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Kate Hawkesby: Blame and shame won't get animal rights activists anywhere

Author
Kate Hawkesby,
Publish Date
Mon, 7 Oct 2019, 9:29AM
Photo / Getty Images

Kate Hawkesby: Blame and shame won't get animal rights activists anywhere

Author
Kate Hawkesby,
Publish Date
Mon, 7 Oct 2019, 9:29AM

I see the age of fury shows no sign of abating.

The latest casualty, Justin Bieber's cats.

Justin Bieber finds himself in a cat fight with PETA over his newly purchased kittens.

You may have seen these headlines.

He’s bought two part - exotic kittens, which he named Sushi and Tuna.

They’re Savannah breed cats, they cost a bomb, US$35,000 for the pair.

But guess what? That’s his prerogative. If he wants to buy cats, that's his business, not ours.

PETA, however, is furious. Furious because he’s purchased expensive cats, rather than adopted rescue ones.

PETA say he’s contributing to an animal over population crisis and fuelling a demand for hybrid cats. It says he should be leading by example and encouraging people to adopt rescue pets from shelters only.

Bieber responded by saying “PETA can suck it”.  

He told them to go focus on real problems like poaching and animal brutality and stop picking on celebrities and looking for attention that way.

He defended his right to choose whatever kind of pet he wanted, he suggested PETA spend more time helping with all the plastic in the ocean rather than targeting his cats.

And people agreed with him. In their droves, saying PETA is all talk and only worries about famous people instead of all the dogs and horses butchered in some countries.

Some accused PETA of stirring controversy over two cats when a greater way to use their platform was positively instead of playing a blame game against one person.

Some called them petty. And I agree.

It's pathetic of PETA.

There seems to be a movement going on at the moment of shaming people into action.

Pointing the finger and going ooooh look at that, that’s bad and thinking that will somehow change people’s minds.

Isn’t change best brought about positively and by focusing on large scale things that really matter?

Not one person’s cat purchase. How is that productive?

It reminds me of the protesting vegans.

Shouting at people and making them feel bad about eating meat, or attempting to block them from eating meat won’t work. Has it ever worked? And yet it still seems all they’ve got.

Blame and shame is a tired old mechanism which I believe doesn’t work.

I wish the likes of PETA and the vegans blocking the meat section at the supermarkets, would just stop and think about what else it is they could be doing for animals, that would be more productive, than that.

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