Holocaust (PETA, opinions, etc.)
ìThe Holocaust was not an accident of historyóit occurred because individuals, organizations, and governments made choices which not only legalized discrimination, but which allowed prejudice, hatred, and ultimately, mass murder to occur. … The Holocaust provides a context for exploring the dangers of remaining silent, apathetic, and indifferent in the face of othersí oppression.î
óUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust
http://www.masskilling.com was anything but “silent, apathetic, and indifferent in the face of others’ oppression”, controversial as it seems to have been.
On 7/23/05 I noticed that the site this linked to has been taken down. (If you click on it, you’ll come up with another page which gives the option to watch “Meet Your Meat”. So I’ll leave the URL as is.)
If you were, or would be, offended by PETA’s comparison between the mass killings of millions/billions regardless of who the victims were, and are, regardless of how despensible animals still are, in our civilized society, read the Commentary by Lewis G. Regenstein, President of the Interfaith Council for the Protection of Animals and Nature. (Favorable comments by other Jews who understood what PETA was attempting to illustrate were included on pages that no longer exist at the www.masskillings.com site.)
Worth reading is Ingrid Newkirk’s apology, which I found at www.jewishsf.com, titled “PETA apologizes for Holocaust comparisons”.
I can understand why people would be offended. (I wasn’t, partly because I thought PETA’s display reflected the spirit of the quote I posted at the top of the page, and partly because it is up to organizations like PETA to wake people up, because who else is doing it? If people don’t like their methods, it is up to them to find a better way to wake our society from its state of denial and complacency that perpetuates the routine institutional destruction of billions of animals each year. But for people who like to rage on about how awful PETA is, or use this topic of the Holocaust as an excuse to ignore anything else PETA has to say,
1) I hope they’ll read the two linked articles above, before jumping to their own conclusions.
2) I hope they will stop holding PETA up as a “poster child” worthy of their public ridicule and/or contempt and their blind animosity toward animal advocates in general, while illustrating their unwillingness to contribute anything worthwhile to the topic — or to see any need for change. This attitude of ridicule and contempt I read in the blogosphere is a red-herring that illustrates to me the post-ers’ hardness-of-heart, and their obvious defensiveness — as if scapegoating PETA will divert attention away from their own unsettling complicity. A majority that I’ve read were written by men, interestingly enough. And I am offended by what I read. It’s as if whatever the anti-PETA topic is on any given day, the typical response is that someone has a strong need to tell the world of their sudden desire to go “eat a pig” — that’s the biggest Pavlovian response — repeatedly talking about the meat they love to eat and posting recipes for pigs, especially, whenever PETA gets these people’s dander up. In fact, here’s an example of a group of “manly men” proudly taking credit for their hate crime against PETA which ought to illustrate my point. (Well, obviously, PETA wasn’t the target of their hate.)
3) I hope you’ll read the section below on Eternal Treblinka, and buy the book. Among many other things, it is an eye-opener about American history.
On a related topic, see http://www.powerfulbook.com for excerpts, reviews, etc. about Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, by Charles Patterson. Read this book!
“Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.”
– Theodor Adorno“As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis.”
— Isaac Bashevis Singer, writer, Nobel laureate, (1904-1991)