Enoye's PETA proclamation (Multiple views on Animal cruelty/sociology)
By: Enoye Uwa
SYB 110 Prof. Griswold
(The Introduction)
Have you ever
wondered where your burger has been before you began
eating it? Or where your make-up once was before you put it on your
face? How about where the fur-lining on your boots came from? The
reality is that most of us don’t know where any of these animal
products were made or who they’re made out of. But the most
important question of all is, if you did know where they came from or
who they’re made out of, would it change your perspective about
the food you eat or the clothes you wear? Would you stop wearing
Uggs® if you knew that instead of them being made of 100%
Australian sheepskin that they are actually made out of slaughtered
raccoon and dog fur on Chinese fur farms? An even sadder reality is
that most people
don’t care and have close to no compassion for the small number
of animals we have left on this earth. Aside from the people who do not
care about the treatment of animals, there are countless other people
who for the past 30 years have worked day and night and have given
wholly of themselves to attempting to bring some type of morality and
compassion to our fellow animals. The people of PETA (People For the
Ethical Treatment of Animals) want to teach the human animals of the
world that we don’t need to kill and harm animals for our own
good and that we can allow them the right to a long and happy life just
as we are allowed. The purpose of this website is to show people that
there are plenty of ways you can help in the fight to protect animals
even if it’s changing your diet or changing your daily activity.
(The Biography)
Peta was
founded in 1980 by Alex Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk as a direct line to
helping aide animals who were victims of testing and farm abuse. Up
until the 1980’s, there were only two ways you could help in the
fight against animal cruelty. They were; helping by volunteering at the
local animal shelter and donating money to animal foundations but there
hadn’t been an organization that had an active impact on the way
society treated animals. This is when Pacheco and Newkirk, two animal
lovers, came together in Norfolk, Virginia to stand by their motto,
which is now eternally etched into PETA so long as it shall be an
organization: “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on
or use for entertainment”(Newkirk). PETA’s mission from the
beginning has always been and will always be equal treatment of all
animal species but the human species does not seem to understand this
near impossible feat. The first paragraph from the chapter
“Tuning in: Animal Sensitivity” in the 2011Animal-Sociology
literature work “Second Nature” by Jonathan Balcombe talks
about how different human animals are to other animal species. He first
talks about the constant demands of animal life by saying,
“Animal life is demanding, and their environments require them to
be prepared to search for food, avoid becoming food, find mates, seek
shelter, migrate, and maintain contact with companions” (SN 15). And he
later talks about how we as the human species do not have as an immense
sensory system as these other animals do by saying, “Humbling as
it may be, for all our vaunted brain power, humans emerge as nothing
special in the sensory sweepstakes. Our senses of vision, hearing,
smell, taste, and touch are middling, at best”(SN 23). By him saying all
of this, we can see that animals have more going for them then fur,
food, and entertainment. The only difference between us and animals is
that we have a voice that can be heard but that is why we must fight
for equal treatment of animals and become their voice. Without us, they
don’t stand a chance and most of them have a faster rate of
extinction. It is us to us to help save them because in the end we are
all animals.
(The offense)
While there
are plenty of good things we can say about PETA, many people across the
world have gathered to say negative things about them. One group in
particular is called Petakillsanimals.com. This website is hell-bent on
exposing the corruption of the PETA organization and how the government
is aiding in there fraudulency. On their widely-known website, they
have stated 7 reasons why PETA is up to no good and why Animal lovers
are never informed about it:
1) According to government
documents, PETA employees have killed more than 19,200 dogs, cats,
puppies, and kittens since 1998. This behavior continues despite
PETA’s moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of
animals by farmers, scientists, restaurant owners, circuses, hunters,
fishermen, zookeepers, and countless other Americans. PETA puts to
death over 90 percent of the animals it accepts from members of the
public who expect the group to make a reasonable attempt to find them
adoptive homes. PETA holds absolutely no open-adoption shelter hours at
its Norfolk, VA headquarters, choosing instead to spend part of its $32
million annual income on a contract with a crematory service to
periodically empty hundreds of animal bodies from its large walk-in
freezer.
2) PETA president and
co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal
as “total animal liberation.” This means the complete
abolition of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey, zoos, aquariums,
circuses, wool, leather, fur, silk, hunting, fishing, and pet
ownership. In a 2003 profile of Newkirk in The New Yorker, author
Michael Specter wrote that Newkirk has had at least one seeing-eye dog
taken away from its blind owner. PETA is also against all medical
research that requires the use of animals, including research aimed at
curing AIDS and cancer.
3) PETA has given tens of
thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent
criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North
American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic
terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death
threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to Rodney Coronado, an
Animal Liberation Front (ALF) serial arsonist convicted of burning down
a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing
memorandum, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid
Newkirk in that crime. PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce
Friedrich has also told an animal rights convention that “blowing
stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring
about animal liberation,” adding, “Hallelujah to the people
who are willing to do it.”
4) PETA activists regularly
target children as young as six years old with anti-meat and anti-milk
propaganda, even waiting outside their schools to intercept them
without notifying their parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA
literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills
Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 1.2 million
minor children, including 30,000 kids between the ages of 6 and 12, all
contacted by e-mail without parental supervision. One PETA vice
president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our
campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will
be.”
5) PETA’s president has
said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS,
we would be against it.” And PETA has repeatedly attacked
research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS
Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, solely because they
support animal-based research aimed at curing life-threatening diseases
and birth defects. And PETA helped to start and manage a quasi-medical
front group, the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine, to attack medical research head-on.
6) PETA has compared Jewish
victims of the Nazi Holocaust to farm animals and Jesus Christ to pigs.
PETA’s religious campaigns include a website that
claims—despite ample evidence to the contrary—that Jesus
Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even
suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning
harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs
“died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries
of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter
shouldn’t be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your
Plate” campaign crassly compared the Jewish victims of Nazi
genocide to farm animals.
7) PETA frequently looks the
other way when its celebrity spokespersons don’t practice what it
preaches. As gossip bloggers and Hollywood journalists have noted,
Pamela Anderson’s Dodge Viper (auctioned to benefit PETA) had a
“luxurious leather interior”; Jenna Jameson was
photographed fishing, slurping oysters, and wearing a leather jacket
just weeks after launching an anti-leather campaign for PETA; Morrissey
got an official “okay” from PETA after eating at a
steakhouse; Dita von Teese has written about her love of furs and foie
gras; Steve-O built a career out of abusing small animals on film; the
officially “anti-fur” Eva Mendes often wears fur anyway;
and Charlize Theron’s celebrated October 2007 Vogue cover shoot
featured several suede garments. In 2008, “Baby Phat”
designer Kimora Lee Simmons became a PETA spokes model despite working
with fur and leather, after making a $20,000 donation to the animal
rights group.
(The footage)
While
PETA continually denies
any of the actions that PETAkillsanimals asserts that they do, PETA
supporters often wonder multiple questions;Where do all of the rescued
animals that
do not make it to shelters and friendly farms, end up? Most of these
animals are left to fend for themselves especially when they are
injured and weak and others are captured and trapped on Chinese fur
farms. Mark Rissi, an
American filmmaker and animal activist himself, created a documentary
on Chinese film farms in 2009 and released it to Youtube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBEdlA89zKg&feature=related].
Animals are not just used for fur and food but sometimes they are
killed for no good reason. Another video from Youtube will show you the
quick “Easy” way to kill a bull that after losing a bull
race had no need for his owner. So, he was put to sleep by snapping his
neck[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKOR89oDOvg&list=FLKUbY0VGxahEzhyjrpwQjNg&index=10&feature=plpp_video]These videos and many more have us Animal supporters wondering; where
is the humanity? Where is the morality? But, how do we know this
isn’t moral? Who are we to tell them if this is right or wrong,
considering there isn’t much moral code in nature? With that
being said, it is up to us to decide whether or not we are using our
humane morals to treat other animals with respect.
(The Sociological number)
Arnold Arluke, author of “A Sociology of Sociological Animal
studies, stated “A number of sociologists have
fought for years to stimulate interest
within sociology through research,
editorial work, and professional
organizing but have met with
resistance and apathy” and “This reaction
strikes me as ironic given sociology’s willingness, even
eagerness, to grant legitimacy to a variety of area studies for groups
that have been oppressed, including—but not limited
to—African-American studies, women’s studies, Latino
studies, disability studies, and gay/lesbian studies” (Arluke 3). What he
means by these quotes is that he doesn’t quite understand how
people who for years have been widely against homosexuals,
woman’s rights, African-Americans and over-all equality have
become accepting of those same topics but cannot open up to learning
and fighting for animal rights. Arluke also tries and defends the
reason why there are very small theoretical theories on animals in
sociology by saying that due to the amount of humane animal society
organizations, animals in sociology have become a kind of taboo. They
have been off limits to talk about or to study as it may or may not
harm the animals. Amelia Jenson, a college campaigns Assistant from
PETA, took the time out of her schedule to answer two Animal
sociological questions for me:
Hi, my name is Enoye Uwa. I am
a freshman at the University of Hartford in Hartford, CT. I am doing a
project on animals and sociology and I need a primary source. I wanted
to ask you a few quick questions so if you could answer them,
that’ll be great;
1.) How do you think that we express sociological morals when it comes to Animals and nature?
As Peter Singer states, the
basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical
treatment; it requires equal consideration. This is an important
distinction when talking about animal rights. People often ask if
animals should have rights, and quite simply, the answer is "Yes!"
Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and
exploitation.
Jeremy Bentham, the founder of
the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, stated that when
deciding on a being's rights, "The question is not 'Can they reason?'
nor 'Can they talk?' but 'Can they suffer?'" In that passage, Bentham
points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that
gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for
suffering is not just another characteristic like the capacity for
language or higher mathematics. All animals have the ability to suffer
in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain,
pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Whenever we
consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are
morally obligated to take them into account.
2.) Do you think that it is
fair that up until the recent 00's that the study of sociology was
reserved only for Humans and not animals?
Sociology is the study of
society; animals are a part of the global society, and therefore should
be included. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and
to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear,
frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Animal rights are not just
a philosophy - it is a social movement that challenges society's
traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use.
As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, "When it comes to pain, love,
joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one
values his or her life and fights the knife."
(The Conclusion)
The
life of an Animal can go
one of two ways; They can live out their life, in the wild where thye
belong to roam with similar Animals and reproduce, hunt and live a
generally "happy" life by Animal standards. Or they can live a short,
life on a farm where they will be slaughtered for recreational purpose.
The point i was trying to make throughout this paper was the fact that
Animals are just like you and me. I cannot go through life pretending
that the piece of chicken on my plate was once a scared, hopeful yet
hopeless young chicken whose life ended at the hands of another Animal,
a human. Yes, Animals do not have the vocals to tell us when they are
scared, happy, sad, lonely, but they rely on instinct and their
instinct can alert us to let us know that the Animal is feeling the
pain we are causing it. I'm fully aware that not everyone who will read
this is going to want to become a vegitarian now or stand up for the
rights against Animals because if there is something sociology has
taught us about the past few years is that we went from a civilization
that worked together to only caring about self ( Me! Me! Me!). Its hard
to decide whether or not to become an Animal rights activist because it
comes down to the concept of you or me and many of us would choose
ourselves' making us hypocrites. Underneath all the complexity, we can
see that the basic message of Animal treatment is just to consider the
Animals feelings. Equal consideration is just as good as equal rights
when it comes to Animals.
Peter Singer, author of All Animals are Equal, writes
about how incongruous it is to say that all Animals should have the
same rights but that they atleast deserve equal consideration thats
already given to human beings. So this means that if all Animals have
interest that can be considered, then the topic about equal
consideration goes against racisim, sexism and speciesism.
(The Citations)
"People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): The animal rights
organization | PETA.org." People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA): The animal rights organization | PETA.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 2
Oct. 2011. <http://PETA.org>.
Newkirk, Ingrid. "Ingrid
Newkirk, PETA President, PETA Cofounder | IngridNewkirk.com." Ingrid
Newkirk, PETA President, PETA Cofounder | IngridNewkirk.com. N.p., n.d.
Web. 2 Oct. 2011. <http://ingridnewkirk.com/>.
"PETA Kills Animals |
PetaKillsAnimals.com." PETA Kills Animals | PetaKillsAnimals.com. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 2 Oct. 2011. <http://www.petakillsanimals.com>.
Professor Griswold’s notes. September 2nd- September 28th
Philips, A.
"Society and Animal Forum - Society & Animals Journal." Society
& Animals Forum. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.societyandanimalsforum.org/index.shtml>.
"The British Sociological
Association - Giving Sociology a Voice." The British Sociological
Association - Giving Sociology a Voice. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.britsoc.co.uk>.
Basirico, Laurence A., Barbara
G. Cashion, and J. Ross Eshleman. “ The Development of Sociology .
"Introduction to sociology. 4th ed. Redding, CA: BVT Pub., 2009. 22-53.
"The Nature and Uses of Sociology ."Introduction to sociology. 4th ed.
Redding, CA: BVT Pub., 2009. 5-18. Print.
Primary source- College campaigns Assistant Amelia Jenson
Singer, P. All Animals Are Equal. Shiplee, B, 1999. Print.