yesterday, a friend (and mind you, she is still a friend--i think) posted this picture and stated: "This is why I hate wool... among other things :(".
the picture is from peta2.com and shows a process called mulesing (a surgical procedure for removing maggots from the flesh of sheep, although this is in no way explained by the picture or caption). upon reading the comment threads on both her page and the link, i found that very few people seem to actually know what this picture shows. most commenters think that it is a picture of sheering gone bad and a mistake caused by the ineptitude of hurrying farm hands (which you can no doubt find on peta2.com as well).
the "conversation" began with two girls reinforcing their support for peta's cause and (in my opinion) showed a misunderstanding of the picture's content:
the phrase that stood out to me as showing the most ignorance was kaycee stating: "they just want to get the job done quick so mistakes are made often." upto this point jill seems to get the picture; kaycee seems to be misinformed. but this isn't kaycee's fault. as i will show, it is peta's fault for intentionally misleading and misinforming viewers through sensational propaganda.
although i don't normally get involved with such pointless debates on facebook, i felt a need to chime in and set the record straight (since peta wouldnt). so naturally i said:
now, i knew that kaycee wouldnt like what i said. but i thought that i said it in an informed, and respectful way. at the very most, i blamed peta, and not them, for being misinformed. she didnt like that...
you can read the rest of the dialog here if you would like, but i dont want to spend any more time on it. my point is this: peta intentionally misrepresents, misleads, misinforms and flat out lies when they feel justified by their goals. this is (ironically) as unethical a political sceme as i can imagine. even the nazi nationalists thought they had a good point. but do the ends justify the means? is the promotion of half-truths any thing less than the promotion of ignorance?