38. Our Challenges for the ’20s
January 5, 2021
Social movements, like all living and prospering entities, must evolve and grow, else they wither and die. In the next decade, our movement will face
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37. Animal Rights in 2020 Hindsight
December 22, 2020
The slow pace of social change may make us wonder whether our struggle to save animals is bearing fruit. Our success becomes so much more
36. Why and How to Engage Abroad
December 8, 2020
If we believe that all animals are equal, then saving animals raised for food abroad should be just as worthy and perhaps even more cost-effective
35. Contributing to Our Movement
November 24, 2020
We all want to help secure the basic rights to life, bodily integrity, and freedom of movement for animals, but don’t always know how. High
33. Some We Love, Some We Eat
October 27, 2020
The recent Netflix blockbuster My Octopus Teacher chronicles a mutual relationship between a man and one of the world’s most bizarre looking animals – an
27. Relating to Other Movements
August 3, 2020
Joining forces with other movements increases our ability to effect change. Animal rights is fundamental to opposing all oppression, and veganism is the ultimate health
26. My Animal Rights Hall of Fame
July 21, 2020
Who launched, nurtured, and shaped the U.S. animal rights movement? What happened to them? Why hardly anyone knows their names? Here, at last, are some
25. The Do’s and Don’ts of Planning a Conference
July 7, 2020
Conferences are an effective vehicle for forming, shaping, and nurturing our movement. They offer documentation of animal abuses, activist training, and lots of inspiration and
23. What Brought Us Together
June 9, 2020
At what point does a vision induce people to act on it? At what point do individual actions become a movement? And, what is the
22. On Leading and Managing
May 26, 2020
Traditionally, leaders who launch organizations in our movement end up managing them. Yet, leaders and managers are very different people? What can be done to
21. Getting Things Done
May 12, 2020
How do we get started with saving animals? How do we free up more time and deal with multiple priorities, adversities, and burnout? And how
19. The Enigma of Choice
April 14, 2020
Is our diet an option or a decision? Are our choices based on a rational process, social norms, or chance circumstances? Who makes our choices?
18. Grassroots Activism – Then and Now
March 31, 2020
Grassroots activism gave birth to the animal rights movement and fostered its growth for the next three decades. Then, its role has greatly diminished. Here,
17. The Power of Letters
March 17, 2020
Letters to the editor are widely read. They are an effective and trusted way of conveying our vegan message to the general public. The opinion
16. Power of Language & Rhetoric
March 3, 2020
Language and rhetoric are the fundamental tools of any advocacy. Language refers to our choice of words and expressions. Rhetoric is the art of shaping
14. Vegan World & Social Change
February 4, 2020
Human behavior, including what we eat, is dictated by our community’s powerful social norms. These norms are shaped by our collective needs, desires, and morals,
12. An AR Blueprint For the ’20s
January 7, 2020
Social movements, like all living and prospering entities, must evolve and grow, else they wither and die. In the next decade, our movement will face
11. Animal Rights in 2020 Hindsight
December 23, 2019
Approaching the year 2020 affords an opportune time to look back at the social changes we’ve wrought since the birth of our movement 40 years
09. Who’s a Vegan?
November 26, 2019
We seek a vegan world. That’s the one concept we all seem to agree on. But what does a vegan world look like? Will we
08. Don’t Eat the Turkey!
November 12, 2019
It was a beautiful day in Washington in early September of 1975. I was still flush with excitement from having attended my first World Vegetarian
07. Three Holocaust Survivors Launched a Movement
October 29, 2019
The concept that animals should be endowed with certain basic rights, as an extension of human rights, was first proposed by British social reformer Henry
06. Don’t Cut the Animals
October 15, 2019
Exploitation of animals in the name of science came much later in the history of human civilization than their exploitation for labor, religious sacrifices, and
05. Memorializing Farmed Animals
September 26, 2019
Back in the early 1980s, shortly after I committed my life to stopping the use of animals for food, I heard an apocryphal tale of
04. Don’t Eat the Animals
September 23, 2019
The role of animals in prehistoric diets is still the subject of lively debate. Even the Bible has it both ways. Animal sacrifices, associated with
03. But, Can They Suffer?
September 16, 2019
For more than two millennia, human relationship with animals was governed by Aristotle’s view, that animals are mindless creatures in the service of men. That
02. In the Beginning…
September 9, 2019
Two key factors combined to doom animals since the beginning of human civilization. First, a perennially angry and vengeful god, manifested through natural disasters and
01. To the Animals, All People Are Nazis
September 1, 2019
On this very day, 80 years ago, the Nazi armies invaded Poland, and launched World War II. I was five years old. Within a year,