Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Thursday, December 29, 2005
My Veg News column, PETA, Tim Wise, New York Post, Nintendo, PB&J...and more?
I’m not sure how many of you know it, but I’ve been a regular columnist at Veg News for years. The bi-monthly column is oh-so-cleverly called “Meat the Press” and is concerned with how the media covers vegetarian, vegan, environmental, and animal rights (AR) issues.
http://www.vegnews.com
Since it’s not available online, at the suggestion of James from Hell’s Kitchen, I’m gonna provide my latest (Jan./Feb. 2006) column, “Fishing for Trouble” here. To read it, find the word “more” at the end of this post...and go:
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Before you get to that, I’m declaring today, December 29, 2005:
Insane Short Video Day
Here are two of my favorites to get you started…
Fun w/Nintendo: http://tinyurl.com/dsg5v
Peanut butter and jelly with a baseball bat:
http://tinyurl.com/9whjg
Got any short videos to share?
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For those about to WebSurf:
More evidence for the vegan = activism theory:
http://tinyurl.com/8u4k5
Peter (the Other) has a fun movie survey on his blog here: http://tinyurl.com/7om68
Hawk’s crew did a 7-related meme here:
http://tinyurl.com/bb6ta
(Our friend Amelopsis partook here: http://amelopsis.blogspot.com)
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Wendell Berry sez:
“Protest that endures...is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.”
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Veg News column:
Whether you agree or disagree, PETA provoke opinions...like this, from New York Post columnist Ken Moran ("PETA Campaign Aims at Our Kids,” Oct. 5, 2005): “If you took your kid fishing this summer, there are animal-rights people who are saying you are a bad parent.” Moran was talking about a flyer handed out on National Hunting and Fishing Day (Sept. 24) that reads: “Your Daddy Kills Animals.” He continues, “The fact that fishing is a fun, wholesome activity that gives families the opportunity to share time in the outdoors,” Moran concludes, “is totally lost on these people.”
No surprises, right? But what about when a well-known progressive writer like Tim Wise takes to Counterpunch ("PETA and the Politics of Putting Things in Perspective, Aug. 13/14, 2005) to declare that the animal rights activists he’s encountered “almost never fail to come off as insufferable jerks”?
Wise’s piece—cleverly subtitled “Animal Whites"—reads like something I’d expect to find in, say, National Review. As proof of the “smug moral certitude” and “misanthropy” with which “so many” AR activists “carry their agenda forth,” Wise offers anecdotal evidence like this: “There was the young woman who came to Tulane Law School, and upon learning that she would have to complete a pro bono legal assistance requirement in order to graduate, said that was fine, but-and this is a direct quote as told to me by a friend who was present at the time she said it—’I don’t want to work for people. I want to work for animals.’”
Wise goes on to cite a few examples of PETA behavior that, for the most part, are difficult to defend without context (or at all). As someone who has earned a reputation for writing about race-related issues, Wise is particularly offended by any language that equates animal slaughter to genocide or slavery. “This kind of absurdity would make for a really good segment on the Daily Show,” he says, “if it weren’t so tragically serious.” He goes on to clarify that there is “a moral and practical difference between people and animals.” Apparently, the discussion ends there.
Despite his inflammatory rhetoric, all of this could possibly be described as a difference of opinion between Wise and PETA. However, he doesn’t stop there. Instead, he makes broad generalizations (without evidence) that the AR movement is “perhaps the whitest of all progressive or radical movements on the planet” and first, “thoroughly white and middle-class” and then “so white and so rich.”
I like Tim Wise. He appears in my book, The Murdering of My Years, and I helped him make contact with Soft Skull Press (this led to a book deal). Thus, when I read this piece, I e-mailed him privately. Here’s part of what I said: “You’re entitled to your opinions, of course...but your tone, broad assumptions, and the cherry picking of episodes guaranteed to provoke hardly do justice to you or the animal rights movement. If someone wrote an article that analyzed the anti-racist movement based solely on Al Sharpton’s antics, Jesse Jackson’s opportunism, celebrities throwing parties for the Black Panthers, Bono dressing like an ‘African,’ or Bill Clinton calling himself the ‘first black president,’ would you see that as valid? I’ve come to expect far more penetrating analysis and journalism from you, Tim.”
Tim chose not to reply, so I ask you what to make of this article: http://tinyurl.com/8beuu. Here’s my take: Thanks to Tim Wise, Ward Churchill, and Michael Moore mocking the AR and vegan movements without context or evidence, Ken Moran may soon be out of a job.
Postscript
With groups like PETA under attack by the FBI (http://tinyurl.com/ablf4), a little solidarity couldn’t hurt…
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
