http://www.humanecalifornia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=59

Industrial agriculture obviously understands how “reforms” work and is only “opposing” this one for the appearance of resistance in order to stifle any other campaigns that will actually threaten their bottom line (Every industry is only concerned with the bottom line and this is a classic reaction to “reforms” that “threaten” it).
I mean, look at how many animal “rights” activists (“rights” used very loosely) are pacified by this measure (“triumph”?) and then look at how much money is going into it and how little it does *for the other animals* involved if it actually does come into effect in *2015*. It’s absurd.

All that money could build many platforms to educate many more people about veganism, which would, by it’s very nature, decrease animal consumption by humans, all while not hiding our true message; Animals are not ours to use! And there’s no need to wait until 2015 to help them!

Has anyone even read the “exceptions” sections of Prop 2?
How about the “enforcement” section?

http://animalrights.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=animalrights&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fag.ca.gov%2Fcms_pdfs%2Finitiatives%2F2007-08-09_07-0041_Initiative.pdf

Prop 2 is, and I’m being polite, a freaking joke. I personally think it’s pathetic that this is the best animal “rights” activists (does anyone understand animal rights theory?) can do to “protect animal interests”. Just my opinion.

Now… Get out your checkbooks and assimilate into the profit-based capitalist system built on oppression of “others”! That’s how to be an animal advocate these days, right?

While I’m not prepared to address each of the comments here, I did want to address Elise who asks why we vegans, as non-consumers of animal products, should be concerned about farm animal welfare.
In a nutshell, many vegans are vegan because they believe very strongly in animal rights. Some vegans consider that an integral part of the definition of “vegan.”

Over time, many great thinkers have been more eloquent on the topic than I could ever hope to be:

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” — Ghandi
Other vegan quotes.

It is a shame that the egg industry will be hurt in California (as California is the first state to tackle this issue on this scale). But that is not a reason to hinder the forward movement for animal welfare. When slavery was abolished, most of plantation owners suffered financial hardship as well. It helped to bring about the downfall of the plantation system. In today’s society we have evolved beyond thinking of humans as property, before the civil war that was unthinkable. Perhaps in a hundred years, we will have evolved beyond thinking of animals as property. I fervently hope that we will evolve beyond the point of treating animals inhumanely. 6 or more chickens to a cage the size of a sheet of paper certainly seems inhumane to me.

Besides, I worked on an egg ranch (gathering eggs) with 30,000 chickens. Those “girls” could lay down, stretch, and stand up. They liked it in there. I was friends with all of them. They didn’t poop on their eggs. Prop 2 would destroy the egg industry. Ranch owners can’t afford to make adjustments to make YOU happy!!

Prop 2 with ruin Petaluma California.. the egg/chicken capital the WORLD!!
:Þ

I think if it were really as simple as Francione makes it out to be than industrial agriculture wouldn’t oppose it. It will reduce their profits and it will make turning animals into profit less attractive.

I think there are a ton of positives to this proposition (and its promotion). I think the negatives compose a more compelling argument against indirect action (such as legal reform) in general than a compelling argument for voting no. That is, I think anyone who doesn’t like Prop 2 should consider not voting at all and instead spend the time doing direct action for animals, like open rescue or vegan outreach.

I think Sat brings up some good points. From my experience as a vegan advocate, I think the question of whether people are “ready” for an AR message is much more complicated than “yes” or “no,” but I’m pretty sure I feel the public would be much more responsive to vegan outreach than HSUS thinks they would be.

Nonetheless, people’s rate of switching to veganism, even when they know the issues well and have been exposed to extensive outreach – and even when have their own personal advocate (friends, parents, and siblings, anyone?) – tends to be a long, drawn-out, multi-year process, and usually ends far short of veganism. Thus, it is virtually a given that billions, possibly a trillion animals will spend their lives inside the horrid factory farm system before America goes vegan. To those animals, we owe them some relief from their constant and unending suffering.

I also share Sat’s concern about not being completely honest about our end goals when we preach reform rather than abstinence from eating animal products. But my concern is abated for these reasons:

- Most people sort of know the end goal.

- It’s not as though on Tuesday HSUS tells people to go cage-free and on Wednesday they switch their campaign to “stop eating eggs.” I suspect it will be a gradual shift and the public won’t feel like they’re being whiplashed. Norms tend to change incrementally in any event.

- Most of the vegans I know followed the welfare-to-vegan route. That’s what many of my close vegan friends and I did, and for us it went rather smoothly. We never felt lied to, we just dug deeper and became more committed in our own lives to ending our contribution to exploitation. Had advocacy groups conveyed a more consistent vegan-only approach, would it have hastened our conversion? Possibly. But it’s hard to say. The first time I met a vegan advocate, I tuned him out completely. But the suffering message I got right away. And one thing led to another.

Also, how honest are any of us about “end goals?” Is our end goal to make everyone in the world vegan? To end all exploitation of humans and non-humans? To give a certain set of legal rights to animals? Which rights and which animals? To foster compassion that goes beyond merely refraining from exploitation? To abolish companion animals? To end hunting throughout the world? To restore predator populations? To decrease humanity’s overall impact on the earth? By how much? My point is not to hash this out right now, but to submit that we all may be engaging in some vagueness about end goals. Must those to whom we advocate know the ultimate desired end point in order to make incremental improvements in their lifestyles and attitudes?

I share Stephanie’s criticism of the Prop 2 video in question, and of all Prop 2 messages that convey a false sense that Prop 2 will end farmed animal cruelty. By the same token, the great majority of pro-Prop 2 conveyances, including TV interviews, commercials, photoessays, web commentary (including Wayne Pacelle’s blog), and print media editorials, have been sobering, serious, and not over the top. Despite sometimes unfortunately sidestepping the immense cruelty that remains post-Prop 2 – not to mention the more far-reaching moral questions about mass-killing living beings for pleasure or out of habit – HSUS has repeatedly stated that Prop 2 is a very modest measure that only addresses the most heinous cruelties in animal agriculture.

We may all agree that that the Prop 2 campaign has its share of shortcomings. I can’t think of one campaign by any group that couldn’t stand some improvement. But there is no way I could, in effect, tell the hundreds of millions of animals imprisoned in California factory farms, “Sorry, I’m not going to let you turn around, spread your wings, and walk on solid ground, because this campaign wasn’t ideal.”