National Animal Rights Spring Gathering

The image of balaclavas, bolt croppers, etc has to be removed if the animal rights movement is to grow beyond a tiny hardcore movement. Images like this reinforce the idea that we are all violent criminals. The 'smash em' campaigns have failed. We need to build a mass movement not a cult.

The bolt cropper image stands for liberation using direct action. Direct action (often using bolt-croppers) has has been responsible for the rescuing of many animals over the years.
Had we relied upon letters to our MPs, or the worthless online petitions to Parliament, then the animals would not have been rescued.

I have to agree that the more direct minority of the animal rights movement need to be reigned in. It's more about instilling fear and intimidation than animal liberation. I can name a few ex-bat organisations that rescue more lives each year these people ever have. We fight a battle against each other, liberators break in to bat sheds and take a few hens we have to explain it away inorder to keep the farmers on side so we can rescue many thousands.

For every animal you free from a factory farm another 2000 are bred for slaughter, for every window you break an insurance company easily covers the costs its pennies for most of them, for every breeder you close another one opens in order to take their place... capitalism encourages this behaviour to fill in gaps in the market, for every lab you close in the UK a pharmaceuticals giants opens a new one in India, China or South Korea where laws on welfare are virtually non-existent, for every person you convert to veganism another 10-20 meat eaters are born into the world.

Direct action does not achieve lasting change, all it achieves is getting people locked up for 5-10 years. Without lasting protection under the law, or the removal of the capitalist system which encourages animal abuse via financial incentives you will never achieve your aims via direct action. And it is almost a certainty that direct action does indeed put people off the movement, I used to raise money and hand out leaflets for Uncaged virtually every weekend in my town however nowadays people are most cautious from donating or taking a leaflet the questions almost always revolve around are you connected to the people that dug up the old women? Are you the people that send letters calling scientists paedophiles? Are you the ones that break windows and generally cause mischief?

Look at HLS, look at the Oxford primate lab, Covance, et al. All have been the targets of direct action yet all are still standing. Every year they preach that just another push and they will close, every year they say the end is in sight. Where is the end I urge you to answer? I think everyone here knows that the government (especially a Tory one come next election which loves bloodsports and science) will continue to pump money into HLS and support it for as long as it takes. Handing them 100 million per year is pennies for the government budget in real terms should the need arise.

Bolt crops are hardly a viloent image. they are an image of liberation. What can be more non-violent than freedom from abuse

Now personally I salute anyone who helps animals including human ones and have the utmost respect for bat rescuers, anti facists, gay rights activists, sanctuary workers, those who go on demos, those who do a bit of everything. I think that the person who works an 18 hour day rescuing feral cats, going without sleep and any comforts day in day out is a hero.
Those who break the law to help animals do so without thanks, risk imprisonment, injury and derision it is outrageous to condemn them.
At present in the UK which probably has amongst the best legislation in the world animals are slashed, tortured, boiled, ripped apart with only pathetic sentences if anyone is found guilty. Sean Kirtley who is completely exonerated of any crime spent 18 months in prison for demonstrating peacefully. The 2004 Hunting Act hailed as "proof" by the naive that only lobbying for new laws work is not only ignored by the police but now they are actively arresting and the CPS is prosecuting those who try to gather evidence of illegal hunting. Is it really a success to lobby for over 100 years for a law which is not enforced, which depends utterly on evidence gathered by volunteers who risk injury and arrest, which then depends on money donated by volunteers to prosecute which then leads to nothing more than a small fine if hunters are found guilty??
In my own view there are many paths to animal liberation, one of those includes breaking some of the laws which our animal abusing state has enforced ruthlessly. The police and the CPS ignore many laws and breach the law notably PACE and the Hunting Act 2004 with monotonous regularity. Why should animal rights activists be the only people who obey the law? Demonstrating peacefully can result in prison, trying to film a crime can result in prosecution and conviction. The only way to be really safe is to write polite letters to your MP and the papers, good stuff but that by itself will not work. We have to defy this corrupt and distructive cult of human superiority using every weapon in the arsenal but I do agree that we should be disciplined and think carefully about what we do. Using the old bolt cutters to rearrange the fence of a death camp is hardly heinous is it now?

"Bolt crops are hardly a viloent image. they are an image of liberation. What can be more non-violent than freedom from abuse"

They reflect an image of violence acted out by people who are delusional about they are doing good but the fact of the matter is that they are making it worse for legal campaigners who do real rescues.

Many thousands of hens are taken out of cages each year but this wouldn't be the case if not for the understanding of the farmers involved. You break in and the rescue is lost for good!

Now we see less and less liberation of animals in favour of criminal damage and intimidation of families in their homes, this is the road you have taken the ALF down.

Sawyer isn't even worth the bother of a reply.

Anyone knowing Lynn Sawyer well, could tell you that she would be the last person to intimidate families, either in their homes or not.

Lynn, has herself been at the receiving end of violence several times, this includes violence from the police (I seem to remember them paying compensation to settle out of court).

Over the years I have known Lynn, she has always shown herself to be compassionate to both human and non human animals.

so take your liberal hippy shit elsewhere, but stand in a circle and do jazz hands until your hearts content as for me i know what is most effective and thats why i support direct action, do people really think the UK ar mnovement would have achived anywhere near the amount it has if it wasn't for militant action, on entering a shop selling fur the other week, they said they would stop now they had been "caught" and that they did not want attention from animal rights because they knew what the ar people where capable of, who gives a fuck about looking nice and fluffy when it is repeadtly show that by campaigning above ground you just make your self a target for the state. pull your heads out of your arses your fingers from your keyboards and do something the animals will truely appriciate. HIPPIES GO HOME TO MUMMY AND DADDY!

What your perceive to be victories are just ego massages nothing more and nothing less.

Closing a chicken farm in one location only for another to open in another is not a victory in any sense of the word, it's simply a geographical shifting of the problem spurred on by capitalisms supply and demand. Same applies for breeders, labs, fur farmers, pet shops, et al. If you utilise direct action to tackle the symptoms i.e. animal abuse without tackling the cause i.e. consumer demand you will never get anywhere.

Closing down individual places and parading them as victories is both hollow and false. When fur farms in the UK were closed the problem was simply shifted to the USA, Europe and China. If customers wish to purchase fur they're going to source it whether you use direct action or not, with a globalised economy with businesses no longer tied to within the boundaries of the nation state problems simply shift around, they do not go away. Closing fur farms in the UK did nothing apart from causing suppliers in places like China who can supply pelts at a fraction of the cost to benefit. Also with the advent of the internet shops as a supplier for furs are increasingly redundant when people can just purchase them easily and simply from a computer in their own home.

"The militant aspect of animal rights is and always has been the most effective" You can make this statement all you like but it is false and I highly suspect that you recognise it but deny it to yourself. If direct action is so effective why are the numbers of lab animals used in experiments continuing to rise? Why are the numbers of animals slaughtered for meat continuing to rise? Why is Japan continuing to slaughter whales despite Sea Shepherds best efforts to directly stop them?

Without solid legislation all 'victories' are hollow because the problem will keep coming back time and time again. Animal rights is increasingly somewhat becoming blind and isolated to the real problems and causes of animal exploitation which is capitalism. Often people try to fight it within the confines of a movement seperate from the struggle against capitalism. This is illogical when one looks at supply and demand you can hack away at the supply as much as you like but unless demand is also tackled companies will always be willing to provide the services in exchange for financial gain.

Fact is unless you work to influence the political and economic system in which everyone lives you will never make any gains against animal abuse.

I know there are many people who don't agree tactically with illegal action for animal liberation, but generally they don't post on Indymedia. I suspect at least some of the supposed anti direct action comments here are from anti animal rights people trying to divide and rule.

Most people I know on both sides of the direct action debate appreciate what good work the other side does and are happy for them to co-exist and complement each other. It's not about one or the other, we need both.

And what's an "ex-bat" organisation? Funny phrase - does it mean ex-battery chickens?

I have just watched some of the videos of direct action hen rescues and now realise that they clearly aren't violent actions, and the more I think about it, the more I realise that co-operating with chicken farmers is as absurd as co-operating with the National Socialists to stop facsism; all it does is make a mockery of us as we act as a free clean up service for the egg industries dirty work. Now I think about it it seems obvious that we should be working to halt the egg industry rather than helping it try to present an 'ethical' image.

I also now realise that direct action groups have saved millions of animals from vivisection labs and breeders, which has very rarely been acheived on any scale by any lawful organisation.

Sorry for my earleir posts.

Perhaps NETCU, bored sat at home during their Christmas hols, unable to wait until their return to work to hassle legal protesters, are having to resort to mischief making on Indymedia.

Oh what twisted minds.

if you cannot make it to the planning meeting then please add your two cents here

 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192490989170&index=1


as for the posters i designed, i did tried to cover the spectrum of animal rights in images (vegan logo, animals, sab logo, bolt croppers ect..) however some must realise it is hard to symbolise letter writing campaigns and information stalls in images (especially when sticking to the colour themes

above all that bolt croppers are a symbol

if you feel you can design a more suitable set of posters feel free (the more advertisement floating around the Internet the better)

Stop spamming up the page with your arguments which should be discussed at the gathering (its only giving a bad impression)

if you feel that the movement is to radical then go on the facebook page (or come to the planning meeting) and volounteer to do a letter writing/cake baking workshop or somthing.


As for the day of action, although nothing is planned yet the idea is sweep through the city using the whole (legal) spectrum of campaigning , from stunts, free food giveaways, leafleting, demo's ect. if you dont feel comfortable with the current demo then sit on a bench and wait for us to move on to the next target with a different campaigning style.
and at the end of the day we can all go back to the sumac, eat cake and discuss what worked and what didn't.

Consumer demand dictates it all.Why doesn't most UK AR activists realise that? Because there's no glory in helping people changing to veganism but there is in dominating a company to cut a contract or product.It's time intelligent activists,with no big fat ego,took back the UK AR movement.

and i wont be happy with the animal abusers and animal vivisection supporters/funders, so i'll be paying them a visit.

if you dont support violence against property of those involved in the animal abuse, then you dont support animal liberation - its as simple as that. @ a vegan: you're wrong @ lynn sawyer: you're right.
and by the way, just because you support violence against property doesn't mean that you will do it yourself, and also you can be up for AL but not for doing violence for it, but ive yet to meet an AR activist that doesn't support the tactics of the ALF. even ones who at meetings distance themselves, in secret they often wish they were the ALF or that the ALF continue long into the future!!

for total liberation for all animals, human and non-human, by any means............


just a question, what was the lawful reason for the police to have bolt croppers at the notts power station demo a couple of months back? was it to hack at peoples hands and fingers as they tried to get into the grounds of one of the worlds worst polluting systems? thats what i saw with my own eyes....so please dont act like bolt croppers aren't worth taking on an action...if the police use them to hurt humans and we use them to free animals...whos really in the wrong?

Is this the replacement for the ARC meetings? Is this a take over?

So, let's take a look at whether or not direct action actually works more effectively than other means.

Take the now-defunct Shamrock Monkey Farm as a prime example - they were exposed and people wrote letters to their MP's, local newspapers and conducted similar publicity gaining acts. Yes, this did help and raised the profile of the farm in a progressive manner. However, that alone did not close down Shamrock as the MP's didn't really give a damn with the King family (who ran Shamrock on behalf of Charles River) having quite a large influence locally.

So, a campaign of direct action was launched consisting of demo's, marches, lock-ons and lock-ins, blockades and the likes. This helped progress the farm's closure and played a massive role in closing them down. On the backs of this, individual ALF activists joined in and launched their own campaign of sabotage against the farm - the company minibus was targeted, as were the worker's cars. A company run by the Kings, Vet Diagnostics Ltd, where primate bloods were tested following quarantine and importation was also targeted by the ALF. These actions caused local and national publicity and further raised the profile of Shamrock.

So, Shamrock closed down and the workers moved onto conducting importation directly to the laboratories on behalf of Huntingdon Life Sciences. However, this was found out via the ALF keeping all ex-Shamrock workers under surveillance and all the lorries used were discovered and burnt out.

So? What did this achieve? Inflated ego's - perhaps, but then again activists should be able to talk about what they have achieved, what was effective, what wasn't etc; but unfortunately not all can due to their methods being illegal. But beyond the simple 'black and white' image of it, the closure of Shamrock and their associates has achieved far more:

The price of gaining primates for use in laboratories has increased a large amount, with the current being around around £600-1,000 per animal, I believe it used to be around £100-200. As a result, smaller companies and organisations can no longer afford to conduct experimentation on primates, with only some of the big players left; CRO wise HLS, Covance and Charles River/Inveresk, university wise Oxford, Cambridge and a few others, then obviously the MOD at Porton Down. So, to name a few that do not use primates any more due to costs - Sequani, Safepharm, some of the DEFRA labs, Leeds University, Newcastle hasn't done for a few years, Sussex and countless others.

So therefore, I think from the above (the case of just one breeder closing down) we can safely look at the tactics of direct action and say, yes they work and yes they are effective.

Funny,didn't the primates upon closure still go for vivisection anyway? I never heard they were rehomed.That a success Mr.direct action ? And i'm not against direct action or closing down breeders just dickeads who dictate,for all the wrong reasons, where the movement is going. Time to address WHY this bullshit exists(CONSUMER DEMAND!)

In a capitalist society, tell me, exactly, how you will adress this CONSUMER DEMAND ?
So far I can see a clear and consise indication of the positive effects of more direct action, yet none to vouch for spreading awareness to people. More importantly, I see no actual plan of how to stop consumer demand, which is the main problem.

Handing out leaflets one day a week, asking people to consider going vegan? While this is not a bad thing, if you want things to change on a large enough scale to count, you'll be handing out those leaflets for your lifetime, plus several more, standing on a frazzled rock that was once the Earth - while it was melting, being chopped to pieces and exploited in every way, you were trying to convince a population of 6 billion people to go vegan. You were trying to change the values of a society that is capitalist, you are up against the rich and powerful who dominate society. In order to change enough people's views to have an effect, you will have to gain control of the mass media, public figures, and other sources of power that dictate to people how to think. This is the only way you will really have an effect. Therefore, while it's not bad to change public opinion and stop or reduce demand, it really is more realistic to target companies and the producers of animal abuse.

Debating the effectiveness of direct action is a seperate argument to demand vs action, but I will say this; closing down one farm does not automatically mean another is opened elsewhere, and the same goes for rescuing animals. Capitalism will always push production to the cheaper countries anyway, and we have a growing global movement. So what if fur farming being banned in the UK meant it moved to Europe? In the past few months alone, there were fur farm raids in several european countries, some causing near closure to the farms, and the USA just published investigations into fur farms there too. People will follow abuse wherever it goes.

So, my question is, how do you intend to stop the consumer demand of the population, or at least enough of the population in order to have an effect on animal abuse and the planet? I've never seen a single suggestion about how to actually do this.

I don't think the posters are condemning direct action, merely they believe that direct action currently is targeted at the wrong places... maybe they're suggesting we directly target consumers, but have gone the long way about it?

Maybe I just read into things too much though.

live in a more democratic society, your right "Vegan activist" we need to takevoer from capitalism. We can do that in many ways, real democratic revolutions dont happen over night& dont have to be violent. We support & work in more fair trade,cooperative mutual businesses& demand sell healthy sustainably produced food+ non throw away quality easily upgradeable products.
The Magna Carta in Britain was interesting, people rose up from allover the island & abroad against bad prince then king John to get some little democracy. It was done quite peacefully by argument & discussion then paper, though was backed up by the english yew longbow against a proper tyrant. Though still fuedalism & elitism persisted & after the French revolution, new industrial overlords mixed with the old aristocracy to form the fuedal oligarchy we have today.
Democracy would be a good start, if people have enough food& its easily possible+sustainable with modern forestry & large scale permaculture, more would see that being vegetarian is healthier. Many of the poorest people in the 3rd world already know this & only eat meat as a luxury have large families to survive wars& as a form of social security. The current undemocratic fuedal corporate system is Orwellian & dog eat dog, it encourages people to fight in either religious or continental blocs.
We can only evolve to a more cooperative mutual directly democratic society as Kropotkin argued in Mutual aid a factor of Evolution, an ignored addition to Darwinism although Cooperative game theory & studies on tit for tat evolution show animals or even computers that cooperate with themselves & between species have better quality lives.
Examples of direct democracy are in Switzerland, Ancient athens, workers councils etc, a mix of these 3 on a local to global level would be good & is worth a organising for.

To the person who said Newcastle was no longer using primates - last time I checked they were. Newcastle used 12 macaques in 2008 according to the latest data I obtained under FOI. And the stats obtained from other universities suggest a dramatic rise in animals used from especially between the years 2007, 2008, and 2009. Although this is mainly down to the increase in transgenic animals. But the use of other animals seems to have increased as well. I think the above is a difficult argument, especially if you are trying to decide *empirically* on what is the 'best' tactic/set of tactics. I don't think it's helpful for people to attack and offend each other though because we are all just trying to work out what works best in the interest of the animals. Those up for more direct tactics consider others to be not committed to the cause and those who disagree with breaking the law in more 'violent' ways think that others are attention-seekers who are more bothered about causing trouble and boosting their egos than they are committed to the cause of improving the lives of animals.

The all-or-nothing argument that comes from both sides is frustrating and not appropriate to this complicated issue.

Whether you like it or not if change is to become mainstream for the animals then you need these people on side,,or nothing will change.

Will anybody have a hair dryer I could use, I don't carry mine with me, the state stopped me on a previous march thinking it was a firearm.