where science and ethics intersect with politics
Animal Cruelty Prevention Month encourages compassion—but rarely asks the deeper question: can cruelty truly be prevented within systems that require it to function? When harm is built into the structure, reducing it is not the same as eliminating it. This piece explores the limits of prevention, the role of language in shaping perception, and why meaningful change may require more than reform—it may require abolition.
When armed Black Panther–affiliated groups appeared at recent anti-ICE protests, much of the media fixated on optics: uniforms, firearms, symbolism. But the real story isn’t the presence of Panthers — it’s the conditions that make communities feel safer beside armed civilians than beneath federal authority. History is clear on this point: when the state loses legitimacy through unchecked force, people do not retreat. They organize. The question we should be asking isn’t who showed up, but why they felt they had to.
The Humane Herald 