Category: Unoffensive Reports

We’ve kept quiet for a little while. It is mostly related to a lot of work behind the scenes and reorganising stuff, and it didn’t help that our website broke and the tech humans had to give it some love. It also is about burn out. After organising and giving talks for a few months whilst keeping up the internet presence, the lack of energy was starting to show.

Luckily, the team is growing and expanding and we are finding ways of splitting work and make things easier for everybody, but the first signs of burnout were showing for many of us. For that reason it was clear we needed to take a break, reanalyze, work on many things that needed fixing and get back to work stronger.

It did make us think that many of us in the activist community don’t really know how to take a break. It can become quite asphyxiating, thinking about all the wrongs we see in the world and not knowing how to fix them. Maybe even infuriating that regardless of what actions we take, the world never seems to change quick enough. It is hard to take a break through a storm.

“Aftershock: Confronting trauma in a violent world” has been a good book for us to reanalyze how we relate to trauma related activism as well as a great tool to aid others struggling with traumatic experiences. Regardless of how good that book might be, it doesn’t actually prepare you for the hard reality of taking a break.

We’ve asked a few folks within the collective to tell us what they feel is good self care to avoid (or to tenderly heal) burn out. Suggestions were varied because there is no one single recipe to help us all. Some folks mentioned long walks in the woods, watching easy TV shows, having sex, watching the wild be wild, cuddling animals or eating nice food. Joining other struggles where we don’t feel an urge to organise as we are less used to the community was also mentioned. Mindless vandalism, fucking with advertisements on the streets and shoplifting your heart out were also mentioned.

The only thing that was clear is that avoiding emotions was not a good way to deal with them.

We are animals. Part of our animal is to feel, and whilst we deprive the animal from one of our primal needs we are not just stopping ourselves from growing but also applying a very speciesist philosophy to our life.

So regardless of what your coping mechanisms are, regardless of your needs, allow for those emotions to come out and to evolve, making you a stronger, more effective and much more driven to the revolution.

And if you are struggling, remember that we are a community, that you are not alone and that change needs time. Reach out to others, take a break and let your comrades take the lead for a while. You’ll get through to the other side.

LOVE IS REVOLUTION.

Pic: Queens against RWE, because struggles are interconnected, because climate change is scary, and of course, because queers ALWAYS bash back!

We’ve kept quiet for a little while. It is mostly related to a lot of work behind the scenes and reorganising stuff, and it didn’t help that our website broke and the tech humans had to give it some love. It also is about burn out. After organising and giving talks for a few months whilst keeping up the internet presence, the lack of energy was starting to show.

Luckily, the team is growing and expanding and we are finding ways of splitting work and make things easier for everybody, but the first signs of burnout were showing for many of us. For that reason it was clear we needed to take a break, reanalyze, work on many things that needed fixing and get back to work stronger.

It did make us think that many of us in the activist community don’t really know how to take a break. It can become quite asphyxiating, thinking about all the wrongs we see in the world and not knowing how to fix them. Maybe even infuriating that regardless of what actions we take, the world never seems to change quick enough. It is hard to take a break through a storm.

“Aftershock: Confronting trauma in a violent world” has been a good book for us to reanalyze how we relate to trauma related activism as well as a great tool to aid others struggling with traumatic experiences. Regardless of how good that book might be, it doesn’t actually prepare you for the hard reality of taking a break.

We’ve asked a few folks within the collective to tell us what they feel is good self care to avoid (or to tenderly heal) burn out. Suggestions were varied because there is no one single recipe to help us all. Some folks mentioned long walks in the woods, watching easy TV shows, having sex, watching the wild be wild, cuddling animals or eating nice food. Joining other struggles where we don’t feel an urge to organise as we are less used to the community was also mentioned. Mindless vandalism, fucking with advertisements on the streets and shoplifting your heart out were also mentioned.

The only thing that was clear is that avoiding emotions was not a good way to deal with them.

We are animals. Part of our animal is to feel, and whilst we deprive the animal from one of our primal needs we are not just stopping ourselves from growing but also applying a very speciesist philosophy to our life.

So regardless of what your coping mechanisms are, regardless of your needs, allow for those emotions to come out and to evolve, making you a stronger, more effective and much more driven to the revolution.

And if you are struggling, remember that we are a community, that you are not alone and that change needs time. Reach out to others, take a break and let your comrades take the lead for a while. You’ll get through to the other side.

LOVE IS REVOLUTION.

Pic: Queens against RWE, because struggles are interconnected, because climate change is scary, and of course, because queers ALWAYS bash back!

Yesterday we opened an email with some incredible photos from a report and we decided it was time to come back. It has been very refreshing to relax, disconnect from social media and take a break and we feel like it is time to get back to work. 

We’ve been mainly at sanctuaries, helping out building sheds and cleaning poo. It seems to be quite a nice way to take care of our head and relax. Now we are heading back to Hambacher Forst to finish the treehouse and to get Liberate or Die organised and ready to go. 

There are a few new things coming to the page. A is for Anarchy is back from Tuesday, a new series on internet security and communications will pop up every two weeks on Thursdays and Incite, Conspire, Inspire should be ready to go giving folks recipes for disaster. We also want to start a series on the YPJ/YPG and the northern Syria struggle and we are really looking forward to it. 

That, plus your standard dose of Hit Reports and A is for Anarchy should get the page going and interesting enough once again. 

We are giving a workshop in London on the 26th of this month. We will be talking about security culture and history of the animal liberation movement and it would be great to see you all, so book the date off and let’s meet! We will upload an event shortly. 

We have also had a long chat about how to get back to where we were before losing our social media once again. We count on you to like, share and comment on our posts. Supporting us in ALL social media sites really help us to be able to reach out as many people as possible. 

As per our economic situation, we certainly are in a strange situation of uncertainty. Liberapay does not work as well as we though it would and Patreon has reiterated that we are no longer entitled to an account. Selling merch helps, but there isn’t enough profit to keep things running smooth. We will keep trying to work out ways to get it sorted, but until then supporting us over PayPal might e the best idea, so until we are able to receive direct debits through the platform, maybe setting up a reminder on your phone might do it if you’re interested in supporting us monthly. 

Let this be the day we start a revolution. 

Unoffensive Animal. 

Support us on PayPal:

[email protected]

Support us on Liberapay:

https://liberapay.com/UnoffensiveAnimal

Yesterday we opened an email with some incredible photos from a report and we decided it was time to come back. It has been very refreshing to relax, disconnect from social media and take a break and we feel like it is time to get back to work. 

We’ve been mainly at sanctuaries, helping out building sheds and cleaning poo. It seems to be quite a nice way to take care of our head and relax. Now we are heading back to Hambacher Forst to finish the treehouse and to get Liberate or Die organised and ready to go. 

There are a few new things coming to the page. A is for Anarchy is back from Tuesday, a new series on internet security and communications will pop up every two weeks on Thursdays and Incite, Conspire, Inspire should be ready to go giving folks recipes for disaster. We also want to start a series on the YPJ/YPG and the northern Syria struggle and we are really looking forward to it. 

That, plus your standard dose of Hit Reports and A is for Anarchy should get the page going and interesting enough once again. 

We are giving a workshop in London on the 26th of this month. We will be talking about security culture and history of the animal liberation movement and it would be great to see you all, so book the date off and let’s meet! We will upload an event shortly. 

We have also had a long chat about how to get back to where we were before losing our social media once again. We count on you to like, share and comment on our posts. Supporting us in ALL social media sites really help us to be able to reach out as many people as possible. 

As per our economic situation, we certainly are in a strange situation of uncertainty. Liberapay does not work as well as we though it would and Patreon has reiterated that we are no longer entitled to an account. Selling merch helps, but there isn’t enough profit to keep things running smooth. We will keep trying to work out ways to get it sorted, but until then supporting us over PayPal might e the best idea, so until we are able to receive direct debits through the platform, maybe setting up a reminder on your phone might do it if you’re interested in supporting us monthly. 

Let this be the day we start a revolution. 

Unoffensive Animal. 

Support us on PayPal:

[email protected]

Support us on Liberapay:

https://liberapay.com/UnoffensiveAnimal

Hey folks! We hope you’re keeping well and as radical as ever. We’ve been relaxing, fucking with the huge advertisements in city centres and planing Liberate Or Die (We will release the event info VERY soon!) 

We are really fucking privileged to be able to make this post and we have a few little announcements. The first one is that we’ve managed (barely) to stock up our merch, so there are all sizes, all designs, on hoodies and tees back up on our website. We’ve taken a while to do so as we had no funds to buy more, but we’ve realised as our PayPal grows smaller and smaller that we needed to get more merch if we want to survive as a collective. So in these real fucking tough money times after losing Patreon, if you can support us and want some cool merch, head straight up to our website and grab yourself whatever the fuck you fancy!

Here is where things get interesting; Underground Badger Syndicate is about to release some seriously sick merch and we are super lucky to have received a hoodie to raffle. UBS will not be printing hoodies, only tees, so this XL hoodie will be a one of a kind kinda ting and it is a big thing that they are happy for us to give it away! We also have found four of our DIY Defend patches that we are gonna throw in the mix (they have been out of stock for fucking ages) so FIVE people that order something between today and Sunday night will receive a lil something else in the post with the order! 

To top up that shit, Eat Cops Not Pigs has sent us some amazing stickers so we will be putting them in ALL orders for free to share a bit more of love. 

So yeah, if you’re able to, help us the fuck out, maybe get a lil extra in the post with your order and wear some rad merch with pride. What’s not to fucking like?

FIND ALL OUR MERCH HERE:
https://www.unoffensiveanimal.is/collections/

That’s all from us for now, we are still working behind the scenes during our little break and we will be back soon, really soon, to keep giving as much shit as we can to this oppressive system! 

Also if you are able to support us on a regular basis, maybe join our Liberapay team! 
www.liberapay.com/Unoffensiveanimal

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT RIOT!

Hey folks! We hope you’re keeping well and as radical as ever. We’ve been relaxing, fucking with the huge advertisements in city centres and planing Liberate Or Die (We will release the event info VERY soon!) 

We are really fucking privileged to be able to make this post and we have a few little announcements. The first one is that we’ve managed (barely) to stock up our merch, so there are all sizes, all designs, on hoodies and tees back up on our website. We’ve taken a while to do so as we had no funds to buy more, but we’ve realised as our PayPal grows smaller and smaller that we needed to get more merch if we want to survive as a collective. So in these real fucking tough money times after losing Patreon, if you can support us and want some cool merch, head straight up to our website and grab yourself whatever the fuck you fancy!

Here is where things get interesting; Underground Badger Syndicate is about to release some seriously sick merch and we are super lucky to have received a hoodie to raffle. UBS will not be printing hoodies, only tees, so this XL hoodie will be a one of a kind kinda ting and it is a big thing that they are happy for us to give it away! We also have found four of our DIY Defend patches that we are gonna throw in the mix (they have been out of stock for fucking ages) so FIVE people that order something between today and Sunday night will receive a lil something else in the post with the order! 

To top up that shit, Eat Cops Not Pigs has sent us some amazing stickers so we will be putting them in ALL orders for free to share a bit more of love. 

So yeah, if you’re able to, help us the fuck out, maybe get a lil extra in the post with your order and wear some rad merch with pride. What’s not to fucking like?

FIND ALL OUR MERCH HERE:
https://www.unoffensiveanimal.is/collections/

That’s all from us for now, we are still working behind the scenes during our little break and we will be back soon, really soon, to keep giving as much shit as we can to this oppressive system! 

Also if you are able to support us on a regular basis, maybe join our Liberapay team! 
www.liberapay.com/Unoffensiveanimal

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT RIOT!

As many of you know, we’ve been receiving quite a few blows in the last few weeks. Our facebook page taken down, then being banned on Patreon, then getting our website down… whilst working on the ground in Hambacher Forst and attempting to keep up with the internet world.

Certainly, the cold has taken a toll on us. After talking to a good few different people, we have decided that a self care break is needed. Because the team is small right now, it means that Unoffensive needs to take a little break from online publishing for the time being.

That does not mean that we are giving up, that we are not carrying on the fight on the ground and by bringing news to the world. But for about two to three weeks our presence online will be reduced to a minimum (the merch folks might want to make a post when new stuff has arrived and we will probably post about Liberate or Die in the next few days) but we will not publish any hit reports or updates from the frontlines.

In fact, we are actually walking away from the frontlines and swapping it for a couple of weeks of sanctuary, animal cuddles and respite to restore our strength and our will to keep pushing forward.

Surely our regular followers will know that posting this is not an easy task. It actually has taken quite a lot of convincing by folks around us to stop for a bit, and it make us feel like in the future we should probably talk more about activism and self care.

Until we come back, please check Bite Back magazine (directaction.info) for ALF hit reports, CrimethInc. (crimethinc.com) for anarchist news and Earth First! (earthfirstjournal.org) to keep up to date with environmental struggle.

Whilst we are at it, please write some letters to prisoners. You can find a good few on our website under “Prisoner Support”. Solidarity is our biggest weapon.

Warm revolutionary hugs, the same rage (just under a blanket now) and kilos of biodegradable glitter to throw at cops.

Unoffensive Animal Collective.
UNTIL WE WIN.

PS: if anyone is able to support our work, liberapay isn’t working as well as we expected but you can still join and donate monthly if that works for you! www.liberapay.com/UnoffensiveAnimal

As many of you know, we’ve been receiving quite a few blows in the last few weeks. Our facebook page taken down, then being banned on Patreon, then getting our website down… whilst working on the ground in Hambacher Forst and attempting to keep up with the internet world.

Certainly, the cold has taken a toll on us. After talking to a good few different people, we have decided that a self care break is needed. Because the team is small right now, it means that Unoffensive needs to take a little break from online publishing for the time being.

That does not mean that we are giving up, that we are not carrying on the fight on the ground and by bringing news to the world. But for about two to three weeks our presence online will be reduced to a minimum (the merch folks might want to make a post when new stuff has arrived and we will probably post about Liberate or Die in the next few days) but we will not publish any hit reports or updates from the frontlines.

In fact, we are actually walking away from the frontlines and swapping it for a couple of weeks of sanctuary, animal cuddles and respite to restore our strength and our will to keep pushing forward.

Surely our regular followers will know that posting this is not an easy task. It actually has taken quite a lot of convincing by folks around us to stop for a bit, and it make us feel like in the future we should probably talk more about activism and self care.

Until we come back, please check Bite Back magazine (directaction.info) for ALF hit reports, CrimethInc. (crimethinc.com) for anarchist news and Earth First! (earthfirstjournal.org) to keep up to date with environmental struggle.

Whilst we are at it, please write some letters to prisoners. You can find a good few on our website under “Prisoner Support”. Solidarity is our biggest weapon.

Warm revolutionary hugs, the same rage (just under a blanket now) and kilos of biodegradable glitter to throw at cops.

Unoffensive Animal Collective.
UNTIL WE WIN.

PS: if anyone is able to support our work, liberapay isn’t working as well as we expected but you can still join and donate monthly if that works for you! www.liberapay.com/UnoffensiveAnimal

So you know the score. We’ve lost eight Facebook pages, our Patreon was finalised last week and our website got taken down yesterday. We must be pissing someone off. 

The great thing about the fight is that it teaches us to become resilient. How many times have we been beaten by the cops, thrown in a cell, punched by a Nazi or seen the injustice all around us and we still got up to carry on? This internet game is kind of the same. Patreon take us down? We start a Liberapay. The website is down? We ride the wave and get it back up. Certainly we don’t know exactly what happened and who was behind it, but we will find out sooner or later. 

This brings us to the next point. Unoffensive is a communal project. Not just between the collective, but also with everybody that likes us still bringing those news. We are unable to reach more people without your help. Anarchy is mutual aid, and we are asking for that aid now. After Facebook took us down last time and we had to go back up as Liberate Or Die, we did not recover as much as we would’ve liked. The first time we went down we had 1000 followers back in 6 hours. This time, we are at barely 2000 after a month. We wonder if the platform is dead for us or if simply we aren’t producing good enough content to make folks share our work and news with others. Seemingly, after a year on Instagram we have not reached 10k. What we mean with all this is that for this project to work we need to use your reach. If you believe that Unoffensive is doing good work, share us. Talk to folks about us. Like the posts, comment, show it to folks. It is hard enough to fight against whoever want us down, and it is made even more difficult if our reach is every time smaller and smaller. 

The same way, if you believe folks around you would benefit from our workshops, DM us and let’s get the ball rolling. We want to share knowledge and learn from others and we cannot wait to plot the revolution! 

In other news, we are still organising Liberate Or Die. We choose to organise it in May as it would be warmer, but it seems like a lot of people might be heading to the US for the animal rights conference in June and we are concerned that that will stop folks from coming to Hambi the month before. What do you all think? And what sort of workshops would you like to see? We certainly are getting ready some skeleton actions so we can have a lot of fun whilst sticking the middle finger to the speciesist system. But then again, this project will also not really work without the support of the folks around us, so get involved and let’s organise! 

If anyone is able to help us out with funds, after Patreon went down we’ve taken a bit of a hit, so join us on Liberapay and let’s see how the platform behaves! 

www.liberapay.com/UnoffensiveAnimal 

FOR A WORLD WHERE THE REVOLUTION IS POSSIBLE. TOWARDS MUTUAL AID, ANARCHY AND LIBERATION FOR ALL. 

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT RIOT. 

So you know the score. We’ve lost eight Facebook pages, our Patreon was finalised last week and our website got taken down yesterday. We must be pissing someone off. 

The great thing about the fight is that it teaches us to become resilient. How many times have we been beaten by the cops, thrown in a cell, punched by a Nazi or seen the injustice all around us and we still got up to carry on? This internet game is kind of the same. Patreon take us down? We start a Liberapay. The website is down? We ride the wave and get it back up. Certainly we don’t know exactly what happened and who was behind it, but we will find out sooner or later. 

This brings us to the next point. Unoffensive is a communal project. Not just between the collective, but also with everybody that likes us still bringing those news. We are unable to reach more people without your help. Anarchy is mutual aid, and we are asking for that aid now. After Facebook took us down last time and we had to go back up as Liberate Or Die, we did not recover as much as we would’ve liked. The first time we went down we had 1000 followers back in 6 hours. This time, we are at barely 2000 after a month. We wonder if the platform is dead for us or if simply we aren’t producing good enough content to make folks share our work and news with others. Seemingly, after a year on Instagram we have not reached 10k. What we mean with all this is that for this project to work we need to use your reach. If you believe that Unoffensive is doing good work, share us. Talk to folks about us. Like the posts, comment, show it to folks. It is hard enough to fight against whoever want us down, and it is made even more difficult if our reach is every time smaller and smaller. 

The same way, if you believe folks around you would benefit from our workshops, DM us and let’s get the ball rolling. We want to share knowledge and learn from others and we cannot wait to plot the revolution! 

In other news, we are still organising Liberate Or Die. We choose to organise it in May as it would be warmer, but it seems like a lot of people might be heading to the US for the animal rights conference in June and we are concerned that that will stop folks from coming to Hambi the month before. What do you all think? And what sort of workshops would you like to see? We certainly are getting ready some skeleton actions so we can have a lot of fun whilst sticking the middle finger to the speciesist system. But then again, this project will also not really work without the support of the folks around us, so get involved and let’s organise! 

If anyone is able to help us out with funds, after Patreon went down we’ve taken a bit of a hit, so join us on Liberapay and let’s see how the platform behaves! 

www.liberapay.com/UnoffensiveAnimal 

FOR A WORLD WHERE THE REVOLUTION IS POSSIBLE. TOWARDS MUTUAL AID, ANARCHY AND LIBERATION FOR ALL. 

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT RIOT.