Tag: Bruce Friedrich

PETA: No Comment?!?

Eric Flack produced an interesting report on People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for WAVE3 TV in Louisville, Kentucky. What was most interesting about the report was that for once PETA did not want to talk to the media about their organization. Why? Because Flack had also talked to the Center for Consumer Freedom’s David Martosko.

The CCF has done an excellent job of chronicling PETA’s support and endorsement of animal rights violence, such as Bruce Friedrich’s statement at Animal Rights 2001 that,

I think it would be a great thing if, you know, all of these fast-food outlets and these slaughterhouses and these laboratories and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it’s perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows, and you know everything else along the line. Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it.

PETA’s apparently tired of answering question about such support for violence. According to Flack,

PETA, which runs to the media every time it has shocking video, ran from this story, refusing to be interviewed because it included criticism from the Center from Consumer Freedom. In an email, a spokeswoman writes: “CCF has an agenda we aren’t interested in helping them publicize.”

Yeah that CCF certainly has an agenda — imagine a group running around providing the press with quotes from PETA members. Could anything be more insidious?

Source:

PETA’s Ethics, Tactics Questionable. Eric Flack, WAVE 3 TV, August 5, 2004.

Dude Looks Like . . . Howard Lyman?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is back at it again with its billboards, this time with its “Dude Looks Like a Lady” billboard. A company in Knoxville, Tennessee ran this billboard for awhile along I-40 until it received too many complaints and was relocated.

The billboard features a neck-down picture of an overweight man wearing only underwear, with the text, “Dude Looks Like a Lady: Lose the Boobs—Go Vegetarian.” In a PETA press release, Bruce Friedrich said,

This should put to rest the myth that thereÂ’s anything macho about eating meat. If unspeakable animal suffering, environmental degradation, and dreaded diseases haven’t scared devout male carnivores, the prospect of growing an unwanted set of boobs might have them racing for the salad bar.

Oddly enough, the obese man bore a striking resemblance to well-known vegetarian Howard Lyman.

Sources:

PETA Billboard Being Relocated due to Complaints. Wate.Com, January 7, 2004.

Billboard Showing Man With Breasts Is Wake-Up Call For Knoxville Meat-Eaters. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, January 5, 2004.

Bruce Friedrich Cited at Anti-KFC protest

The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, reports that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ Bruce Friedrich was cited by police at a protest outside of a Louisville church in December. According to the Courier-Journal,

A demonstrator for the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was cited by off-duty police officers yesterday during a demonstration in front of Southeast Christian Church. PETA organizer Bruce Friedrich said he was cited for disorderly conduct and blocking a sidewalk.

The group has been conducting a publicly campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken to dramatize what it calls unnecessarily cruel treatment of chickens in the U.S. poultry industry. David Novak, chief executive of KFC parent Yum! Brands Inc., is a member of Southeast Christian.

Source:

PETA demonstrated cited at KFC protests. Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), December 25, 2003.

PETA Compares Veganism to Jesus' Birth

For Christmas this year, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals took out a billboard in Toronto comparing veganism to the birth of Jesus.

The billboard shows Mary cradling a chicken in her arms with the tagline, “Go Vegetarian — It’s an Immaculate Conception.”

Doesn’t make any sense to me either, but PETA’s Bruce Friedrich explained it this way to the Talon News,

The Holy Mother is the embodiment of selfless love and compassion, and the only compassionate diet is a vegetarian one. A vegetarian diet is the best diet for our health, the environment, and animals, so it, too, is an immaculate concept.

Sure, whatever you say Bruce.

Sources:

Animal Rights Group Depicts Virgin Mother in New Ad Charles Mahaleris, Talon News, December 24, 2003.

Veganism: An Immaculate Conception. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Undated.

Activists Throws Fake Blood on Yum! Brands CEO

German animal rights activists threw fake blood on Yum! Brands CEO David Novak is June as Novak arrived at the opening of the first A&W Restaurant in Germany. Along with A&W, Yum! Brands is the owner of KFC.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been waging a public campaign against KFC for what PETA claims are the cruelties that chickens killed for KFC are subjected to. PETA, however, claims that it was not behind the fake blood incident.

Which is a bit odd, considering that PETA is the group that initially notified the media that the action had taken place and was able to supply photographs of Novak covered in fake blood to news media quickly after the incident.

The brave animal rights activists who threw the red liquid immediately fled the scene.

PETA’s Dan Shannon claimed that,

It was an independent person, working on their own, on behalf of our campaign [against Yum]. We are not asking or encouraging people to do this sort of thing.

Somebody forgot to tell Bruce Friedrich they’re not encouraging such actions. In a quote on PETA’s web site, Friedrich says,

KFC stands for cruelty in our book. There is so much blood on this chicken-killer’s hands, a little more on his business suit won’t hurt.

Yum! Brands wasn’t buying Shannon’s pathetic spin. Yum! spokesman Jonathan Blum said,

This is the type of corporate terrorism groups like PETA have endorsed in the past. Corporate attacks and personal violence of this nature cross the line from expression of views to unacceptable acts of corporate terrorism. The perpetrator of this crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Sources:

KFC Chief “Blooded” In Germany. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, June 23, 2003.

Animal-rights activist douses Yum’s CEO. Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), June 24, 2003.

Animal rights activists spray KFC chief with fake blood and chicken feathers. Associated Press, June 24, 2003.

PETA Organizes Mad Cow Protests in Canada

With the announcement that mad cow disease had found its way to cattle in Alberta, you knew it would not take long for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to show up there as well.

Bruce Friedrich visited Alberta to protest outside an Edmonton grocery story. He and other activists carried signs reading, “It’s Mad to Eat Meat — Go Vegetarian.”

In an interview with the CanWest News Service, Friedrich said,

When industries deny animals everything natural to them and turn them into machines, it can come back to haunt us. . . . If you eat meat, you already have to worry about salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and cancer, as well as your weight. Now you can add mad cow disease to the list.

Oddly enough, Valerie Fitch of the Calgary Vegetarian Society seemed a bit suspicious as to whether or not fear over mad cow disease would lead Canadians to go vegetarian,

I think that initially meat consumption will drop. It may come up again, but people will be questioning what they eat.

Given how isolated the first case of mad cow disease among cattle in Canada was, I doubt there will be a significant drop in meat consumption there. Now if a human case of vCJD is found, that would be a different story.

Source:

‘It’s mad to eat meat’, PETA to tell shoppers: Animal rights group pushes vegetarianism. CanWest Global Communications Corp., Mario Toneguzzi, May 22, 2003.