Talkers, dividers, & doing the FBI’s work: New Statement from Kevin | Support Kevin Olliff And Tyler Lang, jailed animal rights activists

Click title for a link to a letter from prison. Kevin is an animal rights activist that was put in jail for being in possession of a large bolt cutter. He is serving a 2.5 year sentence in an Illinois prison. The isolation of his situation causes one to think about the world of activism. In this piece, which I found here of all places, he notes that people in the movement are more interested in tearing apart their own than actually focusing on the cause. Being an activist seems to require allegiance to a whole set of labyrinthine rules, that after a while, turns people bitter and mean. Well, that seems to be what we have left standing in Lake Worth now. It's an interesting read from a person who is presented with the gift of involuntary self-reflection. Click title for link.

 I am lucky that I will never know a fraction of those animals’ hardships, but I do know that one of the hardest aspects of life in a human prison is the constant feeling of others looking over my shoulder. Guards look over my shoulder for adherence to prison regulations, inmates look over my shoulder for conformity to their culture, feds look over my shoulder to catch me slipping on recorded phone calls and visits. There is no escape.
And yet, regrettably, this problem will not end with my incarceration. That is because the talkers and dividers in my own movement love looking over the shoulders of others. I prefer my animal rights with only four guidelines, but these people have more rules than a parole officer. They insert themselves into activist’s private lives without a warrant or probable cause. And they insist on ideological rigors unrivaled by the FBI. When it comes to taking the focus off the animals, they are better cops than the cops.

Ever hear our local band of activists talk about the evils of conformity? If you take a look at them as a group, they are almost Amish-like in their conformist zeal.