I've been vegan for 8 years.. and have friends on full time staff at peta... be careful lumping them all together.
there is peta... who have a complete legal team, research dept., etc with specific goals and criteria... of which they have an excellent success rate within those goals...
and then there are teenagers in peta shirts, who are on peta street teams... who do some pretty crazy stuff.
yeah, peta does some questionable things.. but the majority of things attrivbuted to peta are done by those not on full time staff. animal rights, both fortunately and unfortunately, has been a strong, popular trend for a few years now.. its great for awareness and results.. but it also brings consequences of a broad range of zealots.