Who is the Bold Native?
Bold Native is the culmination of almost ten years of work by literally hundreds of people. It was conceived in the summer of 2001. It was shepherded through numerous drafts by Denis Henry Hennelly, Casey Suchan, Mary Pat Bentel, Jeff Bollman, Jessica Hagan, Todd Helbing, Ted Deiker, Jashub Absher, Danielle Lurie, Jimmy Franklin, Peter Alton, Goody-B Wiseman, and too many others to name here.
From the spark of its beginning to today, we’ve watched as terrorist attacks, oppressive government regimes, and draconian laws have radically changed the landscape of political and social protest in our country and the world. We’ve maintained a hope that we could create a film that spoke to the hopes and dreams of millions of compassionate people and the suffering of billions of non-human animals that have at every moment occupied our hearts and minds.
The film would not be possible without the generosity and kindness of everyone who gave their time and labor. The film is dedicated to you. And it’s dedicated to the brave, anonymous women and men who risk their freedom to give freedom to another. It’s dedicated to the individuals and groups who fight for legislative and social change, work to educate the public, and care for abused and rescued animals at farm sanctuaries. And it’s dedicated to the billions of animals who were never saved and whose brief time on our earth was filled with pain and sadness.
Finally, it’s dedicated to everyone who watches this trailer and says, “Yes.” Yes, the time has come to reject the notion that the saving of a life or the protest of an industry is terrorism or violence. Yes, there is something more important than our momentary pleasure or convenience. Yes, the lives we take have value and their interests, no matter how different from ours, deserve consideration.
Who is the Bold Native? Find out this summer.
An open letter to the FBI on the occasion of a Salt Lake City raid
Agent Dale Cooper
If I hadn’t become a filmmaker, I would have been an FBI agent. I feel confident I would have gotten in… I’m smart and disciplined and a good problem-solver. As a child, I read every detective story and mystery book in the library… literally. I was the kid who played detective instead of cops and robbers. I staked out neighbors’ garages and houses in elaborately imagined crime stories. I would have never believed you if you’d told me that as an adult I would feel deeply disillusioned with the FBI.
My impression of an FBI agent was a stalwart defender of American justice and a tireless fighter against crime and violence. It seemed a noble and righteous vocation. Digging through evidence, interrogating witnesses, following leads, analyzing clues, and getting your man (or woman). That man or woman would be someone who committed a crime against an innocent individual, someone who was a threat to society and a danger to our freedom.
Ironically, it was the story of a very peculiar FBI agent that drew me into filmmaking and away from dreams of working for the bureau. Agent Dale Cooper drove into the town of Twin Peaks and my bedroom television one night in 1990. The mystery and beauty of that world entranced me, and I became obsessed with the idea of creating fictional worlds. Agent Cooper was intuition and virtue embodied. He was everything an FBI agent should be: concerned with justice, open to unique ways of solving a case, and always alert to the changing dynamic of a case. He never took the question of good and evil at face value and never let prejudices get in the way of seeking the truth. And he always had time for a slice of cherry pie and a damn good cup of joe.
Animal Extremism… Yes, yes it is.
Extremist? Violent? Terrorist? Absolutely. But not us.
These are the words the meat, pharmaceutical, and fur industries use to describe animal advocates and activists. We can’t stop them from tossing off this language, but we can stop using it against ourselves.
It’s time to redirect these words back to where they belong, the real perpetrators of terrorism and violence and extremism, those very same animal abuse industries. While we may disagree with each others’ methods, let’s not call one another violent. Be specific with language. Call it illegal. Call it criminal. Call it a good tactic or a bad tactic.
Express your honest opinion, of course, but end your support or criticism with a reminder that the real violence is happening every day in laboratories to fellow primates like chimpanzees and baboons and monkeys and to millions of other mammals likes rabbits and rats and mice and guinea pigs as well as reptiles by the millions for research that is often unnecessary, redundant and just bad, unpredictive science.
Chalk vs. Aerial Bombardment
Will Potter at G
reen is the New Red has a quick rundown of actions the government considers terrorism and those it has called the actions of lone wolves. What would the reaction be if an animal rights activist flew a plane into a federal building to protest government subsidies of the meat industry? In the case of the Austin IRS building, government officials were quick to issue statements saying it wasn’t terrorism. But some still consider chalking sidewalks to be equivalent to 9/11.
And the most important point is that an animal rights activist would never commit such an act because harming any living being, human or non-human, is strictly forbidden by the principles of all recognized groups.
