Antimulticulture
2005-12-08 10:35:13 UTC
PETA's Anti-Human Agenda
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7224
December 8th, 2005
Ostensibly dedicated to "establishing and protecting the rights of all
animals," People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest
animals rights organization in the world. Founded in 1980 and boasting a
current membership of more than 850,000, PETA regards itself as an
international nonprofit charitable organization. It maintains offices in
Norfolk, Virginia; the United Kingdom; Germany; Asia-Pacific; and India.
PETA operates under a simple, self-stated principle - "that animals are not
ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment." Through the
implementation of multifaceted media campaigns against fast-food companies,
the creation of public service announcements featuring celebrity
vegetarians, the organization of protests and rallies against the use of
fur, and the persistent lobbying of legislators, PETA's public persona is
one of both education and activism. Like its ideological kin on the
environmental and animal-rights Left, PETA places greater value on the
welfare of animals than on the welfare of human beings.
PETA focuses its efforts on four main areas in which it believes that "the
largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods
of time." These are: factory farms, laboratories, the clothing industry, and
the entertainment industry. Moreover, the group condemns the killing of pest
animals, the use of animals in sports, and even the utilization of
seeing-eye dogs for the blind.
PETA was founded by animal activists Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, who
were inspired by ethics philosopher Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation;
Newkirk continues to head the organization to this day. Throughout its
history, PETA has tried numerous methods to bring a halt to what it deems
abusive practices against animals - including calls for consumer boycotts of
animal-tested products, and the enlistment of Members of Congress friendly
to their cause. Among its accomplishments, the organization counts the
following: an investigation of contract testing on animals by cosmetics
companies, leading to a permanent ban on animal testing by Benetton, Avon,
Revlon, and Estée Lauder; worldwide protests pressuring McDonald's to become
the first fast-food chain to agree to improve the living conditions of farm
animals; and the decision by national chain stores such as Target,
Walgreen's, and Rite Aid to stop selling a toy known as AquaBabies, in which
fish and frogs are kept in a small habitat container, which PETA views as
imprisonment.
PETA, which has been described by Newkirk as an organization composed of
"complete press sluts," performs many dramatic and often vulgar stunts in
order to garner media attention for its cause. From throwing buckets of red
paint on people wearing furs, to enlisting actresses and models to wear
lettuce fashioned as bikinis in order to promote veganism, PETA embraces
controversy. One particular method that PETA's campaigns employ is the use
of religious themes. One of its advertisements, for instance, claimed that
Jesus was a vegetarian. In a 2003 ad condemning the consumption of ham on
Easter, PETA created a billboard featuring the photograph of a pig and a
caption that read, "He Died For Your Sins - Go Vegetarian." Said PETA
spokesman William Rivas-Rivas, "All our faith-based billboards are meant to
promote compassion, compassion for all God's creatures."
PETA has also aimed its message toward members of the Jewish faith. In
addition to condemning the tradition of the Kosher slaughter, in one
campaign PETA invoked the tragedy and loss of the Holocaust, equating the
mass death of Jews with the wholesale slaughtering of animals for meat
production. The campaign, titled "Holocaust on Your Plate," declared that
"like the Jews murdered in concentration camps, animals are terrorized when
they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to
slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the
lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the death camps."
[Ed. Nobody was turned into a lampshade or soap, therefore the argument is
pure propaganda, as per usual...]
When the Anti-Defamation League condemned the ad, PETA defended its position
on grounds that "the logic and methods employed in factory farms and
slaughterhouses are analogous to those used in concentration camps." PETA
remarked that in both instances, there exists a "concept of other cultures
or other species as deficient and thus disposable, and that this
indifference allows the slaughter to continue."
In another campaign of recent years, PETA has called, unsuccessfully, for
such cities as Hamburg and Frankfurt, Germany to change their names due to
the association with the exploitation of animals for food (hamburgers and
hotdogs, respectively). The organization has also asked the town of
Fishkill, New York to change its name.
Many of PETA's campaigns are directed specifically at children, and the
organization has created a website, PETAKIDS.com, that indoctrinates
youngsters in its ideology. On this website, children are taught, among
other things, to oppose the wearing of fur clothing, to boycott zoos and
circuses, to abstain from drinking drink milk, to refuse to participate in
science classes that require animal dissections, and to "save animals'
lives" by becoming vegetarians. PETA also produces a magazine for children
titled GRRR! Kids Bite Back, which derives its name from the catchphrase,
"Bite Back," popularized by the domestic terrorist group the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF). PETA has also produced a comic pamphlet, called
"Your Mommy Kills Animals!," which depicts a woman stabbing a rabbit and is
intended to arouse children's outrage at the prospect of their mothers
wearing fur garments. A counterpart pamphlet, titled "Your Daddy Kills
Animals!," compares fathers who go fishing to predators who steal children,
and advises youngsters to keep their family dog and cat away from their
father, lest he try to kill them as well.
Newkirk herself is intent on fashioning her own death into a PETA campaign.
It has been reported that in her will, Newkirk has asked that her body be
processed into Newkirk Nuggets (akin to chicken nuggets), which she
stipulates must be grilled on a barbeque. She also asks that her feet be
amputated and turned into umbrella stands and that her body be skinned and
manufactured into wallets.
In 2005, PETA sought to compare animals to slaves in its campaign titled,
"Are Animals the New Slaves?" This campaign featured an exhibit in
Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement, which drew
analogies between the past enslavement of African-Americans and present-day
cruelty to animals. The press release for the exhibit stated:
"The exhibit reminds observers that not long ago, it wasn't just other
animals who were persecuted because they were deemed inferior. The display
includes images of slaves who were chained, beaten, branded, and forcibly
separated from their families; Native Americans who were evicted from their
ancestral lands; women who fought for the right not to be treated as their
husbands' property; and children forced to work long hours in dangerous and
unhealthy conditions. Today, animals are chained and beaten to perform in
circuses; poisoned and cut open in laboratories; and bludgeoned, drowned,
and electrocuted for their skins. Mothers and their offspring are separated,
auctioned off, mutilated, and killed for their flesh."
"'Today, we all remember the abuses of the past as shameful and wrong yet
forget that changes only came about after an uphill battle to open people's
hearts and minds to the plight of others,' says PETA President Ingrid E.
Newkirk. 'We're calling for that same consideration now for feeling,
thinking animals who are exploited, hurt, and killed for reasons that are no
longer tolerable in a just society.'"
This comparison between human and animal life is a reccurring theme in
PETA's work. Says Newkirk, "When it comes to feelings such as pain, fear,
hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." This moral
equivalence not only fuses PETA's public campaigns, but also leads the
organization to forge alliances with animal rights extremists and domestic
terrorist outfits.
In the "Frequently Asked Questions" section of its website, PETA poses the
question, "How can you justify the millions of dollars of property damage
caused by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF)?" It answers as follows:
"Throughout history, some people have felt the need to break the law to
fight injustice. The Underground Railroad and the French Resistance are
examples of movements in which people broke the law in order to answer to a
higher morality. The ALF, which is simply the name adopted by people who act
illegally in behalf of animal rights, breaks inanimate objects such as
stereotaxic devices and decapitators in order to save lives. ALF members
burn empty buildings in which animals are tortured and killed. ALF 'raids'
have given us proof of horrific cruelty that would not have otherwise been
discovered or believed and have resulted in criminal charges' being filed
against laboratories for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Often, ALF
raids have been followed by widespread scientific condemnation of the
practices occurring in the targeted labs, and some abusive laboratories have
been permanently shut down as a result."
ALF, which holds a spot on the FBI's list of terrorist organizations, is the
most active, extreme animal-rights group in America. Its self-defined
mission is "to effectively allocate resources (time and money) to reduce
animal suffering in the world." Toward this end, ALF states that it "carries
out direct action against animal abuse in the form of rescuing animals and
causing financial loss to animal exploiters, usually through the damage and
destruction of property." Between 1997 and 2003, ALF caused, in conjunction
with the radical environmentalist Earth Liberation Front, approximately $43
million in property damage.
PETA's hierarchy has made a number of specific statements in support of ALF
and other radical groups. In a 1991 press release, for instance, PETA
stated, "We cannot condemn the Animal Liberation Front ... they act
courageously ... [their activities] comprise an important part of today's
animal protection movement." PETA's so-called "vegan campaign director,"
Bruce Friedrich, at an animal rights convention in 2001, said to the throngs
in attendance, "blowing stuff up and smashing windows [is] a great way to
bring about animal liberation." In 1989, PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco
opined, "Arson, property destruction, burglary, and theft are acceptable
crimes when used for the animal cause." Newkirk herself has said, "I will be
the last person to condemn ALF."
But in addition to merely voicing support for the actions and activities of
ALF, PETA has also lent financial aid to the terrorist group and to some of
its key members. In 1997, PETA gave $2,000 to ALF, following the latter's
firebombing of the Utah Fur Breeders Agricultural Co-op. In 1999, PETA gave
an additional $2,000 to ALF spokesman David Wilson. In 2000, PETA gave
$5,000 to the "Josh Harper Support Committee," named for an ALF member who
had been arrested and convicted of assaulting a police officer.
The most egregious example of PETA's support for terrorism involves the case
of ALF member Rodney Coronado. In 1995 Coronado was arrested for an act of
arson at Michigan State University, which caused millions of dollars worth
of damage, and for which Coronado was sentenced to 57 months in prison. At
his sentencing, it was learned that PETA president Ingrid Newkirk had
arranged for Coronado to send her two FedEx packages containing documents
that Coronado had seized from the University's research facility, as well as
photographs of Coronado in a ski mask - the typical outfit worn by ALF
members. Following the incident and Coronado's subsequent arrest, PETA gave
$45,200 to his "support committee," plus an additional loan of $25,000 to
Coronado's father. In her book, Free the Animals! The Untold Story of the
U.S. Animal Liberation Front and Its Founder, 'Valerie,' Newkirk writes:
"The ALF has, over the years, trusted People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA) to receive copies of the evidence of wrongdoing . I have also
become somewhat used to jumping on a plane with copies of freshly purloined
documents and hurriedly calling news conferences to discuss the ALF's
findings."
It was reported that after his release from jail, at a 2003 event at
American University, Coronado taught students how to turn a milk jug into a
firebomb. Using this technique, days later ALF members attempted to burn
down a McDonald's restaurant in Chico, California.
In addition to its support for ALF, PETA has also sought to inject its own
agendas into discussions about acts of international terrorism. In 2003, for
instance, following a report of a donkey laden with explosives that was used
in a Palestinian terrorist attempt to kill Israeli soldiers, Newkirk wrote a
letter to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat (who she addressed
as "Your Excellency"), calling for him to "appeal to all those who listen to
[him] to leave the animals out of this conflict." Newkirk did not ask Arafat
to put an end to all suicide bombings, but implored rather that animals not
be used in such attacks.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.,
PETA issued a press release that said the following: "Due to the tremendous
loss of human lives, there will undoubtedly be many animals left orphaned.
Other animals are trapped in buildings that have been evacuated and to which
people have learned they are unable to return. PETA's headquarters is
receiving calls from desperate New York City residents whose companion
animals are trapped inside now vacated apartments, some so close to the
World Trade Center that the animals inside can only be highly traumatized by
the explosions, the sirens, the noise, the shaking ground, the smoke, and
now the unexplained absence of their families."
PETA further used the occasion to criticize Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
declaring that he "has a poor record when it comes to animals." At the end
of the press release, PETA provided contact information for the mayor, and
urged, "If you have a difficult time getting through to Mayor Giuliani due
to phone line trouble, please don't give up; keep trying." This occurred
while Giuliani was dealing with the largest loss of human life stemming from
a single event in American history.
PETA had previously made headlines as a result of its correspondences with
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted for the 1995 bombing
of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in which 168
people died and some 500 were wounded. McVeigh chose (by PETA's urging) to
eat vegetarian cuisine as his final meal before his execution. Regarding
this, PETA's vegan campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich said, "Mr. McVeigh's
decision to go vegetarian groups him with some of the world's greatest
visionaries, including Albert Schweitzer, Mohandas Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy and
Albert Einstein, all of whom advocated vegetarianism as an extension of
humanitarianism."
In light of PETA's ostensibly hardline stance on animal rights and animal
liberation, it is surprising for most people to learn that PETA actually
kills many animals. Between 1998 and 2004, PETA reportedly euthanized more
than 12,400 dogs, cats, and other animals at its headquarters in Norfolk,
Virginia.
In June of 2005, police arrested PETA employees Andrew Benjamin Cook and
Adria Joy Hinkle, who were attempting to dispose of dead animals in a
garbage dumpster in Ahoskie, North Carolina. Police had observed that more
than 100 animal carcasses had been dumped at the particular location every
Wednesday over a month's time. The two PETA employees were charged with 22
felony charges of animal cruelty. They were also charged with three
additional felony charges of "obtaining property by false pretense," due to
their euthanizing of three cats, obtained from a veterinarian, for which
PETA had promised to find new homes. In response to these allegations,
Newkirk said, "PETA has never made a secret of the fact that most of the
animals picked up in North Carolina are euthanized."
PETA's income for 2004 reportedly exceeded $28 Million. The organization has
received funding from such sources as: the Glaser Progress Foundation, which
was founded by RealNetworks, Inc creator Rob Glaser; Animal Charities of
America; American Foundation Corporation; the Park Foundation; the Richard
and Marcy Horvitz Foundation; the Pond Foundation; the Diane Warren
Foundation; the Alexander Foundation, and the Tides Foundation. In 2005, the
Comedy Central Network donated $200,000 to PETA in recompense for celebrity
animal-rights activist Pamela Anderson's appearance at a celebrity roast.
PETA has also attracted support from numerous celebrities over the years.
These include such notables as Joaquin Phoenix; Charlize Theron; Anna Nicole
Smith; Pink; Moby; Dennis Rodman; Martina Navratilova; Sean Astin; Paul
McCartney; Christy Turlington; Chrissie Hynde; Michael Stipe; Belinda
Carlisle; Alicia Silverstone; Lorenzo Lamas; Howard Jones; the Indigo Girls;
Good Charlotte; Alec Baldwin; and Bill Maher.
--
Jim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Western_Nationalist
Union Against Multiculty
"Abolish Multiculty and String Up The Traitors!"
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7224
December 8th, 2005
Ostensibly dedicated to "establishing and protecting the rights of all
animals," People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest
animals rights organization in the world. Founded in 1980 and boasting a
current membership of more than 850,000, PETA regards itself as an
international nonprofit charitable organization. It maintains offices in
Norfolk, Virginia; the United Kingdom; Germany; Asia-Pacific; and India.
PETA operates under a simple, self-stated principle - "that animals are not
ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment." Through the
implementation of multifaceted media campaigns against fast-food companies,
the creation of public service announcements featuring celebrity
vegetarians, the organization of protests and rallies against the use of
fur, and the persistent lobbying of legislators, PETA's public persona is
one of both education and activism. Like its ideological kin on the
environmental and animal-rights Left, PETA places greater value on the
welfare of animals than on the welfare of human beings.
PETA focuses its efforts on four main areas in which it believes that "the
largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods
of time." These are: factory farms, laboratories, the clothing industry, and
the entertainment industry. Moreover, the group condemns the killing of pest
animals, the use of animals in sports, and even the utilization of
seeing-eye dogs for the blind.
PETA was founded by animal activists Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, who
were inspired by ethics philosopher Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation;
Newkirk continues to head the organization to this day. Throughout its
history, PETA has tried numerous methods to bring a halt to what it deems
abusive practices against animals - including calls for consumer boycotts of
animal-tested products, and the enlistment of Members of Congress friendly
to their cause. Among its accomplishments, the organization counts the
following: an investigation of contract testing on animals by cosmetics
companies, leading to a permanent ban on animal testing by Benetton, Avon,
Revlon, and Estée Lauder; worldwide protests pressuring McDonald's to become
the first fast-food chain to agree to improve the living conditions of farm
animals; and the decision by national chain stores such as Target,
Walgreen's, and Rite Aid to stop selling a toy known as AquaBabies, in which
fish and frogs are kept in a small habitat container, which PETA views as
imprisonment.
PETA, which has been described by Newkirk as an organization composed of
"complete press sluts," performs many dramatic and often vulgar stunts in
order to garner media attention for its cause. From throwing buckets of red
paint on people wearing furs, to enlisting actresses and models to wear
lettuce fashioned as bikinis in order to promote veganism, PETA embraces
controversy. One particular method that PETA's campaigns employ is the use
of religious themes. One of its advertisements, for instance, claimed that
Jesus was a vegetarian. In a 2003 ad condemning the consumption of ham on
Easter, PETA created a billboard featuring the photograph of a pig and a
caption that read, "He Died For Your Sins - Go Vegetarian." Said PETA
spokesman William Rivas-Rivas, "All our faith-based billboards are meant to
promote compassion, compassion for all God's creatures."
PETA has also aimed its message toward members of the Jewish faith. In
addition to condemning the tradition of the Kosher slaughter, in one
campaign PETA invoked the tragedy and loss of the Holocaust, equating the
mass death of Jews with the wholesale slaughtering of animals for meat
production. The campaign, titled "Holocaust on Your Plate," declared that
"like the Jews murdered in concentration camps, animals are terrorized when
they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to
slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the
lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the death camps."
[Ed. Nobody was turned into a lampshade or soap, therefore the argument is
pure propaganda, as per usual...]
When the Anti-Defamation League condemned the ad, PETA defended its position
on grounds that "the logic and methods employed in factory farms and
slaughterhouses are analogous to those used in concentration camps." PETA
remarked that in both instances, there exists a "concept of other cultures
or other species as deficient and thus disposable, and that this
indifference allows the slaughter to continue."
In another campaign of recent years, PETA has called, unsuccessfully, for
such cities as Hamburg and Frankfurt, Germany to change their names due to
the association with the exploitation of animals for food (hamburgers and
hotdogs, respectively). The organization has also asked the town of
Fishkill, New York to change its name.
Many of PETA's campaigns are directed specifically at children, and the
organization has created a website, PETAKIDS.com, that indoctrinates
youngsters in its ideology. On this website, children are taught, among
other things, to oppose the wearing of fur clothing, to boycott zoos and
circuses, to abstain from drinking drink milk, to refuse to participate in
science classes that require animal dissections, and to "save animals'
lives" by becoming vegetarians. PETA also produces a magazine for children
titled GRRR! Kids Bite Back, which derives its name from the catchphrase,
"Bite Back," popularized by the domestic terrorist group the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF). PETA has also produced a comic pamphlet, called
"Your Mommy Kills Animals!," which depicts a woman stabbing a rabbit and is
intended to arouse children's outrage at the prospect of their mothers
wearing fur garments. A counterpart pamphlet, titled "Your Daddy Kills
Animals!," compares fathers who go fishing to predators who steal children,
and advises youngsters to keep their family dog and cat away from their
father, lest he try to kill them as well.
Newkirk herself is intent on fashioning her own death into a PETA campaign.
It has been reported that in her will, Newkirk has asked that her body be
processed into Newkirk Nuggets (akin to chicken nuggets), which she
stipulates must be grilled on a barbeque. She also asks that her feet be
amputated and turned into umbrella stands and that her body be skinned and
manufactured into wallets.
In 2005, PETA sought to compare animals to slaves in its campaign titled,
"Are Animals the New Slaves?" This campaign featured an exhibit in
Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement, which drew
analogies between the past enslavement of African-Americans and present-day
cruelty to animals. The press release for the exhibit stated:
"The exhibit reminds observers that not long ago, it wasn't just other
animals who were persecuted because they were deemed inferior. The display
includes images of slaves who were chained, beaten, branded, and forcibly
separated from their families; Native Americans who were evicted from their
ancestral lands; women who fought for the right not to be treated as their
husbands' property; and children forced to work long hours in dangerous and
unhealthy conditions. Today, animals are chained and beaten to perform in
circuses; poisoned and cut open in laboratories; and bludgeoned, drowned,
and electrocuted for their skins. Mothers and their offspring are separated,
auctioned off, mutilated, and killed for their flesh."
"'Today, we all remember the abuses of the past as shameful and wrong yet
forget that changes only came about after an uphill battle to open people's
hearts and minds to the plight of others,' says PETA President Ingrid E.
Newkirk. 'We're calling for that same consideration now for feeling,
thinking animals who are exploited, hurt, and killed for reasons that are no
longer tolerable in a just society.'"
This comparison between human and animal life is a reccurring theme in
PETA's work. Says Newkirk, "When it comes to feelings such as pain, fear,
hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." This moral
equivalence not only fuses PETA's public campaigns, but also leads the
organization to forge alliances with animal rights extremists and domestic
terrorist outfits.
In the "Frequently Asked Questions" section of its website, PETA poses the
question, "How can you justify the millions of dollars of property damage
caused by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF)?" It answers as follows:
"Throughout history, some people have felt the need to break the law to
fight injustice. The Underground Railroad and the French Resistance are
examples of movements in which people broke the law in order to answer to a
higher morality. The ALF, which is simply the name adopted by people who act
illegally in behalf of animal rights, breaks inanimate objects such as
stereotaxic devices and decapitators in order to save lives. ALF members
burn empty buildings in which animals are tortured and killed. ALF 'raids'
have given us proof of horrific cruelty that would not have otherwise been
discovered or believed and have resulted in criminal charges' being filed
against laboratories for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Often, ALF
raids have been followed by widespread scientific condemnation of the
practices occurring in the targeted labs, and some abusive laboratories have
been permanently shut down as a result."
ALF, which holds a spot on the FBI's list of terrorist organizations, is the
most active, extreme animal-rights group in America. Its self-defined
mission is "to effectively allocate resources (time and money) to reduce
animal suffering in the world." Toward this end, ALF states that it "carries
out direct action against animal abuse in the form of rescuing animals and
causing financial loss to animal exploiters, usually through the damage and
destruction of property." Between 1997 and 2003, ALF caused, in conjunction
with the radical environmentalist Earth Liberation Front, approximately $43
million in property damage.
PETA's hierarchy has made a number of specific statements in support of ALF
and other radical groups. In a 1991 press release, for instance, PETA
stated, "We cannot condemn the Animal Liberation Front ... they act
courageously ... [their activities] comprise an important part of today's
animal protection movement." PETA's so-called "vegan campaign director,"
Bruce Friedrich, at an animal rights convention in 2001, said to the throngs
in attendance, "blowing stuff up and smashing windows [is] a great way to
bring about animal liberation." In 1989, PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco
opined, "Arson, property destruction, burglary, and theft are acceptable
crimes when used for the animal cause." Newkirk herself has said, "I will be
the last person to condemn ALF."
But in addition to merely voicing support for the actions and activities of
ALF, PETA has also lent financial aid to the terrorist group and to some of
its key members. In 1997, PETA gave $2,000 to ALF, following the latter's
firebombing of the Utah Fur Breeders Agricultural Co-op. In 1999, PETA gave
an additional $2,000 to ALF spokesman David Wilson. In 2000, PETA gave
$5,000 to the "Josh Harper Support Committee," named for an ALF member who
had been arrested and convicted of assaulting a police officer.
The most egregious example of PETA's support for terrorism involves the case
of ALF member Rodney Coronado. In 1995 Coronado was arrested for an act of
arson at Michigan State University, which caused millions of dollars worth
of damage, and for which Coronado was sentenced to 57 months in prison. At
his sentencing, it was learned that PETA president Ingrid Newkirk had
arranged for Coronado to send her two FedEx packages containing documents
that Coronado had seized from the University's research facility, as well as
photographs of Coronado in a ski mask - the typical outfit worn by ALF
members. Following the incident and Coronado's subsequent arrest, PETA gave
$45,200 to his "support committee," plus an additional loan of $25,000 to
Coronado's father. In her book, Free the Animals! The Untold Story of the
U.S. Animal Liberation Front and Its Founder, 'Valerie,' Newkirk writes:
"The ALF has, over the years, trusted People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA) to receive copies of the evidence of wrongdoing . I have also
become somewhat used to jumping on a plane with copies of freshly purloined
documents and hurriedly calling news conferences to discuss the ALF's
findings."
It was reported that after his release from jail, at a 2003 event at
American University, Coronado taught students how to turn a milk jug into a
firebomb. Using this technique, days later ALF members attempted to burn
down a McDonald's restaurant in Chico, California.
In addition to its support for ALF, PETA has also sought to inject its own
agendas into discussions about acts of international terrorism. In 2003, for
instance, following a report of a donkey laden with explosives that was used
in a Palestinian terrorist attempt to kill Israeli soldiers, Newkirk wrote a
letter to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat (who she addressed
as "Your Excellency"), calling for him to "appeal to all those who listen to
[him] to leave the animals out of this conflict." Newkirk did not ask Arafat
to put an end to all suicide bombings, but implored rather that animals not
be used in such attacks.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.,
PETA issued a press release that said the following: "Due to the tremendous
loss of human lives, there will undoubtedly be many animals left orphaned.
Other animals are trapped in buildings that have been evacuated and to which
people have learned they are unable to return. PETA's headquarters is
receiving calls from desperate New York City residents whose companion
animals are trapped inside now vacated apartments, some so close to the
World Trade Center that the animals inside can only be highly traumatized by
the explosions, the sirens, the noise, the shaking ground, the smoke, and
now the unexplained absence of their families."
PETA further used the occasion to criticize Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
declaring that he "has a poor record when it comes to animals." At the end
of the press release, PETA provided contact information for the mayor, and
urged, "If you have a difficult time getting through to Mayor Giuliani due
to phone line trouble, please don't give up; keep trying." This occurred
while Giuliani was dealing with the largest loss of human life stemming from
a single event in American history.
PETA had previously made headlines as a result of its correspondences with
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted for the 1995 bombing
of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in which 168
people died and some 500 were wounded. McVeigh chose (by PETA's urging) to
eat vegetarian cuisine as his final meal before his execution. Regarding
this, PETA's vegan campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich said, "Mr. McVeigh's
decision to go vegetarian groups him with some of the world's greatest
visionaries, including Albert Schweitzer, Mohandas Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy and
Albert Einstein, all of whom advocated vegetarianism as an extension of
humanitarianism."
In light of PETA's ostensibly hardline stance on animal rights and animal
liberation, it is surprising for most people to learn that PETA actually
kills many animals. Between 1998 and 2004, PETA reportedly euthanized more
than 12,400 dogs, cats, and other animals at its headquarters in Norfolk,
Virginia.
In June of 2005, police arrested PETA employees Andrew Benjamin Cook and
Adria Joy Hinkle, who were attempting to dispose of dead animals in a
garbage dumpster in Ahoskie, North Carolina. Police had observed that more
than 100 animal carcasses had been dumped at the particular location every
Wednesday over a month's time. The two PETA employees were charged with 22
felony charges of animal cruelty. They were also charged with three
additional felony charges of "obtaining property by false pretense," due to
their euthanizing of three cats, obtained from a veterinarian, for which
PETA had promised to find new homes. In response to these allegations,
Newkirk said, "PETA has never made a secret of the fact that most of the
animals picked up in North Carolina are euthanized."
PETA's income for 2004 reportedly exceeded $28 Million. The organization has
received funding from such sources as: the Glaser Progress Foundation, which
was founded by RealNetworks, Inc creator Rob Glaser; Animal Charities of
America; American Foundation Corporation; the Park Foundation; the Richard
and Marcy Horvitz Foundation; the Pond Foundation; the Diane Warren
Foundation; the Alexander Foundation, and the Tides Foundation. In 2005, the
Comedy Central Network donated $200,000 to PETA in recompense for celebrity
animal-rights activist Pamela Anderson's appearance at a celebrity roast.
PETA has also attracted support from numerous celebrities over the years.
These include such notables as Joaquin Phoenix; Charlize Theron; Anna Nicole
Smith; Pink; Moby; Dennis Rodman; Martina Navratilova; Sean Astin; Paul
McCartney; Christy Turlington; Chrissie Hynde; Michael Stipe; Belinda
Carlisle; Alicia Silverstone; Lorenzo Lamas; Howard Jones; the Indigo Girls;
Good Charlotte; Alec Baldwin; and Bill Maher.
--
Jim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Western_Nationalist
Union Against Multiculty
"Abolish Multiculty and String Up The Traitors!"