“The main scourge of humanity is not ignorance, because the ignorant often have excuses, but the refusal to know.”
– Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
How misinformed, or willfully ignorant are most Americans? According to one study, 7% of American adults (over 17 million people), think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, while nearly 50% are unsure where chocolate milk comes from. Somehow, I was jolted by that report, even though I knew that most Americans read less than one book per year, and that the US is below average in international comparisons of student achievement. Unsurprisingly, and to make matters even less tenable, two years into the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza (one of the worst crimes in human history), more Americans sympathize with Israelis, than they do with Palestinians (only 39% of Americans say that Israel has gone too far in its genocidal assault on Palestine). If you are not ashamed, and disgusted by the United States of America at this point, then you are either not paying attention (for whatever reasons), or you’re a sociopath.
Image: Democracy Now!
Activist and author, Will Potter, has written an excellent book titled, Little Red Barns, Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable. I was drawn to Mr. Potter’s work when I heard him talk about the intersectionality of factory farms, international climate summits, Congressional hearings, and neo-Nazi fascist groups. I was hoping that he would write about the connections between US hegemony, animal factories, and the US military industrial complex, but unfortunately, he chose not to go there. Perhaps that is why his book has received some positive reviews from legacy media outlets (e.g., the Washington Post, NY Crimes), as well as praise from many influential groups in the vegan movement such as Unchained TV, and Our Hen House (both organizations, like most in the vegan movement, have been SILENT or worse, on the genocide in Gaza). Still, it is an enlightening book that had me scribbling notes on nearly every page.
Click here for the book’s trailer.
Click here to learn more from Democracy Now!
Excerpts (takeaways), from Little Red Barns, Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable:
1. The US government has Labeled Animal Rights Activists as Terrorists for Years
Will Potter: “According to FBI files uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act, the Joint Terrorism Task Force surveilled activists who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and recommended prosecuting them as terrorists. All while telling Congress that they needed more power. A 2003 FBI file details the work of several animal rights activists who used undercover investigation to document repeated animal welfare violations. The FBI special agent who authored the report said they “illegally entered buildings owned by [redacted] Farm…and videotaped conditions of animals.” The animal activists caused “economic loss” to businesses, the FBI said. And they also openly rescued several animals from the abusive conditions. This was not done covertly in the style of underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front. It was an open act of non-violent civil disobedience and, as the FBI agent notes, the activists distributed press releases and conducted media interviews taking responsibility for their actions. Based on these acts—trespassing in order to photograph and videotape abuses on factory farms—the agent concludes there “is a reasonable indication” that the activists “have violated the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, 18 USC Section 43 (a)…A covert lobbying group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. ALEC is a secretive organization that connects lawmakers to corporate sponsors in order to reshape state policies on social issues. The way ALEC works is that corporations donate buckets of money to the group, which then offers state lawmakers all-expenses-paid junkets. As lawmakers are off being wined and dined, going to Broadway shows, corporate representatives draft model state legislation that reflects their interests. Then, when the lawmakers go home, they introduce these bills in their statehouses but not without wiping away corporate fingerprints. Constituents and other politicians have no idea that the legislation being debated was literally written by corporations. ALEC is often described as a Trojan horse, but the truth is that the group is more like a factory farm for state laws…I had reported on ALEC’s bill mill previously, documenting its model “eco-terrorism” legislation that criminalizes protests and nonviolent civil disobedience like tree sits. The “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act” was drafted by representatives of the pharmaceutical, animal agriculture, and natural resource industries…Pfizer, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline, PhRMA, Boehringer Pharmaceuticals (of all antibiotics sold in the United States, close to 80% are sold for use in animal agriculture (Big Ag)), and the National Pork Producers Council were just some of the ALEC sponsors involved. This is perhaps the most important point to understand: task forces, model bills, and voting blocs are among ALEC’s tools, but ALEC itself is a tool in a bigger effort. ALEC’s ability to introduce model legislation and to mobilize its members across the country has been essential to the rise of ag-gag laws…Some of the most important congressional players in the long-term campaign to label animal and environmental activists as “terrorists” are verified ALEC members.
For example:
U.S. Representative Don Young (Alaska), who publicly speculated in the aftermath of 9/11 that the attacks were the work of environmentalists and called for Congressional hearings on “eco-terrorism”.
U.S. Senator James Inhofe (OK), who has had a hand in multiple versions of “eco-terrorism” bills/hearings over the last 20 years.
U.S. Representative Steve King of Iowa who publicly brags about his war on vegetarians”.
2. Study: Support for Animal Rights is Strongly Linked to support for Human Rights, “including LGBTQ groups, racial minorities, undocumented immigrants, and the poor”.
Will Potter must not be familiar with PETA’s complicity in genocide. If you are unfamiliar, PETA is an animal rights organization that has supported the US-Israeli genocide in Palestine from day one. Still, this is an interesting passage, and overall, Mr. Potter does terrific work.
Will Potter: “I’ve personally found that the stereotype of animal activists as “not caring about humans” is just plain wrong. Activists may focus their efforts on stopping animal cruelty, but many of them are consistently showing up for other protest movements, from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter. Research has shown that caring about animals is actually connected to more support for human rights, not less. That was the conclusion of researchers at Harvard University and Dartmouth College after conducting a study of individual attitudes regarding the suffering of animals and humans. “Our results demonstrate that support for animal rights strongly links to support for disadvantaged or marginalized human populations, including LGBTQ groups, racial minorities, undocumented immigrants, and the poor,” they wrote in Human Rights Quarterly.”
Click here to learn more from Psychology Today.
Credit: Unknown
3. Censorship Rarely Works
Will Potter: “CENSORSHIP ALWAYS BACKFIRES. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in 2023 found that banning books increased their circulation an average of 12 percent in that state and 11 percent in states that did not ban the book. When you tell people not to see something, they generally want to see it more.”
“The reason activists are a threat, I have said hundreds of times in public lectures, is not because they are breaking windows. It’s because they are creating them.” – Will Potter
Image: University of Arizona
4. “Biological Annihilation” is already Under Way due to the Climate Crisis
Although Mr. Potter avoids being critical of the US military, Animal Agriculture (Big Ag), and the US Military/Fossil Fuels, are the most destructive industries facing our planet today.
Will Potter: “We are literally racing toward extinction. Researchers at the University of Arizona have warned that within the next 50 years, one-third of all the world’s species could become extinct due to climate change. Scientists writing in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution have estimated that it could take 10 million years for the earth to recover from this human-caused mass extinction. The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warned that the earth’s sixth mass extinction event is already under way. The authors called it “biological annihilation.””
Click here to learn more from the University of Arizona.
Click here to learn more from Abby Martin & Mike Prysner, about one of Earth’s greatest enemies, the United States Military.
Image: New Roots Institute
5. Stop with the Excuses, and Adopt a Plant-Based Diet Today
Will Potter: “According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, air pollution from factory farms kills 17,000 people a year, that’s even more than the deaths caused by coal plants.”
Click here to learn more from New Roots Institute.
6. Students are not Taught the Truth, and How to Think Critically
Will Potter: “One thing is clear: we are being raised in the dark about farming and food, both at home and in school. Multiple studies have shown that elementary school teachers lack basic knowledge of agricultural practices. (They also lack the adequate resources, time, and support required to create their own curricula on the topic and instead must rely on industry-created lesson plans.) In one study by researchers at the University of Oregon, for example, teachers were asked to describe what they thought a farm looked like. Some said their ideas of farming came from television shows like Little House on the Prairie. “When I think of a farm,” another teacher said, “I think of a big red barn.”
Click here for the University of Oregon study.
Click here for the film Dominion, to learn more about the horrors of animal factories.
Click here to learn in 5 minutes, why Dairy is SCARY.
Lastly, while meat consumption in the United States continues to rise, and many vegan restaurants have closed, there are still many reasons for hope. According to Bjorn Lafsson,“A study from 2003 found that women, the young, the old and college-educated Americans were less likely to consume large amounts of meat. One key shift: white men today are far more likely to eat lots of meat than in 2003, but the opposite is now true for Black men, even though both of these groups were eating at average levels some two-decades ago. It’s tough to pinpoint an exact cause for this gap but one explanation might be that the huge shift towards veganism in Black communities. At the same time, it’s become increasingly common for white men who follow far-right political ideologies to wield meat as a symbol of their masculinity, and their alignment in the culture wars. In contrast, younger generations have demonstrated far more interest in meat reduction. Millennials and Gen Z are more likely to care about their food’s environmental impact than older generations, and even to follow a low-meat diet, like vegan, vegetarian or flexitarian.”
Click here to learn more from Sentient Media’s Bjorn Lafsson.
The bottom line? Will Potter has channeled his inner Upton Sinclair, and written one of the best books of the year. In many ways, Little Red Barns, Hiding the Truth, From Farm to Fable, is a call to action for animal rights.
*Please remember that the US-Israeli genocide is being powered by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, TikTok, Apple, Palantir, and Oracle. If you are ordering books online, please consider booksellers other than Amazon, like Thriftbooks, and City Lights.
Until next time….
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Artist: Carlos Latuff
