Why doesn't it shock me that PETA goes out of their way to deceptively leech Benicio del Toro's celebrity status for their own screwed up extremist agenda? This is what Primera Hora is reporting in Puerto Rico.

Here's what happened: Last week PETA released a letter that was allegedly penned by Benicio del Toro and address to the governor of Puerto Rico Luis Fortuño. In the letter Benicio supposedly urges the governor to block the company Bioculture from building a primate farm in Guayama. The letter goes on to say that he would even join the mayor of Guayama in any civil disobedience efforts that would help stop the project.

Oh boy.

Primera Hora has his father, Gustavo del Toro, go on record to do damage control. He explained PETA's announcement of the letter came as a surprise to them. PETA not only failed to present this letter to Benicio as a petition that he co-signed, they also lied about Benicio's penning the letter in the first place. Even worse is the fact that the "letter" makes it look like Del Toro is willing to do any civil disobedience actions to stop the construction. Last but not least, the timing of this letter was suspect. The original letter Benicio signed was dated September 2nd. His father says that had he been asked two signed any statement two weeks ago (when Fortuño threw the island's economic crisis into a tailspin by laying off 17,000 workers), he would not have signed the petition.

Even though I am for the ethical treatment of animals, I am absolutely opposed to the work of PETA. It's not just for their twisted janseist mission that says even cockroaches have rights, but for the mysoginistic and exploitative PR tactics that it uses to line it's coffers. I rarely use the word "hate" for advocacy organization but PETA's shameless famewhoring puts them up there with extremists like Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin and Beck.

'Tis why I was gearing up for an ambiguous smackdown of Benicio del Toro. Ambiguous because well ... you know how bad my enchule for that papi is. Yet I couldn't believe he would fall for PETA's shameless PR stunts. I find the idea of a monkey farm distasteful and, heck, even the name of a company like "Bioculture" is all sorts of wrong. But, ñeta, Benicio's brother is a pediatric oncologist. I find it hard to believe he is completely opposed to vivisection.

Sure enough, Benicio fell for PETA stunts. This from a man who says he's not from Hollywood and by inference not prone to falling for the trappings of celebrities. Yet he's done what every other celebrity that's gone to bat for them done, even overlooking the fact that they euthanizes more the 20,000 puppies and kittens and all sorts of animals a yearas the "humane" way to care for them.

Which makes for a great "teachable" moment: PETA has turned misogyny, pornography and "star fucking" into a dubious art form. Do celebrities really want to be attached to that? The people behind PETA are extremists who've mastered the art of leeching social capital from celebrities for their 15 minutes of publicity. Do celebrities really need t flock to them like flies to excrement?

The answer, of course, is NO.

What PETA offers is an outdated media, marketing and PR model. PETA acts like a free-publicity agency for celebrities and wannabes who believe there's no other way of getting their presence "out there". Yet there's no need for people to give over control of their image and social capital to organizations like PETA when they can do this themselves via social media.

If Benicio Del Toro had control over his own domain (http://beniciodeltoro.com)', had a blog to handle his media communications and a microblogging platform for quick at least weekly updates, he could be in total control of his messaging. Heck, Mark Cuban is the great example of a guy who won't take media questions unless he gets to post them on his blog. Why give power to people or organizations who would think of nothing when damaging his reputation for their own gain.

Which is why I would never EVER recommend to celebrities to leave their social media outreach to a publicists or agents. They need to do this themselves and if they can't, then they need to hire an assistant that will do the work under their direct supervision.

And for the love of blog, they need to make sure that they never EVER have their assistants "ghost" blog/status update/twitter. EVER. If they do so on the celebrity's account, have them disclose their identity. Or they'll have a repeat of what happened to Freddie Ferrer when he was running for mayor in 2005.

Social media is about taking personal responsibility for your social capital, your reputation, your brand. That's what Benicio del Toro needs to do more than ever. Especially after the beating he took for making Ché.

He needed to have an international online communications strategy in place if not a year, then at least months before the release of that movie. He didn't and it cost him dearly not only at the bank but by Hollywood's complete blackballing of the project.

The problem is that Beno's star status is amazing powerful. The people around and himself think they can coast on that. The issue though is that it's more like a wild garden: He hasn't truly explored it nor used it to its fullest potential. It's why I think that, even though Benicio is an amazing actor and accomplished producer, he's always seemed to me tentative about his political advocacy. The way I see it is that he hasn't even scratched the surface of the power his social network and capital has.

There's a laundry list of things he needs to do but for starters, he needs to control the messaging and control it now. Not give that power to anybody else --not even his father-- and make sure that what goes out there is under his own channels, under his own control and on his own terms.

Benicio del Toro needs to grab that media bull by the balls and smack it down ... all pun intended.

PS: Beno should ring up Willie Colón. He's becoming quite the twitterista.