Animal Rights by Gabi
The Humane League is addressing animal rights. Their main goal is to save the lives of as many animals(mostly farm animals) as possible and to reduce as much animal cruelty as possible. The organization comes to schools, universities, and other places to educate them on animal cruelty. The organization also holds Cage-Free campaigns and Meatless Monday campaigns.
The main strategies the Humane League uses are mobilizing/getting allies and non-violent direct action. They used these strategies, given their opponents because it was the most effective for their group. Using a non-violent direct action and getting allies, like the meatless monday campaign and other campaigns Humane League did got many people involved and spread the word out about animal rights. Their goals were to stop animal cruelty, so stopping with a strategy like a violent action wouldn’t be effective since the group is showing not to be cruel, especially to animals.
Activists, like Stephanie, are passionate and really care for their injustices. She goes out to places to give information to different people. A student asked if the Humane League does protests to get peoples attention. Stephanie answers, “The Humane League, we don’t do protests, but I do it with other groups. I went last week with ‘citizens for animal free six flags’. They have a lot of animals and they are in bad conditions there, so we want them to be released, so we handed out stuff to say not to participate with those experiences.” When Stephanie says, we don’t do protests, but I do it with other groups” this means she’s committed to the injustice she’s doing because Lauren gets involved with groups other than her own. Based on the activists action of going to six flags to give out information about the conditions animals are going through, a person can infer she is passionate about people learning about how some animals are treated since she came to teach us also. This quote proves if you care strongly for an injustice you should get involved with events and get the word out about it. To conclude, activists who are passionate and care about their injustice spread the word.
To successfully try to stop an injustice a group needs allies. A student asked if Humane League has any allies. The activist responded, “Yea! We couldn’t get anything done without volunteers, interns, and other organizations. Like Vegan Outreach, we use their literature. We use Humane Society of the US, and volunteers all over to help us reach people.” This quote proves that the animal rights groups wouldn’t be anywhere without the allies and there is an important part of an organization trying to end an injustice. The use of the phrase “volunteers all over to help reach people” suggests that allies help the organization get more allies. The quote proves that allies are an important part of organizations. To finish off, Humane League and other groups need allies to get farther in stopping injustices.
Giving something one loves up for an injustice shows lots of dedication. A student asked how we as kids help the program. Stephanie responded, “Lots of ways to get involved best place to start is with what you eat! Its easy, so many issues it feels like you can’t do anything, but what you eat,, you can choose to support factory farming, cruelty to animals, or a meat free option. Even just once a week. And getting more involved- we’re always looking for volunteers, to table and leaflet, or share on facebook, make people more aware. People care about animals, but don’t really know what's going on or feel they can’t make a difference.” This quote proves if a person really cares about something, to get involved. When Stephanie says “to get involved best place to start is with what you eat!” this means if a person watches what they eat for Animal Rights, it will help because thats the main way animals are abused and killed, for food. To sum up, giving something up for an injustice shows dedication.
There should be many ways to stop an injustice, although only few are successful. A student asked, what programs have been successful? The activist replied, “A lot of success with cage-free campaigns-working with universities or hospitals or schools, to get them to switch their eggs from battery cage eggs to cage-free eggs. Every university we’ve surveyed them 97% or higher support the change, and being able to show that to a dining director is powerful, that students are willing to absorb that into the cost of their dining payments. And lots of success in facebook, this video hundreds of thousands of people watch it- and also how tracking how many people finish the video, and how many people ask for the vegetarian starter guide.” This quote proves that getting people to share a simple video gets others to change their minds about a cause, like animal rights. Therefore there are many ways to stop injustices, but not all are successful.