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Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror

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Caper's in the Churchyard: Animal Rights in the Age of Terror is an almost masterpiece. I say almost ONLY because the book ended before I was ready; Lee Hall held my wrapt attention from Page 1.

Hall's book is so powerful and convincing in its analysis of the modern day animal rights movement that you'd be hard-pressed to find any glaring errors; she takes on the whole movement, and many of its Sacred Cows, to make the point that there really barely IS a rights movement; in the United States, at least, it's about welfare, not rights, and much of the sheer stupidity exhibited by many of those in positions of power and visibility within the movement do nothing more than mock the movement as a whole.

Much of this book is about violence, and how brutality in any of its manifestations is completely antithetical to animal rights. That's the part of this book that is stunningly brilliant. Hall minces no words in taking to task the multitudes who argue violence as a necessary form of direct action of behalf of animals. Hall instead argues that animal rights, by its very nature, is a peace movement. She is passionate, articulate and persuasive in making the case.

This book should be required reading for every person involved in the Animal Rights/Vegan community.

But I do have a complaint: Lee Hall does one heck of a job deconstructing the mess that is Animal Rights, but what she fails to do (and to be fair, doesn't attempt) is to outline what the movement could or should be. For me, this is a glaring omission. After feeling very inspired by her words, I found myself feeling very lost, too. Where do we go from here?

That said, this book impacted me more than any other book on the subject that I've ever read. Period. I'm crossing my finger's that Hall becomes a louder voice in a community full of loud-mouths---people who are more interested, it seems, in being provocative, shocking and offensive than in changing the course of public opinion.

Read this book. Please.

I thought I knew what this book was going to say, and I thought I'd heard it all before. But no one has yet captured what Lee Hall has to say, nor said it so well. When I was reading the book, I kept thinking that I wanted to send quotes to people, but the quotes were numerous and paragraphs long. Some things can't be summarized or blogged or trimmed down to pamphlet size. The only thing you can do is read the whole book for yourself. You won't regret it.

This is a must-read book that offers a clear vision of what it means to advocate for animal rights. The author brings to the table an understanding of animal rights as a social justice issue, making a compelling case for veganism as direct action for animals.

"Capers in the Churchyard" is incredibly well-researched, with fascinating insights into the history of the animal rights movement. Hall provides numerous examples that point out the absurdity of utilizing tactics of intimidation and domination to foster respect for animals. The folly of regulating animal industries to curb abuses, while ignoring the fundamental use of animals, is also fully examined.

So, where does the path lie? Hall demonstrates, with great optimism and humor, that we lay the groundwork for animal rights by living and positively representing the principles of veganism.

I highly recommend you read this book.

A must read for any serious animal advocate!

Lee Hall has written a tremendously important work in Capers in the Churchyard - a must-read for any serious animal advocate. Those interested in the animal rights movement or any other ethical social movements will also find this book to be an asset.
Taking us beyond slogans and one-line chants we've become accustomed to associating with animal advocacy, Hall leads us through the complex issues at hand of animal use in all forms -- not missing the uses within social movements themselves. Using up-to-date information and real-world examples, Hall leads the reader through a maze of animal industry practices and activists' reactions. Basing its conclusions on well documented and researched examples, the book distinguishes ethical conduct from that which distracts from it. Sorting through the amazing variety of mindsets within one movement, Hall brings to light a conclusion which may be startling for many to see in print, but which once prompted, we realize we always knew.
The book stands firm on its belief that animal rights is a legitimate goal, while exploring the possibility that some prominent speakers may be leading the movement towards its own extinction by missing the point that the use of violence is domination, and thus contradicts a movement based on a claim of respect for others. While acknowledging that animal-rights theory is indeed considered a radical thought and extreme for the mainstream of humans as it would require an upheaval of human society as we know it, Hall correctly claims that extreme and violent need not be synonymous, nor should they be.
Hall uses wit and superb writing skills to provide an entertaining experience on subjects that are normally dry reads, keeping the pages turning while advancing the argument that it is time for the movement to begin an introspective analysis of itself. This book offers all of the tools needed to lead the readers to their own conclusions.
In an age when violence is so very common, here comes forth an individual willing to offer an alternative. It's a simple request - to create a more compassionate world with our own actions and conscientious decisions, and to accept the empowerment through which we can create true revolutionary change.
Hall is a freethinker who brings a fresh view of personal responsibility into a movement that has for too long pointed ethical fingers away instead of into the mirror of morality. This book is something for activists to welcome, for it changes the terrain of activism into a much more beautiful place.

I just finished "Capers" and loved it... I think it got the heart of animal rights better than any book I've read, and I think it is really needed in the animal rights movement to have someone stand up and say what Lee says in this book.

Of all the animal rights books I've read so far, I honestly think Lee pins down animal rights the best. I hope many people will read "Capers" and take its message to heart- I beleive the future of the animal rights movement will benefit enormously if they were to do so. Indeed, I think "Capers" is a compass to where the animal rights movement should go. It has helped me put together what I've been thinking about animal rights, and I know it has given me the direction to affect change.

"[I]f any domination is reinforced so is the whole culture that's based on hierarchy and that teaches hierarchy," writes legal scholar and animal advocate Lee Hall, in Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror. Released July 2006, Hall's book is essentially about domination and subordination (primarily of nonhumans, but also of human animals) that has become pervasive throughout the animal rights' movement.

Drawing a compelling comparison between the non-abolitionist sector of animal rights' activists-that is, those who do not ask for nonhuman animals' complete freedom-and those who use violence to attempt to achieve the end goal of animal rights, Hall's work states that neither of these groups believe true animal freedom can be achieved in our lifetimes. And that, apparently, is enough to give up on the goal of even working towards it.

Hall challenges those who believe violence works, asking, "Copying the activities of war-makers or soldiers forcing people to behave or not to behave in certain ways-this perpetuates the daily social control by some authoritative force. Other people are not the enemy of animal rights; if there is an enemy at all, it is the tendency to depersonalize them." In other words, violence has been the mainstream for so long that peace would be the truly revolutionary change.

Both participating in violent solutions and working towards getting animals' bigger cages are ways of working within the system. What we need is a radical change where hierarchies are abolished, whether that means man over woman, white over black, or human over nonhuman.

Does throwing a flower pot at a bunch of clerks or digging up a grave really work if our end goal is to eliminate hierarchies and the violence that contaminates them? Hall, and writer-psychologist Jeffrey Masson, who authored the book's foreword, do not believe so. Indeed, Masson writes, "I have an old and very strong opinion about emotions: they cannot be forced." Masson than goes on to say the best method for convincing others is persuasion. After all, if a person truly changes how he or she is thinking, he or she can convince others of what he or she has learned. "If he merely desists out of fear, he will not carry any kind of message to others, but will feel resentment, which is sure to find expression is some different act of cruelty."

Masson and Hall ask us to think seriously about the best in activism and how to model a completely new idea for others who might have never thought about it. When our own diets and our whole lives stand for treating others with respect, we are in the best position to convince others we're on to something big. -L.Long

This is absolutely the best book ever written on animal rights, what works and what does not. I rarely get speechless, but I don't know where to start (or stop) praising Lee Hall for outlining the path we must follow to achieve true abolition of humanity's custom of enslaving any beings defined as non-human.

But Capers in the Churchyard is much more than that. To quote Hall, "The advent of animal rights philosophy would mean the most comprehensive peace movement ever known. Not only would it turn swords into ploughshares; it would dedicate those ploughshares to an agriculture of peace."

I finished the book at 3 am --it was a page-turner. I just couldn't put it down. The book is really hard to discuss in detail within the confines of a brief summary, because every word of it deserves discussion. This book will clear away the convoluted notions that proliferate within the advocacy community. It will allow the reader to appreciate the simplicity and effectiveness of nonviolence. I plan to use it as a topic amongst animal-rights discussion fora; it will be my leading reference book.

Lee Hall is hope personified.


Chris Kelly

(Originally posted on SuperVegan.com)

Recent headlines bring news that attacks on laboratories by animal rights extremists in Britain have declined by as much as fifty percent in the past year. The reasoning for this is certainly complicated, but most definitely interesting to consider for those active in the animal rights movement. Shedding light on the issue of terrorism and animal rights is Lee Hall's new book Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror (Nectar Bat Press, July 2006), with an introduction by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. Hall is the current legal director for the group Friends of Animals and authors the column, "Movement Watch."

While the book seems to meander between many topics in a somewhat unstructured manner, many of the topics take head on issues within the animal rights movement most are too cautious to approach. The subtitle of the book speaks to the larger issue on the minds of many as the terms terrorist and animal rights activist are all too commonly linked in the minds of those in government and the media. Though tactics such as boycotts, protests, and undercover investigations are by no means terrorist acts, other acts committed by certain groups and individuals with the clear intent of invoking fear, and arguably terror, in particular individuals to promote an animal rights agenda are causing this connection, an issue to which Hall's book speaks. By looking at the Newchurch, England campaign against a family-run farm where guinea pigs were breed which took place over a six-year span from which the book takes its title, as well as others, Hall questions some of the contradictions of the tactics of more aggressive campaigns.

Additionally, much of the controversy for Lee Hall comes from the reoccurring disagreements within the movement between the welfarist vs. abolitionist mentality. For example, the discussion of the use of birth control by the state to control the population of wild horses has brought divisive lines between the campaign work of groups such as Friends of Animals, arguably abolitionist, and the Humane Society, arguably welfarist. Hall writes, "The welfare group's agreement to add another layer of control over the animals without disturbing their valuation as resources distinguishes animal welfare management from an animal-rights approach." This is not to say that all of the topics addressed are boiled down to a polarity between these points, however it is clearly an issue of great contention and Hall addresses the issue on many different fronts throughout the book.

The book is a good read for those looking to examine tactics within the movement and consider what the larger implications of these campaign tactics may be beyond the particular campaign and how it may be perceived by those outside the movement. Though it's hard to imagine handing someone on the street the "Handy Pull-Out Guide to Animal Rights" and having the reader understand what it is we as a movement really want to happen and how, the point that the movement should have something so straight forward and handy is not lost. Book such as Hall's cause those of us within the movement to take the time to examine in what direction we are going and how best we might achieve the ends which we seek to achieve.

Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror is a swift read, but a long mental journey. I feel the same sentiments as Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson when he writes in the book's foreward, "[The author, Lee Hall] thinks further than I have thought about certain areas, and I am thrilled to be able to follow her on this extraordinary mental adventure." Indeed, while reading the book, I was introduced to ways of thinking that are different from anything I have ever read in the literature, or heard at the conferences I've attended.

In this thin volume, Hall explores what the philosophy of animal rights was, is, and could potentially be. In Hall's view, the modern animal rights movement is actually an animal welfare movement in masquerade. For instance, the term `humane slaughter' is just as ironic as the idea that thousands of animals can be freed from cages each year only to be replaced by more animals in those very cages.

In a nutshell, Hall writes that "the guiding principle here isn't to help [animals], but to aspire not to interfere." If animals were not interfered with in the first place, they would not be subject to exploitation. The most basic step one can take to stop interfering with animals is to stop consuming animal products. The cessation of other interferences will soon follow. Essentially, Hall's vision is for the animal rights movement to become "the most comprehensive peace movement ever known."

One of the most striking points in the book is the idea that graphic images of animal exploitation serve to promote animal welfare not animal rights. The fact is we shouldn't need these graphic images to tell us all the horrors of animal use. All we need to know is that animals are being used against their will. And that is wrong.

Overall, of course, Hall denounces violence (unto other animals, unto other humans, unto ourselves, and unto the environment we all share). I fell right into stride with Hall on this idea. For those of us who don't feel we fit in with the passiveness of animal welfarists nor the violence of other activists, and who strictly oppose the exploitation of other beings, we have a comrade in Lee Hall.

I absolutely devoured this book and its concise ideas. For me, this is as influencial as Singer's Animal Liberation or Becoming Vegan. Luckily, Friends of Animals is practically giving it away, so I have ordered another copy from their site. I owe Lee Hall a debt of gratitude for this book.