When discussing the influence of corporations in the legislative process, and their coordinated efforts to send their opponents to prison, sometimes I fear that I sound like I’m wearing a tinfoil hat. Conversations like this often veer into the territory of conspiracy theories, secret societies, and dark figures gathered around oak tables. The truth is not nearly as sexy. Ag-gag became law through what can only be described as the good ol’ boy network.
In Utah, State Representative John Mathis opened an ag-gag hearing by gesturing to the animal agriculture industry in attendance. “It’s fun to see my good ag friends in this committee,” Mathis said, “all my good friends are here.”
In Idaho, after the ag-gag law passed, industry lobbyists praised the close relationship between politicians and business.
“I think it was another outstanding session where agriculture got a lot of help from the legislature,” one said. “That’s due in no small part to having a lot of people in the legislature who are still very closely tied to agriculture and the industry.”
Such buddy-buddy relationships grease the political wheels. And when industry calls in a favor, they get a quick response. In Kentucky, for example, the Humane Society exposed Iron Maiden Hog Farm. It went viral and became a national story, with news outlets revealing that sick and dead piglets were being ground up and fed back to their mothers. The media called this “piglet smoothies.” The next month, a proposal to outlaw farm investigations was included in what was previously a piece of animal welfare legislation.
Aren’t these the same folks who say “if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide”?
Remember that journalist who ended up in FlorenceADX in the 2000s without having had access to a lawyer, simply for reporting on the AgGag legislation and being found on a public road taking photographs of an empty feedlot?
He managed to get released, but he was straight up blackholed for a while, potentially indefinitely.
there’s a Direct Action Everywhere woman who is up on trial atm for taking four sick chickens from a Perdue farm. They were nearing death, but they survived, but i don’t know what happened to them, whether they ended up back at the farm or not. Anyway, my point is, it’s truly fucked. She did no damage to anything or anyone. All she did was take some sick chickens to the vet to get the help they so richly needed. Now she’s facing 5.5 years in prison. Her name is Zoe Rosenberg.
Just came across her case now, when trying to find the article by the guy I mentioned (unable to, and had major difficulty a while ago, so suspect it has been scrubbed).
They like to suppress the existence of these laws too, and to shift them around - easing, tightening, easing, tightening, and changing, so neither activists nor whistleblowers nor journalists nor randomers who stumble across horrors can know how to keep themselves safe, or to have any ability to weigh up the level of risk they are taking on with any action, and so it is considerably harder to challenge the law let alone any conviction.
That journalist wasn’t an activist at all at the time or connected to activist circles. He’d been investigating reports about a worsening legislative climate, and had taken care to keep well within the confines of the (publicly known) law.
