to anaimals. But our first duty is to humanity.
Thanks for your input.
I just posted on the rights topic a few hours ago, and explained how it related to the subject matter at hand, in a previous blog section. Yes, a few humans act with regard for a few non-human animals, e.g. the baby seal; far more humans still cause far more animals than that terrible and cruel suffering. I know that SHS denies that animals have natural rights, and I disagree that rights can be "granted" in the sense of what I posted a few hours go. Animals do in fact honor the rights of themselves and of each other, in the manner in which they themselves have been made, by leaving each other alone except within the parameters of the necessity for survival. The baby seal can talk? Acknowledge, perhaps, and show gratitude, and those are important point. Of course our first duty is to humanity, as all animals' duty is to themselves. But humanity involves more than utilitarianism.
I know Ingrid Newkirk. She offered me a full-time job with PETA back in the 1980s, and I know the sacrifices that those who work there make in order to be able to do what they believe in and are dedicated to doing. I find the exchange here very entertaining, including because of Ingrid's wit. For one thing, the camp of Sarah Palin (whom I like except for the part about shooting from airplanes, which is no better than canned hunting in that it doesn't even give the animal a chance) ought to know whether anyone called, and if anyone did, who, and be able to give a flat denial if no one did. It sounds more like someone may have called without proper organization or giving their name, and that Ingrid knew that Palin's camp didn't know for sure whether anyone had. Sure PETA used it for publicity purposes; what they are all about is bringing the issue of cruelty to animals to public attention by any means possible, and Sarah Palin put herself in their line of sight with the shooting from airplanes business, and with far more awareness and capacity to self-defend than the poor moose or wolf thus shot has. Animal rights work is an immense undertaking that requires action along a broad spectrum; at PETA's end, the "stunt" serves (successfully) to bring the issue to attention and get people thinking about what they have not considered before; whether they mock PETA, or decry their tactics, does not matter; what matters is that the issue has been brought up. Controversiality is part of the package. As a result, there has been much more consideration for the welfare of animals by humans than there would have been otherwise, and that is PETA's end game. Publicity is a necessary and essential part of creating a more and conscientious approach to animal welfare. Its purpose is to raise awareness. PETA works at that end of the spectrum of all that needs to be done to reduce cruelty to non-human animals so that we do, indeed, honor our duty to treat animals humanely. There is a long way to go; we don't even treat each other humanely yet, and humanity is humanity and is reinforced and further nurtured by each act of humanity to any animal, human or non-human.
When it comes to terminology, we ARE all animals, as the word derives from Latin "anima," which means "breath," "spirit," "life force," etc. "Human" derives from "humus," literally "earth" (as opposed to deities, for example, that are immaterial), and by the same token, etymologically speaking, the term could be applied to non-human animals, as well. In fact, we can see the beginning of the mix-up from the etymology itself.
Ianthe: Not going to argue animal rights with you, but regarding Palin and the wolves. SHE doesn't hunt from the air. As governor, she has authorized professional hunters to do it as a matter of culling. It isn't done for sport. It is ecosystem management.
I understand that the shooting the wolves is culling for ecosystem management. I still don't like it, and I say that even after having lived where deer are a problem and what began as charming, with a few on the lawn, became annoying when there were 50, and having had to worry when walking down the driveway if I was going to get knocked down or kicked in the head by one. She's also spoken, I understand, of shooting a moose from an airplane, as a result of which, she said, she was able to feed her family, if I understand correctly. It just isn't a fair tactic.
I want to add this: Just as in something I wrote earlier I did not mean that all Democrats are dumb (but a certain stripe is, and buys into the death culture for that reason), I don't think that we'd ever get to the point where we stop using animals altogether; some of us don't do well unless we eat meat; I doubt everyone will ever stop using dairy products, fish, etc.; we're not going to stop using dogs, cats, and horses as companion animals; it would be very good (I know SHS doesn't agree with me on this) if we stopped all animal experimentation, but that is not as imminent as I wish it were; animal rights work is intended to move things in a more humane direction, and every movement has a radical aspect and radical objectives that never come to fruition in reality. It really is not a threat to us, and I don't see its connection with the death culture. I see the death culture and nihilism as having caused, and come out of, the things that the animal rights movement is trying to stop. Even Singer isn't an animal rights advocate, as his own utilitarianism proves. He thinks animal experimentation can be ok, that apes should be able to vote (or something like that; from the job we're doing politically I'm not sure that wouldn't improve matters); he's a influential destructive egghead, and I can see where he's aligned with nihilism and the death culture, but he's not an animal rights advocate. I never thought, by the way, that his "We are all animals" lowered our status, or for that matter raised theirs, or that it had anything to do with status; I just thought it was an insight that forces us to realize that compassion is in order. But I do know what you mean.
Ianthe: I don't follow Palin's every statement, but I do recall her speaking of shooting moose to feed the family but not doing it from an airplane.
If it required using an airplane to feed the family, I would be for it, however. But someone who could use an airplane to hunt, probably wouldn't need to hunt to feed the family. Barring that necessity, and barring necessarry culls (assuming arguendo they are necessary), I would oppose hunting by plane just as I would oppose fishing using dynamite.
I wonder when the animal rights movement will want to ban antibiotics ... bacteria are living things too, aren't they?
The way I heard it, the moose was from an airplane. But I could have heard it wrong.
Unless bacteria breathe, it would have to be the bacterial rights movement. Aside from which it's not about what we do to what is a threat to us; animals defend themselves; we should be more humane than we are, however, since we have the capacity to, when we are defending ourselves; it's more about what we do to what isn't a threat to us.
This isn't a matter of "wit." The PETA woman should have said, "Okay, I have to admit, we didn't get any details, and we can't substantiate our allegation. I have a statement from a member of my staff whom I trust that someone claiming to be from your office called and threatened to sue. It's possible it was a hoax or a caller just pretending to be from your office, and we cannot prove that it wasn't. I think it probably _was_ someone from your office, and in that case you should try to find out who it was."
But she couldn't be that honest. She couldn't admit that standards of evidence apply to allegations of that sort. She just wanted to be cute, and to my mind, she ends up sounding thoroughly juvenile. He says, "Nobody here knows what you're talking about." In other words, he went, he asked, he checked around, and he could find no substantiation on his end for her statement. What else was he obligated to do? Go groveling on the sheer hypothetical possibility that a caller from his office had made such a call? There are, after all, millions of other people in the world and nothing to stop them from making such a call and claiming to be on the governor's staff. If PETA wanted legitimately to make an issue of it, they should have asked the person's name and tried to get more details which they could use as evidence. But of course they care nothing for such things. I say the win in this exchange goes to McAllister.
We don't, and can't, really know what either one of them really knew, or what the actual circumstances were. We weren't there or in their offices, let alone in their heads.
But Ingrid is very sharp, and every time PETA gets publicity, no matter how, and no matter how inconsequential, it keeps their name in the news, which in turn keeps the issue of cruelty to animals in the public consciousness, and that's what they are working to do, and they're doing a good job of it. What they're fighting, on behalf of creatures who can't defend themselves, against things that are entrenched and not easy to change, and that they're up against every day, is much more unfair than their tactics in a given situation.
I just looked up Peter Singer on Wikipedia. I never get headaches but if I did I'd have one now. Why would anyone even think up some of that stuff, let alone make a career out of it? The part about our all being animals makes sense; we all breathe; up to the part about sentience makes sense; then it just spins out in all kinds of directions that it doesn't make sense why anyone would even think up such stuff, and there are logical lacunae, and leaps to things from out of nowhere on no foundation, and, as I said, it's just...I can't even find words for it. He couldn't work in a deli instead? I'm not sure I'd even trust a sandwich from the guy. All the things that need doing in the world and this is what he's doing. It's bizsrre.
I mean, for example, with the "journeys." What is this with Singer and the "journeys"? Is it because the plane trip from Australia is often on his mind?
I mean, for example, with the "journeys." What is this with Singer and the "journeys"? Is it because the plane trip from Australia is often on his mind?
On rights movements, the societal changes and breakdown in society within the framework of which the rise of the death culture has taken place has followed the success of the various rights movements we've had thus far. Not that we shouldn't have had the latter; just noting it.
"Journey" drives me nuts. I'm about to get there with "narrative".
I don't understand why he chose the word "journey" to describe whatever he means by it in the first place, I have no idea what he means by it, and that lack of clarity is part and parcel of the illogic of his work. It seems to have some special meaning for him and underpin his whole system; he seems to assume everyone will know what he is talking about, or else he is trying to dumb them up.
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