The ruthless destruction of the most vulnerable among us

Criticism of the bloated, ineffective entertainment machine called “the movement,” which is a misnomer because it’s moving nowhere but backward, is not tolerated. It interferes with our desire to believe the corporate welfarists who tell us that we can cure the moral cancer by writing a check, shutting up, sitting down, and watching the show. It’s like someone talking in a movie theater when we are trying to watch and enjoy some mindless movie. It interferes with the entertainment. And in our society—and within “the animal movement”—that is the gravest sin of all.

If the planet survives and history judges us about anything, it’s not going to be that we should have contributed more to animal welfare corporations so they could have had bigger campaigns about cage-free eggs or crate-free veal. It is going to be that in the face of the ruthless destruction of the most vulnerable among us—human and nonhuman—we just watched the show.
~ Gary L. Francione (September 27, 2010)