Almira Tanner is lead organizer of the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere, which I co-founded in 2013. In that role, she’s been carefully watching the rise and fall of not just the animal rights movement, but movements across a whole range of social justice issues, from climate change to workers’ rights. And something has gone wrong; people seem to be losing hope. She’s seen this in her own work trying to challenge factory farms in California – including an underhanded corporate campaign to kill a moratorium on factory farms before it even came to its first committee vote – but also in our broader society. Despair seems to be the feeling of the day.

How do we overcome that feeling and drive progress? As I approach a trial that, in many ways, seems hopeless, I thought it was important to have this conversation with Almira, so we could answer this question together. And what we found – what you’ll find – is that there’s more reasons to be optimistic than you might think. For example, the moratorium on factory farms in California was killed, but the fact that the bill was even introduced, in a state that has one of the largest animal ag industries in the nation, is a minor miracle. In short, not just hope but reasons for real confidence are there. Sometimes, we just have to take a deeper look. We do that together in this conversation. I hope you enjoy it!

Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) - Website

Music by Dayzee Deva (cover of "Everybody Have Fun Tonight”)