I head this news via a Facebook post by Peter Young, who blogs:
Similar unclaimed actions have been reported in Colorado. On January 13th, 2002, another sheepskin business went up in flames north of Denver in Greeley. The building was burned to the ground. No claim of responsibility was made in that fire either, but the fire was deemed suspicious due to A.L.F. graffiti threatening arson being found at a similar plant in Denver the previous month. This latest arson marks the second burned down sheep skin business in Colorado.
Honestly, I hope that this and similar events were not the work of animal liberationists believing they are doing good. We need to change the social norm of carnism that fuels most of the demand for animal products.
Livaditis, the Sheepskin Factory owner, may well never have thought [ze] might be targeted for selling skins (and we don't know whether or not [ze] was). [Zir] company even sold pet toys to people who presumably see themselves as animal lovers.
I'm not naive enough to think that such business owners and private citizens wouldn't strongly oppose the message that what they're doing is wrong. But I do think that a significant minority of the population would jump on the abolitionist bandwagon if they knew more and were exposed to vegan awesomeness some more. Once vegan becomes "normal", it's a lot easier to ditch carnism.
A gradual transition isn't the best for the animals--but in most cases it's the best we can give them, so we'd better work on giving it to them. And it also eases the human costs--as industries gradually decline, and as people become used to the idea that carnism is wrong, they can adjust their careers and lifestyles.
[Edit: Oops! Switched to non-gendered pronouns. Forgot this was The Agenderist.]
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