Current Affairs is proud to be a publication that takes animal rights seriously. From our lighthearted looks at manatees, ants, and cats, to our more serious pieces on the Orwellian language of the factory farming industry, the reason animal communication shouldn't be the justification for animal rights, and the need for "Veticare For All," we have always believed that left politics and animal welfare go together.

Today on the podcast we are joined by Marina Bolotnikova, a freelance journalist who covers factory farming and animal liberation activism. Marina has written for Current Affairs about the importance of direct action to the animal liberation movement and how the factory farming industry has gone from openly admitting that they view animals as profit-maximizing machines to pretending to care about being "humane."  In this episode we discuss why the treatment of animals is such a morally important issue, how the industry uses lies and euphemisms to conceal its barbarism, how phony industry-supported research is used to paper over atrocities, and why leftists and environmentalists shouldn't view animal rights as secondary.

Marina's Intercept article on the cruel method used to boil and suffocate chickens to death is here. The episode of the Green Pill podcast featuring Matt Johnson is here. John Sanbonmatsu's Critical Theory and Animal Liberation is here. The thumbnail is the illustration by Nick Sirotich that appears alongside Marina's latest article in the May-June print issue of Current Affairs.