The Animal Liberation Front deeply appreciates the wonderful music of "End of Silence" which has inspired others to take direct action for ending animal abuse. The "End of Silence" takes the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people throughout human history have always done.

"End of Silence" is visionary. Nonhumans will continue to be exploited until there is a revolution of the human spirit, and that will not happen without such visionaries trying to change the "status quo" that considers nonhumans - nonhumans who feel love and joy, who fear and suffer - to be mere property.

Ending our silence is an essential direct action. Others have said it eloquently:

"He is a slave who dare not be in the right with two or three; he's a slave who dare not choose hatred, slander and abuse, rather than in silence shrink from the truth he needs must think. There's no slavery more degrading to character than the ignoble fear of standing for truth and justice without the multitudes clamoring approbation and support."
   -- Albert Leffingwell, M.D.

And what lies behind the mask of silence?

"Stand still, close your eyes and listen; in the silence you can hear the cries of pain and low moans of anguish of animals waiting to die ... do everything you can even if today it is just one small thing. There are no excuses for inaction, despair, egotism, or petulance that matter to the animals."
   -- Dr. Ashley Montague

Please pay tribute to the "End of Silence" by helping animals and showing others the path to being compassionate. Each effort can have a profound rippling effect on the world:

The Difference He Made
by Randy Poole

Amidst the morning mist of the swift returning tide
I set out on my daily run, my walkman on my side.
Lost within my private world apart from cares and woes
I ran along the moistened shore, the sand between my toes.

In the distance, I saw a boy, as busy as can be.
He was running, stooping, picking up, and tossing in the sea.
Just what he threw, I couldn't tell, I looked as I drew near.
It seemed to be a rock or shell - as I approached him I could hear:

"Back you go, where you belong. Your safe now hurry home.
Your family's waiting for you little starfish, hurry on!"
It seemed the evening tide had washed the starfish on the shore,
And the swift receding water left a thousand there or more.

And this self-appointed savior, was trying one-by-one
To toss them back into the sea, against the racing sun.
I saw his plight was hopeless, that most of them would die.
I called out from my private world, "Hey Kid, why even try?"

"Must be at least a thousand here, strewn along the beach,
And even if you had the time, most you'll never reach.
You really think it makes a difference, to waste your time this way?"
And then I paused and waited, just to hear what he would say.

He stooped and took another, and looked me in the eye.
"It makes a difference to this one sir, this starfish will not die!"
With that, he tossed the little life, back where there was hope.
He stooped to take another. I could tell this was no joke.

The words that he spoke to me cut like a surgeon's knife.
Where I saw only numbers, he saw only life.
He didn't see the multitude of starfish on the sand.
He only saw the little life he held there in his hand.

He didn't stop to argue, to prove that he was right.
He just kept tossing starfish in the sea with all his might.
So I too stooped, and I picked up, and I tossed into the sea,
And I thought, just what a difference, that this boy has made in me.

"I'm only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do!"
   -- Helen Keller

Thank you kindly in advance for helping "End the Silence."

Yours with compassion,

Ann Berlin

annxtberlin@gmail.com

www.animalliberationfront.com