Absolutely pointless action. Novartis is covered by a 20 ft solid steel fence. Ten thousand activists couldn't pull that down let alone the 300 who were at the demo. The police had put their usual temporary barriers up to keep people 5 metres from the fence. I don't know why they did this. Perhaps to give people a chance to have something to damage so they could then bring in the riot cops, nick people, etc? A handful of activists started to shake the fence causing it to kick off with the police and for the riot police to appear which I think scared the activists into stopping. Could someone enlighten me into the purpose of this? An anti police action? An expression of anger? If it's about anger then pound a pillow or join a boxing club, don't be a fool at a demo. No wonder the state is able to crack down so easily on demonstrating when we act in such a way.

The animal rights movement more than any other has a bad reputation with the general public. Many AR people have the attitude of 'who cares about what the public think'. We are all 'members of the public' and we should care what people think of us. Half a dozen people at the demo were in hoods and masks. What is the point in wearing a hood and a mask in a demonstration in a town centre where you are trying to educate the public about vivisection? You just play into the hands of the state/media who portray the animal rights movement as terrorists.

Were people really dressed like this for animal liberation or to give their ego a trip by feeling like a tough guy? Think about your actions.

Well done to the hundreds who did turn out.

Not having seen it, I can't comment with much authority about attacking the police fences. Good points, and always good to look ourselves at where ego is coming into our actions or not, Ruby.

However, I take exception to the bit you wrote about masking up. It can be about ego, but I think that you look a bit twatty masked up amongst a large group of people not-masked-up. Therefore, if you are we have to presume they have thought about it, and respect their right to mask up. Of course, it's not so good in PR terms, and that's problematic, but when the police wave so many cameras in our faces, it might be an understandable & necessary loss to communication, allowing people to come who are also up for or involved in more militant activity. I say distribute masks to all, like in the old RTS 90s days.

direct action has contributed nothing to the success of the animal rights movement, it was all done by the petitions. Those running battles at Newchurch with the police where definitely not because people felt passionate but more because people had a need to look 'cool'. thanks for you advice ill take it on board next time I grab my pen and paper after all if I didn't spend all my time righting letters and not getting out and confronting these animal abusers face to face the politicians shredders would loose their purpose.

try this website ruby -  http://www.rspca.org.uk/

The captain was there all day and it was nice to see the young folk playing with the police men, but yea they doth exaggerate too much. The kiddies were dressed in black all day, so bless them, they must have been very, very hot...but this tale of them breaking the police line is utter bollocks. There was the standard, 'keep the protesters where we want them fence', and bless them they did play a game of tug of war with the cops using the fence for 5 mins, but at no time did they break any police lines, as they would have truly had the shite kicked out of them. Sorry kids, applaud your enthusiasm but tell it as it was.

Yea Old Git, Captain Bollocks

I feel that the ‘complete obedience’ approach is wrong and completely sympathise with Antispeciesist Action.

One of the stewards at the SPEAK march, who has previously called getting arrested on demos “false heroics”, used his post to stop an activist crossing the road to speak to and video a cop. I feel this may be becoming accepted logic and I think that’s wrong.

I feel encouraging open civil disobedience at protests allows the creation of a culture of action that will spill in to other things outside of demos. It gives people who may have otherwise not been involved in this type of action a chance to get involved and maybe move on to other actions.

Also it makes a clear statement to the target that people are angry on mass and they are willing to consider other actions.

Another thing to remember is we are a movement and diversity is good, some people choose leafleting some make banners and others block roads.

It may be just me being paranoid but it feels a little like the culture of protests is being changed while the organisers are locked away unknowing and unable to act. Is it just me or does anyone else feel this way?

Unfortunately the over-inflated egos of the animal rights movement has all but destroyed the anti-vivisection cause. Virtually all these no doubt well-meaning people put their own desires first, even to the extent of becoming martyrs for 'the cause'. This is why these people are so easily convinced that the way to go is marching around the deserted back-streets of Oxford and the like, sometimes dressed as rabbits - thus ridiculing the 'movement' even further.

As has been explained by those in the know a thousand times over: the only way to destroy vivisection is to destroy the lie upon which it feeds; the lie that 'animal research saves lives'. Once this lie is destroyed by a well-orchestrated campaign of public re-education, then vivisection will fall because it will no longer have any foundations on which to rest.

Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen whilst most people are so easily led by the incompetents in Shac, Speak, etc at one of the spectrum, who in varying proportions go in for intimidation, vandalism and generally creating a loathing for anti-vivisectionism by the majority of the public, and the infiltrators and careerists who lead them a merry dance in the mainsteam AV 'movement', such as BUAV, and the animal welfare brigade such as the RSPCA - whose own Maggy Jennings was once a vivisector herself - at the other.

All seem to have a deep-held belief in vivisection as a method of research, judging by the numerous links on various animal rights websites, and support in general for those groups running their various 'alternative' rackets, such as the Dr Hadwen Trust, Frame, etc, - thus forever consigning any chance of abolition to the scrap heap once and for all.

One can only hope that in time a new, mature and intelligent AV movement will emerge and which will have the courage to tackle the vivisection/pharmaceutical industry crooks head on by challenging the often-heard lie that it's either 'a dog or a baby' that has kept vivisection alive for the past few decades, and which promises to do likewise for decades to come.

"at no time did they break any police lines, as they would have truly had the shite kicked out of them. Sorry kids, applaud your enthusiasm but tell it as it was"

Strange they got a picture of the clips from the barrier then...

all done by petitions?!!! Now you're re-writing the history & present-day diversity of a movement, WTF. Other people will be able to challenge your view (& promotion of the RSPCA on Indymedia!) better than I. I've got one thing to say - bollocks.

I'd say your ego was pretty massive Chris.

And judging by the numbers of animals that get slaughtered in labs on a daily basis, all your re-education amounts to nowt.

Try welfarists link .........

I think welfarist was being ironic.

Chris was being moronic

Chris (and all the other Reusch worshipping groupies)

Do you actually do anything to promote the cause of anti vivisection? If so, what have you achieved so far?

All I ever seem to see you do is attack others who believe essentially the same as you. I never see you attacking the animal abusers directly, running campaigns, getting out there, doing the hard slog of stalls etc.

Do you really believe that anyone who promotes alternatives to vivisection is agreeing with the efficacy of vivisection? Really?? So if I eat meat alternatives as a vegan, am I supporting the meat industry? Do alternative music fans really hanker after Mantovani? Get real people.

Get out there and do something to stop the abuse that's happening now. Anything. Just don't attack others doing the same. Please.

just in case anyone else misunderstood my very poor comedy. maybe i should cancel my dates at the apollo??

How patronising to suggest that the reason those guys masked up was to look cool. Guess you also think you can say that because they're young. The only reason it may seem weird on demos is because only a minority do it. Masking up can be a good tool when everyone does it. It is an act of solidarity with those who may wish to push the boundaries of the law, making them harder to identify. When we don't mask up en masse (when appropriate), the police know to focus their harrassment on those hiding their identities.

By condemning those who opt to mask up, YOU are playing into the hands of the police by buying the 'us and them' shit. Lastly, masking up is also an expression of anger and militancy; a reminder to our enemies that under the cover of darkness, many continue to risk their own freedom for the sake of animal liberation.

Will do! Thanks for the idea...

The Vivisection industries foundations lie in big money, they aint going to be bothered whether folk realise its a fraud science or not!

Everyone knows, and did know at the time, that pushing the fencing would achieve nothing. That's not the point, really. Nobody believed it would actually stop vivisection or cause Novartis any harm... and that never was the aim of why it happened. It's a good thing that people are still filled with anger and passion at demonstrations and marches. Civil disobedience is a good thing, and to show that we will not remain puppets of a police state is a good thing.

For too long we have marched en masse, well behaved and according to police lines. Realistically we are all livid at what goes on within this world and we cannot blame anybody for acting on this rage, in whatever way they see fit. Lets face it, those riot cops needed a bit of exercise anyway!!

The reason why some ppl are against so called "alternatives"(in relation to vivisection) is because UK law states that every "alternative" has to have an animal experiment carried out alongside it!! To see if the "alternative" is scientific.More animal deaths and more belief that vivisection is "scientific" cause its the reference(by which) the "alternatives" have to be given by. Meaning more bloody vivisection!!!


Thats all.

This has turned into an excellent discussion.

Becuase I don't believe in people walking through town centres looking like hooligans does not make me a welfarist or does it mean I oppose direct action. There maybe times to be wearing masks but a demonstration of this kind is surely about spreading a message. Am I wrong? If the messenger look menacing then who will listen to us? I've worn a mask at demos myself years ago but I think this kind of aggressive way is counter productive. Someone mentioned what happened at Newchurch. There is a big difference between a demo at a facility in the middle of nowhere and marching through a city. I understand we are being filmed by the police and covering up is a defence from that, but when we are in the public view we should present a positive impression.

Some people here talk about us all wearing masks! HLS and the state would love this. Hundreds of people in masks in a town centre. Don't you see how easily it is then for them to call us 'terrorists'.

Nice post Chris.

"I've worn a mask at demos myself years ago but I think this kind of aggressive way is counter productive. Someone mentioned what happened at Newchurch. There is a big difference between a demo at a facility in the middle of nowhere and marching through a city."

The demonstration was out of the centre and was a nice environment for it in fact, just like it would be at HLS or anywhere else. When was the last vivisection lab that was next to Tescos? Please stop taking the piss. If you haven't noticed, the state regularly call protesters terrorists, nothing would change. Maybe even people would see who might be more militant and realise that there are few who actually are..?

The concept of terrorism is to blackmail (the state/institutions by any means). If you haven't realised already, protesting is therefore a form of terrorism by the definition of the US & UK governments. By protesting you are saying "we will be back, if you don't do what we ask". Sending email is blackmail, if you do it twice. Phoning places is blackmail. Speaking out against anything is a form of terrorism so the government has defined. I'm sure most people don't think this in reality, so until this ideology is smashed - we will all be prisoners. If you haven't noticed, the public should already be revolting about this!! And much less concerned that they might demonise our actions.

I find it quite sad that fellow rights/liberation activists would condemn these people for masking up, at the end of the day we were all fighting for the same thing... the closure of HLS, Novartis, and every other animal abusing scum hole lab. The methods used by different activists vary, diversity is a good thing.

If these people want to mask up I fully support them, after it's not like the march had a uniform policy of what you can and cannot wear. I've been on many suppliers and customer demos where everyone wore skull masks and hoods, to be honest they were the best ones. Made the job of the police monitoring individuals much harder.

The public are always going to think of animal rights/liberation activists as terrorists so long as the state and corporate media keep calling us that. Regardless of whether we wear masks or not. At the end of the day as Thomas stated in the post above, any action against a company that engages in animal research or supports animal research is a criminal act as defined by law. Demos, phone calls, letters, and emails are all classed as blackmail and unless the law is abolished and our rights to protest recognised we are always going to be criminalised and condemned. NETCU on it's website refers to all protesters (even peaceful ones) as extremists, as NETCU is a primary liaison between the police and the media is it any wonder the media always gets the wrong end of the stick and we end up getting slated?

Abolish NETCU & SOCPA.

I was there on Saturday. I don’t have a problem with people covering their faces, though I don’t feel the need to do it myself. AR demos attract lots of different ages/types of people so a few people covering their faces is just another category included. Marching/campaigning against anything immediately sets you apart from the majority of people in this world who will never campaign against anything in the whole of their lives. The media should not be let off the hook and nearly always portrays activists of any kind (even peace activists) as a social threat of some kind, this is no accident I’m sure.

Chris has got a point which people can ignore if they want to ignore reality and just reach a self fulfilling and possibly self satisfying dead end. You will never end vivisection by campaigning on the moral issue alone. If anti war activists can’t stop the carnage in Iraq purely on moral grounds where many people have been killed, injured and displaced why do you think vivisection will be stopped by the moral argument. It has not worked yet, so when do you think it will? Answers please.

I have the utmost respect for SHAC, SPEAK and all grassroots activists as they are the only people who keep the issue alive. I am not aware that NAVS or BUAV et all have done anything to reach the general public and remind them about animal lab week and the issues around it this year or any other year recently.

Surely people who want to publicly challenge the vivisection industry about the absurd claims it makes can use the opportunity of the high public profile of the SHAC, SPEAK campaigns to get their point across. EMP are a good example of an organisation that have done so.

Well said, United We Stand!

Ruesch was probably the biggest egoist ever to inflict himself on the animal rights movement. He was totally intolerant of anyone whose views were even remotely at varience with his own - basically, if you didn't think the sun shone out or his ars*, then you were "brainwashed", a "supporter of vivisection" and an "infiltrator". He made a long career out of libelling and backstabbing dedicated campaigners, while flogging his books to people with an under-developed sense of scepticism who believed every word of his paranoid conspiracy theories and worshipped the very ground he stood on.

This wouldn't have been so bad if he actually DID have a serious scientific point to make, and could express it by strong, reasoned arguments that would stand up to informed scruitiny from people with the appropriate scientific knowledge to know what they were talking about. All we actually got was selected examples that seemed to fit the case coupled with a lot of hot air and personal abuse - anyone with the slightest knowledge of interpreting scientific data would tell you a handful of examples prove nothing. Supporters of vivisection could do exactly the same. Reusch's "science" was so simplisticly black-and-white that it posed no threat whatsoever to the vivisection industry: evidence of only ONE successful experiment was all it would take for the whole dogma to fall apart.

Ruesch and his lackeys even had it in for those of us who believe that the moral case against vivisection is sufficient for its abolition: in his / their blinkered, dogmatic eyes, that's no different from thinking that vivisection is a good thing and should be encouraged. What arrogance!

Boosting a fading writing career (Ruesch was previously an author of popular fiction, not to mention a racing-car driver) by selling anti-vivisection books to animal rights / welfare sympathisers (i.e. preaching to the converted) is one thing - producing serious scientific arguments that can convert the medical and scientific establishment to the abolitionist cause is quite another. I would whole-heartedly throw my support behind any group or individual who really COULD take on the vivisection industry with powerful, verifiable scientific arguments, but it's certainly not this garbage.

What does it actually matter if you did break the police lines? Who cares? What does it acheive. To my mind it fails to actually acheive anything and boasting about it makes you look childish and completely unaware of any sensible way of acheiving your aims.

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking." - economist John Kenneth Galbraith

anonymouse

Failed to achieve anything? I wouldn't say that. It made everyone involved feel sooooo good! Shame it's over, but still, they can do it all again next year.

I see my original post caused some excitement from my old friend Gregor, whom if I remember correctly had only praise for the vivisector's friend, Gill Langley, the ex-vivisector who wormed her way into the once great BUAV and has been slyly plugging vivisection ever since, even to the extent of having set up the Dr Hadwen Trust, whose purpose is to convince people that vivisection is a 'necessary evil' in order to extract donations. Common sense dictates that should she tell the truth - that vivisection is not only useless but also damaging to the point whereby it has made 'modern medicine' a major contributor to death and disease - her 'fund for alternatives' would make no sense, there clearly being no need to fund the development of so-called ‘alternatives’ at all.

Naturally this is of no interest to some, who shout out about 'unity', whilst having allowed lackeys for the vivisection industry to take over the AV movement.

Still, to answer some of Gregor’s points: Hans Ruesch was not boosting a 'fading writing career' before he took up anti-vivisectionism - far from it; he was a very successful writer, with two of his books having been made into films, although he had stopped writing fiction by then as he was writing for a medical publication in Italy when he discovered the existence of vivisection. It was then he vowed never again to write fiction so long as vivisection continued.

True, he was not perfect - he was after all only human - but his works did create a major stir in the world of anti/vivisection, the after-effects are felt today, including a foundation of doctors opposed to vivisection, demands for abolition in the Italian parliament (based on the evidence in his books), and much more besides. His contributions to humanity were eventually recognised by his inclusion in Stuart Hirschberg and Terry Hirschberg's book, Past and Present, Ideas That Changed the World, which gives fourteen pages of excerpts from Slaughter of the Innocent, and where his name appears alongside the likes of Keats, Shaw, Orwell, Herodotus, Carlyle, Darwin, Hoyle, Plato, Sartre, Aristotle, Ruskin and Flaubert, amongst others.

All of no interest to Gregor, of course.

Ruesch’s major line of arguments is that vivisection is not only useless, but counterproductive, and that if we truly desire abolition we have no choice but to fight vivisection using the arsenal of scientific and medical arguments at our disposal, instead of relegating the fight alone to ‘ethics’, ‘morality’, ‘animal rights’, etc – arguments that strictly speaking can never be won nor lost: many people will always accept any degree of torture of animals for some presumed ‘benefit’. Ethics will never end the nightmare of vivisection, and history has regrettably proven this to be true.

And here of course is where Gregor shows his true ignorance, and demonstrates the reasons for his ill-informed comments of Hans Ruesch and his past support for vivisector Langley: he appears to believe that vivisection ‘works’! This speaks volumes.

So, rather than listen to the countless doctors (Ruesch published a book: 1000 Doctors Against Vivisection – free on the website) who say that vivisection can never be of any benefit, and that there can only be coincidences, he would rather place his trust in the flatulent boasts of the psychopathic inmates of the vivisection labs who have managed to convince the majority of the population that vivisection is a necessary evil – the reason by which it has become the enormous and obscene industry that it is today.

Gregor, your ramblings remind me of Langley herself, who recently described herself as an ’ethical anti-vivisectionist’ – quite understandable if she wants to see the money continue to roll in to her ‘alternatives’ fund.

Furthermore, your comments that Ruesch never provided scientific evidence that vivisection is useless convinces me that you never read his books Slaughter of the Innocent and Naked Empress. Nor Professor Croce’s fantastic Vivisection or Science, which was published by Ruesch’s CIVIS organisation.

I would also suggest that Ruesch is very much correct in that the AV is indeed riddled with infiltrators; surely only a very naïve person would think that the world’s largest and most powerful industry – the drugs industry – doesn’t ensure that any opposition is infiltrated in order to water down the message that the AV / AR movement disseminates from one of hard and fast scientific arguments into the never-never realms of ethics – exactly that which has happened over the past 20 years or more, and which looks set to ensure the continuation of vivisection until the end of time.

Chris

Hans Ruesch bio:  http://www.vivisectionfraud.com/hansruesch1.html

1000 Doctors Against Vivisection:  http://www.vivisectionfraud.com/1000docs.html

Videos:  http://www.vivisectionfraud.com/videos.html

HR Reports and Bulletins:  http://www.vivisectionfraud.com/civisreports.html

... since this has fallen off the bottom of the main page and hardly anyone's reading it, so I won't flatter you with a detailed reply but:

Yes, I have read "Slaughter" when it came out, and heard your idol speak at a rally for real (late 70's / early 80s, probably Cambridge or perhaps Salisbury). Not read "Empress" but presume it's broadly the same.

Also had a look at "1000 Doctors" on the web. Shame it's not what the title implies. Has the editor REALLY rounded up 1000 qualified medical doctors, to publicly condemn all animal experiments? Well .... er .... no, he's just selected 1000 quotes (without context, and perhaps without permission?) critical of some aspect of animal experimentation. Not really the same thing, is it? Probably there really are "1000 Doctors Against Vivisection", but they're not in this book, are they? Ever felt that your intelligence is being insulted? I have. Far more importantly, those ministers, politicians etc responsible for legislation on animal experimentation aren't likely to be impressed either.

Finally, I will just ask one thing. Go out and buy a standard textbook on interpreting statistical and scientific data. NOT necessarily one that refers specifically to the biological sciences (which you will probably regard as being written by "infiltrators" or people who are "brainwashed"): just one that tells you how to draw correct conclusions from the available data. Most importantly, you will read of the need for random selection, and large, statistically significant samples before any accurate conclusions can be drawn.

A meaningful understanding of the value or otherwise of animal experimentation would require a massive sample size, selected at random and interpreted by an impartial source. A tiny sample of the billions of experiments performed, carefully selected and interpreted by an extremely biased person with an axe to grind (who could just as easily be a pro-vivisector) proves effectively nothing. Hence my claim that your hero's "science" was so simplistic and poor that it posed no threat whatsoever to the vivisection industry - a schoolkid with a basic knowledge of GCSE science or statistics could see the huge holes in the "argument", let alone anyone with an in-depth knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry or biological sciences.

True, not all the doctors in 1000 Doctors are outright abolitionists, as Hans himself points out, but some certainly are, and here it would be interesting to hear your views regarding the comments by at least some of those doctors opposed to vivisection that you are so quick to denigrate. Perhaps they are all idiots who also should read books about "interpreting statistical and scientific data"? Perhaps Professor Croce, author of Vivisection or Science, to name but one.

Again, why are you so keen to cast aside the opinions of medical authorities opposed to vivisection, and yet accept seemingly without question the opinions of those who wish to keep the practice alive? A very odd state of affairs.

So which experiments would you consider scientifically valid? As all experiments, without question, have to be done again on people to see whether the resullts are valid for human beings it begs the question as to just just whether this is the sort of 'science' that we should be basing our health care systems on. Perhaps we should ask the relatives of the 10,000 Americans killed annually because of animal 'safety-tested' drugs?

I get the growing feeling that you might be better off trying to convince us of just what YOUR heroes at the BUAV and the Hadwen Trust (an organisation, incidentally, that names itself after the great abolitionist doctor, Walter Hadwen, who was very much opposed to the whole concept of 'alternatives' as damaging to the abolitionist cause) have ever done to end vivisection; this being unlikely, your desperate attempts at justifying vivisection leaving me wondering whether you and Langley aren't actually one and the same.

I like V for vendetta. I suggested wearing Vmasks at a planning stage of a demo. But some Guvnor said it was not cricket. Any way, we mask up and you guys all moan.