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Tag: direct action

10 Total Liberation: An interview with Walter Bond on Anarchy, Abortion rights, Anti-Colonialism & Animal Liberation

February 16, 2013
by Comrade Black
· Hero Slider · Interviews · PE Web Zine

WALTER BOND INTERVIEW

Punk bands tour the world singing anthems that promote militant direct action & activism, putting out albums with flaming Molotovs emblazoned across their covers, with militant messages; but few of us ever truly put those words into action. Walter Bond on the other hand has spent decades working tirelessly, whether leafleting at shows and in the streets, tabling at Pride events, protesting, or volunteering at animal sanctuaries before finally turning to the more militant tactics of the Animal Liberation Front. Walter is a proud anarchist, Vegan, of Latino heritage, who identifies as bisexual. He also is currently a prisoner in one of the most controversial and restrictive prisons in the USA today.

I have been writing to Walter in prison since he was first arrested 2 years ago, after his brother snitched him out. At the time of his arrest, Walter was living on the streets while attacking businesses that profit from animal exploitation.

interview by Comrade Black

PE: – You identified as an anarchist for most of your life. Can you tell us what being an anarchist means to you, and how it connects with Animal Liberation, and Total Liberation?

Walter Bond recent prison photo — Walter Bond at the CMU

WALTER: When I was in 7th grade in 1989 I used to make all kinds of clip art fliers with my friends under the name ‘Anti-Statist Counter Culture’. We would distribute them mostly to local corporate businesses and churches in the area, mostly to agitate. By the end of 8th grade I had completely dropped out of school and was living this nihilist lifestyle and was just very reactionary and angry at the whole world, parents, school, everything! Back then I was dealing with a world of shit that was to much for me to handle. I turned to drug abuse and vandalism as an outlet. Anarchism back then was a personal vendetta I had about how my life and the world around me was and how I felt it should be.

I wasn’t alone. I had three other very close friends that felt the same. Two of them connected with some gutter punks in Boulder, Colorado and ran away to Hollywood, California. 25 years later one of them is a vocalist for a grind core band, and another is a bicycle maker that lives in a squat in New York City and gets harassed whenever he tries to leave the country because he has bee

n on federal watch lists since the 90’s.

Today anarchism is firmly connected to my activism. The Animal Liberation Front has been an anarchistic dis-organization since its inception. There is no way for business-as-usual and Animal Liberation to co-exist in any fashion that is effective for the goals and interests of either side. Business, consumerism and corporations ultimately care about whatever is profitable. Their raw materials are the blood and bones of Animals and the life’s’ blood and guts of the Earth, which is the fountain head of all life. It’s difficult to make this connection as just a foodie Vegan but once you spend some time in the activist world, it’s an unavoidable clash.

Anarchism is in opposition to State control, corporate domination, class privilege, oppression of one group by another. These are the identical ideals fought for by Animal Liberation abolitionists, just applied to different objectives. I think that anarchism and Animal liberation from the abolitionist or radical perspective are an organic pairing. What good would it do to establish a human society of free communities only to destroy the planet with a McDonalized diet or a mass addiction to industrialization? The reality is that there are billions of people on the planet! With or without government or state authority, industry is going to continue destroying the Earth. It doesn’t matter who turns on the machines everyday, because things are not made out of no things. And history has proven time and time again that if we do not remove the oppressions of the least defensible of us then the circle of abuse begins again with a brand new name.

PE: – You are an Animal Liberation POW, and you also hold anti-civ views, and have a critique of technology. I see a lot of overlap between the anarcho-primitivist critique of domestication, and mass society, with the views of Total Liberation. Do you feel there is a contradiction there? Or how do you see them fitting together?

WALTER: I definitely am not a fan of technologically advanced civilization. From the industrial age forward what we are really looking at is a lattice work infrastructure, put in place by governments of men to subjugate women, the poor, Animals, Earth, labor and each other according to Ethnicity, nationalism, class, gender and economics. Since the age of the machine and science; pain, suffering, war and murder have been greatly, incredibly and insanely quickened!

Despite all the promises of making things better we are blowing mountains in half to get at their coal. We are chopping down every forest on Earth. We are dropping bombs on civilians from remote control airplanes; we are mechanically murdering billions of Animals at the expense of the natural world. We are wasting mass amounts of crop, soil, and water, all euphemisms for Earth, so that we can eat cheap burgers. Thanks to constant technological crutches most adults cannot listen to, follow or remember simple directions. Meanwhile paranoia and random acts of violence are at an all time high!

It is time to stop pretending that we don’t see the writing on the wall. Technology kills! And that is most often its primary use. WE HAVE ENOUGH NUCLEAR WARHEADS ON THIS PLANET TO KILL ALL LIFE SEVERAL TIMES OVER, BUT WE CANNOT EVEN SAVE OUR OWN SPECIES ONCE. I used to build slaughterhouses for a living and I can tell you from first hand experience that it’s not physically possible to butcher tens of thousands of Animals a day without an abundance of mechanical aid. Just like it is not possible to destroy a forest without first building roads and inlets to get yellow death machines into the area.

art off Walter Bond support page

No machine is morally neutral when it’s sole design and intent is to eviscerate, vivisect, slash cut and transport the splintered, destroyed and devastated remains of the biosphere! The technologies we use to heal the sick and, lessen pain and suffering and generally make the human world a more comfortable place are scant in comparison to the damage done. But just like any alcoholic or drug addict we exaggerate the pay off we get while greatly ignoring the damage it takes to pay for it. And just as with any other addiction the truly terrible thing is how many other innocent lives have become ruined in the addicts wake.

Politics would have us believe the modes of production are neither beneficial nor harmful but only in the right or wrong hands. Yet time and time again his-story has shown that whether the factory is run by greedy capitalists or free thinking anarcho-communists, the machines still get turned on and the raw materials of industry are still the blood and guts of the Earth and her Animal Nations! In truth, who controls the means and modes of production is of concern to those who labor and profit by and for the machines, with little to no concern for the connectivity of all life, or the world.

As far as how I view the connectivity, or lack thereof of ideas like Total liberation and anarcho-primitivism I guess I view it as parallel. In my estimation Total Liberation should be making steps to unite various struggles in the real world against the common leviathan of government and towards the reality of free communities. Unfortunately, I don’t see much grassroots organization around Total Lib. it remains, thus far, in the world of ideas, of salutations of solidarity. I think the occupy movement started out with a truly unifying Total Liberation tactic and showed the tremendous power of coming together. But there has to be an escalation of tactics at the helm or else all is eventually kaput. I’m not trying to be smug here but where is Total Liberation physically? Ideally Total Liberation should be a bridge building movement to unite activists of all liberation struggles be they human, Earth or Animal. That is a huge amount of work. And honestly it’s an abundance of work I seldom see getting done. No one wants to yield or compromise enough to make a true united liberation front possible. Or as radicals we use total lib as a pretext to ideological recruitment of other radicals.

Anarcho-primitivism on the other hand is really against the entire foundation of what our modern ‘civilized’ oppressions are built upon. As such it’s not very activist friendly. I mean, you don’t protest civilization with a sign. The idea of a truly clean slate is far to radical for that. The only way to effectively protest technology, mass society, domestication and their ilk is for you yourself to become a wild child and destroy the machines. But Total Liberation and anarcho-primitivism are for ever united by the same objective. That being the complete escape from tyranny and oppression for as many lives, and ways of life as can exist without any oppressing the other. One is just dedicated to aligning forces in the here and now, while the other is looking at how we will have to not only get rid of the road we are on, but also get rid of the road.

PE: – It almost seems like there was a Class Warfare element to the choices you made when selecting your targets. Was this intentional?

WALTER:– You are the first person to ever ask me this question, and the answer is yes. There were a couple different messages to my arsons beyond Animal Liberation, one was classism. Every place I hit was not what society would try to justify as ‘necessary’ Animal cruelty. Each place in its own right was of service to the upper middle, to the rich echelon of society. Whether for fashion, hobby or delicacy I wasn’t going after stores in the hood or ethnic communities. I was after retailers that sold dead Animals’ broken bodies or skins purely for consumer pleasure.

Another thing I have heard grumbles about is why I went after soft targets instead of more strategic targeting. There was a subtle reason behind this as well. As an activist I often saw people pass the buck when it comes to Animal industries. The wholesalers and retailers always blame it on the public. If no one bought their products they wouldn’t sell them. Or since there is a demand someone is going to fill it whether them or someone else. The consumers always hide in numbers. They don’t feel responsible because there not buying anything that’s not being bought a million times over by others. The drop in the bucket syndrome. If you pick on them you will instantly be accused of targeting specific groups of people. And after all it’s really the evil corporations fault for putting such cruelly produced products on the market.

I burned three businesses right in the middle of major cities. I did not want to hide my ALF actions the way Animal cruelty is hidden. I wanted every retailer and consumer to see that when you deal in product of death you shouldn’t be surprised when retribution finds its way to your doorstep. Honestly, if I would have had more resources or help I would have done live Liberations unfortunately this was not a viable option. But the only good thing about living in a non-Vegan world is that if you want to combat cruelty you never have to go far. You don’t need to have a bunch of money or go to some clandestine trading camp to make an impact.

Most of the time people like to imagine that their heroes have all this expertise that they never could. It’s a convenient belief because otherwise they wouldn’t have any excuse for putting their own self-interest, fear and apathy above doing in their hearts what they know must be done. The truth is when it comes to Animal exploitation or the destruction of the Earth, no one is innocent. Not Vegans, or cadaver munchers. Not anarchists, or capitalists. Not me, or you. We are all shades of red as Screaming Wolf once wrote in the seminal book ‘Declaration of War’. We lessen our shade of red with our lifestyles and our actions. And this is our obligation if we have compassion. Not from some outside authority but from inside ourselves, our consciousness.

PE: – Recently you completely changed your position on abortion, what prompted this seemingly sudden shift?

WALTER:– What prompted this change of heart is a growing disenchantment with so-called conservative views. And the pompous attitudes that produce them. I have never been involved in any anti-abortion activism, just so people know. In the hundreds of pages that I have written in the last 3 years I have written approximately one paragraph about the ‘pro-life’ views I once held. I just want to set it straight from the beginning that I am not some reformed anti-abortion extremist. That said, I once held an obscure view on abortion that was part of a conservative clique within the Straight Edge movement of the 1990’s.

My limited comprehension of abortion as an issue was from this two dimensional idea that ‘if I am going to care deeply about the rights of shrimp, then I should care about the rights of a fetus’. This was a complete absent reference to the fact that this whole issue takes place inside a woman’s body and that there is a more complex issue of rights to be observed. Not just vegan hardline consistency.

I have recently begun to educate myself on feminism and in particular anarcha-feminism. The more I learn the more I feel like an ass for having displayed such an idiotic and disconnected view of abortion in the first place. From an Animal Liberation perspective which is more my field, it must be said that humanity is the cause of extreme amounts of suffering to billions of Animals annually, for food vivisection, entertainment and beyond. Ultra-consumpive societies like north America, china and now India are currently decimating the Earth like a cancer! In this war on nature humans are a tyrannical and abusive enemy. I stand on the side of the Animal Nations and Mother Earth, I am a species traitor. And human birth control is a relief to the planet!

But as I was saying, what prompted me to finally take a long look at my beliefs, not only on abortion but many of my moralist attitudes in general are my surroundings. For those that do not know I am a prisoner of war, inside a political prison, within a prison. On this unit of 40 men, I never leave, and I am housed here for an indefinite remainder of my prison sentence. Most of the men here are orthodox Muslims; with a sprinkling of those god bless America type of militia, Ron Paul weirdoes. It’s a super conservative and religious environment. I have learned first hand what dogma and so-called conservativism leads people too. Mainly, bigotry, homophobia, and close-mindedness.

PE: – When you held anti-abortion views, it seemed like most of your criticism was directed towards the medical industries. This brings up the question of herbal abortion as a non-medical alternative. Was this something you had considered?

WALTER:– No it was not. But I am not more for one method than another. It’s not my business how women decide to abort, control birth or exercise autonomy over their own bodies. As a man, I am not only never going to be in their position but I am never going to put a woman in that predicament either. I have no children, and the first thing I am going to do upon release, which is years from now, will be to go to the hospital and get myself fixed. Furthermore, no woman anywhere should feel ostracized or shamed for her decision to exercise her reproductive rights be it herbally, or in a clinic.

PE: – Author Peter Gelderloos once wrote that anarchy and colonialism need to be made completely incompatible. Cultural approbation of indigenous art, spirituality, and cultural traditions is a major problem in many subcultures today. I want to ask about your face tattoo. I know it means a lot to you, but is your tattoo an appropriation of Maori Moko?

WALTER:– I have a few supporters from New Zealand and have been questioned about this by a couple different Maori. One told me that the design I have would better be suited as part of a leg piece, and the other argued that it was a handsome piece for Moko, but wanted to know why I don’t have the rest of my face done. But the truth is that while I definitely used the style of traditional Maori, my tattoo artist and I made absolutely sure that we were not replicating any traditional or current Maori designs.

I have also been locked up with a Maori guy and several tanga, Samoa and Polynesian islanders. Everyone has been cool with it mainly because I am of Island descent. My mother is Taino. For those that don’t know these are the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. This coupled with the fact that I am in prison for fighting for a cause seem to have earned me the respect of other islanders. The general vibe I get is relief that I take warrior hood seriously and am not just trying to look hardcore for my white friends in the suburbs.

I plan on getting the rest of my face tattooed when I get out of prison along with the rest of my body. That said I never promote it as something others should do. Getting a large face tattoo is serious business and can have serious repercussions. And It has intense personal meaning to me. It was a life changing event, it literally changed my personality. Some would say pushed me over the edge.

And yes, appropriation of indigenous cultures is an epidemic problem. In many larger ways than a very few people getting face tats. Here in the United States every white person wants to pretend they are part native. Out of some feelings of white guilt. Instead of helping the decimated Indian population. They shove real natives onto reservations to starve and die while pretending to be the real deal. Honestly, this makes me sick

PE: – Most of the businesses you targeted reopened and continue to make profits even though you did extensive damage. In light of this do you think your actions were effective? Could you have been more strategic? If so how?

WALTER:– The way I look at it I could have spent everyday of my life standing in front of those businesses holding a sign and I would have never cost them one penny. Even when I used to volunteer my time helping actual Animals it would occur to me that I was still having a negative impact against the industries of Animal exploitation. Even with Veganism, I am one of the few Animal Liberation abolitionist Vegans you will hear admit that my diet is not saving 90 Animals a year. So there I was living as ethical as I could, helping Animals and talking with and educating people. All the while all I am seeing is negative impact. I have friends that have been holding signs and tabling for decades, negative impact. Why is activism always geared to just lessen our roll in the cruelty but never to fight it? Negative impact.

I got fed up with it. All the -more-Vegan-than-thou- conversations that I had at every coffee shop in Denver. Always playing supplicant to people. Practically begging people to care. Then I woke up one day and it hit me. I was a utopianist, I was deluded. I, as most overly idealistic people really believed that deep down everyone was like me. I was once one of them, hell; I even used to build slaughterhouses! If I can change, anyone can, right? Wrong.

I came to the conclusion that most people don’t want to change, most people don’t want to learn what’s going on with Animals because they don’t want to feel bad or responsible for it, and most people are not going to sacrifice their time energy or money to make a change. BAM! The facts, welcome to reality! All that was left in my life was to fight back on the Animals behalf of shut up because I was sick of the sound of my own voice.

And you know what I didn’t change the world. But I did something that I never was able to before. I cost the Animal abuse industries about two and a half million bucks, positive effect! And with every defiant step forward that I took, I inspired. By my count there were eight international underground acts of solidarity with my case. And now when I speak I really do have a voice. I mean look, we are having an interview. I have been saying all this same stuff for years before I became the ‘Lone Wolf’ but you would never know it because, no one ever listened.

As far as strategy, of course I could have done better. Unfortunately HOW I could have, or WHAT I would have done different I cannot discuss. Due to my current situation as an imprisoned and monitored man.

PE: -Let’s talk about your life on the inside. How do you spend your days? Do you get paid to work? What are the costs you have to spend money on? You have and mp3 player, how does that work?

WALTER:– Here in the CMU it is a very small world. I live day after day, month after month and over a year now in a single prison unit completely segregated from the rest of the penitentiary of Marion. The day I get released from the CMU to the general population of the prison it will feel like I got a parole. I am allowed two 15 minute phone calls a week and no visits. Every person I have tried to have put on my visiting list has been rejected. I have not hugged, touched or physically seen anyone I care about since the day off my arrest in the summer of 2010.

A typical day goes something like this. I wake up about nine in the morning. I walk to the top of the range and sit down at a computer. I log in and see if I have any emails. All my incoming and outgoing email is screened by the counter terrorism unit in Virginia to make sure I am not sending or receiving coded messages. They also can reject or approve any incoming or out going emails before I have the chance to send or receive them. They can also block me from communicating with anyone they want and they have done this with three of my contacts. When that happens I cannot snail mail, email or make telephone calls to these people ever again. In short, all communication is cut off permanently, and without explanation.

After I am done on the computer I go ‘outside’ which is a rectangle walkway that surrounds an island of three ‘recreation’ cages. The sky is completely obscured by chain link fence and razor wire. I walk in rectangles until lunch. Lunch is usually beans, rice or the occasional veggie burger. The food is terrible and unhealthy. It is worse than any other institution I have ever been in. After I eat I go back to my cell and write responses to letters from supporters and friends. At noon, I go to mail call and get any mail, books or magazines that have come in that day. After mail I watch the soaps on Spanish TV. I like ‘Amorcita Corazon’. When my soaps are over I go out to the cages and do body weight exercises or shoot hoops. I come back up to my cell and lock down for four O’ clock stand up count, and then I nap until dinner. After dinner I walk for another hour. then I study Spanish for one to two hours, after which I slam a couple cups of black tea and go back to my cell to read, write and draw until about one in the morning, or until I fall asleep. Then I wake up and do it again.

As far as work goes, on the other side of the cell house opposite the rec. cages is a ramp and a patch of grass that leads to the chow hall. My job is to clean the walkway and cut the grass. I make twenty dollars a month but they take all of that for restitution and court costs I owe. So in reality I get paid nothing. But I get to go on the only patch of Earth that we have in the CMU and it’s ‘out of bounds’ for everyone else.

As far as cost of living, everything I have shoes, shorts, Vegan food, toothpaste, paper, stamps, envelopes, music, and email (yes, I get charged to send and receive email) Is only because of money supporters send me. Without support funds I would literally have nothing. Recently the entire federal prison system got mp3 players. They installed the hardware and software on the computers. Songs cost a dollar and a half each, no discount for purchasing whole releases. They have some good music. I have downloaded Earth Crisis, Chumbawamba, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Augustin Lara, Napalm Death, Public Enemy and many, many more! With very little stimulation music is essential for mental health. I went overboard and spent all my money on music, which makes things tight for me but I don’t care I would rather listen to music than anything else in here.

The conversations and interactions I am subjected to in the CMU are repetitive and obsessive. There are the legal guys that just talk about law all day long, constantly and without end. There are the religious guys that just talk about god and scriptures and religious interpretation all day. And the institutionalized guys that just talk about every prison they have been at. Most of those guys have spent their entire lives in prison.

I quit talking to most people here because I don’t like to argue, it’s pointless and agitating. And outside of my circle of about 5 friends whose company I enjoy the rest of these guys can go flush themselves down the toilet, and go where ever the rest of the pieces of shit end up, for all I care!

I’ll tell you this, I still feel as hardcore about my beliefs as ever but I am completely over preaching to people that don’t want to hear them, protesting is different than proselytizing.

PE: – Recently you quit using the Muslim name you had been given. Have you completely given up on Islam? Religion altogether? Do you still maintain some type of spiritual beliefs?

WALTER: I am going to be honest about my feelings towards religion and much of what passes for spirituality. I don’t believe it. It’s a human shibboleth. Animals in a state of nature have no use for it and neither do I. I am part of something bigger than any religion, ‘god’ or hocus pocus, it’s called LIFE. When I die I will go back to the Earth. I will go back to where ALL life must, and I will not know where that is until the time comes and death is upon me.

I know god is not in books. I have read and studied most world religions and many obscure spiritualities. I have learned for certain that god is not in books. The only thing in books is words. The entire concept and production of a book is a human construct. It’s our way for the dead and absent to infect the thoughts and lives of the living, for good or ill.

I Got involved in Islam under adverse and incredible circumstances, which is the only way I would have gotten involved in any religion, let alone one so incredibly dogmatic. I won’t go into the entire sordid tale except to say that I once promised an old woman that meant the world to me that one day I would attempt, one day, to try and find god. And I gave it my all. Unfortunately, I do not make a very good submitter.

Did you know that the first time I was ever in trouble with the law was for breaking into a church and burning a huge pentacle star into the carpet directly in front of the preacher’s lectern? It was a Methodist church in a rich white neighborhood, across the street from the police station. I also have a 14 inch upside down crucifix for half of my tattoo sleeve. On that same sleeve I also have a tattoo of the pope, except this pope has goat horns and is standing in flames. All the things I love the most in life: face tattoos, sex, fire, Animals, music, Liberation and Veganism seem to all be completely against religion. Oh well, I guess that’s how ‘god’ made me!

When I got involved with religion it completely shifted my focus and the focus the movement around me. Everything started to become about my new name and beliefs etc. I didn’t like that. I remember one night I went to bed and it occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about Animal lib, Straight Edge or resistance all day, just religion. That was the beginning of the end for me. I didn’t like that feeling of assimilation, like the Borg on that sci fi show ‘Star Trek the Next Generation’. It was a calming feeling but also creepy. Next thing you know you have that glazed doughnut look in your eyes, the one that super religious people get. No thanks, I’m already off in the head enough without any help from the land of make believe!

I also got tired of reading all the terrible stuff about god hating gays and stoning people to death, or chopping off people’s hands for stealing. This crap is in all the so-called ‘holy books’ of various religions; right their in black and white print. And if you believe it then you have to do a bunch of mental gymnastics to somehow make it all not, horrible!

All this said, I did learn a lot about Islamophobia and I am completely against it! the media promotes Islam to be a terrorist religion and that is just not accurate. Every religion has violent fringe elements but we don’t paint all their followers as ‘terrorist’ or ‘extremist’. Look at those crazy evangelicals that drink poison or the ‘army of god’ psychopaths. Still the media doesn’t call them ‘Christian terrorists’. I learned along time ago that it’s not what people believe that makes them good or bad apples it’s the things they do and their capacitates for compassion, or cruelty. But as far as any more personal beliefs about ‘pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die’. I am a disbeliever, and will remain so.

PE: – About a year ago you put out a public statement saying you could no longer call yourself an anarchist, recently you have recanted, re-embracing anarchy. What was the reason for your change of heart? What brought you back to the dark side?

WALTER:– The reason with my disenchantment with anarchism was in reality a disenchantment with certain anarchists. I don’t like the concept of publicly battling with people and the spectacle it creates. It’s a mistake I have made in the past, and when I look back at those statements they just look egotistical and immature. That said, I will for the first time explain what was going on and what led up to not only that statement but also baseless rumors that have followed me since. I will be careful not to name drop or call anyone out, a courtesy that was not afforded to me by the anarcho-rumor mill.

At the time of my arrest in Colorado in the summer of 2010, the second letter I ever received was from a local anarchist group. They talked about supporting me and were even interested in being my official support team. Furthermore they had their own print shop. I was happy to have their support and planned to write extensively with them as the publishers. A visit was arranged and one of the collective came to visit me at the county jail in Golden. I was told by this person that there were rumors that I was an informant. I was taken back by this and said that ‘I was the only person on my case and no other arrests had been made so who exactly am I informing on?’ This person agreed, and from that moment support was forthcoming, for a whole four weeks anyways.

I gave my new support team my email address and password so that they could get another picture of me besides the mugshot the media had. I began writing articles about Animal Liberation from an anarchist perspective. I was calling the collective about twice a week. And then abruptly it all came to a screeching halt. Nothing I wrote ever got published or sent back to me. No one accepted my calls. No more visits. A couple weeks later I received a letter from the collective about some so called visit from my email account to a ‘homophobic YouTube video’. I was told I need to explain myself, defend myself and do it quick because ‘anarchists everywhere are calling to drop support for you’.

Words cannot describe how I felt. First I didn’t know what homophobic video they were talking about, and I still don’t. Second the only people that could be turning ‘anarchists everywhere’ against me were the self same people that were my support team, as I was newly arrested and they were the only anarchists I was in contact with. And third, I was not the only person with availability to that email. For all I know the FBI could have been in my email account trying to gather information or spread disinformation; which would make good sense from their end of things. In any event I have never to this day seen the homophobic YouTube video that was allegedly watched in connection with my email account. I haven’t seen it because it does not exist.

I was really pissed off about this for a couple of years because these rumors not only hurt elements of my support but also my feelings. Very, very few people know what it’s like to be in the position I was: In jail, on the news, facing federal prison as a ‘domestic terrorist’ and all the while using this as a platform to discuss Animal Liberation through my writings while facing rumors and tear down tactics from ‘anarchists’! I mean there I was in jail for being an ALF operative and I was being questioned as if I was a Nazi fascist in jail for queer bashing!

When people that do know me tried to post comments to this collectives website stating that I am in fact openly bi-sexual they would not post them. I know this because friends printed me those defenses and mailed them to me in jail along with printouts of their webpage and blogs showing what they were posting, the only comments they would let stand were the ones against me.

So after my court case was finished in Colorado I wrote that statement about not Identifying as an anarchist. I wrote that at a time when Animal Rights activists were being very supportive and at the same time I was getting a lot of accusative mail from anarchists primarily from the united states. It’s one thing when you don’t get along with a group of people in person you just hang out with others. But when you’re in imprisoned and people from several different states critique and sometimes ridicule you in letters there is a feeling of totality to it. So I thought, fine I will cut my losses with the anarchist community and stick with Animal Liberation and Straight Edge which is not hostile to me.

It must also be said that many anarchists such as yourself and the international anarchist community have unfailingly showed true support and solidarity since day one. Two things that have a profound effect on decision making is a lack of information and emotional distress. I have had my share of both since my arrest. But these days find me much more grounded and less erratic. Due in large part to being done with court and in the routine of my current surroundings. I am an anarchist, this has always been a foundation of who I am. Before I was the ALF lone wolf, before I was Straight Edge, before I was Vegan. I was an anarchist. I don’t have to drop one thing to become another. I am all this and more.

PE: – What would you say to people that have characterized you as ‘single issue’?

WALTER: Calling me or the ALF or the Animal Rights movement a ‘single issue’ cause is a little verbal slur that otherwise thinking and activist oriented people like to use on Vegans. Seriously, anyone that has read my book or the statements that I have been making from prison for years knows that I am concerned with more than one issue and I always have been.

But more importantly why the single issue snub when it comes to Animal Liberation?

I have personal met gay rights activists that act like the only thing wrong on the planet is that gay marriage isn’t recognized legally. I have never heard anyone tell them that their cause is less valid because it is a ‘single issue’. Factually it is incorrect to typecast Veganism or Animal Liberation in this way. A.R. issues have to do with several different species of life and often tie in with environmental concerns. Nearly every other Liberation struggle is only concerned with a fragment of one species, humans!

To those people that equate me or Veganism to being a one hit wonder, I would challenge back: Fine then tell me exactly what you are doing to liberate all life, everywhere! The fact is Total Liberation is the connecting of many different issues and tactics, and Animal and Earth Lib are a big part of that. One need not give up movement autonomy to be valid under the umbrella of Total Lib. I am an Animal person. I love Animals! I am a Vegan activist. These are clearly compassionate and selfless pursuits.

of course not every group or individual is going to click but slighting the A.R. community as if we are going a different direction than Total Lib is messed up! We can point that finger anywhere. I know plenty of anarchists that think that anarchism is strictly a political ideology, or theoretical idea. Or what about independence struggles like my own Puerto Rican peoples struggle for independence from los Estatos Unidos? They are definitely very concerned with their own movement autonomy and the single issue of independence. People will always say whatever they feel and that is great but remember this, it’s harder to build others up than to tear them down.

Always Looking Forward by Walter Bond — A book collection of Walter Bond’s prison writing on veganism and animal liberation

Thank you Comrade for this interview. I really wanted to have the opportunity engage in a question and answer session that not only brought these critiques out into the open but one that also allowed me to lay it all on the table with nothing held back. And now my friend……I rest my case…. Take care and I will do the same.
Total Liberation, Whatever It May Take!

Regards,

Walter Bond

ALF POW

Visit Walter Bond’s support website: http://supportwalter.org or on facebook

write to Walter:

Walter Bond #37096-013
USP Marion CMU
U.S. Penitentiary
P.O. Box 1000
Marion, IL 629

You can also support Walter by sending him a book from his wishlist

0 Buy Nothing Day? Do you buy into it?

November 17, 2012
by Comrade Black
· Columns · PE Web Zine

by Comrade Black

So were at that time of year where the stores are preparing for xmass, their number one sales time of the year, and in response many people are planning on taking part in the annual Buy Nothing Day promoted by Adbusters.

When I first came across BND, a few years ago it seamed like a great idea, but now I am not so sure I buy it. I feel I have to question the tactics effectiveness. How much difference will it really make, the majority of people I know of that are excited to be taking part in BND are either people that already don’t buy almost anything anyways, who scavenge and live a freegan lifestyle, or people that will simply end up buying more in the days leading up to or directly following BND. In short both groups will likely end up buying the exact same amount this season as they would have bought anyways, just not on November 25/26. It seams to me that this action is more a symbolic gesture than a real strategy to empower people and/or challenge capitalism.

Some others have taken this further in an attempt to get past this problem but suggesting Steal Something Day! at least here we have a strategy attempting to cost the corporations money, although I must admit I am skeptical to whether a few pseudo-militant hippies and dirty squatters, travelers etc; all shoplifting on one particular day will even cost enough for the companies to bother hiring extra security that day. As much as I wish it would. However once again I doubt this will be any more than another symbolic gesture.

What we actually need to do is start thinking strategically. Capitalism is about the hording and exchange of personal property and resources, to an end of unlimited expediential growth, so how do we challenge capitalism? By affecting their income, and making it cost more money to do business, then they are making, thus removing the primary incentive.

So perhaps instead of celebrating Buy Nothing Day — which should really be called do nothing day — we could have Fuck With Business As Usual Day! 24 hrs of actions designed to cost corporations their profits,[i] from gluing locks, to sending solid black faxes[ii], sending 10000 emails to a bank so they can’t possibly receive their business emails and crashing their computers [iii], hacking, setting off smoke bombs in stores, talking loudly in the NIKE shop about child labor, phoney (or real) bomb threats at shopping malls,[iv] stealing, breaking windows,[v] paint-bombing or glitter-bombing,[vi] making large meal orders and not showing up for them at Mc-Restaurants, calling in sick for work, putting out of order signs on pop machines,[vii] arson,[viii] roadblocks,[ix] and anything else you can conceive of that would cost a business money!

However the big issue with this strategy would be promotions, I have to admit Fuck With Business As Usual Day does not have as nice of a ring to it, nor a good acronym, and without a glossy full color magazine in every 7-11 and Chapters to promote it, who would participate? As well you would have every liberal out there condemning the day and the coppers would be out in full force to “keep the peace” AKA protect corporate property, and business as usual. Hell if history is any indicator you would have many of the liberal pacifists not only condemning you but even working with the police to protect the property, and helping to catch anyone daring to partake. [x] Maybe Joe Foy of WCWC would even put up a bounty on us like he did to the tree spikers years ago! [xi]And in the USA under the Animal Enterprises Protection Act, people attacking any animal related industries could get up to 22 yrs in prison and be tried as a terrorist[xii] (child rapists often get 5-10 yrs, sometimes less [xiii]). Hell I could probably go to jail for even suggesting in a hypothetical that we consider any of these things, that is strategies that actually affect things. See the unfortunate truth is that whenever we actually become a threat they will use violence, fear, and threats to stop us, and as long as we are not of any real consequence to them they will be happy to continue to ignore us.

So even though Buy nothing day will really turnout to be Accomplish Nothing Day, the reality is in the end I will probably end up taking part in Buy Nothing Day, sad but true, cause honestly it’s the “least” I can do.

Currently the volunteer run non-profit infoshop I work at is planning our third annual Buy Nothing Day Sale! As a small business selling local or independent stuff, it wouldn’t make any sense for us to close down for the day, so instead we have fun with it. Anyways, they always say doing something is always better than doing nothing. All used books are 20% off and Marx is 1/2 off! Yet every year when we have the sale some folks completely freak out that we would dare mock the sacred Buy Nothing Day symbolic action.

==============================================================================

Footnotes

[i] A similar idea was done years ago in the UK and was organized in part by the anarchist punk bands Crass and Chumbawamba. These actions were called Stop the City demonstrations.

[ii] A Black fax is a tactic where a piece of paper that is black is fed half way through a fax machine and then the other end is taped together in a loop so it will keep sending continuously. The tactic serves to both freeze up the targets fax machine and modem so other incoming messages won’t be able to be received, while also costing them a lot of money in toner and paper.

in 2006, members of the above ground animal rights and anti-vivisection campaign known as Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty campaign (SHAC) were charged with conspiracy to harass using a telecommunications device for sending back faxes, as well as other charges. For more information look up the SHAC 7

[iii] In October 2005, Dylan Barr was arrested after he sent out flood of emails to Washington Mutual Bank with messages saying “This is what happens to companies that invest in HLS.” This is what is called a denial of service” attack… Barr sent so many large documents to the employees that their inboxes became full and refused emails from actual bank patrons. Washington Mutual dropped HLS as a client. Bar served 29 days in jail, and was fined $25000, which is only a tiny fraction of the $1000000 estimated in loss from the bank dropping it’s shares.

[iv] A few years ago when I worked for Public Outreach as a street fundraiser,. a couple of my co-workers had to move where they were canvassing because some random guy came up to them and told them quietly they should leave cause he had left a bomb in the garbage can of the bay center mall. The mall had to evacuate, and a lot of money was lost in revenue, while they searched for the bomb that didn’t exist. The guy was never caught.

However, there is a real danger in crying wolf, as Ann Hansen once pointed out.

“in fact, we oppose the use of fake bomb threats precisely because they do cause the authorities to be skeptical of the authenticity of real bomb attacks”

[v] Common tactic used by Blac Bloc’s is to smash windows of corporations, cause they can be easy to break quickly, and expensive. As well, I have heard that often contrary to general public opinion, that many companies don’t report the broken windows to their insurance companies because it may be cheaper to fix a few broken windows than to pay an annual increase in the cost of insurance.

[vi] Glitter Bombs or Glamdalizim is a tactic used by radical queers where they mix glitter into a regular paint bomb to make the attack that much more fierce and fabulous!

[vii] I got this one from the classic Crimethinc book recipes For Disaster

[viii] I want to be clear I am not advocating or counseling here, I am talking in the hypothetical. As Ted Kaczynski stated in Hit Them Where It Hurts;

“The engine, for example, can be ruined with very little expenditure of time and effort by means well known to many radicals.

At this point I must make clear that I am not recommending that anyone should damage a bulldozer (unless it is his own property). Nor should anything in this article be interpreted as recommending illegal activity of any kind. I am a prisoner, and if I were to encourage illegal activity this article would not even be allowed to leave the prison. I use the bulldozer analogy only because it is clear and vivid and will be appreciated by radicals.”

an even better disclaimer can be found in the cover of one of my favorite zines Bloodlust: A Feminist Against Civilization, which reads;

All contents of this zine are for purely entertainment purposes. No one involved in the writing or constructing of this zine advocates or condones any sort of illegal activity. Please ignore the screams of a dying world and passively consume this as you would a television sitcom.

[ix] Roadblocks have become a tactic often used by indigenous sovereigntists when fighting against the corporations and the state. This tactic was used at Oka, as well is in 6 nations, and I believe the longest was the road block at Grassy narrows, although there is really too many to cite them all. Currently the warriors of the Wet’suwet’en are refusing entry to their traditional territories by anyone who doesn’t ask consent, as part of their assertion of their traditional rights, and resistance to the pipelines the corporations & government are trying to force through their territories. This tactic involves blocking a major road with something like logs, human bodies, trucks, overturned cop cars, or other such items, so no traffic can pass through. It has been shown to be an effective tactic.

[x] There have been many examples of this, basically any time a black bloc action has occurred, such as the toronto G20 and No-2010 anti-olympics actions. However, I think the clearest example was in the WTO protests in Seattle in 99 where white liberal middle class activists actually physically restrained young local people of color to stop them from looting stores that had been smashed and held them until the police could arrive to take them into custody. These liberals also physically blocked people from smashing windows.

In a non anarchist context, after the recent Vancouver hockey riots some people reportedly took it 10 steps further by attacking people and their homes who had been photographed at the riots, as well as tracking them down to turn into the cops. Scary shit.

[xi] On more than one occasion “WCWC offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of any tree spiker in B.C. This offer still stands today” (Big Trees, Not Big Stumps: 25 years of campaigning to save wilderness with the Wilderness Committee, by Paul George). This has lead to some people referring to West Coast Wilderness Committee as WCSnitch

[xii] Marie Mason in 2009 was sentenced to 22 years after pleading guilty to arson attacks for a 1999 attack on a building at Michigan State University that caused more than US$1 million in damages, undertaken as a protest against research into genetically modified crops, as well as attacks on the property of a Mink farm owner.

Jeff (Free) Luers was initially sentenced to 22 years, 8 months in prison, but had his sentence reduced to 10 years on appeal after a large campaign to support him. He had been convicted in 2000 he set fire to three light trucks at Romania Chevrolet dealership in Eugene as a protest against excessive consumption and global warming

Also Walter Bond is currently serving 12 yrs for his 3 arsons as part of the ALF.

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) is a United States federal law that makes it a mandatory minimum sentence for every conviction in relation to animal rights charges. So even if the defendant had gone out of their way to guarantee that no one would be hurt, their actions will be considered terrorism if they cost the corporation money through illegal means.

[xiii] In December 2003, Matin Tremblay was convicted for five counts of sexual assault against young Aboriginal teenage girls. However, he was released from custody the following year, after serving only a fraction of his three-and-a-half year sentence. Tremblay had originally been charged with 18 counts of sexual assault and administering a noxious substance to five Aboriginal girls between the ages of 13 and 15. Then 38 years old, Tremblay admitted to sexually assaulting and videotaping the girls while they were unconscious in his home. Feb 15, 2011, Tremblay was sentenced to 11 months in prison (one year minus time served) for two counts of drug-related charges. There are numerous new allegations by other young native womyn of waking up naked after her drugged them, and reportedly he often also would video tape himself sexually assaulting them while they were passed out.

There is also a history in BC (as well as other places) of native womyn going missing or being raped and/or murdered, and the police doing fuck all about it.

In the 2010 Victoria city council election a candidate named Pedro Mora admitted he had been previously convicted, after he plead guilty for the sexual assault of a 15 year old in Burnaby and he claims he served only 40 days in a “rehabilitation centre” in the Lower Mainland.

10 Fuck Your Mustache! Fuck Movember!

November 13, 2012
by Comrade Black
· Columns · PE Web Zine

Fuck Your Mustache! Fuck Movember! – by Comrade Black

Movember- the time of the year, where men try to show they have testicles by growing an ugly flap of hair over their top lip. On top of looking like a greasy douchebag-hipster, pedophile, and/or cop – you are helping to raise funds for a multi-billion dollar black hole of an industry that is notorious for cruel animal testing.

Straight up, it pisses me off to have to watch every year as well intentioned people help pave the golden road to the hell that is vivisection. The fact that these people are raising funds for a cause shows me they are probably not psychopaths, they are clearly able to have empathy for others. Now if we are to give the benefit of the doubt to these folks that the majority are unaware that the cancer industry is a cancer, that the money they raise will help torture animals for so called ‘science’, than perhaps we need to do more work in the direction of making those connections more explicit, and showing what is wrong with animals testing.

If people truly are concerned with stopping cancer, we should be encouraging people to make healthier lifestyle choices such as; quitting smoking, cutting meat, dairy, and processed foods out of their diet, as well as avoiding pharmasuiticals as much as possible (At least 50 drugs on the market cause cancer in lab animals. They are allowed because it is admitted that animal tests are not relevant.¹), and being more active. As well as working to stop the industrial pollutants and other known cancer causing agents from being produced in the first place. Fighting against industries like the Tar Sands, cell phone towers, or Monsanto’s monocropped franken-foods, is fighting against the spread of cancer (in more ways than one). Stopping corporations from dumping chemicals in our water supply, foods, and soil would do more towards stopping tumors than growing a fucking mustache. Of course that would involve actually doing work, organizing, and taking risks. Growing hair under your lips is far easier, and trendier.

Perhaps in response what those of us who care about animals could do is make this the month we dedicate to anti-vivisection work. Turn Movember into No-Vember, as in No to Vivisection! Increase our presence in the community; set up info-tables on the streets, at malls, universities, airports, or wherever. Organize demonstrations, including home demos, table at more events with explicitly anti-vivisection information, set up film screenings of Maximum Tolerated Dose², organize anti-vivisection teach ins or workshops, hand out leaflets, put up posters, graffiti, drop banners, make art, or whatever it is that you do to raise awareness. Or organize a fundraiser for anti-vivisection groups in your community. And of course for those able bodied warriors willing to truly risk their privilege there is the actions that make the most direct impact to the lives of lab animals, physically freeing them from cages under the cover of night.

There is so much more we can do than growing a patch of fucking hair.

Footnotes
1) ALF Animal Testing fact sheet:
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Animal%20Testing/Vivisection/vivisectionfacts.htm

2) Maximum Tolerated Dose is the first feature length documentary on animal testing:
http://maximumtolerateddose.org/

Resources:
Intro to Vivisection by Stop Huntington Animals Cruelty (SHAC)
http://www.shac.net/science/vivi_intro.html

Dying For A Cigarette
http://www.impactpress.com/articles/febmar02/cigs2302.html

Healing Cancer Naturally
http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/why_alternatives17.html

for a more extensive list of anti-vivisection resources check out http://maximumtolerateddose.org/resources

The legendary crust classic is now available once again!

We are happy to announce our next new release

WILT – “Self Titled”

Here is a track from the upcoming LP

“Sermon for the Bootlickers”

Tag: direct action

10 Total Liberation: An interview with Walter Bond on Anarchy, Abortion rights, Anti-Colonialism & Animal Liberation

0 Buy Nothing Day? Do you buy into it?

10 Fuck Your Mustache! Fuck Movember!