Animal Writings

"It's naive to think that the arrest of 11 people, as important as it is, will shut the [Animal Liberation Front] movement down," said Dave Martosko, director of research for the wretched Center for Consumer Freedom.

Mr. Martosko, whose group fights to keep violence against farm animals legal and profitable, is right: the arrest of 11 people will not end direct action against the purveyors of institutionalized animal cruelty.

99 percent plus of vegans and animal rights advocates would not hurt a flea. They preach and practice non-violence toward all creatures. In fact it's remarkable how stoic they are, given that they have to put up not only with a steady barrage of rude remarks and inane criticisms of their diet ("but plants have feelings too"), but are forced to live in a world in which violence and terrorism against animals is widespread, extreme, barbaric, and usually legal. They're more peaceful than cockfighters who deny birds all semblance of normal life, drug them, and outfit them with blades in hope that one bird will kill another. They're more peaceful than rodeo participants who shock confined calves with 5000 volts of electricity to make them run faster. They're more peaceful than matadors who take a bow while cutting off the ear of a bull who has been weakened by laxatives, whose eyes have been smeared with grease, who's been stabbed multiple times, and who lays on the ground dying. They're more peaceful than Covance lab technicians who laugh at a frightened monkey as he's bleeding through the nose. They're more peaceful than Charles River Laboratory veterinarians who delegate the care of chimpanzees on the verge of death to the untrained night watchman. They're more peaceful than the corporate executives who oversee the severe confinement and misery of millions of animals, who won't spend a dime to euthanize a lame and badly suffering dairy cow or pig, who all but guarantee end-of-life agony to animals every day by keeping slaughterhouse lines at insanely fast speeds that make it impossible to avoid errors.

As long as you have people torturing animals for money, you will have resistance. There's the root of the problem. As long as violence is forced on the innocent, it will occasionally provoke violent responses.