I was in a bookstore yesterday browsing the pet section and came across Ingrid Newkirk’s book “The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights”.\u00a0 For those of you who haven’t heard her name, Newkirk is a co-founder of PeTA and its current president.<\/p>\n
This book is basically the animal rights bible on how to live your life in order to impact animals the least.\u00a0 I almost bought it just to get some tips on how to influence the public, media, and legislators.<\/p>\n
In the end, I didn’t buy it, although I still may.\u00a0 Depends on how willing I am to send PeTA money indirectly in order to find out more about their tactics.\u00a0 Tough choice.<\/p>\n
What I did do, however, was collect all my earlier articles on animal rights organizations to send them to the bookstore owner.<\/p>\n
Before you read, it is important to understand that PeTA and similar organizations have one single objective.\u00a0 All of their literature, campaigns, and advertising is created with a view to achieving this objective.<\/p>\n
They want to end ALL use of animals for human purposes.\u00a0 Not just inhumane use, cruel use, or painful use.\u00a0 ALL use, period.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This means leaving ALL animals in their natural habitat, without any interference from humans, ever.\u00a0 If, because of human selective breeding (over thousands of years), an animal doesn’t have a natural habitat that doesn’t involve humans, then ALL of those species or types should be sterilized so that they die out on their own.<\/p>\n This means no hunting, no fishing, no farming, no medical research, no zoos, no dog sledding, no horse riding, and probably the one that will come as the biggest surprise to your average citizen, NO PETS!<\/p>\n Animal rights organizations such as PeTA believe that ALL pet-type animals (usually dogs and cats) should be sterilized, period, and they have embarked on some very aggressive legislative and media campaigns to promote this agenda.<\/p>\n Most importantly, they have inundated every aspect of media and government with the idea of “pet overpopulation” to the point where it is now considered by most to be an irrefutable fact and anyone who is against mandatory spay\/neuter is considered to be in favour of pet overpopulation, crowded shelters, and indiscriminate euthanasia.<\/p>\n For your reading “pleasure” (and get ready to get angry), here is what I’ve collected to-date.<\/p>\n First is Ingrid Newkirk’s article<\/a> on her agreement with mandatory destruction of pit bulls at shelters (regardless of temperament).<\/p>\n Then we have a number of quotes (mostly from Ingrid Newkirk of PeTA and Wayne Pacelle, formerly of PeTA, now of HSUS):<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. . . One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding.\u201d Wayne Pacelle, Senior VP of Humane Society of the US, formerly of Friends of Animals and Fund for Animals, Animal People, May, 1993 (NOTE: Wayne Pacelle\u2019s initial training was as a PeTA activist. Today he heads HSUS under the guise of \u201clegitimacy\u201d. It is the largest and most profitable of the animal Rightist lobbying organizations.)<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Just Like Us? Harper\u2019s, August 1988, p. 50.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAs John Bryant has written in his book Fettered Kingdoms, they [pets] are like slaves, even if well-kept slaves.\u201d PeTA\u2019s Statement on Companion Animals.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOur nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works.\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA\u2019s founder and president, US News and World Report, April 8, 2002.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI openly hope that it [hoof-and-mouth disease] comes here. It will bring economic harm only for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment. Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA founder and president, ABC News interview April 2, 2001.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have a hands-on fondness for animals\u2026To this day I don\u2019t feel bonded to any non-human animal. I like them and I pet them and I\u2019m kind to them, but there\u2019s no special bond between me and other animals.\u201d Wayne Pacelle, of the Humane Society of the United States, quoted in Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt by Ted Kerasote, 1993, p. 251.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBreeders must be eliminated! As long as there is a surplus of companion animals in the concentration camps referred to as \u201cshelters\u201d, and they are killing them because they are homeless, one should not be allowed to produce more for their own amusement and profit. If you know of a breeder in the Los Angeles area, whether commercial or private, legal or illegal, let us know and we will post their name, location, phone number so people can write them letters telling them \u2018Don\u2019t Breed or Buy, While Others DIE.\u2019\u201d \u201cBreeders! Let\u2019s get rid of them too!\u201d Campaign on Animal Defense League\u2019s website, September 2, 2003.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, national Director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Newsday, 2\/21\/88.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t use the word \u201cpet.\u201d I think it\u2019s speciesist language. I prefer \u201ccompanion animal.\u201d For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship \u2013 enjoyment at a distance.\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, national Director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), The Harper\u2019s Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p.223.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment from them \u2026 One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild \u2026 they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV,\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Chicago Daily Herald, March 1, 1990.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not only uninterested in having children. I am opposed to having children. Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog; it is nothing but vanity, human vanity.\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA\u2019s founder and president, New Yorker, April 23, 2003.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe bottom line is that people don\u2019t have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats \u2026 If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind,\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, founder, president and former national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Animals, May\/June 1993.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSix million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, founder, president and former national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, as quoted in Chip Brown, \u201cShe\u2019s A Portrait of Zealotry in Plastic Shoes,\u201d Washington Post, November 13, 1983, p. B10.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration.\u201d Michael W. Fox, Scientific Director and former Vice President, The Humane Society of the United States, The Inhumane Society, New York, 1990.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTo those people who say, `My father is alive because of animal experimentation,\u2019 I say `Yeah, well, good for you. This dog died so your father could live.\u2019 Sorry, but I am just not behind that kind of trade off.\u201d Bill Maher, PETA celebrity spokesman.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cEven if animal tests produced a cure [for AIDS], \u2018we\u2019d be against it.\u201d Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), as quoted in Fred Barnes, \u201cPolitics,\u201d Vogue, September 1989, p. 542<\/em><\/p>\n And finally, some of my blog articles re animal rights organizations (particularly PeTA, HSUS, and Animal People):<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.chicobandido.com\/2006\/07\/pit-bulls-and-animal-rights-hsus-in-florida\/<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.chicobandido.com\/2006\/12\/peta-kills-animals\/<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.chicobandido.com\/2007\/05\/no-pets-please-were-petaish\/<\/a><\/p>\n