ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the rhetorical making of the crime called the 'speciesism'. It focuses exclusively on the Animal Liberation: the self-styled 'definitive classic of the animal movement'. The word 'speciesism' still tends to prompt requests for explanation and justification, and the burden of proof still lies with those who use the term in all seriousness. The idea is to present a coherent, consistent case for the kind of revolutionary change in human attitudes to other species that may be summed up in the phrase 'Animal Liberation'. Another aspect of Animal Liberation's afterlife is the emergence of strong, radical animal organizations, most notably through the work of animal activist and campaign organizer Henry Spira, and what is now the world's largest animal organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The occasional collaborators like Singer and Regan sometimes found themselves in open confrontational debate, as in the so-called lifeboat exchange in the New York Review of Books.
