In a pathetic attempt to be noticed, North American Animal Liberation Press Officer (NAALPO), Jason S. Miller, decided to send an email to a group of researchers, research institutions and pro-research groups (including SR).
In an email containing links to typical AR pseudo-science, misinformation and misanthropic philosophy, Jason kindly explained our future:
Your newly formed “vivisector resistance movement,” as exemplified by Speaking of Research and other whoring shills for your cozy little industry, will quickly sink into the moral cesspool over which it is constructed. Your blatant speciesism, torture, murder, and anachronistic scientific practices are doomed to extinction.
Charming. I must confess I almost feel honored that Speaking of Research gets a mention – could it be we’ve hit a nerve? With animal research helping develop the medicines of tomorrow (fighting swine flu, combating HIV and offering hope for DMD patients) it would seem that such methods are far from anachronistic. I also wonder if Miller has ever seen the inside of a lab? Animal welfare is of the highest priority as you can read in our “Why Animal Welfare Matters” blog post. Oh, and what on earth is a “vivisector resistance movement”?
The Vivisector Resistance Movement?
So who is this Jason Miller? Other than a member of NAALPO, an organization which reports on the violent actions of the Animal Liberation Front and the Animal Rights Militia, Miller is the founder of the “anarcho-veganist” website, Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC):
[TPC] approaches anti-capitalism and total liberation from an essentially anarcho-veganist position, as portrayed in the graphic above by the juxtaposition of the Boy Scout–a victim of one of the indoctrinating mechanisms for our imperialist, patriarchal, faux Christian, corporatist, statist, speciesist society–against the anarchist symbol.
It’s only missing “military industrial complex” and “marxism” to complete the hand (no, wait, there’s sections on the website for both of those…). Miller’s email might also have something to do with us ignoring his last hissy-fit written on TPC. Talking about the UCLA Pro-Test rally:
In that nauseating spectacle the unapologetic monkey-torturer, David Jentsch, and industry shill Tom Holder, the “founder” of Speaking of Research and a “founding member” of Pro-Test in the UK, whipped a crowd of adoring sycophants into a frenzy with a chant calling for animal testing.
Having seen some of Prof. Jentsch’s vervet monkeys I was impressed at the high standards of welfare – as well as the personal care and responsibility that Jentsch felt towards his animals. A far cry from Miller’s claims of “monkey torture”. However Miller falls into the mistaken belief that we could switch to “alternatives” tomorrow:
We have multiple other means by which we can advance our medical and scientific knowledge, including epidemiology, clinical testing, autopsies, biopsies, genetics, post-marketing drug research, computer modeling, tissue cultures, microdosing on human animals, personalized medicine, and nanotechnology
Check the “alternatives” page for scientific a deconstruction of this argument. A few intersting choices in his list – much genetics are studied in animals, particularly mice, where you can “knock out” a certain gene to see its effect on the animal and thus the phenotype of the gene. Such work offers hope to sufferers of genetic conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis and Duchennes Muscular Dystropy. Biopsies are done on animals except the animal rights movement tends to rebrand it “vivisection”. Personalized medicine is an ideal which will certainly require animal research in its creation. The fact is these methods are complementary on animal research, not alternatives.
Well Jason, I hope you’ve learnt something – and please stop emailing large groups of people to make spurious and misanthropic claims about the research you appear to know so little about.
Regards
Tom Holder
Filed under: Animal Rights News, News | Tagged: alternatives, animal liberation, animal liberation front, animal welfare, anti-capitalism, biopsy, email, holder, jason miller, jason s miller, jentsch, miller, NAALPO, north american animal liberation press office, pseudo-science, speaking of research, Thomas Paine's, Thomas Paine's Corner, Tom Holder, TPC, vivisection, vivisector, vivisector resistance movement
Interesting to see an anarchist, anti-capitalist, anti-progress, anti-technology, anti-human, use the internet to propagate his stupid ideas and threats. I guess he doesn’t see the contradiction. This is the best that Vlasak could recruit? I guess…
I think it’s the Swiss Army knife and the decoy bird on the weapon that makes the picture. I guess Jason had a lot of fun with his Thesaurus. As paraphrased from Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean, “There are a lot of long words in there, Sir; we’re naught but humble researchers. What is it that you want?”
Another bag of wank from Tom Holder!
“Having seen some of Prof. Jentsch’s vervet monkeys I was impressed at the high standards of welfare – as well as the personal care and responsibility that Jentsch felt towards his animals.”
Would those be the same vervet monkeys that wanker Jentsch so lovingly addicts to crystal meth and PCP?
Who’s desperate Tom? We ran your scrawny little arse out of the country, so you came to the US, started another row you won’t be able to finish, and proclaimed a victory after one pitiful demo.
If you think people are going to believe your rubbish, you’re a daft little bugger.
Read this—it’s spot on:
To date, the Animal Liberation Movement in the UK and US has shut down numerous animal breeders, stopped construction of a number of major research centers, and forced HLS off the New York Stock Exchange…..The global vivisection complex is a matrix of power-knowledge reflecting the centrality of science in postindustrial society. It is comprised of pharmaceutical industries, biotechnology industries, medical research industries, universities, and testing laboratories. All these institutions use animals to test and market their drugs; animals are the gas and oil without which corporate science machines cannot function. As corporations like Huntingdon Life Sciences and Chiron are global in scope and have clients throughout the world, animal liberation groups such as the ALF and Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC) are also global in their resistance. A seemingly local group like Stop Newchurch Guinea Pigs (NSGP), which waged aggressive war in an English village against a family who breed guinea pigs for research in England, is also part of the anti-globalization movement because the family they attacked – and ultimately shut down — supplied animals to the Global Vivisection Complex. Whatever the political views of anti-vivisectionists — whether libertarian, free market, socialist, or anarchist – they are monkeywrenching globalization from above. The direct action anti-vivisection movement disrupts corporate supply chains, thwarts their laboratory procedures, and liberates their captive slaves…..Besides the economic threat of the DAAVM, it also poses a strong philosophical and ideological threat by attacking the ideological legitimacy of animal-based “science.” The powerful, fact-based assault on the legitimacy of vivisection mounted by the DAAVM and animal rights movements is an assault on the authority of Science itself, an attack on the modern Church of Reason. The anti-vivisection movement exposes the fallacies of vivisection and reveals how science serves the interests of corporations such that objectivity is something to be bought and sold (e.g., junk science and falsified data to dispute global warming was funded by energy corporations such as Exxon-Mobil)…..Like the Christian church in its hey day, the popes and priests of Science are compelled to defend their authority and power by attacking and discrediting their opponents (in academia and elsewhere).
Bill Tarr
former SPEAK activist
Bill,
Speaking of wankers…. As we in the US would say, your [Bill Tarr] article is a load of crap. You scared the stock exchange into not listing HLS but only for a little while. It was eventually listed. The AR movement frequently resorts to threat of violence or actual violence against their targets. I’ve never heard a researcher say, “Believe our findings or we’ll firebomb your house!”
It would be a grave mistake on your part to think that your protest tactics will work everywhere. You may stand behind First Amendment rights (which you don’t have not being American) but you’d find a lot more willing to exercise their Second Amendment rights and more than willing to violate most of the rest.
Bill, you lost the argument pretty much as soon as you mentioned the “Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs” campaign. You call that a successful campaign? Digging up the remains of a grandmother and holding the family to ransom to get the body back… Even on a practical note you must have seen animal rights activism lose credibility over that one – and now a movement that could once fill Trafalgar square with 15,000 people can’t make 1/10th that amount.
You’ll also note that animal rights successes are few and far between in the UK since the movement overstepped itself and the government finally decided to put a halt to its violent campaigns – and they can’t even recruit new members because the youth have become so disillusioned with the AR movement.
You ran our arse out the country? I seem to remember SPEAK originally saying “this lab won’t be built”, then changing to “We will try to stop the lab being completed”, and finally to “well, despite us, they built the lab – let’s shout at it anyway” – could this explain the “former” in “SPEAK activist”?
Check your history. Perhaps check what actually happened – http://speakingofresearch.com/about/the-uk-experience/
Dave is correct. The solution to the first amendment problems is to exercise your second amendment rights.
That’s why those ALF boneheads prefer to bomb scientists in CA and not a big farm in Texas… At the very least they are smart enough to predict the results… However, in my opinion, CA scientists have had enough and I would not be surprised if many of them are now making sure they have exactly what they need to protect themselves and their families from these criminals.
Bill – why are you a “former” SPEAK activist? Did they kick you out? Or they were too moderate for you?
Bill Tarr you are a seriously deluded individual if you think that the SNGP campaign was successful, it’s probably the clearest example of a Pyrrhic victory to emerge from the the past 20 years of animal rights protesting in the UK. Yes, the campaign did eventually force the Hall family to shut down their breeding business, but at the cost of turning the liberal media and virtually the entire UK population against animal rights extremism.
Widespread disgust at the actions of animal rights extremists against the Hall family and many other villagers at Newchurch was one of the reasons why Pro-Test got such a warm welcome from the press when they launched their campaign in Oxford a few months later. A lot of people were sick of the actions of AR extremists, and worried that other minority causes might adopt the same tactics, so cheered those who were willing to make a public stand against them.
What I find most objectionable is the statement that the 700 people that showed up to Pro-Test for science on Apr 22 where any sort of “sycophants”. In fact, the people that participated in UCLA Pro-test were amongst the most dedicated, intelligent, focused, independent and committed group of people I have met. There are every bit the best of science and humanity – representatives of the millions of people who dedicate their life to knowledge and the advancement of human and animal welfare. Each and everyone of them are kinder, smarter and more caring people than Jason Miller or any of his defenders.
It should be obvious just how paralyzed by fear Jason and his colleagues are. Name calling and insults are their only weapons, while we have truth, honesty and forth-rightness on our side. I hope that they continue to deride and marginalize the vast number of people that clearly understand and endorse the value of biomedical research because it only continues to erode any lingering support they have for their cause.
I think it is critical to emphasize how bitter, angry and hateful Jason and all his colleagues are. They claim to be vehicles of kindness and support for living beings, but, in fact, they are the opposite. They claim that the loving students and colleagues that surround us are sycophants, but in fact, that word applies to no one more than themselves.