SuperWeed

In retrospect, it was silly of me to think that I could blog from a conference at which I was giving seven talks, staffing two tables, and facilitating a group on dealing with despair.

Break for a quick shout out to Josh for periodically popping up to offer me an apple; Deb and Rich for feeding me vegan pizza; the nice young man who stopped me in the hallway to remind me to stay hydrated; and Chris, Deb, Rich, Theresa, Marti, and a few people I didn’t even know for covering my tables when I needed to eat, breathe, or take care of other things.

Now that I’m back home, my brain is brimming with unprocessed experiences. So, over the next few days, let me do what I was going to do from the conference and tell you about a few of the people, organizations, and interactions that touched me during the five-day extravaganza of activist connectedness known as AR2007.

First up, the hunt saboteurs who call themselves Bonnie (Abzug) and Hayduke, after the characters in Edward Abbey’s 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang.

If you’ve read my chapters in Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? or Igniting a Revolution or any of my articles critiquing purely symbolic peace activism (examples here and here), then you know that I am all about direct action.

Activism doesn’t get more direct, or more dangerous, than hunt sabotage. Since most hunt sab tactics are completely legal, the danger comes not from the authorities but from the thugs with guns who don’t much like people interfering with their thrill killing. In the UK, hunt saboteurs have been injured and killed by hunters. Female hunt saboteurs face the additional threat of sexual assault.

Hunt sab tactics range from the mundane to the sublime. As Heidi Prescott (who has gone to jail for rustling leaves during hunting season) writes, “Direct action against hunting, sometimes known as field protests, hunt sabotages, hunt disruptions, hunter educational experiences, or ‘huntus interruptus,’ can be any activity at the hunting grounds that interferes with a hunter’s ability to kill wild animals. Hunting is easily hindered by nonviolent tactics such as casual chitchat, sniffling, coughing, or any type of motion. Even just smelling like a human overrides the deer-urine ‘perfume’ hunters often wear to mask their own odor.”

Many hunt saboteurs work anonymously but some use flamboyant tactics to mock or denounce hunting while interfering with it. For example, in 2001 the Field of Dreams Hunting Club went out on the water in a huge yellow rubber ducky, shooting into the air in order to scare the birds away from the real hunters.

Break for a quick warning: Don’t even think about hunt sabbing before educating yourself about what is and isn’t legal and how to protect yourself. Where can you find that information? Read on…

Bonnie and Hayduke were at AR2007 as representatives of the American Hunt Saboteurs Association, which aims to “become the definitive resource for Anti-hunting tactics of all types and underground Habitat Protection strategies in the US and Canada.” Their website overflows with useful information and links.

I spent some time with Bonnie and Hayduke after hours one night, joking and swapping stories about surreal experiences in various kinks of the Bible Belt. Of course, on the subject of personal adventures in direct action, I didn’t ask and they didn’t tell. (Read up on security culture if you’re not sure why.) But I did tell them how much I value hunt saboteurs. Here, where men in combat fatigues with automatic weapons roam the woods in and out of hunting season, I couldn’t even call the authorities to report illegal poaching, much less actively interfere with their deadly games, without worrying that somebody will come back and shoot up the chicken coops late at night. I feel boundless love and respect for those who are able and willing to put their lives on the line to protect animals from thrill killers.

As I said in the turtle talk last year at AR2006, I am deeply grateful to anyone who risks her own safety and freedom by engaging in truly nonviolent direct action to liberate, protect, or preserve the habitats of animals. Of course, most of those people can’t come to conferences or identify themselves. Sometimes, after actions, they send anonymous communiques to the press office of the ALF. Even more often, I bet, nobody ever knows the things they have done.

Some days, just knowing they are out there — that today might be the day a teenaged girl decides to liberate the frogs at her high school or a gentle grandmother nobody would suspect goes out night gardening for the 37th time — is the only thing that gives me hope. And, of course, for the animals they liberate or protect, they are indeed the only hope.

On the last day of the conference, I visited the AHSA table and spent some more time with Bonnie and Hayduke. Bonnie and I assured each other that we would meet again. I must have looked unsure because she looked me in the eye steadily and said, “I’ll find you.”

I believed her.

July 25th, 2007 | Category: Activism, Direct Action | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL