Never Mind The Millions Dead or Repressed

They're inconsequential. But throw a cat into a cauldron of boiling water and Paul McCartney thinks civilization is coming to an end.

"I wouldn't even dream of going over there to play, in the same way I wouldn't go to a country that supported apartheid," McCartney says during a BBC News feature on animal cruelty in the Chinese fur trade.

"It's like something out of the dark ages," he continues. "It's just against every rule of humanity. I couldn't go there."

The video footage, which aired as part of BBC's Six O'Clock News Monday in England, purportedly shows screaming cats and dogs lifted out of tiny cages with metal tongs and thrown over a seven-foot fence. A bag of cats is seen thrown into a cauldron of boiling water. Several other animals are shown being brutally killed and skinned.

"How can the host nation of the Olympics be seen allowing animals to be treated in this terrible way?" McCartney asks.

"If they want to consider themselves a civilized nation…they're going to have to stop this."

During the News program, McCartney and wife Heather Mills express horror, shock and disgust in response to the video, which was shot by an undercover investigator for PETA. Both McCartney and Mills are outspoken animal-rights activists.

Says Mills: "People in every other country in the world should now boycott Chinese goods." {...}

While I don't necessarily think it's a good thing to be cruel to animals, where, precisely, was Sir Paul's outrage when Mao was having his little tete-a-tete out in the countryside, you know, that little event that's more commonly known as The Cultural Revolution? Yeah, I know, he was probably stoned like everyone else was. It was the sixties, after all. But still, The Beatles wielded some power back then.

But, seriously though, is he worried about the high rates of female infanticide in rural China? You know, little baby girls being killed right after birth, their tiny bodies dumped in shallow graves because boys are more highly valued? Is he worried about political dissidents who are forced into slave labor? What about the workers who are poorly paid to sew together those cat and dog pelts into coats and the like? Where's his outrage on their behalf?

The better question, however, is do you think the BBC will cover Sir Paul's indignation about how the PRC treats people the same way they covered this piece of PETA propaganda?

Posted by Kathy at November 28, 2005 11:41 PM | TrackBack