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SPEAKING FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

A Conversation With Animal Rights Activist Wayne Hsiung

Wayne Hsuing is a lawyer and a founding organizer of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an animal rights network based in Berkley, California. Wayne studied behavioral science at the University of Chicago and M.I.T. As well, he was a corporate lawyer for one of the largest law firms in the world. He’s organized for social justice campaigns since 1999, and now puts his knowledge and experience behind DxE, exposing factory farm and slaughterhouse cruelty.

DxE activists document what really happens inside factory farms and slaughterhouses. Activists remove animals in need of veterinary care, then share their stories. Rescues are “open,” meaning the rescuers actions and faces are publicized. Defying law at times, they are on a mission to stop violence against animals.

DxE has rescued animals from Saba Live Poultry, a slaughterhouse with several locations, Pitman Family Farms (selling to Whole Foods and Mary’s Kitchen), Smithfield Circle Farms (a Costco supplier), and many others. A complete list is available by clicking here.

DxE is mobilizing animal rights activism around the globe, and its goal is to close all slaughterhouses.

What led you to getting involved with animal activism and to co-founding Direct Action Everywhere? Is there a particular event or experience that influenced you to change your life path and end up here? How did your background in law help your work with DxE?

I had an experience as a kid, going back to mainland China for the first time, where I saw live animals being sold outside of a restaurant. We saw a monkey with a collar around his neck. Even my dad, who had been vivisecting animals for nearly 20 years by that point, was horrified. There were all sorts of other animals there, too, but the thing that just broke me was the fact that they had dogs. I don’t actually even remember if we saw the dogs being killed, or even if we stayed at the restaurant. But it left a deep mark in me because my best friend back home, in the United States, was a dog. She was like my little sister. And I just could not believe that someone would kill and eat my little sister.

“I don’t actually even remember if we saw the dogs being killed, or even if we stayed at the restaurant. But it left a deep mark in me because my best friend back home, in the United States, was a dog. She was like my little sister. And I just could not believe that someone would kill and eat my little sister.”

I remember shrieking and telling my parents we had to stop them from hurting the dogs. But they told me that there was nothing that could be done. “This is what they are taught here,” they said. “And it’s the same back at home. You love to eat pork, right? That comes from an animal, too.”

And it was true. My favorite dish was a Chinese meat ball, made from pork, with sticky rice covering it. But I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that as a child. “No, it’s not the same!” I yelled.

But there was nothing I could do. So those dogs were killed and eaten, like millions of others in China every year. I made a promise then that I would never let something like that happen again. That set me down the long path to becoming an animal rights activist.

Fast forward 15 years, and I’m going to law school mostly to practice animal law. But even then, I’m not quite sure I’m ready to talk about animal rights. I didn’t want to be seen as extreme. So I did what everyone else did at the time: I tried to start working on animal welfare. I was at the first conference that launched the Global Animal Partnership animal welfare program (at the time, it was called the Animal Compassion Foundation).

I quickly realized, though, that there were major limitations to this approach. Animal welfare was virtually impossible to enforce under a regime where animals are treated as legal things. Gary Francione, Steven Wise, and many others pointed this out. But the biggest factor, for me, was entering a slaughterhouse for the first time and seeing animals being brutalized, here at home, for the first time. It became clear to me that humane slaughter was simply a lie.

Who are some of your mentors or heroes from animal liberation’s past? Or present?

Anyone who is taking action for animals is a hero to me. There are so few of us, and the problem is so large. But if I had to offer up a name, Patty Mark [founder of Animal Liberation Victoria] has inspired me for decades. She started the open rescue movement, and to this day, many decades later, continues to charge into factory farms to get the animals out.

You say often that “repression can be transformed into liberation.” Please explain to our readers what you mean by this and how it moves your activism?

There’s a martial art called aikido, which focuses on defeating your adversaries by redirecting their aggression into nonviolence. Effective social movements do the same. Nate Silver did a powerful analysis of Occupy showing that repression was crucial to seizing attention for that movement. When police pepper-sprayed three innocent women, then days later arrested thousands on the Brooklyn Bridge, it mobilized the masses to pay attention to what had historically been a fringe issue.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s goal, in Birmingham and prior civil disobedience campaigns, was to pack the jails with as many people as possible—until the authorities could no longer handle their protest. One year later, civil rights activists had not just won the Birmingham campaign; they had passed a federal Civil Rights Act.

Social movement scholars and leaders have, for decades, understood how to harness this dynamic. I call it the power of sacrifice. And the mechanism is quite simple: to show the world you’re serious, and to garner sympathy, you have to take the industry’s most hateful and violent punch, and get right back up again to nonviolently fight another day. That’s what we teach people to do at DxE: bear (smart) risks, take the hit, and use the attention from repression to inspire even more support for the movement.

What do you have to say about animal rights activists being called “extremists” or “terrorists” in the media when the movement is, as you say, about compassion and love? Are you aware that animal rights movement got the title “terrorists” some 30 years ago? Why do you think we haven’t been able to shake that label?

People are afraid of change. They decried Gandhi as a terrorist. They attacked King as an extremist. But what is one to do in a world where billions of innocents are being brutalized? That—and not animal rights activism—is the true terrorism. And what King said in 1963 from a Birmingham Jail still applies today: Will we be extremists for hate or for love?

But the fact is: labels like this do hurt us. The industry uses these terms precisely because it knows they are effective. If activists are terrorists, we lose the high ground. We can’t mobilize as many people, and government crackdowns are justified. So we need to challenge that narrative, while still taking forceful action against the system.

This is the power of open rescue. It’s one of the purest statements of our compassion. We’re simply helping an animal in need. But it’s a dramatic physical, legal, and moral challenge to an evil system. By standing by our action, moreover, we dispel the industry’s attempts to caricature us. We’re just ordinary people, who are doing what our mothers taught us to do: to help a sick animal if we can.
Taking more strategic action like this is vital to shaking the label and inspiring a new narrative of confrontational (but nonviolent) animal rights activism.

How do you decide where you will do observations, undercover investigating, or rescuing? Are you most interested in companies advertising they hold higher standards of practice in animal welfare?

Every decision we make is focused on maximizing our strategic impact. And the reality is that, after years of investigations of factory farms, the public and media are no longer interested. One of the things we’ve learned from political scientists who study social change is that “doing the same thing over and over doesn’t work.” So we target the farms that no one else can or will: farms that claim they’re humane.

This serves two functions. First, because it’s surprising and novel, we get incredible media. Over the past few years, we’ve gotten more media hits in top publications than any other animal rights organization, and it’s because the stories we have to tell are shocking. The best and most humane turkey farm in the nation … turns out to be a fake “show” farm that covers up for a traditional factory farm. The pork producer that says it’s gone crate-free … turns out to have not changed any of its practices at its largest facilities across the nation. A famous free-range chicken farm … never lets any of its birds outside. These are stories too irresistible for the media to pass up.

The second function is mobilization. People, even non-vegans, are angered and motivated by deception in a way that can’t be achieved by showing someone “another factory farm exposé.” They’ve already seen it. They don’t like it. And they’ve moved on to humane meat. Showing people that they’ve been deceived pisses them off. No one likes being lied to. And anger is a powerful mobilizing force for social movements. Indeed, Bert Klandermans argues that it’s the quintessential emotion for a social movement. If the people aren’t angry, they won’t fight for change.

Have you ever gotten a tip-off about conditions from someone inside a company or farm facility or have you found that all the secrets stay inside the walls?

Yes, we have. But we keep these communications, for obvious reasons, highly confidential.

When you rescue animals, is it premeditated that you are going to bring someone out, or is it impulsive, reactionary to the conditions you find, that you need to save at least one?

We never rescue animals who we can’t place into a sanctuary. But the rescues are not premeditated. We know what spaces we have available, but we won’t know if we can take any animals out until we get on site. The reality is that, at every modern farm, we will end up seeing dozens, perhaps thousands, of animals on the brink of death. So rescue candidates are elsewhere; the tricky thing is knowing which animals are too far gone that rescue just isn’t possible.

“We never rescue animals who we can’t place into a sanctuary. But the rescues are not premeditated. We know what spaces we
have available, but we won’t know if we can take any animals out until we get on site. The reality is that, at every modern farm, we will end up seeing dozens, perhaps thousands, of animals on the brink of death.”

How do you cope with having to leave the rest behind? Do you have a particular way, individually, or does DxE have a way as a group, of dealing with the emotional effects of what you see and experience?

We debrief after every action, offering support to the team. But by far the most important coping mechanisms is spending time with the animals we rescue. I wake up every morning, and look at little Oliver in the eye, and that’s all I need to keep fighting another day.

After your experiences in Yulin, what do you think is a viable solution to the dog meat trade? Since we can’t rescue 2 million dogs, for example, what can be done?

International pressure is playing a key role. But by far the most important factor is the domestic movement growing to end the dog meat trade. I think we *can* rescue millions of dogs. It’s simply a matter of political will. And I think the end of the trade is coming far sooner than most people think.

Speak a little about the FBI investigation following the Smithfield rescue and how it shows the ties between big business and government? Do you think now that there was an FBI warrant once, there will be another when you rescue again, if for no other reason than to scare other activists?

There is no question that the FBI investigation is politically motivated. [Also see: The FBI’s Hunt for Two Missing Piglets Reveals the Federal Cover-Up of Barbaric Factory Farms.] The FBI is not a pig-catching agency, and the only reason for them to chase after two baby pigs is to return a favor to a powerful corporation. Oftentimes, this sort of corruption isn’t explicit. There’s no quid pro quo. But the thousands that Smithfield donates to politicians gives them a seat at the table, a seat that animal rights activists (especially in the grassroots) don’t have.

Here’s the key thing, though. Even politicians who are getting millions from Big Ag are afraid of bad media or a popular uprising. It doesn’t do them any good if they give favors to big corporations if they’re voted out of office. And because open rescues are so popular with the public—they fit so well with most people’s everyday values—they create a dilemma for the industry. Go after us, and be seen as corporate villains. Ignore us, and watch as we take every last animal out.

It’s a good dilemma for us to create for them, and as long as we’re not scared into silence and inaction, that strategy will work.

After you rescued the hens in Chinatown, you were arrested. In Yulin, you were beaten and arrested. This has not stopped you. Is there anything that would?

The only thing that might stop me is the achievement of our vision: a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every sentient being the right to be free from violence. But even then, I’m sure there would be so much work to do. As activists, we should wear our arrests like badges of honor.

“The only thing that might stop me is the achievement of our vision: a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every sentient being the right to be free from violence. But even then, I’m sure there would be so much work to do. As activists, we should wear our arrests like badges of honor.”

People have been trained by clever advertising to look to the USDA for advice on what to eat. Is there a way to make the public understand that the USDA has a mission to protect agriculture and not animals, the consumer, or nutritional education?

Glenn Greenwald [The Intercept] did a wonderful job of this in his recent report. Just following the money really shows the insidious ties. But the most effective way to see this is that, under the USDA, the Humane Slaughter Act defines “animal” as excluding birds and rabbits. They have to go through these sorts of grammatical hijinks to protest the industry.

Some recent mainstream media articles have come out more fairly representing DxE’s mission and exposing truthfully what DxE has documented. Is there more hope now of nationally acclaimed sources, like the Washington Post, giving groups like DxE fair press while coming down harder on agribusiness?

We’ve already done an amazing job at getting top media sources—New York Times, Washington Post, etc.—to cover us in a positive way. I expect that trend to continue. The media, though, ultimately responds to its customers: the viewers and readers. So the key to getting good press is to show the media that we have stories their readers want to hear.

New technology such as virtual reality and drones gives activists new weapons with which to educate the public about the lies big agriculture tells. The internet spreads video instantaneously and efficiently. We have indisputable proof of what is happening long before there is time to suppress it. Is this the beginning of the end of cover ups and ag-gag suppression?

They are running out of places to hide, but when your practices are inherently vile, you have to keep trying. So I don’t think the cover-ups and ag-gag laws will end. Just look at Whole Foods. We outed them for lying about free range turkey, and their response was just to double down on fraud. It’s a sign of the times: if someone catches you in a lie, just lie again. But eventually, the media will catch on, drop the false neutrality, and finally report the truth.

I have heard you say that when people are open-minded and smart, we win them over. Can you please elaborate?

In my experience, virtually every intelligent person will, when forced to think about the issue, support the animal rights movement. This includes people on the right and on the left. The few exceptions in my life have been people who are so ideologically closed off that they can’t even contemplate a world where animals are treated with decency. But even with these folks, it’s hard to justify a world where we love dogs and eat pigs. There’s too much inherent tension there. So while some people will run from the issue—psychologists call this “empathic distress”—very few people who are open to it, and able to engage in basic logical reasoning, will disagree if they actually engage.

One the Direct Action Everywhere website, you have many materials available for use by activists. Can they be used freely by any group that follows DxE principles? Has DxE always had this policy of materials sharing? And if not, what made you decide to make your materials available?

DxE has always been a platform, not an organization. So yes, we believe in sharing all of our materials openly. It’s the best way to help our movement grow!

In a world seeming to grow more violent, more apathetic, given the atmosphere of today’s politics, negative news, and dire warnings for climate, extinction, etc., how do you remain so positive?

I’m positive because I see the writing on the wall: poll data moving in our favor, institutional victories happening every day, and a grassroots movement growing across the world. Take, for example, the Gallup poll. They’ve done two recent polls that are very promising: one showing that ⅓ of Americans believe that animals should have the same rights as human beings and another showing that nearly ½ Americans believe that animal testing is wrong. If you just extrapolate trends in that polling data over the next 40 years, we’ll have well over a majority of Americans supporting animal rights in one generation. I’m optimistic, in short, but my optimism is entirely driven by data.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers about Direct Action Everywhere and the work you do that I may have missed here?

Our mission is to make every one of you the best activists you can be, by creating a support and knowledge infrastructure for animal advocates. But it all starts with finding the power in yourself to speak up. So I’ll leave your readers with the 10 words I left the National Animal Rights Conference with a couple years ago:

Find your voice. Find some friends. And fight like hell.

[Amen.]

Learn more at Direct Action Everywhere.

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A Conversation With Animal Rights Activist Wayne Hsiung

Wayne Hsuing is a lawyer and a founding organizer of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an animal rights network based in Berkley, California. Wayne studied behavioral science at the University of Chicago and M.I.T. As well, he was a corporate lawyer for one of the largest law firms in the world. He’s organized for social justice campaigns since 1999, and now puts his knowledge and experience behind DxE, exposing factory farm and slaughterhouse cruelty.

DxE activists document what really happens inside factory farms and slaughterhouses. Activists remove animals in need of veterinary care, then share their stories. Rescues are “open,” meaning the rescuers actions and faces are publicized. Defying law at times, they are on a mission to stop violence against animals.

DxE has rescued animals from Saba Live Poultry, a slaughterhouse with several locations, Pitman Family Farms (selling to Whole Foods and Mary’s Kitchen), Smithfield Circle Farms (a Costco supplier), and many others. A complete list is available by clicking here.

DxE is mobilizing animal rights activism around the globe, and its goal is to close all slaughterhouses.

What led you to getting involved with animal activism and to co-founding Direct Action Everywhere? Is there a particular event or experience that influenced you to change your life path and end up here? How did your background in law help your work with DxE?

I had an experience as a kid, going back to mainland China for the first time, where I saw live animals being sold outside of a restaurant. We saw a monkey with a collar around his neck. Even my dad, who had been vivisecting animals for nearly 20 years by that point, was horrified. There were all sorts of other animals there, too, but the thing that just broke me was the fact that they had dogs. I don’t actually even remember if we saw the dogs being killed, or even if we stayed at the restaurant. But it left a deep mark in me because my best friend back home, in the United States, was a dog. She was like my little sister. And I just could not believe that someone would kill and eat my little sister.

“I don’t actually even remember if we saw the dogs being killed, or even if we stayed at the restaurant. But it left a deep mark in me because my best friend back home, in the United States, was a dog. She was like my little sister. And I just could not believe that someone would kill and eat my little sister.”

I remember shrieking and telling my parents we had to stop them from hurting the dogs. But they told me that there was nothing that could be done. “This is what they are taught here,” they said. “And it’s the same back at home. You love to eat pork, right? That comes from an animal, too.”

And it was true. My favorite dish was a Chinese meat ball, made from pork, with sticky rice covering it. But I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that as a child. “No, it’s not the same!” I yelled.

But there was nothing I could do. So those dogs were killed and eaten, like millions of others in China every year. I made a promise then that I would never let something like that happen again. That set me down the long path to becoming an animal rights activist.

Fast forward 15 years, and I’m going to law school mostly to practice animal law. But even then, I’m not quite sure I’m ready to talk about animal rights. I didn’t want to be seen as extreme. So I did what everyone else did at the time: I tried to start working on animal welfare. I was at the first conference that launched the Global Animal Partnership animal welfare program (at the time, it was called the Animal Compassion Foundation).

I quickly realized, though, that there were major limitations to this approach. Animal welfare was virtually impossible to enforce under a regime where animals are treated as legal things. Gary Francione, Steven Wise, and many others pointed this out. But the biggest factor, for me, was entering a slaughterhouse for the first time and seeing animals being brutalized, here at home, for the first time. It became clear to me that humane slaughter was simply a lie.

Who are some of your mentors or heroes from animal liberation’s past? Or present?

Anyone who is taking action for animals is a hero to me. There are so few of us, and the problem is so large. But if I had to offer up a name, Patty Mark [founder of Animal Liberation Victoria] has inspired me for decades. She started the open rescue movement, and to this day, many decades later, continues to charge into factory farms to get the animals out.

You say often that “repression can be transformed into liberation.” Please explain to our readers what you mean by this and how it moves your activism?

There’s a martial art called aikido, which focuses on defeating your adversaries by redirecting their aggression into nonviolence. Effective social movements do the same. Nate Silver did a powerful analysis of Occupy showing that repression was crucial to seizing attention for that movement. When police pepper-sprayed three innocent women, then days later arrested thousands on the Brooklyn Bridge, it mobilized the masses to pay attention to what had historically been a fringe issue.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s goal, in Birmingham and prior civil disobedience campaigns, was to pack the jails with as many people as possible—until the authorities could no longer handle their protest. One year later, civil rights activists had not just won the Birmingham campaign; they had passed a federal Civil Rights Act.

Social movement scholars and leaders have, for decades, understood how to harness this dynamic. I call it the power of sacrifice. And the mechanism is quite simple: to show the world you’re serious, and to garner sympathy, you have to take the industry’s most hateful and violent punch, and get right back up again to nonviolently fight another day. That’s what we teach people to do at DxE: bear (smart) risks, take the hit, and use the attention from repression to inspire even more support for the movement.

What do you have to say about animal rights activists being called “extremists” or “terrorists” in the media when the movement is, as you say, about compassion and love? Are you aware that animal rights movement got the title “terrorists” some 30 years ago? Why do you think we haven’t been able to shake that label?

People are afraid of change. They decried Gandhi as a terrorist. They attacked King as an extremist. But what is one to do in a world where billions of innocents are being brutalized? That—and not animal rights activism—is the true terrorism. And what King said in 1963 from a Birmingham Jail still applies today: Will we be extremists for hate or for love?

But the fact is: labels like this do hurt us. The industry uses these terms precisely because it knows they are effective. If activists are terrorists, we lose the high ground. We can’t mobilize as many people, and government crackdowns are justified. So we need to challenge that narrative, while still taking forceful action against the system.

This is the power of open rescue. It’s one of the purest statements of our compassion. We’re simply helping an animal in need. But it’s a dramatic physical, legal, and moral challenge to an evil system. By standing by our action, moreover, we dispel the industry’s attempts to caricature us. We’re just ordinary people, who are doing what our mothers taught us to do: to help a sick animal if we can.
Taking more strategic action like this is vital to shaking the label and inspiring a new narrative of confrontational (but nonviolent) animal rights activism.

How do you decide where you will do observations, undercover investigating, or rescuing? Are you most interested in companies advertising they hold higher standards of practice in animal welfare?

Every decision we make is focused on maximizing our strategic impact. And the reality is that, after years of investigations of factory farms, the public and media are no longer interested. One of the things we’ve learned from political scientists who study social change is that “doing the same thing over and over doesn’t work.” So we target the farms that no one else can or will: farms that claim they’re humane.

This serves two functions. First, because it’s surprising and novel, we get incredible media. Over the past few years, we’ve gotten more media hits in top publications than any other animal rights organization, and it’s because the stories we have to tell are shocking. The best and most humane turkey farm in the nation … turns out to be a fake “show” farm that covers up for a traditional factory farm. The pork producer that says it’s gone crate-free … turns out to have not changed any of its practices at its largest facilities across the nation. A famous free-range chicken farm … never lets any of its birds outside. These are stories too irresistible for the media to pass up.

The second function is mobilization. People, even non-vegans, are angered and motivated by deception in a way that can’t be achieved by showing someone “another factory farm exposé.” They’ve already seen it. They don’t like it. And they’ve moved on to humane meat. Showing people that they’ve been deceived pisses them off. No one likes being lied to. And anger is a powerful mobilizing force for social movements. Indeed, Bert Klandermans argues that it’s the quintessential emotion for a social movement. If the people aren’t angry, they won’t fight for change.

Have you ever gotten a tip-off about conditions from someone inside a company or farm facility or have you found that all the secrets stay inside the walls?

Yes, we have. But we keep these communications, for obvious reasons, highly confidential.

When you rescue animals, is it premeditated that you are going to bring someone out, or is it impulsive, reactionary to the conditions you find, that you need to save at least one?

We never rescue animals who we can’t place into a sanctuary. But the rescues are not premeditated. We know what spaces we have available, but we won’t know if we can take any animals out until we get on site. The reality is that, at every modern farm, we will end up seeing dozens, perhaps thousands, of animals on the brink of death. So rescue candidates are elsewhere; the tricky thing is knowing which animals are too far gone that rescue just isn’t possible.

“We never rescue animals who we can’t place into a sanctuary. But the rescues are not premeditated. We know what spaces we
have available, but we won’t know if we can take any animals out until we get on site. The reality is that, at every modern farm, we will end up seeing dozens, perhaps thousands, of animals on the brink of death.”

How do you cope with having to leave the rest behind? Do you have a particular way, individually, or does DxE have a way as a group, of dealing with the emotional effects of what you see and experience?

We debrief after every action, offering support to the team. But by far the most important coping mechanisms is spending time with the animals we rescue. I wake up every morning, and look at little Oliver in the eye, and that’s all I need to keep fighting another day.

After your experiences in Yulin, what do you think is a viable solution to the dog meat trade? Since we can’t rescue 2 million dogs, for example, what can be done?

International pressure is playing a key role. But by far the most important factor is the domestic movement growing to end the dog meat trade. I think we *can* rescue millions of dogs. It’s simply a matter of political will. And I think the end of the trade is coming far sooner than most people think.

Speak a little about the FBI investigation following the Smithfield rescue and how it shows the ties between big business and government? Do you think now that there was an FBI warrant once, there will be another when you rescue again, if for no other reason than to scare other activists?

There is no question that the FBI investigation is politically motivated. [Also see: The FBI’s Hunt for Two Missing Piglets Reveals the Federal Cover-Up of Barbaric Factory Farms.] The FBI is not a pig-catching agency, and the only reason for them to chase after two baby pigs is to return a favor to a powerful corporation. Oftentimes, this sort of corruption isn’t explicit. There’s no quid pro quo. But the thousands that Smithfield donates to politicians gives them a seat at the table, a seat that animal rights activists (especially in the grassroots) don’t have.

Here’s the key thing, though. Even politicians who are getting millions from Big Ag are afraid of bad media or a popular uprising. It doesn’t do them any good if they give favors to big corporations if they’re voted out of office. And because open rescues are so popular with the public—they fit so well with most people’s everyday values—they create a dilemma for the industry. Go after us, and be seen as corporate villains. Ignore us, and watch as we take every last animal out.

It’s a good dilemma for us to create for them, and as long as we’re not scared into silence and inaction, that strategy will work.

After you rescued the hens in Chinatown, you were arrested. In Yulin, you were beaten and arrested. This has not stopped you. Is there anything that would?

The only thing that might stop me is the achievement of our vision: a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every sentient being the right to be free from violence. But even then, I’m sure there would be so much work to do. As activists, we should wear our arrests like badges of honor.

“The only thing that might stop me is the achievement of our vision: a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every sentient being the right to be free from violence. But even then, I’m sure there would be so much work to do. As activists, we should wear our arrests like badges of honor.”

People have been trained by clever advertising to look to the USDA for advice on what to eat. Is there a way to make the public understand that the USDA has a mission to protect agriculture and not animals, the consumer, or nutritional education?

Glenn Greenwald [The Intercept] did a wonderful job of this in his recent report. Just following the money really shows the insidious ties. But the most effective way to see this is that, under the USDA, the Humane Slaughter Act defines “animal” as excluding birds and rabbits. They have to go through these sorts of grammatical hijinks to protest the industry.

Some recent mainstream media articles have come out more fairly representing DxE’s mission and exposing truthfully what DxE has documented. Is there more hope now of nationally acclaimed sources, like the Washington Post, giving groups like DxE fair press while coming down harder on agribusiness?

We’ve already done an amazing job at getting top media sources—New York Times, Washington Post, etc.—to cover us in a positive way. I expect that trend to continue. The media, though, ultimately responds to its customers: the viewers and readers. So the key to getting good press is to show the media that we have stories their readers want to hear.

New technology such as virtual reality and drones gives activists new weapons with which to educate the public about the lies big agriculture tells. The internet spreads video instantaneously and efficiently. We have indisputable proof of what is happening long before there is time to suppress it. Is this the beginning of the end of cover ups and ag-gag suppression?

They are running out of places to hide, but when your practices are inherently vile, you have to keep trying. So I don’t think the cover-ups and ag-gag laws will end. Just look at Whole Foods. We outed them for lying about free range turkey, and their response was just to double down on fraud. It’s a sign of the times: if someone catches you in a lie, just lie again. But eventually, the media will catch on, drop the false neutrality, and finally report the truth.

I have heard you say that when people are open-minded and smart, we win them over. Can you please elaborate?

In my experience, virtually every intelligent person will, when forced to think about the issue, support the animal rights movement. This includes people on the right and on the left. The few exceptions in my life have been people who are so ideologically closed off that they can’t even contemplate a world where animals are treated with decency. But even with these folks, it’s hard to justify a world where we love dogs and eat pigs. There’s too much inherent tension there. So while some people will run from the issue—psychologists call this “empathic distress”—very few people who are open to it, and able to engage in basic logical reasoning, will disagree if they actually engage.

One the Direct Action Everywhere website, you have many materials available for use by activists. Can they be used freely by any group that follows DxE principles? Has DxE always had this policy of materials sharing? And if not, what made you decide to make your materials available?

DxE has always been a platform, not an organization. So yes, we believe in sharing all of our materials openly. It’s the best way to help our movement grow!

In a world seeming to grow more violent, more apathetic, given the atmosphere of today’s politics, negative news, and dire warnings for climate, extinction, etc., how do you remain so positive?

I’m positive because I see the writing on the wall: poll data moving in our favor, institutional victories happening every day, and a grassroots movement growing across the world. Take, for example, the Gallup poll. They’ve done two recent polls that are very promising: one showing that ⅓ of Americans believe that animals should have the same rights as human beings and another showing that nearly ½ Americans believe that animal testing is wrong. If you just extrapolate trends in that polling data over the next 40 years, we’ll have well over a majority of Americans supporting animal rights in one generation. I’m optimistic, in short, but my optimism is entirely driven by data.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers about Direct Action Everywhere and the work you do that I may have missed here?

Our mission is to make every one of you the best activists you can be, by creating a support and knowledge infrastructure for animal advocates. But it all starts with finding the power in yourself to speak up. So I’ll leave your readers with the 10 words I left the National Animal Rights Conference with a couple years ago:

Find your voice. Find some friends. And fight like hell.

[Amen.]

Learn more at Direct Action Everywhere.

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