August 6, 2004
Denial Isn't Just A River For PETA. It's An M.O.
When WAVE-TV, the NBC affiliate in Louisville, explored the dangerous side of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) yesterday, the Center for Consumer Freedom showed up on camera to let the public know the group "is not a very ethical organization by any standard." Viewers were told about PETA grantee Rodney Coronado's firebombing of a university research lab. They also heard PETA leader Bruce Friedrich's twisted dream that "it would be great" if restaurants, laboratories and banks "exploded tomorrow." The group's campaign targeting kids with "Your Mommy Kills Animals" comics and its disgusting "Holocaust on Your Plate" also made it into the story. And in the face of this mountain of CCF-unearthed evidence, what was PETA's response? The self-described "press sluts" hightailed it away as fast as they could. As WAVE reported: "PETA, which runs to the media every time it has shocking video, ran from this story, refusing to be interviewed because it included criticism from the Center for Consumer Freedom."
PETA tends to shy away from admitting its links to domestic terror groups. The FBI calls the PETA-supported Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) the nation's top domestic terror threat. Regarding ELF's 1998 arson of a ski resort in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News reported in 2002: "PETA denies any connection to ELF but does not take a position on the attacks." But in 2001 PETA wrote a $1,500 check to the ELF. When the group was finally forced to fess up to this contribution, its spokespersons tried to explain it away with multiple contradictory statements.
The animal-rights nuts at PETA have made an art of running toward the spotlight while hoofing it away from responsibility. Shortly after PETA was founded in 1980, 17 primates were stolen from a Maryland research lab. UPI reported that "Alex Pacheco, 23, head of PETA, denied his group had the monkeys but said the group had submitted a list of 14 conditions to the laboratory for their return." (The lab's director accurately described PETA as a group of "ruthless, reckless, and lawless people masquerading under a false morality.") Fast forward to 2003, when a food executive was publicly attacked with fake "blood." One paper reported: "PETA denied responsibility, but alerted the media to the action and distributed pictures."
