Published in: Southerly Australian Dreams 2, 2014, 74(3): 100-114. www.southerlyjournal.com.

au

PATTY MARK
in conversation with Teja Brooks Pribac

Dreams and Beyond

Most people are likely to agree that the

treatment of the most vulnerable
subjects is a good reflection of a
society as a whole a notion which has
been publicly expressed in various
contexts and used to substantiate
various just causes. Since leaving her
native United States in 1973 to travel
the world with her Australian husband,
but particularly over the past thirty-six
years, Patty Mark, now living in
Victoria, has been a prolific voice and
leading example, inspiring people all
over the world to help them the most
vulnerable, the most repressed, objectified, instrumentalised, nameless, those who for the
majority of people do not count, do not even exist, cannot exist in the real sense of the word,
because if they did, our communal guilt would be exposed: animals nonhuman animals.
The distancing and concealment in relation to current farming practices and slaughter of
animals enable us to eat meat without the killers or the killing, without even the animals
themselves (Pachirat, 3). Not new phenomena, concealment efforts by the trade (later
industry) and the active avoidance of witnessing by the consumers disturbed Leo Tolstoy
who wrote in 1892: We cannot pretend that we dont know and cannot believe that if we

refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist. This is especially the case when
what we do not wish to see is what we wish to eat. Likely aware of the power of human
denial, Tolstoy nevertheless found comfort in the realisation that, at the time, meat-free diets
and more compassionate lifestyles were spreading, publications on the issue growing more
numerous by the year, and that even hotels and restaurants based on the philosophy of nonviolence were opening in various countries, a sure sign of the moral progress of humanity
which, as Tolstoy saw it, is the foundation of every other kind of progress (46). Meanwhile,
in England, which Tolstoy mentions as an example of such progress, a plant-based diet was
indeed on the rise, but so was the pressure to remove slaughter from public view. Deeming
slaughter a morally dangerous activity, social reformers argued for concentrated operations
outside the city limits, which would supposedly enable easier monitoring both in terms of
cruelty to animals and food hygiene (Fitzgerald). The public, particularly people who lived in
proximity of the butchering yards, could not agree more, as a letter in the Farmers Magazine
from 1848 by a neighbour of the (in)famous Smithfield meat market in London illustrates:
SIR, Will you interfere, with your powerful pen, to put a stop to one of the most
direful nuisances in this metropolis () the incessant barking of dogs, the bellowing
of the oxen and calves, the bleating of sheep, the grunting of swine, the roaring and
swearing of men, with torches, passing to and fro among the frightened animals, and
the continued sound of blows inflicted on the horns, heads, and bodies of the poor
animals, produce an impression on the beholders that no person can adequately
describe, and must be seen to be believed.
Over the following decades systemic efforts have been made to construct a system that
would protect the general public from the offensive sights, sounds and smells of nonhuman
animals existence and their resistance to anthropogenic violence; a system that has silenced
that little bit of voice animals had left, a system that has given rise to a rich selection of
philosophical and less philosophical excuses for presumed human rights to nonhuman
animals lives, proposed from the safe distance these structures of concealment engender; the
system in which we live now. Patty Mark has dedicated her life to deconstructing this
conceptual bubble. Because once you see, you cannot unsee, nor choose to look the other
way. [TBP]

Patty Mark (PM): Yes, after seeing firsthand what is happening and all the pain animals are
suffering, its impossible to turn away. Even when I do try to take a break its still there in

front of me, as it seldom leaves my mind. I hear their screams and witness their fear and
suffering in hundreds of places including slaughterhouses, industrialised farms, darkened
sheds, open paddocks, feedlots and inside transport trucks and ships on four continents. I
have, in fact, witnessed these operations worldwide; they are all the same: youve seen one,
youve seen them all. And Im not referring exclusively to so-called factory farming: freerange and barn-laid (when it comes to eggs) alternatives are not much different. Ive
experienced some of the worst conditions in RSPCA-approved barn-laid facilities:
overcrowded sheds, badly debeaked hens, stressed to their physical and psychological limits,
cannibalising weaker ones who have nowhere to hide. The problem isnt the type of farming
the animals find themselves in, but the fact they are even farmed at all. We consider animals
to be our slaves, our property to do with as we choose, and this superiority complex we hold
tight and persist with causes the largest transgression of rights and injustice on the planet.
People like to think free range animal products are good and humane but this isnt true.
For instance, the parent birds of all egg laying hens is an unknown industry in itself. These
hens and roosters are never free range, but locked away continually in dim windowless
sheds screaming endlessly from the constant mating and crowded conditions. And half the
chicks hatched from these appalling conditions are male and these babies are ground up alive
at one day old because they will never lay eggs. Similarly, in the dairy industry, male calves,
deemed superfluous since their bodies cannot produce milk, are equally slaughtered at a
tender age, and their mothers milk, naturally meant for them, is sold for human consumption.
And in the end, free range or otherwise, the lives of all animals exploited in these systems
end prematurely, without the comfort of a soothing hand but with violence and brutality
inside the slaughterhouse.

TBP: Your beginnings, however, were quite different. In 1980, for example, you marched
with meatworkers at a protest against live sheep export.

PM: Yes, in the early years I was an animal welfare campaigner working to improve
conditions for animals. It didnt cross my mind back then that the whole concept of animal
agriculture was wrong. So on May 12, 1980, almost 35 years ago now, I stood side by side
with meatworkers in Portland, Victoria. The meatworkers were gathered there to protest job
loss due to live export and the associated slaughter operations being transferred abroad. They
picketed and blocked the Al Quarain, the carrier ship. We were there to protest the cruelty to
animals involved in live export. When I say we, Im not referring to large crowds of people

concerned with animal cruelty. The movement (as well as awareness) was in its infancy.
Christine Townend drove down from Sydney with her two young sons (Chris and I had
recently started animal liberation groups in our respective states), I brought my son who was
almost four with me, and another sixteen-year-old girl came along. We were holding signs
with some sixty meatworkers. One of our signs read: Pain for Animals, Profit for People.
There were mounted police and scores of other police trying to break our joint blockade. A
photograph of me being roughly yanked off the front of a sheep transport truck by the police
was later featured in the Portland papers. That day over a hundred police escorted several
trucks of sheep to the docks. After twelve hours, mounted police and officers on foot
dispersed the blockade. Some police got very rough and one assaulted one of the
meatworkers; I witnessed this and was asked to attend the court hearing. One thing Ill never
forget this was early days of campaigning was a very tall and fit policeman who was
involved with many others to move us off the road: as he took me by the arm he whispered
into my ear Good on you.

TBP: Your experience with the police has since been varied. Youve met aggressive officers,
but youve also met compassionate ones who upon witnessing the conditions of the animals
on the farms rushed to your help

PM: Yes, they are just humans, some are hardened and afraid of seeing with their hearts,
others are brave and compassionate individuals, concerned with the suffering of others, like
the sergeant who helped us transport fifty-two sick and dying broiler [i.e. raised for meat]
chicks to the vet one night. Once he saw the hundreds of dead chicks we had found and lined
up and the dire conditions of those fighting for their lives there was no question of him
arresting us, only of how to get these tiny birds to a vet as soon as possible.

TBP: Chickens that youve rescued, cared for and got to know as individuals For over two
decades your work has focused on direct rescue of animals, bearing witness to their suffering
and educating the public, aiming at opening peoples eyes to the massive violence against
sentient individuals which people are (perhaps inadvertently) participating in. Following your
protest against live export in 1980, concerns for animal welfare were raised in the Australian
Parliament for the first time in the history of the live export business. Simultaneously, as
evident from an article in The Age (13 May 1980), which appeared the day after the protest,
there was pressure to keep animal welfare issues separated so as to not cloud the economic

arguments about the trade.1 Do you feel that were still in the same boat, so to speak, as far
as welfarism goes, i.e. that the tension between true animal wellbeing and the economic profit
that underpins the existence of these systems of animal exploitation can never be resolved to
the benefit of animals?

PM: True wellbeing and welfare as we know it today, are two completely different things,
as I indicated earlier. Animal welfare is about regulating animal ownership, making sure
there are safeguards in place that animals have good welfare while they are being bred,
raised and killed. There are countless animals who are enslaved, who are denied and
dominated by those who have total control over their lives. Imagine what it would be like to
be at the complete mercy of somebody else, and I mean complete: to sit in a cage or in any
enclosure with no means of escape; the violence of a foreign hand grabbing your body
without your permission, completely immobilising you. Some people may voice their
objections citing anthropomorphism and similar excuses to not see this as it is. It may be
easier to understand the extent of the violence and deprivation animals face within the
industry when you look at these same animals in a sanctuary setting after theyve been
rescued. The damage becomes much more obvious when they are at last allowed autonomy;
when they are given the freedom, for example, to not be touched by a human, when you
watch them protecting and nurturing their bodies and selves like we do our own, when you
watch them slowly heal physically and psychologically sometimes it takes years
beginning to enjoy life and friendships with other animals, including humans. When you live
with them, get to know them as individuals with their own personalities, it is hard to find
words to describe the grief, the utter devastation at the thought that billions of other equally
sentient and equally unique individuals are enslaved right now for absolutely no reason. We
can live on plants, making totally unnecessary the unbearable lightness with which this
violence is carried out and supported by the vast majority of people. To you its just a meal,
to them, its life itself, somebody said. And they cherish their lives oh yes, they do just
like we do our own.
We carried out our first hen rescue in 1993 at Alpine Poultry. The first hen I held that
night was found with many others stuck in their own faeces. She weighed only half the
normal body weight and was near death in the manure pit. She was crippled and could only
hop around using her good leg. I called her Jackie and put her on the cover of Action, a
magazine I founded and edited for over twenty years. On this cover I called Jackie The Spirit
of Australia. After some months of a very endearing life after rescue she collapsed with egg

peritonitis. I rushed her to the vet in tears, saying to them do whatever it takes to save her.
They tried but she didnt make it. I remember driving her body, wrapped in a towel, home
from the bird vet, a forty-five minute drive. My eyes were streaming tears most of the way
home. At a stop light I remember seeing a woman with her kids and her grocery shopping in
the car alongside mine. I could see a dead chicken in her grocery bag. She would have paid
perhaps $5 for her dead bird and I paid around $350 to try anything to save this dear tiny hen
now lying dead next to me. This sadness has never left me.
Any various improvements of welfare laws are not doing much good to the animals;
they are, ironically, helping the industry and supporting slaughterhouses while giving
consumers the impression that something is happening and that its okay to keep eating
animals or drinking their secretions (e.g. milk). But enslavement and oppression are never
okay. Were currently killing more animals than ever before: sixty-four billion each year
globally without including aquatic animals (one to three trillion yearly). Labels such as
certified humane, compassionate, endorsed by are Advertising 101: positive
promotion to sell the products. And there is always space to further mislead the consumer; in
2006, for example, the news broke that, daily in Australia, two hundred thousand eggs from
the battery cage system were being passed off as free range eggs, swindling the consumer for
$13 million annually.
I spent many years trying to improve the conditions in animal agriculture and lessen
animals pain. I thought it was the right thing to do. For me it all began in 1978. I put a
handwritten sign in a Milk Bar in St Kilda saying: HELP THE HENS: come to our first
meeting Dec 7, 1978. A journalist from the Herald Sun saw the sign and wrote it up as an
oddity. But that meant state-wide publicity and seventeen people turned up to my lounge
room. The goal was to ban battery cages, and I remember telling this meeting that we would
have to be patient as it may take us two years to do this! We wanted to ban the cage. Back
then there were hardly any free range eggs available it was a quota system. Our strategy
was to help get free range eggs in the marketplace. The focus generally was on moving from
factory farming to free range farming. Peter Singer and I worked closely together during most
of the eighties until it became very clear we were going in very different directions, Peter
more animal welfare and myself animal rights and the abolition of the property status of
animals. In 1981 Peter and I even flew in a tiny aircraft to King Island to visit a free range
egg farm in our efforts to promote this industry. We very mistakenly reasoned that if free
range eggs were widely available the cage system would collapse. Success!: free range eggs

are now available almost everywhere but more hens (and roosters) are being abused than
ever.
We were overjoyed when in the early 1980s the Australian government set up a Senate
Select Inquiry into animal welfare, covering all major areas of animal use and abuse. Animal
groups, including myself, spent a lot of time, energy, resources and finances doing extensive
research and writing submissions, trying to improve animal farming. Some positive
recommendations by senators were made, but thats all they were recommendations. And it
remains so to date. Australian animals are protected from abuse by the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals Act (POCTAA), but animals covered by a Code of Accepted Farming Practices
(the codes themselves being only recommended, not statutory) are exempt from the
POCTAA. If this law against cruelty covered and was truly applied to all animals, we
wouldnt have animal farms or slaughterhouses. Imagine if some races or groups of humans
were exempt from protection in human rights law just imagine...
Besides, I think its perverted to give an animal a supposedly good life, which implies
that animals have needs and desires, and then take it all away, stab them, bleed them to death
and eat their bodies, or let them live a little bit longer to exploit them for their secretions and
then kill them, too. The worst suffering and torment Ive ever witnessed was in a New South
Wales slaughterhouse when a group of free-range pigs were brought in for slaughter. Coming
from their good life on the paddocks, to the noisy, crowded kill lines where they could hear
other pigs screaming, smell the blood; they panicked, anguished and in fear, their mouths
foamed, their eyes rolled. No words can describe it.
We must be honest and brave enough to recognise that we contribute to this suffering
directly, by supporting these practices through the choices we make. And we must always
imagine the human condition rising above violence, and work towards this goal; animal
farming is violence, and it is not only unnecessary violence towards the animals themselves,
animal agriculture is by far the most destructive industry for our environment, our planet, and
ultimately for our own and our childrens quality of life generally.

TBP: Indeed, yet despite the hard figures staring us in the face, most people, including
organisations that advertise themselves as environmental protectionists, tend to ignore the
impact of animal agriculture, though the tide seems to be changing, and the body of literature
and documentaries exposing this inconvenient truth is growing. Speaking of growing, and
opening, you started openrescue in 1993. What is openrescue?

PM: Openrescue is an act of non-violent civil disobedience. It involves breaking the unjust
law, which protects the abusers not the victims, in order to aid and rescue innocent
individuals who are enslaved and unable to help themselves, and to document their
conditions. Openrescue is about opening a gate, a door, a cage, ones heart, mindset,
identity. People who do openrescue have a passion for justice and non-violence, and this
passion must override fear the fear of breaking unjust laws, and the possible consequences
of this action, to save defenceless individuals, trapped in the system of exploitation and
abuse. When we do openrescue we put our own physical freedom at risk, but there is an
unparalleled sense of freedom when you help someone who is imprisoned, tormented, sick,
dying. In fact, to the industry, a lot of the time we are just doing the dirty work of removing
animals who would soon have died if left unattended, animals who comprise the industrys
accepted mortality rate. When we enter the dark and cruel underworld of animal agriculture,
we immediately reach out for the most vulnerable individuals, the injured and sick ones, like
Jackie, mentioned before. At another place, for example, we found hens impaled on broken
rusty wires inside battery cages, hens buried up to their necks in their own piles of excrement
under the cages some fall out and then cant escape the wet manure, rats running
everywhere. We always take appropriate bio-security measures, and of course we document
everything.
In 2002 we did a road-trip to West Wyalong in NSW as part of our investigation of Pace
Farm facilities in three states. We were trying to prevent Pace Farm from constructing the
largest hen factory in the Southern Hemisphere. Pulling the hens out of their own shit in
Griffith, washing them in a motel room, I promised myself that this horrible place would
NOT be built over my dead body as we had so much evidence back then about how bad
the Pace Farm company was. We were the only Australian animal group to take this battle on.
It went to the Environmental Court in NSW and we thought we had a chance until the court
ruled early that we had to post $200,000 first up, in case we lost, to cover any cost to the
other side. Of course we didnt have any money to speak of and werent able to collect that
large amount.

TBP: And that factory farm is now up and running, even advertising itself as environmentally
friendly. But you managed to close down a puppy farm puppy mill in 2005.

PM:

Yes, we shut down Ron Wells puppy factory outside Ballarat in Victoria where we

found hundreds of dogs in miserable condition. Like any other industry which promotes

animals as property and commodities, the pet industry, particularly pet factory farming,
which is where most dogs and cats sold in pet shops come from, is a horribly cruel industry.
Cruel to the animals continually kept confined and pregnant, pumping out cute puppies or
kittens, as well as to all the healthy, rehomeable animals who end up killed at the pound
because too many people are choosing to buy purpose bred animals from pet shops instead of
adopting those who are already here and in desperate need of a loving home and a much
deserved second chance in life.
Not everyone can or would choose to do openrescue. But everyone can help end the
universal violence against animals and abolish the property status of nonhuman animals. Like
humans, other animals also need and want to be free. I see openrescue as trailblazing work,
much like the Underground Railroad that helped some 100,000 human slaves (also
considered property at the time) reach freedom. Or consider The Diary of Anne Frank
which had an enormous influence on me in my formative years, where you read of people
risking their own lives and freedom to help others attain theirs. When you witness the horrors
of animal slavery close up, to help end it is not even a choice anymore, its an inner
imperative. We as a society, responsible for and actively supporting this torture, cannot keep
our heads buried in the sand; we have to recognise that animal agriculture is intrinsically
violent and unjust. We may not be able to end it overnight, just like we may never be able to
completely stop rape, murder, child abuse and similar horrors within the human society, yet
of course we as a society oppose these injustices and punish the abusers; the same rationale
and logic of the heart must apply when it comes to the suffering of nonhuman animal victims.
I can still remember the shock I felt upon entering Victorias largest egg production
facility in 1994, the second year of openrescue activities. When I opened the door into the
first shed, everything I saw was flowing with cobwebs, I could barely make out the cages, I
was paralysed with disbelief. Then there is always the heart-breaking reality of choosing who
to save and having to leave most behind. That is a huge toll on ones psyche; there simply are
too many of them and too few of us, so we take the ones in most need of help. And then
crawl out for another scary trip across the paddocks, hitting the ground when cars drive by,
clutching hens close while running.
More recently we organised a rooftop protest at Somerville Egg Farm.2 We stood on the
roof defiant and determined; there were over twenty of us identified in our openrescue
uniforms. We were each dressed in a white bio suit and a black tee shirt emblazoned with
bold white letters saying: ANIMAL RESCUE. It was May 4, 2011, and Melbourne weather
played its part that day (starting at 4am) from freezing cold to warm sunshine to pelting down

rain while we huddled under umbrellas or plastic sheets. This wasnt a stunt or knee jerk
reaction to get ourselves on TV. Yes, we did want media attention, but only so the public
could see and hear the tens of thousands of screaming caged hens locked in the shed under
our feet. And mainly to force the legal authorities to investigate for themselves and to shut
the place down. I had first investigated this animal factory back in 2000 and lodged a
documented cruelty complaint to the Department of Agriculture, however no action was
taken. Over ten years later Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV: www.alv.org.au) received
further complaints from the public about cruelty at this egg factory, so our openrescue team
once again investigated, several times, in February and March 2011, and found the conditions
were just as bad as they had been over ten years earlier.
ALV has made over a hundred complaints to the legal authorities over the past twenty
years and no action is ever taken at any of the farms, hence our decision to take it to the
rooftops. We succeeded in getting our shocking footage of the suffering hens on TV that
night...

TBP: But several protesters, including you, were arrested and charged with trespass. This
was not the first time youve had to face legal repercussions, youve even ended up in prison
a couple of times.

PM: Yes. In this case we were charged, and of course appealed our trespass convictions and
fines in the County Court. The result was not good, nor did I believe it reasonable or
just. Due to my numerous prior convictions for helping animals, I was given the harshest
sentence. The Judge ordered that I be of good behaviour for four years and pay a $1,500
fine. He added that if I re-offended during this period or didnt pay the fine in six months I
would have to reappear before him. As we speak, my six months are up. I have no intention
of paying a fine for what I believe is crucial work to bring help and relief to the sick and
dying. Animal agriculture is a virulent system that is clogging up every single artery of the
planets biosphere. We must not hesitate to help a hen, cow, or pig who is suffering and
enslaved, any more than we would hesitate helping a human in the same circumstance.
There was a thread of hope after a 1993 Court win in Hobart over Golden Egg Farm,
after Magistrate Wrights landmark (or so we thought) decision. In his summing up he stated
that the cruelty is constant, continual and without relief. Yet twenty years later nothing has
changed. Pam Clarke, from Tasmania, and I have done numerous street actions and several

openrescues together over the years as well as putting this case together. We have both been
arrested several times and spent many hours in lock-up. One time, as we both sat in
adjoining cells, but unable to see each other, she gave me words of wisdom Ill never
forget. Pam is a very accomplished artist/painter. She told me never to despair, always keep
stepping back and looking at the big picture: it may not look good close up but every brush
stroke every action adds to the overall effect.
I ended up in prison twice for actions at Happy Hens Egg World here in Victoria. The
first time was with two others and we had three days at the old womans prison in Fairleigh,
circa 1997 from memory. The next time was in May 1998 and I was on my own when I
refused to sign a bail document not to return to Happy Hens. This was after some twenty-five
rescues with documented proof of suffering and cruelty, yet the RSPCA or Police failed to
act. I was locked up for ten days, five of which I spent at Geelong watchhouse and the other
five inside Deer Park Womens Prison. When they fed me chicken at the watchhouse I went
on a hunger strike which lasted eight days. My case was later heard in court; Galbally
OBryan defended me and we won, I was awarded costs and after this I had little police
problems, or rather even though I have multiple convictions, fines and arrests and Ive always
refused to pay fines on ethical grounds (for taking sick and dying animals to a vet for help),
the police basically ignore me. There have been multiple warrants out for my imprisonment
for years but they are ignored.

TBP: You may be familiar with Loren Eiseleys The Star Thrower, in which Eiseley
describes walking on a beach and encountering a man who, unlike other beach goers, is not a
collector of shells or fish, instead, hes looking for stranded starfish and throwing them back
into the ocean. Puzzled and dismissive initially of the seemingly futile activity of the star
thrower because death is running more fleet than he, and along every seabeach in the world,
Eiseley concludes:
Silently, I sought and picked up a still-living star, spinning it far out into the
wave. I spoke once briefly. I understand, I said, call me another thrower.
Only then I allowed myself to think. He is not alone any longer. After us there
will be others. We were part of the rainbow like the drawing of a circle in
mens minds, the circle of perfection.
Star Throwers like yourself and many other compassionate and courageous people who
refuse to turn a blind eye to the immense suffering of nonhuman animals, also represent a

threat to the financial powers, and as such theres increasing pressure from the industry and
its lobbyists on governments (including in Australia) to implement so called ag-gag laws.
These laws, in essence, would criminalise any act of documenting and spreading evidence of
corporate animal abuse among the public, effectively and purposely ensuring that the general
public (the consumer) is kept forever in the dark. In the United States, for example, peaceful
activities aiming at protecting the environment and animal wellbeing are considered the
number one domestic terrorism threat and labelled as eco-terrorism.3 Would you agree that
this is a result of people generally waking up to both the suffering we completely
unnecessarily inflict upon our animal kin and to the fast rate at which were currently
destroying our (only) planet, leaving complete devastation for the generations to come with
animal agriculture being the biggest offender, contributing to such destruction more than all
the worlds traffic combined? A kind of desperate attempt by the money and power driven
lobbies to keep business going as usual to the detriment of everyones wellbeing and
ultimately freedom?

PM: The integrity, empathy and dedication to justice that people Ive worked with over the
years possess are traits that should be fostered not criminalised. Animal activists have their
foot in the door now and the animal industries know it, so they are coming down heavy on
those of us doing openrescue or undercover work. So yes, I believe the current endeavours to
introduce ag-gag legislation are definitely a desperate move by governments and big business
to put huge and heavy boulders before the closed doors of animal agriculture. If this type of
legislation is passed it may put some people off, but only temporarily, as so much else is
happening simultaneously that is forcing humans to take note, including the unfathomable
force of Mother Nature, who is on our side.
An equally dangerous threat by Industry is their current public relation campaigns to
normalise the large scale mass production of animals as products in the publics mind.
Some of these monster animal facilities are opening their doors themselves keeping it all
under their own control showing the best practice standard care. Some with hundreds of
mother cows with bulging udders (but no babies) standing on circular rotating milking
machines; some with endless walls of cages several tiers high filled with laying hens; others
with pigs in so-called eco-shelters (filmed only after they make sure its filled with fresh hay
instead of a quagmire of faeces and urine from 200 pigs), adding a friendly and pleasing
voice-over stating how well the animals are looked after and protected from the elements and
predators and so on... It can work, considering its aimed at a harried and voluminous

population bulging at the seams and mostly crowded into cities with scant memory of and no
interaction with the majority of nonhuman animals.
My dream is that the animal welfare movement takes the leap of faith so urgently needed
to root out the main cause of animal abuse and suffering speciesism. That animal activists
stand strong for what the animals really need their freedom and autonomy, not regulations
to make their slavery slightly more bearable. That animal activists speak honestly, openly and
positively, that veganism is the moral baseline for animal justice. I ache that it took me so
many years to realise these basic tenets. My biggest dream is that now, with all the resources
of modern day communication, it shouldnt take anyone years to grasp these strong tools
these truths and that soon, all of us pulling together, the tipping point will be here and
animals will have their lives back!

NOTES

The live sheep row goes on, The Age, Tuesday 13 May 1980. Available at:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19800513&id=DfdUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AJM
DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4161,6058891

Activists storm Somerville Egg Farm to protest treatment of chickens, News.com.au, 4 May
2011. Available at:
http://www.news.com.au/activists-storm-somerville-egg-farm-to-protesttreatment-of-chickens/story-fn8g495p-1226049754230

www.greenisthenewred.com
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Eiseley, L. The Unexpected Universe. San Diego: Harcourt, 1969.

Fitzgerald, A.J. A Social History of the Slaughterhouse: From Inception to Contemporary
Implication. Human Ecology Review 17.1(2010): 58-69.
Pachirat, T. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. New Haven:
Yale UP, 2011.
Tolstoy, L. (1892). Introduction : The First Step [1892]. Preface to the Russian translation of H.
Williams. The Ethics of Diet [1883]. Guildford: White Crow Books, 2002: 46.
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