You might have noticed an inflatable barn outside the Student Union last week.
Meet PETA, otherwise known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – but you can just call them People for Extortion, Terror and Abuse.
I’m sure you’re familiar with PETA’s Disney-like hopes of a cruelty-free world, but I’m here to introduce you to an organization the United States Department of Agriculture formerly classified as a terrorist threat.
PETA is now the largest animal rights organization in the world. They focus on areas where “animals suffer the most intensely,” which, according to peta.org, are “on factory farms, in the clothing trade, in laboratories and in the entertainment industry.”
Their goal is complete animal liberation, so saving human lives with medicine that was developed using animal research is a big no-no – unless you’re a member.
Mary Beth Sweetland, PETA’s former senior vice president, is a diabetic, and each day she must inject herself with insulin that was developed through animal testing using dogs.
There’s nothing hypocritical about that, right?
“I don’t see myself as a hypocrite,” Sweetland said in Glamour magazine. “I need my life to fight for the rights of animals.”
I’m willing to bet she plays Angry Birds, too.
While PETA does not condone violence, its tax returns tell a different story. And because it’s a tax-exempt organization, their returns are public record.
Rodney Coronado, proud animal rights arsonist and influential member of the Animal Liberation Front, received more than $70,000 from PETA in 1995 – the same year Coronado admitted in court to the arson of the Michigan State University research laboratory and spent 57 months in federal prison.
In the government sentencing memorandum, the U.S. attorney wrote that there was evidence Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder and president of PETA, was connected to the crime.
In a 2002 speech, Coronado admitted to commiting six other arsons. He might be most famous, though, for his thorough illustration to American University students in 2003 on how to build a firebomb using only household items.
Coronado isn’t the only lunatic PETA endorses to recruit the naïve.
Gary Yourofsky, one of PETA’s former national lecturers, has been arrested more than a dozen times for animal rights crimes, but he says it was for “random acts of kindness.”
He also champions the ALF with a tattoo on his arm. The FBI classifies the ALF as America’s most dangerous domestic terrorist organization.
However, PETA keeps its stance as a non-violent organization — apparently, the more it grows, the more disillusioned its supporters are. And protesting outside of animal shelters is common among the PETA community.
Better hold tight for this one.
“Since 1998, a total of 27,751 pets have died at the hands of PETA workers,” according to consumerfreedom.com. “A 2010 inspection of 290 PETA animal custody records performed by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services discovered that PETA killed 84 percent of the animals it took control of within only 24 hours.”
The inspection also revealed the condition of the organization’s animal shelter was below the standards established by the organization itself.
Great organizations that fight for animal rights exist in non-violent, non-hypocritical ways by not burning down a restaurant just because they don’t like the menu. PETA is not one of them.