The dissolution of commercial animal farming as we know it obviously requires more than our individual commitment to vegetarianism. To refuse on principle to buy products of the meat industry is to do what is right, but it is not to do enough. To recognize the rights of animals is to recognize the related duty to defend them against those who violate their rights, and to discharge this duty requires more than our individual abstention. It requires acting to bring about those changes that are necessary if the rights of these animals are not to be violated. Fundamentally, then, it requires a revolution in our culture's thought about, and its accepted treatment of, farm animals... But prejudices die hard, all the more so when they are insulated by widespread secular customs and religious beliefs, sustained by large and powerful economic interests, and protected by the common law. To overcome the collective entropy of those forces against change will not be easy. The animal rights movement is not for the faint heart.
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''Violence' vs. Passivism: Last Century's 'Underground Railroad' illegally helped human slaves escape from bondage. They recognized the laws that legalized slavery were morally wrong and should not be legitimized with compliance. They risked their own freedom by violating the property rights of slave owners and leading slaves to freedom. Today, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) risk their freedom to liberate innocent animals that are immorally abused/injured/murdered by actions that violate the property rights of animal abusers. Animals are covertly removed from danger and placed in foster care facilities. Torturing equipment like stereotaxic devices/decapitators/restraining devices, etc. are damaged or destroyed to prevent their further use. No human or non-human animal is ever harmed in any way.'
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'Do get involved in animal rights, YES... BUT: pace yourself! Don't assume you will end these atrocities tomorrow! Lots of people with lots of more knowledge before have been working over hundred years to end this obscenity. Do take time to play! Celebrate frequently the beauty that does exist despite the world's brutality. Do unite with others who share your views. Every individual who gets involved takes a single stone from the enslaving wall until one day the wall must inevitably crumble and fall! While many animals and many of us will not live to see that day, we are working to help build the foundation for the activists of tomorrow who'll continue our work. Our torch must not be allowed to fall to the ground, but passed from generation to generation without a stop until that glorious day of animal liberation arrives! Tomorrow's activists will remember the early animal soldiers with respect and affection.'
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Opportunities abound, not just to avoid making mistakes in the marketplace - which animals pay for with their lives - but to say and do even small things that will make a huge difference in how animals are treated and viewed. Act on the adage, 'All that evil needs to triumph is for enough good people to do nothing.' Wherever you are, if you see something wrong, put yourself in the animal's place and speak up! There are always other people who hold the same view but are waiting for someone else to go first. That someone is you. Even the terminally shy can be shameless salespeople, planting animal rights seeds in others' minds without even speaking to them! In restaurants talk loudly to your companion about how the vegetarian food is the best! On crowded elevators, discuss how 'Sarah' lost 30 pounds since she stopped eating chicken and fish! There is no 'one true way' to animal liberation - all that matters is that you are doing something. Don't fret over failures! REMEMBER: Every single act brings animal liberation that much closer!
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'It's disheartening that animal people criticize societies that enlist the help of actors or organize creative acts like 'I'd rather go naked than wear fur,' to increase public awareness to our cause. These are great/courageous ideas which time has come! Liberation of animals is REVOLUTION - not elegant performance/ intellectual competition. We should do most anything to advance the animal rights cause. All the bickering may make the one step forward... TWO STEPS BACKWARD???'
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'While Austria is introducing herself as a perfect host for football fans, because of imprisonment of animal rights activists, protests are being held in front of the embassies all around the world. With every day it is becoming clearer that this is a federal assault against the growing Animal rights movement, including the misuse of laws and massive violation of civil liberties.'
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The animal rights movement I belong to does not have the time or the inclination to criticize the work of others, it understands that working towards our abolitionist goals in incremental steps is the only way we will move ahead, and it has no use for labels - it is too busy taking action. The animal rights movement I belong to is united in support of our common goals rather than squabbling over attention or money, it has no room for ego or ivory tower activists with personal agendas - it understands the value of working together!
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'To use animal welfare reforms as a 'springboard into animal rights' has the new welfarists chasing their tails to decrease pain/ suffering which are permitted in virtually unlimited amounts and in virtually unlimited ways as long as there is an identifiable human 'benefit'. This is what 'institutionalized animal exploitation' means: ANY ANIMAL INTEREST, HOWEVER FUNDAMENTAL, MAY BE SACRIFICED IN ORDER TO SERVE HUMAN INTEREST, HOWEVER TRIVIAL. We must ensure that incremental changes attack the big problem - the property status of animals.'
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People get offended by animal rights campaigns. It's ludicrous. It's not as bad as mass animal death in a factory.
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'How is 'Animal Rights' different from 'Animal Welfare'? Animal welfare seeks to alleviate the suffering of animals while they are being exploited - without attempting to question the fundamental basis of whether it is acceptable to exploit animals in the first place. Animal rights beliefs reject the idea that animals need to have a value to the human species in order to be deserving of rights.'
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'We need to reshape the movement as one of grassroots activists, and not 'professional activists' who populate the seemingly endless number of national animal rights groups. For many people, activism has become writing a check to a national group that is very pleased to have you leave it to them. Although it is important to give financial support to worthy efforts only, giving money is not enough and giving to the wrong groups can actually do more harm than good.'
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'We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.'
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'(The animal rights movement) should be supported by all Christians. In an ecological universe, every created entity has intrinsic value because all are subjects as well as objects. As we cover more and more of the earth with our factories/highways/towns/parking lots, we annihilate more and more plants and animals.'
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...[I]t is a terrible thing that religious people today can be so indifferent to the cruelty of the farms, shrugging it off as so much secular, animal rights foolishness. They above all should hear the call to mercy. They above all should have some kindness to spare. They above all should be mindful of the little things, seeing, in the suffering of these creatures, the same hand that has chosen all the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the things which are strong. 'Who so poor,' asked Anna Kingsford more than a century ago, 'so oppressed, so helpless, so mute and uncared for, as the dumb creatures who serve us -- they who, but for us, must starve, and who have no friend on earth if man be their enemy?
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I can't remember when I wasn't an animal rights activist.
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'Are animal rights people extremists? Do you think it's not extreme to torture/murder living creatures for lipstick? Do you think it's not extreme to breed more dogs and cats while 7 million die in shelters each year? Do you think it's not extreme to torture/murder a living creature to wear their dead skins? Finally, do you think it's not extreme to torture living creatures without their consent to make a living? If we are ALL extremists. I prefer to be an extremist for justice, compassion and peace, and not for pain, murder, rape and oppression.'
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'What is 'Animal Rights'? It is the philosophy of allowing nonhuman animals to have the most basic rights that all sentient beings desire: the freedom to live a natural life free from human exploitation, pain and suffering, and premature death. This is what the animal rights movement is about, it is not about working for equality between human and nonhuman animals.'
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The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position.
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I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.
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'So keep at it [animal rights fight] and keep cool. We are not trying to achieve the impossible. We are trying to accelerate the inevitable.'
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Animal rights has never been about equal rights, but about least harm and rights as fits the species. So a chicken does not need the right to vote, but perhaps should have the right to spread her wings, which is a right that is not applicable to humans.
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The animal rights movement is 'part of a revolutionary process aimed at restructuring the major institution of society.'
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'The hands that help are far, far holier than the hands that pray. The true duty of an animal rights/protection society is not to prolong life but to prevent suffering!'
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