{"id":3245,"date":"2015-07-31T05:19:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T13:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/?p=3245"},"modified":"2015-08-03T05:22:12","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T13:22:12","slug":"from-terrorism-to-activism-moving-from-the-green-scare-to-animal-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/2015\/07\/31\/from-terrorism-to-activism-moving-from-the-green-scare-to-animal-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"From “Terrorism” to Activism: Moving from the Green Scare to Animal Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"captivemink9\"<\/a>from Common Dreams
\nby Lauren Gazzola<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Eleven years ago, when I was arrested along with six other animal activists on domestic terrorism charges<\/a>, I was already tired of looking for lawyers. \u00a0The campaign I was working on, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), had already garnered its fair share of lawsuits and arrests. \u00a0The situation had gotten to the point that I was spending essentially all of my time dealing with legal problems, rather than campaigning directly to close the product testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences–the reason for SHAC\u2019s existence.<\/div>\n
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Over several years, I had called hundreds of attorneys in several different states seeking representation for dozens of lawsuits that SHAC faced–First Amendment attorneys, civil liberties organizations, lawyers who had litigated mass arrests at some of the big protest gatherings of the late 1990s and early 2000s. \u00a0The usual suspects. \u00a0The hot shots. \u00a0The lawyers who were supposed to tell me that, while they may not agree with what SHAC was saying, they would defend to the death our right to say it.<\/p>\n

Instead, most of them told me they couldn\u2019t help. \u00a0Partly, this was a financial issue. \u00a0SHAC was a grassroots campaign run by unpaid volunteers, and we didn\u2019t have the funds to defend against these cases. \u00a0The very nature of SLAPP suits<\/a> is that, while the plaintiff\u2019s claims may be frivolous, he has deeper pockets and can bury the defendant in litigation costs, forcing her into settlement.<\/p>\n

What was most notable to me, however, was where these attorneys referred me when they politely declined to represent us. \u00a0Almost invariably, they sent me to the Animal Legal Defense Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ALDF is a wonderful organization that does great legal work to help animals. \u00a0\u00a0However, especially back then, ALDF was focused on using the law directly on behalf of animals–namely, enacting and enforcing animal protection laws; it did not do civil liberties work. \u00a0(In recent years, ALDF has undertaken some civil liberties work, challenging so-called \u201cag-gag\u201d laws<\/a>.) \u00a0When lawyers who had prominently represented all sorts of protesters and controversial speakers referred me to the \u201canimal legal\u201d organization, it told me that they thought of SHAC\u2019s issues as animal <\/em>issues rather than free speech<\/em> issues.<\/p>\n

The surest sign came when, after my codefendants and I were arrested on \u201canimal enterprise terrorism\u201d charges for campaigning to close Huntingdon, I responded to an announcement from a civil liberties organization seeking activists who felt like they were being harassed by the government. \u00a0Calling the organization and reporting SHAC\u2019s woes, I was told \u201cthis is for anti-globalization demonstrators, DNC, RNC protesters, etc.–it\u2019s not for animal rights activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

I found myself spending a lot of time explaining to lawyers I approached that SHAC\u2019s issues were the same as those of any other activists who got in trouble; we needed civil liberties lawyers, not animal lawyers. \u00a0I de-emphasized the issue I had dedicated my life to — ending violence against animals — the cause for which I had gotten in trouble, in order to play up the importance of defending \u201cfreedom for the thought we hate<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eleven years on, the tide has turned. \u00a0The repression of animal rights activism is increasingly taken seriously and recognized as a legitimate civil liberties issue by the broader Left. \u00a0This is due in large part to brave organizations like CCR and the National Lawyers Guild, who stepped up to defend unpopular activists when we were under attack (both CCR and the NLG acted as amicus<\/em> parties in my case<\/a>), and to journalists like Will Potter<\/a> who continued writing and speaking about this issue even when, as he told me yesterday, it felt like he was yelling into a black hole.<\/p>\n

The surest sign of this shift came this week, in the form of an outstanding article by Glenn Greenwald, on The Intercept<\/a>, about the arrest of two animal rights activists last Friday<\/a> under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), for allegedly freeing thousands of animals from fur farms and vandalizing property. \u00a0Those who follow CCR\u2019s work may remember that the same thing happened last summer when, like this year, on the eve of the annual national animal rights conference<\/a>, two activists were arrested on AETA charges<\/a> for allegedly freeing thousands of animals from fur farms–and, in true terrorist fashion, for spray-painting \u201cLiberation Is Love.\u201d \u00a0CCR filed a motion to dismiss that case<\/a>, challenging the constitutionality of the AETA.<\/p>\n

Now, this summer, in a 180-degree turn from a decade ago, the journalist who broke what was probably the biggest story of the past five years<\/a> is writing about animal rights activists. \u00a0In his article, Greenwald situates the repression of the animal rights movement within a broader crackdown by powerful interests on speech, including whistleblowing, and activism that threatens to expose their unsavory practices. \u00a0But he does more than that.<\/p>\n

Greenwald writes in particular about what<\/em> the animal rights movement is trying to expose. \u00a0He doesn\u2019t flinch when folks he interviews say that the animal rights movement is challenging the idea — and a way of life based on that idea — that humans can do anything we want, for any reason, to animals and to the planet. \u00a0In fact, he echoes this sentiment, writing:<\/p>\n

\u201cthe animal rights movement strikes at the heart of what is most cherished by American elites: the pillars of unrestrained capitalistic entitlement. \u00a0That so much industrial profit depends upon extreme, constant torture, violence and slaughter of animals is something as regarded as, in essence a sacred right.\u201d<\/p>\n

He notes that, when powerful corporate interests usher laws like the AETA through Congress, they can do so only because so much of the massive, global violence against animals remains hidden. \u00a0And then he reveals that violence<\/em>, including in his article three undercover videos, filmed inside of fur farms and animal agricultural facilities.<\/p>\n

Eleven years after I was turned away by some of the biggest names in activist defense, increased acceptance by the broader social justice community of animal rights activists<\/em> has also meant increased open-mindedness about the injustices happening to animals<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There are so many examples.\u00a0 Here are just two I\u2019ve been involved in:<\/p>\n

About three years ago, lawyers, legal workers, and law students who had done work defending animal rights activists formed the Animal Rights Activism Committee<\/a> of the National Lawyers Guild (ARAC). \u00a0I am a member. \u00a0While ARAC still works to defend activists, we have focused much of our efforts on advocating directly for animals within the NLG, urging this group of social justice attorneys to consider whether and how animals fit within a broader anti-oppression and nonviolence framework. \u00a0And we have been rather successful; the Guild has increasingly kept animals off the table, serving food free of animal products at many of its major events.<\/p>\n

And, last week, pattrice jones [lowercase intentional] of the LGBTQ-run VINE Animal Sanctuary<\/a> visited CCR for the second time<\/a>, to lead a discussion about intersectionality and animals–i.e. how she came, after decades of social justice work, to include ending violence against animals within her overall anti-oppression vision.<\/p>\n

These are just two of so many examples. \u00a0But they all amount to this: I no longer cloak my animal activism in the First Amendment. I care deeply about free speech, but I no longer feel the need to hide my belief that ending violence against animals is a matter of justice every bit as legitimate as human rights struggles.<\/p>\n

This view is not always received without skepticism. \u00a0And the need to constantly dig deeper and do better goes both ways–there is certainly room for improvement on social justice issues within the animal rights movement. \u00a0But, as the success of ARAC\u2019s efforts, Greenwald\u2019s article, and the willingness of my fellow CCRers to engage with and think critically about animal issues show, a decade of repression has led not, as intended, to the squelching of the animal rights movement, but to new relationships that have strengthened both defenses against that repression and<\/em> the overall goal of ending violence against animals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n