Only a few short years after reforming Support Animal Rights Prisoners, the contributors to the project (primarily Barry Horne) threw in the towel. Their raison d’être was being fulfilled by the ALF SG newsletters, and Barry felt as if the group wasn’t having the unifying, inspirational impact that he had hoped for. The final issue, mostly written by press officer Robin Webb, starts off light and positive, but ends with an angry missive from Horne accusing most activists of being mere radical t-shirt collectors rather than actual radicals. Across the span of decades and beyond even his own death, this stab at those unwilling to fight for liberation still hits its mark. It is a sad ending to an information packed publication, but not every issue of this last year of SARP is so intense. Tiny fragments of our history fall off these pages like gold dust- collect them together and you have a treasure. Barry might have died on hunger strike, but he did not leave us behind. His words and actions will continue to remind us where we came from, and for whom we fight. Rest in peace, comrade, and thank you for all you have given us…
Back in early June Portland, OR. was host to the amazing Resistance Ecology conference. Videos of the various panels are slowly being posted at the Burning Hearts Media TUMBLR, but we figured we would share a few of them here as well. First up is TALON co-founder Josh Harper and dirty south rabble rouser Scott Crow on the topic of anarchism and animal rights.
CLOSE HLS Newsletters (2006/2007. Location unknown)
The campaign to close Huntingdon Life Sciences has already received plenty of ink (pixels?) on this site, but these particular newsletters are interesting because they appeared after myself and several other organizers had been rounded up and sent to prison. A government that thought they had killed our struggle against HLS soon found out that there were some pockets of resistance left.
The tone of these newsletters continues along the same line as the SHAC newsletters: cocky, sensationalist, and at times haranguing. I wish they had learned from our errors in that regard, but other than that, I mostly just feel joy that they kept the fire burning and the abusers kept feeling the heat. Good stuff, and a valuable addition to the history of the anti-HLS movement.
Long before the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act or the advent of Ag-Gag laws, western governments were using other means to protect the profits of animal abusers. Through methods legislative and extra-legal, the British government was particularly skilled in disrupting the efforts of animal liberationists. By the late 1980s these attacks had become so commonplace and effective that J.J. Roberts (the collective pen name of John Page and Jane Holgate) of ARC Print (Publisher of the excellent Against All Odds) wrote Up Against the Law as an effort to give activists knowledge of repressive legislation and a means to fight back.
Up Against the Law is crucial reading for those who want to understand the history of public order laws, their use against activists, and how our movement has coped with past attacks on our abilities to protest.
A Little is Enough: A zine by antarctic sailors (2012/2013. The Southern Ocean)
Although our site started as an effort to preserve animal and earth liberation history, we are slowly incorporating more contemporary DIY projects. One of our favorite zines from the last year was written by the crew members aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel M/Y Bob Barker. This is the side of Sea Shepherd that people do not see on Whale Wars: the dedicated crew members who see Animal Planet executives as “prodouchebags,” who discuss issues of race and gender with each other on long, icy nights, and who remain (or become) quite radical despite the mainstreaming of SSCS. Plus, SODUKU!
Do you make a zine about direct action for non-humans or wilderness defense? Tell us about it HERE.
Back in the early 2000’s I was invited to speak at World Day for Animals in Laboratories in Cambridge. It was my first time out of North America, and I was excited to meet our British counterparts in the movement for non-humans. Originally my trip was planned for two short weeks, but shortly after my arrival I got some news that ended up extending my stay: my house was raided by a Joint Terrorism Task Force. “Don’t fly back until we know what’s going on,” my attorney warned. Since I was stranded abroad I figured I may as well get some activism done. Introductions were made, and soon I found myself going out on office invasions and event disruptions across England and Germany.
One of the people I met during those hectic months was a young anarchist named Lewis. He was smart, daring, and had a contagious smile that appeared whenever mischief was being discussed… or carried out! Lewis was no adventurist though, his motivations were sincere and his work ethic solid. By the time I left Europe to face the situation awaiting me in the U.S. I had developed a deep respect for his fighting spirit.
Like so many of the people I respect, it wasn’t long before Lewis found himself on the “wrong” side of the law. After being charged for carrying out ALF actions, Lewis refused to turn informant and was sentenced to prison time and supervised probation. “Inside the Cages” is his account of that experience. The final chapter, which details Lewis’ interactions with the probation system is highly recommended.
Throughout the mid to late 1990’s at least one illegal direct action happened somewhere in the United States every day. Many of these actions were somewhat futile- at least on their face. While it is true that a glued lock or a spray painted wall means very little to companies like McDonalds, it is also true that no one is born with the skill set to make revolutionary change for non-humans. We can only learn through trial and error, and gaining the confidence to undertake bigger actions often starts with something small like breaking a window.
Fortunately, actions that are unlikely to gain public sympathy aren’t the only low-risk way to build confidence and save lives. Consider, for example, egg farms. Although egg consumption in the United States is declining, battery farms are still everywhere. They are easy to find, largely unprotected, and simple to enter. The animals housed on these farms are in desperate need of liberation, and the only difficulty in doing so is finding them homes. In today’s era of urban chickens, this is getting easier. Any vegan with a back yard and the resources to buy or build simple housing could provide one of these beautiful creatures with a better life.
In 1998 one small group of people decided to raid an egg farm in Burlington, Washington. They shot a video of the action and distributed it to media outlets and supportive activists. Most of the news coverage was positive, 11 chickens were saved from a short life of misery and imprisonment, and I like to imagine that the action had a positive, skill building effect on the activists themselves.
Presented below is the video itself, along with the media statement sent by the rescuers.
One of the big frustrations of working on the TALON site is that the materials we archive contain so much information it becomes difficult to organize and contextualize it all. Our posting of the Barry Horne SARP newsletter revival has made this sense of frustration more distinct than ever.
1992 was an eventful year for the movement: Mike Hill was murdered by hunter Alan Summersgill, the Doddlestone six were arrested protesting that murder, in North America Darren Thurston was arrested, Ronnie Lee was released, Kieth Mann was on remand and just about to escape from prison… This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the significant events that took place over twelve long months twenty one years passed. We could spend pages discussing how these incidents shaped the future, how recent revelations about police informants in the UK have changed our understanding of old arrests, and so on. Unfortunately there is no time to pull at all of these strings- but the SARP newsletters certainly will provide inquisitive readers with many threads of their own to pull. From details of Operation Fox to “Laugh Along with the ALF,” each newsletter if filled with intriguing bits of our collective history.
Editors note: Since this site’s inception, the volunteers at TALON have felt that our purpose is not to catalog the past, but to inform the present. We do not exist as activist nostalgia, but to guide new generations by sharing information about the errors and victories of those who came before them. Our hope was always that modern campaigns would be built with these lessons, and that we could share their own errors and victories as a long term effort to refine our movement’s tactics and strategies.
The TALON Conspirator posts will highlight our favorite organizations and the facets of our shared history that inspire them. Our second post in this series is written by the Resistance Ecology collective and details Portland, Oregon’s latest contribution to the earth and animal liberation movements: their new publication.
Resistance Ecology is an organization based in Portland, OR. We want to
build a movement for animal and ecological liberation and resistance
that is multi-layered, unified, diverse and intersectional. Animal
liberation and radical ecology do not need to be isolated, disparate,
ahistorical, and fragmented movements. They can and must become part of
the language and dialogue of social justice. We consider ourselves
allies to a broad spectrum of social and political struggle. We focus on
education and analysis, networking and resource sharing, opening and
maintaining channels of communication, identifying strategic
movement-wide targets and campaigns, and most importantly sustaining
relationships within and between movements. Currently, Resistance
Ecology is working on a movement publication, organizing an annual
national conference, creating a news website, and planning organizing
tours to lay the foundation for future networking.
The first issue of our publication serves as a “teaser”, preliminary
copy. Because we do not yet have the readership or reach that we hope to
have in the near future, we wanted to create something that gives a
glimpse of what Resistance Ecology has the potential to be, with your
participation. This issue is a short collection of essays and analysis
that captures the spirit of our work, but it is by no means a complete
work. We need your contributions, your action reports, your insights,
your critiques, and your ideas to get this project off of the ground.
Our publication project was created in the spirit of the movement
periodicals No Compromise, Earth First! Journal, Resistance, Do or Die, Arkangel, the SHAC USA Newsletter, Species Traitor, and 2600. We want
to capture movement-wide participation, inter-movement appreciation and
respect, self-critique, reports from the trenches, news, analysis, and
most importantly, dialogue. Like during the initial issues of No
Compromise, our movement is at a pivotal and vulnerable moment, and like
No Compromise, we want Resistance Ecology to serve as a means of
connection, hope, and a creative future.
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection was first established in 1898 by the Irish feminist Frances Power Cobbe. In its long history it has rarely been effective as a fighting force for non-humans, but every so often the organization has a flash of brilliance. In the 1980s, sparked to greater militancy by an explosion of youth activism against vivisection, one of these “flashes” became a conflagration that lasted more than five years.
After shedding their corporate image for something with a little more edge, the BUAV’s publication, “Liberator” became the most important publication during England’s rise of animal lib militancy. While the legislative and educational work of the Union continued, they also incorporated support for direct action. The results were spectacular. Mainstream acceptance of the underground increased, protests grew in size, more people began directly saving non-humans from places of abuse, the grassroots expanded, and unity across the tactical spectrum meant less infighting and more progress for all parties involved.
As always, marriages between moderates and radicals are unstable, and like many others this one ended in a bitter divorce. The BUAV kicked Ronnie Lee’s ALF Press Office out of their building, the SG denounced BUAV as do-nothing liberals, and direct action became harder to support as groups like ARM started sending postal bombs. Still, it was a productive relationship while it lasted, and these newspapers provide an interesting look into just what a national organization for animals can accomplish.
TALON is a soon to be rebranded archive of animal and earth liberation publications. This site is currently being maintained but please expect to see the collection at a new home soon.
sponsors and supporters
disclaimer
The Talon Conspiracy is an online archive preserving the history of protest movements for animal rights and environmentalism. Its owners, contributors, and designers are not responsible for actions taken by third parties which may be harmful or unlawful to the individuals or entities named in archived publications. This web site is provided for the purpose of historical research and analysis, and is not intended to incite, encourage, or condone any criminal action on the part of its readers. Finally, The Talon Conspiracy does not necessarily agree with any of the views expressed in the publications in our archive, but aims to provide a thorough collection of the history of eco direct action. All opinions expressed in our archives are those of their original authors only.
