This site hosts a huge archive of digitized Earth First! and Animal Liberation zines from the 1980s to the present, such as XUltraMilitanceX from Hants, England or the Laguna Beach zine "The ALF Is Watching And There’s No Place To Hide" from 1988. The zines in this site are U.S., British, and Australian. There are probably others I haven't seen yet as well.
The site also has posted some 1980s Animal Liberation punk rock. Like Toxic Waste's "As More Die" or Power Age's "Eat Wheat Not Meat". Here is the whole collection, which varies a bit in quality shall we say.
I am not aware of a single place where there is such a complete and idiosyncratic collection of these kind of underground materials. This is an incredible wealth of historical material which will be very useful to the students in my Radicalism and Violence class.
The short introductions to each digitized collection are worthwhile since they do not obscure some of the dated or unsavory aspects of the old zines and the organizations in earlier eras. As one blog post on early Earth First! notes,
"For all of its many flaws, I love Earth First! and most of the many projects that it has inspired, and I say that as someone fully aware of all the mistakes that have been made along the way. Those errors- everything from alliances with open racists like Ed Abbey to articles cheerleading famine in Africa- are ultimately what makes the history of Earth First! such a valuable roadmap for modern revolutionaries. Earth First!’s fuck-ups are at times so glaring that my hope is, after examining them, there is no way they could be made again."
The hosting site, called the Talon Conspiracy describes itself soberly like this:
"The Talon Conspiracy is an online archive preserving the history of protest movements for animal rights and environmentalism. Its owners, contributors, and designers are not responsible for actions taken by third parties which may be harmful or unlawful to the individuals or entities named in archived publications. This web site is provided for the purpose of historical research and analysis, and is not intended to incite, encourage, or condone any criminal action on the part of its readers. Finally, The Talon Conspiracy does not necessarily agree with any of the views expressed in the publications in our archive, but aims to provide a thorough collection of the history of eco direct action. All opinions expressed in our archives are those of their original authors only."
and more dramatically like this:
"TALON is a shadowy collective of archivists and media soldiers hellbent on advancing their ZINESTORM master plan! Soon our JACKAL minions will flood the streets, the old order will fall, and liberty will flourish for the entire biological community! TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALOOOOOOOON!!! "
"Editors note: Since this site’s inception, the volunteers at TALON have felt that our purpose is not to catalog the past, but to inform the present. We do not exist as activist nostalgia, but to guide new generations by sharing information about the errors and victories of those who came before them. Our hope was always that modern campaigns would be built with these lessons, and that we could share their own errors and victories as a long term effort to refine our movement’s tactics and strategies."
Worth your time, if you are interested in this stuff.
The site also has posted some 1980s Animal Liberation punk rock. Like Toxic Waste's "As More Die" or Power Age's "Eat Wheat Not Meat". Here is the whole collection, which varies a bit in quality shall we say.
I am not aware of a single place where there is such a complete and idiosyncratic collection of these kind of underground materials. This is an incredible wealth of historical material which will be very useful to the students in my Radicalism and Violence class.
The short introductions to each digitized collection are worthwhile since they do not obscure some of the dated or unsavory aspects of the old zines and the organizations in earlier eras. As one blog post on early Earth First! notes,
"For all of its many flaws, I love Earth First! and most of the many projects that it has inspired, and I say that as someone fully aware of all the mistakes that have been made along the way. Those errors- everything from alliances with open racists like Ed Abbey to articles cheerleading famine in Africa- are ultimately what makes the history of Earth First! such a valuable roadmap for modern revolutionaries. Earth First!’s fuck-ups are at times so glaring that my hope is, after examining them, there is no way they could be made again."
The hosting site, called the Talon Conspiracy describes itself soberly like this:
"The Talon Conspiracy is an online archive preserving the history of protest movements for animal rights and environmentalism. Its owners, contributors, and designers are not responsible for actions taken by third parties which may be harmful or unlawful to the individuals or entities named in archived publications. This web site is provided for the purpose of historical research and analysis, and is not intended to incite, encourage, or condone any criminal action on the part of its readers. Finally, The Talon Conspiracy does not necessarily agree with any of the views expressed in the publications in our archive, but aims to provide a thorough collection of the history of eco direct action. All opinions expressed in our archives are those of their original authors only."
and more dramatically like this:
"TALON is a shadowy collective of archivists and media soldiers hellbent on advancing their ZINESTORM master plan! Soon our JACKAL minions will flood the streets, the old order will fall, and liberty will flourish for the entire biological community! TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALOOOOOOOON!!! "
and in a historically minded frame, like this:
"Editors note: Since this site’s inception, the volunteers at TALON have felt that our purpose is not to catalog the past, but to inform the present. We do not exist as activist nostalgia, but to guide new generations by sharing information about the errors and victories of those who came before them. Our hope was always that modern campaigns would be built with these lessons, and that we could share their own errors and victories as a long term effort to refine our movement’s tactics and strategies."
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