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Embryo Huggers v. PETA (Round 2): PETA responds with the facts.
Also: The self-defeating conservative tactic of "undermine the 'liberals', one liberal idea at a time."
In an earlier posting, I quoted from a column/article from Mr. Steven Milloy at Fox asserting, based on various examples, that the People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrably care more for animal than human life. Fox has posted a response from PETA by its director of medical research, entitled "PETA Responds: Animal Testing Yields Junk Science."
In my posting, I attacked the logic of his argument. The PETA letter attacks his premises and corrects all of the factual errors, of which there were an astonishing number.
I am assuming that Mr. Milloy won't mind being caught out in a few trivial errors of fact. Among those pushing any Right-wing agendum, "MADE YOU LOOK!" is the name of the game. If you don't care whether you're right, as long as you're Right, a few teensy factual errors don't matter.
And---who knows?---perhaps Mr. Milloy really does know more about PETA' s policies and practices than PETA's Medical Director of Animal Testing Issues. But in the interest of fairness, and keeping things balanced, here is a pertinent portion of PETA's response at Foxnews.com.
The response, by Sadhana Dhuvrakar, begins: "In his July 20, 2006, column for Foxnews.com, ("PETA: Sacrifice Human, Not Animal Life for Medical Research"), Stephen Milloy blatantly misconstrued and misrepresented PETA's position on embryonic stem cell research. Mr. Milloy attributed positions to PETA that we do not hold and that he did not, in any way, verify with PETA; he then proceeded to point out supposed inconsistencies and contradictions in these fictional positions."
The letter further states in pertinent park:
[quote from Foxnew.com article, "Animal Testing Yields Junk Science" begins]
[T]he bulk of Milloy's article focused on embryonic stem cell research rather than on the issue of animal evacuations. I am a Harvard- and Cambridge-educated scientist, but it doesn't take an Ivy League degree to understand that Milloy's article was based on neither science nor facts.
The only source that Milloy used was a factsheet about stem cells that is available on PETA's Web site. The topic of this factsheet is stem cell use, not embryonic stem cell use, and this is an extremely important distinction.
Stem cells can come from adult tissues as well as from umbilical cords and placentas--in fact, most of PETA's factsheet focuses on stem cell research involving adult tissues and not on the controversial issue of using stem cells from human embryos.
Mr. Milloy characterizes our comments on stem cell research as an endorsement of embryonic stem cell research, which is inaccurate. PETA has no official position regarding this type of research.
Thus, the main thrust of Mr. Milloy's tirade, that "PETA supports ESC research as a way to end animal research," is 100 percent wrong.
Mr. Milloy also falsely asserts that PETA endorses the use of animals in stem cell research as a "compromise" in an effort to end animal testing in the future. While PETA's factsheet acknowledges that "unfortunately, the majority of stem cell research is done on animals," this certainly does not constitute an endorsement of the use of animals in such research. PETA advocates the use of human stem cells harvested from donated human tissue in this research....
[quote from Foxnews.com ends; link in original]
To read the rest of a good, satisfying smackback, I urge you to read the rest of the article. It demonstrates the value of a measured and temperate response to this sort of attack
Mr. Milloy is not the only person who is confused about the distinction between stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research, of course.
The problem with this sort of fomenting---based on insufficient data--- is that it gets a lot of people worked up about non-issues. Instead of trying to find out what PETA is really about, such people will simply indignantly include that this long-suffering animal protection organization really does value animal life over "human life" (a concept stretched in the original article to include human embryos). That in fact PETA has not in fact taken a an official stand on the embryonic stem cell issue is treated as beside the point.
It's the sort of give-a-dog-a-bad-name-and-hang-him method of attack which our learned friends on the right have been working to perfect since the days of Bill Clinton and Whitewater. In fact, the self-appointed spokespeople for the Right do this all the time: they pick on some organization or person that espouses what they consider to be "liberal' causes and go on the attack without caring whether or not they understand the organization or person's actual mission. The purpose of this ploy is to discredit liberal philosophy in general and to put liberals on the defensive.
Of course the person/organization then has to issue a correction, which is only going to work if the reader is interested in the facts. The reader for whom articles such as the one to which PETA is responding doesn't say, "Man, this guy needs to check his facts before he spouts off," but instead turns to his or her spouse and grunts, "I reckon this guy told PETA! He's got 'em on the run now, yessiree!"
In other words, the whole point of the original article was to make people who aren't capable of parsing through its logic hate and despise PETA using the same arguments put forward to make them hate and despise other organizations with little in common with PETA. The purpose of such bloviations is to undermine what the Right appear to view as "liberal agenda." Another "liberal" cause is going down---damn the facts and full speed ahead! This really shouldn't trouble liberals as much as it does, because the only people who are likely to be swayed by it are people who are unlikely to qualify for the noble and beautiful label of "liberal" in any case.
In fact, the seek-them-out-wherever-they-are-and-destroy-them school of Right-wing warfare against those they please to designate "the Left" is just one more thing about them for us to mock. Intelligent people aren't going to be fooled more than once or twice before they start to feel disgust at these schoolyard tactics. Indeed, this is already happening.
Republicans capable of understanding the real arguments in favor of conservatism, and who are conservative for the right reasons, are becoming disgusted and embarrassed by being tarred with the same brush as the likes of Ann Coulter, Melanie Morgan, and the other junkyard dogs the extreme wing of their party has unleashed. Many lifelong Republicans---e.g., my very own mom----are sympathetic to PETA and are not sympathetic at all to the rights of stem cells. "That's the silliest thing I ever heard," she said, of the whole embryonic stem cell flap. "It's too stupid to talk about."
I know of quite a few lifelong but centrist Republicans who are beginning to rethink their loyalties and am hearing more and more of others. Most of them are Republicans of the sort I used to be (yes! my first vote ever was cast for Gerald Ford and against Jimmy Carter). In other words, Republicans who want to be free to live their lives with minimum interference from the government and with the right to decide for themselves how to dispose of their money. They are often religious, but abhor the very notion of imposing their beliefs on others. They still adhere to the values expressed by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton and feel apprehensiveness as deep as mine when they hear the words "unitary executive power"; like me, they fear the religious agenda of the Right, even if they agree with the underlying principles. They are fully capable of seeing and despising error and hyperbole and distinguishing it from fact.
For liberals, the correct response to articles which miscast or reframe the beliefs and objectives of liberals is either a calm and measured rebutttal such as PETA's or---which is more fun if less useful in elevating public discourse----pointing and laughing.
Which is what I'm all about.
RELATED POSTINGS:
Heartening or Heartbreaking? Embryonic Stem Cell Research and the Veto
The Faulty Reasoning Almanack: The Embryo Huggers v. PETA
Schwarzeneggar Steps Up! [homage]
What Your Representatives Don’t Know About Embryonic Stem Research
Suffering Fools Gladly: The Consolation of Mockery
The Morning After Pill: Easier to Legislate than to Persuade
Overturn the Constitution in the Name of the Lord!
Suffering Fools Gladly: The Consolation of Mockery
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7:37:56 PM 
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