# PETA, looks like people are starting to understand



## bushbuck (Feb 6, 2005)

Looks like people are starting to understand what kind of group this is. PETA is starting to have to pay thugs to protest for them. If this was such a good cause then there supporters would be showing up without a bonus, wouldnt they?

PETA offers $10 'reward' for protesting circus 

October 18, 2005

BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff Reporter Advertisement







Animal rights activists are offering 10 bucks per person to protest the opening of the Ringling Bros. circus in Rosemont -- an offer the circus says shows the movement is desperate and ineffectual.

"Feeling a little low on cash? PETA's here to help!" Stephanie Wood, activist liaison for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, writes in an e-mail.

The payment comes in $10 gift certificates to Amazon.com. The organization is offering the cards to the first hundred people who help protest at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont on Nov. 2.

The e-mail encourages recipients to bring friends. "You could even bring your little brother and steal his $10," Wood writes. Wood referred questions to PETA spokeswoman Debbie Leahy, who said the suggestion was "a joke."

But Ringling Bros. isn't laughing.

'Fair-weather fanatics'



"They're paying people. This is supposedly a great cause and here they are having to solicit people to come out and protest? It's a little disingenuous. You're there because you're getting a coupon?" said Thomas Albert, vice president of government relations for Feld Entertainment, the owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus.

Animal rights groups, who say the use of animals in circuses is cruel, typically skirmish with the show managers, who say the creatures are well cared for, on opening nights in cities across the country. Paying protesters is unusual but not unprecedented, Albert and Leahy say.

Albert believes some protesters "are sincere in that they believe what they've been told about the treatment and care of elephants. ... I don't mean to suggest that every person that believes this is an out of control fanatic, like the people who are in charge of groups like PETA."

But he characterized most animal rights protesters who march and leaflet outside the circus as "fair-weather fanatics."

"When it's a little cool out or it's raining, you don't see as many people out there as on a nice sunny day," said Albert, in Chicago Monday to talk to media about animal rights activists and a proposed city ordinance that would ban circuses from using chain restraints and certain tools to control elephants.

Leahy said the $10 wasn't payment but "reward" for those who have been protesting over the last year at Lincoln Park Zoo, which has become a rallying point after animal deaths there, including three elephants. "We've been asking them to do a lot in Chicago," she said.

Suburban Rosemont would not be affected by the proposed ordinance but activists are hoping to generate publicity about it in advance of the circus' dates at Chicago's United Center, Nov. 15-27.


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## 2005Ultramag (Apr 3, 2005)

When they have to buy support in the form of homeless people, and people on welfare, and generally people who could care less about their cause, but want their money... it's all over except the crying. :thumbs_up 
It's also pretty telling that they can only afford ten bucks each for these shills. :chortle:


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