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ALF/ELF tactics, logic, etc...

Discussion in 'General political debates' started by Vegetarian Barbarian, Nov 24, 2009.

  1. BlinkoChrist

    BlinkoChrist Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Nov 1, 2009
     
    I really have nothing else to say because I am not much of an intellectual, but, I like this guy "bletheringvegan" and I've oddly found myself agreeing with ungovernable lately, it just shows how through explaining your ideas in such a positive way, sways people to your side, so, good job guys, you've got me believin. Sorry if that didn't make sense.
     
  2. Carcass

    Carcass Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Oct 12, 2009
     
    Bletheringvegan, your critique is interesting. This is a much more complicated situation that most people make it sound. I strongly support militant direct action in the animal liberation movement and I want to try to explain why.

    You are right. You cannot blow up oppression. As with racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia and all the others, speciesism is deeply rooted in many cultures. Most people don't give a fuck about nonhuman animals and that's not something you can force out of them. In order for there to animal liberation, there needs to be a cultural revolution in the way we think about all others. That kind of paradigm shift can only be achieved through education.

    That said, education cannot stand on its own in the face of an economy that runs on exploitation. The Situationists used to say that you can start as many radical newspapers as you want, but it doesn't amount to shit unless you're also taking out the coporate ones. When we speak, we do not add our voices to a dialogue, we are screaming to be heard in a propaganda war. I would argue that the behavioralist science of advertising has evolved into a low-level psychological warfare. Our words, our honesty and our emotions by themselves cannot compete with that when it comes to creating a culture that respects living creatures. A comparatively small group of people across the country are producing mass culture for mass consumption and unless we attack that, then we will always be losing ground.

    Direct action comes back in the picture in a few ways.

    First and foremost: it is easy to forget given the scale of the atrocities being committed against nonhuman animals that each one is an individual with needs and desires. If you liberate one rabbit from a fur farm, it will not have a measureable effect on the institution of fur farming, but it means everything to that rabbit. That matters.

    Second, economic sabotage against professional animal abusers does raise the social cost of abusing animals. This takes place monetarily with rising insurance rates and security needs which can make the establishment of a new fur farm or vivisection lab prohibitively expensive. It also manifests when vivisectors quit their jobs and HLS shareholders divest because, suddenly, someone is holding them accountable for their actions.

    In my mind, the short term goal of the ALF is not to burn down every slaughterhouse in the U.S. Not that that wouldn't be beautiful; but, as you say, they would be rebuilt. Ultimately, we want to achieve total liberation. We do want those slaughterhouses burnt, but we want everyone to be in on it. In the meantime, our movement needs a front: an organization that doesn't have to answer to public opinion (other parts of the movement take care of that) but only to the following question: how can confront this oppression as directly as possible? Capitalism is frighteningly good at reincorporating attempts to break away from its internal logic (case in point: PETA) so, in my mind, it is critical to have an extralegal, uncompromising, offensive wing whose focus is on the actual physical locations where the violence is occurring. We need a tactic they can't sell back to us. Without we need an approach that resists marginalization and state recuperation. We need the ALF.
     
  3. Carcass

    Carcass Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Oct 12, 2009
     
    What's the name of this documentary? What evidence was there to prove the farmer was actually attacked by animal liberation activists? I'm skeptical because animal lib/rights activsts get accused of shit like this all the time but I've never heard of one instance where the accusers story bore out. More often it's one of the following:

    1-The animal abuser is trying to commit insurance fraud.
    2-The animal abuser attacked the activsts and then got his ass handed to him.
    3-The FBI or a comparable political police agency is involved.

    Torturing another living creature is forbidden by the ALF Credo (see ALF Credo point #4) so, even if this did occur, it was by definition not an ALF action.
     
  4. bletheringvegan

    bletheringvegan Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Dec 3, 2009
     
    Thanks for the replies Carcass, I've been looking for well thought out arguments FOR direct action that aren't just the "if you don't support it you are in bed with the animal exploiters" etc that I have seen in a few places.

    I guess it comes down to that we both need to continue to push veganism as a moral baseline for animal liberation, I can really see no other acceptable way to achieve this, animals are not liberated through eating less meat, eating dairy or eating more "humanely" killed animals (how can death be humane??), and also as you have pointed out, make the abusers think twice about their participation in the wider oppressive system. I would still be concerned about alienating potential vegans who would otherwise turn to veganism but be put off by the militant actions of the ALF or the sexist and idiotic actions of the Petaphiles.

    I guess we have to be vocal in our opposition to "ALF activists" who harm humans, because after all if our goal is animal liberation, humans are animals too right? And I think that everyone needs to be given a chance to redeem themselves in a society that has taught us all to be so fucked up to one another.
     
  5. Hex

    Hex Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Sep 22, 2009
     
     
  6. bletheringvegan

    bletheringvegan Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Dec 3, 2009
     
    Thats true, I didnt say it definitely occurred, but I wouldn't be surprised tbh, there are nutters in every progressive movement that just use them to forward their own selfish aims for a cheap thrill. :ecouteurs:
     
  7. Cocytus

    Cocytus Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Oct 14, 2009
     
    I support the ALF, and the harm of animal abusers, to the utmost.

    Punishment fitting the crime.
     
  8. bletheringvegan

    bletheringvegan Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Dec 3, 2009
     
    So you believe in an eye for an eye? You have to remember that there's a degree of socialisation involved, sure they are sick fucks for participating in a morally bankrupt system, but if the person doesn't see the immorality then how can we expect them to realise? We need to put forward education as to why it is so morally bankrupt to do these tests on animals and USE animals full stop for any purpose.
     
  9. bletheringvegan

    bletheringvegan Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Dec 3, 2009
     
    Also - if you are in support of harming people who test on animals, then what about people who consume animal products and buy products that are tested on animals? Because essentially every time they buy an animal product they are hiring someone to inflict the worst suffering and eventual murder on a sentient being.

    This kind of thinking is the reason the animal rights movement alienates people and drives them away from us, and ultimately fails. It's illogical and reactionary, which to me is the very opposite of what anarchist thought should be.
     
  10. Hex

    Hex Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Sep 22, 2009
     
    Cocytus...you should track down a copy of "Declaration of War" by Screaming Wolf...though there is some debate surrounding it's author (i have heard it mentioned that it might have been written by anti-liberationists to discredit the animal liberation movement) it makes for an interesting read. check it out...but with a few grains of salt.
     
  11. bletheringvegan

    bletheringvegan Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Dec 3, 2009
     
  12. Hex

    Hex Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Sep 22, 2009
     
    use TOR people ;)
     
  13. Wonder138

    Wonder138 Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Dec 2, 2009
     
    you cloud start smoking or eating pot it lowears your metabolism and all that food you eat will actually give you sum weight
     
  14. Rathryn

    Rathryn Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Oct 21, 2009
     
    Doesn't nicotine actually lower the absorption of glycogen from the blood, as it lowers insulin production? That would mean that you actually eat LESS, not more, as hunger sets in later.
     
  15. Hayduke

    Hayduke Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Dec 14, 2012
    Male
     Slovakia
  16. nathanandrews

    nathanandrews Member Forum Member


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    Dec 27, 2012
     
    Exactly, as has already been stated the ALF is decentralised and is more of an idea than a group and anyone who takes direct action for animals can claim it as an ALF action.

    Saying that there are guidelines that need to be considered for it to be an ALF action one of which is that no harm is done to any animal-human or non human.

    There are other groups that, rightly or wrongly, do not follow this approach and while these actions may be in the interest of animal liberation cannot be attributed to the ALF.
     
  17. NoGodsNoMasters38

    NoGodsNoMasters38 Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Oct 17, 2013
     
    I totally support the ALF, but I prefer the direct action of Earth First! as apposed to the ELF.
     
  18. NoGodsNoMasters38

    NoGodsNoMasters38 Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Oct 17, 2013
     
    Care to explain how saving sentient animals from horrible abuse and murder in the name of vivisection (not science) and meat is "ideologically bankrupt and dangerously misguided"?
     
  19. jesse seven

    jesse seven Member New Member


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    Jun 28, 2014
     
    It's funny, but I just came across a copy of the Ozomandias sabotage handbook that I picked YEARS ago. Many of the sabotage techniques described seem incredibly ecologically dangerous - setting fire to dozers and cutting hydraulic lines can pose more immediate dangers such as groundwater contamination or wildfires. Likewise, many acts of environmental sabotage result in potential life threatening injury to the equipment operator when he/she comes to work in the morning. These types of action seem more like tactics to me, when really it's a long term strategy that's needed.
     
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