Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals" a Predictable Hack Job
When even a vegetarian calls your anti-meat book a “screed,” you know you’re in trouble. But that’s just what happened in today’s Washington Times review of Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book, Eating Animals. As reviewer A.G. Gancarski puts it, Foer’s book is lacking some flesh on its bones:
This ersatz provocation is a way for the author to demonstrate our need for a "better way to talk about eating animals" … [but it really] is a screed against factory farming, predicated on a soupcon of first-hand research, and a compendium of arguments familiar to those who have seen the output of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals through the years…
[T]he author likens boycotting factory farms to the "Montgomery Bus Boycott," an absurd analogy that does a grave disservice to the civil rights movement itself. In exposing his real agenda, Mr. Foer gives the reader insight into what kind of book this is. It is one for those who need assurance that they are making the "correct," house-intellectual-approved dietary choices.
Looking deeper into Foer’s agenda, it all makes sense. Foer is a board member of the animal rights group “Farm Forward,” and worked closely with the group in writing his book. Who else is involved with Farm Forward, you might ask? For starters, Bruce Friedrich, the violence-promoting vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Then there’s Ben Goldsmith, who “tweets” for Farm Forward and is a former long-time PETA employee. And Miyun Park, former vice president of the animal-rights group Humane Society of the United States.
With company like that, there was never any chance this book would be anything other than a PETA-inspired hack job on livestock farming. When ideology triumphs substance, readers are left to agree with Gancarski that Eating Animals is “an ambitious project, three years in the writing, but not one that the gifted prose stylist is up to.”
Read more on OpposingViews.com: Eating Animals-Why Not Just Eat the Family Dog
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Let me see: PETA is Evil. Anyone associated with PETA is evil. Foer is an Evil PETA person.
Got it.
What was the proof that there is anything wrong with PETA????
I am not really all that PETA-friendly myself, but I believe in their basic premise: Ethical Treatment for Animals.
Can you slam that successfully for us??
Oh. Right. That's an Evil idea.
The problem with PETA is that they ignore the acronym they chose to call themselves, and kill the vast majority of animals they get their hands on instead of using their vast resources to find loving homes for those animals.
I don't know about you, but I don't find wholesale animal slaughter to be particularly ethical.
Would I call them evil? Well, they do harm those who do not deserve it.
How do you define evil?
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I am totally unaware that PETA kills anything. My understanding of PETA is totally ignorant if they really do.
Can you demonstrate or point me to information that confirms this?
- I mean besides opinionated, vituperative-spouting, right-wing hillbilly sites that only make vicious assertions and have no shred of info.
.
How about, the Center of Consumer Freedom citing a report from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services?
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/pressRelease_detail.cfm /r/258-peta-killed-95-percent-of-adoptable-pets-in-its-care-during-2008
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I want to thank you for alerting me to this.
While I think the Center for Consumer Freedom kinda falls in to my prohibition list - they appear to be a little rabid and seem to have a Right-Wing axe to grind - I researched PETA elsewhere because of their article
(BTW your link no longer points at it, but I found it anyway)
I read on PETA's own site that they condone pet euthanasia, and are against Pet ownership in clear, unadulterated terms. Euthanasia is not a *responsible* solution in my view, and certainly not the 'ethical' one.
Perhaps their idea of a 'solution' to Animal overpopulation should be applied to themselves. And this is from a person who is pretty rabidly Pro-Animal.
That being said, I still agree with very much of what Foer has written in his 'screed'. If he is associated with PETA, some of his information and ideas still rise above that organizations failings.
He didn't invent the issues that caused Swine flu. I am pretty sure he is not lying about the abusive practices used to kill under-developed piglets on *some* hog farms.
And having lived near an industrial pig farm I can personally attest to the environmental problems created by that scale of farming.(Even minor accidents or oversights in sanitation can become major issues for the local community).
So - I will now agree that PETA has ethical issues of their own - I would not throw out the Foer book with the bathwater.
The link broke when I pasted it. OV does that sometimes. It puts unnecessary spaces into long links.
And, yeah, CFC is a right-wing thinktank, but it had a link to the actual document itself, so that's why I used it.
I'm pro-animal myself. Not to the point where I place their welfare above humans, but only on a generic scale. I place the safety of my dog level with my own. Mr. Peanut is a full-fledged part of my family and enjoys all of the trappings of such a station in my little kingdom ;)
Thanks for replying, DJ. I'll see you around and look forward to the next time.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Foer uses his engaging writing abilities to make a topic (that most people feel awkward about) "palatable".
There has been a steady creep of large corporations looking for greater profits for less effort while externalising the costs.
Their profits grow, and animals , the environment and the community are made to pay these costs.
It's when the corporations start funding smoke screen lobbying groups like CCF to try and write spin about people telling the truth that you know that Jonathan has written an excellent book .
Don't believe me; read "Eating Animals" for yourself and see.
Another lobby trying to smokescreen the apocalyptic practices in the food industry .