Friday 16 October 2009

PETA - Bullying Again


What is it with these people? They have the word ethical in their name and yet they behave like this. Again and again.

Coercion using stress, or coercion using the fear of consequences is BULLYING.

At last someone has given them a slap on the wrist: The Advertising Standards Agency have called a halt to their latest bout of scaremongering where they refer to a number of diseases, two of which were known to have originated from eating contaminated meat and two that did not.

"Although we understood the intention was to refer to livestock and meat production rather than just eating meat, we considered that the message was, at best, ambiguous," ...."We considered that some readers might infer from the poster, and in particular the claim "Meat kills" in conjunction with the claim "Go vegetarian", that eating meat caused swine flu. We concluded that the poster was likely to mislead and could cause undue fear and distress to some readers."

Notice how the words 'swine flu' are highlighted to be the first words the reader sees after the headline?
What was ethical about that?

Dear PETA supporter reading this, please consider this question.
If you have to lie to convince others of the rightness of your cause, maybe your cause is dishonest? Just a thought.

SBW

4 comments:

Home on the Range said...

Seems like I remember more people being hospitalized from e-coli from eating tomatoes, lettuce and spinach than meat in the last couple of years.

I've still not gotten past the woman dressed up like a fish that verbally assaulted me as I entered a sporting goods store years ago. Not that she was loud, rude and against fishing, but she had a "pro choice" button on.

Keith said...

Very missleading.
Le Loup.

danontherock said...

As previously stated by Brigid many people contracted E.coli from veggies.

The Suburban Bushwacker said...

Thanks for commenting everyone. The is only the start of a series of posts having a look at the emotional impact of communication on this issue.

I've followed a few blogs that have looked at the anti hunting fraternity and have been amused but a little disappointed by the way hunters have responded to the issue.

There are a few notable exceptions; Holly, Philip, and The Chief Chronicler himself, but on the whole I'm yet to see anything really throw a new light on the debate.

Brigid's point is well made - there is a thing called 'freedom' AKA 'choice' and you either have it for everyone or you don't. There is a euphemism for people who support some freedoms but would deny their fellow citizens some choices, but I cant think what it is. Lets stick with Fascists.

SBW