Troubled slaughter: Big Ag fights to keep out prying eyes

[marmar]

from Grist:



Troubled slaughter: Big Ag fights to keep out prying eyes
By Susie Cagle

There’s a Paul McCartney quote popular with veg-heads: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” It may not be quite as simple as all that, but he’s definitely got a point.

For a little over 10 years, groups such as Mercy for Animals, the Humane Society of the United States, and Compassion Over Killing have conducted undercover investigations into abuses and rules violations on factory farms, and publicized what they’ve documented to lobby for change.

It’s worked: Individual campaigns have resulted in business closures, criminal charges, and even broader changes in social behavior. That has got Big Animal Ag scared.



So it has done what Big Ag does best: crafted legislation and lobbied for it. State farm-protection laws, or “ag-gags,” as The New York Times‘ Mark Bittman lovingly called them, come in many different forms, mixing various combinations of restrictions on undercover filming and activist access to farms and slaughterhouses. Some of the laws give a nod to the value of whistleblowers but require that damning footage be handed over to law enforcement within a day or two, immediately blowing the cover of investigations that would typically last from two to six weeks. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/food/troubled-slaughter-big-ag-fights-to-keep-out-prying-eyes/

[stuntcat]

1. I wish everyone would watch Earthlings

No one I know will watch it.. it's not that they can't take it, it's that they don't care or just will not face it.
I'm the only one I know who doesn't eat the animals. Most people I know don't care how bad the animals' lives are. What we do to them gets worse and worse and we justify it because "it's just the way it is." No it does not have to be this way. The fact that all of us can live without it now means we need to make that leap and just quit it. The industry is killing all our future, not just the animals.

If people would start teaching how much land and water and energy is used by the industry then a lot of people would stop buying it. And the ones who really hate animals can just kick dogs, smash bugs, hate the entire cat species, but they'd stop buying meat. I wonder what Big Ag would do to stop consumers from finding out that information. Well maybe people don't care, no one I know minds it anyway, F the future!

[limpyhobbler]

2. k/r . nt