New Book: Liberate – Animal Liberation, Above The Law
Over the last decade, I have been slowly (very slowly) compiling writings and lecture transcripts into book form, and that book has arrived.
Liberate comes in at nearly 400 pages with essays spanning nearly 20 years.
A sample of the subjects I cover:
- Breaking into farms and labs.
- Researching ALF targets.
- Fugitive stories of being hunted by the FBI.
- History of ALF lab raids.
- How to liberate animals from farms (and more).
- Prison survival for activists.
- Anecdotes and lessons from being targeted law enforcement.
- The outlaw’s guide to security culture.
- The “seven laws of militance.”
- Actionable lessons and tactics from the Animal Liberation Front.
…and more.
Table of Contents
The story of Liberate
Even at a glacial writing and speaking pace, over 10 years the material adds up. But I never thought I was within a light-year of having a books-worth of content, and never considered doing one.
Then several years ago, a book editor asked me to submit an article specifically on how people are caught for Animal Liberation Front actions. As it happened, I had given a talk on this exact subject many years prior. So I went into my archives to locate my notes. But with the passing of many years, the hunt was fruitless. And with no known recording of the talk and forced to write from scratch or decline the invitation, I choose the latter.
I was left to lament the transience of messages delivered from a podium. All that remained for the effort was a stack of boarding passes, cheap applause, occasional audience feedback, and a cobbled- together folder on my computer of video recordings and audio files from the rare organizer (with more initiative than me) who thought ahead to preserve the moment.
This inspired me to take steps to preserve what content I did have in my possession, mostly written. The mission took me across eight retired computers, dozens of boxes, email accounts with forgotten passwords, and even college libraries to photocopy published essays I had no backup of.
Despite my clear failure as an archivist, I was able to cobble together about 150 pages of material – most of it unpublished or seen by few.
When I saw the material came in at a combined 150 pages, I had a brief thought that there could be a book here. But it wasn’t enough.
I advanced to Phase Two of my archivist mission: rounding up the very few lecture recordings that existed from my time speaking at colleges and elsewhere. The recordings were few, but I did preserve about a dozen records that I thought had been lost forever (or never knew existed at all).
At some point I learned you can pay people $1 a minute to transcribe recordings. After handing off my files to them, they returned a megafile of over 15 hours of edited transcriptions. I edited these transcripts down by over 80%, and pushed the project to over 300 pages of material.
The transcripts – along with other loose ends comprised of published writings, unpublished writings, and podcast interviews – came together to form Liberate.
In Part One, I immediately betray the book’s central mission of “actionable content” with an assemblage of personal interviews & writings, absent of any tactical guidance and merely contextualizing what’s to come.
In Part Two, the action. The principles of moving from idea to execution. When many talk but few strike, what is the exact architecture of beliefs that creates the warrior mindset? I’ve spent years looking at this question and deliver specific insights.
In Part Three, two short entries on the subject of Research & Investigation. Because you can’t shut down what you can’t find.
In Part Four, I move from high-level mindset to hyper-specific: Working outside the law to rescue animals, and the history of those who have. From the laser-focused tactical (“How They Got In”) to the esoteric and editorial (“The Enemy Within”), this is the section specific to those who have broken the law – or want to.
In Part Five, guerrilla media-generation. When an action (of any kind) happens, the work doesn’t end there. You insure an impact that extends far beyond by accessing the media through a secret back door. This is the poorman’s public relations formula: what to do when you have no money, no contacts, perhaps not even a story. I open up my media playbook to generate massive publicity without PR firms or media connections.
In Part Six, what happens after you get caught: prison. Few subjects relevant to the animal liberator are both so under-reported and so willfully misrepresented when they are.
In Part Seven, how to respond to attempts by the government to stop ourmwork. Passivity will always find an excuse. The true threat we face isn’t “government repression,” it’s how we respond to it.
Then, Outtakes. With so much left on the editing room floor across dozens of lecture transcripts and interviews, I offer a small sampling of excerpts acrossm many years. When I felt an item had value that wasn’t covered elsewhere – eitherma useful point, historical curiosity, or engaging anecdote – it was included (in 9-point font) here.
The book ends with a deliberately-positioned message to any animal liberation activist advancing in years, and how the greatest threat to your long term efficacy isn’t the FBI, it’s irrelevance through blind conformity to your “radical activist” identity.
My mission with Liberate is explicit: To write the book I wish I had access to when I was 18 and eager to shortcut past the learning curve of taking effective action.
Thanks for reading.
-Peter Young
Where To Order…
The book is about a cheap as it gets for something almost 400 pages: $9.95 on Amazon, and a little more everywhere else.
