Violent direct action

933: 

There’s a ‘disconnect’ between those who care about the animal situation and those who don’t. It’s bigger than we’d like to admit. And if we can’t restore that connection, so that lots of people start to switch attitude, then we’re left with our dreams intact, but very little else.

We might dream of a great leap forward in consciousness, we may wish for it, but see nothing much happening. So far, the momentum isn’t building quickly enough for a new attitude-fashion to emerge. We make dolly steps towards the liberation of animals, but the cause doesn’t thrive when we can see the meat trade doing so well. People remain blissfully unaware of anything being wrong with their eating habits. It can be quite depressing. So, what do we do?

If the vegan activist wants results they usually up the ante, by doing something outrageous, to get the ball rolling.

On a farm where mink are caged, the animals are released and the farm torched. The press have a field day with the story, and of course they skew it in favour of the mink farmer, to curry favour with the consumer, who cares little for the creatures involved.

What actually happens is that the animals are released. But, being ‘domesticated’, they’re unable to survive in the wild. They raid local farms and kill chickens. The locals hunt them down to prevent losing more poultry. The mink die. Then the media hunt down the arsonists. And soon enough, everyone has forgotten why the activists raided the mink farm in the first place - no one’s interested in the conditions that the fur-farm animals have had to endure. As a result, the public remains ignorant and grows even more hostile towards animal activists. The activists are caught, jailed or fined.

The overall effect of a direct action like this might well be the very opposite to what was intended. Violent protest stirs the blood of both the activist and the activist-haters. So, how can we up the ante, without going to the extreme of doing damage like setting fire to such places? What will bring our message home and make it sink in? How can we bring to the public’s attention the truth concerning these hell holes, in which so many animals are suffering? That is the central question we face today. I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this.