Controversy over PETA exhibit

[joelbct]

A friend forwarded me this link

 

http://www.nhregister.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=15000578&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=517515&rfi=8

 

She was rather offended as an African-American person.

 

My reply was,

 

"I don't think PETA is comparing african-americans or

jewish people to animals, so much as they are drawing

a parallel between human oppression and torture of

other humans, and human oppression and torture of

animals. Both humans and animals have nerves and

brains and can feel pain, or else they would die- It

would be absurd to claim otherwise..."

 

Any thoughts?

[9nines]

I am sure 150 years ago, just as many people were opposed to ending slavery as they are opposed to not eating meat, etc. now. I am also sure the same arguments (they are better off as slaves then = they are given life on farms now, they were savages and do not know better then = the animals do not care now) were even used. It is a very apt analogy, as far as public opinion for and against the issues. Hopefully the same analogy will play out and the majority of people will oppose animals use soon. But I can also understand the quick negative opinions of the people seeing these demonstrations.

[CollegeB]

I'm happy this angered some people, it touched a nerve. I fully believe the suffering of animals is comparable to that of the holocaust and the experiences of slaves. Infact if you look at the fur trade the Chineese kidnap animals from this country, put them in cages and export them for their uses...gee kinda like what was done to slaves. And in the nazi death camps grousome experiements were performed on jews, and the same kind of experiements are conducted on animals. I guess the only real difference is that the Nazis were not cannibals. Had they been cannibals then they merely would have been experimenting on their food, right? Yeah, like anyone would buy that. Anyhow I hope the NAACP gets involved, and this goes national, but none of the powers that be want to see that happen. Also has anyone read about what Rev. Jessie Jackson says about this? I know he is a supporter of PETA's KFC cruelty campaign, he's also black so his opinion on this protest would be very interesting. And for my curiosity I'd like to know where Rush Limbaugh sits on this. He probably wont address it since its kind of a sticky situation for him since he doesn't like the Rev. or PETA. And I dont think he'd be the type to say "hh well yes,these pictures are offensive and they must be taken down!"

[Kathryn]

The negative reactions remind me a bit of an article I read about an animal rights march I went to in 1990 (I picked up papers on the return bus trip, and it was interesting to see how the march was covered). One journalist stated that the AR people at the march wanted humans to be treated like chickens. WTF? A rather twisted way of looking at things.

 

It seems that we AR folks see the comparison (and rather apt analogies) between animal and human suffering as a way to make people more conscious of the plight of animals, and perhaps able to empathize with them more, but other people see the comparison of animal suffering to that of humans as demeaning to human beings, or as minimizing the plight of the humans (because they see animals as so inferior to humans ("How DARE you compare X/Y/Z to an animal") .

 

There is a French movie ("Nuit et brouillard" : "Night and Fog" I think is the title---I saw it so long ago, I can't remember the title) about the attrocities comited in concentration camps in WWII. As I was watching images of humans being herded into train cars, and stuffed into concentration camp buildings, and saw the buildings in which they were killed, I couldn't help but see the parallel with how factory farm animalsare treated.

[Evan]

Wow...where to start?

 

first of all, the article is not well-balanced at all. The only people they quote are the reactionaries. They couldn't find anyone who observed the demonstration who wasn't able to control themselves from flying off the handle?

 

Secondly, those that were quoted are being kind of self-centered in their assumptions. They are looking for something to be offended by. If you ignore history, you're bound to repeat it. I don't think anyone wants to bring back slavery, the holocaust or...well sweat shops still exist. I think it's funny that a 40 something year old man thinks that he is being compared to an animal. I don't think there were any slaves in this country in the past 40 some years. I understand the kinship but he is taking it awfully personally. They are letting their emotions blind themselves from the message.

 

i guess another consideration are the schools of thought that these people are coming from. There are those who consider animals to be equals to humans and deserving of equal rights, those who consider animals to be less and humans but still deserving of some basic rights, and those who believe animals are far inferior to humans and deserve little to no rights. You can see how people of the latter two, with their superiority complexes, may feel offended by this demonstration.

 

As is the case the majority of the time, when something offends you, look inside yourself and see if maybe it's not your own malfunction that is causing the problem as opposed to the reality of the offending object.

[Jay]

I think it sounds like an excellent campaign. I wish they would stay serious like this and just quit the sex crap.

[Guest]

I actually was on the first stop of PETAs college tour as a student volunteer..a bad place to test this. Nobody complained about the photos of the Jews in camps being stuffed into ditches, native americans being marched off their land. It was all about the slave photos...on the other hand I did a demo in Pittsburgh and Philly for the circus and we had slavery photos and the only person I can remember complaining was an old white woman. Very ironic what 150 miles distance will do to people. The more north they went the more positively they were seen by all. Maybe thats a conservative writer or something...we were recieved terribly here in Richmond but the media made it look better than it was(odd occurance), but in Baltimore I organized Ringling protests for two years and the media made the 5 of us seem like satanists despite the fact that the public in general reacted much more positively than they did in Richmond. GO FIGURE

[AllIveEverTouched]

I wish I was there to ask these people if they themselves were slaves.

[Guest]

Great point...I don't know how many white people left on this planet are still mad about the spanish inquisition....eventually people need to see these terrible things as just being history!