Quotes on Slavery

As many animal advocates can attest to, there is nothing particularly unusual about the abuse at Conklin Dairy Farm. In fact, it is a routine example of what happens to animals all over the world, whenever they are being used for economic gain.

As long as animals remain the property of humans, and are legally allowed to be used as economic production units—living machines who produce eggs, milk, flesh, skin, fur and other bodily parts and secretions for human profit—they will be afforded no significant protection under the law, as the economic interests of the property owner will always trump even the most crucial interests of his or her property.
~ Angel Flinn (July 8, 2010)

The well taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.

If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame,
Still shifts thro’ matter’s varying forms,
In every form the same,

Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother’s soul you find;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.
~ Anna Laetita Aikin (1773)

If you do intentionally participate in the subjugation of nonhuman animals, it does not matter that your participation is infrequent, or irregular, or occasional. Whenever you eat the flesh of a nonhuman animal, a life is ended for your pleasure, and for nothing else. The same is true whenever you wear the skin of another as clothing, or you patronize the zoos and circuses that cage others for life, or you support the medical, scientific or commercial experimentation on others as well. Cutting back on those things, while better than not, still amounts to participating in them. There is no half loaf.
~ Tim Gier (June 25, 2010)

By spreading vegetarian education rather than vegan education, we collaborate in the subjugation (however unintentionally) of nonhuman animals. The baseline is veganism. The fact that it is not immediately appealing for 100% of all people everywhere is not the point. Veganism is the goal. It can be incrementally achieved, but it remains the goal. To ask for anything less, anything with wider appeal, anything that appears to be a more popular message, is to sell out the rights of animals. Want to make veganism more popular? Start by talking about it.
~ Barbara DeGrande (August 10, 2010)

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.
~ American Dietetic Association (July, 2009)

Let us never silence our voices in defense of nonhuman animals, no matter how uncomfortable it may be to speak the truth in our deeply speciesist society. The suffering and dying enslaved by humans don’t have time for ineffective or counterproductive advocacy. We need to dedicate ourselves to abolition and strike at the roots by promoting veganism, anti-speciesism, and animal rights.
~ Brandon Becker (August 9, 2010)