I have heard of throwing paint on models going down a runway, but not random people on the street. When I went to some anti-fur protests, we had a "fur" coat with "blood" on it, but it was a prop.

As a side note, I feel like I can say "PETA" and it gets people riled up. Just like when I tell people I'm vegan/animal rights activist, invariably someone says "well, I'm glad your not one of those blankety-blank blank people who blankety-blank"(e.g., extremists opposed to zoos, or vegetarians who think their diet is morally superior, etc)... and then I think to myself... BUT I AM.

Have you seen the latest PETA billboard in Jacksonville, FL?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/petas-new-save-the-whales_n_261134.html

"Save The Whales, Lose The Blubber: Go Vegetarian."

I'm vegan and have blubber.  ??? 

PETA-There to remind you your health doesn't matter.

Well, they're playing into what most people think vegans are - skinny.

When people say, "Well, at least it gets people to think animal rights," what do you all mean?  Like, think about it in what way?  Think about the fact that it exists?  And do you feel like scare/shock tactics which pummel and disrespect their audience are the only way to spark that thought?

I'm just not convinced that the same effect (and a much greater effect, at that) couldn't be had via more positive, respectful methods aimed at the appropriate audiences.

Because when something makes you angry, you often are forced to examine why you feel that way. A good portion of meat eaters get angry when confronted by PETA ads, and if you ask them "Why", they won't know... they'll have to examine their anger, and their reasons for it. On a subconcious level, it works. PEople are at least considering the arguement, if only to solidify their arguement against it.

Yes, positive is nice... but it often gets dismissed as such: "Positive" becomes "Nice" leads to "hippy dippy" to "ha ha" to dismissal, and zero reflection.

Eating meat is so engrained into our society (and such a huge, profitable industry) that one needs to be loud and aggressive to even be heard on the subject.

Again, I give PETA credit for making the voice of animal rights at least heard. For every laughable stunt about animal rights we dismiss as horrible, there are 100,000+ McDonalds ads... So we need something, right?

Thus goes my opinion, anyways.

I completely disagree, fundamentally especially. When I have come across anyone with a loud agressive voice for veganism all I've seen happen is the people who aren't a vegan (or vegetarian, from back whgen I was one of them) become alienated fmro that person.

However I find a positive attitude does help. If you invite someone into your life, you can become friends with them. They may dismiss your arguments they may not, but so far what's happened with me is I've shown support to people, saying "that's interesting, have you thought about doing this to your diet". Given advice to meat eaters about sources of iron, protein, and even calcium (all of course being vegan sources, and I've stated that of course I might be alittle bias). By doing this I've been able to offer, instead of force, my reasoning for being a vegan. To which I just put a link up to a blog post of someones which ius just a 3.5K essay on my reasoning of why I became a vegan. It's not there to shock, it's not there to pursuade. All it does is go into very limited detail about personhood, pain and suffering, health, a bit of buddhist tradition to help them see another line of thought, a little bit of humans aren't special.
I then make it abundently clear that not only is criticism of both any English mistakes and content mistakes is more than welcome, and that I honestly do look forward to any refutale of something I've said that they may have. Which is true, who doesn't love a good well mannered debate?

All it is for me is support and logic. It's not shock tactics, it's critical thinking, this is key.

Furthermore I'll point out that I'm not responcible to them, I may judge them for eating meat, but only in the same way that I'll judge someone for having a slave. And that they're not my responcibility either, so why give them much authority?

When I talk to a meat eater (that doesn't know me) about being vegan, at first I'll often be told, rather agressively, that peta is a shit organisation which they're quick to dismis. That peta is out of touch. And I will more than happily agree with them. This alone will strike a new chord in them. "a vegan, who doesn't like peta?" and I will reply "yes, I disagree with peta, here is why" to which they will gasp.
I may often put up a short verse from my own book (metaphorical book, I'm no author) "animals appear to be able to feel pain, I don't see why I should randomly be assigned the ownership of their life, we are animals, and so when I say I'm into animal rights, that by default also means human rights". Now the are usually two roads after that:
"but it's tasty"-I can put more arguments up (not as in getting into an argument, but putting up my reasoning)
"you're weird"-they don't want to talk about it any more.
However when it comes to health if the latter need or want some diet advice, I can usually offer some. Which goes back to what I said at the start, for me it's about supporting people.

Let me give you an anolgy to demonstrate this in a different way.
I believe veganism is correct.
I also believe that those who are not vegan just don't understand.
Therefore I shall try to help them understand.

And what might a stereotypical born again christian say:
I believe the bible is correct.
I also believe that those who are not christian just don't understand.
Therefore I shall try to help them understand.

How many of us have been approached by someone claiming that the bible is truth and one of us should follow the bible?
That's never made me want to learn about the bible, at least personally.

On the other hand I have wanted to learn about it due to being brought up as a Christian (I'm an athiest now, I think most of you realised this) and as a result, I've wanted to see if it holds truth or not (it doesn't hold too many things that I can agree with in the literal sense).

On the other hand I've been told by Muslims (although admittedly plenty haven't been telling me that I'm going against God) that I'm going against God and should stop being evil.
In the same way the above Christian might talk to me.
And my reaction, "piss off".

So when I go to someone and say, "you're not vegan? don't you know x y and z, don't you understand, you should be vegan" (which is how I came accross when I was a preachy vegan) I'm not suprised in hindsight to see I've been told to piss off.
This was longder than I expected it to be>_<.

asleep on a sunbeam and KissMeKate,

When I said,

I did not mean that it was an instant thing. When we feel intense emotion, subconciously, we have to sort it out. It took years of thought, reading and yes, confrontation for me to get where I am today. I used to laugh at PETA, taunt vegetarians, and think that vegans were just plain crazy.

But somewhere inside, these thoughts were sorting themselves out. Seeds were planted. Not by the friendly vegetarians who were of the on again/off again variety, but by the extreme views of folks like Earth Crisis, Propagandhi... and PETA. Who I even made fun of on the airwaves back in my radio days.

I'm not saying that PETA is good for one on one conversation and conversion on the subject. What they do, is cut through the noise. Make people take notice of something they otherwise would not take notice of.

If I may be so lazy as to repost my earlier thoughts with a thought or two added:

I think that we are all forgetting that we are not PETA's target. We are the choir. And when we surround ourselves with vegan friends and vegan opinions (so easy to do in this on-line age), we forget how "fringe" we really are.

Try an experiment: Keep a journal of pro-animal product eating. Food commercials (radio, television, on-line and print), it's appearance on cooking shows, on regular tv shows on reality tv shows... as part of co-workers conversations, friends and family's conversations.

And not just food, but leather, fur, cosmetics... look at how often they are promoted as positive and consequense free.

I guarantee your head will spin. Now think how many times a year the mass media reports on a positive vegan story. Or reports on the inherent cruelty in these industries.

I cannot think of one. We know they're out there, but to Bob and Brenda average, it never gets to them.

But I bet they have an opinion on PETA. And a discussion about the idea of animal rights can begin there. Say what you will about PETA, but they do manage to pierce the white noise to represent our "extreme" point of view. Until someone can figure out how to turn the volume on "nice" up to 11, then I will be glad there is PETA.

Well, I think PETA does some very good things for animals...However I think alot of times they go WAY to far in trying to get the message out...they have done some pretty wild campaigns.....I don't associate with them,

peta is a very bad joke for the animal rights community!  i often feel that they are really on the opposite side doing work to make veganism look extremely bad.  they don't make anyone take a step back and think about what they are eating or where it came from as far as i can tell.  its more like they make veganism look really extreme and foolish as well as super privileged.  almost everyone i know laughs at peta and how ridiculous they are.  they use racism, sexism, sizism, and so many other crappy means to "advance" the cause, when really they are just alienating people and making themselves look like insensitive jerks.  if they really wanted to make a difference they would stick to investigativereporting and exposing how evil the animal industries are.  it would also help if they had any sort of empathy for actual humans because exploiting people is not going to stop the exploitation of animals.