Metal Reviews

their arguments against them are like "well it wasn't like the holocaust because like umm chickens are really really stupid." does that mean intelligence is what allows us to exploit animals and we can butcher and kill the mentally handicapped?

sure, the goal of "animal liberation" is a ridiculous fantasy since cows, dogs, chickens, etc have been domesticated (lol i wrote domesticized the first time) so the only way they can survive is in a symbiotic relationship with humans, but all that video was doing was saying, "oh look at those goofy activists," and dismissing all of their claims by saying "well oh ethics are relative" and "sure slaughterhouses are ugly but that's more aesthetic than ethical." then they claim the PETA is offensive for comparing concentration camps to livestock farms right after saying ethics are relative.

i don't really see how PETA decreases the value of human life

I find it offensive to compare the holocaust to slaughterhouses. Well, not offensive to me personally, but just bloody stupid and bad propaganda. And the sponsoring of the ALF bombers is also just bullshit.

it seems like a pretty solid comparison to me since they both involve systematic torture and killing that the perpetrators don't feel is immoral because they don't believe the victims have rights. PETA are mostly just doing it for attention anyways. here, there was a pig farmer that was killing prostitutes and they tried to capitalize on that by running an ad with one of the prostitutes faces next to a pig

I find it offensive to compare some family members that I never got to meet to chickens. Don't see how that's illogical, meself.

PETA are trolls. They are out for your attention, and know full well that comparing animal slaughter to the Holocaust will get them that attention. Add to this the fact that people criticising them tend to focus on the 'animals are like people' bits of their propaganda rather than the 'look, here is footage of people being bastards to animals', and it's clearly the latter that counts.

And calling the ALF/ELF 'terrorists' is a bit over the top, I've always thought. Professional vandalism and stealing monkeys that have, say, had their eyes sewn shut, from labs does not equal terrorism, in my view.

No, but blowing up testing labs, killing scientists, etc is.

Killing scientists?! When has that ever happened? And blowing up labs = professional vandalism. I'm not happy with any violence for any cause, but again, equating them with, say, Bin Laden is ridiculous.

No one's equating them with Al Qaida. The methods are the same, use violence to support your message.

But the eco-bunch do their best to make sure no-one gets hurt, which is a long way from Al Qaida. Again, I don't support violence, but attacking inanimate objects is a far far far better way of protest than harming people.

So what about the numerous death threats that they've imposed over the years? That has to count for something right? Even if they haven't killed anyone the fact that they are threatening to do so makes them terrorists. The fact that they are trying to prevent cures to diseases that cripple the human race makes them terrorists. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with animal testing, especially for anything other than medial research, but it is a necessary evil. Any other view point is naive.

Death threats are terrorism? I suppose so, but there's a lot of grey territory on the issue. And whilst animal testing may help the cosmetics industry, have there been serious advances made in, say, a cure for alzheimers by electrocuting monkeys? I'm not fully against animal testing, but whenever information comes to light on animal testing it's hardly in the testers' favour.

I wanna see Ted Nugent in a fistfight against abnormally thin vegetarian PETA members.

Winner gets to have his head chopped by Keith Olbermann / Rush Limbaugh.

So far all the arguments in this thread against PETA are emotional ad hominem bullshit. As for the quality of human life aspect, PETA's work improves human life by striving to improve the treatment of the food we eat. I would love to not eat chicken laced with hormones. Unless you think animals don't feel pain there is a utilitarian standard that animals shouldn't be excessively harmed, ex: pigs being boiled alive, chicken beaks being sliced off unnecessarily.

PETA has uncovered tons of harm to animal and although it may be filled with some idiots it is a revolutionary force who isn't willing to challenge corporations so I respect it.

So have numerous other charities and organisations, but why are they not linked to the stuff PETA is actively promoting? You have to remember that regardless of how many good things PETA have done most people will know them for their death threats and other dubious methods, and if other organisations can do it without them, what's PETA's excuse?

Direct action is more effective. You hear about PETA all the time; as I said above, they're trolls, they deliberately go out of their way to wind people up.

what?

PETA launches campaigns in online games to stop the clubbing of online seals.
PETA uses disingenuous footage incited by their own actions at factories to demonize hardworking ordinary people and by proxy the corporations that employ them.
PETA euthanize and illegally dispose of thousands of animals yearly because they have decided that all animals which are dependent on humans for survival should not live.

now as far as we're going for animal suffering... my friend, our very lifestyles as citizens of the cushy first world are directly as a result of uncounted amounts of exploitation of millions of animals and millions of people over the years. You and I are doubtlessly responsible for the horrible painful deaths of dozens of third-world country citizens just by existing. Everything we have is built upon the backs of other beings.

You're worrying about isolated cases of animal abuse? Hey, newsflash: it's not profitable to torture pigs because pigs that have been horribly tortured just prior to being killed do not taste good.

The conditions most factory-farmed animals are in are roughly as bad as those of the third-world workers who made all your American Apparel/Abercrombie/Old Navy clothing, except it's worse because they're thinking reasoning beings and the pigs that they are slicing up are not.

By the way, I guess Ingrid Newkirk should die because her insulin is provided by animals. Why does she get an exception? Is she just that awesome, or does being in PETA mean you can exploit animals while everyone else shouldn't because it's wrong?

The point of my long-winded insulting rant is that PETA is a vomitous organization run and staffed by people who are either malicious, stupid, or disgusting, and sometimes all three. If they had their way, we'd all still be living in caves and dying of AIDs within a year of contracting the disease.

^What he said

This should be cute. Violence ingrained in our culture promotes the idea that it is acceptable. PETA is simply attacking the discourse.
What organization doesn't use disingenuous information in order to propagate their message? As for demonizing the workers, they are the representation of the company that people will be able to build a response to. Americans didn't care about white-collar crimes until the recent economic collapse. They do care about people being chickens with rods and shoving them into boxes which they aren't supposed to fit in.
This is a little ambiguous but what exactly would be illegal about the disposal of these animals. They generally euthanize animals dependent on medical treatment which they can't afford. If it gets spun as animals dependent on humans should be decimated well why aren't they stealing our puppies and kitties out of our backyards?

Preaching to the choir. Create international labor laws. Unionize the third world. Better the treatment of animals. Just because we've exploited the third world and animals doesn't mean that we should continue that practice.

Pigs that have been tortured get grinded into bits and mixed with pigs that weren't tortured so you wouldn't even notice how bad they taste. The very way we get our milk is torture yet it still tastes good.

American Apparel is based out of an LA factory where the workers make $12 an hour. Thanks for trying though. As for the rest, I'm highly opposed to the exploitation of workers.

This last sentence basically sums up your last point and it is just wrong. PETA bases its philosophy off of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. He says it has nothing to do with regressing our lifestyles. We have the technology and the capability to treat animals better yet corporations refuse in order to keep their profit margins high. They then propagate an ideology through the media (ex: seal clubbing in WoW) which makes any violent action towards animals as acceptable or it simply desensitizes us to it all. Much of this argument carries over to our treatment of third world labor, especially the treatment of female workers in the third world.[/quote]

Yeah DM, that was a bit weak, there.