HLN Pulls The Ag-Gag Off The Media’s Mouth

Just when you were afraid to go back into the murky waters of HLN, the channel formerly known as Headline News comes through with an important story about the abusive practices of industrial farming and the bogus censorship laws corporations have secured from compliant state legislatures.

Take a look.

That’s right, the home of Nancy Grace and “the true crime pulp novel as a two and a half minute segment” has tackled the corporate cover-up machine called the “Ag-Gag” law.

These anti-whistleblower laws have already been passed in Wyoming, Iowa and Utah, and Big Ag isn’t likely to stop there. Designed to keep animal welfare activists from surreptitiously filming the severe and intolerable abuses rife in the grinding, antibiotic-dependent practice called “factory farming,” these Ag-Gag laws have, in some cases, actually lumped activists into the category of “domestic terrorism.”

Seriously.

If you haven’t heard of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), you may be in for a bit of a shock. Passed in 2006, it broadly designates animal welfare activists as “terrorists” and is part of a much-ignored effort to protect Big Ag from big scrutiny by citizen activists.

These activists have been crucial in uncovering not only the painful abuse of beleaguered animals, but also the dangerously unhealthy conditions fostered by industrial farming and the long-term danger it poses to Americans who rely on it for food.

They’ve been responsible for a number of scandals, and even forced McDonald’s to change its purchasing practices.

But make no mistake, this is not just an animal welfare issue, this is a food safety issue. And with the FDA woefully understaffed, underfunded and under the thumb of corporate lobbyists, these intrepid whistleblowers are a last line of defense against the huge corporate farming combine that seeks only to harvest profits, no matter how bitter it tastes to the public at large.

So, let’s commend Jane Velez-Mitchell for covering an important story that has been thus far ignored by the mainstream media.

Pigs have flown, and we didn’t even have to wait for Monsanto to genetically engineer ’em!

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'HLN Pulls The Ag-Gag Off The Media’s Mouth' have 3 comments

  1. February 9, 2013 @ 5:26 am The Manhunt For Christopher Jordan Dorner, Storm Disables Nuclear Plant, Will Your Town Have Drones, Exhuming Neruda’s Grave

    […] •News Vandal: HLN Pulls The Ag-Gag Off The Media’s Mouth – by JP Sottile […]

  2. February 16, 2013 @ 2:09 am Julia

    You go girl!!! Lead the way Jane were right behind you and we have only begun the task of stopping this “UNECESSARY CRUELTY”. If “Human’s are supposedly set above the
    animal kingdom for ability to reason! IT IS NOT REASONABLE TO CAUSE THIS SUFFERING TO THE ANIMALS WE CONSUME! IT IS CRUEL AND “INHUMANE”!
    I find it an imposition on me as citizen to even have to discuss this! I feel that knowing this cruelty exists is a “Violation of my Civil Rights” to “No Cruel and Unusual Treatment”!!!! Shame on these Farmer’s for trying to hide such a crime!!!!!

  3. March 6, 2013 @ 6:17 pm Non Commercial

    It is certainly helpful to the animal rights cause when attractive celebrities highlight systemic cruelty. But I have to take issue with Jane’s characterization of the American people as “decent.” Sorry, but they have to earn such a description by behaving differently as consumers, and I see very little evidence of thoughtful consumerism in our society.

    When Jim Perdue boasts of making a “better chicken,” sentient animals are being explicitly treated as commodities. Similarly, when Egglands Best sells their “better eggs,” there is no mention of the conditions in which the hens live. Apparently, marketing research tells these companies that consumers don’t give a damn whether the hens are confined to battery cages or overcrowded barns; all that matters is how tasty and nutritious the product is; i.e., what’s in it for the human consumer?

    We have built a complex society on the exploitation of all available resources, and animals are seen as just another resource to be exploited, not as fellow creatures or friends. There is nothing remotely decent about it.


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