Those Funny Folks at PETA Are at it Again

[pistonslap]

I am a staunch supporter of PETV. Do you know that vegetables have feelings to? Think about that next time you bite into a carrot!

[Happy Monkey]

I support PETE. I can't think of anything that you should not treat ethically.

[dar512]

Carrot Juice is Murder - Arrogant Worms

Listen up, brothers and sisters
Come hear my desperate tale
I speak of our friends of nature
Trapped in the dirt like a jail

Vegetables live in oppression
Served on our tables each night
This killing of veggies is madness
I say we take up the fight

Salads are only for murderers
Cole slaw's a fascist regime
Don't think that they don't have feelings
Just 'cause a radish can't scream

{Refrain}
I've heard the screams of the vegetables, scream scream scream
Watching their skins being peeled, having their insides revealed
Grated and steamed with no mercy, burning off calories
How do you think that feels, bet it hurts really bad
Carrot juice constitutes murder, and that's a real crime
Greenhouses prisons for slaves, let my vegetables grow
It's time to stop all this gardening, it's dirty as hell
Let's call a spade a spade, it's a spade it's a spade it's a spade

I saw a man eating celery
So I beat him black and blue
If he ever touches a sprout again
I'll bite him clean in two

I'm a political prisoner
Trapped in a windowless cage
'Cause I stopped the slaughter of turnips
By killing five men in a rage

I told the judge when he sentenced me
"This is my finest hour
I'll kill those farmers again
Just to save one more cauliflower"

{Refrain}

How low as people do we dare to stoop
Making young broccolis bleed in the soup
Untie your beans, uncage your tomatoes
Set potted plants free, don't mash that potato, ah

I've heard the screams of the vegetables scream scream scream
Watching their skins being peeled fates in the stir fry are sealed
Grated and steamed with no mercy you fat gourmet scum
How do you think that feels leave them out in the fields
Carrot juice constitutes murder V8's genocide
Greenhouses prisons for slaves yes your compost's a grave
It's time to stop all this gardening take up macramé
Let's call a spade a spade it's a spade it's a spade it's a spade

[bluecuracao]

Uh, I'll be sure to give my uneaten side salad a proper funeral.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Anyone else think PeTA's actual purpose is to discredit the animal-rights philosophy? Their campaigns routinely, maybe usually, backfire. Coincidence, sabotage, or just plain lack of talent?

[wolf]

Option 3.

Ad execs eat red meat.

And drink martinis.

And smoke.

You can't have a good ulcer and heart attack without 'em.

[wolf]

Nobody Knows the Trouble They've Seed

NEW HAVEN — A two-hour animal rights demonstration on the Green Monday sparked outrage instead of sympathy from the public.

"This is the most racist thing I’ve ever seen on the Green. How dare you," roared Philip Goldson, 43, of New Haven at the protest organizers at Church and Chapel streets.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a national animal rights group, posted giant photographs of people, mostly black Americans, being tortured, sold and killed, next to photographs of animals, including cattle and sheep, being tortured, sold and killed.

"I think it is an apt comparison," said Josh Warchol, 26, of Wallingford, president of the Southern Connecticut Vegetarian Society, which is aligned with PETA.

PETA officials said they had hoped to generate dialogue with the shocking photographs.

"We realize these images are hurtful. It’s hard for me to imagine the hurt the animals go through. We should be treating animals according to their own best interests, not to the best interests of people," said Dawn Carr, PETA’s director of special projects.

PETA wants people to stop eating animals, stop using them for clothing, stop forcing animals to entertain people (as in a circus) and stop animal experimentation.

Carr said she doesn’t want animals sold or treated as property either.

The controversial display, which is on a national tour, is intended to drive home PETA’s point.

However, critics said the organization’s demonstration backfired.

One man demanded that the NAACP get involved immediately. Five minutes later, Scot X. Esdaile, president of the state and Greater New Haven chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, arrived at the scene, surveyed the photos and blasted the organizers.

"Once again, black people are being pimped. You used us. You have used us enough," Esdaile said. "Take it down immediately."

"I am a black man! I can’t compare the suffering of these black human beings to the suffering of this cow," said Michael Perkins, 47, of New Haven. He stood in front of a photo of butchered livestock hung next to the photo of two lynched black men dangling before a white mob.

"You can’t compare me to a freaking cow," shouted John Darryl Thompson, 46, of New Haven, inches from Carr’s face. "We don’t care about PETA. You are playing a dangerous game."

Paul Tomaselli, 46, of North Branford took exception to an exhibit that included a photo of a black man being beaten to the ground by a white man with a stick while a white mob gathers.

Next to that photo was one of a man chasing a seal across the snow with a club.

"I think he’s right," said Tomaselli, who is white, in support of Thompson. "To compare people to animals is an unfairness to people."

The display, "Are Animals the New Slaves?" is on a 10-week, 42-city tour that started in early July. Today’s stop: Scranton, Pa., then on to Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

"New Haven is important because of the Amistad. This is a place where slaves were brought. What happened here was very important for abolition. The next great liberation movement is animal liberation," Carr said.

However, the Anti-Defamation League, a national civil rights organization, has publicly condemned PETA’s use of photos comparing human suffering in the Holocaust to animal suffering today; PETA apologized in May for the hurt it caused but stood by the comparisons.

That point of disagreement became a flashpoint in New Haven.

"This is the most hostile audience we’ve had," said PETA volunteer Ben Godwin.

At one point, police hovered at the edge of the Green, across from the demonstration.

Eight of the 12 banners compared the suffering of black Americans to the suffering of cattle, sheep, an elephant, a seal and a rooster. Other banners showed Native Americans exiled from their homes, children in a factory and men in a counter-demonstration against women’s rights.

A photo showing a concentration camp inmate with a number tattooed across his emaciated chest was juxtaposed against a shot of a monkey in a laboratory with a number branded across its chest.

"I have relatives who were in concentration camps," said Alex Reznikoff, 47, of Newtown. "I think this detracts from PETA’s message. It doesn’t make me think about animals at all."

[Troubleshooter]

I wonder if they're just trying to see how stupid they can get away with being.

I mean, are they really trying to marginalize themselves?

[mrnoodle]

They have nothing to offer but shock value. Their position is wholly rejected by the majority of their fellow carnivores, so they're stamping their feet and screaming like an attention-addicted 3 year old.

[Bullitt]

A backhand to the face usually takes care of that

[lookout123]

PETA. goes well with butter. seriously, if we just kill them, cook them, and eat them we will have no more PETA protesters and we will have our bellies full.

[Elspode]

Let's see if I understand this...PETA essentially wants us to allow animals to do as they please, just like a human, right? Reproduce at will, wander the streets, invade our homes, spread disease, attack, kill and eat us in the woods?

Screw that. These people are nuts. What's next? Making animals stop eating each other?

[lookout123]

come on patrick - they wouldn't eat eachother if they weren't psychologically damaged from their harassment and oppression from carniverous humans.

I'm an animal lover, but that story has got to be the stupidest, most insensitive thing I read in the last 20 minutes (the news is filled with examples of stupidity and insensitivity). Here PETA wants people to be sensitive to the suffering of our four-legged friends while showing NO sensitivity to the suffering of our two legged comrades. All PETA is doing is setting back their own cause. Why demand that everybody turn vegetarian, anyhow? Irs just not going to catch on. Far wiser to ask that animal experimentation be used only when absolutely necessary and that the meat that comes to our tables comes from animals which were processed in a humane a manner as possible, I visited one of those chicken "factory" type farms once. It was horrifying. Put me off chicken for an entire year. Now I eat chicken and eggs again, but only "free range" ones. PETA should work to effect changes like that and not use concentration camp victims or the mis-treatment of black Americans and compare these atrocities to chickens.

[wolf]

Mari, I know that you, or others are likely to bust my shoes over this comment, but ...

you're awfully picky and elitist (free range chickens and eggs) for someone who says they've had to/been close to eating out of dumpsters.