Books (Page 2)

In: Books

War At Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists And What We Can Do About It (1989, Boston, MA.)

During the advent of illegal animal liberations in the United States the FBI had very little in the way of actionable intelligence on those responsible. That all changed when a mentally ill-former activist with a history of violence and stalking began speaking with the Bureau. His name was Bill Ferguson, and while he is best known as the activist who shot Last Chance for Animals founder Chris DeRose in the back, his legacy as the first North American super snitch is far more obscure. Once he began cooperating grand juries sprung up all over the country, homes were raided, and the dirty tricks experienced by other movements began entering the militant vegan arena. In response many grassroots animal organizations began to distribute Brian Glick’s excellent booklet, War At Home.

Clocking in at under 100 pages, War at Home covers all of the most important moments in the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence program, (Better known as COINTELPRO) including the events which occurred after COINTELPRO was supposedly shut down. In plain language and with surprising detail Glick discusses the means and aims of the FBI’s attempts at ending domestic dissent. More than a must read on past abuses, War At Home is also an invaluable handbook on security culture and support for those targeted by law enforcement harassment campaigns. The current wave of crackdowns on the Occupy movement make the free distribution of this booklet more important than ever- please share it with your friends.

In: Books

Ecotage! (1971, New York, New York.)

For the last several months we have been pursuing some of our favorite activists and friends to write blogs introducing classics from our archives. As it turns out, our friends and favorite activists are lazy and regularly delinquent in transmitting promised writings. We still love them, even ol’ Ginger Rage, AKA Will Potter. He wrote the first of these guest editorials, and it was well worth the wait.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is widely credited with igniting the modern environmental movement, which is true, but less well known is how quickly the movement radicalized.

By the first Earth Day in 1970, anonymous individuals were making headlines by targeting polluters. Illinois’s “The Fox” and Florida’s “Eco-Commando Force” developed a cult following. They were environmental vigilantes taking on the big, bad corporations, and people loved them.

By 1971, Environmental Action held a national contest soliciting tips on “ecotage.” The tips were compiled in a book and featured in national media.

The tone and honesty of Ecotage is refreshing and a bit surprising when read in the context of the current political climate. Reader-submitted ideas for tactics included re-painting billboards, pulling survey stakes, subscribing CEOs to hundreds of magazines, waging phone blockades, and sabotaging pollution-spewing pipes.

As described in the introduction: “…if ecotage is condemned, the condemnation is of a system which demands ecotage, a system which is so unresponsive to the needs and dreams of its constituents that it forces them underground to effect change.”

During the 1970s and 80s, this mainstreaming of animal and environmental concerns, combined with tiers of lawful and unlawful groups, was undeniably a threat to the corporations targeted. They needed to displace activists from their moral high ground.

A key development in orchestrating this fall from grace was the decision to wield the power of language. For those who break the law in the name of animal rights or the environment, industry groups would change the language from “ecotage” to “eco-terrorism.”

Ecotage should serve as a reminder that there is nothing inevitable about this. The FBI labels “eco-terrorism” the “number one domestic terrorism threat,” but public support is not, and has never been, with the corporations destroying the environment; it’s with those trying to stop them.

In: Books

Targeted (1992, University of Oklahoma Press)

“This planning is done in a very professional manner because the perpetrators are highly skilled in terrorism.” (52)

Published 11 years after the Silver Spring Monkeys investigation, in the same year as the Animal Enterprise Protection Act and 14 years before the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, Targeted, was intended as a vivisectors manual for managing animal rights philosophy. 



Lengthy and replete with victimization, which includes comparing vivisectors to Jews in Nazi Germany, the book is a vital resource for two reasons; it signals the beginning of a new industry, the animal enterprise security industry, and also provides a starting point in charting the rhetoric of “terrorism” to explain animal rights activism.

The animal enterprise security industry, and it’s growth, comes as a fairly predictable response to campaigns, investigations, releases and sabotage. The industry has raised security costs for animal enterprise, however, fails to provide much in the way of relevance. Current publications, like Extremist Watch in the United States, do little more than assauge the conscience of the industry and Targeted can be read in this vein. As a psychological study, the book is written more as a rationalization of vivisection, and the victimization of vivisectors themselves, than a real manual. Unsurprisingly, vivisectors could learn more from content on this site than they ever would within industry manuals, and even still, that knowledge would not be sufficient to prepare them. In terms of efficiency, one has to question if these manuals and the security industry has the desired effect. 


The most troubling message to chart in the book is the framing of animal rights activists as “terrorists.” Written in the same year as the Animal Enterprise Protection Act was passed, the manual would be foreshadowing that the industry was not about to stop short of this language. It is frustrating to see the amount of organization and lobbying that has happened since the book was published, as the authors main strategic point is that the industry itself must be united and it must develop it’s political network and backing. That strategic line can be traced back to publications like this and explains the current situation wherein the vivisection industry is allowing small public relations reform that drains animal advocacy resources (releasing animals for adoption instead of euthanizing them, usually done within a time frame and without aid from the institution) alongside education campaigns (namely billboards) while solidifying their political power by uniting with other animal enterprise industries with designer bills like AETA, AG Gag Bills, etc.

This manual is a must read for those interested in charting the vital work of people like Will Potter, who, with his book Green is the New Red, has chronicled industry response and Government repression. Also, for those interested in the psychology of vivisectors and the vivisection industry, in between the lines this manual reads like a diary and is full of useful information.

In: Books

Animal Warfare (1989, David Henshaw, London, England)

Based upon a television show of the same name, Animal Warfare was one of the first books written about the rise of animal liberation militancy. Its author, David Henshaw, is decidedly anti-animal rights, and at times his coverage is so unfair and deceitful that it’s tempting to write this publication off as mere tabloid journalism. That would be a mistake. While clearly written from the perspective of a person intent on smearing activists, this paperback also provides us with a look at our history less slanted by movement propagandizing and cheerleading. At times that picture is not pretty.

Authored during the rise of what some English activists called “the cult of militancy,” Animal Warfare takes the fodder provided by the most extreme actions of the early 80s and spins an ugly tale of car-bombs, poisoning hoaxes, graveyard desecration, and alliances with racist organizations such as the National Front. While there are plenty of grotesque distortions of facts, there are also valuable lessons to be learned about how the best tactical decisions consider our movement’s ability to survive backlash while building mass.

At a time when many modern activists seem intent on repeating the mistakes of the past, (or at least blogging as if they intend on repeating those mistakes), Animal Warfare contributes to our ability to learn about media falsification, the dangers of militaristic posturing, and the events which led to the weakening of England’s mass militant movement for animal liberation.

In: Books

Love and Anger, 1st and 2nd Editions (1980?, Westport, CT. USA)

“Animals have rights, interests, desires, and needs equal, within the context of their lives, to those of humans, and we have an obligation to recognize this, and act accordingly. Animal Rights is a philosophical orientation, and a practical necessity if creatures are to be spared the systematic cruelty to which they are currently subjected. But perhaps most importantly, the designation of and agitation for animal rights is part of a revolutionary process aimed at restructuring the major institutions of our society. Indeed, in struggling to change the way humans treat animals, and one another, we work towards nothing less than the transformation of the world.”

– Richard Morgan, from the introduction.

For the last several years, I have been trying to understand why the animal rights movement rode a wave of success in the early 80s, only to fall so sharply by the end of the decade. This inquiry has led me to read old books and magazines, to interview participants from that time period, and even to reading the history of other causes in an attempt to find parallels in their peaks and troughs. I still have not arrived at a conclusive answer to the question, and it appears that many factors played a part in our recession. What is more clear, though, is that one figure played a major role in our rise, only to be quickly forgotten. His name is Richard Morgan, and after working towards civil rights and an end to the war in Vietnam, he took up the cause of animal rights in the late 1970s.

Early figures in the movement speak of Morgan as a pioneer, and his group, Mobilization for Animals, planned some of the largest and most visible demonstrations of the time, drawing thousands of people to multiple locations across the United States. He introduced his organizing model in 1979 with the the first edition of Love and Anger, a book which many people in the fledgling animal rights community cited as their inspiration to start a local group.

Written in a style that blends 70s leftism with 80s self-help jargon, Love and Anger can, at times, be a frustrating read. Morgan certainly has a touch of the arrogant liberalism that repulsed the generation of activists that followed his into the 90s. Scattered throughout the book are unsupportable claims, like American pacifists ending the war in Vietnam with sit ins, and new-agey feel good calls for demonstrations to provide “spiritual nourishment.” Some of the book’s advice is remarkably egalitarian, including calls for work within a group to rotate and for everyone, even supposed leaders, to do “shit work.” But some of the book is strangely authoritarian, with calls for “marshals” at demonstrations to squelch the spontaneous actions of others present. If a reader can get past these snags this book also contains a lot of wisdom.

Written at a time when there was almost no movement to speak of in the United States, the author set out to make a handbook to teach people who had never held a sign before to grow a resistance from scratch. He was concerned about the personal and political development of each new member of this tiny cause, and wanted them to think big. Four years before the first civil disobedience action for animal rights (which took place in New York at the Macy’s Fur Department, not in Sacramento as widely reported elsewhere), Richard Morgan wrote about developing personal courage to face law enforcement and overcome private doubts about organizing ability. He gave practical advice on bringing out large numbers to demonstrations, making literature, contacting media and writing press releases, and other basics that helped make animal rights the breakout issue of the 1980s.

Richard Morgan disappeared from activism in the mid 80s. Attempts to track him down have been fruitless, and even his old friends don’t seem to know what happened to him. But, before he walked out of view, he left us with some powerful advice. I hope young activists will read this book with a critical eye, and consider how these words helped lay the foundation for the movement they participate in today.


(first edition)

(second edition)

In: Books

Declaration of War: Killing People to Save Animals and the Environment. (1991, Sacramento, CA, USA.)

We’d like to state right from the beginning of this post: this book is poorly written and argued and we do not agree with its primary premise. Throughout the book, it is claimed that the majority of humans will never voluntarily embrace animal liberation, and thus terrorism utilized by a vegan minority will scare the masses into not enslaving other creatures. This belief is farcical on its face and abandons billions of animals to desperate lives of confinement, abuse and slaughter. No militant movement without a large base of support has ever succeeded in overthrowing the dominant order of society. A movement made up of the “liberators” mentioned in this book would be quickly suppressed and the following repression would hinder, maybe permanently, other hopeful forms of saving animals.

However, when Declaration was initially published in the 1990s, it caused quite a stir in a movement that was already tripping over itself to prove how moderate it could be after the radicalism of the eighties. Advertisements for the book were pulled from publications like Animals Voice, and terse editorials were directed at the publishers. Many campaigners at the time rejected the message, but seemed to delight in how it upset the struggle’s status quo.

For some reason, this book has survived with a large cult following on the internet despite never having been taken seriously by even the most radicalized liberationists. Perhaps its appeal lays in its ability to give voice to a fantasy of retribution. Many of us have raged at the harm done to non-humans by our species and dreamed, however briefly, of harming those responsible. The vicarious release given to people by reading this book may then be its only redeeming quality.