July 14, 2003
More PETA and KFC, courtesy
Of course, since I wrote about this, when I found the NRO article (Friday's - I missed it then because I was ill) entitled PETA-Fried, well, I felt I had to share.
My favorite spots?
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Bachelder "jumped on the corporate jet and flew to PETA's hometown of
Norfolk," PETA's website crowed, acquiescing to five of PETA's eight
demands. According to the organization's victory report, among other
matters, Bachelder pledged to install cameras in all of KFC's 29
slaughterhouses by the end of next year, with a plan to audit the tapes
monthly. KFC also agreed 1) to ensure that its suppliers would add
stimulation devices to the perches in the chicken sheds; 2) to move quickly
to kill chickens in electric stun baths rather than merely immobilizing
them; 3) to implement humane mechanized chicken-gathering systems; and 4) to
provide increased space for chicken housing. KFC promised to report back to
PETA on a regular basis to verify its compliance.
In return, PETA didn't have to agree to do much of anything. The anti-KFC campaign would continue, though with a 60-day suspension. PETA would not picket the 2003 annual shareholder meeting. It agreed to modify its website assertions about KFC, and suspended "all planned billboards." And it promised not to undertake further "step-ups" in the anti-KFC campaign for 60 days — meaning that it would be at least 61 days before protesters returned to picket Bachelder's home.
The promised reforms may all be fine, appropriate, and humane changes in the raising and slaughter of chickens. Indeed, it is an important human obligation to treat food animals properly and to kill them as humanely as is practicable. But it shouldn't take pressure from fanatics for corporate executives to do the right thing. Indeed, acting under such pressure merely adds to the power of animal-rights liberationists, making them an ever-greater threat to the legitimate use of animals.
If KFC thought that it had bought peace and security from PETA by so clearly and publicly caving in to the organization's threats and intimidation, it didn't know its enemy. I use the word enemy in its literal sense. PETA's goal is not to reform KFC's practices. It isn't ultimately seeking a universal standard for humane treatment of chickens by food producers. These goals are mere tactical efforts on the way to PETA's ultimate goal: driving KFC — and all other meat-serving fast-food restaurants — out of business.
And...
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When I first read this, I almost spat out my morning coffee. PETA ideologues
believe that killing animals for food is the moral equivalent of genocide.
Indeed, PETA minions have for several months traveled the country promoting
vegetarianism on college campuses in the "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign.
Holocaust on Your Plate explicitly equates animal husbandry and meat-eating
with the death camps and the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust. To
illustrate its thesis, PETA crassly juxtaposes photographs of a pile of dead
pigs with a pile of the bodies of dead concentration-camp inmates and claims
that "the leather sofa and handbag are the modern equivalent of the
lampshades made from the skins of the people killed in the death
camps."
It must be understood that PETA-type fanatics do not see Holocaust on Your Plate as hyperbole or metaphor. For them, it is a literal truth. Down to the bone marrow in their vegan bones, they believe that KFC's cooking of chickens is morally equivalent to SS guards' herding of Auschwitz inmates into the showers. One can only imagine the future potential for demagogic advertisements should KFC's suppliers begin the gas slaughter of birds.
hln
Posted by hln at July 14, 2003 06:05 PM | PETA!
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