The animal advocacy movement is richly diverse, and encompasses three major tendencies: animal welfare, animal rights, and animal liberation. Where all animal welfare and most animal rights groups insist on working within the legal boundaries of society, animal liberationists argue that the state is irrevocably corrupt and that legal approaches alone will never win justice for the animals.

Whereas animal liberationists have always urged a pluralist approach and shown appreciation for all tactics including welfare, the converse, unfortunately, has not been the case. Numerous welfare and rights groups have criticized the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) for actions they think hurt the image of animal advocacy and alienate potential sympathizers. In these criticisms, they display an appalling ignorance of the history and effectiveness of ALF actions. Through sabotage and raids, ALF actions have:

• Saved thousands of animals from a horrible fate and found them loving homes

• Freed thousands more to live out the rest of their lives in the wild

• Shut down egregious fur farms and laboratories

• Financially weakened countless exploiters

• Provided valuable video documentation of extreme animal cruelty, much of it done in the name of “science” that espouses “animal welfare” values

Many mainstream organizations have pulled out of conferences pluralistic enough to include direct action speakers. Such divisive actions have less to do with principle than with the economic demands of membership support and fear of being tainted by McCarthyesque tactics that assign guilt through association. The more an organization has to lose, the more it strives to separate itself from militant aspects of the movement. For the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a small empire is at stake.

HSUS has become more vocal in its criticism of the ALF and direct action tactics in general in a post-9/11 context where dissent of any kind is branded as “domestic terrorism” and animal exploitation industries have gained increasing influence in the state. Spearheaded by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a pernicious and powerful corporate lobbying group, 14 states have introduced new “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act” laws designed to thwart activism against “animal enterprises” and “natural resource” industries. Such bills have already passed in Oklahoma, California, Utah, and Colorado. Like the Patriot Act, the language in these bills is so broad and sweeping that even leafleting against industries can be branded as a terrorist action. Among other things, these new laws increase penalties for trespassing and vandalism, outlaw unauthorized filming of industry operations, ban donations to organizations deemed “ecoterrorist,” and mandate that individuals convicted of such “crimes” have their personal information and photograph posted to a public Internet base.

In our current neo-McCarthyesque era, all forms of dissent are under attack, nowhere more so than in the animal rights movement. Legal forms of protest increasingly are subject to restriction and repression, as evident in the arrest of the “SHAC7,” activists who have been charged with violations of the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act. In June 2005, reminiscent of the 1950s HUAC hearings, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee convened a special meeting against animal rights “terrorism” and their real target clearly was not only the ALF, but also mainstream groups such as PETA and indeed, HSUS.

In such conditions, a fork has opened in the road to the future, and organizations must take one of two roads: the path of self-interest and self-preservation, or the path of movement solidarity. It is unfortunate that the largest animal advocacy group in the country, the Humane Society of the United States, has chosen the path of self-preservation and self-promotion at the expense of movement unity and political principles.

In recent years, HSUS has expressed increasingly open and vocal criticism of direct action and groups such as the ALF. Yet in a recent Newsday article (August 7, 2005), entitled “Feds turn up the heat on `ecoterrorists,’” HSUS crossed a line by demonstrating far more solidarity with the police state undermining animal rights activism than with the animal cause itself. Denouncing the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the ALF, Michael Markarian, Executive Vice President of External Affairs for HSUS, stated: "We applaud the FBI and law enforcement authorities for trying to crack down and root out these criminals, but we don't think we need a new law."

Fully aware of the unreliability of media sources, the North American Animal Liberation Press Office contacted Mr. Markarian to confirm that he was accurately quoted. He replied to us with this message:

Thanks for your email. You are correct that people are often misquoted in the press, and I do appreciate your taking the time to check with me.

In this case, my quote was accurate. The reporter asked me specifically about arson, and I told her in no uncertain terms that the HSUS opposes such actions and we believe that law enforcement agencies have a duty to stop people from engaging in this conduct, no matter what cause they claim to represent. As you know, the HSUS has no quarrel with peaceful civil disobedience, but we have been very vocal in opposing activities such as property destruction, threats of violence, harassment, and arson in the name of animal protection. We ask people to adhere to a code of conduct in how they treat animals, and we should be prepared to adhere to a civil code of conduct ourselves.

We have a tough enough challenge in asking people to accept the idea that animals should be included in our moral calculus. It increases our degree of difficulty when our movement asks people to accept illegal tactics. Finally, I'll add that I believe these actions hand a major strategic opportunity to our opponents. We cede the moral high ground to vivisectors, factory farmers, and others when we resort to these tactics. If people in our movement didn't engage in these tactics, it would not be surprising to have agent provocateurs conduct similar actions, as a means of undermining the credibility of the organizations and leaders of the movement.

Opposing ALEC and the Senate, HSUS is trying to get the feds off their back, but only to turn them loose on others, as they “applaud” the actions of the police state and cheer the good guys in the “war on terrorism.” What they don’t acknowledge is the important victories for animals achieved through illegal direct action. What they don’t see is that they need the “radicals” and “extremists” as a foil in order to position themselves as “mainstream” and “respectable.” What they don’t grasp is that what happens to any one aspect of the movement happens to all of it, and that once the corporate-state complex goes after the underground, they same machinery will grind away at the aboveground – at least if they begin to grow effective to any degree in protecting animals from the brutality and barbarities of animal exploiters.

In late August 2005, NAALPO solicited a response to the views of HSUS from Kevin Jonas. Kevin is the founder of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) movement in the United States, a prominent spokesperson for direct action tactics, and someone who has been shoved around more than a bit by law enforcement agencies and officials. Here is Kevin’s reply:

It has always been my policy that it’s not a good idea to air the movement's dirty laundry in public. Disputes, dramas, and squabbles should be reconciled internally and not enjoyed by our opposition and exploited as a divide-and-conquer tactic of the FBI. To this end I have tasted blood on more than one occasion from biting my tongue in response to the cheap and slanderous comments made to the mainstream press by those supposed allies in this social justice struggle.

Believe me, I get it. I understand that the more "reputable" national welfare organizations feel they must keep their distance from the "radical" efforts. Their pursuits are policy and potlucks in hopes to set not only a legislative agenda, but also in attempting a more compassionate culture. In a post 9-11, security crazed, constitutionally-challenged time where animal-abusive industry lobbyists have adopted the Karl Rove playbook in attack ads, it can almost be forgivable that such large right-of-center mainstream organizations would insulate themselves from the organically grown, uncontrollable, nothing-to-lose, all-volunteer grassroots movement. Whether or not this distancing is a good idea or even if the aims and objectives of such organizations are worthy of the tremendous resources devoted to them is another whole debate.

What's changed though is that it is not just distance these monolithic organizations are hoping to create, but tactical hegemony. By organizing boycotts of what were national movement conferences, by forbidding their many hundreds of employees from even attending certain demonstrations, by slandering the grassroots efforts to their few donors, and by condemning their actions in the press they seek to help the corporate state redefine what are acceptable forms of activism.

As if those fighting for animals didn't already have enough enemies, these actions pick a fight amongst colleagues and divide the movement, striking a lethal blow to solidarity. Organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States have begun parroting the 8th grade rhetoric of George W. Bush with insinuations that you are with them (their politics of the polite) or you are against them (you think and act independently from their party-line approach). HSUS's acquisition of smaller organizations and corporate mergers with other large national groups speaks to this attempt at hegemony and the triumph of a welfarist agenda at the expense of a rights/liberation position.

Still, the actions of the factory farms and vivisection labs are far more egregious and warrant all of the precious little time we have to challenge them. This remains true to this day and always will, but recent statements made by HSUS have given me pause for concern as to where their allegiances truly lie. When on August 7th, 2005 HSUS Vice President Mike Markarian told the New York's Newsday that "We applaud the FBI and law enforcement for trying to crack down and root out these criminals," this was both politically distasteful and very, very personally troubling.

The "criminals" Markarian is referring to are the unknown number of courageous activists who are risking their lives and liberty to free tortured animals and damage the mechanics that cause their suffering. These are the same sort of “criminals” that gave this modern movement it’s foundation in the 1980s with the liberation of “Britches” and numerous other animals at Silver Spring, Maryland, the “City of Hope” hellhole in Los Angeles, and so on.’ These "criminals" also include activists like myself and six others who are to stand trial in 2006 -- not for taking anything, breaking anything, or even trespassing, but simply for having the goal of shutting down Huntingdon Life Science, a notorious animal-testing lab. In the current political culture, this objective is classified as a disruption and a federal offense under the never-before- tried “Animal Enterprise Protection Act.”

In the eyes of HSUS I am criminal because I am young, passionate, take risks, and am unabashed in my criticism of those would ever dare raise a scalpel to the throat of a beagle puppy. I am a proud animal rights activist and apparently do not belong to the same movement HSUS is seeking to homogenize.

When Markarian and HSUS applauded the FBI, they took the right to disagreement a step too far. They are applauding the agency that drew four pistols on my dog and threatened to kill him, the agency that spent six months listening to my most personal and intimate phone conversations with family and friends, the agency that threatened to subpoena my dying grandfather to a grand jury investigating his grandson, the agency that ransacked my home and stole everything from CD collections to family photo albums. They are cheerleading the agency that is today trying to send me to jail for 23 years for only my speech-related activity with a legal protest campaign.

When Markarian and HSUS clap for the FBI, they are supporting the same agency that tried to ruin Martin Luther King Jr., which framed and even murdered prominent anti-war activists of the 70’s, and that covered up the car bombing of prominent environmental activist Judy Bari. HSUS is standing behind a government force that is trying to do the same to the animal protection movement as it has tried (and succeeded) to do to virtually every other social justice struggle in recent US history.

It is a new level of naiveté and treachery that we can find allies amongst the army of the oppressor. It is a position that does meet the test of history or ethics. It is a position of inconsistence as HSUS does not support direct action for animals because it is illegal and considered violent by some, while applauding the FBI which has a long and documented history of criminal fraud and murder. It is a position almost as incredulous as its belief that we as movement can tackle the world’s single greatest oppression and prejudice (the violent exploitation of
animals) by simply being polite and patient where no other human-issued social justice struggle has ever succeeded using such tepid tactics.

I am tired of biting my tongue. If anyone is to be indignant in this argument it should be the volunteers of the passionate grassroots. I don’t want to be quiet anymore while executives at HSUS, who take six-figure salaries and some even still eat the animals we are fighting for, condemn the risk-takers and courageous few that gave this movement is birth and its continued hope. This is a debate and dialogue that needs to take place, but sadly you will only find one side willing to sit at the table of reconciliation. HSUS and others like them seek to silence this voice of dissent and retreat behind the same tired platitudes used by animal abusers evading confrontation.

We, as humans, are quarrelsome animals and are never going to agree on everything, but certain common ground and respect can be reached if we can stop the vilification. As a start this is the challenge I give to Mike Markarian, Wayne Pacelle, and all those who represent HSUS: the next time you have the opportunity to comment on militant direct action tactics in a news publication, cast as criminals those lab employees or feedlot operators whom we are united in opposition too, and spare those who support the tough tactics this movement needs to achieve its goals your vilification.

If HSUS is right that through education and legislation alone this movement can win justice for animals (or really, according to their stated goals, improve the welfare of the animal slaves), then why are more animals being tortured to death today than 20 years ago? Why is the movement barely able to do anything more than increase the size of the cages and bring about “humane slaughter”? Why is the movement helping corporations to polish their public image and mitigate consumer guilt over eating murdered animals?

There are lessons to be learned from the recent history of the environmental movement. As Mark Dowie describes in his book Losing Ground, the big mainstream US environmental groups that emerged in the 1970s – the so-called “Gang of Ten” – clamored for respectability and political influence as they sold-out, compromised, pandered to power, even thwarted grass-roots radicals, while growing into bloated bureaucracies that craved MBA students more than acute activists. The same pattern and dynamics has emerged in the animal advocacy movement, and it is a worrying trend.

But just as in 1977 Paul Watson broke with the conservativism of Greenpeace to create the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and confront the bastards who kill animals with impunity on the high seas, just as in 1980 the founders of Earth First! renounced the futility of environmental mainstream tactics and organizational corruption in order to spawn an important militant direct action approach, and just as the Earth Liberation Front emerged in the 1990s to take the defense of the earth to the next level, so there will always be militant animal rights/liberation tactics emerging in appropriate response to the increasing enormity of animal suffering that is tragically paralleled by the ineffectiveness of mainstream approaches.

Opposition to direct action is the last frontier of speciesism. The ALF, SHAC, and other direct action groups are taking the tough tactics necessary to help animals and they are effective where other approaches fail. Ask any animal “advocate” who opposes the use of high pressure tactics, illegal actions, and sabotage to free animals if they also oppose the use of sabotage and even violence to free human beings in past wars of independence and liberation, and you will find the contradiction that betrays latent speciesist views that animals do not merit liberation “by any means necessary.”

This broad animal advocacy movement needs each and every tactic that helps animals in an effective way. It is time to turn the tables on mainstream criticism of direct action, however, and ask instead whether it is not in fact mainstream approaches that do more harm than good, as they cozy up with corporations, defend the murderous and violent nature of the police state, and trumpet the message that exploiting animals is acceptable if so long as you do it “humanely.”

We’re in this fight for animals together. The underground and direct action movement doesn’t expect solidarity from aboveground and mainstream groups like HSUS, but it does hope at the very least that the noble and uncompromising cause of abolitionism will not be vilified and betrayed by those courting favor with corporations and the state.