Almost 30 years ago, on June 10th, 1990, thousands of people turned out for a "March for the Animals" in Washington DC. Interviewed in 2007, Tom Regan, author of the The Case for Animal Rights, the book that kick-started rights-based abolitionist animal rights in the 1980s, estimated that between 60,000 and 70,000 people attended. It remains the largest march that the animal advocacy movement has ever organised.
Regan can be seen to the right of the lead banner of the 1990 march.
Tom Regan says that this time was one of "great optimism in the movement" and the 1990 march enabled and ennobled its participants. In 1996, a second "March for the Animals" drew only 3,000 people. Regan declared it "a disaster." One explanation that Regan offers to explain this fall-off within six years was the firming up of the "sharp divide" between animal welfarists and animal rightists.
The Gary Francione countermovement offer the same analysis. See HERE. It seems that the welfare corporations grasped back the initiative in the animal movement. For example, between the two marches, the once radical People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) began their deradicalisation into a large welfare corporation. In 1992, for example, PeTA's Ingrid Newkirk took the reformist line against the abolitionism of Regan and Francione in a famous Animals' Agenda article - see HERE.
In the 2007 interview, Regan still held a critical view of how the animal movement had developed, saying that the most powerful national organisations had adopted a "corporate business model." He called for the democratisation of the movement away from the dominance of the national groups.
The Gary Francione countermovement offer the same analysis. See HERE. It seems that the welfare corporations grasped back the initiative in the animal movement. For example, between the two marches, the once radical People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) began their deradicalisation into a large welfare corporation. In 1992, for example, PeTA's Ingrid Newkirk took the reformist line against the abolitionism of Regan and Francione in a famous Animals' Agenda article - see HERE.
In the 2007 interview, Regan still held a critical view of how the animal movement had developed, saying that the most powerful national organisations had adopted a "corporate business model." He called for the democratisation of the movement away from the dominance of the national groups.
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