Oprah Winfrey is named PETA's Person of the Year

The talk show goddess to top all talk show goddesses, Oprah Winfrey, has been named PETA's 2008 Person of the Year, the animal rights organization has announced.

PETA says Winfrey was chosen for "[using] her fame and listening audience to help the less fortunate, including animals. She has used her show to uncover horrific cases of cruelty to animals in puppy mills and on factory farms, and Oprah even used the show to highlight the cruelty-free vegan diet that she tried!"

Winfrey famously spotlighted puppy mills on her show after an animal rescuer, Bill Smith, took out a billboard near Chicago's Kennedy Expressway that read "Oprah: Do a show on puppy mills. The dogs need you." 

She said of her much-publicized 21-day vegan cleanse:

I learned a lot about how animals are treated and mistreated before they get to our tables. It is appalling and beneath our humanity to allow the torture of animals for the sake of our gluttony. We've neglected basic human decency on such a large scale, and it really does bleed over into every other aspect of life.

Winfrey has spoken often of her beloved Cocker spaniels -- one of whom died this year. "She was a true love in my life. In fact, she's been one of the greatest reasons for me to be a kinder, gentler person," she said of her departed dog, Sophie.

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press

Comments

[Gustavo Siu]

I suppose this means that either PETA is desperate for celebrity endorsements, or Oprah is truly the most dangerous person alive in the world. Watch out, or the big O will get you.

[Mark]

Oprah's a good person with a good heart. No question about it.

[Peter Simmons]

It's a pity Oprah doesn't know the truth about PETA, she might not have accepted this 'award' then. PETA routinely kill healthy pets given to them to be rehomed and don't believe in an animal's right to life. They are opposed to the anti-kill policy being publicised in shelters across the US, they are NOT animal lovers, but are masquerading as such as it brings in plenty of money.

[Kiki]

Good for Oprah.

I don't approve of hunting but believe that if done humanely and without disrepect to the animal (no canned hunts, no torture, etc) it can be far more ethical than factory farming.

If more people actually looked inside a slaughterhouse, more people would stop eating meat. Not only is it cruel and horrifying, it is unsanitary. Why do we eat food that is prepared in that manner? Disgusting.

And before I get flamed for being some sort of hypocrite, no, I haven't eaten meat in 19 years and my 190 pound husband hasn't in eight.

[Sarah]

What bothers me most about PETA is that police have found that 80% of the animals they've taken in custody were euthanized according to Debra J. Sanders of the San Francisco Chronicle (under the title "Better dead than fed.")

Also, while they are against slaughtering and eating meat, they have no problem with people sending skinned dead animals to people in the fashion business. For all they know, those animals could have been slaughtered by people who claim to be on PETA's side, but are using this form of protest as a way of taking out their cruelty on a helpless creature. If PETA really was 100% for animals, they would ask their members to stop sending dead carcasses as it would leave too much room for sick people like that to use protest as an excuse to hurt animals.

They are not against violence and sabotage as followed in the quotes below:

"Not until black demonstrators resorted to violence did the national government work seriously for civil rights legislation ... In 1850 white abolitionists, having given up on peaceful means, began to encourage and engage in actions that disrupted plantation operations and liberated slaves. Was that all wrong? ”

—Ingrid Newkirk,

PETA's vegan campaigns director Bruce Friedrich said: "If we really believe that animals have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then of course we're going to be blowing things up and smashing windows. ... I think it's a great way to bring about animal liberation, considering the level of suffering, the atrocities. I think it would be great if all of the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and the banks that fund them, exploded tomorrow."

And Ingrid Newkirk makes no apology for PETA's support of activists who may break the law:

"No movement for social change has ever succeeded without 'the militarism component'."

Of the Animal Liberation Front, she writes: "Thinkers may prepare revolutions, but bandits must carry them out."

I am for animal rights but I cannot agree with their methods. I think Oprah really needs to look into this.