"Abolitionists" need to stop attacking animal rescuers

Some animal rights advocates, such as Gary Francione, claim--without ever presenting any evidence--that organizations that do open rescues are focused on raising objections to the treatment of animals rather than advocating an end to their property status and exploitation. This is false. To quote from DxE's open letter to Whole Foods, one of the companies from whose suppliers we've rescued animals, "Whole Foods deceives the public by marketing as humane an inherently inhumane practice, raising animals for food." Since I wrote that sentence myself, I'm pretty damn sure I didn't mean that it was okay to keep holding animals as property and exploiting them as long as we treated them nicely. Nor does anyone else in DxE advocate anything less than ending the property status of animals, as stated on our FAQ page (Q: What do you mean by animal liberation? A: "...We mean an end to the property status of animals...")

Similarly, Animal Liberation Victoria advocates nothing less than a complete end to animal exploitation: "What sets Animal Liberation Victoria apart from the majority of other animal organisations is that we will never support calls for bigger cages or more ‘humane’ killing, we are fighting to end violence against animals, not regulate it. We believe that all sentient beings, regardless of species, have the right to be treated as independent entities, and not as the property of others. Animals are not ours."

If activists have legitimate, evidence-based criticisms of other activists' work, fine. But denigrating the work of others who want to abolish animal exploitation just as much as you do based on figments of your imagination is not okay.