http://www.vimeo.com/2482885

http://www.flickr.com/photos/igualdadanimal/sets/72157608398954553/

A vegan hug

Let me partially answer your inquiry:

- You may not know the many ways pattrice has helped people in need her entire life.

- Ethical vegans strive to help all victims of exploitation, regardless of species. For that reason, they avoid the products of slave labor and sweat shops, they try to leave a small footprint on the environment (on which all life depends), they donate money and volunteer time to social justice causes, and much more.

- Why help animals? They suffer like humans. They have no rights. They have relatively little representation. Over a million per hour are brutally killed in the U.S. alone. The solutions to most of their suffering and exploitation are simple. Which leads to the next point…

- Most of all, what animal advocates ask of others is not that they take time away from their efforts to help people but that they stop participating in enterprises and activities that violate animals’ most profound interests, including the will to live and desire to avoid suffering. Going vegetarian, for example, will not cut into your humanitarian endeavors.

I’m not saying this is the case with you, just making a general observation: In my experience, usually when someone asks me - in a challenging or sneering tone - what I’m doing to help humans, it turns out they’re not doing much themselves, but rather are resentful toward me for implicitly reminding them that they’re participating in easily avoidable cruelty. In a way, this is good; this discomfort reflects that at some level they realize that their lifestyle is not in line with their deepest morals, such as the golden rule and being kind, merciful, and respectful. Once people divest themselves of participation in the intentional harming of animals, they are rarely bothered by efforts to save the those animals.