Turn Thomson Into an Empathy Center

The Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois is on a short list of sites that are being considered to house the Guantanamo detainees, but if the nearly empty prison doesn’t get chosen, we’ve got the perfect back-up plan: We’re asking the facility to house the Thomson All Living Beings Empathy Center. Not only would the center teach visitors about compassion, it would also create jobs for tour guides, cafeteria workers, and others, promoting economic growth in these difficult times.

We can’t think of a more appropriate site for our Animal Liberation Project (ALP) than a prison. The ALP is a display that takes viewers through a history of the discrimination and suffering of humans and other beings—from the Crusades to human slavery and from animal circuses to factory farms—reminding people that suffering is suffering, no matter who the victim is.

And as if Thomson needed another reason to promote compassion (or I needed another reason to wish I were 12 again), every kid who visits the Empathy Center would get a plush “I Am Not a Nugget” chick.

Written by Logan Scherer