PETA is to animal liberation what Anarchism is to proletarian liberation: passionate & well-intentioned but ultimately insufficient & misdirected.

Of course Anarchists don’t kidnap people’s pets out of their backyards to euthanize them, mass murder animals while calling it an action of ‘mercy’, lying about practices like sheep shearing and claiming they’re harmful when they’re not, trying to guilt-trip people out of eating meat by comparing meat eating to cannibalism, or having ties to the CIA as most US-based NGOs do.

Among many other things.

PETA as an idea is cool but the org in practice is hypocritical, moralistic, and it making a sudden branch out into terrorism wouldn’t be all that far-fetched in the near future. Like with most things if we want to improve the lives & living conditions of animals we need theory & practice - not adventurism & shame campaigns.

PETA is about as cool as a lib organization can be. Pretty much everything bad you hear about them is some bullshit that was either made up or completely misrepresented. For example, even in this very thread someone is telling you that PETA’s shelters have very high euthanasia rates. What they’re not telling you is that this is because many shelters simply won’t take animals which are ill or injured enough to require euthanasia. They claim the moral high ground while letting innocent animals suffer, and demonize PETA for simply doing what needs to be done.

I dont know any details but from the fact that they’re not marxist, their analysis is flawed and that explains why they sometimes overly moralize instead of taking a materialist and anticapitalist path. My personal worst encounter was when trying to understand how to answer the sheep/wool question.

Their argument was that cruel abuse of sheep was done while gaining the wool (under capitalism) which of course makes wool under capitalism a cruel thing. But of course living in capitalism is also cruel and risking your life by going without sufficient clothing because vegan clothing is being priced artificially high, is not helpful and damages the cause of destroying capitalism.

So while I respect peta for their relentless speaking up in harsh terms, i think a materialist approach and anticapitalist approach would help make them better.

No, they’re not as bad as everyone says. They’re far from a perfect organization and I think some of their ad campaigns are questionable, but most of the hate they get is, exactly as you suppose, carnists demonizing PETA for being staunchly pro-animal rights.

They’re not evil but they’re also not good. They’re Anarchist-Liberal Idealists who are more radical than you would expect given their name recognition.

They are people who believe the economic and social exploitation of animals must be ended, immediately, and totally. And they aren’t shy about saying so. I have some respect for them for that.

The problem is that they are a single-issue group. They are not Marxists. They do not have a Marxist understanding of class relations and they do not make exceptions for indigenous peoples the same way we do not make exceptions for the practice of slavery or human sacrifice or cannibalism among indigenous peoples.

Are they hypocrites, or bought out by corporate interests, are they controlled opposition? No, they’re people who really believe their stuff and are doing their best. Are they our allies? On some issues, sure - on most, I don’t think so. I’m not a vegan and I’m perfectly fine with the exploitation of animals under Socialism. I like eating meat (and honey, and eggs, and I would say milk but I’m getting old and starting to get lactose intolerant) and having pets and wearing wool. We can make limited alliances with vegan or other environmental groups to advance certain causes, but we cannot align ourselves fully with them.

PETA is an american NGO.

Their shelters have a significantly higher euthanasia rate than other shelters. Like almost 10x higher than average in usa.

The CIA has been exposed infiltrating PETA as a cover for agents like they do with other charities and ngos. If wahhabiasm ever gets played out, PETA is one of the next places the CIA have to fish for adventurists to push into doing terrorism.

They are liberals who like to present themselves as radical and subversive to divert disaffected labor aristocrats from class consciousness.

They are probably better than chevron?

I’m not an authority on the matter, but I understand them to be pretty good at making their case easy to criticize. I think they’re kinda like having someone on your team who makes really bad arguments for why your position is correct. That’s just my understanding as someone who isn’t terribly informed.