MeAndroo said:
My main "beef," so to speak, is how ARists may target lower employees and people not necessarilly affiliated with the industries.
They sometimes target people who work within a department, despite having no real connection to what they oppose (in the 2nd link they target a Volunteer Coordinator).
Ok, MeAndroo, I have looked at and read the links you gave me.
This is the problem when orgs fighting for social change have been ignored and the status quo forces them to go underground because they are forced to adopt Direct Action to cause change and to be taken seriously. If they write and picket for years and nothing changes when the urgency of the situation demands action, they find themselves needing to take stronger action. If they were taken seriously and invited to the negotiation table with their most urgent grievances, then many problems could addressed and at least the frustration toward Direct Action pushed back further into the future. The problem with creating a situation in which orgs feel they must go underground is that the public no longer can be certain which group or org is actually doing an act attributed to an org.
Now, I am not saying this is certain, I am just saying that it is a possibility: It is not so wild to consider that an entity, either be it corporate or government, in an effort to get the public to turn against animal rights, itself does not stage some attacks on animal exploiters in order to shock the public. All that is is a version of the "dirty trick." With orders to discredit ARists or their orgs, an agent could easily do any of those heinous acts on those site links and send a letter of responsibility to the ALF site as an ALF cell and the ALF site would list it as such.
The organization of the ALF is set up in such a way that no one cell really knows another and there is no leader that directs things. No leader has knowledge of ALF operatives other than what he or she himself may be involved in. So, if a corporate attack meant to make the ALF or ADL look bad were the goal, it would be very easy to do (The ALF let`s any action done on behalf of animals, so long as human physical injury does not come about, to be attributed to it).
So, a person of a corporation could do an act targeting an exploiter and then send a letter to the ALF site claiming responsibility and if no one were injured ALF would accept that, but the shocking nature of it could have been conceived and produced by an animal exploiter in order to discredit ALF and further move them away from public sympathy -- all part of the strategy of keeping the public from more and more joining ALF efforts. Again, I am not saying that is what happened in those cases, but it is not too inconceivable.
ALF and the ADL have the experience in planning and most probably the skill of performing an action that could harm someone if in fact they really wanted to. However, they have been around for years and they have not ever caused the death of one person. In fact, all their actions throughout the years have been carefully planned to avoid death or serious injury. As a social movement fighting for change against oppression, taking into account how long they have been around, compared to any other historical social movement against oppression, the ALF and ADL and many of the militant AR groups, have shown remarkable self restraint despite any rhettoric that may come from them from time to time.
Now, is it wrong that Direct Action targets people for intimidation? Well, if those in those industries (i.e. animal exploitators) are combatants (i.e. on the other side of the spectrum that supports animal exploitation), then they are fair game for targeting. If someone doesn`t view them as part of the apparatus of the exploiting machine, then they should not be a fair target.
How would one decide if they are a fair target? Many feel that if the machine gets a hiccup because the infrastructure (inanimate or human recourses essential for the smooth functioning of the machine) has been monkeywrenched or in all probability would get a hiccup, then that is a fair target. ALF however, specifically says that people are not to be physically harmed as part of monkeywrenching (if they are targeted for specific physical harm, then that is not an ALF action). But, that does not include "intimidation" techniques that causes worry or causing the setting in of seige mentality. Those have proven to be effective. They work. That is just mere fact and Direct Action in order to intimidate has been used by many social activists throughout history.
Does intimidating a widow of a former exploiter come into fair play like that was on the link??? Strategists would say that that emphatically underscores a message to those still in the business of animal exploitation -- letting them know that while they are around, they may be able to provide some modicum degree of protection to their family, but if they were to be gone tomorrow, their families would then be vulnerable. It is creating the siege mentality which causes people to not focus on their work or daily lives. It causes people to question themselves if what they are doing is worth it and if their family would be better off if they totally disengaged at a time before things escalate against them. That is the message that is being sent in that particular case. I am sure other exploiters in industries in that company in which he was hired took notice of that fact and had their own inner dialogue voices talking to them.
The thing is, some point the finger of wrongdoing at Direct Action activists for intimidating others, but fail to point out in the same sentence the terrible tyranny being inflicted on animals in labs, fur farms, factory farms etc... where animals are having painful intrusive actions done to them physically and psycologically. It is no secret that animal activists who embrace Direct Action feel that animals are deserving of the same interests of consideration, so they therefore are moved and compelled by their concience to act in a manner to relieve that suffering just as someone maybe would if they knew there were a Treblinka in the countryside nearby them doing horrible things to humans that have been carted there.