Sharpton Calling for Boycott of KFC! WTF?!?
 

Sharpton Joins With an Animal Rights Group in Calling for a Boycott of KFC
By MELANIE WARNER

he Rev. Al Sharpton will not eat at KFC and he doesn't think you should either.

Starting today, Mr. Sharpton is joining forces with the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to urge a boycott of KFC, which is owned by Yum Brands of Louisville, Ky. Mr. Sharpton and PETA want the fast food chain to require its chicken suppliers to put in place new standards for the treatment of the 750 million chickens they process for KFC every year in the United States. The rap mogul Russell Simmons is also joining the Sharpton campaign.

"If we give our money to KFC, we're paying for a life of misery for some of God's most helpless creatures," says Mr. Sharpton in an eight-minute video that will be shown outside KFC's around the country.

PETA has been waging a campaign against KFC for two years. The organization was eager to enlist Mr. Sharpton because KFC has many stores in largely black neighborhoods and in late 2003 KFC executives told investors they were making an increased effort to market to blacks.

Mr. Sharpton and PETA are demanding that KFC force its chicken suppliers, like Pilgrim's Pride and Perdue, to give chickens more room in factory barns and to make use of a process that puts birds to sleep with nitrogen before they are killed. They are also asking KFC to stop its suppliers from forcing such rapid, hormone-driven growth that the birds crumple under their own weight.

PETA said that unlike other companies, KFC has been largely unresponsive. "KFC has been by far the most stubborn corporation we have attempted to work with," said PETA's president, Ingrid Newkirk, in a written statement.

Yum Brands, which also own Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, declined to comment on PETA's demands and allegations. "PETA is an organization more interested in promoting vegetarianism than the truth," a spokesman, Jonathan Blum, said.

PETA recently won a concession from McDonald's, which said it would study the possibility of requiring American suppliers to use the process of so-called controlled-atmosphere killing.

Several years ago, in response to PETA's "Unhappy Meal" campaign, McDonald's, which buys one of every 20 eggs sold in America, agreed to buy eggs only from farms offering hens extra water, more wing room in their cages and fresh air.

PETA says it has chosen to shed light on the chicken industry in recent years because large chicken producers and sellers have made little movement toward more humane practices. "The chicken industry is way behind the beef and pork industries," said Dr. Temple Grandin, associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a member of Yum Brands' animal welfare advisory council. "They need to work on getting some of the same auditing systems in place."

Animal welfare specialists like Dr. Grandin agree with PETA that the short lives of chickens need to be improved. Dr. Grandin said that as many as 6 percent of birds suffer broken wings or legs when workers pack them into crates and onto trucks.

"A lot of workers aren't adequately trained," said Dr. Mohan Raj, a senior research fellow at the University of Bristol in Britain and a veterinarian who has studied chicken welfare practices in the United States.

Animal rights activists are hardly KFC's only problem. In recent years, the company has been the financial stepchild at Yum Brands. Last year KFC's same-store sales were down 2 percent; sales increased at Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

:rolleyes: ***In an addendum to the video, Sharpton added that he's still cool with pork rinds and chitlins.... ***

Why are you saying "WTF?" :confused: KFC is disgusting.

Somehow I knew I was going to get this response from you guys...

Whats next then...watermelons?!?

And I love how Sharpton still is "cool" with chitlins and pork rinds. If you are going to take a side...don't do it "half-way"

This is why he is not against those things: "The chicken industry is way behind the beef and pork industries,"

Are you insane? Do we torture and brutalize watermelons like we do living and breathing chickens?

And I doubt you've even watched the videos of what REALLY goes on in these chicken slaughterhouses.

I can't help it... I do love KFC chicken burgers! Yum!

Be sure to watch exactly what they do to the poor chickens you're eating.

http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs....=sharpton_long

He also presented false information by claiming there is an addendum to the video in which Sharpton says he's still cool with pork rinds and chitlins. There is no such thing.

I know all about it. Can't help that I still find them delicious!

I just hope you don't buy them, dear. :xoxo:

I can't remember the last time I had one! We usually go to Burger King or pizza hut. MInd you I don't eat much fast food at all now

For GOD sakes they are chickens not human beings. They are hear for well food...either eggs or meat. Like it or not, whatever...its a "brutal" honest fact. They are hear to provide food. Although I do support more sanitary ways of going about killing the chickens...sorry...but that DO have to be killed...in some form or another. Do you think they just magically appear in the box all nice, cooked, and brown?

Good for Reverand Al. :thumbsup: He's throwing it down, as usual.

Don't know who I dislike more...
 

KFC (Kentucky F**kin' Chicken...Food Poisonin' at it's finest, What did ya expect from the "Colonel and his wee beady eyes and his smug look 'of your gonna like my chicken...") or Rev.Al "Never will be as important as MLK" Sharpton...I think KFC (Keep F**ckin Chuckin'-it-up) wins out!

When all other arguments fail, just say they're only animals and not human beings. :thumbsup:

Hannity and Coulter would truly be proud. :rolleyes:

Yeah, the chickens are brutalized, I won't ever eat there. I commend the Rev for speaking out, rock on with your bad self RAS!!!

May you be reincarnated as a KFC chicken, you heartless bastard.

That along with the watermelon remark was pretty damn offensive.

Tell me about it. I'm surprised there was no mention of ribs. :rolleyes:

:laugh:

Resort to the name calling. Gee isn't there mod's here AT ALL? I guess all poster bashing is allowed...oh well. Say what you will...but calling me a bastard isn't going to change the fact that chickens are killed and consumed by the majority of the world, every single day.

And as far as reincarnation...ha! :laugh:

When someone pisses in the wrong direction it offends you people. But boy do you guys get to say offensive stuff at free will...and LAUGH about it.

Hey stop calling the kettle black!

There is so much untruth in that video it isn't even funny. The beak removal looks like old video. I don't think they do that anymore. If you notice, the video of the cramped chickens is taken from above with out a view of the whole house. Chickens will bunch up when you walk towards them. The birds will become crippled if they are not slaughtered befoe a certain point, but they are slaughered before they reach that point. They do not leave the dead bodies in with the live ones.

PETA's main goal is not to get everyone to ban KFC but to become vegitarians...period! Its been their goal since they were formed.

OMG. I'm a PETA member and you have no clue what you're even talking about. What a load of **** and you know it.

Ok..PETA is the same people who boycotted "The Passion of The Christ" because it involves the slaughter of cows...oh now wait...there are no animals in it...so why did they boycot it? What possible motive did they have.

Frankly, I could care less if you are a memeber of PETA...glad you got that memebership card. And who are you to say I don't have a "clue" what I'm talking about...anyone can make anything "seem" one way, when it really is another.

The load of ****, my friend, is coming from your mouth...not mine!

I also LOVE how he uses race baiting in the PETA video...WHAT THE HELL does not eating KFC have to do with being black...yea great Sharpton make it a race issue, just like you do everything else...what a ego-maniacal biggot!

But I do agree with you about the cases of animal curelty that does go on (Not as much as PETA would have you believe.) It should be stopped. Animals do require respect...but I mean you do realize that these chickens are going to be killed right? So how do you purpose that they do that?!?

PETA never boycotted The Passion of the Christ, I don't know where you're getting you misinformation.

Gimme a break, your lips are brown by this point.

The torture and abuse perpetrated against chickens by KFC and their suppliers is incredibly well-documented. To dismiss any of it is not only idiotic, but signs of a truly delusional person. More than half of the footage that has been shot of these slaughterhouses have been hidden cameras, fully showing how treacherous and cruel these people are in their treatment of these poor animals. You, my friend, have no heart.

we had this freaking discussion literally just a week ago.

I'll have to find an article concering PETA and The Passion for you...

I LOVE how you say I have no heart...the irony bells are ringing in my head.

A controversial animal rights group recently staged a demonstration featuring a 10-foot-tall "Jesus" model in London at the opening of "The Passion of the Christ" movie, asking film maker and actor Mel Gibson to show "compassion" to animals.

A press release issued by the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) read that the "Jesus" model would "rise above the crowd at the opening of ‘The Passion of the Christ' to protest the suffering of animals raised and killed for food on ranches like Mel Gibson's in Montana, and to encourage moviegoers to adopt a diet that is respectful of all God's creation."

Also part of the demonstration were "people holding signs reading, ‘For Christ's Sake—Go Veggie!,' ‘Blessed Are the Merciful' and ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill,' as well as activists handing out vegetarian starter kits and leaflets titled ‘Honoring All of God's Creation.'"

A request for comment to Gibson's Icon Productions was not immediately answered.

PETA has also used the same demonstration tactic across the United States at the premieres of "The Passion of the Christ" in San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.

Apparently comparing the suffering experienced by Jesus in His final moments of agony to the suffering endured by animals, the release read that "‘The Passion of the Christ' focuses on Jesus' suffering in the final hours of his life. PETA wants everyone who eats meat to consider that suffering is an everyday reality for cows and other animals on farms and feedlots and, ultimately, in abattoirs. Cows are routinely dehorned and males are castrated without pain relief, deprived of their young and treated as commodities. As whistle blowers and veterinarian inspectors have attested, abattoir workers often resort to scalding, skinning and dismembering fully conscious animals in order to keep production lines moving."

In an e-mail interview, PETA spokesman William Rivas-Rivas said that PETA is neither trying to insult Christians with its message or be in any way blasphemous.

He said, "PETA is demonstrating because we want people to know that eating meat promotes gratuitous cruelty and suffering. We're asking people who oppose violence and injustice to extend their compassion to all God's creatures by adopting a vegetarian diet. More than 25 billion animals are killed for food every year in the United States. Pigs, cows, and chickens are individuals with feelings—they can feel love, happiness, loneliness, and fear, just as dogs, cats, and people do."

Rivas-Rivas added, "What is unsettling is that Christians, who follow the prince of peace, would support cruelty to animals every time they sit down to eat. There is nothing disrespectful about calling people to be more compassionate and merciful. This is Jesus' message. What is disrespectful and heretical is the way God's creatures are treated on factory farms and in slaughterhouses."

Every time Christians sit down to eat they have a choice, Rivas-Rivas said.

"(They can) add to the level of violence, misery, and death in the world, or to attempt to live peacefully with all God's creation. Everyone, especially people of faith should show mercy to the most weak, powerless and vulnerable among us—animals. We believe that Christians should reject all cruelty and violence and go vegetarian," he said.

According to Rivas-Rivas, "The meat industry today treats God's creatures like dirt, rather than God's beloved animals. The meat industries never allow these animals to do anything that is natural to them—they are never able to feel the grass beneath their feet, the sun on their faces, or fresh air. They endure mutilation—chicks have their beaks burned off, cows and pigs are castrated without anesthesia, cows are dehorned and branded, and the list goes on—all without any painkillers. To subject animals to such cruelty, simply for a palate preference, makes a mockery of God by showing such complete contempt for his creatures."


Jeremy Reynalds

Ok so here is the article...guess you're the one who don't know what you're talking about... :rolleyes:

Did you actually read what you just posted? Nowhere in it are they boycotting The Passion of the Christ. They're holding a demonstration against Mel Gibson's slaughtering animals at his Montana farm. :shrug:

Being a member of PETA, I think I would have gotten the newsletter asking for us to follow a boycott against the movie. ;)

YOU WILL NEVER admitt being wrong will you? NEVER...

I don't even know why I tried....

stupid me.

Where in that article (with no link, mind you) is PETA attempting to stage a boycott against The Passion of the Christ? :shrug:

I would like to be a...
 

PETA member just to find out who the beautiful/sexy & quite nude lady was who painted herself head-to-toe like a tiger and placed herself in a cage near the Ford Center to protest the treatment of circus animals by the Ringling Bros/Barnum-Bailey Circus...

Get me her phone # and I will be a HAPPY member for life :blob1: (Don't think the wife would like that though) :nod: :D

and I agree. If the statements in the video DO happen to be 100% true, then I agree...steps should be made to make it more respectful to the chickens and sanitary.

My God now you want a link...well hold on!

Yes, and by protesting against Mr. Gibson they were infact saying..."hey, if you watch this movie...you are not with us!" So do you think they would have supported folks seeing this film? :confused:

I think he [Sharpton] has a great point. I will never, ever eat there ever again. Meat is murder, etc.

When it is deserved. What rock did YOU crawl out from? Take a hike!