ROLAND VINCENT
SPECIAL EDITOR, ECOSOCIALISM & ANIMAL RIGHTS
The mass murder of animals implicit in factory farming is not enough for some people.
Unless we change strategies, the Animal Rights movement will die.
Our present course is doomed to failure.
We are converting vegans at a slower rate than the human population is growing.
In a few short years, the movement will be an historical footnote.
Just as the numbers of animals needing rescuing is increasing, so is the opposition to all we do.
Sheer numbers will engulf us in a floodtide which we will not survive.
Unless we change course.
Clearly what we are doing is not working.
The Animal Holocaust continues, and promises to increase with the growing world population.
Even our recruiting is not keeping pace with the population.
Animal Rights, the concept that animals have the same rights to be here as do humans, and the same rights to be free of exploitation, slavery, and murder, requires government action. Only governments can recognize, protect, and enforce rights.
No government in the world has yet to recognize Animal Rights, and it is unlikely any will do so in our lifetimes.
But we can take steps to build a government that will do so in the future.
Or we can keep doing what we are doing and guarantee that Animal Rights will never be achieved.
To win Animal Rights we must recognize that our struggle is a political and social one. Animal Rights are just one of a host of rights that fall under the umbrella of Universal Rights: rights for women, children, people of color, gays, the elderly, the infirm, the poor, the homeless, the unorganized, and the underprivileged.
All of us face common enemies: the capitalist system which oppresses and exploits us, and the Conservative politicians who do the bidding of their capitalist masters.
Only by defeating the capitalist system that controls almost every country on Earth can we begin to change the world for humans and for animals.
We must build broadly based alliances with other rights advocates, join coalitions to defeat Conservative politicians and Conservative governments, here and abroad. We must take our necessary place in the leadership of the Left and assure that Animal Rights is always a top priority of every revolutionary effort, everywhere.
We must recognize we are not Americans, or Europeans, or Africans, or Asians.
We are Earthlings.
We are Revolutionaries.
We are the Future, if we wish to be.
