The Archives

• Campaign newsletters, Periodicals

  Close HLS newsletters

  10.16.13 | Permalink

  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.

   

    

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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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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.