Sabotage : A Comic / Zine About The Fine Art Of Hunt Sabotage (1992 – Cardiff, UK)

Produced by the Vale and Valleys Hunt Sabs, this short zine provides exactly what the title suggests. The interior has articles and comics from a wide cross section of saboteur subcultures, from crusties to older folks in white tennis shoes. The quality of the content is all over the map as well, but still makes for an interesting look at sabbing culture and technique in the early 1990s.

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BLACK BEAST – Issues 2 & 3 (1985-1986, Oxford, UK)

Taking it’s name from the french term “bête noire,” Black Beast ran for 3 issues before changing it’s title to Turning Point.

Black Beast covered all aspects of animal liberation protest and resistance, from sign holding demonstrations, to lab raids, alongside investigations into various abuses of non-humans. It’s politics were pro-direct action, but anti-militarism, and editorials inside criticized groups like the Animal Rights Militia. Articles were published without bylines, and every aspect of the magazine was anonymous. This made it an attractive forum for groups like the Central Animal Liberation League, who sent in a first hand account of the infamous Park Farm raid at Oxford that freed 32 dogs. One issue even contains an interview with a pre-off-the-deep-end Gary Francione detailing his support for the Animal Liberation Front!

The magazine was well written, nicely produced, and also very rare! TALON is seeking a copy of issue #1. If you can share one with us, please contact us HERE.

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On Friday, January 31st 2014, our movement lost a dedicated, gentle warrior by the name of David Hayden. It would be impossible to summarize all of the ways that he worked on behalf of animals, partly because there were so many ways, and partly because his humility kept us from knowing them all. Behind the scenes he was the primary driving force at No Compromise magazine, a brave frontline activist at demonstrations, and a man who, despite limited financial resources, always gave what he could to sanctuaries, conferences, and activist projects. I shared a jail cell with him on a few occasions, marched by his side on others, and loved him not just as a comrade in the struggle but as a generous friend who stood by me even when I didn’t always deserve it. His passing is a reminder that the best fighters are also the best people: kind hearted, soft spoken, humble, and ready to raise hell when injustice rears its ugly head. We will miss you, David, always.

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The Animal Liberation Primer (publishing date unknown, location likely the United States)

Containing material mostly culled from other similarly named primers, this is a short how-to guide for small scale property damage, arson*, and liberations. It contains a basic run down of security measures, mental preparation, and history of the Animal Liberation Front. Although it was surely a good resource in its time, its value as a primer has diminished with the advent of new security technologies, legislation, and state-surveillance. Anyone looking to undertake direct action would do well to find a modern source of instruction.

*The United States government fears a public empowered with the means to confront the excesses of their corporate masters, and as such has banned the distribution of literature containing instructions to build destructive devices. You can still purchase a shotgun at Walmart, or a bomb manual on Amazon, but we must censor all instructions here on our site. We apologize to our readers for the impact this has on the completeness of our archive.

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BUAV Liberator (1984. London, England)

As our holiday gift to you we present the complete 1984 volume of BUAV’s Liberator. This classic publication comes from an optimistic time in our movement when national non-profits were still working with radicals, articles about legislative efforts ran alongside tales of lab break ins, and the struggle for non-human liberation was growing by leaps and bounds. We love this newspaper, and hope that it reminds all of you in the trenches that we are strongest when we work together.

(Editor’s note: When we originally published this post we mistakenly missed the December 84/ January 85 edition. We apologize for the error and have now included the missing issue in our archive.)

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SHAC – A Campaign That Made History (2013 – Italy)

I am happy to see that new generations of activists are discussing the successes and failures of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign with an eye towards applying those lesson to the ongoing struggle for animal liberation. This attractive booklet was originally released in Italy under the name “SHAC: ha fatto storia” and focuses on the legal repression, past and present, experienced by those working to close Huntingdon Life Sciences. The english translation is not perfect, but makes for a good overview of the FBI’s “Operation Trailmix” in the US and INTERPOL’s “Operation Achilles” in Europe.

The collective that made this booklet has a blog at shacmadehistory.noblogs.org. I would love to see them continue to dissect the international repression against SHAC and also support the victims of the same.

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 The Bunny Alliance will embark on the Gateway to Hell Tour this holiday travel season to demand that Delta Air Lines end its support of animal research and help stop the transport of animal to laboratories.

 On December 26^th, the founders of The Bunny Alliance will set out on a nationwide tour to hold Delta Air Lines accountable for its role in the vivisection industry. During this Gateway to Hell Tour, The Bunny Alliance will coordinate demonstrations at every Delta U.S. airport hub and at the Delta Headquarters in Atlanta, GA, as well as organize activist trainings for each tour stop.

The Bunny Alliance is targeting Delta Air Lines because it is in a strategic partnership with Air France and is its North America representative—and Air France is one of the last commercial airlines to continue the practice of shipping animals to labs. The campaign against Delta is to demand that they force Air France to place a permanent ban on the transportation of all animals being shipped to vivisection labs across the world.

The tour demonstrations will call on Delta Air Lines to stop Air France’s transport of animals to labs, garner media attention about the role of the airlines in vivisection, and educate holiday travelers about the animal cruelty that Delta supports. Additionally, the trainings at each tour stop will teach local activists about the campaign and how they can be involved. The trainings will also include “know your rights” and other activism tips, as well as information about how to act as a legal observer and deal with law enforcement at demonstrations to keep activists safe.

The Gateway to Hell Tour is being organized by the co-founders of The Bunny Alliance, Amanda Schemkes and Jordan Ezell. Amanda and Jordan have both been involved in the animal liberation movement for several years and have extensive experience with activism tours and anti-vivisection campaigns.

The Bunny Alliance is asking for the support of the greater activism community to help make the Gateway to Hell Tour a success. People can learn more about the tour and make a donation at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-bunny-alliance-gateway-to-hell-tour. The Bunny Alliance also asks people to watch for additional tour information to be released and to get involved in the tour and broader campaign against Delta Air Lines. Visit http://thebunnyalliance.com/ and email thebunnyalliance@riseup.net.

Tour Schedule

December 27: Demonstration at Salt Lake City International Airport and Activism Workshop

December 29: Demonstration at Denver International Airport and Activism Workshop

December 31: Demonstration at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and Activism Workshop

January 1: Demonstration at O’Hare International Airport and Activism Workshop

January 2: Demonstration at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport

January 3: Demonstration at Detroit Metropolitan Airport

January 5: Demonstrations at John F. Kennedy International Airport & LaGuardia Airport and Activism Workshop

January 6: Demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange

January 7: Demonstration at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Activism Workshop

January 8: Demonstration at Delta Headquarters

January 11: Demonstration at Los Angeles International Airport

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The Bunny Alliance is a grassroots organization dedicated to working for the liberation of all.

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XUltraMilitanceX #2, 6 (2003 – 2005. Bursledon, Hants, England)

While I am not the biggest fan of “vegan straight edge” publications, XUltraMilitanceX manages to fit a few positive aspects into it’s otherwise formulaic, religiously worded format. Between the band interviews, sobriety cheerleading, and calls to “destroy Babylon,” there are some good articles on the history of the movement and a slightly deeper analysis of capitalism, the state, and human supremacy than I would expect from a zine named after an Earth Crisis song. Produced by a former anti-HLS prisoner, this was also one of the few XVX zines written by someone willing to actually act on the lyrics and liner notes that inspired them to begin with.

Issue #2 and #6 are very rare and took us a few years to find, but they complete our collection of this popular zine. The other issues can be found HERE.

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SNARL! Handbook Of Leeds ALF (1985. Leeds, England)

One of the great things about punk music is also one of the worst things about it: anyone can do it. On the one hand this encourages kids to destroy the adulation of rockstars and to make music (as well as zines, clothes, art, etc) themselves. That accessibility has brought us the voices of people we never would have otherwise heard, which is wonderful. On the other hand, punk doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it came into being in a culture afflicted with bias and brutality, patriarchy, capitalism, and so on. Those elements are ingrained in many of the creators of punk and are, at times, reflected in the works they produce. Those messages are then carried on to those who consume that media.

It isn’t hard to make the leap from an analysis of punk to an analysis of leaderless resistance. Without a hierarchy or organized recruiting mechanism, the A.L.F. has often spread through the same means as punk rock- DIY media, the passion and anger of youth, and at times, sensationalized mainstream media stories. People have heard the call and picked and up the banner, acting on their own initiative to make change. The downside, of course, is that without a training component that goes beyond a few words in a zine about security culture, these newly active saboteurs aren’t always left with the skill set needed to safely or effectively undertake underground actions. They may end up making their own publications which repeat the mistakes of the ones they first read, and these will be passed on to the consumers of that media.

If I were 16 years old and living in Leeds in 1985, I would have loved SNARL. It speaks from a place of youthful (and righteous) rebelliousness, and although the tone can be a little dogmatic, nearly everything else about the “handbook” is just plain cool. I laughed out loud to see license plates, makes and models of undercover police vehicles listed, and was encouraged to see the inclusion of human liberation struggles. That said, the young folks who made this zine were reproducing some of the worst aspects of other publications from the era as far as security and theatrical militancy goes.

SNARL is an interesting product of it’s time, written and distributed by well meaning, hard-fighting folks who no doubt had the best interest of non-humans in their hearts. That said, I hope readers at the time were cautious in following the advice it contained, because much of it was outright dangerous. Looking at the prisoner listings from this period, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

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A.L.F. On Trial – Capitalism Under Attack In The 1980’s (1987. England, city of publication unknown.)

On February 5th of 1987 ten British animal liberationists were sentenced to an aggregate of 38 years after a trial prosecutors had designed to “break the back of the ALF.” This case, popularly referred to as the Sheffield Trial, set precedents not only in the UK, but worldwide for the manner in which vegan militants would be tried by the state and media.

Although the Sheffield Trial failed in its goal to end underground direct action for non-humans, it did take a serious toll on the movement. Ronnie Lee was sentenced to 10 years, Roger Yates skipped bail and went on the run, and several others were taken out of the struggle for lengthy periods. The negative media blitz during the trial was among the first to create a popular association between the terms “animal rights” and “terrorist.” Worst of all, Sheffield was the first case in which the charge of “Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Damage” was upheld, essentially allowing radical media producers (In this case Ronnie Lee and the SG Newsletters) to be held responsible for the actions of others the authors had never met or otherwise interacted with- in fact, these other “conspirators” didn’t even have to be known to the authorities. All that needed to be shown was that a publication showed approval for an illegal act and that those acts then continued to occur. (Other courts disagreed with this novel interpretation of the law however, most notably the appeals court in the GANDALF trial.)

Parallels between this case and that of the SHAC 7 and others are clear, but little has been done to learn from the earlier trial. Luckily, an anarchist analysis of the court proceedings from 1987 has survived in the form of this brief, snarky pamphlet.

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