Small Victories

As an armchair activist I frequently feel that I don't do enough for the causes that matter to me. It's one thing to donate money and bring nine homeless kitties into my home and give them a good life. It's another thing to participate in an action that affects the lives of many.

Periodically I hear about little victories in which I have participated, even if it's just signing a petition or writing my senator or congressman. Example: I participated in a writing campaign to get Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center to quit using homeless cats in painful, deadly medical training exercises. Due to the outcry these exercises have been stopped altogether. As good as this is there are countless animals who are still being tortured and killed in experiments, and who's to say that TTUHSC won't just start up a new exercise using some other unfortunate group of animals.

*PHOTO OF CAT WITH ELECTRODES ATTACHED TO RAW SKULL OMITTED*

(for your sake and mine)

As disheartened as I get it's important to remember the small victories serve as flagstones along the path to larger successses. It must be said that although each victory is important for the victims it immediately affects, it is also significant in that it keeps the activists active. Little by little, step by step, hearts and minds may be changing the way they did during the time of the civil rights movement and the women's movement. Activists need to recharge their batteries on these little successes.

Leonardo DaVinci is quoted to have said, "Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs.  We live by the death of others...   ...the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."