Animal rights as Human rights

I really agreed with Claire's approach to humane education, which she came to as she realized that transporting animals and helping out in shelters was really only putting band-aid on the problem, as she described it. Educating the young has great possibilities as a form of activism because it can change an entire generation and generally addresses the root causes of the problem instead of the just the symptoms (which is a big problem for most groups I feel). The way she talks with kids whose families are directly involved with dogfighting and sometimes animal abuse really undscored for me the necessity of education. The other things I like about education is that it places the responsibility on those who commit crimes, not on the abstract concept of "society." What Claire said about the connection between those who abuse animals and those who abuse their families and serial killers really resonated with me. I thought of domestic violence and rape prevention programs. The rape programs often place all the responsibility and focus on the woman and don't educate men, thus not addressing the root causes. Domestic violence too, I feel, do not always address the root causes and having shelters for battered women is great and very important, but so is addressing WHY so many women are being abused (and this starts by telling men not to abuse their wives, girlfriends, children, etc.). It seems to me that animal rights are not this separate, different box from human rights, but really intrinsically tied to it. Those who care about animals (or, I should say non-human animals, because there is a tendency to forget that we are all animals) should also care about humans, and vice versa.