Some Are More Equal Than Others
By Ian
I'm shocked. SHOCKED! PETA -- that is, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- apparently has differing standards for which animals are worthy of those ethics. Lowest on the list? Animals raised as food stock.
In the wake of the Denver blizzards, hundreds of thousands of animals have been left stranded to die of starvation or freezing. PETA has refused (as of this writing) to do anything to help out. Not that PETA's set up as emergency relief, of course, but this appears particularly callow given the typical rhetoric that comes from these people.
Why are the suddenly stranded cattle less worthy of rescue than the chickens raised for your plate? My wild guess is that the blizzard achieves the same goal as the Holocaust on Your Plate campaign: they both hurt the sellers of meat. I know, I know, it's crazy to think a public organization has a political goal aside from it's stated altruistic vision -- and it seems to have truly caught some people off-guard -- but it seems possible in this case. As it did when there was a wish for foot-and-mouth disease.