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Books
Rage and Reason
06.24.13 | Permalink

Rage And Reason (First edition publication date and location unknown. AK Press edition: 1998, San Francisco, CA)

Despite assurances from Ingrid Newkirk and Steven Seagal to the contrary, this book just isn’t all that good. Marketed as an animal rights revenge novel (complete with former Special Forces commandos skinning furriers) Rage and Reason was banned in some countries upon its initial release. The hype over these bans fueled great curiosity among those of us in North America who were having a difficult time obtaining a copy. In 1998 AK Press produced a new edition which immediately landed with a dull thud in the movement. We all bought and read R&R at the same time, and a few days later one could feel the collective disappointment.

I will not ruin the “surprise” for those of you have have yet to read the book, but… well, shit. Let’s just say that if you find yourself enjoying the story, brace yourself for the cop out coming in the final pages. Also: non-vegan protagonists in an animal liberation murder story? Yeah, they’ve got the dedication to risk life sentences for beheading CEO’s of agri-businesses, but they just can’t stop eating yogurt! Pfft!

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Campaign newsletters, Periodicals
The Hillgrove Campaign Newsletter
05.28.13 | Permalink

The Hillgrove Campaign Newsletter – (1997- 1999. Oxford, England)

Reading these newsletters gives me a feeling of elation that is rare in our work as animal liberationists. After witnessing the worst abuses against our non-human neighbors, most of us are left with a sense of deep despair. In the instance of the Hillgrove Campaign, however, those abuses were countered and ultimately stopped in a most satisfying way!

These newsletters offer some of the best documentation of one of our movements most watershed moments. Each issue shows the escalation of the campaign, the police response, and the slow downfall of Farmer Chris Brown’s cat breeding business. No punches are pulled, and from blockades, to mass demos, to the beating of Chris Brown by two elderly women, the newsletter shows step by step how the campaign was won.

While this makes for invigorating reading, there are also disappointing, even racist material in the newsletters. One example is Dr. Vernon Cole’s comparing being stopped by police during a lecture to the sort of harassment and brutality faced by black youth in Britain. A well meaning mistake possibly, but a comparison that misses the mark by an offensive distance none-the-less.

As you can see, we are missing issue #2 and #10! Please get in touch if you are in possession of either issue by clicking HERE.







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Books
Earth Liberation Front 97-02
05.20.13 | Permalink

Earth Liberation Front 1997-2002 (2003. Second printing with new dedication and layout 2007. Portland, OR)

Leslie James Pickering grew up in Buffalo, NY. In the mid 90s he became involved in the local hardcore music scene. While attending shows in the surrounding area, he began reading the literature distributed there by local animal rights groups. Zines such as Holocaust (published by Animal Defense League founder Kris Qua) were his introduction to radical politics and support for underground direct action.

Like most kids who grow up in smaller cities, Leslie James left Buffalo as soon as he had the means. After a brief stint skateboarding in San Francisco (during which time he filmed for the underground skate video rarity “Heat Zone”) Pickering landed in Portland, OR. There, he met Craig Rosebraugh, and after a few years the two of them began publishing a newspaper called Resistance with other members of a group called Liberation Collective. At this same time, a group calling themselves the Earth Liberation Front began a series of arson attacks against companies involved in logging and other environmentally harmful practices. They sent their first media statement to Liberation Collective, and the rest of the story is what Pickering documents in Earth Liberation Front 97-02.

Consisting of reprints, interviews, and some original material, Earth Liberation Front 97-02 is a must read for those who wish to understand the beginnings of the Green Scare.

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Most Popular, No Compromise, Periodicals
No Compromise: The Final Two Issues
05.13.13 | Permalink

No Compromise #29-30 (2006. Santa Cruz / San Francisco, CA)

The early days of my activism were so exciting. After a lifetime of feeling powerless I suddenly discovered that there was a community dedicated to fighting the good fight. Its members were in every major city and many smaller ones, and sometimes not living in any city at all, but in trees and encampments. The people involved were empowered to act for themselves in order to create a better world, and had abandoned all the false hope of political parties and their dead politics. Words meant little, action was what counted, and the sky was the limit. The internet was not yet in wide use, and thank goodness! That meant that we met each other in conference rooms, in squats, on the streets, and sometimes on the pages of No Compromise magazine.

No Compromise shaped who I am today. Each new issue contained articles that helped me and thousands of others to evolve our own style of resistance, and as our experience grew we were able to share our stories in the pages of the magazine.

After 30 issues, the steering committee of No Compromise decided to stop publishing in 2006. Their decision could not have come at a worse time. With the SHAC website and newsletter killed by the convictions of the SHAC 7, Bite Back being published only sporadically and with a limited focus, and the Earth First! Journal mired in its “Confronting Oppression Within” drama, the sudden absence of No Compromise meant that the primary sources for radical animal liberation news, opinion, and strategy were the twin sewers of online social networks and the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. These were dark times for our movement, and we are only just beginning to recover.

The final issues of No Compromise were the best of the series, though! I was in prison when issue 30 was released, and it felt electric in my hands. I read it over and over, alternately laughing and crying. As I was putting this post together I decided to pull out that print copy. It gave me the same sense of awe I had when I read those first issues. More than that, it reminded me that there is still a community of people capable of changing the world through compassionate direct action and mutual aid. And you know what? We are going to win!

KEEP FIGHTING,
Josh Harper

(The complete set of all past issues of No Compromise can be found HERE)

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Periodicals
Flesh and Blood
04.25.13 | Permalink

Flesh and Blood #1-8 and 10 (1980-1992 – Hertfordshire, England)

Flesh and Blood was a long running, journal sized magazine with high production values. Each issue featured a color cover printed on heavy, full gloss cardstock, and brief articles with information about animal rights campaigns. It’s appearance and tone was quite mainstream, but many issues showed support for illegal direct action. This was, perhaps, Flesh and Blood’s greatest strength: it refused to split activists along standard radical / moderate / conservative lines, and instead showed measured support for everyone in the struggle.

We are seeking more information about this publication, including the number of issues published. We are also in need of issue #9, which relaunched the publication after its demise in the early 80s. If you can assist us, please use the contact form available HERE.

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One-off publications
Grand Juries: Tools of Political Repression
01.10.13 | Permalink

Grand Juries: Tools of Political Repression. (1998, Portland. OR)

The United States government, like all repressive states, will not stand for any challenge to their authority. Abroad, they maintain their power with a diverse selection of tactics that range from the killing of journalists, to drone assassinations. Here at home their methods are also broad, but to maintain the illusion of democracy they usually only resort to murder as a last option. (And they do resort to murder. From Fred Hampton to Judi Bari, the FBI has repeatedly proved their willingness to take lives.) So, how does the state keep social control while still pretending to welcome dissent? First and foremost, dissent is only allowed so long as it is impotent to create change. Hold your signs, cast your ballots, and say whatever you like- so long as it doesn’t threaten the ruling class. Once you step past that boundary the gloves come off as fast as the illusion of constitutional protections.

Right now there are several secretive grand juries running in the United States. They are investigating (and attempting to disrupt) animal liberation and anarchist communities under the guise of solving crimes. This is not a new phenomenon, throughout the history of this country these shadowy tribunals have been used to great effect to slow revolutionary movements. The use of grand juries against environmentalists and radical vegans became especially epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, most notably with the frequent subpoenaing of people doing purely legal support work for underground direct action groups. One activist in particular, Craig Rosebraugh, was subpoenaed a total of eight times to various grand juries.

After his first few subpoenas, Craig wrote the essay Grand Juries: Tools of Political Repression. Originally intended for a university class, the essay was eventually reprinted in pamphlet format by Liberation Collective. The tone of the publication is a little heavy handed, academic, and politically naive, but the information contained inside is crucial for those wanting an overview of grand juries.

After you read this publication, we would like to encourage you to show solidarity with activists imprisoned for refusing to comply with grand juries. A good first step is to write them a letter. All three people listed below are being held without ever having been convicted of a crime, and all are being kept in solitary confinement. A letter of support from a stranger will go a long way towards brightening their day- so break out your pens and paper!

Katherine Olejnik #42592-086
FDC SeaTac,
P.O. Box 13900
Seattle, WA 98198

Matthew Kyle Duran #42565-086
FDC SeaTac
P.O. Box 13900
Seattle, WA 98198

Matthew Pfeiffer #42421-086
FDC SeaTac
P.O. Box 13900
Seattle, WA 98198

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One-off publications
Into The 90s With The ALF / This Is The ALF #2
12.26.12 | Permalink

Into The 90s With The ALF (1991, City Unknown, England)
This Is The ALF #2 (1994, City Unknown, New Zealand)

First things first: the posting of these two old ALF publications requires a little uncomfortable honesty. You see, neither zine is particularly well written, the advice given on tactics (and strategy) isn’t particularly insightful, and everything covered inside has been dealt with better elsewhere. However, these were both widely distributed in their time, and as we aim to be a complete archive both of these anonymously distributed tracts deserve a place here on the site.

With that said (or written, as it happens to be!) these zines provide us with a view into the issues and campaigns being discussed by radical animal liberationists during the early 90s. The focus on economic damage versus rescue is particularly interesting, and some might argue resulted in a public relations failure for the movement. Also intriguing is tracking the way the contents traveled around the world to be republished in different countries. Into the 90s carries material originally published in Canada, This Is the ALF has content from the United States and England. The loose network of animal liberation militants that existed prior to the popular use of the internet is fascinating, and imagining how the anonymous authors of these publications received the items they ultimately reprinted is entertaining fodder for the imagination.

All told, these primers were meant to provide newcomers with a quick overview of the Animal Liberation Front, and to spread the use of direct action in their respective countries. They do so, just not in a particularly inspiring manner.

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Arkangel, Periodicals
Arkangel 8-9
12.10.12 | Permalink

Arkangel #8-9 (1992. London, England.)

After serious problems with police raids and repression, Arkangel managed to produce two issues in 1992. The focus of the magazine was still the networking of local grassroots organizations and opinion pieces by members of the movement, but some wonderful morsels of history pop up between these covers. Beyond the charm of finding out where the graphics that we’ve been reprinting forever come from, you will also learn about the early days of the McLibel case, how the British government prepared for Ronnie Lee’s release from prison, and many other interesting tidbits.

What was of greatest interest to me, however, was a short article in issue #9 written by Sue Smith. Sue is an unsung hero of the animal liberation movement, one of the founders of the Band of Mercy, and an original ALF activist. She was never caught for illegal activity, and it was only after her death that her participation in direct action became known. There is little written about her, but her brief article gives us a tiny sense of her level of compassion and concern. If any of our readers have more information about Ms. Smith, please contact us.

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Books, Most Popular
Green Rage
12.03.12 | Permalink

Green Rage: Radical environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization (1990, Boston, MA.)

One of the first books I bought about radical wilderness defense was Green Rage. It is an excellent investigation of the origins of (western) environmental radicalism, and I recommend that you read it cover to cover.

Speaking of covers, you might notice that this particular copy of Green Rage is a little ragged. The reason for that is because this is my copy, and after reading the book I took it’s message to heart. Several years ago in Oregon, a small group of activists from around the region were protesting at a breeding facility that supplied rabbits to the vivisection industry. When we arrived the farms owners were not present, and neither were any law enforcement. Not coincidentally I quickly found myself living with some critters who liked to chew on everything in our humble home. I hope you will enjoy Green Rage as much as they did!

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No Compromise, Periodicals
No Compromise #20-22
11.15.12 | Permalink

No Compromise #20-22 (2003. Santa Cruz / San Francisco, CA)

No Comp scored another great year in 2003, this time by going deeper into practical instructions for campaigning, and also by examining the smaller stories in greater detail. While the high profile victories of anti-HLS activists were given their due, inspirational figures who had passed on were also given touching coverage. Issue #20 features articles on early Band of Mercy and Animal Liberation Front founder Sue Smith, and Sweden’s animal lib die-hard, Ake Soderlund. Similar examinations of our past, and the courageous figures whose shoulders we stand upon, pepper the 2003 issues. Of particular note is the article on Henry Hutto in issue #21.

2003 was also the year that Rod Coronado finally got off of probation and was allowed to participate in the movement again. His writings for No Compromise were as subversive and inspiring as ever, and it is easy to see why the government considered him such a threat.

As the year progressed No Comp moved to a magazine format and tightened their graphic design skills in response to Jake Conroy’s work on the SHAC USA newsletter. These glossy issues were excellent contributions to the movement, and it is a shame that in only a few more years NC would cease to exist altogether. These information (and inspiration!) packed issues are worth reading again to inform and encourage our current actions.

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