PLEASE BOYCOTT PETA

Although it may seem strange for an animal rights activist to boycott PETA, I believe this is an important decision and urge others to reconsider their support for the animal rights group PETA.

After years of never feeling 100% comfortable in supporting PETA due to their total and flagrant disrespect for women, I have finally decided to terminate all support (excluding for individual acts of animal rescue or legal victories) and to actively educate others in the area of animal rights by also letting them know they do NOT have to side with the ridiculous, irresponsible, misogynistic and---hypocritically enough---exploitative antics that PETA perpetuates in order to support animal rights and live a compassionate lifestyle. Nope, I no longer feel the need to compromise my OWN self-respect by continually overlooking this extremely important issue. I'm tired of being the "bigger" person, accepting PETA for all of it's embarrassing, monumental flaws and direct insults!

Come to think of it, I actually think that MORE would be interested in learning about vegetarian and vegan lifestyles if they did not associate PETA's offensive and ridiculous antics so closely to the issue of animal rights. Some don't like PETA just because they don't like any reminder that their food or car seats was once a sentient being, which I disagree with, but many meat-eaters and vegans alike don't like them because they are obnoxious and insulting and embarrassing to our culture. And they are.

I understand that 20 billion terrified and abused dogs, cats, cows, horses, pigs, chickens and more are being neglected, enslaved, skinned and boiled alive, tortured, and worse every year. It is the most troubling thought in the world---borderline incomprehensible! I understand the overwhelming feeling that this suffering NEEDS to end like YESTERDAY, trust me. I agree with PETA on that. Yes, there are many things that I do like about PETA, and that includes the amazing service and great interactions I have had with their employees. But their mission to keep insulting women by getting more and more to strip or do even worse in public----basically featuring them only as sexual toys---in a desperate attempt to win adult males (the least likely to convert, unfortunately) over to a vegetarian lifestyle is just WRONG and ludicrous and NEEDS to end. I thought PETA didn't believe in exploiting animals? Could have fooled me. . . .

I had the opportunity to meet Ingrid Newkirk, PETA�s founder, just two weeks before finally being pushed over the edge by way of video footage I will not discuss on this site in order to not draw any additional attention to it. That a woman is in charge of orchestrating such degradation towards other women is especially disheartening, although none too surprising anymore in this day and age of what author Ariel Levy has appropriately dubbed female chauvinist pigs----women all too happy to exploit, degrade and objective themselves and other women under the strategically conditioned belief that it is "feminist" or "liberated" of them to do so.

Unfortunately, patriarchy has many faces and, regrettably, more and more of them are brainwashed and female. Until PETA can learn to give compassionate, educated and intelligent women the same respect it gives spiders, birds and jellyfish, the School Of RAWk and it's affiliate, Angel's Health Food Institute will continue to boycott PETA by supporting other animal rights/vegan organizations and speaking out to others in both person and in our literature about boycotting PETA as well (which shouldn't be hard since most people, including a lot of vegans/animal rights activists, hate them already anyways).

PETA will never succeed in reaching the masses at large with any kind of real message because what they fail to acknowledge is that evolving to a plant-based diet involves raising one's consciousness, and the acts of practicing an elevated consciousness and finding appeal in some poor woman degrading herself are mutually-exclusive interests. Fortunately, there are dozens of other animal rights organizations, especially VEGAN OUTREACH who are mature, sensible, determined and effective in their peaceable and successful outreach efforts, and are therefore deserving of our respect and support.

If you have a bitter taste in your mouth regarding animal rights due to the efforts and sensationalist exploitations of PETA, please open up your heart and mind to consider that supporting compassionate living and a lifestyle free of causing unnecessary pain on other beings is NOT the same thing as supporting PETA, and know that you do NOT have to align yourself with their organization to make changes in this direction. In fact, please join a growing number of animal rights activists in enforcing a society that respects women as well as animals and BOYCOTT PETA.