Julie Leyva recently submitted some questions to the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. Jason Miller wrote the reply.
5/26/09
"What is your occupation and for how long?"
There are four of us serving as press officers for NAALPO:
Jerry Vlasak is a board certified trauma surgeon, a former vivisector, and a seasoned animal liberation activist who speaks, writes and debates on behalf of nonhuman animals. Jerry co-founded NAALPO and has been a board member of Sea Shepherd and the spokesman for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Camille Hankins has over 20 years of corporate marketing and management experience; co-founded Win Animal Rights (WAR), a group dedicated to shutting down Huntingdon Life Sciences, in 2004; founded the New York Animal Liberation Front Supporters in 2003; and is heavily involved in outreach to educate the public about the underground animal liberation movement.
Lin Bingham works as a writer and graphic designer. He is a vehement advocate of total liberation, including humans, nonhuman animals and the Earth. He specializes in “propaganda and agitation” and is willing and available to speak anytime one or more persons are willing to listen.
Jason Miller started with NAALPO about two months ago and is the newest press officer. I have worked as a supervisor in a call center for nine years where I’ve cultivated respectable problem-solving, conflict resolution, and communication skills. An ardent and seasoned animal liberation activist, I also founded the notoriously radical blog, Thomas Paine’s Corner, in 2004. TPC has become a popular site for activists to go for education and inspiration and to interact via comment threads. Like Lin, I too am a writer who specializes in “propaganda and agitation.”
"What is the Animal Liberation Front all about?"
I’ll begin with NAALPO’s disclaimer:
Disclaimer: The Animal Liberation Press Officers do not engage in illegal activities, nor do they know any individuals who do. Neither does this website or the Press Office intend to encourage illegal actions. Rather, the Press Office receives and posts communiques from anonymous parties and provides comment to the media.
Since there isn’t a way to contact individuals working underground (their identity is not known to anyone in the aboveground movement), the use of communiques is one way the underground communicates with the public at large. Communiques can be sent directly to anyone including the press, underground support groups, aboveground animal rights groups, etc.
Because the individuals who engage in underground actions cannot reveal their identities to anyone, a North American Animal Liberation Press Office has been created to try to answer some of the questions as to why these actions may have been carried out, and to place the actions in a historical and philosophical context. Since we do not engage in illegal activities ourselves, we do not know the details of these actions, but we can try to the best of our ability to give you a better understanding of why a particular action may have been carried out.
Now, about the ALF:
The Animal Liberation Front is a grass-root, underground, militant direct action group that frees nonhuman animals from laboratories, fur farms, factory farms and other places in which they are imprisoned and tortured. Besides rescues, the ALF also engages in the destruction of equipment and property used in the oppression and exploitation of other animals.
Rooted in the UK’s hunt saboteur movement in the mid-1970s, the ALF is anarchist in structure, meaning there is no conventional leadership or central organization. Anyone who is a vegan and commits an act of sabotage against animal exploiters or frees other animals (while taking the necessary precautions to avoid taking a human life) can rightfully consider themselves a member of the ALF.
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