Tag: Ingrid Newkirk

Dan Murphy on Newkirk's Letter to Arafat

Okay this happened awhile ago, but Dan Murphy wrote what I thought was the best retort to Ingrid Newkirk’s idiotic letter to Yasser Arafat asking the Palestinian leader to stop terrorists in that country from using animals when they carry out their attacks. Back in February, Murphy wrote,

Of course, it is tragic that terrorists place no value on lives lost, whether their own, their victims or “collateral animals” killed in the course of their murderous attacks. Newkirk’s letter, however, didn’t offer a single word of regret for the senseless casualties inflicted on both Palestinians and Israelis, noting instead that, “All nations behave abominably in many ways when they are fighting their enemies, and animals are always caught in the crossfire.”

Which is like expressing sorrow that when a family loses its home because it caught fire and burned, that trees are shrubbery were damaged by the smoke and flames.

Ah, but I assume Newkirk would leave that sort of thing up to PETA’s like-minded folks at the Earth Liberation Front to which it was so eager to donate money.

Source:

Animal extremists hit new low with fawning letter to Arafat. Dan Murphy, MeatingPlace.Com, February 14, 2003.

PETA to Palestinians: Stop Using Donkey Bombs

Ingrid Newkirk recently sent a letter to Yasser Arafat asking the Palestinians to not use animals in any future terrorist attacks against Israelis. This followed a Jan. 26 terrorist attack in which a donkey was rigged with explosives which were then detonated near the West Bank settlement of Gush Etzion.

Here is the full text of the letter from Newkirk,

February 3, 2003

Yasser Arafat, President
Palestinian National Authority
Ramallah, West Bank
Palestinian Authority

1 page via facsimile: 972 7 282 2365

Your Excellency:

I am writing from an organization dedicated to fighting animal abuse around the world. We have received many calls and letters from people shocked at the bombing in Jerusalem on January 26 in which a donkey, laden with explosives, was intentionally blown up.

All nations behave abominably in many ways when they are fighting their enemies, and animals are always caught in the crossfire. The U.S. Army abandoned thousands of loyal service dogs in Vietnam. Al-Qaeda and the British government have both used animals in hideously cruel biological weaponry tests. We watched on television as stray cats in your own compound fled as best they could from the Israeli bulldozers.

Animals claim no nation. They are in perpetual involuntary servitude to all humankind, and although they pose no threat and own no weapons, human beings always win in the undeclared war against them. For animals, there is no Geneva Convention and no peace treaty — just our mercy.

If you have the opportunity, will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?

We send you sincere wishes of peace.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid Newkirk
President, PETA

The obvious question is why Newkirk didn’t simply ask Arafat to put an end to terrorist bombings altogether. As Newkirk told the Washington Post, however,

It’s not my business to inject myself into human wars.

Yeah, you really have to wonder where people get this idea that Newkirk and PETA care more about animals than human beings. It couldn’t be from stunts like this, could it?

Sources:

Arafat gets asinine plea from PETA on intefadah. Kerry Dougherty, The Virginian-Pilot, February 6, 2003.

Anger over donkey bomb attack. Ananova.Com, Feb. 6, 2003.

Leave the animals in peace. Ingrid Newkirk, Letter, Feb. 3, 2003.

Ingrid Newkirk Knows Animal Hoaxes

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ president Ingrid Newkirk was quoted in a Canadian newspaper about a topic which even this writer will stipulate that she is certainly an expert — hoaxes and disinformation about the treatment of animals.

The particular example at hand is an odd New Zealand book, Why Paint Cats: The ethics of feline aesthetics, which appears to be a more tasteful version of a Bonsai Kitten-style hoax. Rather than claiming to show people how to stuff kittens into bottles, Why Paint Cats claims to chronicle the art of painting picutres onto the rear ends of cats.

For example, the book claims that a New York stockbroker paid $16,000 to have an image of Charlie Chaplin painted onto his cat.

The author of the book insists that it is not a hoax, though the Ottawa Citizen noted that some of the groups and magazines cited in the book do not appear to exists.

Newkirk concurs, telling the Ottawa Citizen,

It’s so intricate [the supposed cat paintings]. It’s so detailed. I cannot imaigine that anyone could get even one cat, let alone all those cats who look quite happy and wonderful to stil still . . . it’s just not so

And if anyone knows about using images of animals that aren’t quite what they purport to be, certainly that person is Newkirk.

Source:

Flashy felines or a colourful hoax? Jennifer Morrison, The Ottawa Citizen, January 11, 2003.

PETA/PCRM and The Foundation to Support Animal Protection

Via Americans for Medical Progress comes word on Animal People‘s annual roundup of animal rights groups finances, which were down somewhat this year.

Of special interest is Animal People‘s focus on the The Foundation to Support Animal Protection which is little more than a front group set up to hide the financial ties between People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Physicians Committe for Responsible Medicine.

According to Animal People (emphasis added),

The Foundation to Support Animal Protection board consists of PETA cofounder and president Ingrid Newkirk PCRM founder and president Neal Barnard, MD, and Nadine Edles. The sole function of FASP, according to IRS Form 990 is to ‘Provide support to various charitable, educational and scientific organizations specified in the Corporation’s Certificate of Incorporation,’ identified as PETA, and four PETA subsidiaries, plus PCRM and the Washington (DC) Humane Society, which was granted $5,000 in 1999 but nothing since. In fiscal 2001 FSAP apparently continued as in past years to pay the mortgage on the PETA headquarters and lease the site to PETA; did mailings in the names of the beneficiaries; and granted $160,000 to PCRM, 55% of the total PCRM budget. The major purpose of FSAP appears to be to enable PETA and PCRM to evade public recognition of their relationship, the real extent of their direct mail expenditures, and the real extent and nature of their assets. If FSAP, PETA and PCRM were seen as a joint fundraising unit, as the existence and activities of FSAP indicate they should be, their total spending came to $18,846,016; their declared overhead was $5,194,418, 28% of budget. Their total assets were $10,471,309, 55% held by FSAP, including 58% of the cash and securities. The combined FSAP, PETA and PCRM payroll was $4.64 million, of which FSAP paid $1.3 million: 28%.

PETA and PCRM — dishonest, through and through.

Source:

AMP News Service Special Report: AR Finances. November 26, 2002.

PETA's Smoking Campaign

In late September, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ended up hooking up with the advertising agency that came up with the absurd “Truth” anti-smoking campaign. Miami-based Crispin Porter and Bogusky helped PETA continue its habit of misrepresenting the truth while, ironically, helping it promote smoking to very young children.

PETA’s wanted to convey the message that some tobacco companies do animal research, and so smoking subsidizes this sort of animal “cruelty.”

But they picked on odd method to make this point. Crispin Porter and Bogusky crafted several stickers that parody popular cigarette brands. Marlboro becomes “Murderboro” while Kool becomes “Krool.” On the back of the stickers are pictures of animals being forced to breathe cigarette smoke.

On the one hand, the stickers misrepresented the research done by the tobacco companies targeted. The stickers showed monkeys, dogs and rabbits being forced to inhale smoke, but in fact the companies targeted by PETA only do research on rodents.

Like the tobacco companies did for so many years, PETA seems to think that deception is okay as long as it encourages people to buy what they’re selling.

On the other hand, for once I agreed with a Philip Morris USA representative who said that, “PETA is acting irresponsibly by handing out tobacco logos to children.”

In fact, The New York Times reported that PETA representatives had handed out the stickers to children as young as age 6. That’s just appalling — I know the reaction of my almost-6 year old daughter would likely be a sudden interest in all things tobacco. Not that PETA cares. As Dan Mathews told The New York Times, “If kids stop smoking as a result, we’re delighted, but that’s not our focus. Our focus is to get kids to voice their outrage [about animal research].”

And I’m still waiting for an explanation of how activities like this jibe with Ingrid Newkirk’s claim during a March appearance on Crossfire that PETA doesn’t target children “because everything we do is based at adults.”

Source:

An anti-tobacco campaign aims not at smoking but at the use of animals in tests. Nat Ives, The New York Times, September 27, 2002.

Who Are You Calling Terrorists?

In an op-ed published in the Washington Times, Steven Zak accuses conservative anti-animal rights writers of falsely branding animal rights activists as terrorists. But Zak undermines his own case by glossing over actual animal rights terrorism.

Zak writes,

Granted, some animal activists have committed serious acts of vandalism and other crimes. But the wrongers’ wrath isn’t directed solely at them. Mr. [Wesley J.] Smith, for instance, condemns groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and even the moderate Humane Society of the United States.

First, it is interesting that Zak lumps all animal rights related crimes into two categories: vandalism and “other.” So the firebombing of a Minnesota University laboratory was just an “other” crime. The death threats and razor-blade laced letters to researchers and farmers are just “other” crimes. Certainly vandalism is a major part of animal rights crimes, but animal rights terrorism has progressed way beyond just simple vandalism.

Second, of course, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals deserves condemnation for its support — moral and otherwise — of terrorism. Zak doesn’t even bother to address the issue of PETA’s Earth Liberation Front donation nor its donation to the legal funds of several individuals accused of animal rights terrorism. He doesn’t bother to dismiss or explain away the numerous statements made by PETA insiders such as Ingrid Newkirk or Bruce Friedrich that encourage and justify animal rights terrorism.

Third, Smith’s comments about the Humane Society of the United States were completely justified, although twisted and distorted by Zak’s failure to actually outline Smith’s complaint. Smith wrote,

. . . known ELF and ALF activists are routinely invited to speak at the yearly Washington, D.C. animal-rights conference sponsored by PETA and the Humane Society of the United States.

I believe HSUS is simply a participant in AR 2002, not a sponsor, but aside from that this is a valid question — why does HSUS participate in FARM USA’s annual animal rights conference which features animal rights terrorists front and center? If there were an anti-animal rights conference which featured groups that advocated burning down the businesses of animal rights activists, I know I would not attend and I cannot imagine any other anti-animal rights group would attend. So why does HSUS want to associate with known criminals and advocates of animal rights crimes?

(The irony, by the way, in Smith attacking animal rights activists is that his view of medical research is rather close to the animal rights position. Smith is, for example, a vocal opponent of transgenic research which he claims undermines human dignity).

Hopefully Zak’s next op-ed or article defending PETA and HSUS will actually address the salient issues.

Source:

Exposing animal-rights terrorism. Wesley J. Smith, National Review Online, October 2, 2002.