Peter Young Speaks at the Long Haul, 1/9/08: video

Peter discusses that after his work doing vegan outreach and the like he reached his point of no return when a friend accidentally discovered a chicken slaughterhouse in an industrial section of Seattle. He describes numerous visits to this slaughterhouse and other industrial animal facilities which led to his releasing of thousands of fur-bearing animals in 1997.

The tail-end of this section of video misses Peter's brief recounting of the last two fur farms hit in Wisconsin during his two-week road trip. He then skips over his years as a federal fugitive and goes into his arrest in the next video segment.

Peter starts here with his arrest, charges, and prison time after being a federal fugitive.

He then moves into the next portion of his talk and emphasizes the importance of finding out what's happening in your neighborhood with animals. To make his point, he lists a couple of local Berkeley businesses and institutions that misuse animals that he was able to learn about in a few minutes by simply looking on the internet.

Peter discusses a lynx fur farm he once saw that held more lynxes than exist wild in the entire U.S. It's seeing such atrocities first-hand that haunts activists and compels them to take direct action.

Missing here, at the end, is Peter's discussion of returning to Seattle after prison, finding that most of his friends no longer were active, with two from the SHAC7 having been imprisoned (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/04/18/45062.php).

Peter discusses how after finding himself alone in Seattle he began to question the direct action conventional wisdom of never acting alone. By following such advice, Peter ended up with a co-defendent who turned state's evidence against him, and he has rethought what is actually required to pull off successful direct actions.

Missing here at the end are examples of simple direct actions individuals could do by themselves, up to and including things like his emptying a mink farm which could have been done by a single individual.

Peter says that "Behind the Mask" was not intended to entertain but rather to confront all us us with our own inaction, pulling the mask away from the people in the movie so that we see not them but ourselves. He emphasized that there are no experts in direct action or animal rights actions. Every single one of us is an animal liberator.

"Behind the Mask: The Story Of The People Who Risk Everything To Save Animals"
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/12/04/18335119.php

Behind the Mask torrent
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/05/18470290.php?show_comments=1#18470319