Me: Vegan

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“Pittsburgh, PA, USA

In honor of World Week for Animals in Laboratories, folks decided that the labs hidden behind fancy names and large buildings in the city needed a more visibility.

One building, Mellon Institute in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, contains multiple animal testing facilities inside.

Large tagging stickers with ‘Animal Research Torture Happens Here’ and ‘Animal Research Torture Facility’ written on them with the word ‘Research’ scratched out were placed on the sign on the front of the building and on posts around the building.

On the rear side of the building, ‘Animals Die Here’ was painted on the side that faces the street.

There are several other animal torture facilities in the area. This is but one that hides behind the facade of being a welcoming historical landmark or university building. Behind the walls, animals suffer and die each day.”

The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) has been a notorious presence around the world for the past several decades.  Generally, the mention of the name provokes thoughts of violence, lawlessness, even terrorism.  What is it about the group that provokes these images?  Perhaps it is an image created by the media and the industries intent on keeping them out of their workplaces.  Or, it could be that we naturally fear that which we do not know or understand.

In reality, the ALF is a group of committed Vegans who oppose the property status of non-human animals and take direct actions to end this status, to free animals and to destroy the objects of their captivity and abuse.  Critique #1 of the ALF is that they are violent.  This is clearly not the case.  In the innumerable actions committed all over the world, none has ever cause physical harm to any animal, human or non-human.

Critique #2 of the ALF is that they are automatically evil because they so frequently break laws in the commission of their activities.  While it is true that a great many laws have been broken by the ALF over the years, it is just as true that all major social change has been brought about by dedicated individuals breaking unjust laws.  The underground railroad was terribly illegal, not to mention completely in abhorrence of socially accepted values.  None the less, a dedicated few realized the gross injustice that society was allowing to occur and took direct action to stop it.

Critique #3 of the ALF is that they are terrorists.  I think this term is insulting to both the ALF and to actual terrorists, like Mr. Bin Laden and his cohorts.  The ALF are truly ANTI-terrorists, in other words, they actively seek to cease terror and promote peace.  Mr. Bin Laden and friends are actual terrorists, because they seek only to destroy, they do not seek to change hearts or minds in anyway.  True terrorist attacks are untargeted, in other words, they are against anyone, whoever is there at the time, regardless of their history, beliefs or involvement with the things that the terrorist finds condemnable.  The ALF very carefully select their targets and plan an action in tremendous depth before carrying it out.   In fact, a great many actions have been forced to abort due to a risk that someone could have gotten injured.

The Animal Liberation Front has no mailing address, no head office, no membership list.  Who are these rogue freedom fighters?  Where do they come from?  Why do they do the things that they do?  I highly recommend the book “Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? by Steven Best and Anthony J Nocella II, it changed my perception of the ALF quite radically.

For more information about the movement, stories on Animal Liberation and information on how others have carried out actions (which is only available for curiosity’s sake, may christ himself forbid anyone from actually reading this in depth, meditating on it, doing research and deciding to carry out an action that could and probably will save countless lives, and possibly alter the course of history) please check out the always informative, always controversial and best digested with an open mind web site:  www.animalliberationfront.com

Excerpt from STOP UBC ANIMAL CRUELTY facebook page:

On January 25, 2008, the UBC student newspaper, the UBYSSEY, ran a cover story, “Cruel Intentions? Animal Testing at UBC,” that included some startling and disturbing findings. I’ve included excerpts from UBYSSEY reporter, Marc Serpa Francoeur’s 2008 piece. In his article, Francoeur wrote:

“UBC is one of the largest bio-medical campuses in the country. The ACC [Animal Care Center] distributes some 100,000 creatures, both large and small, to dozens of UBC affiliated research projects.”

“According to the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), the numbers of animals used in ‘science’ in Canada have increased significantly in the past decade, with over 2.5 million animals in 2006, up from less than 1.5 million in 1997. In fact, 2006 saw the highest number of animals used in research since 1975. As the home of a sizable and rapidly expanding industry of animal experimentation, UBC appears to be at the forefront of these trends.”

“…UBC maintains over thirty animal care facilities across its campus and throughout the rest of the city.”

“Harvey Clark describes a recent shift in Canadian research from the use of companion to farm animals and from larger to smaller animals in general; a process he characterizes as ‘refinement’ of research practices. ‘Pigs are probably the main large animal that’s used,’ says Harvey Clark. ‘We haven’t seen dogs used in research at UBC since 1992.’”

“While the wide majority of the animals used each year are rats, mice, and fish, there are over 5,000 subjects from other species like sheep, pigs, rabbits, cats, and non-human primates. Harvey Clark views the use of these animals in research as ‘consumptive use’ and equates it to the use of animals in food production.”

“According to the CCAC, experiments in Canada are divided into four different ‘Categories of Invasiveness.’ In 2006 while about one third or over 800,000 experiments caused ‘little to no discomfort or stress,’ another third caused ‘moderate to severe distress or discomfort.’ Additionally, over 7 percent, some 180,000 animals, were subjected to the highest level of invasiveness, ‘severe pain near, at, or above the pain tolerance threshold of unanaesthetized conscious animals.’ This quantity is more than double proportionately and well over three times in number than the mere 55,000 or 3 percent of animals used in this way in 1998…”

“As for the nature of the experiments, while some 30 percent were related to medical purposes in 2006, roughly 10 percent, some 238,000 animals were used in the ‘regulatory testing’ of non-medicinal products. While the number of animals consumed for this purpose has been relatively consistent over the past decade, the proportion subjected to the highest level of invasiveness has risen from less than 20 percent in 1998, for instance, to nearly 60 percent in 2006. All told, non-medicinal product testing represented well over 60 percent of the total number of animals subjected to the highest level of invasiveness in 2006.”

“Most notable perhaps, has been the continued use at UBC of non-human primates in neurological experiments. Recently, the rhesus macaque, an Asian species, has been used extensively in Parkinson’s disease research. The monkeys are typically subjected to brain damage which models the degenerative disease and then treated with various methaphetamine and electroconvulsive shock therapies.”