Posted on August 18, 2008 by speakingofresearch

For the rest of this week I shall be blogging my thoughts and comments on the Animal Rights Conference, that was held Friday 15th - Sunday 17th August 2008 (the conference actually started on Thursday and finishes on Monday, but I attended the main 3 days).

Friday 15th August, I headed to the Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria to attend the animal rights conference. Far from infiltrating the conference under any false pretenses I chose to sign in under my real name, and although not actively advertising myself and my organization (It’s their conference and I was not there to disrupt it).

Exhibitors and speakers ranged across animal rights issues, from production agriculture to veganism to medical research and more. The first talk that caught my interest was "Applying Direction Action" by Jonny Vasic (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society), Steve Hindi (SHARK - Showing Animals Respect and Kindness … SARK surely?) and Camille Hankins (Win Animal Rights - W.A.R.). Hankins was heavily involved in the campaigns against Huntingdon Life Sciences, as well as being one of the spokesmen for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office (ALPO) which publicizes the violent activities of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Animal Rights Militia (ARM).

Applying Direct Action was an interesting talk since both Vasic and Hindi’s organizations’ claim to stand against violence (arson, bombs, home invasions), whereas Hankins was quite happy to support the more extreme activities of the ALF and ARM. Hankins talked about her part in the campaigns against HLS (in particular in keeping them off the New York Stock Exchange - however HLS has since been listed) and urged others to join in on direct action. Talking more about acceptable forms of direct action, Hankins offered her opinions on two particular incidents.
On the arson attacks on DHL vans - "We drove up to this parking lot, and there were three lorries that had been firebombed, that were in ashes. And you know what, I have to tell you I was excited, I cheered." On the grave robbery of Gladys Hammond - "I didn’t have a problem with that, besides the person was dead. Nobody got hurt. Except the people that lost the body for a couple of years did."
[Click on either quote to get the full audio clip (mp3 format) to play in your browser. Audio from official conference recordings]

It seems Hankins may have taken it too far, as the crowd applause after the support of the grave robbing was sporadic at best. Given that this incidents, and other incidents like this, brought the condemnation of non-violent animal rights groups (and rightfully so) who tried to distance themselves from this fringe element, Hankins decided to remind the room that condemning such actions is "betraying our fellow activists." She finished her talk by confirming her commitment to shutting down HLS by "any means necessary."

To write off individuals like Hankins as an animal rights nutjob is to forget that she is a powerful and energetic speaker, who’s experiences, advice and encouragement has nurtured many animal rights activists into, sadly, becoming animal rights extremists. Most activists at the convention (or those I heard and spoke to) were genuinely caring and pleasant individuals who are often wrongly tainted by the activities of the extemist elements that exist on the fringe of the movement. Activists such as Hankins do her movement no favors, however she appears to see such criticism from her own movement as betrayal rather than advice.

Leaflet of the day - "Things You Didn’t Know About Animal Testing…"

This was a small leaflet I picked up at an exhibit stand, which included some of the following "facts".

1. In the US alone, over 87,000 dogs, 20,000 cats and 62,315 non-human primates were used for research in 2006
- They choose an anti-viv website as a source, and seemingly the reason they chose not to use the actual facts from the USDA is because they’ve exaggerated the number of dogs by over 20,000.

2. No law requires that cosmetics and household products be tested on animals
- This is just plain wrong. Any novel cosmetic product in the US MUST be tested on animals, however one can use previously animal-tested chemicals to put new cosmetics on the shelf.

3. At least 450 methods exist with which we can replace animal experiments.
- The truth of the issue can be read in the bad science section.
"This is nonsense, these are techniques used alongside animal research. Only about 10% of medical research involves animals. From time to time non-animal techniques do come along that replace animal tests, but their adoption is rarely controversial as they are almost invariably cheaper and quicker. The vast majority of scientists who undertake animal experiments also use non-animal methods, it is a case of using the appropriate technique for the question being asked. Of course new animal techniques, such as transgenic animals, are regularly developed so the situation is very fluid."

Posted on August 20, 2008 by speakingofresearch

This is the second part of my report on the animal rights conference.

Discovered! As I stood in line to enter the video room I was recognized by a man called Gary, who knew of my UK activities with Pro-Test. I confirmed his suspicion and we had a quick chat before I entered the video room. Like most activists there Gary was friendly, and we politely debated a few quick points on animal research before going onto the next session.

Abuse of animals in science. This shock-titled session was delivered by Camille Hankins and Matt Rossell of In Defense of Animals. The video shown was from Rossell’s undercover infiltration of Oregon National Primate Research Center. Instead of going through a point-counterpoint of the entire video, I will instead reflect upon some of the broad tactics used - many of which can be seen in my post some weeks back on a more recent infiltration.

1. Disingenuous motives. Throughout the presentation Rossell implied that he had applied to ONPRC as a technician with no ulterior motives, had been shocked by what he saw, had tried to "change the system from within", had failed, and then decided to make tapes. In truth, Rossell had infiltrated other organizations including a laboratory before, making tapes in secret before coming out as a whistle blower. He had neglected to mention his employment with PETA on his application to ONPRC (and well as omitting his college education), and for someone who, supposedly, decided to take video footage as a last resort where other methods failed, he started filming just one month after joining the Psychological Well-Being program (3 months into the job) which gave him an excuse to be filming the animals, which he proceeded to do for the next two years. Suspect motives? Almost certainly!

2. Exaggeration. We see a monkey with a swollen arm, and some footage of a cage with several bent bars while the narrator (Rossell) informs us that monkeys regularly get their hand caught in cages, and the cages have to be cut open. At no other point in any footage do we see another cage with any bent bars. According to veterinarians at Oregon this is a rare occurrence, although most incidents tend to be repeats (like humans, certain monkeys are more prone to repeated mistakes), this would explain why there is a single cage with multiple bent bars. It is not uncommon for AR groups to paint relatively rare occurrences as the status quo.

3. Misinterpretation. We are shown a video of a monkey sucking its penis, later on we see a monkey sucking it’s toes. We are told that this abnormal behavior shows distress in the monkey. In reality, human babies do exactly the same thing with regards to sucking fingers and toes, however they lack the flexibility to able to suck any other part of their body. Excessive sucking is may well be a reaction to the stress of having a camera in its face (see video below).

4. Provocation? We see a group of monkeys huddled inside a corner of an otherwise large enclosure. We are led to believe that the monkeys are normally in this state of distress. What we don’t see is cage bars, why? Because Rossell is physically standing inside the enclosure filming the infant monkeys - no wonder they appear to be scared.

5. What You Don’t See. In the video we never see any footage of the large outdoor enclosures in which MOST of the monkeys are housed. Despite the fact that 77% of the monkeys live in social (2 or more) housing, we only tend to see single housed monkeys (an exception is made for infant monkeys that hug one another). Below we see an example of outdoor housing at ONPRC.

There are many other clever camera tricks, such as filming monkeys while a feeding tray is around (anyone with dogs know they exhibit more "manic" behavior when someone has their food bowl ready), and taking footage in the early morning before cage cleaning. These techniques are designed to decieve the viewer as to the conditions in ONPRC. We are never told of th result of the USDA inspection - Oregon were cleared of all allegations of abuse, with only a few minor proposals for improvements (all of which were acted upon), this can be seen in the USDA report.

The raw footage shown to the USDA often has the "context" of Rossell’s videos. In the below video we can clearly see Rossell being the cause of stress to the animal, and yet only the final reaction makes his presentation - as an example of stress from being caged! (Can be viewed at: http://speakingofresearch.com/2008/08/18/report-animal-rights-conference-part-1/)

Camille then briefly spoke, backing up a handful of Rossell’s points. She informed us of the existence of "better, faster, cheaper alternatives" - but neglected to tell us what they are. I would somewhat guess she is making some of the common mistakes in her understanding of "replacement" methods - of which you can read more about.

After the talk Gary (who had worked out who I was) introduced me to Matt Rossell, and we engaged in a debate for 15 minutes on the merits and demerits of animal research. Rossell is very well spoken, he comes across as dedicated in his beliefs and actions, which his repeated commitment to undercover work confirms. I said I was writing something on the conference, and he asked if he could reply to any comments I made - I accepted. Before writing this blog post I phoned Rossell and asked him about the 5 issues written above. I have addressed his replies at the bottom of this post.

Being as this post is longer than I expected - I will finish it here - look out for the next blog post where we discuss confronting corporate threats, as well as some of the presentations given during the rest of the conference.

Leaflet of the Day - Staples must cut ties to HLS

Staples: How can they be so callous knowing beagle puppies will continue to be killed by a firm they suppy

Hopefully Staples are well aware of the important medical research going on at HLS and are more than glad to be providing office equipment for them. Perhaps the person who made the leaflet misunderstood the intended use of the paperclips and staples which are sent to HLS.

Part 3

Posted on August 21, 2008 by speakingofresearch

Welcome to the third part of my report on the Animal Rights Conference 2008, that took part in Washington DC (well Virginia actually, but within the DC Metro system) on 15th-18th August 2008. Check back to read Part 1 and 2.

I was still working my way through the first day of the conference when I left you in Part 2. I had been "discovered" as "the kid from Pro-Test in the UK", having seen talks from Camille Hankins and Matt Rossell among others. So I entered my next session:

Confronting Corporate Threats. The three speakers were Debra Erenberg (RAN - Rainforest Action Network), Harold Brown (Farm Kind) and Camille Hankins (WAR - Win Animal Rights). Erenberg talked about the problems of dealing with corporate PR in the logging industry. Harold Brown extended this PR-fear to a conspiratorial art form - "These PR companies have taken down governments in Central and South America. They’ve taken down governments folks". "You don’t fight the corporations head to head, because their big and they’ve got people, they have corporate hitmen that work at government levels". By the end of his talk he had quit talking about farming and animals, and moved onto a rant against free-market capitalism and globalization. The final speaker was Camille Hankins - if you want more information check out Part 1, where we have recordings of her supporting the actions of grave robbers and arsonists. Hankins spoke about her efforts against HLS, protesting against Andrew Baker, and working to attack their banking links. After making her own complaints against PR companies, Hankins decided to do a bit of PR work of her own by urging fellow activists to rebrand the "Pharmaceutical" industry/companies as the "Drug" industry/companies.

The most interesting part of this session came in the Q and A at the end, when an individual in the audience made the comment:

"This whole system of private ownership is rotten to the core. That a few people owning and controlling all the wealth, and the means of making more wealth is totally upside down. … [We need] to link up with all the hundreds of thousands of other groups, and millions of people worldwide, who are fighting corporations and the whole corporate system and working towards a whole new world where all the people own and control everything and share the wealth"

This brief foray into aspects of Neo-Marxism gets to the heart of the corporate-government conspiracy theory which becomes required to uphold many of their beliefs. In another talk someone suggested that pharmaceuticals were trying actively not to create cures to cancer because then they wouldn’t be able to sell their other treatments (if a scientist found the ultimate cure to cancer you can be sure he’d find someone to mass-produce it) - it is this kind of belief that requires a massive conspiracy against the activists, and this is perhaps why you find many activists poking their heads up on a multiple left-wing issues.

Saturday 16th August

I can probably sum up the three sessions (Running Campaigns, Engaging Businesses, and Activist Support) in a few words (repetitive and irritating?) by saying that the same conspiracy theories involving government and multi-million dollar corporations were repeated by various speakers (I was waiting for the words "military industrial complex", but alas the conspiracies never quite stooped to that level). Hankins rambled about the dangers of the police - "Trust me, they are not your friends", as well as the importance of having good security culture. Activists have become smart, they know that the police are watching them (although they seem surprised at this - some AR activists commit crimes, police fight crime, police watch suspected activists to see if they do crime… ) and thus are developing effective security to combat this - Hankins mentioned how she often wrote physical letters and encrypted her emails, Peter Young always warned people to talk of direct action from a hypotheitcal perspective (his fur farm raids and prison sentence were more of a reality).

I did not stay long enough on Saturday to see "R. Nixon" give a talk on "engaging politicians", but was left wondering if political espionage would be mentioned. Check back to see the concluding part to my report on the Animal Rights Conference.

Leaflet of the Day - Kicking the Cops Out

I don’t even need to comment on this one, it speaks for itself. It also runs "nicely" alongside their government-police-corporate conspiracy theories. I picked this leaflet up from the ALPO (Animal Liberation North American Press Officeo) stall (manned by spokesman Jerry Vlasak) pictures below.

Kicking the Cops Out

Cheers

Tom

All three parts of this report can be found at:

http://speakingofresearch.com/2008/08/18/report-animal-rights-conference-part-1/
http://speakingofresearch.com/2008/08/20/report-animal-rights-conference-part-2/
http://speakingofresearch.com/2008/08/21/report-animal-rights-conference-part-3/