PETA's prez sent Michael Moore a letter last week calling him a hypocrite for being fat while promoting his new film, SiCKO, a documentary criticizing the US healthcare system. Let the fat jokes begin!
Congratulations from PETA on the reviews for SiCKO. Although we think that your film could actually help reform America's sorely inadequate health care system, there's an elephant in the room, and it is you. With all due respect, no one can help but notice that a weighty health issue is affecting you personally. We'd like to help you fix that.
Zing! He's sure to take the request seriously now.
And what is the key to losing weight? What sort of "help" is Ingrid offering? The elitist joys of vegetarianism, of course.
Going vegetarian is an easy and life-saving step that people of all economic backgrounds
can take in order to become less reliant on the government's shoddy healthcare system, and it's something that you and all Americans can benefit from personally. Vegetarians weigh, on average, up to 20 percent less than their meat-eating counterparts--meaning less weight-related problems like heart attacks and strokes--and live about eight years longer. I'm sure that your fans would appreciate having you around longer! By going vegetarian, you would also provide a powerful message of personal responsibility for one's health, allowing others to become less reliant on a system that doesn't care about them.
Because there's no other way to do that. You couldn't just pick up some weights and jog for 45 minutes a day, eating a diet of lean meats and fresh vegetables.
Why are they picking on Moore? On their blog they claim that they have sent letters to him in the past requesting that he look into animal rights issues for one of his documentaries, all of which he has declined. Is it because they see a reflection in his extremism and expect some sort of common ground with the man, or is it just a ploy, more of PETA's bratty, infantile nonsense, shoving for a place in the liberal limelight?
It goes back to the same issue I discussed in the past: The argument for vegetarianism from groups like PETA is a moral issue, and is not founded on healthcare or the environment. They want to squelch our carnivorous tendencies because they feel it is wrong to kill animals for any purpose, but they know that the hard facts - the disputed sapience of livestock - are contentious, so they focus on anecdotal evidences in health and the environment. Remember, these are the people that brought you this garbage.
Let the extremists go at it. I'm sure Moore will send back an equally snotty whine-fest filled with "facts" and "figures."
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Yes, because none of us know any obese vegetarians. What a joke.
I actually saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher and he talked about how in the course of filming Sicko he started eating healthier and losing weight. He actually does look thinner - although not thin.
Also remember that this isn't first time people have resorted to "you're fat" to contradict Moore when they were pissed. I think the last was Ralph Nader of all people.
There's hardly a contradiction inherent in someone in imperfect health calling for changes to the health-care system. Are smokers, in PETA's view, similarly not allowed to discuss the known danagers of smoking?
Of course, PETA has long been a haven for hysterical, misguided, and resentful freaks, so it's not surprising they would sink to bleating such inanities.
That's the PETA we all know and love.
Is there any question -- any question at all -- that extremists of any stripe are cannibals? It's painfully evident everywhere you look on the Religious Right, and it's no different on the extreme Loony Left. (And, fwiw, though I do consider Michael Moore a radical, he's still not quite as far out there as PeTA.)
I hate PETA. They're damn hypocrites, they condemn killing animals, then get caught gassing pets and dumping them. I'm a vegetarian, but I sure don't push my eating habits on other people. Their holier-than-thou attitude is really irritating. And many vegetarians actually gain weight (more carbs, less protein!).
And the idea that people are vegetarian by nature is completely absurd and flat wrong. Archaeological records clearly show that when people switched from a hunting/gathering diet to agrarian diets, they became much LESS healthy. It's honestly pretty hard to eat a vegetarian diet and get enough protein and B vitamins... I don't see how "vegetarians" could have possibly eaten a balanced, healthy diet before the invention of soy foods, multivitamins, and "vitamin-enriched" food products.
I'm also a vegetarian, but it was assholes, like the people at PETA that made me delay it for so long. I don't want to be associated with such people. How is attacking Michael Moore going to help them?
What a rubbish blog posting.
Moore made a whole film about the deranged state of health care, correctly pointing out many shortcomings, but neglects to emphasize the point that overconsumption (+ lack of excercise) leads to weight gain, which leads to bad health which leads to increased costs and problems. And that is exactly his own personal problem as well. Why shouldn't that be pointed out? Americans health care problems would be lessened considerably if they lived healthier lifestyles, and if the health care system spent more on ensuring the populace lived healthier lifestyles. The health care systems in many countries compared to the US may be in a more stable condition because the populations they serve are intrisically healthier, and so have less need to use them as intensively as Americans, because fewer of them are obese and non-excercisers.
Many Americans do eat more meat than is healthy for them. (Although, a high protein, high meat diet can be healthy, that isn't the diet most americans follow.) Compared to a vegetarian or even a reduced-meat diet, it does strain the environment to have such a diet than one based more on vegetable protein, and does result in farming practices that some people consider cruel in order for the diet to be nominally affordable. (It is only nominally affordable, regardless of how to value the ethical treatment of animals, since the environmental externalities, which can be estimated with less ambiguity than moral concerns, are rarely reflected in meat's price.)
[i]"The elitist joys of vegetarianism, of course."[/i]
You know, I dislike PETA, and I dislike self-righteous vegetarians who make the issue about their health rather than the rather obvious impingement on animal rights, but PETA aren't being elitist and self-righteous, they are campaigning for the rights of others. They're idiots for a good cause. No doubt they are idiotic, militant, quasi-religious about it all - but the elistism and [b]self[/b]-righteousness comes only from those who refuse to admit that animals (mammals at the very least) suffer in death.
Not agreeing with PETA. It seems, with much due respect, that the blogger is the hypocrite, not Michael Moore.
There are so many jokes here, i don't know where to start.
On a different note, if you want to see the less humerous side of PETA, check out "Penn and Teller's Bull$#!T" episode on PETA. Very scary.