Ringling Bros: The Cruelest Show on Earth

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H_ARbRqUbc]

The evils of Ringling Bros., as documented by PETA....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5B7OoEQ06k

Passing out thousands of fliers, engaging circus goers, enduring numerous verbal and some minor physical altercations, educating children, and chanting boldly, we ARA's gave Ringling less than a warm welcome on their opening night in Kansas City on 9/8/10.....

Forty U.S. cities and counties have prohibited the use of wild animals in entertainment displays or exhibits. About the same number of locales in Canada have taken similar action.

Email them this link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H_ARbRqUbc) and tell Kansas City's Mayor and City Council Members to do the same:

Mayor Mark Funkhouser (816) 513-3500 and via mayor@kcmo.org
Deb Hermann (816) 513-1624 and via terri_wolfe@kcmo.org
Ed Ford (816) 513-1601 and via lisa_minardi@kcmo.org
Melba Curls (816) 513-1605 and via melba_curls@kcmo.org
Beth Gottstein (816) 513-1616 and via jim_giles@kcmo.org
Cindy Circo (816) 513-1633 and via gina_boucher@kcmo.org
Cathy Jolly (816) 513-1602 and via lisa_sturgeon@kcmo.org
Bill Skaggs (816) 513-1619 and via jackie_burton@kcmo.org
Russ Johnson (816) 513-1622 and via traci_gleason@kcmo.org
Sharon Sanders Brooks (816) 513-1608 and via kimberly_randolph@kcmo.org
Jan Marcason (816) 513-1617 and via susan_borge@kcmo.org
Terry Riley (816) 513-1629 and via schylon_clayton@kcmo.org
John A. Sharp (816) 513-1615 and via araceli_gallegos@kcmo.org

AND contact Feld Entertainment (Ringling's parent company) and tell them that what they're doing is WRONG:

Worldwide Headquarters:
8607 Westwood Center Drive
Vienna, VA 22182
Phone: (703) 448 - 4000
Fax: (703) 448 - 4100
Email: Information@feldinc.com

Customer Service (US and Canada):
Ringling Bros.
8607 Westwood Center Drive
Vienna, VA 22182
Phone: 1-800-755-1530, 9 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Monday - Friday (EST)
Email: customerservice@feldinc.com

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

New Support Site Launched for Animal Liberation Prisoner Walter Bond

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLt88_u5lQ&has_verified=1]

Simulposted with NAALPO

www.SupportWalter.org

How to donate to Walter's commissary fund and legal defense: Coming Soon!

Walter Bond was arrested on July 23, 2010 and accused of being the ALF (Animal Liberation Front) 'Lone Wolf' charged with arson of the Sheepskin Factory in Colorado. “Lone Wolf” took credit for three different arsons throughout the Spring and Summer of 2010 in Denver and Salt Lake City: The Skeepskin Factory, a store selling furs and pelts; Tandy Leather Store; and Tiburon, a restaurant serving foie gras.

Walter’s brother alerted the FBI and the ATF about his suspicions that his brother, Walter, was behind the attacks. While Walter was visiting Denver in July 2010, his brother helped participate in a sting operation, allegedly wearing a wire and helping procure audio evidence against Walter. He was arrested in Denver and is now being held in the Jefferson County Jail in Golden, Colorado awaiting trial.

Walter has been a dedicated animal rights activist and anarchist for several decades and has struggled for animal liberation and against a deadly and genocidal culture of drug abuse in the United States. Walter was the subject of a song by the vegan straight edge band Earth Crisis. The band’s song “To Ashes” was inspired by Bond’s 1998 prison sentence for arson. Bond was convicted of burning down a meth lab owned by a drug dealer who was selling to his brother (not the same brother as the snitch).

“Why I am vegan” - by Walter Bond

Walter Bond's Official Statement: It is not a metaphorical holocaust that they suffer….

Write Bond letters of prisoner support at:

Walter Bond # P01051760
PO Box 16700
Golden, CO 80402-6700
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact: (818) 227-5022
Animal Liberation Press Office
6320 Canoga Avenue #1500
Woodland Hills, CA 91367

www.animalliberationpressoffice.org
press@animalliberationpressoffice.org

Plutocracy Rules The Land (and We Allow It)‏

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the most ‘radical speech’ an American ex-President has ever delivered.



Published on Tuesday, August 31, 2010

By Chuck Collins and Sam Pizzigati

Ex-Presidents almost always follow a small number of well-worn scripts. Some rush to cash in on their celebrity. Some do charitable good deeds. Some just lie low.

Exactly one century ago, on August 31, 1910, we had an ex-President who took a brash and bold leap that took him far beyond these narrowly circumscribed roles. On that day, in the middle of Middle America, a former President — Theodore Roosevelt — essentially called on his fellow citizens to smash the nation’s rich down to democratic size.

We need, Roosevelt told a massive assembly of 30,000 listeners, to “destroy privilege.” Ruin for our democracy, he warned, will be “inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few.”

Communique Received: We claim the following actions in support of anti-authoritarian prisoners‏

Simulposted with NAALPO



Received anonymously:

We claim the following actions in support of anti-authoritarian prisoners, Víctor Herrera (who has not been sentenced despite nearly a year of imprisonment), Abraham López and Adrian Magdaleno, incarcerated in prisons in Mexican state.

In direct solidarity with the eight accused of illicit terrorist association and of the placement of explosive devices in Chile.

25 - We placed a fake bomb behind a municipal surveillance module in Tultitlan, Mexico State.

26 - We placed a fake bomb inside a phone booth just steps from a dental center that tests on animals in the center of San Cristóbal Ecatepec, Mexico State.

27 - We carried out a bomb threat against the Zentralia mall in the town of Coacalco, Mexico State.

These three days were total chaos in the centers of power and domination, because while the slaves of work, money, luxuries and capitalist vices were collecting their earnings in order to consume and feed the domesticating and authoritarian blight, we were spreading chaos in these three Mexican municipalities, solidifying our direct solidarity in support of the prisoners.

Fall from Grace: Hunting Season's Slaughter

By Dominique Landis

That time of year is upon us again. Always loved the fall, until I moved to upstate N.Y. in 1978. I had grown up in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe; I had never seen hunting like that before. The color change of the trees was magnificent, with the bright yellows, reds and oranges. But then by November all the leaves were gone making way for grey woods, which were still mysterious and beautiful to me until the guns started firing all around me, Deer running everywhere, dead deer hanging in front yards as ornaments by the dozen. It definitely sent me into a culture shock. To my shock, my ex-husband’s family, whom I thought to be peace loving hippies, took part in such heinous crimes of violence and were hunters too. We had been staying with them for a few months until our house closed, and on a cool, crisp morning, I had opened the garage door to find them up to their elbows in blood, cutting up this once living sweet, innocent animal. These people by no means needed to hunt for food; they were quite privileged from my perspective. I closed the garage door slowly, went upstairs to my room and played my BB King record to resemble my mood.

About a week later, they had gone on vacation and had called to ask my ex if he would do some work in the room where they had their freezer full of murdered deer meat, I was keeping my ex company while he did his work and he had unplugged the freezer to use the outlet for his power tools. When finished and we were leaving, he asked me to plug the freezer back in the outlet, I looked at the plug on the floor and turned off the light. When they returned from vacation a few days later, the floor by the freezer was covered in diluted blood. They turned and looked at me and said "disgusting." I looked hard at them and said "exactly" as I exited the room.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdVTPnkZNnY&feature=player_embedded&has_verified=1]

Please read Lane Ferrante's letter for further information, (below) and Sign the petition:

To Mayor Currin, Council Members and Anthony Bales,

It has come to my attention that you are considering allowing bow hunting in Hudson as a means to thin the deer herd. That will not work any more than hiring sharp shooters will because you will not be addressing the root cause of the problem.

Crises of Capitalism

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0]

In this RSA Animate, renowned academic David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?

This is based on a lecture at the RSA (www.theRSA.org).

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

Interview with Joseph Buddenberg (AETA4)

(The AETA 2: Joseph Buddenberg is on the right....)

Simulposted with East Bay Indymedia

Recent interview with Joseph Buddenberg conducted by Dylan Powell of The Vegan Police (http://www.theveganpolice.com). He talks about the AETA4 case and its implications for activists

Intro:

The AETA 4 case was the first large scale animal rights case that I have lived through as an activist and as such it was one that built the foundation of my interest around prisoner support and solidarity in the animal rights community. We have had numerous interviews with people in regards to the case (Peter Young, Will Potter, Dara Lovitz, etc) and I was happy to organize a fundraiser last January for the AETA 4. When Joseph agreed to an interview I was happy to keep this case at the forefront and help give some insight into one of the people involved. Please read, circulate and help support in any way you can.

Q: Back in 2009 after arrests were made the Santa Cruz Police Chief Howard Skerry immediately went on record as saying, “A lot of cases are very complex. We don’t give up on the cases. If it takes years, it takes years.” Since the Government has had such a hard stance on this case, were you surprised that a lot of people saw the ruling on July 12th as an indication of this all “being over?”

A. I want to be clear that I’m speaking for myself in answering all of these questions. I don’t know what my co-defendants are thinking, as I haven’t talked to them. But I’m not that surprised. Very few people understand the complexity of legal rulings. Unless you’ve been here, you can’t fully grasp how the legal system is set up in favor of prosecutors and the status quo.

Though the presiding judge ruled that the prosecutor violated our fifth amendment rights, as well as federal rules of criminal procedure, this is not an end. The prosecutors simply get to start over and try again if they wish. The FBI is not going to let this case go. They are press-focused and can’t afford the embarrassment of a loss at this point. This is a political case and the FBI has loved setting examples and attempting to destroy political movements since their inception. Everyone active in the animal rights movement should read up on COINTELPRO. Read Brian Glick’s “War at Home.”

I knew that it would be an uphill battle and that judges weren’t my friends at my initial hearing on February 20, 2009. I was arrested at the Alameda County courthouse by a half-dozen FBI agents, members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and UC police as I appeared at a hearing contesting a restraining order. I was taken to the San Francisco federal building and booked. I appeared before Magistrate Vadas, UC Santa Cruz graduate, and he scolded me. He yelled that the three allegations against me at that point were some of the most “chilling” accusations he’d ever seen. The allegations at that point were attendance at two demonstrations and that I somehow helped make leaflets opposing UC Santa Cruz vivisection. Keep in mind this is a federal judge and former prosecutor who has dealt with child pornographers, meth dealers, bank robbers, etc. I was placed in a halfway house at the prosecutors request and spent the next month there. Upon my release, I was on house arrest for six months.

Local Activist Takes On KU Med Center: KU Med Lies, Abuses Animals, and Shreds the Constitution....

Researchers Seek Restraining Orders Against Jason Miller



By Jason Miller

9/4/10

[Editor's note: Please Contact Barbara Atkinson, KU Med’s Executive Vice Chancellor, and tell her that what KU Med is doing to primates is wrong and to stop wasting our tax money on cruelty and fraudulent science! She is at (913) 588-1440 and BATKINSON@kumc.edu.

AND

Contact Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Health (KU Med’s source of funding) at 301-496-2433 and francis.collins@nih.gov and tell him to stop providing public monies to a “research facility” that was cited for 160 violations of animal welfare laws by the USDA!]

Here is the local media's take on the situation (note that KCTV 5 mistakenly stated that KU Med vivisects chimps. Their victims are actually macaques and squirrel monkeys):

http://www.kctv5.com/news/24862151/detail.html

Here is my take:

With respect to the University of Kansas Medical Center's statement in the KCTV 5 news clip, "Center officials said they have fixed the problems, but none of the issues dealt with animal welfare," it is an utter fabrication. The University of Kansas Medical Center has blatently lied to the media and to the public (who is funding their abject animal cruelty with millions of tax dollars) throughout our campaign to shut down their primate vivisection program.

Evidence:

From KU Medical Center continues to torture and murder innocent primates with impunity….

Dear Ms. Nielsen,

Sorry for the delayed response, but I’ve been preoccupied with other animal defense issues.

In light of this 12/31/09 article from the Kansas City Star, I fully understand why you would deny our request to observe and document the “ethical research” funded by our tax money and why you would also bar the media from entry to your laboratories.

As I’m sure you are aware, Mara Rose Williams of the Star wrote:

USDA cites KU Medical Center for violation of animal protection laws

“The University of Kansas Medical Center has been cited for about 160 violations of federal animal protection laws during experiments at university laboratories….

….The USDA report describes how monkeys that were afflicted with an infectious disease were left to suffer from extreme weight loss, vomiting, diarrhea and neurological disorders for at least a day after they met criteria for euthanization. The monkeys were part of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called for the NIH to take back federal grant dollars awarded to KU Medical Center for that research in which the violations occurred……”

AND from The University of Kansas Medical Center has become known for violating the Animal Welfare Act….

By Michael Budkie

8/4/10

Simulposted with SAEN

According to the annual report filed with the USDA by the University of Kansas Medical Center, this facility experiments on and/or holds captive about 150 primates per year, a relatively small amount. The report which contains this statistic is a bland one page document which belies the cruel reality that it represents.

A cross-section of the lives of these animals is represented by a stack of documents which is just over a foot tall. The existence of these highly intelligent animals has been reduced to so much paper and ink. Their identities represented only by numbers, their passing marked only by the word “euthanized.”

The University of Kansas Medical Center has become known for violating the Animal Welfare Act. In fact, recent inspections for the period from September 2007 to June of 2009 catalogue 58 pages of violations, many of which involve primates and their deaths. The USDA inspectors who wrote these documents uncovered heinous acts of cruelty which prolonged the pain these animals endured. One monkey was allowed to deteriorate so severely that his/her weight dropped by 26.8%, or just over ¼. Another primate, whose skull had been opened to have a recording chamber put into place, did not receive anything close to adequate treatment. These recording chambers can harbor serious bacterial infections which can lead to brain abscesses, and so they are supposed to be cleaned regularly. The chamber of one animal at this facility had not been cleaned for three weeks. It is amazing that s/he was still alive.

Like all industries of animal exploitation, the circle of abuse will end with the antagonist (humans) falling prey to its own perfidiousness......

"Why I am vegan"

By Walter Bond

9/1/10

In the winter of 1995, when I was 19 years old, I got a job with a company by the name of Dakota Mechanical. We built slaughter-houses in the Midwest, mainly in Iowa. The state of Iowa is the largest producer of pork in the nation. At the time I was employed in that evil industry there were 27 slaughter-houses for pigs alone. I helped build the IBP plant in Logansport, Indiana as well. It was a brand new plant.

I never saw an animal murdered in the 9 or so months I worked in Logansport, but it wasn’t difficult for me to get the gist of what many of those machines would do when in operation. I was primarily a forklift operator to begin with, but then worked my way to industrial plumber’s apprentice. After that factory was built there was a three month layoff.

But soon I got the call for the next job. The one that would forever change my life. It was a smaller job; we were to build an extension to the kill floor at the IBP plant in Perry, Iowa. In this fully functioning slaughter-house I saw the most grizzly mechanized murders that there are to witness. Since it was an old facility we were constantly called away from our construction work to do maintenance throughout the plant. From the pen runs, to the kill floor, to rendering, over the course of 5 months I was a confederate and accomplice to it all.

When I first started the smells, sights, and sounds were overbearing. I kept telling myself, “This is what you eat; don’t get squeamish.” Within 6 to 8 weeks I felt soul dead. For 12 hours, sometimes 15, I often worked ankle deep in gore.

The Bull

Whether we take the bull by the tail, or by the horns, we are at a critical time because that’s what we are running out of, time. Saturday, entertainer-disguised-as-newsman Glenn Beck conducted the “March On Washington”. Lincoln Memorial, exactly 47 years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech from the same marble steps, the “Tea Party”...partied, the most amazing corporate shills ever invented. A “grassroots” movement funded by the bull itself!

By Rand Clifford

9/1/10

In the 1933 Paramount motion picture “Tillie and Gus”, W.C. Fields said:

“There comes a time in the affairs of men, when we must take the bull by the tail, and face the situation.”

The term “motion pictures” is rather archaic nowadays, but there’s nothing archaic about W.C.’s insightful wisdom—almost 80 years ago spinning a clear image of precisely where we are in 2010. Indeed, ours is a confusing time of wars over fossil energy, imperialism, secrecy, disinformation, massive upward transfer of wealth, economic collapse, environmental devastation and, well, bullshit. We’ve actually been deep in the stuff since even before Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, wrote a more sobering scenario:

“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

There’s that bull again, horns and all. President Wilson also wrote:

“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.... We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of a small group of dominant men.”

VETERANS FOR PEACE PRESIDENT, MIKE FERNER, RESPONDS TO PRESIDENT OBAMA’S REBRANDED OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

By Mike Ferner

August 31, 2010

A veteran’s perspective makes it clear that two major points must be made in response to President Obama’s announcement regarding combat troops leaving Iraq.

First, there is no such thing as “non combat troops.” It is a contradiction in terms. It is internally inconsistent. It is illogical. It is simply not true.

Ask any of the millions of men and women who went through basic training and they can tell you that every U.S. troop anywhere in the world was indoctrinated and trained in the basics of combat. While in Iraq, the transition from mechanics or communications back to combat-ready soldier takes but an order. “Non-combat troops” is simply the latest in a long line of military euphemisms meant to obscure painful reality.

The second point can best be made by drafting a section of the President’s remarks for him. If Veterans For Peace were to do that it would read something like this.

-------

“And now, fellow Americans, let us begin a new era of candor and honesty about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Specifically, I’m referring to the true costs of war – something that must be considered if we are to judge if continued war is worth it.

Animal Liberation Prisoner Alex Hall Arrives in a Colorado Federal Prison: But 650 Captive Mink Went Free

Simulposted with the North American Animal Liberation Press Office

Two months after being sentenced to 21 months for an Animal Liberation Front mink liberation, Alex Hall has arrived at a federal prison in Littleton, Colorado. Hall was convicted for the release of 650 mink from the McMullin Fur Farm in South Jordan, Utah.

Hall's "case manager" in Littleton has told him he "will be lucky" to get two months in a halfway house, and that he can expect to be released no sooner than December. Meanwhile, Hall's co-defendant, William Viehl, has been told he will be released to a halfway house in September, despite being arrested only two weeks before Hall. This arbitrary calculation of release dates based on the personal and political biases of B.O.P. staff is not uncommon.

Please write Alex Hall during the last months of his incarceration at his new address:

Alex Hall
15908-081
FCI ENGLEWOOD
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
9595 WEST QUINCY AVENUE
LITTLETON, CO 80123

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact: (818) 227-5022
Animal Liberation Press Office
6320 Canoga Avenue #1500
Woodland Hills, CA 91367

www.animalliberationpressoffice.org
press@animalliberationpressoffice.org

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

A Smeller for the Empire: Gimbling in the Wabe

By Gary Corseri

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe….”

--Lewis Carroll

“Enough for everyone; too much for none.”

--Woof

Riff One

My house is foreclosed on, my job is outsourced, and my wife runs away with a banker. So…,I figure there’s nothing left to do but pack up the old mini-van, head on down to New Orleans and start a new life as a singer of blues. My border collie, Woof, rides shotgun, his handsome muzzle sticking part way out the window.

Woof and I have worked out a way of communicating that started when he was a pup. It began as a simple, binary system. I realized early on that, while border collies are the smartest of dogs, I happened to have a genius of the species! I began by asking Woof simple questions to which he could bark once for “Yes” and twice for “No.” I’d wait till I knew he was good and hungry and then I’d ask him, “Are you hungry, boy?” If he barked once, I’d reward him with food. If he barked twice, he’d get nothing. He soon caught on. Gradually, we advanced to metaphysics.

I decide to head for the Gulf Coast because the President has said we can eat the food and swim in the water. The networks have shown a picture of the Prez and Sasha laughing in the waves. How anyone can tell it’s the Gulf is totally beyond me. You’d think with all the technology, they’d be able to get a satellite picture. They can read license plates from space, can’t they? So… they could have had a long shot with an expanse of water and it would be clear from the general topography that it was the Gulf; then they could get closer and closer until we see plainly it’s POTUS himself gimbling in the wabe.

Primate Products Exposed: Anonymous Activists Release Photos

Anonymous activists leak gruesome photos from inside Primate Products

Simulposted with Voice of the Voiceless

According to Bite Back, this week the recently-formed Animal Liberation Investigation Unit claimed responsibility for releasing horrific photos from inside Primate Products, a dealer of primates for vivisection.

The photos show numerous mutilated primates. The communique did not specify the source of the photos, but it is clear they were not intended for public release. The images will prove to provide more problems for a company that is already experiencing weekly demonstrations, and has had its trucks and an office set on fire.

A gluttonous and obscene spectacle that glorified "bacon"

Journal Entry by Jason Miller

8/29/10

Astoundingly, the Rehabilitation Institute (Founded in 1947, the Rehabilitation Institute provides medical rehabilitation and employment placement services for children and adults who have experienced a catastrophic injury or illness or injury resulting in a significant disability. The Institute's array of services address the most basic activities of daily living including mobility, communication and self care to more complex issues related to driving, living independently, attending school or working.) chose to raise funds by putting on a gluttonous and obscene spectacle that glorified "bacon."

Check it out: http://baconfestkc.com/

What a perverse irony that an entity that exists to alleviate suffering would gleefully endorse and promote the abject barbarism and misery to which pigs are subjected to produce "bacon." Further, as a rehabilitation service which no doubt counts stroke victims amongst its clients, it is absurd and unconscionable that they would aggrandize "meat" (and "bacon" in particular) given the facts that "meat" consumption causes high blood pressure, heart and circulatory problems, and high cholesterol, all of which can contribute to strokes.

Roundabout as Conflict-avoidance versus Malcolm X’s Psychology of Liberation

by Denis Rancourt

August 25th, 2010

Simulposted with Dissident Voice

In the present essay I introduce the general notion of “roundabout” as a mechanism of conflict avoidance used by privileged social justice activists. I then contrast this pseudo-liberation activism with the needed true liberation activism of Malcolm X, which I argue to be consistent with the model of liberation of Freire.

INTRODUCTION

The now familiar concept of “pacifism as pathology” was introduced by Ward Churchill as the central characteristic of First-World middleclass so-called social justice activism. Churchill argued from history that all liberations were leveraged through violence and proposed that pacifism as cowardice was pathology.1

Gandhi stated that it was better to practice armed resistance than to use pacifism as an excuse for cowardice.2 Both men (Churchill and Ghandi) saw acceptance of and self-justification for one’s (legal or circumstantial) slavery as pathology.

Paulo Freire’s work showed that all hierarchies, no matter how cushioned in comfort, are violent and oppressive and argued that we could only fight our own oppression – that “solidarity” meant standing side by side with those fighting our same oppression. Freire advanced that all liberations had to be rooted in and driven by the struggles of the oppressed themselves no matter how underprivileged and that inter-social-class “solidarity” was insignificant and limited to rare individuals who joined in battle on the front lines.3

Churchill concentrated on the use of pacifism as an excuse to avoid the needed direct confrontation with the oppressive system. He and others have deconstructed and exposed First World pacifism as avoidance; including mainstream life-style environmentalism, ecological or economic isolationism, love ideologies, and so on, when taken to be activisms in themselves. These authors did not explore the main creative active strategies whereby pacifism can be enacted.

I explore the latter strategies of evasive action (roundabout) used by the most activist-minded sector of concerned citizens.

Responding to the call of conscience....

Jennifer Bowman interviews Jason Miller

8/26/10

Jennifer Bowman: So let’s cut right to the chase. In some of your recent writings, you’ve indicated that you’re dealing with some serious challenges in your life right now. What are they?

Jason Miller: Aside from the systemic backlash resulting from my vigorous activism, I’m dealing with a number of serious personal issues. Some of these were self-inflicted and some weren’t. Either way, I need to deal with them.

I was so absorbed in my activism for about a year that I let certain aspects of my life get away from me, in a manner of speaking. As many of you may have already read, I’m a recovering alcoholic (since 1992---hence my straightedge beliefs). However, I got away from some of my spiritual and intellectual efforts to manage my passion and set aside working the Twelve Steps, which tends to land me into trouble. Fortunately, I’m back on the path I need to follow, which still includes veganism of course, and have turned to the painful task of cleaning up my messes.

JB: What do you mean by “systemic backlash resulting from your vigorous activism?”

JM: I’m referring to the overt and covert ways in which law enforcement and the institutionalized animal exploiters have violated my First Amendment rights and imposed various forms of political persecution on me. This piece I wrote elaborates on both, “They cannot shackle the truth, gag those who speak it, or blind us from seeing it...” (http://freepress.org/departments/display/1/2010/3902) or at (http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Practical/Shop--ToDo/Activism/ShacklingTheTruth.htm)

The Ghost of Oreo: A dead dog continues to haunt New York City and the no-kill movement.

Published on Thomas Paine's Corner as a dedication to Melody Kelso and Jason Huff of the Pet Connection---for refusing to give up on Chico and many other special needs dogs.....

By Michael Mountain

Simulposted with Zoe--It's Our Nature

“The time is out of joint.” (Hamlet)

In Hamlet, the ghost of a murdered king haunts the palace and the nation. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” mutters one of the courtiers. Blood has already been spilled, and before the end of the tragedy, more will flow in order to cleanse what is rotten and restore the balance.

Oreo was not a king. She was a pit bull dog, abused by a young hoodlum in New York City who, in June 2009, ended up throwing the dog off the roof of his apartment building. Oreo survived and was taken to the ASPCA shelter. They repaired her broken legs, looked after her for several months, and raised funds in her name before concluding that they could not deal with her aggressive tendencies. Then they killed her.

One sanctuary in particular – Pets Alive, nearby in upstate New York – had offered to take her in and give her a good life. The “A” turned them down, declaring their sanctuary to be unsuitable for Oreo. Even if you accept that assessment (I don’t), you still have to ask why the ASPCA didn’t approach other places around the country that have a history of caring for dogs like Oreo. Instead, the leadership of the “A” simply decided that the dog should die.

The circus elephant in the room

Animal rights blogger Gary Smith describes the 'training' of circus animals.

Simulposted with Mother Nature Network

8/18/10

Recently several different animal protection organizations combined their grassroots organizational skills to hold what was called the largest circus protest in history. Hundreds arrived – by carpool, bus and subway – in Los Angeles for the opening night of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus at Staples Center.

Protesters spoke with prospective circus-goers, many of whom then opted to leave without buying a ticket. Entire families returned their tickets to the box office after paying for them – all because the painted façade of a circus hides an ugly reality, particularly for elephants.

The majority of circus elephants were captured in the wild as babies. Like human mothers, female elephants won’t willingly give up their children. It is widely reported that in 2000, poachers killed 60 free-roaming female elephants so their babies could be taken and sold to the entertainment industry.

Family bonds are intensely strong in elephant families. Eyewitnesses have seen still-nursing baby elephants refuse to abandon their dead mothers, even attempting to suckle from their corpses. When born in captivity, babies are removed from their mothers so they can be more easily adapted to following a human trainer (rather accurately depicted in the Disney cartoon “Dumbo”).

Pat Derby is founder and president of Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), a nonprofit organization that specializes in the care of exotic animals formerly used for entertainment such as elephants, big cats and primates. Derby says elephants in particular are highly social animals with emotional and physiological needs that cannot be met in a circus.

Militant Forces Against Huntingdon (MFAH) Strike in UK: Solidarity with Walter Bond Cited

Simulposted with the North American Animal Liberation Press Office

Press Office Note: Even though the below action occurred outside of North America, its report of solidarity with American prisoner Walter Bond makes it worth distributing here. Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) has been exposed in seven consecutive undercover investigations which exposed lab technicians simulating sex with the animals, punching beagle puppies and violating numerous animal welfare regulations. The company kills 500 dogs and other animals every day testing such products as oven cleaners, pesticides and pharmaceuticals. Before losing their NYSE listing several years ago, HLS lost their listing on the London Stock Exchange, after UK campaigners exposed atrocities occurring inside HLS facilities; the company currently teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.]

Received anonymously:

Last night the Militant Forces Against Huntingdon struck at two supporters of HLS in the capital, locks were glued firmly shut at the offices of Fortress Investment Group and several paint bombs were thrown at the UK HQ of AstraZeneca. Both of these companies are guilty of allowing Huntingdon Life Sciences to continue killing 500 animals a day. Cut your ties with HLS or we will return.

Militant Forces Against Huntingdon.

In solidarity with Walter Bond

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

Oregon animal-rights protesters acquitted!

Forwarded by See You in the Streets

A judge has acquitted (cleared of all charges) two Oregon animal-rights protesters ordered to stay 50 feet away from the owner of a downtown Portland fur store, despite a police officer’s testimony that they were 4 inches too close.

By Associated Press staff

A judge has acquitted two Oregon animal-rights protesters ordered to stay 50 feet away from the owner of a downtown Portland fur store, despite a police officer’s testimony that they were 4 inches too close.

The Oregonian reported police and prosecutors alleged protesters Justin Kay and Jeffrey Wirth were about 49 feet, 8 inches away from fur merchant Horst Grimm when a restraining order said they must stay at least 50 feet away.

See You In The Streets List Serve is not an official "organization," but rather a posting group forwarding announcements of animal rights events, articles, news, and upcoming demonstrations and their " wrap up's" in or around Los Angeles. SYITS does not advocate or encourage illegal activity and assumes no responsibility for written content it receives and forwards or occurrences at demonstrations it announces.

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

One of KU Med's myriad taxpayer swindles.....$450,000 worth!

Let me elucidate this point to you in a few ways. Everyday in veterinary schools all across this world, the fraud of vivisection is substantiated. After talking with several veterinarians who unfortunately have been fooled into believing that animal research can be beneficial to humans, I asked them when they were in vet school studying feline leukemia which animal they studied upon. Cats, of course, they all replied. I asked them why they didn’t study on dogs for feline leukemia. They each replied that studying on dogs for feline leukemia doesn’t make scientific sense. I then asked why would we use dogs and cats and other animals for human leukemia research. Their silence exposed the scam. Veterinarians invalidate the widespread use of species to species extrapolation because they use cats for feline leukemia research, horses for colic research, dogs for canine distemper research, and so on. They don’t use dogs for cats, pigs for dogs, and monkeys for horses.

--Gary Yourofsky

Project Number: 5R01DA024442-02
Contact Principal Investigator: BUCH, SHILPA J
Title: MORPHINE AND THE NEUROPATHOGENESIS OF SIV IN MACAQUES
Awardee Organization: UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER
$449,154

Live Dogs Abused in Heart Attack Tests in OSU Laboratory

For almost 30 years, Ohio State University (OSU) experimenter George Billman has used taxpayer dollars to cut dogs open and induce heart attacks in them. He inserts a cuff around an artery, sews the dogs back up, then forces the dogs to run on a treadmill. He then tightens the cuff to block blood flow to the heart, causing a heart attack.

His conclusion—that exercise strengthens the heart—has been common knowledge for decades. Of 768 dogs used by Billman, a staggering 256 of them died—either on the operating table or in the days following the surgery—before he could even test his "hypothesis."

PETA reviewed the records for 10 dogs recently used by Billman and found evidence that the animals suffered immensely. Dog #3017—a brown hound dog with a white face—was operated on and forced to endure three heart attacks in Billman's laboratory. Two days after her third heart attack, she died in her cement and steel cage—alone and in pain.



George E. Billman, Ph.D.

Professor

Office - 204 Wiseman Hall
Laboratory - 1005 Wiseman Hall

Mailing Address:
304 Hamilton Hall
1645 Neil Avenue
Columbus OH 43210-1218

Call Billman and send him an email to let him know that what he is doing is barbaric and a shameless waste of our tax dollars! He is at 614-292-5189 and billman.1@osu.edu

And send a personal e-mail to OSU's assistant vice president for research communications, Earle Holland, and respectfully urge him to stop these cruel and deadly experiments on dogs. He is at holland.8@osu.edu. Also, send Holland a message through his Facebook page by clicking on the "Send Earle Holland a Message" link, and call his office at 614-292-8384 highlighting to make sure that your voice is heard.

A sample e-mail text is provided below to help you draft your message to Holland.

Subject: Please Stop Cruel Heart Attack Experiments on Dogs

Body: I was horrified to learn that Ohio State University has been conducting invasive experiments on dogs in which the animals are cut open, have cuffs inserted around an artery, and are then forced to run on a treadmill until they have heart attacks.

It's also shocking that these experiments have been happening for almost 30 years in an effort to conclude that exercise strengthens the heart—something that has been common knowledge for decades.

I urge you to put an end to these cruel experiments immediately.

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

Part Tinker Bell, Part Predator Drone: The Fantasy of the Presidency as Deus ex Machina

By Phil Rockstroh

August 19, 2010

The devices employed in US election cycles and its national politics, in general, are akin to the dramatic conventions of children’s theatre. Every two to four years, voters are instructed to clap their hands and believe in Tinker Bell. “Children, you have to believe — you really, really have to believe in Tinker Bell.” But behind the stagecraft is oligarchy. President Obama took millions from Goldman Sachs, et al. If there is a Captain Hook in this show, it is those Wall Street pirates who threw the global economy to the crocodiles for their ill-gotten gains.

Of course, this is a tired, old show, riddled with shopworn devices, performed by a rotating cast of hacks. Ronald Reagan set the fool’s gold standard of a president playacting the role of populist, matinee hero — Clinton, Bush, and Obama all learned from him — as, all the while, he, in reality, went about the business of protecting and enhancing the holdings of the moneyed elite.

In Reagan’s case, this con game was both an act of inspired career advancement and banal casuistry. Reagan, b-grade actor that he was, was never deep enough to harbor any belief he wasn’t paid to evince. By professional necessity, he convinced himself he believed those bright and shining lies and polished platitudes he pitched to a public of credulous marks; for this is the mode of mind of effective salesmen and good showmen … having the ability to conflate shallow self interest with the good of all.

Such self-deception — played out as public legerdemain and state stagecraft — is now the modus operandi of media age presidencies. The effect of this transformation, from executive gravitas to virtual playacting, has been somewhat less than salubrious for the health of the republic. When, for example, an American city drowns in floodwater and Americans are drowning in economic woes, US presidents know how to act like a president — but not act as president. The soundbites make the man; not the man makes the soundbites.

Walter Bond's Official Statement: It is not a metaphorical holocaust that they suffer....

Once again I received a letter from Walter Bond, jailed in Colorado on charges of being the A.L.F. “Lone Wolf”

As you will read, Bond requested that I post his letter as his official statement--to contrast the speciesist distortions of the mainstream media.

Jason,

Enclosed is an official statement that I would like to make in full. Please post and send it to any interested parties.

My name is Walter Bond and I am currently incarcerated in Golden, Colorado for alleged A.L.F. activity. The mainstream media has done its best to vilify and discredit me. Not at all surprising since we animal liberationist activists represent a threat to the status quo and the blood trades they currently support. Therefore any animal liberation activist who is effectively standing up against these mechanized evils is going to face government intimidation and persecution.

I am undeterred and unbowed in my desire to live in a world free from animal abuse and exploitation. And so I would like to say a few brief words to my supporters and to my enemies.

I am vegan and straightedge. I have been for 15 years and will remain so until the day I die. Although I hope to not spend several years of my life in prison, nothing that the United States government does to me will ever equal or even compare to the everyday holocaust that animals suffer in the name of food, clothing, product testing and entertainment. And I assure you, it is not a metaphorical holocaust that they suffer. I have seen it with my own eyes. When I was 18 (I am 34 now), I worked for a crew that built slaughterhouses in the Midwest. The horrors I witnessed there I will never forget. That is why and how I became an Animal Rights activist.

To my supporters:

Do what you can to raise awareness about the plight of farmed animals, the environmental and ethical impacts of animal exploitation, and the positive impact of veganism. To have a greater knowledge of these issues than the general public and not speak out is complicity. Please do not be complicit in the holocaust against animals and the Earth.

To my detractors:

Take a look at what you are defending. If it’s not wrong to use and exploit animals, then go visit a slaughter house and see for yourselves what happens behind those walls. If you can’t eat your meal and view how it’s produced at the same time, then eating animals is very clearly wrong.

Just because we as individuals and societies have the ability to exploit animals does not give us the right to do so.
Once upon a time it was acceptable for men to exploit women and those who stood against it were considered criminals. Now women can vote, read, and work.

Once upon a time it was legal to own human slaves and those who stood against it were beaten, imprisoned, and murdered. Now that level of racism is unthinkable.

Today animals are the oppressed and the excuses to use them are the same excuses the slave-owners used. Those excuses are equally invalid when applied to animal enslavement and exploitation.

Regards,

Walter Bond

After being denied bail, Walter Bond will likely remain in Jefferson County Jail (Golden, CO) until his trial. Write Walter Bond a letter of support:

Walter Edmund Bond
PO Box 16700
Golden, CO 80402-6700

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

COINTELPRO, Provocateurs, and Prisoners: An Interview

By Peter Young

Simulposted with Voice of the Voiceless

I recently did an interview with Dylan from Vegan Police that is timely and worth reposting. The interview covered subjects that have become increasingly relevant with recent events, including: provocateurs, critics, informants, COINTELPRO, how to deal with suspected informants, and much more.

Reposted from Vegan Police.

Your website has been inter woven in Walter Bond’s case, with Walter allegedly telling an informant to check Voice of the Voiceless to see “what he has been up to.” Do you feel a burden of responsibility knowing that the site is that well known and a hub or is that how you measure effectiveness?

This question became more relevant in the last 24 hours, after the FBI raided my home for the second time in five months yesterday. The new search warrant named certain communications to Voice of the Voiceless as among the items to be seized. This is the second time VOV has been mentioned in an FBI document in recent months.

Since its launch, VOV has focused on original content. I rarely repost articles, or post anything that isn’t offering some value, some insight or layer to the story no other source is offering. The internet is well past the point of data saturation, and I don’t want to add to it with unoriginal or redundant content.

The burden of increased site-traffic comes in having to be increasingly cautious in my reporting. Several times in recent months the media has picked up on stories that I’ve broken on VOV, and I’ve become much more hesitant to post any exclusive / breaking information without being 100% certain it is 100% accurate.

As an example, for weeks there was fairly solid speculation that the mystery informant in Walter Bond’s case was his brother. I was 95% certain based on what I was hearing, but I held off on reporting this until getting confirmation from Walter himself. Within minutes of posting, I was getting calls from the media, reporters who would likely never look at the site again if they were to catch me in one inaccuracy. Before VOV was getting decent traffic, I would have been less likely to hold myself to professional standards.