46. I am not so sure I fully agree with PETA on this the jockey issue. Yes, I was a little enraged over the blatant disrespect for these horses. Had this horse not been bred specifically for Racing, then I doubt it would have gotten injured in this way. I feel the associations that encourage this sport, along with the breeders are responsible for the murder of this animal and guilty of slavery for human amusement.

Where is the logic here? Breed a horse for slavery and profit purposes only. If it gets injured we will just put it down. That's the BS part of it all!

E at 1:32AM on May 9th 2008

47. horse racing should be banned, if you disagree you are an idiot

gerry at 3:01AM on May 9th 2008

48. I personally think PETA is a joke, they are hypocrits and liars and anyone that supports terror is on my "^&%#"list. Anyways screw what they say they're just prob a bunch of low lifes that have nothing better to do and just go out and yell at people for what they do to animals when they kill animals themselves, I seriously think we should place them all in one insane asalyum-spelt that rele wrong... but yeah, to the point, PETA is a worthless organization of worthless individuals...

peace.

Brendan at 11:42AM on May 9th 2008

49. I agree with PETA: animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for "entertainment."

I've been vegetarian since 1982. I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, as anti-apartheid demonstrations rocked the UC San Diego campus. I first got interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987). Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as reasonable and mainstream as recycling.

For example, half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water are also used to wash away their excrement. U.S. livestock produce twenty times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is ten to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. Animal wastes cause ten times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined. Meat producers are the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contributing to half the water pollution in the United States.

Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts the advantages of America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America:

"The effects on our physical health are immediate. The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously. So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis...

"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable. We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale...

"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again. Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.

"The water crisis eases. As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources. The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles. Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food. With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..."

Joanna Macy goes on to admit, "This scenario is wildly, absurdly utopian. It is also clearly the way we are meant to live, built to live." What could possibly make it a reality? "It is this very book!"

If Americans reduced their meat consumption by just 10 percent, it would release enough grain and soybeans to feed over 60 million people.

When I first read Diet for a New America, I thought it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s.

In writing his expose on the meat industry, John Robbins has been compared to Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader and other whistleblowers. In Diet for a New America, he demonstrates how all the various causes that concern the left: healthcare, a sustainable energy policy, hunger, malnutrition, etc. are all taken care of in one fell swoop by a vegan diet. I had the opportunity to meet John Robbins in September 1988. It was one of the most inspirational moments of my life!

He was heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune. He renounced it at a young age. He traveled to India, opened a yoga ashram in Canada, etc. He spoke of Gandhi and nonviolence. His son Ocean Robbins founded Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!) and is also dedicated to promoting veganism. I asked John if he would try and get the American Left to support animal rights. He told me that he had sent a copy of his book to Mother Jones, a left-liberal periodical published in San Francisco.

Many on the Left are beginning to take a stand in favor of animal rights. Joanna Macy spoke at the San Francisco Green Festival, in November 2005. In his 1990 updated and revised edition of Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes that many of the political parties leaning towards the "Green" end of the political spectrum in Europe were beginning to oppose animal experimentation.

John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) now encourages vegetarianism, the banning of fur, and the eventual end to all animal research, not just "cruel" animal research. The Humane Society now supports vegetarianism.

With allies in both political parties and across the ideological spectrum, the animal rights movement has been able to score some great successes, regardless of which party controls the White House or Capitol Hill.

In the mid-1990s, Vegetarian Times reported that the animal rights movement is now a permanent part of the American political landscape. In a 1995 issue of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent ethic" periodical on the religious Left, Catholic civil rights activists Bernard and Rose Mae Broussard of Starthrowers wrote that wars in the human kingdom will never cease until we end our war on the animal kingdom.

I had the opportunity to hear John Robbins speak at a Unitarian church here in Oakland several years ago. The church was PACKED! John writes in The Food Revolution (2001):

"The revolution sweeping our relationship to our food and our world, I believe, is part of an historical imperative. This is what happens when the human spirit is activated. One hundred and fifty years ago, slavery was legal in the United States. One hundred years ago, women could not vote in most states. Eighty years ago, there were no laws in the United States against any form of child abuse. Fifty years ago, we had no Civil Rights Act, no Clean Air or Clean Water legislation, no Endangered Species Act. Today, millions of people are refusing to buy clothes and shoes made in sweatshops and are seeking to live healthier and more Earth-friendly lifestyles. In the last fifteen years alone, as people in the United States have realized how cruelly veal calves are treated, veal consumption has dropped 62 percent."

Vasu Murti at 1:37PM on May 9th 2008

50. Eight Bells wasn't the only horse to die on those grounds that weekend. I watched the equestrian coverage and they mentioned that two horses had to be destroyed after accidents during competition. Of course it doesn't matter to PETA, since all animal/human interactions are bad (they don't want people to have pets either) but I'm surprised that the media didn't trumpet all three deaths. I guess it's safer to go after racing.

Bill at 2:14PM on May 9th 2008

51. No, pete hates animals, and is the number 1 animal shelter or anuimal protection based, for profit, organization out there. Compared to the SPCA and local snimal shelters, PETA has an almost 95% uthenasion policy for the animals brought to them. Compare that to the under 40% of local and state run shelters. And they call there organization compasionate, while running off with tax payer, and public donations. Look up the stats on what they do, and how many animals come out alive after they get there hands on them. Its disturbing and insulting what they do.

LtCurry at 5:54PM on May 9th 2008

52. Animal activists propose vegetarian diet against food crisis.
DPA

Manila, May 8 (DPA) Animal protection activists Thursday urged Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to adopt and publicly advocate a vegetarian diet as part of efforts to ease a food supply crunch and sky-rocketing prices.

In an open letter to Arroyo, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) noted that while the world is already growing enough crops to feed every human being, some of this food is used to feed animals being raised for
consumption.

"Animals raised for food consume nearly one billion metric tonnes of food edible by humans every year - that's enough to feed about half the world's population," Jason Baker, PETA's Asia-Pacific director, said in the letter.

"It takes up to 16 kg of grain to produce just one kilogram of meat," he added.

Citing Arroyo's vow to lead the Philippines by example, Baker asked her: "Will you now lead the Philippines in the charge against hunger by going
vegetarian and advocating a vegetarian diet?"

PETA offered to assist Arroyo's staff with vegetarian menus and other information about the diet.

The Philippines, now the world's biggest rice importer, has been scrambling to build up stocks amid surging prices of the staple grain and other food items. The government has also been distributing less expensive rice and food to
poor communities.

--------------------------------------------------

Meat Consumption Causes Hunger and Starvation

Statement released by Beauty Without Cruelty - India on 21st April 2008

MEAT CONSUMPTION vs. HUNGER AND STARVATION

Not biofuel, but animals raised for meat are the main reason for the growing shortage of food in the world. One-third of the annual global food production is used for feeding animals specially bred and fattened to be killed for their flesh. If the crops fed to them were to be consumed by humans, there would be no shortage.

The world is on the verge of a global food crisis. Economists are questioning how fair it is to use land to grow corn, etc, for the production of bio-fuel when people increasingly don't have enough to eat. Fuel is, but a lesser reason for this deep-rooted problem.

The main reason for the growing shortage of food needs to be tackled: animals specially bred and fattened to be killed for meat. If the crops fed to them were to be consumed by humans, there would be no shortage of food. As much as
one-third of the approximately 2000 million tons of annual global food production is used for feeding these animals for their flesh. The feed-to-meat ratio varies depending upon species (poultry, pigs, cattle, sheep & goats) and
whether produced in a developed or developing country, but on an average 4 kilograms of feed yields only 1 kilogram of meat.

Moreover, the FAO has stated that the world's livestock production is 18% more responsible for global warming than all transport emissions. It causes wide-scale land degradation, uses large quantities of the earth's increasingly scarce water resources, pollutes land, water and air, and is responsible for excessive use of energy, all of which are downright harmful to our environment.

Environmentalists are not the only ones who are showing deep concern. Emerging markets' central banks and governments are no longer ignoring rising food prices coupled with low stocks of rice and wheat (inflation and hoarding) and
protests of shortages resulting in social tensions. They know that converting land produce to meat is an expensive business, the direct effect of which is a steep rise in grain prices which hits the poor most.

If those living in developed countries do not stop eating meat, and if those of developing countries (who are liable to start eating meat when their incomes rise) include it as part of their diet, they will positively be hastening
mass starvation of fellow humans on this planet.

Beauty Without Cruelty (an animal rights organisation) feels that each and every one can easily help solve world hunger... by NOT eating meat, a second-hand food.

Diana Ratnagar
Chairperson Beauty Without Cruelty - India
chairperson@bwcindia.org
Beauty Without Cruelty - India
4 Prince of Wales Drive, Wanowrie,
Pune 411 040. INDIA.
Tel: +91 20 2686 1333 / 2686 1166
Fax: +91 20 2686 1420
Cell: +91 98 221 94494
Website: www.bwcindia.org

Vasu Murti at 5:58PM on May 9th 2008

53. LtCurry

Dude, I agree with what you're saying. BUT my god are you really a lt. in the 82nd?


Standards must have really dropped since the 80's!!

Sgt Slaughter at 7:58PM on May 9th 2008

54. Peta are opportunist idiots.
P=Phony
E=erroneous
T=Tyrannical
A=A$$holes

They have no clue about horse racing and how most owners and trainers love their horses. If it was about the money we would all be in the game. Owners lose more money than they make, trust me.

Sophie at 9:22PM on May 9th 2008

55. I read somewhere that there are few thouroughbred horse fractures, while racing, in other countries, such as the UK, as they have a different and safer track material to protect the horses from said injuries. This MUST be investigated. I do everything that I can to support the prevention of animal cruelty, but PETA, you are bunch of bullying know it alls, and a major turn off, which I believe may prevent many people afraid of helping animals through sane organizations such as the ASPCA and Humane Society, to name a few, because they may think of them as YOU PETA!!! I am the most non violent person that one can be, and if I wore fur, and you as much as berated me on the street, I would smack the S*** out of you. You are certainly entitled to YOUR opinion, but HOW DARE YOU EVER GET IN THE FACE OF ANY OTHER PERSON. Find constructive ways to help animals, like insisting on safer racetracks and leave people alone. I am too much of a lady to call you and your ilk a bunch of self promoting, hypocritical Aholes...Christina from NYC PS...The only true a non-hypocrit of your self- promoting nude, fur wearing celebutards is Natalie Portman, as she neither wears leather shoes or carries $10,000 + handbags. Now SHE I admire!!!

cchristinefor at 9:26PM on May 9th 2008

56. PETA cares more about people than most people running big business and retail managers, with their bogus children's coloring books of "we're all like the little cute animals, we all live with our mommies and daddies". these same bastard supervisors don't cut this kids any slack when they screw up on their first cash register or stock jobs entering meat sales into the stores computer. If the stupid school systems and the worthless day camps would start testing kids on their EQ (emotional intelligence Quotient), not their IQ (the outdated Intelligence Quotient). They MAY find startling results, that many people score lower than dogs, dolphins, and primates on first trial. The next time you do your grocery shopping, see if the tabloids also sold by people loving, animal product suppliers stopped harrassing Patrick Swayze, who is currently stricken with Pancreatic cancer. Tabloids sold at supermarkets thought that it was a joke to run around making fun of Bill Bixby during his declining health, and they have finally put on the breaks and have put a moratorium on their assault against Farrah Fawcett but continue to earn profits selling their garbage at supermarkets and value stores. When Michael Landon had a diagnosis of Pancreatic cancer with a grim hopes for recovery, his doctors strongly recommended a vegan diet as a last hope to save his life. There must have been a reason for it and PETA I'm sure was not paying his doctors off for popularity. If you don't want to be a vegetarian and want to eat meat and support animal research and product testing, fine, but be fair and objective, also don't allow your kids to watch all of the silly cartoons with all of the cute silly little animals and buy these coloring books at bookstores.

Jay at 9:38PM on May 9th 2008

57. Jay, are you going to keep spewing the same crap over and over? If PETA cared so much for animals then why are there so many puppy mills still in place in this country? Before they bash horse racing,fur wearers,meat eaters,etc....they need to get after people who breed millions of unwanted pets that end up being killed everyday in thousands. Thats the real unethical treatment of animals, not eating meat and wearing the skins of such meat.

Sophie at 9:52PM on May 9th 2008

58. For every ignorant, fur and leather wearing person who commented above, there is a little documentary called Earthlings that you need to see. Educate yourself before you speak on matters like this. It just makes you sound stupid. People are still being stoned to death and getting their heads chopped off in certain parts of the world. Just because its been going on for centuries, doesn't mean its supposed to still go on. Man uses animals as they see fit, and its wrong! At least PETA trys to end suffering. What are any of you doing to help?

Rondi Spurling at 10:15PM on May 9th 2008

59. I'm with Mokele (comment #7). When someone mentions PETA to me the first picture that enters my mind is that of a nude womanat a protest rally.

hmsboston at 12:20AM on May 10th 2008

60. Vasu Murti... learn how to think and speak for yourself sometime, everything ive seen points out how well you can copy+paste. congratulations.
P.S. F*** PETA

mike at 7:17AM on May 10th 2008