I am frequently asked in interviews how a radical and misanthropic organization like PETA gets so much money. The answer is simple. Many average people think the group is about just being nicer to animals, when it is actually about ending all animal domestication.
Then there are the shallow celebrities, who provide a cornucopia of cash. Take Paul McCartney. After his wife Linda died of breast cancer, he gave millions to cancer research (applause), but then counter-donated with millions to PETA–even though PETA’s hostility to animal research serves to impede cancer research. Moreover, PETA loathes horseback riding, and yet, Linda was a great horse woman. Talk about clueless!
Now, Bob Barker has forked over $2.5 million. From the story:
Former “Price is Right” host Bob Barker is lending his name, and a considerable amount of his cash, to the construction of a new Los Angeles home for PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Barker and a bevy of game show caliber beauties joined PETA President Ingrid Newkirk Wednesday for a groundbreaking at what will become the new PETA office on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. The 86 year old daytime TV legend donated $2.5 million to make the project happen. It’s no coincidence that the office will be named The Bob Barker Building. Barker was a longtime advocate for spaying and neutering, as well as other animal rights issues, during his Price is Right tenure.
No, PETA isn’t about spaying. It is about ending all uses of animals: Another example of the media conflating animal welfare and animal rights. But with celebrities with money to burn like Bob Barker and Paul McCartney, the price for PETA is always right.
March 11th, 2010 | 3:55 pm
I suggest readers view where the Discovery Institute gets its money.
Almost everyone is a sellout in these arenas (I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that).
That’s the U$A.
March 11th, 2010 | 4:51 pm
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March 11th, 2010 | 10:03 pm
The majority of Petafiles are to slow to understand Newkirk’s game is not about helping pets through spay & neuter campaigns. Her game is the end of ALL animal husbandry and human interfacing with animals.
March 12th, 2010 | 10:20 am
In an open society organizations such as PETA, DNC, RNC, American Life League, Toyota, ACLU, Discovery Institute, Greenpeace etc, attempt to persuade citizens and politicians to agree with their positions. Although one may disagree with their message, the organizations have the right to make their case, as long as they do it legally.
I happen to think PETA’s incremental animal welfare approach is OK, but that their ultimate goal of animal rights denies the biology of the human animal. Biologically speaking, we have as much a “right” to eat pigs as lions have to eat wildebeests and warthogs.
Unfortunately, PETA openly supports at least one domestic terrorist organization, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
March 12th, 2010 | 11:45 am
The support for PETA and HSUS is nowhere near as large as they like to trumpet, either. PETA and their affiliate (I’m being polite and not calling it a puppet) PCRM get most of their financing from a few wealthy individuals like (accused but not convicted serial sexual harasser) Bob Barker. HSUS claims followers in the millions, but their magazine for active dues payers only goes to about 400,000 subscribers.
March 12th, 2010 | 2:19 pm
Jeffery,
Good call. ALF is most certainly a terrorist organization, as is ELF (Earth Liberation Front). I believe about 10 years ago the FBI had EFL listed as the top domestic terrorist group. I’ve often wondered if there are connections between the two groups (ALF and ELF), but I apparently don’t wonder enough to actually investigate it.
I invite readers to check out the following websites (I’m not saying these are official sites) for some of their craziness:
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/
http://www.elfpressoffice.org/
Padraig,
Yes, Bob Barker does personify the creepy old man stereotype. He is one unctuous operator.
March 12th, 2010 | 2:48 pm
It is being said that PETA and HSUS are in the business of taking away our human rights. If that is true then both groups are into “hate crimes”. Both groups have the Natiopnal Socialist party with them. NSP has been imprisoned for hate crimes. Check it out.
March 12th, 2010 | 3:06 pm
David, the possible ELF/ALF overlap is part of my personal and entirely unproven theory that I call “The Same Twelve Nuts.” It seems like if you follow any radical movements in a given area you’ll see the same twelve people show up for all of them, plus a smattering of people that are interested in the cause at hand. ELF/ALF seems to have a particularly strong overlap, though.
BTW, that applies to both left- and right-wing extremists.
March 12th, 2010 | 7:37 pm
PETA certianly goes too far. But what’s the justification for refering to it as ”misanthropic”? Literally, this would mean that it hates humankind, but my guess is that Smith means that, through its activities to help animals, the unintended consequences are that humans are harmed, or it’s intentionally trying to hurt humans? This latter possiblity seems unlikely, since to intentionally hurt humans would mean that its members (all human I’m guessing) could get hurt, which could result in PETA itself getting hurt. Seems unlikely. So it’s likely the first reason. But how so, Mr. Smith?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Bret: Actually, it is misanthropic on more than one level. Ingrid Newkirk has stated she wishes humans had never appeared on the planet. That’s anti human. Its efforts to stifle scientific research, its explicit support of ALF as akin to the French Revolution and Underground Railroad, its Holocaust on Your Plate Campaign comparing animal husbandry and meat eating to Auschwitz, etc. etc., etc. Newkirk is indifferent to the harm done if animal rsearch were to stop, stating once that she would oppose using monkeys even if a cure were found for AIDS in the research. It gets pretty ugly once you dig beneath the veneer of naked movie stars and funny “running of the nudes” kind of protests.
March 12th, 2010 | 8:41 pm
With all that money PETA can now buy more syringes to euthanize more adoptable dogs and cats. They killed 97% of animals they marked as taking in for “purposes of adoption” in 2009. Perhaps in 2010 they can finally get a 100% kill rate.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Well, many animal rights activists don’t believe there should be dogs. Not sure if PETA believes that, but you are right about their killing adoptable animals.
March 12th, 2010 | 11:57 pm
PETA certianly goes too far. But what’s the justification for refering to it as ”misanthropic”? Literally, this would mean that it hates humankind,
Actually Ingrid NewKirk has referred to Humanity as a Cancerous blight upon the universe.
“Humans have grown like a cancer. We’re the biggest blight on the face of the earth.” (Reader’s Digest, June, 1990)
“I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything.”
(Washington Post, November 13, 1983)
Hope that quote clears things up for you .
HSUS & PETA are both pushing for the end of all domesticated animals Wesley and are quite specific about the end of pets.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) ” The cat, like the dog, must disappear… We should cut the domestic cat free from our dominance by neutering, neutering and more neutering, until our pathetic version of the cat ceases to exist.”
–John Bryant, *Fettered Kingdoms* (PeTA, 1982) p15
“Let us allow the dog to disappear from our brick and concrete jungles–from our firesides, from the leather nooses and chains by which we enslave it.”–
John Bryant Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of a Changing Ethic,p 15
“In a perfect world, animals would be free to live their lives to the fullest: raising their young, enjoying their native environments, and following their natural instincts. However, domesticated dogs and cats cannot survive “free” in our concrete jungles, so we must take as good care of them as possible. People with the time, money, love, and patience to make a lifetime commitment to an animal can make an enormous difference by adopting from shelters or rescuing animals from a perilous life on the street. But it is also important to stop manufacturing “pets,” thereby perpetuating a class of animals forced to rely on humans to survive.”-PETA pamphlet, Companion Animals: Pets or Prisoners?
INGRID NEWKIRK, FOUNDER, PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT
OF ANIMALS (PETA)
“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.”
“In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.” (Ingrid NewKirk,Newsday, Feb. 21, 1988)
“As the surplus of cats and dogs declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we return to a more symbiotic relationship–enjoyment at a distance.”–Ingrid Newkirk
“I don’t use the word ‘pet.’ I think it’s speciest language. I prefer ‘companion animal.’ We would no longer allow… pet shops… Eventually companion animals would be phased out.” (Ingrid NewKirk ,Harper’s Magazine, Aug. 1988)
“We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. …One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding”
(HSUS CEO,Wayne Pacelle, Animal People, May, 1993)
March 15th, 2010 | 7:32 pm
I have no doubt that PETA is radical, and if Ingrid NewKirk said these things, she is obviously totally wrong. But is it not possible that PETA has done some good? My guess is that if she was pressed, she would admit to not really believing such things, after all humans are the only hope that animals have!
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
PETA has done some good, but that’s not the standard. It has done far more bad. And it hopes to do much worse.
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