An Article Series from All-Creaturs.org 

 

Animal Rights/Vegan Activists' Strategies

Why I'm proud to stand trial defending the right to rescue animals

From Cassie King, WagingNonviolence.org
August 30, 2023

When I feel afraid, I just think back to that mother pig in the Smithfield factory farm. And I know I have to be strong. I know what is right, and what is wrong. She made it very clear for me.

Cassie King pets a mother pig at Smithfield. (Direct Action Everywhere)

After over four years of our court case dragging on, my co-defendants and I are scheduled to go on trial Sept. 8 in Sonoma County, California. We are facing dozens of criminal charges, including eight felonies, for nonviolent animal rescues.

Growing up, I prided myself on following the rules. I was a straight-A student and faithful Catholic. My teachers trusted me so much they let me teach the class. Today, I’ve been arrested multiple times as part of a group that’s being surveilled by the FBI. It might surprise you to know I still love following rules and doing what is right, but my understanding of what’s right has changed.

When I moved to the Bay Area to attend the University of California, Berkeley, my grandma warned me not to get too radicalized. I didn’t think she had anything to worry about, but I was wrong.

In college, I started meeting people from different walks of life and learned how little I actually knew. My vegan roommate showed me videos from dairy farms where newborn cows were taken away from their mothers. I had never realized that cows, like humans, have to give birth in order to produce milk. How obvious, in hindsight. It made me feel ashamed and intensely curious about what else I’d never been told. Fortunately, it was easy to seek out more information.

I joined the animal rights club on campus and started attending movie screenings, tabling events and protests. Some of the club members told me about an off-campus group called Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE. They took even more dramatic action for animals, like going inside factory farms to document the conditions and take suffering animals out. Intrigued, my roommate and I took a bus to Oakland to a DxE meetup.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE.

Cassie King cuffed and arrested at a factory farm in Sonoma County. (Direct Action Everywhere)

 

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