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)
Tags: 1990s, 2000s, Andy Stepanian, Animal Enterprise Protection Act, Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, Animal Liberation Front, Benjamin Persky, Bill "Avalon" Rogers, Crucial, Darius Fullmer, Diary of Actions, Grand Jury, Green Scare, Greg Avery, Hillgrove Campaign, Jake Conroy, Jeff Luers, Jerry Vlasak, Josh Harper, Keith Mann, Kevin Kjonaas, Last Chance for Animals, Lauren Gazzola, lauren Ornelas, Melanie Arnold, Operation Bite Back, Peter Young, Primer/How-To, Rod Coronado, Security Culture, SHAC 7, SHAC Campaign, Undercover Investigations