New York City – Dressed as eco-terrorists, carrying comically large gasoline cans and matches, and holding a banner depicting an arson fire under the words “PETA’s Kind Choice,” representatives from the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) will gather to protest the Manhattan book-signing appearance of Ingrid Newkirk. Newkirk, the president and co-founder of the radical group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is promoting a new animal-rights book misleadingly titled “Making Kind Choices.”
| Date: | Wednesday, January 19 |
| Time: | 6:00 pm |
| Place: | Barnes & Noble Chelsea (New York City) 675 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Ave.) at 21st Street |
A CCF spokesperson will be on-hand with leaflets detailing PETA’s shameful history and tactics, and a list of Ingrid Newkirk’s most controversial quotables. Meanwhile, other CCF advocates will appear dressed in the all-black garb of the PETA-funded Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a group of arsonists and violent saboteurs describes by the FBI as a “domestic terror organization.” In 2001 PETA made a large cash contribution to the ELF, the only such donation ever publicly acknowledged.
“Ingrid Newkirk would love to rehabilitate her group’s image by promoting tofu with a smile on her face,” said CCF Director of Research David Martosko. “But PETA’s own history shows that its idea of ‘kindness’ includes arson and other violent crimes.”
In a 2002 animal-rights convention speech, Newkirk described PETA’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” At the same event one year earlier, PETA vegetarian campaign director Bruce Friedrich endorsed “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” as “a great way to bring about animal liberation.” Friedrich added that “it would be great if all the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and the banks who fund them exploded tomorrow … Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it.”
PETA’s own literature includes a leaflet describing the terrorist Animal Liberation Front (ALF) as “An Army of the Kind.” The ALF has been responsible for over $100 million in arson damage, including a Michigan State University research laboratory fire in which Newkirk herself was implicated by a federal prosecutor.
“Americans shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that PETA is warm and fuzzy,” added Martosko. “It’s a band of radicals intent on abolishing meat, milk, cheese, circuses, zoos, wool, leather, hunting, fishing, and the very medical research that will bring us a cure for AIDS. Even if you agree with this lunacy, PETA’s so-called ‘kind’ choices shouldn’t include bankrolling arsonists.”
