A PeTA-esque Conversation

By Teresa Platt, Executive Director, FCUSA

On October 27, Fox Network's Hannity and Colmes news show hosted Melynda DuVal, PeTA spokesmodel, and me, Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA, for a ten-minute segment. The following evening, Alan Colmes asked us to join him on New York's WEVD, News Talk Radio 1050 for a fun-filled one-hour discussion.

Continuing PeTA's long tradition of using sex and gore to sell their philosophy, a bikini-clad Ms. DuVal posed on New York billboards wearing a necklace of sausages for a series of ads attacking meat. The tagline, "I gave a party and the cattlemen couldn't come." Ms. DuVal has pissed off the cowboys, arguing, on behalf of PeTA, that eating beef causes impotence.

Considering we've been eating animal flesh for all of the 4 to 5 million years we've been on this planet, if the claim that meat causes impotence were true, we simply would not be here.

This new campaign joins the "Jesus was a vegetarian" campaign that so infuriated the Christians. PeTA's new fur "trim" ad which highlights a woman's pubic area - "Fur trim: unattractive" is the tagline - insults women. PeTA, highlighting one of the few patches of hair humans have, is oblivious to the fact that this lack of human body hair is what makes clothing, including furs and leathers, necessary. PeTA misses this, going for the crude along with the insulting.

Passing insulting, moving onto obscene, are PeTA quotes, "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it" (Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA, Vogue, September 1989), and "Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses," (Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA, Washington Post, 1983). Ms. DuVal argued that, yes, it is a like a "Holocaust for the chickens in this country." How can anyone compare taking chickens for dinner with the Holocaust? But Ms. DuVal did. And PeTA has. PeTA sees no difference between the human animal and any other animal on the planet.

After much evasion, Ms. DuVal admitted that PeTA is opposed to all animal use, including fishing, hunting and pet ownership, that, when it comes to animals, PeTA is an "abolitionist organization".

Thank you, Ms. DuVal, for admitting it on New York radio, proving that even a spokesmodel wearing a necklace of sausages can see PeTA's true goal.

Beyond Opinion: Where Will PeTA Take Us?

PeTA is welcome to its absurd opinion but it should be frank and open in advocating what it believes.

But where would PeTA lead us? Since less than 3 percent of the Earth's surface (about 10 percent of the land base) can support crop production, we couldn't possibly feed and clothe 6 billion people on a vegan lifestyle. Ms. DuVal ignored this information and continued to argue, without any hint of shame, for a philosophy that will result in starvation on a massive scale. The food security policies of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are not something Ms. Duval or PeTA follow.

Lopsided Arguments

However, Ms. DuVal knows PeTA's website, a wealth of propaganda, myths, misinformation and sad soundbites, by heart. Ms. DuVal debates, as do most PeTAphiles, by reading off laundry lists of illegal actions and undesirable aspects for every human endeavor that involves animals, then arguing for people to be "educated" to the "kinder alternative" of no animal use by man.

For example: Did you know that puppies are raised in cruel conditions? Did you know we kill eight to ten million dogs and cats a year in this country? Did you know that dogs are confined on chains and forced to sleep in bare cages with steel bars and on concrete floors?

Conclusion: the negatives far, far outweigh the benefits. Ms.DuVal did endorse sterilization of all pets before phasing them out.

PeTA should be proud of Ms. DuVal for PeTA has said, "The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind." (Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA, Animals, May/June 1993) and "One day we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild" (Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA, Chicago Daily Herald, March 1, 1990).

Natural lives in the wild? Can PeTA spell "roadkill"?

Litany of Horror Stories

Ms. DuVal continued along this vein, reciting one horror story of illegal and undesirable actions after another. Did you know meat can go bad and kill you? Did you know that many of the animals are skinned alive to produce beef? Did you know cattle produce a lot of manure, that it takes a lot of grain to feed them? Did you know that fish feel pain, that they suffocate and die horrible deaths? Many people live without meat, fish, poultry. We should stop eating animals and live off grains and vegetables.

The PeTA arguments follow this line of thinking and analysis:

• Did you know that you can get AIDS from sex and die?
• Did you know that sex can break your heart?
• Did you know that you can catch sexually transmitted diseases or get pregnant?
• Did you know that lots of children get pregnant from having sex?
• Did you know that sex is not necessary?
• Did you know that many people live long and healthy lives without sex?
• Therefore, we should all be celibate.

So, let's take the PeTA method of deductive reasoning and apply it to the crops that they promote so heavily:

• Did you know that most of the Earth is covered with land and water that can't support crops but we can force some of it to unnaturally produce by diverting water and infusing vast amounts of fertilizer?
• Did you know that, somewhere in the world, runoff from farms is polluting our waters right now, even as we speak?
• Did you know that tilling fields causes air pollution?
• Did you know that human beings are exploited for their backbreaking labor in the hot sun in the fields to harvest your crops?
• Don't you realize that trillions of gallons of water are diverted by huge concrete channels to irrigate farmland for agra kings driven by profit, removing that water from natural uses?
• Did you know that saline buildup from irrigating fields can render the fields unable to support life?
• Did you know that vegetables can grow molds and bacteria that can kill you?
• Did you know that 25% of the pesticides used in this country are used to produce cotton?
• Did you know that erosion from flooded farmlands is most likely responsible for the "Dead Zone" or hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico?
• Did you know that pfiesteria, an organism that eats fish, grows in nitrogen rich waters and that nitrogen is present in fertilizers?
• Did you know that agra kings kill, using guns, traps and poisons, billions of birds, rats and mice every year, animals that are just trying to get something to eat?
• Did you know the animals lose their homes whenever we put down a crop and that they are sliced to ribbons by combines during the harvesting of the crops?
• Did you know that the greatest threat to wildlife is habitat loss?
• Therefore, people should be educated to not utilize any products produced by the agra-industrial complex which promotes mono-culture crop production and is destroying the world. Living from a sustainable take of grazers, birds and fish is the kinder, more Earth-friendly solution.

Voilà! The above are simplistic and misleading arguments at their best, hysterical statements that bear little resemblance to reality. It is so easy to lead one astray if no mention is made of the costs versus the benefits or if no attempt is made to put things into perspective.

The truth is that food and clothing producers work hard to provide for the world using the best practices and technology. Our food supply is safer than it has ever been, we are doing more with less. All trends show a continued improvement in humane care for animals, good conservation practices worldwide. Sustainable use is the norm, not the exception.

In spite of this, PeTA continues its "educational" campaign of hysterical soundbites and myths. And on its way, it insults us all, our humanity and our intelligence.

I say, pull their non-profit status. They should sell this drivel on their own nickel.

See also:

In Their Own Words : PeTA

Jesus Was An Omnivore FCUSA commentary on PeTA campaign "Jesus was a vegetarian"; Apr. 21, 1999.

Beef Industry Myths and Facts. Outside link to the National Cattlemen's Association.

"Dr. Ruth Has A Beef with PeTA", by Neal Travis, New York Post, Nov. 17, 1999:

Dr. Ruth Has A Beef with PeTA

Those merry pranksters at PETA may have bitten off more than they can chew by pretending to have sex guru Dr. Ruth deliver a don't-eat-meat diatribe.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is about to launch a new campaign, claiming that Dr. Ruth says steaks and the like can ruin a guy's libido.

"That makes me very angry," Dr. Ruth shrilled when I told her about the impersonation. "As it happens, I love steak! I'm generally a good sport about people making fun of my accent and my teachings - if it's designed to promote better sex and family values.

"But when someone puts words in my mouth, I get mad. What you're telling me isn't funny and it's totally inaccurate. The food you eat has nothing to do with your sex drive. Good sex is in your mind, not on your plate."

I don't know if she's mad enough to sue, but PETA will certainly be getting an angry letter from her. The animal-rights group may even have to amend its (900) GET-ON-UP hot line, which features dead-on Dr. Ruth imitator Marilyn Michaels telling callers things like: "That cheeseburger you're having for lunch might cost you a whopper tonight."

The Dr. Ruth voice also claims that eating meat "clogs the arteries going to all organs, not just the heart." The best way to hit a home run in the bedroom, the ersatz Dr. Ruth adds, is to have a veggie burger or some other meatless meal before making love.

The ire of the real Dr. Ruth isn't the only problem PETA has faced in its new Paul McCartney-supported vegetarian publicity drive. The group has been rejected by billboard companies in beef-producing states that object to the picture of a bikini-clad model declaring: "I threw a party, but the cattlemen couldn't come. Eating meat causes impotency."

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

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