ALF targets foie gras restaurant Midsummer House

The ALF certainly picked a good target. You know, one of those businesses that employs people to use violence against campaigners and brake their property....

>>  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/391007.html

It'll be interesting to see if they try the same tactic again! My first impression is that they will be more agressive (after scrubbing paint all day!), but then again, they probably realised that the ALF was motivated by the Midsummer's heavy handed approach to the situation initially.

They'll hopefully be softies and give in because of it, or just dive back into the - cause more damage - expect more damage ideology.

Regardless of the cause they are trying to defend, the methods employed by this terrorist group are absolutely disgusting. Furthermore, foie gras is an easy target and concerns only a small number of animals. If they did really care about animals they would do this kind of actions against 'factory farms'!

Cambridge Evening News has reported that Midsummer House has taken Foie Gras off their menu.

 http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=257755

The news comes after an action by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) that head chef Daniel Clifford has estimated will cost the business over £3,000.

Mr. Clifford stated that he would of spoke to protesters but was not approached, he made no mention of the letters sent by a national campaigning groups and polite phone calls made by local campaigners before the protests even started and during the campaign.

The ALF do target factory farms! If your ‘pet’ were the victim would you feel that peaceful (no human or animal harmed) direct action was unacceptable?

"The ALF do target factory farms!"

Well I have not much heard publicity about that so far and I consider this to be a much bigger problem. We're talking about a much larger number of animals but also a bigger potential impact: instead of few wealthy annoyed customers, a majority of junk food eaters and other beef addicts.

"If your ‘pet’ were the victim would you feel that peaceful (no human or animal harmed) direct action was unacceptable? "

Not sure I get your point... peaceful action is acceptable. Terrorism is not.

That to rescue a "pet", you might have to "SHOCK HORROR!", break into a building to rescue it. Therefore causing economic damage, and in your eyes therefore causing terrorism...

Although we all know violence can only be directed towards living creatures, thus this is not violence, or terrorism. To say throwing a brick through the window is the same as flying a plane into a bulding and causing thousands of people to die - IS SICK.

It further degrades the thousands of families who have lost lives on September 11th. Next thing they know their lost ones are being compared to the suffering an owner of a car recieves when it is being paintsripped, or when a wall is painted "love animals" - again a SICK comparison.

Quite simply, the fact that you said the ALF should target battery farms, means that you are endorsing your own definition of the term "terrorist tactics", which you claim to be so wrong.

Why is it that all vandalism is called violent terrorism, and murder is just called violence, even serial rapists and murderers. Any reasons...? Media manipulation perhaps? Same old story...

Why do you think that the thousands of battery farms raided don't get an word in edge ways?Because if the media covered the action, then less people would be consuming battery eggs - and that would be more economic damage the ALF actions cause on their own!!

Makes you wonder why animal abuse isn't talked about right? Like the millions suffering in Iraq and the countless number of people in poverty, its all about protecting the profits.

Use of violence and fear to impose an ideology IS terrorism; whether the outcome is thousand of deaths or relatively small material damage. You can repeat as much as you want the same argument as Steven Best to explain why you think what was done in this Cambridge restaurant (and Oxford laboratories and many other places) is not a form of terrorism; you can make me say that vandalism is the same as terrorism (they are not); you may convince yourself but not me.

Instead of comparing the victims (a chef with few broken windows vs. thousands of death) you should compare the process: use of fear and violence to impose an ideology (whether Koran’s or Tom Regan’s). Denying the tactic is the same IS BLIND.
What would ALF have done if this chef had continued? Probably increase the violence and threat.

By the way, forceful destruction of property is also violence! It’s not only intentional injury to persons. Also, I did not say ALF “should” target battery farms. I said that IF they really wanted to make an impact they WOULD target these farms. This does not mean I endorse the tactic; I despise it. Just like I despise the treatment received by so many innocent animals.

Without violence, a number of small improvements have been made recently regarding the production of eggs...

Ray I think you'll find the ALF does target factory farms, however it is not often reported in the media because the media prefers to sensationalise stories about damage to property over chickens being liberated. If you refer to Bite Back Magazine you'll see that recently the ALF in New Zealand rescued piglets from a factory farm and 31 hens from another farm, and in Italy 20,000 pheasants and 6 rabbits were freed. And that's not even taking into account the liberations against factory fur farms. Click back through the weeks and months and you'll also find many UK liberations.

The war against animal abuse is fought on all fronts, the breeders, the suppliers, and the sellers.

Do you think we should still be fighting slavery and racism because if people hadn't used "terrorist direct action tactics", than the Underground Railroad, the Suffrajets and the Civil Rights Movements would very likely STILL be here today...or at least in their present forms if a welfarist approach had been taken (or endorsed, therefore abolition overlooked).

I like the way we're not concentrating on those issues and are looking into the future - to total animal liberation. I'm also glad that movements are not stupid enough to waste time with politicians and the like, similar to the suffrajets. We've got so far in the last 200 years, there's only a bit left to go !!

We've given out nearly all rights now; white men, all men, women, children, homosexuals and now animals are getting closer and closer everyday. Do we really wish we were living in the 1850s because some people didn't break some shit - that now in the 21st century is defined as "terrorism"??

To denounce history, is to denounce the struggles we have fought and won. It is in effect to denounce the present rights we all have, knowing that without the methods employed it could have been very different.

So....in todays society.

Would it be wrong to break a window to liberate a slave?
Would it be wrong to burn mailboxes in support of womens rights?

I think we all know, if it was our children, our mother, our friends in those cages, we'd do everything possibly to liberate those lives.

Until Every Cage Is Empty - Until All Are Free

Few piglets here, 6 rabbits there, 47 rats rescued, locks glued in pharmacies, 2 turkeys liberated, etc. (ok 20,000 pheasants), little press coverage in main media... and often negative. So, in other words, punctual action and bad marketing, leading to opposition from main public (read comments on the Telegraph for instance). I’m not sure this is a recipe for success actually.

Unbiased education of consumers based on (if possible) scientific facts, might seem slower, but would pay more in the long run.

Also, I disagree with comparing the liberation of slaves and animals but that's another discussion about the actual goal. My point was just about the tactic.

The ends justify the means, so long as no one got hurt - and in this case (as always with the ALF) no one did get hurt.

The result was that the place dropped foie gras - and that saved 100's of ducks each year from the torture and agony of force fed liver disease. The campaign against foie gras is gaining momentum all over the country, and you can bet several places will quietly drop foie gras after reading about this in the papers meaning that the total number of ducks saved from this one night of action could run in to many thousands.

“As always with the ALF”... right... Donald Currie et al.? Does this ring a bell?

Others like Staline and Hitler also believed the ends justify the means. It’s a slippery slope...

Get real, a restaurant dropped foie gras - if you seriously think that this will lead to a Hitler/Stalin type world wide conflict then you are seriously out of touch with reality and I suggest that you take some time out until you can understand context.

It's not just the restaurant... there are all those past actions (and future ones) to impose a sectarian ideology. The ALF bombing issues of the recent past may have gone for now but may well come back. Who knows.

Anyway, I think I previously made the point I wanted to make so I'm not going to argue any further.

Well done Alfie - it worked - wish they had a number I could call, cos there are some places I know of that need the same treatment

I know it dont work like that though - pity.

"The ALF bombing issues of the recent past may have gone for now but may well come back. Who knows"

Ummm....I best tell you this, because I think it's only honest! If you go to Bite Back you'll notice the number of arsons have been steadily increasing across Europe and the US. There have been 4 or 5 in the past few weeks even.

In regards to the comparison between liberating humans and liberating non-humans, I find it odd that you would not compare the two as they both come under the category of "animal liberation", one is non-human liberation and the other is human liberation. Hense the quote "One struggle, one fight. Human freedom, animal rights"

Why you would not be able to look into the comparisons I don't know....they both include un-selfish action, liberating another that is imprisoned for no logical reason, other than the mainframe of discrimination that keeps them there for the dominant side of society to benefit from. Obviously I undertsand if you don't want to rebute those claims, because you consider them offensive.

You'll probably find this contraversial too...

Jewish author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978 and who was himself a vegetarian, made this comparison in several of his stories including Enemies, A Love Story, The Penitent, and The Letter Writer. In The Letter Writer the protagonist says: "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka." In The Penitent the protagonist says "when it comes to animals, every man is a Nazi."

J.M. Coetzee, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003, wrote: "... in the 20th century, a group of powerful and bloody-minded men in Germany hit on the idea of adapting the methods of the industrial stockyard, as pioneered and perfected in Chicago, to the slaughter - or what they preferred to call the processing - of human beings."


As for tactics, the controversial tactics are shown to work. They raise a large amount of awareness on the issue, regardless of the fact it's mainly negative. Who actually trusts the maintstream press these days anyway? The argument that people aren't going to look into the issues because of the "fringe" groups that support it, was pretty much proven wrong by the black panthers/black nationalists and the extremist suffrajets. It brings these issues to light so people over time will look into the issues from another perspective, if not immediately.

It's like the argument that if you've been punched by somebody who has pink hair, that you hate everyone with pink hair, etc etc. People who still continue to discriminate against humans will never agree with animal liberation, just like Nazis don't agree with rights for non-whites, gay people and everything else that has progressed in society. There will be a significant number that also disagree, usually not even a majority to agree in the first place, but very shortly over time things change. Within weeks, even months, the people who are against rights end up being the "fringe" that secured it.

If it's undemocratic, then so was the majority of social history.