This blog contains material I wrote and posted on multiply.com between the years 2005 and 2011 only. It does not contain any new material. For newer writing, please check my main blog (Bill the Butcher).


Wednesday 28 November 2012

PETA hypocrisy

In today’s paper (26/9/2008) I saw a typical piece of PETA hypocrisy – a “protest” against the leather industry. There was a photo of an attractive young woman lying on a street in Bhubaneswar, Orissa state, India, wearing a “bloodstained” set of leotards, while a sign lying beside her proclaimed “leather is murder”.

I looked for the photo on the net, couldn't find it. I'm therefore posting another photo of the same broad genre, here.:


I’m sure the young lady I mentioned (not the one in the photo) is much exercised about the unbelievable torture cattle allegedly go through to provide skins for the leather industry (actually, in this country, the vast majority of leather comes from cattle that die of natural causes, but that’s not something PETA prefers to acknowledge). Within the limits of what she chooses to believe, I’m sure she is completely sincere.

But...

I wonder if she and PETA are willing to find employment for the thousands who work in the leather industry. All right, maybe they don’t care about humans, they’re animal rights activists after all. OK...

I still wonder if PETA is willing to take all the millions of stray cattle off the streets, treat their diseases, feed them properly, and dispose of their corpses in a sufficiently dignified manner when they shuffle off this mortal coil from natural causes.

Once they do that, they’re entitled to agitate against leather or porcelain or glue or whatever it is they want. Not before.

But that would have cost the beautiful young woman her photo-op on the Orissa street, so I don’t think it will happen any time soon.

(Oh, by the way, PETA keeps harping on the adverse environmental effects of tanneries. Do they demand the tanneries clean up their act? No. They demand the entire leather industry shut down, which even a PETA-ite knows isn't going to happen. Rather a case of throwing the baby out with the bath-water, don't you think?)

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