When I get on the subject of animal rights, Russell calls me an ‘angry vegan’. He says things like, ‘Oh, Simone doesn’t really care about people -not if there’s a suffering animal around’. And to be perfectly honest, when I see the recent Peta investigations (such as last week’s footage of those intelligent, gentle giants- the enslaved elephants of Ringling Bros Circus – being brutally beaten by trainers) or read the newspaper about a woman who was mad at her boyfriend so she baked his kitten to death in the oven, I do find myself muttering, ‘I hate people’. Of course that’s not true…there are many people who share the same views as I do and go out of their way to save as many animals as they can. There are heroes who walk among us. However, at least in the animal rights arena, I do feel outnumbered by those that are numb to the suffering. I work with meat eaters, share subway rides with fur-wearers, have family members who think nothing of taking a 30 year old lobster and boiling it alive in their kitchen and have run across a friend or two whose father hunts deer on the weekends.
From those people, I feel divided…different. And dare I be so honest to admit, more evolved. So, when Russell calls me angry, I always think to myself that its true but he hasn’t seen what I have and if he did, he may be angrier himself. He’s such a yogi though, maybe not. Of course, its worth mentioning that he hasn’t been spat on my carriage horse drivers in Central Park, been ridiculed by townspeople at the local pigeon shoots or have to pick up a dying dove, bloodied and riddled with pellets who took her last breath in my hands. So, yes after years of this I admit I am angry.
Furious in fact that there aren’t more laws to protect these animals from senseless killing and painful deaths. I think that for most of us who have worked in the trenches – once newbies who joined the movement with wide eyes and big dreams of changing the world, who thought that all we had to do was to spread the word about what really happened in slaughter houses and on fur farms and we would see real change in people- have become disillusioned. Most of us found such strong opposition to our fight that over the years many of us became hardened…angrier…and as we all know anger is really just pain. And yes, even us angry animal activists are, on a daily basis, pained, wounded and crushed by the way humans are allowed to treat beautiful, sentient, innocent animals. Our eyes are never dry.
This brings me to last week’s events. The lovely Brooke Hogan came by our offices to meet with Russell. From watching her reality show, I knew that the Hogan family had a soft spot for animals, as they clearly have many. Russell decided to show her a video of an animal being killed for their fur. Shock, anger and tears were apparent on Brooke’s face as she started to ask the questions so many of us ask, ‘How is this legal?’ ‘Why can’t we fu*#ing strangle, beat and skin the people who are doing this!?!’ and then, ‘what can I do to help?’ So, I’m sure we will be getting a great animal rights blog (as well as other insightful ones) from Brooke and I look forward to it.
Today’s meeting made me re-visit that teenager that I was years ago who thought that by wearing a badge of compassion I was going to change people’s minds about the way they view animals and make everyone in my path vegan, fur free and more compassionate. This was a dream that although I still have, seemed like just that..a far away, unattainable dream. A dream that I will hold and strive to see become a reality until my last day here on Earth- but still a dream. However, seeing Brooke’s heartfelt reaction to the horrendous, violent video reminded me that maybe people WOULD care more if they jus
