No Compromise #6-7 (1997. Minneapolis, MN.)
The second year of No Compromise was packed with inspiring coverage of the growth of the militant grassroots, including some of the most important events of the 90s: Tony Wong’s hunger strike, the mass arrests and police riot at the Yerkes primate center, and the World Week for Animals in Laboratories arrests at the UC Davis primate center.
Tony Wong was only 16 years old when he was convicted for a civil disobedience action at the Lazurus department store. He immediately began a hungerstrike in prison, and after a month of not eating the staff at the juvenile facility where he was being held began force feeding him animal products through a tube forcefully inserted through his nose. The brutality faced by Tony acted as a lightning rod, and soon large demonstrations and acts of sabotage rippled across the country. The most important thing that Tony did though was to set an example of dedication that others could admire and aspire to in their own lives. Sadly, Tony eventually embraced a deeply speciesist political transformation and began consuming animals again after sacrificing so much to save them.
World Week in 1997 saw miniature police riots in Georgia and California. The protests themselves were not as important as the resulting boost to the movement created by the heavy handedness of the cops. As van loads of activists traveled to these demonstrations and found themselves sharing jail cells with like minded comrades, they soon formed tighter networks which led to greater revolutionary potential. The west coast and east coast both saw an upswing in regional actions after these arrests.
No Compromise was plagued by it’s usual production and distribution delays this year. It only got two issues finished, and they didn’t make it into people’s hands on the advertised cover dates, but both of these issues are wonderful documents of their era.
No Compromise #1-5 can be found here.
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Combat #1 (1990, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
After 6 years of operation in Toronto, a lull in activity caused the ALF Supporters Group Canada to shut down. Other volunteers picked up the slack and soon the SG was moved to Alberta. At this time the ALF was fairly active in the great white north, and soon their night time activities were being covered in a new magazine known as Combat. Considered by many to be the predecessor of Underground, Combat closely followed the template for supporters group publications set by The SG in England with one important difference: They had awesome cover art!
Combat is amongst the most rare militant animal rights publications produced in North America, and when we received this first issue for scanning we were delighted to find, a long, and thoughtful prison letter from Ronnie Lee, updates on the arrests of Jonathan Paul, Bill Keogh, and Cres Velluci, and a short listing of international action reports. There was also a hastily added pamphlet stuffed inside with an update on the jailing of Henry Hutto, an early movement hero who was amongst the first members of both PETA and Earth First! Very little information is available about Henry, who passed away in 2003, but he is a minor legend in some circles and the pictures of a rally held in his honor made holding this magazine that much sweeter.
Issue #2 of Combat is now available HERE.
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Underground 16 (2001, Ontario, Canada)
Although the cover claims that this issue was released in Spring of 2000, in actuality, the final issue of Underground was so delayed that subscribers received it in the fall of 2001. By this time, the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign was in full swing, the world was seeing regular, large scale riots and street protests at political and industry events, and the Earth Liberation Front was moving the forefront of direct action in the United States. Underground had a number of redeeming features, not the least of which was its comprehensive, worldwide diary of actions, but its publication schedule, the release of Bite Back and the new SHAC newsletter, and the popularity of the internet as a source for news was chipping away at its relevance. It used its final issue to re-publish the Nighttime Gardener, cover the harassment of the ELF press office, and discuss news that was in many cases no longer new.
The magazine had quite a journey from its earlier incarnation as Combat and is clearly one of the most essential documents of the upswing in activity our movement witnessed in the 1990s. Bite Back magazine continues to fill the hole left by Underground’s disappearance, but us old timers will always remember these newsprint treasures with the kind of fondness that only comes from “being there.” It may sound funny, but I sometimes think of these old zines as fallen comrades. In that spirit, let me just say that death has a funny way of being impermanent in the world of activism. Here is to a new generation born from the ashes of those who Underground represented and reported on. Underground is dead, but the Underground lives on.
Also see Underground 1-3 and Underground 4-6 and Underground 7-9 and Underground 10-13 and Underground 14-15.
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Underground 14-15 (1999, Ontario, Canada)
The turn of the century was an odd time in the world of radical politics. The remnants of the mid-90s militants grassroots were fading away, and those still loyal began to look to England for signs of hope. In Eugene, an odd coalition of old school forest activists, crusties, anarchists, and even some members of the old left were rapidly embracing a philosophy critical of civilization, leftism, and pacifism. People all over the globe were beginning to talk about the specter of global trade agreements, and everyone began planning for the World Trade Organization meetings in the northwest, where arsons, lab raids, and whale hunt sabotages were already rampant. Everywhere there was a sense that the old politics were dying, and that something new was right around the corner.
Underground reflected some of this feeling, but production delays, staff turnover, and the rapid loss of its old writers meant that only 2 short issues were produced this year. Some great history was documented in these pages, but sadly much was left uncovered. These two issues should be thought of as an incomplete sampling of just some of what ’99 brought the world.
Also see Underground 1-3 and Underground 4-6 and Underground 7-9 and Underground 10-13 and the final rare issue, Underground 16.
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Out of the Cages #6 – 9 (1993-1994. Santa Cruz, CA. USA)
Out of the Cages is a wonderful magazine that filled an important niche in the pre-internet, pre-No Compromise 90s. As the main west coast publication of its time, it had a link to the 80s glory days that ran deep in the area it was printed. Santa Cruz had been the home of early US hunt saboteurs and the earliest cooperation between animal rights activists and Earth First! took place there. Rod Coronado, Jonathan Paul, and other early AR radicals called it home. This proximity to history gave the magazine a much different tone than Holocaust, or Dressed in Black, and unlike Militant Vegan, the group publishing OOTC were above ground liberationists, accessible for correspondence and submissions. This meant that the zine was always filled with fresh perspectives, letters, and debate, and that eventually groups from across the country got in touch to share ideas and announce their campaigns.
Conflict Gypsy would very much like a complete set of Out of the Cages. If you have any please contact us at conflictgypsy {{at}} gmail ((dot)) com
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Resistance Volume 1 #1-4, Volume 2 #1 (1999-2001. Portland, OR. USA)
Before Portland became famous for its eccentricities and vegan mini-malls, it used to be known as one of the west coast’s most active centers for direct action oriented environmental, animal, and human rights activism. Famously referred to as “little Beirut,” by the George H.W. Bush administration, Portland was the home of peace-punk bands, eco-saboteurs, and anti-government riots. Then, strangely enough, it became a hotbed of pacifism in the mid-90s thanks to the efforts of… wait for it… Craig Rosebraugh.
Craig eventually became known internationally for his support of political violence and ecotage, but for a few years he was an advocate of Gandhian nonviolence. After participating in several voluntary arrest actions, he co-founded the group Liberation Collective in 1996 as a blanket organization meant to tackle a wide variety of social ills. The group was a springboard for many well known activists, and planned a number of media spectacles across the United States, from Buy Nothing Day car smash-em-ups in busy downtown streets to the cross country Primate Freedom Tour. (The PFT was credited in large part to a group called Coalition to End Primate Experiments, but the greater part of the organizing was done by LibCo members.)
After the failure of attempts such as One Struggle to document a broad movement for ecological sanity and justice for all life, Liberation Collective took up the torch and released the first issue of Resistance. The inaugural issue was unlike any other in the series though. The main forces behind the publication, Craig and Leslie James Pickering, had politics that were no longer meshing well with the rest of the group. Liberation Collective was falling apart due to a number of factors, and ultimately LJ and Craig struck out on their own, founding the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office and continuing the Resistance project as a newsletter of their new organization.
The third issue of Resistance launched what was to become the best source of information for a rapidly expanding underground movement. The Earth Liberation Front was becoming active across the United States, but supportive coverage could be difficult to find. Even the Earth First! Journal wasn’t always willing to support the large scale arson attacks of the ELF, and when they did they lost membership. (Famously, Julia Butterfly left Earth First! after the Journal gave positive coverage to the Vail arson.) Resistance, however, published nearly every ELF communique unedited, and covered the multiple federal investigations into the groups actions. Activists seeking a better knowledge of the events leading to the green scare and “Operation Backfire” arrests would do well to start by reading the early volumes of Resistance.
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Underground # 1-3 (1994-1995. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.)
Underground was published by the North American Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group and was essentially a continuation of the old Canada ALFSG publication, Combat. Because the NAALFSG went through constant staff changes, police raids, and office burglaries, the magazine often went long stretches between installments, but the first year managed to produce three long, enjoyable issues .
The early editions of this magazine were the most essential, as the quality lagged by the end of its run. Articles with practical advice on everything from handling grand jury subpoenas to sabotaging steel jaw leg hold traps appeared during this era, and the tone of the magazine was measured and reasonable. Commentary on how targeting of actions should account for political repercussions and avoid unintended racist and classist undertones showed a maturity seldom seen in other movement papers at the time.
Of historical importance is the coverage of grand juries in the 90s, early attempts at organizing AR activists on the internet, the frequent and ignored violence against animals activists, and the death of Jill Phipps during the campaign against live exports. Young activists would do well to read these issues, as the time period covered spans the gap between the end of Out of the Cages, Militant Vegan, Dressed in Black, and the start of No Compromise.
On a final, sad note, much of the best content for Underground was written by, or about, Canadian activist Darren Thurston. Darren was an inspiration to the movement, and participated in a number of high profile actions that earned him jail time and constant surveillance. After years of fighting bravely for animal liberation, Darren unexpectedly became a government informant and stopped being vegan during his last sentence in federal prison. The staff of Conflict Gypsy would like to assert that publication of his old articles is for archival purposes and should not be seen as forgiveness or support for his treacherous actions.
Also see Underground 4-6, Underground 7-9, Underground 10-13, Underground 14-15, Underground 16 and the final rare issue Underground 17.
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Dressed in Black 1-3 (1994-1995. Syracuse, NY USA.)
Dressed in Black was a short lived zine produced and distributed by members of the Syracuse Animal Defense League. It ran for 3 issues in the span of just over a year and then died out right around the same time as Syracuse’s other animal liberation publication, Holocaust. DiB’s infancy followed the pattern set by Militant Vegan in that it relied heavily on articles reprinted from other sources, but that strangely ended up being its primary strength.
To be aware of magazines such as Frontlines, Out of the Cages, or Liberator you already had to be a part of the movement. To obtain a copy in those days you had to mail a request along with hidden cash and sometimes even a return envelope. People who were not already committed to the cause were unlikely to do that, but Dressed in Black, at least in its first issue, acted as an aggregator for articles from those publications and got into the hands of non-activists by being distributed at hardcore shows.
Syracuse was one of many cities in the US that experienced a surge of youth led AR activism in the early 90s, but unlike Memphis or Minneapolis, Syracuse had a special ingredient that helped spread awareness of grassroots groups and local zines – the band Earth Crisis. After releasing their All Out War EP in 1992, the band’s popularity boomed. They often had chapters of the Animal Defense League tabling at their shows, and as Conflict Gypsy sought out copies of Dressed in Black many people told us that their introduction to the zine came at Earth Crisis shows in various places across the country.
By the third issue, Dressed in Black contained original writings and cleaned up its layout. It was surprisingly non-dogmatic for its era, and depicted ADL activists “going naked,” contained information from national organizations, and managed to avoid the pseudo-religious insanity of “Hardline.” Due to its wide circulation, DiB eventually became one of the zines that others copied articles out of, an interesting full circle for this small publication that died before reaching maturity.
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