Your Kids, PETA's Pawns

Washington, DC - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) targets children as young as six years old for indoctrination with violent and graphic propaganda, according to a new report from the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF). The $24 million animal rights group targets kids at every age level, sidestepping parents and school authorities to lure young and impressionable children into radical activism. Some of these same children mature into hard-core animal rights criminals. This new report walks readers through PETA's coordinated effort, which includes the use of graphic comic books, age-specific websites, grotesque toys, schoolyard demonstrations, and e-mail alerts sent directly to small children.

Psychologists and school officials have denounced PETA's propaganda tactics. "Some of the graphics and some of the messages are very, very disturbing - especially to younger kids," said Dr. Jeffrey Dolgan, chief of psychology at Children's Hospital in Denver. "Children become the unwitting victims of some campaigns, which are, in fact, harmful because they prey on children's fears, and they prey on children's vulnerabilities, and they prey on children's anxieties."

PETA's 2003 annual report boasts of reaching more than 2.3 million children and teachers using a variety of reckless tactics:

Elementary School - PETA activists give young children graphic "Your Mommy Kills Animals" comics outside theaters; a newsletter introduces children to the vocabulary of the radical "animal liberation movement; PETA employees in colorful animal costumes intercept kids as they walk to and from school.

Middle School - PETA sent a convicted felon into schools as a "humane education lecturer"; a "PETA Kids" website condemns fishing, preaches against milk, and teaches them to boycott circuses and zoos.

High School - PETA's curriculum encourages students to consider if it's "acceptable to break a law" for animal rights; websites urge teens to join an "army of animal rights rebels" and rewards illegal "actions" with free merchandise; online column urges vandalism of dairy posters in school cafeterias.

College - PETA sponsors college-oriented conferences where hard-core activists teach arson, vandalism, and police confrontation; intern program provides students and recent grads with hands-on protest experience; PETA recruits additional activists via sponsorships of summer rock-concert tours.

"PETA is deliberately trying to turn innocent kids into hard-core militants," said CCF Executive Director Richard Berman. "The group is a $24 million menace to children of all ages - and most parents don't even know their kids are being targeted."

They only pretend to worship animals...

Carcass was a Happy dog until the people from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ``rescued´´ him. They found him where they find many of their animals, roaming the streets of a bad neighborhood. PETA captured Carcass, made a half-hearted attempt to find him a home, and then killed him. All for his own good.

That's right, the Associated Press reports that the animal lovers at PETA believe it's more ethical to whack dogs and cats than to keep them in a cage. As a result, the same people who weep for cows and chickens and rats are annihilating animals right and left.

All animal shelters struggle with the problem of finding homes for unwanted pets. Many do a better job than PETA. The AP reports that PETA killed 1,325 dogs and cats in Norfolk last year, more than half of all the animals it took in. Odds of survival were much better over at the Norfolk SPCA, where fewer than a third of the animals were put down.

``It is a totally rotten business, but sometimes the only kind option for some animals is to put them to sleep forever,´´ PETA President Ingrid Newkirk told AP. ``I don´t think a dog living in a cage walking in circles for the rest of its life in a dog prison is a swell thing.´´ Speak for yourself, Ms. Newkirk. I'd rather walk in circles than not walk at all. So would Taffy.

The AP reports that several dozen shelters in Virginia have no-kill policies. Not PETA.

``It sounds lovely if you´re naive,´´ Newkirk sniffed. ``We could become a no-kill shelter immediately. It means we wouldn´t do as much work.´´

In other words, PETA would rather spend its time harassing normal people, who simply want to enjoy a juicy steak or a day at the circus, than keeping actual animals alive. Politics, not pets, is what PETA is all about.

PETA Gets to Your Kids

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

By Steven Milloy

Radical animal-rights activists may be the last people you'd think would be planning school lessons for your children. Well, think again.

Through its innocuous-sounding "educational" programming arm known as TeachKind, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has found a way to reach school children starting as young as kindergarten with its extremist agenda. The opportunity for PETA () to gets its message into the classroom has been paved, at least in part, by various laws on the books in at least 12 states mandating humane education in public schools — thus creating a demand for curricula centered on teaching children about the humane treatment of animals.

Naturally, PETA is only too happy to provide ready-made lesson plans, videos and handouts to already overworked teachers.

"Kids who hurt animals may be on a dangerous path that will only get worse if it is not corrected. Psychiatrists, FBI profilers and law enforcement officials have repeatedly documented that kids who abuse animals rarely stop there," TeachKind warns.

Its fact sheet, entitled "Animal Abuse and Human Abuse: Partners in Crime," points out that "violent acts toward animals have long been recognized as indicators of a dangerous psychopathy that does not confine itself to animals," and goes on to detail how many notorious school shooters, including Columbine's Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were known to mutilate animals prior to their attacks on humans.

Indeed, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders () (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association, participation in animal torture is one of the early warning signs of a severe emotional disturbance in a child, ranking alongside fire-setting as a strong indicator of future criminal behavior as well as the likelihood of psychopathy in adulthood.

While there's no question that the small number of children who torture animals are quite disturbed and that all children should be taught how wrong such behavior is, it's quite another matter for PETA to capitalize on this issue as an opportunity to indoctrinate children with PETA's own radical, catch-all definition of what constitutes "animal cruelty." And that's precisely what PETA is doing through TeachKind.

As its Web site prominently touts the animal cruelty-psychopathy connection with quotes from FBI criminalists and others, a closer inspection reveals that the bulk of TeachKind's educational efforts are actually crafted so as to make children believe that everyday behaviors, such as eating a diet that contains meat or animal products, are unmistakably, unequivocally acts of animal cruelty.

PETA's frightening of young children by equating, or even associating, truly disturbed behavior such as mutilation of a family pet with common everyday practices such as eating hamburgers amounts to nothing less than ideological child abuse.

PETA even accuses schools across America of being major perpetrators of animal cruelty. They oppose basic learning methods widely practiced throughout our educational system such as insect collection, field trips to zoos or aquariums, and dissection in the classroom.

"Hearing a lot about violence in schools? You can do something to help. Cut out dissection!" announces their Web-based anti-dissection campaign, which even mentions how a young Jeffrey Dahmer "became fascinated with blood and guts" as a result of participating in a biology assignment involving dissection. With this assertion, PETA is inviting impressionable young minds to believe that all it takes is one experience with a dissection assignment to walk away a psychopathic serial killer.

In addition to encouraging kids to refuse to participate in dissection assignments, the campaign even coaches kids on the exact wording to use in their formal written objections so as to "provide the basis for a possible legal case."

A significant portion of TeachKind's curriculum is devoted to persuading children to adopt a vegetarian diet as a way to avoid participating in "animal cruelty." PETA's Web-based materials provide the warped logic that if farmers treated a cat or a dog the way they treat livestock, they would "be prosecuted for animal cruelty and locked up" — once again stressing the theme of hypothetical criminality for those who eat meat.

PETA even tries to scare kids away from drinking milk, a food so controversial that it occupies its very own wedge on the latest FDA food pyramid for optimal nutrition. A series of trading cards called "Don't Be a Milk Sucker" available from its Web site, features cartoon characters suffering a host of illnesses PETA attributes to milk consumption such as ear infections, obesity, acne, and even diabetes!

Nor does milk consumption escape PETA's definition as a distinctly cruel act against animals. We meet "Milk-Stealing Ming," who is depicted with his mouth directly attached to an unhappy cow's udder, alongside a "wanted poster" describing his crimes and exclaiming, "cows make milk for their babies, not for maniacs like Ming."

If we are to take at face value PETA's irresponsible suggestion that "animal cruelty" — as defined by their radical, catch-all parameters — is a reliable indicator of psychopathic tendencies, I suppose it's just a matter of time before we all read about Milk-Stealing Ming's future adult crime sprees in the headlines.

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