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News & ArtsMonday, January 30, 2012
Politics / Chow / Books New Bills Would Basically Make The Jungle Illegal
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:22 PM
For decades, animal activists have gone undercover to take jobs inside large-scale livestock farms in order to document conditions for farm animals that they say are routinely inhumane. Their hidden camera footage has resulted in criminal charges against owners and workers, plant shutdowns, and after one at a California slaughterhouse in 2008, the largest meat recall in U.S. history.
But these images could soon be made illegal. Legislation pending in five states — Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New York — would criminalize the actions of activists who covertly film farms. Proponents of the various pieces legislation say that their proposed laws would lead to beneficial consequences, including the protection of such farms from potential terrorist infiltration (preserving the integrity of the food supply) and espionage; the prevention of images that mislead consumers; as well as regulating the job application process to circumvent potential employees from lying in order to be hired.
Look, this is bullshit. In the United States, we have a long, proud history of infiltrating the places that make our food. Journalists like Upton Sinclair have proven time and again that this kind of infiltration is absolutely necessary. Without the fear of being caught, can you imagine what kind of awful stuff farms will get up to? And cloaking the bills in the War on Terror is especially terrible—we learned back in 2002 to treat every bill with anti-terrorist language in it as suspicious. This is an assault on the freedom of press, and we should all stand with PETA, the Humane Society, and other organizations that make use of this type of footage.
2
this is a Red state issue and shows the hypocrisy of the right when it comes to protecting the Constitution. Money comes first. We really do need to reframe exactly what the War on Terror is. Being at war allows for extraordiany suppression of a host of constitutional rights, which have been and are activley being eroded daily. The proposed legislation in the post is a good example.
3
But, but, Upton Sinclair was a Commie! And wanting clean food produced humanely by fairly compensated workers is contrary to everything it means to be an American!
4
I hate PETA, and the organizations like them, but I also think places that make food (or, really, do anything at all ever) need oversight.
5
I tried to wrap my mind around the proponents' arguments, and I think I pulled something. I should never have tried to twist my sense of logic that far, at least not without a warmup of Fox News first.
7
Amen, Paul. The shit -- pun intended -- in these factory farms and slaughterhouses need to be seen.
Free speech needs to be celebrated and protected.
Terrorism is newspeak
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian." Sir Paul McCartney
Free speech needs to be celebrated and protected.
Terrorism is newspeak
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian." Sir Paul McCartney
8
@1 FTW
The biggest terrorists infiltrating our food supply are the companies this bill seeks to protect.
Fuck this.
The biggest terrorists infiltrating our food supply are the companies this bill seeks to protect.
Fuck this.
11
Amen, Paul. The shit -- pun intended -- in these factory farms and slaughterhouses need to be seen.
Free speech needs to be celebrated and protected.
Terrorism is newspeak
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian." Sir Paul McCartney
Free speech needs to be celebrated and protected.
Terrorism is newspeak
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian." Sir Paul McCartney
12
I just took a look at the Iowa bill and it is not popular. Apparently they tried to get this type of bill through the Senate last year and it got killed because it wouldn't hold up to constitutional law. I read a few blogs and most Iowans think that existing trespassing laws are good enough. http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/i…
I liked this bit best:
I liked this bit best:
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement’s Action Fund called the bill unconstitutional and a waste of time.
“This prohibits everyday people from protecting their own community,” said Larry Ginter, a farmer from Rhodes and a board member of the fund. “For legislators who are so concerned about regulations, this seems like they want to over-regulate the free speech of concerned citizens. That’s not right.”
13
They tried to pass a similar bill in Iowa last year, but it was soundly defeated. We still should not taket his bill for granted.
14
These are re-runs of attempts from the same states in 2011. FL, IA, NY and MN ag-gag bills all died quickly in their legislatures.
It's good to make a stink against them, I guess, just to make sure they continue to have basically zero support in 2012, but there's no reason to think they'll pass this time around.
It's good to make a stink against them, I guess, just to make sure they continue to have basically zero support in 2012, but there's no reason to think they'll pass this time around.
15
Also, Sinclair wrote The Jungle not to clean up the meat processing industry, which is what Paul seems to imply here, but to make a case against worker exploitation in all forms. That we got the Pure Food & Drug Act out of the book (which was originally self-published) was unintended consequences.
16
Thank you for posting this.
In fact there is already a federal law on the books conflating animal rights activism with terrorism: the 2006 Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Various activities that were already illegal under existing laws have now been recast as acts of terrorism. This of course effectively suppresses many forms of protest and private investigation. It also sets an ominous precedent for redefining protest as terrorism, in a new world where the president suddenly has the power to indefinitely detain without due process anyone whom they accuse of terrorism under 2012 NDAA.
http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/…
<<<>>>
AETA, which replaced an earlier, weaker law called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), prohibits anything done "for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise" or that "causes the loss of any real or personal property."
<<<>>>
http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/will-p…
<<<>>>
Regardless of how one feels about animal rights or animal rights activists, the targeting of political activists as "terrorists" because they cause a loss of corporate profits sets a dangerous precedent. Occupy Wall Street, for example, clearly is focused on challenging corporate power and has utilized a diversity of tactics currently classified as "animal enterprise terrorism," including non-violent civil disobedience and home demonstrations. If this legislation is not overturned, it will be the blueprint for targeting all protesters that pose a threat to business as usual.
<<<>>>
Independent journalist Will Potter of Green is the new Red blog discusses how activism is being legally reclassified as terrorism:
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/lab…
<<<>>>
For a long time, corporations and politicians have been pushing for new laws and expanded court cases to label political activists as terrorists, and then after September 11th of course everything intensified.
[...]
The real danger of that is, what most people would not think of in any way as being "terrorism" has become the top law enforcement priority, and it's wasted government resources, and it's also had in some way a chilling effect on these social movements -- people wonder if they will be labelled a terrorist for their activism.
[...]
At the same time animal rights and environmental activisits are being called the FBI's number one domestic terrorism threat, groups who have actually harmed human beings -- like anti-abortion extremists, a growing militia movement, KKK and aryan nations -- they're not on the government's radar in that way. And when they are, they're not being labelled terrorists, even when they attack and use violence in the name of their political ideas...
<<<>>>
And everyone should watch the movie Fast Food Nation!
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Fast-Foo…
More...
In fact there is already a federal law on the books conflating animal rights activism with terrorism: the 2006 Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Various activities that were already illegal under existing laws have now been recast as acts of terrorism. This of course effectively suppresses many forms of protest and private investigation. It also sets an ominous precedent for redefining protest as terrorism, in a new world where the president suddenly has the power to indefinitely detain without due process anyone whom they accuse of terrorism under 2012 NDAA.
http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/…
<<<>>>
AETA, which replaced an earlier, weaker law called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), prohibits anything done "for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise" or that "causes the loss of any real or personal property."
<<<>>>
http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/will-p…
<<<>>>
Regardless of how one feels about animal rights or animal rights activists, the targeting of political activists as "terrorists" because they cause a loss of corporate profits sets a dangerous precedent. Occupy Wall Street, for example, clearly is focused on challenging corporate power and has utilized a diversity of tactics currently classified as "animal enterprise terrorism," including non-violent civil disobedience and home demonstrations. If this legislation is not overturned, it will be the blueprint for targeting all protesters that pose a threat to business as usual.
<<<>>>
Independent journalist Will Potter of Green is the new Red blog discusses how activism is being legally reclassified as terrorism:
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/lab…
<<<>>>
For a long time, corporations and politicians have been pushing for new laws and expanded court cases to label political activists as terrorists, and then after September 11th of course everything intensified.
[...]
The real danger of that is, what most people would not think of in any way as being "terrorism" has become the top law enforcement priority, and it's wasted government resources, and it's also had in some way a chilling effect on these social movements -- people wonder if they will be labelled a terrorist for their activism.
[...]
At the same time animal rights and environmental activisits are being called the FBI's number one domestic terrorism threat, groups who have actually harmed human beings -- like anti-abortion extremists, a growing militia movement, KKK and aryan nations -- they're not on the government's radar in that way. And when they are, they're not being labelled terrorists, even when they attack and use violence in the name of their political ideas...
<<<>>>
And everyone should watch the movie Fast Food Nation!
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Fast-Foo…
17
More from Will Potter's interview with Because we Must (filmed in a beautiful park in Portland):
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/lab…
<<<>>>
And I think one take away from all of this, is we really have to confront this head on, it can't be ignored anymore -- it can't be ignored by the animal rights and environmental movements, it can't ignored by mainstream groups, because they're not safe from this, and it can't be ignored by other social movements, like ant-war activists, because as we've seen recently with these grand jury round ups in the mid-west, all social movements are being affected by this.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
I think that one of the most powerful uses of this word "terrorism", and the word "terrorist", is it strips people of their personal identity, it really becomes a hammer, and a malleable brand to hit the enemy of the hour. And it's not so much about what they did, or what they think, it's about how they're labelled.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
But I would argue we really have forgotten -- we've had a collective forgetting about how much has been done since September 11th.
[...]
I think we've really forgotten how the Patriot Act was passed in the middle of the night, with few members of Congress even reading it,. We've forgotten about the "extraordinary rendition", and sending people to other countries to be tortured, that's become just part of standard policy. We've forgotten about Guantanamo being a so-called short-term [solution] for cases of extreme prisoners that we don't have any other way to deal with them, this was the message we're told. All these things have just become normal.
[...]
And so we've really forgotten how far we're pushing the envelope. As years go by this becomes more and more "normal" and we lose a little bit more. So I'd argue since September 11th, instead of to keep saying "we will never foget, we will never forget the tragedy", how about "we will never forget what we've lost", and we need to start fighting back against this, and start regaining some of that memory.
<<<>>>
More...
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/lab…
<<<>>>
And I think one take away from all of this, is we really have to confront this head on, it can't be ignored anymore -- it can't be ignored by the animal rights and environmental movements, it can't ignored by mainstream groups, because they're not safe from this, and it can't be ignored by other social movements, like ant-war activists, because as we've seen recently with these grand jury round ups in the mid-west, all social movements are being affected by this.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
I think that one of the most powerful uses of this word "terrorism", and the word "terrorist", is it strips people of their personal identity, it really becomes a hammer, and a malleable brand to hit the enemy of the hour. And it's not so much about what they did, or what they think, it's about how they're labelled.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
But I would argue we really have forgotten -- we've had a collective forgetting about how much has been done since September 11th.
[...]
I think we've really forgotten how the Patriot Act was passed in the middle of the night, with few members of Congress even reading it,. We've forgotten about the "extraordinary rendition", and sending people to other countries to be tortured, that's become just part of standard policy. We've forgotten about Guantanamo being a so-called short-term [solution] for cases of extreme prisoners that we don't have any other way to deal with them, this was the message we're told. All these things have just become normal.
[...]
And so we've really forgotten how far we're pushing the envelope. As years go by this becomes more and more "normal" and we lose a little bit more. So I'd argue since September 11th, instead of to keep saying "we will never foget, we will never forget the tragedy", how about "we will never forget what we've lost", and we need to start fighting back against this, and start regaining some of that memory.
<<<>>>
18
Nikki Haley must have been fretting about unions or something, or she would have been on this like a fly on a shit-covered chicken breast.
19
We should just tax the living crap out of their destruction style farming. Massively subsidize independent 5-10 man operations. You'll have less problems.
20
One of the many pleasures of living in Amsterdam is the ability to grab a "broodje tartaar" at most any sandwich shop. Yes, there are still places where it is safe to eat raw meat. Like, for instance, ALL of the EU....They simply don't accept meat with fecal matter as fit for human consumption. I would say that it is truly terrifying to know that your government seems to want everyone to literally "eat shit and die"
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