Well, if you are an environmental extremist and animal rights activist working for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), you can betray a trust, pursue dim and utterly worthless pursuits, get publicity for your cause, and probably get even more donations from even simpler minds.

PETA is an animal activist organization that survives by receiving donations from people who like animals.  The people at PETA claim to like animals and appear to hate humans -- the same humans that give them money to pursue their quest to free the world from human domination and install a more natural order of things, humans being the most unnatural of all things on the planet.

One of the ways PETA spends your donated money is by paying off city officials of offensively named towns to change their names to more vegan friendly names.  The Associated Press reported on April 23, 2003, that PETA sent a letter to the town of Hamburg, New York, offering the city $15,000.00 worth of meatless hamburgers for their schools, if the town changed its name to "Veggieburg."

At first glance, we might dismiss this act as not being a real effort, but, according to PETA spokesperson, Joe Haptas, "'Our offer is serious as a heart attack."

Let's see, PETA is the same organization that equated with chickens on farms the millions of innocent people who were slaughtered in concentration camps during World War II.  The people at PETA are also the same people who wrote a respectful letter to Yassir Arafat to be more careful in his use of suicide bombers so as to just target men, women and children, and not donkeys.  It is true.  Ingrid Newkirk, one of the heads of PETA, complained to the PLO that their suicide bombers had been careless in their aiming to murder people in Israel on January 26^th this year, and had accidentally killed a donkey.  She wants them to be more careful and only kill people from now on.

PETA also complained to the American military.  In March of this year, PETA demanded that the American military stop using animals in Iraq.  "Our troops deserve the best defense possible, but PETA opposes the use of dolphins, sea lions, or any other marine mammals."  It seems the military believes that using dolphins and sea lions is the best way to ensure the safety of our troops and uses them.  PETA doesn't think so.  Of course PETA has no alternative to the use of sea mammals, but they just know it's not the best idea, and are willing to sacrifice our troops and humanitarian aid till we come up with something better, if ever.

PETA views human needs as unnatural, but thinks the needs of a chicken are not only natural, but paramount.  KFC is now in the sights of the ever vigilant animal activists.  PETA believes that KFC is cruel because it just gives enough space to the birds and feeds them too much, causing the poultry to grow too fast.  KFC must be stopped.

Then there are the people of North Carolina who have been told by PETA: "He Died For Your Sins. Go Vegetarian."  PETA has a 36 foot wide billboard on interstate 40 that shows a pig next to the 12 foot tall letters.  PETA sure knows how to endear itself to the folks in the Bible Belt.  As Reverend Mike Parnell of the Burgaw Baptist Church, located along Interstate 40 north of Wilmington, said: "I wish it had come at some other time, other than Easter."

Then there is the civic-minded side of PETA and its demand that meat and fish be taxed.  PETA is demanding that the state government in Ohio place an 8 cents per pound tax on meat and fish. "It's something PETA has been pushing for awhile," said Nathan Runkle in the April 17^th edition of central Ohio's Times Recorder, adding: "Now there are taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, so we feel this should be the next step."

To show that they are willing to jump on any bandwagon, PETA is reported in Salon.com to have offered $10,000.00 to Al Jazeera, the Arab network, to air a 30 second commercial showing "cows hanging upside down in a slaughterhouse after their throats had been slit, goats being killed, and a chicken thrown violently at a box."  PETA offered the money to Al Jazeera because of its willingness to show bloodied humans during their coverage of the war in Iraq.  PETA will never be accused of missing an opportunity.

And not to ever be thought of as leaving any stone unturned, there are PETA's allegations, in their ads targeting south and central Asians in the U.S.A., explaining that eating meat, well, "gets you down."  The ad, which was reported on April 11, 2003, in the Indian Express in an article entitled, "PETA Is Aiming Below the Belt," quotes Alka Chandna, campaign manager with PETA's international grassroots campaigns department, as saying:

"I'm afraid, it's very true. Here, in the U.S.A., most people know that heart disease and stroke are the result of constriction of blood ... [that] too much cholesterol in one's diet has the potential of clogging the blood vessels -- arteries to the heart, arteries to the brain, arteries to organs, and arteries to the genitalia."

Next time you get the urge to donate your money, time, or energy to a worthy cause, a cause that wants to defend the rights of animals to be treated ethically, try the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).  The members of the ASPCA, at least so far, don't think humans need to be treated unethically in order to get their organization's message across.

Paul Walfield is a freelance writer and member of the State Bar of California, with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and post-graduate study in behavioral and analytical psychology. He resided for a number of years in the small town of Houlton, Maine, and is now a California attorney. His articles appear in numerous periodicals and on numerous websites. He has been the featured guest on KTSA News Talk Radio.  CONTACT INFORMATION:  Email:   paul.walfield@cox.net

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