Okay, this is a really long aside, but you know that I can't just let it go if it involves PETA! ::)

So it looks like PETA is doing something wonderful for animals. But they are not. Let me explain.

Here is what usually happens, generally speaking. PETA puts someone undercover to investigate and uncover abuse of the animals, usually on the way to the slaughterhouse. This is not a bad thing. However, where PETA takes if from there...is.

Why are the workers abusing the animals? Because the animals are not "cooperating" with the workers in the minds of the workers. In other words, the animals are not moving fast enough into the slaughterhouse because of various reasons. This frustrates the workers, who in turn either use violent force against the animals to make them move, or just plain take out their frustrations by beating the sh*t out of the animals.

So for those of you who are not really clear on how PETA manages to "solve" this problem...(which they falsely call a "victory" in the end)...I will tell you.

They proceed to work with the meat company to make "welfare reforms." (This is the solution that brings you the lovely false and misleading concept of "humane meat.")

They "sell" a proposal to the company, providing guidelines on how to improve slaughterhouse standards. The guidelines make a minimal difference in the animals' lives, but make a big difference in the overall attitudes of the workers AND the profits of the company.

As an example, check out the changes (called CAK or Controlled Atmosphere Killing) that PETA proposes to the poultry companies...note their use of language and how it is geared toward making slaughterhouse practices go more efficiently and how it will make more PROFITS for the poultry company (more efficiency, means happier workers, means the slaughterhouse process goes faster, means MORE chickens are killed, means more profits---and all under the guise of more humane "happy" meat).

http://www.peta.org/CAK/CAK+economic+synopsis+with+letterhead.pdf

If you want a more indepth look at these "improvements", check out my personal hero Temple Grandin during one of her lectures. She is the GRAND ARCHITECT (and evil designer) behind PETA's proposed "new improved" slaughterhouse practices. She's a winner all right. Note how the MAIN point of her modifications to the killing process is not to make things more comfortable and less fearful for the animals being led to their slaughter, but to make them more comfortable and less fearful so they will MOVE in a more efficient and smooth manner that makes them easier to handle for the workers (who will apparently abuse them otherwise). More efficiency on the part of the animals makes for happier workers and a more successful (higher) rate of animals killed. Therefore producing more profits for the meat industry itself. And of course, in the end, more animals are killed than there were before. And how is this working toward the freedom of animals? Again...all/any killing = inhumane

I'd like to call this woman a moron, but apparently it would be politically incorrect of me, since she IS the most functional autistic person living (and no, I'm not making a joke...she really is.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNErsJNPzw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41WyKUxEub0&feature=related

wow shaolin, that was a really good break down.  a lot of times people ask me why i don't support PETA and i have a hard time explaining it to them.  i'm like "happy meat!!  that is why!!"  and then the person i'm talking to just gets frustrated and walks away.  not really, but sometimes that's how it feels

Threatening a company with bad press, or actually achieving bad publicity against a company, and then offering services, for a fee, to help resolve the situation is, unfortunately, the MO of a lot of third parties.  I don't think calling a company out on an issue is bad, but how it's done these days doesn't promote a real solution.  In some instances it's seems more like extorsion.  I'm not talking PETA, in particular.  This self-interest manipulation is unfortunately popular with a lot of third parties now-a-days.

When I wrote "sell," I meant selling an idea/concept, not actually selling the idea for purchase (as far as I know anyway, but maybe I'm wrong), which is why I put it in quotes, but forgive me if what I wrote was misleading. How PETA actually benefits from this process is not through payments from the meat company, but by the publicity they get when they taut to the mainstream public that they have "won a victory" in the animal rights arena (which of course they did not...more animals are killed in the process of the more efficiently employed slaughterhouse practices). That "victory" garners a hell of a lot of attention and mass exposure. And of course, the meat company gives PETA further publicity by advertising that that their "humane meat" is now "PETA approved!" (Ugh.) All of this exposure brings in more and more donations...(even from omnis who now think they are eating cruelty-free meat and love PETA for relieving their consciences)...which is part of the reason why they are so well known among the mainstream public...and unfortunately the biggest known animal organization worldwide. As I've said before...PETA and the meat industry have a symbiotic relationship that is seriously counterproductive to the animal rights movement.

I was talking about money.  I work in the environmental field and that's the way it happens there.  A third party gets some dirt on a transgressor, then the transgressor "hires" the third party as a "consultant."

I see. I thought maybe you thought I was saying that PETA was getting paid by the meat company. Just thought I'd clarify it either way, because the way I said "sell" could have been taken out of context.

Though in the case I have written about, I suppose Temple Grandin could/would be considered a third party? I wonder how much she gets paid for all of her wonderful consulting practices.