There are those in the animal movement who decry any efforts to alleviate the suffering of animals trapped in the food system. They are vegans who call themselves “abolitionists,” and whether they know it or not, they are stooges of Big Agriculture.
Theirs is a position I do not even begin to understand.
The Animal Holocaust will not end any time soon. It will likely continue long after we are all gone. Generations upon generations of animals owned by capitalists will be tortured and murdered, their corpses sold, their deaths nothing more than entries in accountants’ ledgers.
Yet there are animal activists who complain of anyone trying to help those poor creatures.
We constantly hear entreaties about animal welfare, about how welfarists are complicit in the slaughter, about how if only welfarists would direct their focus on veganism and ending slaughter, animals would be saved, the Animal Holocaust would end sooner.
Those same activists dismiss any efforts to reduce slaughter as half a loaf, and they seem to be satisfied with no loaves at all.
A case in point is their displeasure with Meatless Mondays. The Meatless Mondays campaign is part of a campaign to educate the public and promote veganism. Opponents have some mysterious objections to our attempts to educate the public and recruit vegans in the process.
They suggest that Meatless Mondays is support of carnist Tuesdays, Wednesdays, etc.
A ridiculous criticism.
Particularly ridiculous when measured against the efforts of those same critics.
Those critics are pursuing a strategy which guarantees that billions of animals into the future will be tortured and murdered.
Because those only focusing on recruiting vegans, and condemning any other approach, are failing.
And that failure is to be expected, because their whole approach is ill conceived and illogical.
For all of the efforts to recruit vegans, we have not gained market share. Vegans still hover well below 1% of the population. In the last 20 years in the US, we have increased our number by almost three quarters of a million people, but we are still at the same meager percentage we were at in 1995.
The math is simple, if unwelcome.
The general population is increasing faster then we are recruiting vegans. The Third World population is exploding. In those countries, the percentage of vegans is shrinking drastically. Worldwide, we are losing ground to carnists, in the West we are only holding our own.
Even a math-challenged third grader can see the problem: the animals are losing. Veganism is losing. Animal activists are losing.
In the face of this overwhelming evidence that animals will continue to be murdered in Big Ag slaughterhouses, there are those deluded animal activists who oppose any efforts to reduce the suffering of the victims.
Along with countless others, I work to end gestation crates, veal crates, de-beaking, tail docking, de-horning, tooth extractions, cutting off testicles without anesthesia, nose rings, branding, etc.
Big Agriculture opposes those reforms, as reforms will cost them money. Animal activists who also oppose those reforms are really working for Big Ag, and against the animals.
Perhaps the most important reform that we are trying to achieve is reducing the speed of the slaughter lines. Big Ag is all about making money off the suffering of animals, and it is no more apparent than in their refusal to slow down the slaughter lines. The faster they can run animals through slaughterhouses, the more money they make.
But the horrors fast slaughter lines cause are unbelievable.
One of every 12 cows and calves that are slaughtered are actually conscious when their legs are cut off with chainsaws, and are alive when their skin is ripped off of them.
Fast slaughter lines are the reason live chickens are thrown into vats of boiling water to de-feather them.
Big Agriculture fights us tooth and nail to keep the slaughter lines running as fast as possible.
Critics of attempts to force Big Ag to change policies call our efforts “welfarism,” and use the term as a pejorative.
Animal activists who oppose animal welfarism are really doing the bidding of Big Ag.
They are fifth columnists in our movement. They are attacking those of us who are working to reduce the suffering and the terror that animals condemned in the food system will endure.
They are the enemies of the animals they purport to care about. The are in lock-step with their murderers.
Armory of the Revolution 
Reforms are inevitable. Two reasons: they prove to be economically advantageous – the better animals are treated, the healthier they are, the better the ‘product’ and the easier they are to ‘handle.’ The other reason is consumer driven: many people are (erroneously) concerned about animal welfare and are willing to pay for products labeled ‘organic’ and ‘humane’ (blah, blah). Those concerned about welfare, even as omnivores, are the most likely to become vegan; they care enough to do so.
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Left to their own devices, the animal slaughter industries will do nothing to institute reforms. Anything which reduces the efficiencies of animal murder or requires additional expenditures will be aggressively opposed by Big Ag, their lobbyists, and their bought-and-paid-for Senators and Members of Congress.
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Brilliant. The ONLY way major social reforms has ever happened, has been in incremental steps. Even though slavery was abolished we still see prejudice among a great, great majority of people. Even though women finally achieved the right to vote and own property, we still have big strides ahead for true equality. All ethical vegans are abolitionists; none believe in humane slaughter (except for the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey who claims to be vegan). To think that we can achieve abolition without reforms is completely naive. It just won’t happen. We need to be in FRONT of reforms, not ‘get behind’ them. This is a different way of approaching reforms. Signing petitions and writing to those in power is important but NOT ENOUGH. We can use reforms as a way of educating others. Reforms in the news actually bring about awareness that these atrocities exist, and acknowledge that the animals have sentient ‘interests,’ that can can and do suffer.
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Knowing that you are talking about ‘self-styled abolitionists’ Vincent, I really appreciate what you have written here.
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Looking for evidence to support your claims…seeing none. Funny, I just saw a Tyson commercial promoting their product for being so much nicer for chickens. They’re literally making a killing off the animal rights movement.
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Commercial free speech is hardly authoritative. Businesses are free to lie to consumers in this country, and the fact that capitalists are attempting to use public concerns over animal cruelty has nothing to do with forcing Big Ag to employ more humane treatment of the animals they are murdering.
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