Special Greeting to Animal Advocates!

Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA) is an animal-rights organization, strictly dedicated to promoting unalienable equal basic individual rights of all animals regardless of species as the only way to meaningful protection of all animals against injustice and tyranny. No one experiences meaningful protection without basic rights. So it is crucial that animal-rights advocates speak of rights as corresponding to those many humans are already fortunate enough to possess - rights that prohibit tyranny and certain fundamentally unjust practices, not pseudo-rights that merely prohibit some of the most inhumane treatment. Animal rights is explained further at the Animal Rights page of this website.

I am not a hero or a saint. But my dedication to the animals - research, exposés, campaigns, cruelty cases, public speaking, vegan lifestyle, publishing articles, letters, chapters of books, and more - convinced me long ago that establishing the rights they need for meaningful protection requires a different approach than those made popular in recent decades by animal-advocacy institutions.

I have worked more-than-full-time as an animal advocate since 1989, including thirteen years of service, before founding RPA, to some of the best-known organizations, helping animals in many ways. Many of my friends are long-time animal advocates, some of them longer than me. Many animal advocates are among the most empathetic, compassionate, and altruistic people, the most dedicated to what they do, and the most willing to risk their own livelihood, safety, security, and social acceptance to help others.

In founding RPA, I chose to risk my livelihood to promote the only strategy I believe can lead to meaningful protection of all nonhuman animals, because nothing is more important than reversing the ever-increasing injustice and suffering humans inflict on them. A strategy of educating using the spoken and written word - the only way basic rights have ever been established. Because almost no one understands animal rights, the animals need for us to dedicate ourselves to an educational approach that stays on message for the long term and avoids lapsing into easier, more personally rewarding methods that feel good at the time but don't create fundamental change.

Even the most exciting victories and help for animals who lack basic autonomy and ecology rights - including victories and help I myself have provided - do not add up to progress toward basic rights. Much as I regret this reality, long study of rights and how they come to exist shows me that before our institutions and people who run them will accept the radical change involved in ending unjust and inhumane treatment of nonhuman animals, the public must understand that those practices are the root cause of the big human problems: war, poverty, genocide, disease, soaring medical costs, global warming, water, soil and air contamination, food and water shortages and insecurity, and more.

That is the political argument for animal rights. The ethical argument - that nonhuman animals experience their lives and therefore have autonomy interests that must be protected - is right and compelling, and it has never been refuted. But establishing rights is a political endeavor - ethics alone has never sufficed. RPA, as far as I know, is unique in emphasizing the political argument for animal rights. And working for the animals that way involves unique campaigns.

As you will see at RPA's websites -- www.RPAforAll.org, www.ExpertsOfConscience.org, and www.EatForSports.org - the most powerful institutions driving animal use and ecosystem disruption are our land-grant universities (LGUs), the massive system of all 50 states' colleges of agriculture. RPA's 10,000 Years Is Enough campaign addresses that - I hope you will participate. As you will also see, our LGUs are associated with the other big institutions driving inhumane treatment of nonhuman animals: government, the biomedical industry, and others.

RPA's This Land Is Their Land works to protect free-living animals through fundamental change in land-use practice and policy. With more support, we can advance this campaign much further, helping people see that they do not need to shoot, trap, reel in, net, or even touch animals to contribute to their increasingly horrendous plight.

Crucial to nonhuman animals' future wellbeing is the public's embracing up-to-date knowledge about animals. Currently, ignorance reigns. The news industry, serving special interests, is an information logjam when it comes to animals, including humans' animal nature and how unjust and inhumane treatment of nonhumans harms all life on Earth, including humans. So RPA is preparing the first-ever news-industry guide for accurate and truthful reporting on animals - soon to be sent to news people and many others and to be available for free through this website.

RPA leads the struggle for nonhuman animals' rights in other ways as well. I hope you will wish to support this crucial work by becoming an RPA member. Nonhuman animals have no rights today, as they had none two decades ago when I began working on their behalf. Popular approaches are not changing that. Only a rights strategy can - not even an abolitionist strategy, as explained at the Animal Rights page of this website.

In addition to all of the kind things you do to help nonhuman animals - and there is no question every animal on Earth needs help, including humans locked into animal abuse against their own interests - I hope you will be a long-time Responsible Policies for Animals member. There is no short-term solution, but as the saying goes, once you know your destination, your journey is half over.

I am a few years into my second half-century of life, and I hope to see significant change. Either way, I will dedicate myself to it as long as I am able - I do not intend to retire. I hope you will be with me in the struggle. Working together for unalienable equal basic individual rights of all species regardless of species, we can assure a better future by teaching the rights message. Discuss the work with me anytime. Thank you for visiting and for all you do to help others.

Best wishes,

David Cantor
Founder & Director
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
P.O. Box 891
Glenside, PA 19038
215-886-RPA1
dcantor@rpa1.org
www.RPAforAll.org
www.ExpertsOfConscience.org
www.EatForSports.org

Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization. Donations to RPA are tax deductible as allowed by law and may be made at the above address or www.RPAforAll.org.

March 2010