Ingrid Newkirk Interview

Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder and president of PETA, is one of the most recognizable faces in the animal rights movement. Through her publications and PETA’s work, countless animals have been saved and aided to a growing public uneasiness surrounding animal exploitation. While preparing for PETA’s 25th Anniversary, Ingrid took some time out to answer questions regarding the Holocaust Metaphor, anti-PETA websites, as well as her plans for the next twenty-five years of animal rights activism.

1. It has been more than a quarter century since Peter Singer wrote the landmark book Animal Liberation that has been credited with sparking the Western animal rights movement. With the founding of the ALF and PETA, it would seem that people are definitely starting to consider animal ethics. Given all that PETA has accomplished in the last quarter century how would you respond to people who refer to the animal rights movement as “at worst ridiculous, and at best pointless”? Also, could you highlight some of the victories that you think are hallmarks in PETA’s twenty-five years of campaigning?

If you examine other social movements, you see the same sort of ingrained resistance to changing habits and shedding prejudices. Supremacism is rampant today against the other animals, many of whom are cleverer in many ways than humans are (able to circumnavigate the globe without equipment; able to see the earth’s magnetic field without instruments; senses of smell that exceeds ours many times over; ability to find remote locations without a compass; ability to feed and care for themselves and their families without tools, supermarkets, construction companies or vehicles; able to communicate subsonically over hundreds of miles, and so on), all of whom feel pain, fear and value their lives as we do. Society has a long way to go, especially considering the right to access buildings for the disabled, the right for African Americans not to live in chains, the right of women not to be beaten by their husbands and to vote, are all relatively recent rights withheld by society and mocked by those in power. As someone said, the only thing history teaches us is that we don’t learn from history. Now it is the animals’ turn to be respected and for society to stop tormenting, torturing and slaughtering them, but there’s a big learning curve as usual.

Newkirk being arrested by police

2. What do you do on a day to day basis in your role as president of PETA? As PETA has grown and the animal rights struggle expanded, have you found your role evolving as well?

Sometimes i think i could be replaced by a signing machine. I go to a lot of meetings but every meeting results in some focus, some honing, some new ideas, so I’m pro-meeting, i see them as brainstorming opportunities. I write for my blog (IngridNewkirk.com) and for outside publications, I record messages to members about demos and legislation in their area, maybe do some press, research and so on. I’d rather be in the field and sometimes that happens, going to debate sheep farmers in Australian outback, to rescue dogs from the drowning tanks in Taiwan, go into slaughterhouses in india: those things result in changes that you can see happening before your very eyes (video of all of these is on PETA.org)

3. The comparison of human and animal suffering made by PETA, such as the Holocaust on Your Plate or the new Animal Liberation display, has raised a lot of controversy. How do you elaborate on comments such as, “there’s no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals,” to a family that lost someone on the Holocaust? Isn’t it human nature to prioritize other people?

The Holocaust exhibit was created by people who had lost family in the Holocaust. If you look at the exhibit, which was paid for and sponsored by jews who wished there to be a broader message of compassion for all, it displays quotes from people like nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, who said, “to animals, all men are Nazis.” When the display was up in Holland, one concentration camp survivor began crying, showed us her tattoos from the camp, and said that she was so pleased that someone realized that ‘what happened to us, is now happening to them.’ The animal liberation display (see at PETA.org) is based on alice walker’s introduction to the book “the dreaded comparison” in which she says “animals weren’t put here for people any more than women were put here for men or blacks for whites.” In the south, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback but then one prominent agitator who hates animal rights started to kick up a storm and there has been some negative reaction which the press has picked up on. Our message is delivered with love and asks for compassion for all. If some receive it with hate and defensiveness, we can’t do much but ask for reconsideration on their part that we are all animals and we need to stop having such a narrow, speciesistic view of ourselves. It helps nothing.

Newkirk cage protest

4. Given the sensationalism that often accompanies PETA displays, do you get a sense regarding the impact of a particular display? Did something like the Holocaust display yield the results or emotional response was intended? Do you believe that statement “there’s no such thing as bad press” could be applied to PETA ad campaign that touches on events such as the Nazi Holocaust?

The problem these days is that you do something sensible and right and the press yawns. You have to be controversial, to shake things up a bit, to make hard comparisons to get attention, to start people thinking, even if people hate you for it. The message, not the messenger, is what’s important. Arguing is better than nothingness. And as it has been said, new ideas start with argument as defenses are worn down, ultimately comes acceptance.

5. The Center for Consumer Freedom has launched a pretty aggressive anti-PETA campaign and has made some strong assertions about the organization on its various websites. While addressing each and every claim made on the site would be tedious, can you address such concerns as the number of animals PETA kills—and the disposal of these animals—as well as elaborating on the quote, “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it,”?

Oh, this Philip Morris/Outback Steakhouse/KFC funded industry group is very busy using half quotes and half stories and downright fibs out of sheer desperation and because they are paid well to attack us, but a) not being able to argue its real issues, which is that peta is hurting the big bad businesses it represents like meat, dairy, tobacco; and b) you are known by your enemies as much as by your friends, and c) they often bring press attention to issues we have been having a devil of a time getting press for, e.g. The euthanasia issue. No one usually wants to talk about it, but thousands of people have come to our website (helpinganimals.com) and learned that we support euthanasia, something we’ve said for years, because there are no magic solutions, not enough good homes, for the millions of animals abandoned each year, many with physical problems, aggression problems from a lifetime of being chained up in all weather with no one to care for them, the works. The attention on this issue now has allowed us to push people to do something to reduce the crisis (and it will take a lot of work!) By working with us to get mandatory spay/neuter laws, to boycott pet shops and breeders and go adopt from the shelters instead, etc.

Racing Newkirk

6. Under the Bush administration a lot of attention has been given to stem cell research. How would you address someone, such as President Bush, who grants stem cells a higher moral status than an animal? Also, how would you argue the position if the former person rejected Singer’s stance on mental-personhood?

We support stem cell research because it is so promising for human health and it could reduce the number of animals used in experiments in which they suffer greatly in laboratories. I have written to Senator Frist and to Nanci Reagan praising their breakaway support for this, and suggesting that a meat and dairy diet is another thing to push for if one is interested in alzheimers and heart disease.

7. While on the topic of medical testing, what are some research organizations that have established ethical testing practices, such as human volunteers or simulations? How can the public be better informed regarding testing alternatives when the media seems to be focused on depicting PETA’s views on testing as “anti-human”?

If you look at our web site stopanimaltests.com you will find a range of health charities that do sew kittens’ eyes shut and force pregnant baboons to ingest alcohol, like the march of dimes, a real shocker, and others, like easter seals that use all funds for sophisticated, non-animal research methods. Nowadays you find most universities still use animals because they get federal funding and a percentage of research funds can go to fund administrative costs so ethics goes out the window, the federal government uses millions of animals because they are the last to change anything, and because the FDA still operates under circa 1920’s testing laws that require all drugs to go through rats, then dogs, then monkeys, instead of modern test methods like high speed computer analysis of various components and component mixtures interaction in the human body, animal use is very high. But modern companies are cloning human skin, there is whole human DNA now that can be used, and medicine recognizes that epidemiological studies are what have got us places on HIV, hardening of the arteries, etc. There are places like in vitro industries that are worth supporting.

Peta event

8. What books would you recommend to someone whose only information regarding animal rights is from popular media? Do you think one emphasis is better than another (such as dietary benefits versus morality) in attracting people to the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles?

Go to the PETA bookstore on the PETA mall and browse (petamall.com) or go to the library or Amazon and check out making kind choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth and Animal Friendly Living (my latest book); Animal Liberation by Peter Singer; Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman; and there are lots of great cookbooks (The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook, The Cookbook for People Who Love Animals, and The PETA Celebrity Cookbook, for instance); for health i’d check out PCRM.org website. For rightwing Christians there is “Dominion” by Matthew Scully. There is something for everyone!

9. How can a reader contribute to the animal rights cause? The average American is very dependent on animal products. If you were to tell them to drop one product from their life, what would that product be? What are some animal products you find especially unethical?

That’s a tough one, but any step is a good step. All acts of kindness count. Eggs are probably the worst. The hen is not only slaughtered for meat when she is tired and older and maybe sick (i’ve stood in chicken slaughterhouses and seen mucus coming out of their beaks), but for 1-3 miserable years crammed into a cage with about 7 other birds, unable to stand on solid ground because of slanted wire slats, being splattered with the waste of chickens above her, her feathers being worn away and sores forming because overcrowding forces her against the wire. The stench of the sheds these chickens live in is enough to put you off her eggs forever and her life is worse than any prisoner of war has ever endured. It takes 22 hours with the lights left on constantly for one egg to be produced. Then there is being thrown into a crate, often breaking wings and legs, to be trucked in all weather to the slaughterhouse, hung up by her legs and having her throat slit. Can’t call us civilized for what we do to these small birds.

10. If someone wanted a companion animal, such as a dog or cat, where would you suggest they go? Would you consider having a domesticated pet ethical under the belief of total animal liberation?

We should rescue homeless animals, not create more animals to take into our homes. There are wonderful dogs and cats sitting on death row in the shelters because people still patronize the pet shop in the mall, or the breeders, and because people do not spay/neuter the animals they already have, so taking up good home spaces with new pups and kittens. There will always be refugee animals in need of shelter, but we don’t have to breed more and then end up killing millions a year because there aren’t enough good homes for them to go into.

11. What type of review is taken when allowing celebrities to become involved in ad campaigns? Is it ever worried that by having mainly famous faces involved that it trivializes the PETA message, or cause the average citizen to associate PETA with a celebrity “fad” so to say, and thus be turned off to the real issues being addressed?

We’ll take anyone, famous or not, who understands even one way in which animals shouldn’t be treated cruelly. No one is perfect, everyone is learning, people may realize there’s something really ugly and wrong about wearing fur, but not have “got it” that leather is just hairless fur; they may stop eating cows, but eat chickens, or not eat at KFC because they’ve been to KFCCruelty.com and seen the Pam Anderson film, but they eat at Church’s. Any act of kindness, anyone who wants to speak out, that’s great. We’ll take it. People try to trivialize all social cause messages when they are relatively new because the message makes people with certain habits, uncomfy. We expect that, and we’ll use humor, sex, jokes, whatever we can to get the subject raised. Silence is the enemy.

12. When you’re traveling, what countries have you found are the easiest to for a vegan to find a place to eat a meal? Stateside, what are some of your favorite restaurants?

England (even the fish and chip shops have veggie pies) and India (where soy milk has just been introduced) have more vegan food per square foot than other countries, but today you can always eat well anywhere if you ask and look. Sublime, the vegan gourmet restaurant in FT. Lauderdale is out of this world, especially vegan desserts! But i love Ethiopian, Szechuan, Italian, Chinese, Indian, restaurants a lot and in our hometown we have Amalfi, which has vegan “calamari” and vegan meatball subs and Cora’s which has a vegan “crabcake!”

13. Now that PETA’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration is coming up with the gala in Los Angeles, how are you preparing for the next twenty-five years of activism on the behalf of animals? Are there any issues that are going to be receiving more attention or new campaigns that you can let us know about?

We’ve just started the fish empathy campaign because of yet more research studies showing that fish are as smart as dogs and cats and that they communicate with each other, cooperate, and have long term memories, something we’d like people to think about before picking up the rod or the frozen fish fillets. We are determined to get animal circuses banned and get those elephant babies out of the shackles and back with their mothers where they belong, and i think we will end all medical school animal labs because we have technology on our side.

14. On a lighter note, how long have you been following Formula One and how did you develop an interest in the sport? What are some of your other pastime activities when you’re “free” from your work with PETA?

I grew up in a city in Asia where you drove fast and there were no traffic lanes so it was like growing up in a rally on a dirt track. I love speed and i love driving and Formula One is the fastest motor sport of all, with Michael Schumacher, the driver i root for, the fastest driver of all. I do acrostic crossword puzzles and i enjoy walking, reading and walking out of bad movies.

15. Any other comments or words of advice?

I believe most people would be shocked and upset if they took a look at what happens behind the scenes in places most of us never go: the laboratory, the factory farm, the circus, the fur farm, even sheep farming in Australia! I urge people to be strong, take a look, watch a video like covancecruelty.com or Alec Baldwin’s great “Meet Your Meat” on goveg.com and then take a step, or two, or lots. Do something to reduce the suffering, like stop buying products tested down rabbits’ throats, choose a veggie burger or bean taco over the meat ones, help a brother/neice choose an alternative to dissection; show someone else the video of elephants being beaten in the circus, something. It’s very easy if you decide to help and since animals can’t speak up for themselves, helping them suffer less is the decent thing to do.