In defense of PETA's total stupidity

 Who, pray who, will save the houseflies? And our sanity?

By Mark Morford,

Oh, how easy it is to laugh and mock and sigh with savage delight.

How easy it is to point at extremist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as they come out and admit, in public, to an actual reporter, that they wish President Obama had not killed that fly, that tiny little hunk of bacteria and regurgitated food bits and death, but had instead taken a moment to capture it gently between his loving presidential palms like it was universal health care reform and then set it free outside, so it could go spread germs and fecal matter and disease to various flowers and small children and Republicans.

How delightful it is to point out how this group is, once again, so laughably insane and out of touch, how they have jumped the shark once again, which they seem to do with delightful, if obnoxious, frequency.

But hang on a sec. Maybe there was something in that hilarious little story that gave you pause. Maybe you decided to drill down into the idea for just a moment, just to see, and then perhaps realized, well, yes, OK fine, there is an actual point to be made in there, somewhere, just behind the roaring ludicrousness of it all.

It goes something like this: If you're going to truly revere life, if you're going to come out and claim that there is sanctity and divinity to all God's creatures, be they gleaming sex-crazed dolphins and sweet slobbering puppies, on down to gnats and sea slugs and giant hairy bird-eating tarantulas, then yes, you're sort of forced to admit that even houseflies deserve a hint of respect, a touch of empathy, the reluctant admission that even they don't actually deserve to die, per se.

You also know this is a rather extreme and lopsided perspective, totally unfeasible in daily, circle-of-life reality. But then again, when you hold it up to the light and turn in around a few times and let the facts of human life refract through it, it's really not all that insane. It sure as hell reveals more than a few ugly truths.

You have but to ponder: How many millions of living creatures do we slaughter every day on this planet in service of our top-of-the-food-chain gluttonous desires, from cattle to ducks, chickens to horses, pigs and lambs and just about all the rest, and let's not forget raping and pillaging and sucking dry our glorious oceans? Really, is there a living creature we humans have yet to slaughter, skin, eviscerate, consume, commodify, exploit in some relatively obscene way? Nope.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/06/24/notes062409.DTL