Friday, June 26th - Sunday, June 28, 2009 Let Live Conference Report The 2nd Annual Let Live Grassroots Animal Rights Conference was held at Portland State University from Friday 6/26 to Sunday 6/28. Win Animal Rights collective founder, Camille Hankins, was invited to participate in panel discussions with topics running the gamut from home to street demonstrations and general anti-vivisection campaigning. A highlight of the conference was an hour long presentation called HLS: The Final Nail, which updated grassroots activists about the status of the global SHAC campaign. Activists with Win Animal Rights, who traveled to Portland, were available to chat with conference participants throughout the weekend. The WAR exhibit table was nestled in with the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, SHAC North America and Farm Animal Rights Movement. Very excellent company indeed! Brand new activists rubbed elbows with seasoned veterans in a comfortable mutually supportive environment. Information was freely exchanged and the young activists taught new tricks to the oldsters and vice versa. The passion and high energy level of the participants made the atmosphere electric. During the conference a Farmer’s Market was held outside the University building. The berries were the best we have ever tasted! The dorm room accommodations were sparse (as they should be in an environmentally conscious building) but fun…….reminded many of us of our college dorm room days. The low cost and very convenient rooms (right across the street from where the conference was held) made this a very affordable and enjoyable conference experience. The Saturday night get together at the Bye & Bye was wonderful and very much appreciated. Good vegan food, low cost drinks at a vegan bar….what could possibly be any better? And of course, any grassroots conference would not be a success if it did not inspire some attempt to turn “words into action”. Local activists joined with conference participants, who had traveled from far and wide to attend the conference. Dozens of activists joined together and let their voices speak as one, for our brother and sister animals, who cannot speak for themselves. WAR wishes to thank the Let Live Foundation for organizing and sponsoring this wonderful conference. We urge our supporters to check Let Live out and to support them in their future endeavors.
Following are the demo reports published by Portland Indymedia: Post Let Live Demonstrations Report Back Le Pigeon, at SE 8th & Burnside, and Sel Gris, at SE 18th & Hawthorne, weren't expecting 50+ activists to roll up on Saturday night to call them out on grotesque animal abuses. Charged chanting and severe shaming went non-stop for almost an hour at each foie gras restaurant Saturday night. Force-feeding geese and ducks until they die is a cruel tradition for a disgusting delicacy of despair. You can do what you want, I'm going to act to remove foie gras from menus and markets whenever possible. Dr. Eliott Spindel was cooling out in his Lake Oswego castle on Sunday night when around 40 demonstrators, most with their identities concealed behind bandannas and hoodies, sent him vocal hell for a half hour. Next, Ungar Furs owner Horst Grim was paid a visit all the way in Happy Valley where the defenders of fur bearers raised an uproar for another 30 minutes. Just after the activists drove away in a bio-diesel bus named "Cool", a cop cited a legal observer for littering when a piece of video camera tape wrapper was accidentally dropped. Otherwise they were as kind as defenders of animal abusers and greedy corporate capitalism could be. The weekday demonstrations at Nicolas Ungar Furs will recommence tomorrow from 9am until 5pm. Extended hour days will happen occasionally and someone will post that here to encourage extra support for the animals. Think of living from birth until your dying day in a cage with a wire floor. Think of a steel leg-hold trap snapping shut with force that crushes your bones and your options are chewing through your leg or waiting up to a week for the trapper to return and smash your body by stomping. Think being clubbed to death as your blood stains red the otherwise white vastness of arctic Canada's ice. These are disturbing and unconscionable experiences that will not stop unless they are stopped by someone. Animal Rights is sliding into center stage in a cultural war of truth and outright lies. Fur and vivisection are unnecessary traditional exploits which society is bettered to bury, rather than discarding bottomless piles of tortured corpses and feeding fur bearer's brood their dead parent's flesh. |
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