by Michelle Rivera
MRivera008@aol.com
Most of us that have been animal rights activists for a
while have become moderately familiar with all the famous people who
have been quoted for their views on animal rights. And while Winston
Churchill has never been among those famous folks, there is one thing
that he is credited with saying that could truly be interpreted as a
jewel of an animal rights sentiment.
Winston Churchill said: “Men occasionally stumble over
the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if
nothing had happened”.
What makes this pronouncement so significant to the
animal-rights movement is that it succinctly describes the brick wall
most of us run into when we attempt to educate our beloved friends,
co-workers and family members. How often do we hear "I’m an
animal-lover” from a fur and leather clad friend who is holding a
purebred, petstore-bought puppy and eating a hot dog? Most decent
people, people WE know, would never think of deliberately harming an
animal, or putting an animal in danger. Yet, they think nothing of
attending a rodeo or circus, purchasing a puppy from a petstore and,
yes, eating a Big Mac.
We have ranted from the rooftops, we have taken out ads
and billboards, we have worn t-shirts with slogans and we have subjected
our friends to graphic photos, videos and books. Yet, incredibly, they
still eat meat, they still wear leather, they still drink milk and they
still patronize animal exploitation events. These people aren’t
monsters. They have seen the truth and yet somehow they are able to
“hurry off as if nothing had happened”.
What makes us different from them? How is it that we can
watch a video of footage taken inside a slaughterhouse and swear we will
never again eat meat while someone we love and cherish can watch the
same video without consequence? How many of us have seen the brood
bitches in puppy mills and the squalor in which they live and felt a
physical pain while others seem unaffected? Now that we know, without a
doubt, how circus elephants are treated, why is it we can never again
enjoy a circus while others are oblivious to the cruelty?
That which is learned can never be unlearned. Could it
be that the non-animal rights people, those “others” choose not to learn
in the first place? I have a friend who is a registered nurse working in
a gynecologists’ office. She’s a good soul, she rescues stray animals,
would never wear fur, likes cats and dogs of every size and shape and
would never think of harming an animal. One day I told her that I was
helping with the campaign against Premarin by taking photos of all my
friends with PeTA’s famous sign -- “I will never use Premarin!” and
sending the photos to Wyeth-Ayrst. She stopped me cold and said “Oh,
don’t tell me! I take Premarin and I don’t want to know!” Famous last
words, I Don’t Want To Know. Of course you don’t. I don’t want to know
either. But I do, and now that I do I can never go back to not knowing.
Ignorance truly is bliss. This friend’s adult son is an animal-rights
activist so I enlisted his help. I gave him the materials to give to his
mother and asked him to make sure she read them. How can she ignore her
own son? Well, of course, not only did she stop taking Premarin, but she
got her doctor to stop prescribing it to other patients as well! If I
had just respected her wishes to “not know”, she and all the other
patients would still be Premarin customers, and the suffering horses
would be suffering in their names. Most of us don’t go to such great
lengths to teach a friend something they don’t want to learn because we
risk losing the friendship. Indeed, many of us have lost friends over
the issues that we try to discuss but cannot because, “they don’t want
to know”.
And how are we to fight the dairy industry when they
have convinced the American public that we MUST drink milk in order to
survive as a species? We read the literature about milk and bovine
growth hormones, we know how milk consumption contributes to untold
cruelty in the veal market, the arguments make perfect sense to us and
yet, when we try to educate others, we are fighting against a belief
that is so ingrained that it is un-American to believe otherwise! Elsie
is a happy cow! Of course she is, just look at that smile!
The reason people are slow to embrace animal-rights
philosophy is because it means they might have to change and that makes
them uncomfortable. Humans resist change with great skill and effort. We
put milk on our cereal, we eat hamburgers on the Fourth of July, and
turkey at Thanksgiving. It is all part of the American experience. We
don’t want to give that up and become “different” so we close our eyes
to the truth. Tell them about soymilk and garden burgers and tofurkey
and they say “yuck” without even trying it! They say “yuck” to these
healthy, cruelty-free foods while burying bacteria-laden corpses in
their bellies! But once you see how animals die for your taste, your
comfort, your entertainment, you can never, never deny that if you
aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem.
“Animal rights” means that animals have the right to do
what their nature dictates without interference by humans. We don’t even
have to necessarily love animals to believe they should have the same
rights as any other sentient being. And animals aren’t even lovable a
lot of the time! Just watch the videos of how a lion pride takes down a
zebra, or an orca pod’s cruelty toward seals and you’ll see just how
unlovable they can truly be. So those who say they “love animals” really
don’t get it, because animals aren’t asking for love, they are asking
for respect. They deserve that much because they are sentient, because
they are here for their own purpose, and because they are deserving of
our stewardship and our protection. There was a time when slavery was
“the American way”. The free people who fought for the freedom of slaves
didn’t do so out of “love” for enslaved people, they did it out of
recognition and respect for right of all people to be free.
Don’t ever let someone “pick themselves up and hurry off
as if nothing had happened”. Keep speaking up for the animals. Insist on
telling the truth. The truth will, in time, set the animals free.
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