COLUMN: People for the Ethical Treatment of People
It seems our friends at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have been busy this summer coming up with new and increasingly tasteless ways of getting their message across. Their latest, an ad that makes light of the suffering of shark attack victims, looks like it’s going to be abandoned – proving too ridiculous even for an organization so famous for being ridiculous.
PETA announced this week they were scrapping plans to put up a billboard in Pensacola, Fla., reading “Would you give your right arm to know why sharks attack? Could it be revenge? Go vegetarian.” In addition to the billboard, PETA had plans to fly banner-towing planes up and down the beaches at Miami, Fla.; Galveston, Texas and Martha’s VineyardCopy Ed 4/23/04 Where is this? displaying the same message.
It’s important to note they chose to scrap the ads only after they were turned down by one billboard company and received numerous complaints about the banner they had already flown over the beach in Atlantic City Copy Ed 4/23/04 Ga.?.
PETA didn’t censor themselves, they pulled the campaign after realizing the only thing worse than getting torn limb from limb by a shark was having the same done to their organization by the American public (figuratively, of course). Still, I can’t think of a more appropriate fate for an extremist group whose message is almost always inflammatory and beyond reason.
Right now, 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast is languishing in some hospital wondering if he’ll ever be able to throw a baseball again while the gang at PETA is planning on using him in their next assault in the war for fish rights. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Jessie is the enemy. I’m sure the little tike is guilty of eating at least one tuna-fish sandwich in his life. Maybe the tuna was a friend of the shark who attacked him.
Maybe, like the campaign says, it really was revenge but on a much more personal basis. Could this mean the cousin of the mosquito I just swatted will attack me in my sleep and inject me with West Nile Virus? I wouldn’t put it past PETA to postulate the theory.
We live in a world where everything eats everything else. Why should humans be any different? Since most of us have the gift of reason, we have an obligation to treat animals with a certain degree of respect – even the ones we’re about to eat. But let’s face it, when it’s dinner time, we’re predators, too.
If PETA wants to get worked up over who is killing the animals, they should go straight to the source and protest against the largest group of animal killers in the world – other animals. I suppose they would if they could solicit spotted owls and sea otters for cash donations.
Still, PETA persists in defending itself, even in the face of such an obvious publicity disaster.
“Our message is that humans kill billions of fish – including sharks – each year, in the most hideous ways, and sharks aren’t really to blame for doing what comes naturally, because, unlike us, they don’t have choices when it comes to what to eat,” said Dan Shannon, PETA spokesman.
We have the choice to be respectful to others, especially when they are suffering. If PETA is going to capitalize on a little boy’s pain, the word “ethical” should be stricken from their name.
“Right now, people would just shoot the messenger without hearing the message,” said Shannon. “Children are easy to love. Fish aren’t as lucky.”
In light of the direction PETA is taking, the fish are lucky in one respect – they can’t read billboards.