I previously covered these crazy “ag-gag” laws being passed in states with large meat production industries back in March in my piece: States Move to Criminalize Whistleblowing on Food Fraud and Animal Cruelty. Such laws represent a really disturbing macro trend in America where, rather than deal with inhumane, criminal and immoral practices, large corporations and government would just rather the public not know. The Obama Administration exemplified this practice perfectly in its recently exposed war on journalism.
The good news is that if care enough and stand our ground through non-violent resistance, we can win. We are already seeing examples of this in the battle against “ag-gag.” From the Village Voice:
Cody Carlson had no way of preparing for this moment. He was a Manhattan kid, days removed from working as an analyst for a business-intelligence firm, where he scrutinized corporations and their executives.
Now he was standing in a bleak barn at New York’s largest dairy farm.
His first job, technically speaking, was to repair the mechanism that pulled manure from the barn.
His real job: covertly filming it all for Mercy for Animals.
His hidden camera caught employees kicking and shocking animals that wouldn’t bend to their will. Supervisor Phil Niles is heard recounting an abuser’s greatest hits: how he beat cows with wrenches, smashed their heads with two-by-fours, kicked them when they were too feeble to rise.
“Fucking kicking her, hitting her,” he chortles while recalling one incident. “Fucking jumping off the top of the goddamned gate and stomping on her head and shit.”
After five weeks of filming, MFA took the footage to ABC’s World News. Niles was subsequently charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty. His penalty for 19 years of beating cows in every way imaginable: a $555 fine.
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