Glenn Greenwald,
DemocracyNow.org
May 2018
Glenn Greenwald: "This reminds me a lot of the work that I do on war, on American wars around the world. The reason why the U.S. population is willing to tolerate constant, continual repeated killing by their own government of people in foreign countries is because they never have to see the results of the policies that they turn away from, because the dead are never shown or rarely reported on. And this is the same for the agricultural industry in factory farms in the U.S. that keep these animals in the most horrific and unconscionable conditions where they suffer greatly."
On Tuesday, May 29, hundreds of people with the group Direct Action Everywhere marched to an industrial shed housing chickens in Petaluma, California, that is owned by Sunrise Farms, which supplies cage-free eggs to Amazon and Whole Foods. Activists say they removed 37 chickens and took them to get veterinary care. Police arrested 39 people for trespassing. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who just addressed the Animal Liberation Conference this weekend in Berkeley, California.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to move on to a new issue. Juan?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes. Glenn, I want to shift gears and turn to the topic of
the increasing number of animal welfare activists facing criminal charges
for filming and exposing abuse on industrial farms through direct action and
social media. On Tuesday, hundreds of people with the group Direct Action
Everywhere marched to an industrial shed housing chickens in Petaluma,
California. The shed is owned by Sunrise Farms, which supplies cage-free
eggs to Amazon and Whole Foods. What happened next unfolded on Facebook
Live, narrated at first by the group’s co-founder Wayne Hsiung. This is an
edited recap.
Transcript from
the
VIDEO THAT CAN BE VIEWED HERE:
WAYNE HSIUNG: I want to show you a photo of what is happening inside this farm. Our activists were in this farm as recently as a couple days ago, and you see animals with huge sores in their heads, going blind, animals collapsed on the ground in feces, rotting to death. And this is standard practice. People don’t realize this is a farm that supplies Whole Foods and Amazon. Amazon is the largest retailer in the world. They’re shipping animal cruelty to 300 million households across the world. It is one-click cruelty, and it’s time for this one-click cruelty to stop. And the only way to make it stop when you’ve gone to the government, you’ve gone to law enforcement, you’ve gone to the corporations and CEOs and politicians, time and time again—the only way to make this violence stop is for people to take direct action.
UNIDENTIFIED: Hey! Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
JULIANNE PERRY: I’m Julianne Perry. I am here with Direct Action Everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED: Sir, sir, sir. [inaudible]
UNIDENTIFIED: Out of the way, out of the way.
WAYNE HSIUNG: Sir, we do have the right.
UNIDENTIFIED: Guys, can we move you guys off the concrete? Off the concrete.
WAYNE HSIUNG: [inaudible] the authorities have been called. We do have a right. Do you want me to show you the statute?
UNIDENTIFIED: It doesn’t matter. I’d like to have the authorities here [inaudible]. You can come and talk to me but you can’t overwhelm me with [inaudible].
UNIDENTIFIED: [inaudible]
WAYNE HSIUNG: [inaudible] You don’t think this animal is suffering? Animals collapsing [inaudible].
UNIDENTIFIED: I have no idea where you got this picture.
WAYNE HSIUNG: This was taken from this barn. There’s a GPS tag [inaudible].
UNIDENTIFIED: [inaudible]
WAYNE HSIUNG: [inaudible] …statute. “Any person who impounds or causes to be impounded in any pound, any domestic animal…
UNIDENTIFIED: I mean no disrespect to you, but guys…
WAYNE HSIUNG: …shall supply it during such confinement…” [inaudible]
JULIANNE PERRY: We have activists putting on biosecurity gear. Activists behind them holding flowers. There are hundreds of activists here today demanding to know what happens inside of corporate forms, what happens to chickens who are held in these farms. When you buy cage-free organic eggs…
UNIDENTIFIED: Get outta here! Get outta here!
WAYNE HSIUNG: We have a right under this California…
UNIDENTIFIED: You don’t have a right of anything!
WAYNE HSIUNG: We do. Do you want to read the statute [inaudible]?
UNIDENTIFIED: You do not have a right.
WAYNE HSIUNG: Well, we took pictures that showed the animals…
UNIDENTIFIED: I don’t give a __ what you took.
JULIANNE PERRY: So I’ve been cleared to enter. Excuse me. And we need to
show you what is happening.
[inaudible]
UNIDENTIFIED: Do not touch my property!
[inaudible]
JULIANNE PERRY: OK, folks, we are inside. We [inaudible]. I was able to
duck under someone. Someone show me what’s happening.
UNIDENTIFIED: They have someone over there.
JULIANNE PERRY: Show me what’s happening.
UNIDENTIFIED: So over here, they have some…
JULIANNE PERRY: Walk with me. Walk with me. Go.
UNIDENTIFIED: Okay.
JULIANNE PERRY: We have the livestream inside. I was able to duck underneath one—oh my god. Oh my god.
UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. Yeah. It’s bad.
JULIANNE PERRY: Oh my god, look at all these girls.
UNIDENTIFIED: [inaudible] There’s so many that are out. Those birds are going to die because they have no access to water.
JULIANNE PERRY: Oh my god. We are live…
UNIDENTIFIED: Look, right there. Look. [inaudible]
JULIANNE PERRY: …inside of a factory farm in California.
End of video transcript.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That’s an excerpt of a livestream video of hundreds of
activists with Direct Action Everywhere protesting Tuesday at an industrial
shed housing chickens for Sunrise Farms in Petaluma, California. Activists
say they removed 37 chickens and took them to get veterinary care. Police
arrested 39 people for trespassing.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Utah officials have filed felony burglary and
rioting charges against five members of the group, including co-founder
Wayne Hsiung, accusing them of removing a pair of piglets from a Smithfield
Foods hog farm during a direct action in Utah last year. A warrant for their
arrest filed Monday said they had “engaged in a pattern of unlawful activity
and committed the offenses of burglary and theft targeting animal
enterprises located in Utah and other states.” The activists could face 60
years in prison.
For more, we’re continuing with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn
Greenwald, who has long fought secrecy and is now investigating animal
cruelty. He spoke this weekend at the Animal Liberation Conference in
Berkeley, California and just published a new report headlined Bred to
Suffer: Inside the Barbaric U.S. Industry of Dog Experimentation, which
we’re going to talk about in a minute. But Glenn, talk about this video we
have just watched.
GLENN GREENWALD: I was in San Francisco in the Bay Area, as you mentioned,
just this weekend—I just got back to Brazil yesterday—where I interviewed a
lot of those very activists that you just showed on the film. And I think
what is really important to note here is that for a long time, the issue of
animal rights was kind of perceived, even by the left, to be this sort of
fringe or isolated issue, kind of this boutique concern that wasn’t related
to other fights for social justice or for political reform. And in fact,
they’re extremely closely related. So no matter what your views are on the
morality of slaughtering animals for food, I think that everybody should be
able to agree that industrial systematic torture of animals on their way to
being slaughtered for food is morally unacceptable.
And it reminds me a lot of the work that I do on war in American wars around
the world. The reason why the U.S. population is willing to tolerate
constant, continual repeated killing by their own government of people in
foreign countries is because they never have to see the results of the
policies that they turn away from, because the dead are never shown or
rarely reported on. And this is the same for the agricultural industry in
factory farms in the U.S. that keep these animals in the most horrific and
unconscionable conditions where they suffer greatly.
Everybody with pets or who have interacted with animals know that animals
have emotional complexity, the capacity for great suffering. They keep them
in conditions that it is just horrific to look at, and that’s why people
want to turn away. And so what these activists are doing, the only thing
they’re doing is really journalism. They’re going and filming inside of
these facilities in order to make the world see what actually goes on inside
of them. And that is why they’re being prosecuted and that is why they’re
being arrested.
Occasionally, as a symbol, they will take a dying animal who was going to
die before it makes its way to the slaughterhouse anyway and therefore has
no commercial value, and they rescue them. They bring them to a
veterinarian. They care for them. They bring them to a shelter so that they
can live lives. They personalize it to show the nature of animal suffering.
They don’t ever take anything of commercial value. Their real crime is that
they’re shining a light on what these extremely powerful and profitable
corporations are doing, and that is why these corporations, which control
the government and control law enforcement, are prosecuting them. They’re
punishing them in response to the journalism that they’re doing, to chill
and deter people from shining a light on what it is that really goes on
inside of American industrial farms and the horrific torture and suffering
that animals endure in our name.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And Glenn, the issue, for instance, in this particular
case—these were chickens that were being bred for Amazon and Whole Foods.
The total false advertising of these companies in terms of—you’re reading
about cage-free hens—that the reality is quite different. So it’s not only
the barbarism of the way the animals are being treated, but the complete
fraud in the advertising of these companies.
GLENN GREENWALD: Exactly, Juan. That’s such an important point. Because
there have been, thanks to the heroic work of animal rights activists,
increasing recognition of how horrifically animals are treated as part of
animal agriculture. And so a lot of consumers are receptive to appeals by
corporations like Whole Foods and Amazon that there is ethical eating
choices, that you can buy organic foods where the animals are treated
better. And the reality is much, much different.
Just last month, we reported on a turkey farm in Utah that the same
activists with Direct Action Everywhere were able to film, and the abuse of
these turkeys and the disease and the injuries in which they were suffering
was absolutely horrific and completely at odds with the bucolic organic
branding that this company, which is now a supplier of Whole Foods,
advertises to people and convinces people to buy their products on the basis
of it.
And it’s the same as this chicken farm. You saw some of the hideous images.
It is absolutely corporate deceit and corporate fraud. And the problem is
that both at the federal and at the state level, agricultural executives are
in charge of the regulatory bodies and therefore view even the minimal laws
governing animal welfare as a joke. And so even when companies radically and
purposefully violate the minimal welfare laws, they barely get fined. A lot
of times they just get warned, even for the most egregious abuses. And
that’s what these activists are saying. They’re saying there are laws in
place to prevent animal abuse and the government is purposefully abdicating
its role in enforcing the law, leaving activists with no choice but to do it
themselves, because nobody else is doing it.
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