Direct Action Everywhere

Direct Action Everywhere

DxE protest at Whole Foods Market
Abbreviation	DxE
Formation	2013
Purpose	Animal rights
Headquarters	Oakland, CA
Website	directactioneverywhere.com

Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is an international grassroots network of animal rights activists. The group calls for total animal liberation. Direct Action Everywhere holds protests in restaurants, grocery stores, and other venues to challenge speciesism. DxE activists also performed an investigation of a farm that supplies eggs to Whole Foods Market and other retailers.

History

DxE's first action occurred in January 2013. Six activists demonstrated in front of a meat counter at a Sprouts Farmers Market, contending that the items being sold there behind the counter were not food but "the torment and suffering of billions of our friends in factory farms and slaughterhouses."

Soon thereafter, DxE launched campaigns against corporations, notably Chipotle and Whole Foods, which they considered to be purveyors of the "humane myth"—the idea that there are "humane" ways to kill unconsenting beings that do not want to die. Numerous demonstrations—"speak-ins" and "die-ins"—were staged in Chipotle restaurants as well as other establishments.

One of the more widely shared was that of an activist named Kelly Atlas, who gave a monologue in an unidentified restaurant testifying that the restaurant and others like it were responsible for horribly mistreating and murdering the likes of her "little girl" Snow, a chicken who had been rescued from a factory farm. Responses appeared on numerous news websites. Afterward, Ms. Atlas had exchanges in traditional media with Glenn Beck and Dr. Drew. In response to mockery by Mr. Beck, Ms. Atlas released a short video telling the story of Snow the rescued chicken.

On January 7, 2015, DxE released an open rescue investigation video of laying hens at a Northern California farm that supplies eggs to Whole Foods. In the video, which featured footage of crowded, dirty henhouses and injured birds, DxE contended that the hens' welfare was severely compromised, even though numerous boards had labeled the farm as 'Certified Humane.'

The original actions were organized around the San Francisco Bay Area. By December 2014, DxE's network had grown to at least 90 cities in 20 countries.

Philosophy

DxE's organizing principles call for "total animal liberation" understood as "species equality". Typically these phrases are hyperlinked to texts by Peter Singer in which Singer argues that like interests should be given equal consideration, that most animals, including all farmed animals, have an interest in not suffering, and that failure to treat them with equal consideration amounts to a kind of discrimination best labeled speciesism.

DxE's focus on nonviolent direct action is based on the belief that social change depends on changing the beliefs of the public by spreading memes that are spread accurately, widely, and for a long time. They focus on telling the animals' stories from the animals' own perspectives.

The inaugural DxE video contended that "our conviction is that the status quo will remain unchanged unless there is a considerable amount of pressure exerted from the outside. We also feel that mere education is not enough, and that animal liberation will only come about by creating a cultural climate of saying . . . that it's not right to use others for our benefit, whether that be other humans or other nonhuman animals."

External links

• Direct Action Everywhere official site