Your free book to action animal rights Grr! Graphics for Animal Liberation How to Do Animal Rights - And Win the War on Animals Contents About Chapter 1 Introduction to Doing Animal Rights 1. The Broad Setting 2. Mass Extinction 3. The Animal Holocaust Chapter 2 Know Your Animal Ethics & Animal Rights 1. Animal Ethics Background Ethics Importance of Animal Ethics Glossary Now a Biff From History How to Proceed? Ethical Theories Ethical Theories Compared Choosing an Ethical Theory Do Philosophical Ideas Work? 2. Animal Rights What are Animal Rights? Background to Animal Rights Major Dates for Rights Animal Rights Theory Fundamental Animal Ethical Positions Variations on Animal Rights Are Rights a Cure-all? Universal Declaration on Animals Arguments For & Against Animal Rights 3. Comparing Animal Philosophies Animal Ethics vs Animal Rights Animal Rights vs Animal Welfare Animal Rights vs Conservation Deep Ecology Conclusion Chapter 3 Campaigning Methods for Animal Rights 1. Introduction 2. Campaigning Where to Begin? Keeping Going Ten Essential Campaigning Tips More Tips 3. Civil Disobedience What Is Civil Disobedience Civil Disobedience & Animal Rights Arguments For & Against Civil Disobedience 4. Direct Action What is Direct Action? Examples of Animal Rights Direct Action Individual vs Mass Direct Action Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty The Battle of Brightlingsea Inset: Background to Brightlingsea Comparing Direct Actions Direct Action vs Civil Disobedience Efficacy of Direct Action 5. Action Planning What is an Action Plan? Why an Action Plan? Who Should Produce the Action Plan? Before You Begin Distinguish Operations From Administrations Creating Your Action Plan You Should Be Smart You Should Also SWOT Make It Happen Review It A Simple Action Plan Template 6. Lobbying Who Can Lobby? What & Whom to Lobby Start Lobbying How to Lobby Lobbying Techniques 7. Picketing What is Picketing? AR Picketing is Like Industrial Picketing How to Picket 8. Starting a Group What to Do? Name & Logo Finding Members A Constitution? The Group Committee Group Success Or Failure Newsletters Fundraising 9. Publicity 10. Leafleting Design Printing Distribution Posters & Placards Other Media 11.News Media Media Tips A Feature Article? The Letters Page News Release The Radio Radio Tips 12. Internet The Web Email Create Your Own Web Site Designing Your Web Site Capturing Viewers Discussion Boards Chapter 4 Activities for Animal Rights  1. Undercover Investigator  2. Video Activist  3. Animal Friendly Traveller  4. Preacher  5. Animal Rescuer  6. Investigative Reporter  7. Media Watcher  8. Philosopher  9. Flyer 10. Personal Activist 11. Animal Lawyer 12. Politician 13. Prisoner Supporter 14. Public & School Speaker 15. Aerial Snooper 16. Scientific Investigator 17. Solo Information Worker 18. Street Theatre Actor 19. Teacher 20. Voluntary Worker Abroad Chapter 5 The Law & Animal Rights 1. Terrorism Background Terrorism Defined Animal Extremism & Terrorism Does AR Extremism Work in Practice? 2. Violence or Nonviolence? Can We Justify Violence? Kinds of Violence Views For & Against Violence Is Violence Efficacious? Conclusion 3. The Law - US & Britain United States FBI vs Extremists Britain Extremist Tactics Establishment Fights Back 4. Police Arrest In the Street & At Your Door At the Police Station Your Tactics Know Your Rights Remaining Silent Your Lawyer Suing the Police Chapter 6 Assorted Animal Rights Activists 1.  Steven Best 2.  John Lawrence 3.  Andrew Linzey 4.  Richard Martin 5.  The McLibel Two 6.  Ingrid Newkirk 7.  Jill Phipps 8.  Henry Salt 9.  Henry Spira 10. Peter Singer 11. Tom Regan 12. Richard D Ryder Chapter 7 Animal Numbers Raised & Killed 1.  Summary 2.  Chickens 3.  Pigs 4.  Beef Cattle 5.  Fish 6.  Meat Consumption 7.  Fur-bearers 8.  Experimental Animals Chapter 8.  Extras! 1.  Mutilations of Farm Animals 2.  The Five Freedoms 3.  Painism 4.  The Forgotten Fur 5.  The Golden Rule 6.  Human Overpopulation 7.  Climate Change 8.  Think Like an Animal Appendix 1 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity. Appendix 2 Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare.

How to Do Animal Rights - And Win the War on Animals Chapter 4 Activities for Animal Rights 18. Street Theatre Actor for Animal Rights You can act for animal rights in more ways than one. Street theatre actors take their performance literally onto the streets: to street corners, market places, town squares and busy shopping centres. Serious street theatre performers can use their acting skills as a political weapon by circulating current ideas and exploring controversial social themes to influence social reform. Street theatre is an opportunity for you to probe the social, moral and political questions arising from animal rights. This is what the Mac Factor Street Theatre Group were doing in Belfast. They staged an anti-hunt performance in which a fox fights back to get the better of a whip-cracking red-coated huntsman. Performances were watched by crowds across the city centre and were co-ordinated by the League Against Cruel Sports as part of a campaign in 2007 to ban fox-hunting in northern Ireland. Street theatre is a tradition that people watch around the world, from San Francisco to Sidney, where audiences are as diverse and different as cosmopolitan London and remote rural India. It reaches even people who have never been to a regular theatre. Street theatre actors perform for anyone passing by with time to stop and watch them, and there is no entrance free. The genre is not 'outdoor theatre', where an indoor performance is entirely transferred with props, lighting and all to an outdoor arena, such as an amphitheatre, set aside for an audience to pay a fee for admission. Nor do merely acrobats, jugglers and fire-eaters dominate a street theatre. Your Street Theatre As street theatre actors your performing group is peripatetic, so you can only use minimal costumes and simple portable stage props. Your audiences may be largely composed of by-passers who have not come prepared to watch a play and are preoccupied with other things, which imposes a limitation on keeping your plays short. At a performance you could start off by singing or playing a loud instrument to attract people. When a sufficient number of onlookers have gathered around, you can begin. In the bustle and hubbub of a busy street you will have to be loud and larger than life and may employ humour, slapstick, song and lively dance to keep the attention of mixed crowds. You could perform independently or in conjunction with the campaigns of other animal rights groups. Either way you could deliver your message with more certainty by handing out literature about yourselves, your aims and your plays, and at the end of each play by holding a public discussion questioning its purpose (see The 'Y', below). With many street plays under your belt you would be in a good position to organise workshops to teach the art to other aspiring street theatre actors. Where to stage your performances? Go on tour to schools, factories and civic centres. Book a place at festivals and fairs. Act outside the headquarters of animal abusing companies, supermarkets, animal laboratories and zoos, especially if they constitute the theme of your act. Find out whether you require a licence from your local authority to stage acts and discussions in the street. If you need a licence and do not have one, be prepared to make a bolt for it if a policeman turns up to watch you! The 'Y' The 'Y Touring Theatre Company' is a leading theatre group founded in Britain in 1989 as part of the Central Young Mans Christian Association (known as the Y). Their aim is to shake up people's attitudes by creating quality theatre to highlight serious and perplexing contemporary issues. The company has toured throughout Britain and abroad. One of the Y's interests is ethics in science. To this end the playwright Judith Johnson wrote Every Breath for the Y. The play raises moral, social and scientific questions inherent in using animals in medical research, posing fundamental questions like whether you are right to put your kin above the lives of animals. It is intended for students aged 14 plus as part of their science, drama and religious education curricula. The Y have staged the play for thousands of school children nationally and have performed it for audiences at the annual Edinburgh Festival. Interestingly, Every Breath has received funding by a number of organisations and backing from all sides of the animal experimentation debate. The setting of the play is with a family in danger of breaking up because of the animal experimentation dispute. The four characters in the play are a teenage vegetarian campaigning peacefully to stop a university animal laboratory being built (shades of Cambridge University, see Animal Lawyer, Chapter 4); his older sister, a research student experimenting on rats; their mother, a single mum dedicated to her children; and her boyfriend, an odd job man from a rough background contemplating Buddhism, and who brings some light-heart humour to the serious nature of the performance. One of the principle aims of the Y Touring Theatre Company is to create an impartial arena for learning through debate. So following a performance they encourage the audience to discuss the issues raised by their play. Before performances the company distributes 'preparatory lessons' for teachers and students to prepare themselves with background information to make most opportunity of the play and subsequent debate. The premiere of the play at a school in London was followed by a "rowdy and combative discussion", according to one reviewer (1). What You Need The minimum necessary you need to be a street actor is: A burning desire to act and the recognition that you can satisfy it in the street. The skill of projecting your body movements and voice so that scores of people standing around you can comprehend what you are trying to convey. In short, you must be able to act with many distractions in a noisy crowd. Dedication and sufficient time, not just for acting but to devote to the planning, organising and rehearsing that go into each performance. Non-sensitivity, in that you do not want to be overly delicate when playing to a diminishing crowd. Your audience will definitely walk away if they get bored or are busy! Although onlookers do not pay an entrance fee some of them might throw you a few coins; so financial remuneration is nil or minor and you will have to support yourself some other way. But you never know if an impresario is in the crowd and about to discover you. Add to that the satisfaction of combining show biz with animal rights. References (1) Guardian. 14 March 2006. Links National Association of Street Artists. Artists & companies creating street and outdoor arts work in Britain.

How to Do Animal Rights - And Win the War on Animals. First published on the Web: April 2008. © Roger (Ben) Panaman, April 2008. All rights reserved.