Americans for Medical Progress on Animal Rights 2001
Americans for Medical Progress recently circulated a lengthy summary of the Animal Rights 2001 conference which contained a lot of interesting information that wasn’t in other media accounts.
According to AMP, while “a few speakers advocated violence… these sessions predominantly emphasized non-violent tactics.” Apparently many of the activists in attendance were concerned at how the violent tactics are playing out in the media, especially as many national media outlets have done extensive coverage of the growing violence perpetrated by animal rights and environmental extremists.
Interestingly, AMP reports that one of those explicitly advocated violent acts was People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals‘ Bruce Friedrich. AMP wrote,
While disclaiming involvement in violent activities himself, Friedrich devoted an entire presentation to the case for violence, starting with people’s natural inhibitions against violence to justification for it “to end animal suffering.” “If we really believe that animals have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands,” Friedrich said, “then, of course we’re going to be blowing things up and smashing windows. For the record, I don’t do this stuff, but I advocate it. I think it’s a great way to bring about animal liberation, considering the level of suffering, the atrocities.”
“I think it would be great if all of the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and the banks who (sic) fund them exploded tomorrow,” he continued to loud applause. “I think it’s perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through windows.”
Meanwhile, AMP reported that Kevin Jonas of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty also discussed violence,
“Closing HLS is my life and this campaign will remain my life until HLS is closed,” he said. The SHAC campaign, Jonas said, “targets the pillars of HLS’ financial support,” and has been so successful that HLS is “on its last leg. All that’s needed is just one more kick.”
“There’s not stopping this campaign,” declared Jonas. “There’s no end to what we can do to HLS. We’ll take out their customers, their workers. There are a lot of options.” Jonas, who acknowledged that he’s been visited by representatives of the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, also predicted, “There will be windows broken and cars flipped [as the campaign continues].”
PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco who apparently showed up at AR 2001 largely in order to promote a multi-level marketing scheme, American Communications Network. On a bulletin board set up at |VegSource|, one individual complained of Pacheco’s huckster-like tactics. Apparently at a rap session, a conference participant walked in and conveniently asked Pacheco for details about the scheme, at which point Pacheco launched into his pitch. The VegSource poster likened it to a fraudulent revival meeting where people are planted to ask all the rights questions at the right moments (of course other activists quickly chimed in with “we should never disparage other activists” group think).
Finally, last week I mentioned that Alex Hershaft had written a letter to The Washington Post accusing the Post of bias because it ran a photo of PETA’s protest at Wendy’s along with its story about the AR 2001 conference. Hershaft whined that the two things were completely separate and unrelated. Apparently some attendees of AR 2001 didn’t get that memo because several of them were on the VegSource.Com posting about how wonderful the protest was in conjunction with the conference, one even going so far as to suggest that this was such a wonderful thing that perhaps next year an entire day of AR 2002 could be set aside for such protests.
Source:
At the Animal Rights 2001 Conference. Americans for Medical Progress, special report, July 7, 2001.
Tags: Alex Hershaft