When I joined The Humane League (THL) back in 2019, I expected them to have thousands of volunteers. After all, THL managed to strong-arm hundreds of major US corporations into adopting cage-free egg policies, creating an industry-level shift[1]. The reality I found was much different. Most of the events I attended had half a dozen protestors, a dozen at most. These numbers were reflected in the protest photos I saw from other cities. Multiplying the number of volunteers at an individual protest by the number of cities with active chapters, you get a figure that comes out to around 100 to 200 active volunteers nationwide[2]. That's fewer people than my high school graduating class.

And it's not like these volunteers are spending significant amounts of time on activism, either. When I started attending THL's protests and participating in their digital campaigns, I quickly found that I could run through all the available actions for the month in a couple of hours. Over the course of a year, these time commitments add up to somewhere between 10 and 20 total hours. To put it in another light, I spent more time last [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) THLs David and Goliath Story

(02:06) The Anatomy of Pressure Activism

(07:56) Implications for the Movement and You

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First published:

Source:

Linkpost URL:
https://thechickencoup.substack.com/p/the-200-person-revolution

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.