First of all I want to
extend a huge thank you to everyone involved in this project at every level,
for promoting the book, for storing it, for reading and commenting on it.
There are new reviews now posted on the website and current AR campaign
updates and other news which will be added to regularly. We also want good
photos for the Galleries, of demo's, policing etc. Anything relating to
what we do or what they do. And demos! We need demos! You can forget the
photos but not the demos. If you have good images, of people up on rooftops
or cranes and attached by the neck to something that won't open, or just
stood there, great, send them in. Our imagination and initiative is the
key to unlocking the activist in others. Banners are good. Why do we seldom
have a sea of banners on our demos? Don't just be there, do something!
It took just 5 months to distribute the first print run of 2000 books and
we're now well into the second, with distributors in Europe, the US, Australia,
New Zealand and South Africa. Glowing reviews are as common as the rain
just now. Got this forwarded today: "OK I am at page 210 in From Dusk
til Dawn, it is amazing, one of best, hardest, sad, exciting, warming, anger
filling, hopeless, fulfilling and liberating things I have ever read and
probably ever will read in my life. Nothing has ever filled me with every
human emotion I thought existed and then some.... pass my biggest thanks
on to Mr Mann."
Bookshops are increasingly interested as they see a good thing but more
help is needed badgering them to take it. No other book tells our story
and never did it need telling more than it does right now. We are in talks
with Waterstones and are making inroads. Please if you haven't already made
contact with your local bookshops ask them to stock the book and direct
them to the website or get contact details and we'll do the rest. We have
fliers available for stalls, health food stores or anywhere else that will
display them. We also have a crackin' new vegan cookbook available. This
is the ideal gift for anyone especially as the world starts to wake up to
the impact-on-self of exploiting the animal kingdom. There's other useful
stuff too. Have a look at the website www.fromdusktildawn.org.uk and keep
an eye on the book's progress and news from the movement. The sequel, if
you like.
And there's a lot more to come, not least the Animal Protection Party campaign
which I'm aligned with. The first phase of this exciting, innovative project
seeks to field candidates in election campaigns against vocal animal abusing
MP's, with a view to not so much gaining political power but taking some
control of those seeking it. This is not just another political party standing
on a lie or calling for improvements in animal torture techniques, but about
each and every one of us using the corrupted system to our advantage to
speak for the animals. This has the potential to be a major step forward
and key to the success of our advancement into the political arena. We have
candidates ready to go as soon as they announce the election date (maybe
two years away) and we're going to take those votes and make these monsters
rethink their stance. We will put leaflets through every door in every constituency
in which we field candidates. That in itself isn't something we achieve
very often! The power base of these people is about to be shaken by the
powerful pro animal lobby of this country. Your vote will soon, perhaps
for the first time, start to have some significance. Please if you're in
the UK sign up now to show your support and see how else you can help www.animalprotectionparty.com
The incredibly vicious government reaction to our efforts is a significant
signal that we are making inroads and now is the time to reorganise ourselves
and step up our efforts. From Dusk til Dawn tells the story of the progress
of the Animal Liberation Movement to the present date and it's a big book
with a big story to tell but in the grand scheme of things we've only been
around for a millisecond. What we did so far is in the book; watch this
space for the rest of it!
There is a huge drive on by the powers that be in the UK in particular and
elsewhere to silence this movement and to scare us away from objecting to
their violence. This is of course unacceptable but still it is a good thing.
Were we ineffective we would be allowed to get on with it. We are a threat
so we must be attacked. That's how it is and always has been in a society
run by the moneymen. More importantly we are effective because we have stood
up to be counted and stand up we must. They don't attack us because we are
extremists, they attack us because they are extremists. Recently the authorities/their
police have stood back to allow hunt supporters who were breaking the law
to violently attack and hospitalise hunt monitors, they have smashed their
way into elderly protestors homes, asked for jury members in a trial of
peaceful protestors to be allowed to meet at a police station so they can
be minibused to the trial to avoid 'intimidation, for witnesses to give
evidence from behind screens and they're harassing stall holders and changing
laws to further criminalise peaceful protest. Liberty (the organisation
supposedly protecting civil liberties and human rights), seem uninterested.
Meanwhile the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming, supposedly the official
way forward in animal welfare, continue to encourage people to slaughter
baby animals and birds their way. On the other hand veganism, a way of living
here without having a devastating impact on Larry the lamb, Babe the pig,
Henrietta the hen, all their friends and the fragile planet we all inhabit,
is forging the only way ahead and gaining incredible momentum. Fur farm
raids are at a peak in Europe, two fur shops in Sweden have this week reportedly
closed due to public protest activity and even in unlikely places there
are reports of an awakening. Belarus, for example, and Mexico, where the
dove seen here was released with others from a cage by animal rights activists
early in 2008.
and
Malaysia where as you can see from the following image, taken on a lab raid,
they show a sense of humour in a fraught environment.
Here, there and everywhere in spite of the apparent imbalance of power,
gentle folk are fighting and winning many battles and all the arguments.
I've been travelling a lot lately and the police inevitably detain me when
I come back to the UK. I've come to see it like I see several hundred tonnes
of metal meeting a runway upon landing, both very bad and somehow a good
thing. First the plane teases me with sure annihilation and then, over that
experience, I get ambushed by police as I get my passport out for the suited
serious ones at Passport Control. Now I also get donated two crispy fifty
pound notes each time it happens! Why? It's in the South African Tour report
on the book website... I leave the UK most of the time, at request to talk,
to show Behind The Mask (a ground breaking social history statement) and
of course smuggle neither weapons, drugs or children back in with me when
I return. I have never in my life been arrested for, questioned about, or
convicted of, any terrorist offence yet I get detained under terrorism laws
upon my return. It doesn't really add up. I've read about and met the kind
of people they call terrorists and I take this as a compliment, but surely
there are genuine terrorists to interrogate or smugglers? Either way I'm
encouraged by their obsession and hope to be invited to talk more. I wrote
to the police to enquire of their obsessive interest in my personal life
and told them I will invite them to travel with me if they have good reason
to feel the need and can persuade me there's a good reason why. I will keep
you informed.
