by E.A. Paul

Created on: January 28, 2009

Animal rights issues are mostly presented by animal rights organizations on the internet or in books. It's very rare that you will see any animal rights issues on your local TV news, or in your local newspaper.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, (PETA), promotes most of their animal rights issues via their website. Unfortunately, our society is not sensitive enough to animal rights issues to make it newsworthy. When animals are continuing to fill our stomachs, this is the only thing that most people care about. Not how much the cow suffered in the slaughterhouse, or how a turkey was tortured alive for our Thanksgiving dinner, or how a chicken was thrown into boiling water completely conscious. These tragic events just don't seem to make it to the news room.

Being an animal rights activist, I must say that I'm a little bit angry at the media for not being more sensitive to animal rights issues. Most human beings are not interested in how much an animal was abused and tortured before it was killed. It just doesn't make good news. No one seems to care, as long as it tastes good on their plate. So, if it wasn't for the advent of the internet, most people seeking information on animal rights would be out in the cold.

I have been a vegetarian since 1970, and a vegan for the past ten years. I have watched a lot of TV and read a lot of newspapers since then. I have never even once seen a commercial or even a documentary on TV about animal rights issues. It wasn't until PETA got their website up and running in the early 1980's that I started to become informed about animal rights.

If you want to learn about animal rights, and you have access to the internet, all you have to do is punch in "animal rights" in Google, and it will come up with thousands of pages for you to read. If you don't have access to the internet, you might try going to your local book store or library. If it's a larger chain store, like Barnes and Noble, you have a better chance of finding some books on animal rights; although I have never seen a wide selection at my local Barnes and Noble.

So, it seems, that animal rights issues are pushed to the background in the main stream media. Most animal rights organizations are not-for-profit, and have extremely limited budgets, and they are not financially able to put an animal rights commercial on TV or the radio. A documentary is more likely, but usually, animal rights documentaries are distributed among the animal rights activist community.

And so it goes on. Animal rights issues just aren't in the main stream media. Until people realize that animals should have rights, or at least the right not to be tortured, the media will continue to dodge this issue. But you can do your part to help these poor suffering animals. You can try eating a vegetarian diet, maybe with cheese and eggs. Instead of a meat hamburger, you can eat veggie burgers...they are delicious by the way. You can learn more about animal rights by going to the website...PETA.org.

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