Animal Writings

"A now 20-year old Canadian Government strategy paper called Defence of the Fur Trade [there's an ugly title] and a similar strategy outline produced a year later by the American Medical Association both described the tactic of neutralizing animal advocacy by associating it with violence.

Simply answering that far more violence is done by trappers, vivisectors, et al misses the point.

Accepting terrorism of any sort invites infiltration and disruption, and ultimately retards the cause, no matter how much of a vicarious feel-good activists may get from a transiently successful 'direct action.'

Critical to remember, as both Defence of the Fur Trade and the AMA strategy pointed out, is that most of the public does not approve of cruelty to animals, when they recognize it."

...

"Animal advocates should be aware that seven years before any ALF or ELF suspect used a pipe bomb, a covert operator named Mary Lou Sappone, hired by former U.S. Surgical Corporation owner Leon Hirsch, in November 1988 set up a fringe activist to be caught in the act of planting a pipe bomb in the U.S. Surgical parking lot.

Why?

Because when the public sees purported animal advocates involved in violence, that violence becomes the story—not the violence going on outside in the woods, in the labs, and inside the slaughterhouses.

The best defense animal advocates have against such duplicitous tactics is to avoid any association with violence, so that agents provocateur become conspicuous.

Convincing the world to treat animals with moral consideration requires activists to keep the high ground, not from fear of arrest, but from the likelihood that appearing to be irrational or dangerous will obscure the message and lead to failure."