PETA speaks
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Alex Pacheco
Co-Founder
We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child because they are equal mentally in terms of dependence on others. - The New York Times (January 14, 1989)
Damaging the enemy financially is fair game. - Washington City Paper (December 18, 1987)
Arson, property destruction, burglary, and theft are ‘acceptable crimes’ when used for the animal cause. - PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco lists the “acceptable” tactics to fight for animal rights, Associated Press (January 3, 1989)
Dan Matthews
Director of Media Relations
We're at war, and we'll do what we need to win. - USA Today (September 3, 1991)
So what if we put a few businesses under? - The Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail (January 15, 1989)
Do you know that fat little guy from Seinfeld? He has become the main pitchman for KFC, Jason Alexander. And beginning in May he is going to star in the West Coast production of 'The Producers.' It's made for us. We can be slamming him as the play opens. If we do this properly, he will wish he never saw a chicken. - The New Yorker (April 14, 2003)
Our campaigns are always geared towards children and they always will be - PETA vice president Dan Matthews, on the Fox News Network (December 19, 2003)
Bill Maher
Endorser
To those people who say, `My father is alive because of animal experimentation,’ I say `Yeah, well, good for you. This dog died so your father could live.’ Sorry, but I am just not behind that kind of trade off. - US magazine (February 1, 1999)
If ten people in America died of mad cow disease, in the long run it would save probably millions of lives. Because people would stop eating meat. That’s not a catty thing to say, to say -- in the long run this is what I hope. - Upon accepting the “Celebrity Animal Advocate of the Year award” at the “Animal Rights 2003” convention
Toni Vernelli
European Campaign Director
Serving a burger to your family today, knowing what we know, constitutes child abuse. You might as well give them weed killer. - PETA Europe news release, "Meat Expo Declared A ‘Danger Zone’ By Vegetarians: PETA Targets Smithfield 2000" (November 27, 2000)
Craig Rosebraugh
Grantee
In light of the events on September 11, my country has told me that I should not cooperate with terrorists. I therefore am refusing to cooperate with members of Congress who are some of the most extreme terrorists in history. - November 2001 statement following Rosebraugh’s subpoena to testify before a Congressional subcommittee on eco-terrorism (November 1, 2001)
We encourage others to find a local Earth raper and make them pay for the damages they are inflicting on our communities... Furriers, meat packers, bosses, developers, rich industry leaders are all Earth rapers … We must inflict economic sabotage on all Earth rapers. - Rosebraugh/Earth Liberation Front statement (August 1, 1999)
The best response to Grand Juries is to ignore them and refuse to cooperate with them completely. They will be unable to function if no one is cooperating and with enough public outcry they will disappear. It will result in many people being locked up, but our souls and minds will remain free. - 1997 newsletter of Rosebraugh’s “Liberation Collective”
Physically shut down financial centers … Using any means necessary, shut down the national networks of NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc. Not just occupations but actually engage in strategies and tactics which knock the networks off the air … Spread the battle to the ... very heads of government and U.S. corporations ... Hit them in their personal lives, visit their homes … Actively target U.S. military establishments within the United States... strike hard and fast and retreat in anonymity. Select another location, strike again hard and fast and quickly retreat in anonymity ... Do not get caught. DO NOT GET CAUGHT. Do not get sent to jail. Stay alert, keep active, and keep fighting. - Open letter to activists, published on the Independent Media Center website (March 17, 2003)
Joshua Harper
Grantee
[I see] a spark of hope in every broken window, every torched police car. - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (June 18, 2001)
When you see the loss of 9 billion [animal] lives each year, it's inappropriate to hold a sign or pass out a petition. It's appropriate to go out and burn down the factory farm. - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (June 18, 2001)
Gary Yourofsky
Humane Education Lecturer
What we must do is start viewing every cow, pig, chicken, monkey, rabbit, mouse, and pigeon as our family members. - The Toledo Blade (June 24, 2001)
Do not be afraid to condone arsons at places of animal torture. - The Toledo Blade (June 24, 2001)
My whole goal is for humans to have as little contact as possible with animals. - Associated Press (December 7, 1998)
Neal Barnard
Medical Advisor
The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. - PCRM President Neal Barnard
To give a child animal products is a form of child abuse. - from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) president Neal Barnard's 1994 book, Food For Life
Meat consumption is just as dangerous to public health as tobacco use … It’s time we looked into holding the meat producers and fast-food outlets legally accountable. - PCRM’s Neal Barnard, in a press release urging a federal lawsuit against “Big Meat” (September 23, 1999)
If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people,’ you’d better live real close to a real good hospital. - The Buffalo News (December 1, 1995)
To give a child animal products is a form of child abuse. - from his book, Food For Life
Ingrid Newkirk
President
There is no hidden agenda. If anybody wonders about -- what’s this with all these reforms -- you can hear us clearly. Our goal is total animal liberation. [emphasis added] - “Animal Rights 2002” convention (June 30, 2002)
Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works. - US News & World Report (April 8, 2002)
Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes. - New York Daily News (December 7, 1997)
More power to SHAC if they can get someone’s attention. - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals president & co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, in The Boston Herald, August 25, 2002
Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works. - Ingrid Newkirk, in the April 8, 2002 issue of US News & World Report (April 8, 2002)
We are complete press sluts. - Ingrid Newkirk, in The New Yorker (April 14, 2003)
I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front]. - Ingrid Newkirk, in the New York Daily News (December 7, 1997)
Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it. - PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, in the September 1989 issue of Vogue
Eating meat is primitive, barbaric, and arrogant. - Washington City Paper (December 20, 1985)
I openly hope that if [hoof-and-mouth disease] comes here. It will bring economic harm only for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment. - ABC News interview (April 2, 2001)
We’re looking for good lawsuits that will establish the interests of animals as a legitimate area of concern in law. - Insight on the News (July 17, 2000)
I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down. - "National Animal Rights Convention" (June 27, 1997)
There’s no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals. - Washingtonian magazine (August 1, 1986)
I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything. - The Washington Post (November 13, 1983)
Six million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses. [emphasis added] - The Washington Post (November 13, 1983)
Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it. - Vogue (September 1, 1989)
Perhaps the mere idea of receiving a nasty missive will allow animal researchers to empathize with their victims for the first time in their lousy careers. I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren’t all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I’d light a match. - The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 12, 1999)
Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation. - Harper's (August 1, 1988)
One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV. - The Chicago Daily Herald (March 1, 1990)
The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind. - Animals (May 1, 1993)
I don’t use the word 'pet.' I think it’s speciesist language. I prefer 'companion animal.' For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship - enjoyment at a distance. - The Harper's Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p.223
In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether. - Newsday (February 21, 1988)
I plan to send my liver somewhere in France, to protest foie gras (liver pate) ... I plan to have handbags made from my skin ... and an umbrella stand made from my seat. - PETA President Ingrid Newkirk speaking to onMilwaukee.com (February 1, 2005)
Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt ... we are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We're here to hold the radical line. - USA Today (September 3, 1991)
Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth. - Washingtonian magazine (February 1, 1990)
We are complete press sluts. - The New Yorker (April 14, 2003)
I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front]. - The New York Daily News (December 7, 1997)
Bryan Pease
Spokesman (1998)
It's hard to say where this is going, but we're not giving in … Right now, I think it's inevitable that somebody's going to get hurt. - The Syracuse Post-Standard (March 17, 1997)
It is crucial that we as a movement foster and contribute to an atmosphere that is supportive and nurturing of underground direct action of all types. - “Veganism Is Not Enough” (undated article on LiBaware website)
Rodney Coronado
Substantial grantee
Crimes of compassion that every animal advocate should support. - Coronado’s description of two 1991 arsons at Oregon State University and the Northwest Farm Food Cooperative in Edmonds, Washington, as described in his 1995 Federal Sentencing Memorandum
Throughout the late ‘80s, me and a handful of friends just like you people here, we started to break windows, we started to slash tires, we started to rescue animals from factory farms and vivisection breeders, and we graduated to breaking into laboratories … As long as we emptied the labs of animals, they were still easily replaced. So that's when the ALF in this country, and my cell, started engaging in arson. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
Getting together three or four friends of mine, we came back a week later to that farm, we broke into the main laboratory, we trashed every single piece of equipment, we stole documents and lists of fur farms across the nation. And we started a fire in an experimental fur farm, an experimental feed building, where they manufactured the experimental diets which were the focus of research at this farm. And that fire destroyed all the equipment, and in the ensuing raid, the raid that happened caused enough damage that six months later that lab was forced to shut down. That was five people, folks -- once again maybe like twelve hundred dollars, a couple weeks of planning, five people. But that wasn’t the end. I knew I had to continue, and for the next -- oh gosh, a little over a year -- we took out, one by one, every recipient of what’s called the Mink Farmers Research Foundation. It’s a foundation whose sole purpose is to aid research to benefit the fur farm industry. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
I love fire, be it around a campfire with friends or when consuming an empty fur farm, animal laboratory or luxury condominium built on the homes of my animal relations. - Former ALF member and PETA grantee Rodney Coronado in Earth First! Journal (September 1, 2003)
All the federal agents in the United States will not stop more actions of this sort. - Convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado on property destruction in the 20th anniversary issue of the Earth First! Journal.
I think [food producers] should appreciate that we’re only targeting their property. Because frankly I think it’s time to start targeting them. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
Every time a police agency pepper-sprays or uses pain-compliance holds against our people, their cars should burn. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
Here’s a little model I’m going to show you here. I didn’t have any incense, but -- this is a crude incendiary device. It is a simple plastic jug, which you fill with gasoline and oil. You put in a sponge, which is soaked also in flammable liquid -- I couldn’t find an incense stick, but this represents that. You put the incense stick in here, light it, place it -- underneath the ‘weapon of mass destruction,’ light the incense stick -- sandalwood works nice -- and you destroy the profits that are brought about through animal and earth abuse. That’s about two dollars. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
More than anything we applied arson, and effectively we destroyed -- um, let’s see -- the Northwest Fur Breeders Cooperative in Edmonds, Washington, which we hit a week later after OSU. We hit Washington State University’s Eastern Washington experimental fur farm. We did get seven coyotes out of there, six mink, and ten mice … We burned down a fur farm that was on the market to be sold, in Oregon also. We went to the Michigan State University’s experimental fur farm program and destroyed thirty-two years of research, by using fire once again, and rescued two mink from there. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
A lot of people think that -- Oh my god, that’s going too far, you know. People can support bringing animals out of labs, but they can’t support arson. Well, I’m sorry. I’m not here to, to please people. I’m not here to win the support of people. I’m here to represent my animal relations who are suffering this very second. And I don’t care what anybody says about what I do to achieve their freedom. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
As a direct-action warrior, it made a lot of sense to me to attack institutions in the fur trade … We need to destroy them by any means necessary. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
Bruce Friedrich
Vegan Campaign Coordinator
If you can take Ronald McDonald and turn him into a psychotic, bloody butcher … that’s going to adversely affect McDonald’s’ stock price. - “Animal Rights 2002” convention (July 2, 2002)
[Eating meat] is not your personal decision, any more than, you know, whether somebody beats their child is their personal decision. - “Animal Rights 2002” convention (June 29, 2002)
If we really believe that these animals do have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then, of course we’re going to be, as a movement, blowing stuff up and smashing windows. For the record, I don’t do this stuff, but I do advocate it. I think it’s a great way to bring about animal liberation … I think it would be a great thing if all of these fast-food outlets, and these slaughterhouses, and these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it’s perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows, and everything else along the line. Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it. - “Animal Rights 2001” convention (July 2, 2001)
McVeigh's decision to go vegetarian groups him with some of the world's greatest visionaries. - Bruce Friedrich praising Oklahoma City bomber and mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh, for choosing a vegetarian last meal
[I]t’s like letting the World Bank or the Ku Klux Klan open up a booth here. - Bruce Friedrich complaining about meat being served at the 2004 World Social Forum
If we really believe that animals have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then, of course we’re going to be, as a movement, blowing things up and smashing windows … I think it’s a great way to bring about animal liberation … I think it would be great if all of the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it's perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows ... Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it. - Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s vegan campaign coordinator, at the “Animal Rights 2001” conference
Alex Pacheco
Co-Founder
We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child because they are equal mentally in terms of dependence on others. - The New York Times (January 14, 1989)
Damaging the enemy financially is fair game. - Washington City Paper (December 18, 1987)
Arson, property destruction, burglary, and theft are ‘acceptable crimes’ when used for the animal cause. - PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco lists the “acceptable” tactics to fight for animal rights, Associated Press (January 3, 1989)
Dan Matthews
Director of Media Relations
We're at war, and we'll do what we need to win. - USA Today (September 3, 1991)
So what if we put a few businesses under? - The Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail (January 15, 1989)
Do you know that fat little guy from Seinfeld? He has become the main pitchman for KFC, Jason Alexander. And beginning in May he is going to star in the West Coast production of 'The Producers.' It's made for us. We can be slamming him as the play opens. If we do this properly, he will wish he never saw a chicken. - The New Yorker (April 14, 2003)
Our campaigns are always geared towards children and they always will be - PETA vice president Dan Matthews, on the Fox News Network (December 19, 2003)
Bill Maher
Endorser
To those people who say, `My father is alive because of animal experimentation,’ I say `Yeah, well, good for you. This dog died so your father could live.’ Sorry, but I am just not behind that kind of trade off. - US magazine (February 1, 1999)
If ten people in America died of mad cow disease, in the long run it would save probably millions of lives. Because people would stop eating meat. That’s not a catty thing to say, to say -- in the long run this is what I hope. - Upon accepting the “Celebrity Animal Advocate of the Year award” at the “Animal Rights 2003” convention
Toni Vernelli
European Campaign Director
Serving a burger to your family today, knowing what we know, constitutes child abuse. You might as well give them weed killer. - PETA Europe news release, "Meat Expo Declared A ‘Danger Zone’ By Vegetarians: PETA Targets Smithfield 2000" (November 27, 2000)
Craig Rosebraugh
Grantee
In light of the events on September 11, my country has told me that I should not cooperate with terrorists. I therefore am refusing to cooperate with members of Congress who are some of the most extreme terrorists in history. - November 2001 statement following Rosebraugh’s subpoena to testify before a Congressional subcommittee on eco-terrorism (November 1, 2001)
We encourage others to find a local Earth raper and make them pay for the damages they are inflicting on our communities... Furriers, meat packers, bosses, developers, rich industry leaders are all Earth rapers … We must inflict economic sabotage on all Earth rapers. - Rosebraugh/Earth Liberation Front statement (August 1, 1999)
The best response to Grand Juries is to ignore them and refuse to cooperate with them completely. They will be unable to function if no one is cooperating and with enough public outcry they will disappear. It will result in many people being locked up, but our souls and minds will remain free. - 1997 newsletter of Rosebraugh’s “Liberation Collective”
Physically shut down financial centers … Using any means necessary, shut down the national networks of NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc. Not just occupations but actually engage in strategies and tactics which knock the networks off the air … Spread the battle to the ... very heads of government and U.S. corporations ... Hit them in their personal lives, visit their homes … Actively target U.S. military establishments within the United States... strike hard and fast and retreat in anonymity. Select another location, strike again hard and fast and quickly retreat in anonymity ... Do not get caught. DO NOT GET CAUGHT. Do not get sent to jail. Stay alert, keep active, and keep fighting. - Open letter to activists, published on the Independent Media Center website (March 17, 2003)
Joshua Harper
Grantee
[I see] a spark of hope in every broken window, every torched police car. - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (June 18, 2001)
When you see the loss of 9 billion [animal] lives each year, it's inappropriate to hold a sign or pass out a petition. It's appropriate to go out and burn down the factory farm. - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (June 18, 2001)
Gary Yourofsky
Humane Education Lecturer
What we must do is start viewing every cow, pig, chicken, monkey, rabbit, mouse, and pigeon as our family members. - The Toledo Blade (June 24, 2001)
Do not be afraid to condone arsons at places of animal torture. - The Toledo Blade (June 24, 2001)
My whole goal is for humans to have as little contact as possible with animals. - Associated Press (December 7, 1998)
Neal Barnard
Medical Advisor
The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. - PCRM President Neal Barnard
To give a child animal products is a form of child abuse. - from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) president Neal Barnard's 1994 book, Food For Life
Meat consumption is just as dangerous to public health as tobacco use … It’s time we looked into holding the meat producers and fast-food outlets legally accountable. - PCRM’s Neal Barnard, in a press release urging a federal lawsuit against “Big Meat” (September 23, 1999)
If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people,’ you’d better live real close to a real good hospital. - The Buffalo News (December 1, 1995)
To give a child animal products is a form of child abuse. - from his book, Food For Life
Ingrid Newkirk
President
There is no hidden agenda. If anybody wonders about -- what’s this with all these reforms -- you can hear us clearly. Our goal is total animal liberation. [emphasis added] - “Animal Rights 2002” convention (June 30, 2002)
Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works. - US News & World Report (April 8, 2002)
Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes. - New York Daily News (December 7, 1997)
More power to SHAC if they can get someone’s attention. - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals president & co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, in The Boston Herald, August 25, 2002
Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works. - Ingrid Newkirk, in the April 8, 2002 issue of US News & World Report (April 8, 2002)
We are complete press sluts. - Ingrid Newkirk, in The New Yorker (April 14, 2003)
I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front]. - Ingrid Newkirk, in the New York Daily News (December 7, 1997)
Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it. - PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, in the September 1989 issue of Vogue
Eating meat is primitive, barbaric, and arrogant. - Washington City Paper (December 20, 1985)
I openly hope that if [hoof-and-mouth disease] comes here. It will bring economic harm only for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment. - ABC News interview (April 2, 2001)
We’re looking for good lawsuits that will establish the interests of animals as a legitimate area of concern in law. - Insight on the News (July 17, 2000)
I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down. - "National Animal Rights Convention" (June 27, 1997)
There’s no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals. - Washingtonian magazine (August 1, 1986)
I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything. - The Washington Post (November 13, 1983)
Six million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses. [emphasis added] - The Washington Post (November 13, 1983)
Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it. - Vogue (September 1, 1989)
Perhaps the mere idea of receiving a nasty missive will allow animal researchers to empathize with their victims for the first time in their lousy careers. I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren’t all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I’d light a match. - The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 12, 1999)
Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation. - Harper's (August 1, 1988)
One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV. - The Chicago Daily Herald (March 1, 1990)
The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind. - Animals (May 1, 1993)
I don’t use the word 'pet.' I think it’s speciesist language. I prefer 'companion animal.' For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship - enjoyment at a distance. - The Harper's Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p.223
In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether. - Newsday (February 21, 1988)
I plan to send my liver somewhere in France, to protest foie gras (liver pate) ... I plan to have handbags made from my skin ... and an umbrella stand made from my seat. - PETA President Ingrid Newkirk speaking to onMilwaukee.com (February 1, 2005)
Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt ... we are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We're here to hold the radical line. - USA Today (September 3, 1991)
Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth. - Washingtonian magazine (February 1, 1990)
We are complete press sluts. - The New Yorker (April 14, 2003)
I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front]. - The New York Daily News (December 7, 1997)
Bryan Pease
Spokesman (1998)
It's hard to say where this is going, but we're not giving in … Right now, I think it's inevitable that somebody's going to get hurt. - The Syracuse Post-Standard (March 17, 1997)
It is crucial that we as a movement foster and contribute to an atmosphere that is supportive and nurturing of underground direct action of all types. - “Veganism Is Not Enough” (undated article on LiBaware website)
Rodney Coronado
Substantial grantee
Crimes of compassion that every animal advocate should support. - Coronado’s description of two 1991 arsons at Oregon State University and the Northwest Farm Food Cooperative in Edmonds, Washington, as described in his 1995 Federal Sentencing Memorandum
Throughout the late ‘80s, me and a handful of friends just like you people here, we started to break windows, we started to slash tires, we started to rescue animals from factory farms and vivisection breeders, and we graduated to breaking into laboratories … As long as we emptied the labs of animals, they were still easily replaced. So that's when the ALF in this country, and my cell, started engaging in arson. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
Getting together three or four friends of mine, we came back a week later to that farm, we broke into the main laboratory, we trashed every single piece of equipment, we stole documents and lists of fur farms across the nation. And we started a fire in an experimental fur farm, an experimental feed building, where they manufactured the experimental diets which were the focus of research at this farm. And that fire destroyed all the equipment, and in the ensuing raid, the raid that happened caused enough damage that six months later that lab was forced to shut down. That was five people, folks -- once again maybe like twelve hundred dollars, a couple weeks of planning, five people. But that wasn’t the end. I knew I had to continue, and for the next -- oh gosh, a little over a year -- we took out, one by one, every recipient of what’s called the Mink Farmers Research Foundation. It’s a foundation whose sole purpose is to aid research to benefit the fur farm industry. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
I love fire, be it around a campfire with friends or when consuming an empty fur farm, animal laboratory or luxury condominium built on the homes of my animal relations. - Former ALF member and PETA grantee Rodney Coronado in Earth First! Journal (September 1, 2003)
All the federal agents in the United States will not stop more actions of this sort. - Convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado on property destruction in the 20th anniversary issue of the Earth First! Journal.
I think [food producers] should appreciate that we’re only targeting their property. Because frankly I think it’s time to start targeting them. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
Every time a police agency pepper-sprays or uses pain-compliance holds against our people, their cars should burn. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
Here’s a little model I’m going to show you here. I didn’t have any incense, but -- this is a crude incendiary device. It is a simple plastic jug, which you fill with gasoline and oil. You put in a sponge, which is soaked also in flammable liquid -- I couldn’t find an incense stick, but this represents that. You put the incense stick in here, light it, place it -- underneath the ‘weapon of mass destruction,’ light the incense stick -- sandalwood works nice -- and you destroy the profits that are brought about through animal and earth abuse. That’s about two dollars. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
More than anything we applied arson, and effectively we destroyed -- um, let’s see -- the Northwest Fur Breeders Cooperative in Edmonds, Washington, which we hit a week later after OSU. We hit Washington State University’s Eastern Washington experimental fur farm. We did get seven coyotes out of there, six mink, and ten mice … We burned down a fur farm that was on the market to be sold, in Oregon also. We went to the Michigan State University’s experimental fur farm program and destroyed thirty-two years of research, by using fire once again, and rescued two mink from there. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
A lot of people think that -- Oh my god, that’s going too far, you know. People can support bringing animals out of labs, but they can’t support arson. Well, I’m sorry. I’m not here to, to please people. I’m not here to win the support of people. I’m here to represent my animal relations who are suffering this very second. And I don’t care what anybody says about what I do to achieve their freedom. - SHAC rally, Edison, New Jersey (November 30, 2002)
As a direct-action warrior, it made a lot of sense to me to attack institutions in the fur trade … We need to destroy them by any means necessary. - "Conference on Organized Resistance," American University (January 26, 2003)
Bruce Friedrich
Vegan Campaign Coordinator
If you can take Ronald McDonald and turn him into a psychotic, bloody butcher … that’s going to adversely affect McDonald’s’ stock price. - “Animal Rights 2002” convention (July 2, 2002)
[Eating meat] is not your personal decision, any more than, you know, whether somebody beats their child is their personal decision. - “Animal Rights 2002” convention (June 29, 2002)
If we really believe that these animals do have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then, of course we’re going to be, as a movement, blowing stuff up and smashing windows. For the record, I don’t do this stuff, but I do advocate it. I think it’s a great way to bring about animal liberation … I think it would be a great thing if all of these fast-food outlets, and these slaughterhouses, and these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it’s perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows, and everything else along the line. Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it. - “Animal Rights 2001” convention (July 2, 2001)
McVeigh's decision to go vegetarian groups him with some of the world's greatest visionaries. - Bruce Friedrich praising Oklahoma City bomber and mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh, for choosing a vegetarian last meal
[I]t’s like letting the World Bank or the Ku Klux Klan open up a booth here. - Bruce Friedrich complaining about meat being served at the 2004 World Social Forum
If we really believe that animals have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then, of course we’re going to be, as a movement, blowing things up and smashing windows … I think it’s a great way to bring about animal liberation … I think it would be great if all of the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it's perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows ... Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it. - Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s vegan campaign coordinator, at the “Animal Rights 2001” conference