American Legislative Exchange Council

“The pigs on this farm are the ones with 2 legs & voices; they just love to abuse the animals in their control. They are sadistic to the extreme, listen to how they speak to the pigs, their sickening actions & the cries of the animals, make me want to weep & puke at the same time! Unfortunately this isn’t the only farm that employs workers who treat animals, as if they are just the shit on their shoes! Many farms & slaughterhouses, employ workers to handle livestock; with no idea that they are employing animal abusers! For the sick bastards who just love kicking the crap out of animals; working on a farm is an ideal job. But how does the employer know if a potential worker is really just after the job because he enjoys hurting animals; or that they are genuine people, who want to work in the farming trade? Would the farmer employ someone, who’s name is on an Animal Abuse Register?? Not if he loves his animals he wouldn’t…point made!!

So for now, the abuse will carry on & the 2 legged pigs will carry on getting away with it; if Ag-Gag bills are brought into action. These pathetic legislative bills are only there to stop the public from knowing how a certain farm treats its animals! But the public are the ones who keep these companies afloat; so don’t they have a right to know how the animals are treated? The only way of getting to the truth is by someone going undercover! If a company knows someone is coming to inspect them, then of course the farm is spotless & the workers are at their best. But would the outcome be the same if the inspection was not known about before hand i.e under surveillance?

We have undercover shoppers, whose aim is to go into public clothes stores to see exactly how the company treats the public; so what’s the problem carrying out similar actions with livestock? Surely it is more important to know that animals in breeding plants & slaughterhouses are treated humanely; than customers in high street stores, getting a smile with each transaction!!

If I ate meat (which I don’t), I would gladly contribute or want undercover surveillance to find out if the meat I was buying in shops; was being humanely treated before it arrived!! At the moment, undercover surveillance is the only way the public will find out the truth; if Ag- Gag bills are adopted. Think about it, if the owners of said farms are approached & think they have nothing to be ashamed of, they won’t be concerned with Ag-Gag bills, & will gladly accept undercover surveillance! But if a farm or slaughterhouse don’t want undercover agents in their workplace, & they have Ag-Gag bills in place; well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out which farm to buy from!

To conclude: don’t buy meat from any supplier that has an Ag-Gag rule; they are trying to hide something!! Lets get Animal Abuse Registers introduced; so employers can check job applicants before employing them to work with their animals, knowing they will treat them with the respect they deserve! Lets not forget, many animal abusers, are often domestic abusers too! For some, abusing animals is only the beginning of a sick criminal life; who end up preying on unsuspecting humans!

Pigs Thrown in Air and Kicked like Soccer Balls at Wyoming Farm: Five Workers Convicted of Animal Cruelty

Five employees from Wheatland, Wyo.-based Wyoming Premium Farms— Patrick Ruckavina, Richard Pritekel, Edward Pritekel, Kali Oseland and David Bienz—have each been convicted on multiple counts of cruelty to animals after a Humane Society of the United States undercover investigation documented acts of animal abuse.

During the investigation, released last year, Wyoming Premium was supplying pigs to meat giant Tyson Foods, which severed its relationship with the farm after the investigation was released.

The investigation documented Wyoming Premium workers kicking live piglets like soccer balls, swinging sick piglets in circles by their hind legs, striking mother pigs with their fists and repeatedly and forcefully kicking them as they resisted leaving their young, among other abuses.

“All animals deserve humane treatment, including animals raised for food,” said Jonathan Lovvorn, senior vice president for investigations at The Humane Society of the United States. “We are grateful to law enforcement officials for pursuing charges in this case, and we hope that these convictions will deter further abuse of animals on industrial factory farms.”

In addition to the individual acts of abuse which led to criminal charges, The HSUS’ investigation also found breeding pigs confined day-and-night in gestation crates, tiny cages that virtually immobilize animals for nearly their entire lives. Gestation crates, used throughout Tyson Foods’ supply chain, have come under fire by McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Costco, Safeway, Kroger, Oscar Mayer, Jimmy Dean, Sysco and other nearly 50 other leading food companies, as well as from veterinarians, farmers, animal welfare advocates, scientists, consumers and others

Read More/Graphic – Viewer Discretion Advised – Watch Undercover Investigation:http://m.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2013/04/wyoming-premium-farms-worker-convictions-041113.html

Published on 8 May 2012

Warning: Contains Graphic Footage. Undercover video footage at “Wyoming Premium Farms” revealing egregious cruelty and filthy conditions at a Wyoming pig breeding facility owned by a supplier for Tyson Foods.

“WTF…this is simple, if slaughter houses didn’t employ thugs, who enjoy torturing the animals before they are slaughtered; there wouldn’t be any need for undercover footage. Slaughter houses are shitting their pants, because they know if the public found out what goes on behind their closed doors…they would be financially brought to their knees. INSTEAD OF TARGETING THOSE TRYING TO EXPOSE THE ABUSE…GET RID OF THOSE DOING THE ABUSE!!! MAKE CCTV MANDATORY…I could go on but I’m sure you are all well aware of what happens behind closed doors. So buy wisely, from local suppliers you trust, buy organic to avoid pesticides & antibiotics; much better for the environment too! Don’t the animals deserve some quality of life before they end up on your plate? Giving them the ability to act naturally in open spaces; well, it’s not much to ask for taking their life…is it??”

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

slaughterhousefinal Thom Hartmann points the finger squarely at the infamous ALEC for new laws being proposed – and some already enacted – that would make it a criminal act to document animals cruelly treated and slaughtered by the meat and poultry processing industries.

As Hartmann wrote on Truthout the other day,

ALEC is now parading around bills in six states that would make it a crime to film animal abuse at factory farms, or lie on job applications in order to get a job in a factory farm with the goal of taking pictures. All of this is to stop animal rights activists who infiltrate slaughterhouses to expose their deplorable conditions.

The bill proposals pushed by ALEC require all evidence of animal abuse at factory farms be turned over to law enforcement authorities within 48 hours, or those who took the pictures face a financial penalty.

The proposals also make it a crime to lie on slaughterhouse job applications, which activists commonly do in order to get documentation of animal abuse.

Right now, according to the Associated Press, the bills to block animal rights activists are under consideration in California, Nebraska, Tennessee, Indiana, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.

Three other states – New Mexico, Wyoming and New Hampshire – have already rejected similar bills this year.

And several states already have laws similar to what ALEC is currently pushing. Utah has a law that bans unauthorized photography in farms, and Iowa has a law that makes it a crime to lie to gain access to a farm’s staff.

ABC News gets down to the grisly details of what goes down at some factory animal farms,

An undercover video that showed California cows struggling to stand as they were prodded to slaughter by forklifts led to the largest meat recall in U.S. history. In Vermont, a video of veal calves skinned alive and tossed like sacks of potatoes ended with the plant’s closure and criminal convictions.

Now in a pushback led by the meat and poultry industries, state legislators across the country are introducing laws making it harder for animal welfare advocates to investigate cruelty and food safety cases….

ALEC has labeled those who interfere with animal operations “terrorists,” though a spokesman said he wishes now that the organization had called its legislation the “Freedom to Farm Act“ rather than the “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act.”

“At the end of the day it’s about personal property rights or the individual right to privacy,” said [ALEC] spokesman Bill Meierling. “You wouldn’t want me coming into your home with a hidden camera.”

But Meierling is using a logical fallacy here that is breathtaking in its deceit. If you take a photo in my home, it will not be of any brutally treated animals that are being commercially slaughtered to sell meat or chicken to consumers for profit in the marketplace. But that is the case with an untold number of meat industry titans. Their “houses” of business are abattoirs of profit – and they don’t want the public to see the wretched, inhumane conditions that the animals live in or how they are abused.

Actually, the state measures that ALEC is currently backing and trying to move through agricultural state legislatures have their origin in a federal bill that Meierling refers to: the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act (AETA). AETA is a pernicious piece of legislation, passed into law by Congress in 2006, that violates the First Amendment in order to keep the public in the dark about wanton animal cruelty on a massive scale.

According to the Center for the Constitutional Rights, the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act has already had a chilling effect. In regards to a recent case in New York challenging the law, the Center writes:

The language of the AETA is so overbroad that it criminalizes protected First Amendment speech. The law punishes anyone found to have caused the loss of property or profits to a business or other institution that uses or sells animals or animal products or to “a person or entity having a connection to, relationship with, or transactions with an animal enterprise.” Furthermore … key terms in the statute, including the definition of an “animal enterprise,” are unconstitutionally vague. The plaintiffs, who have long histories of participating in peaceful protests and animal rights advocacy, say that fear of prosecution as terrorists has led them to limit or even cease their lawful advocacy….

Critics argue it punishes peaceful protests and turns non-violent civil disobedience into “terrorism.” Moreover, though it targets animal rights activists specifically, the AETA is written so broadly, they say, it could turn a successful labor protest at Wal-Mart, which sells animal products, into an act of domestic terrorism. Non-violent protesters charged under the law face up to twenty years in prison, depending on the amount of profit loss that results from their actions.

The 2006 AETA amended the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), which punished causing a “physical disruption” to an animal enterprise. In 2006, six activists were convicted in New Jersey for conspiring to violate the AEPA, and served between one and six years in prison for publishing a website that advocated and reported on protest activity against an animal testing lab, its business affiliates, and their employees. The activists were not accused of injuring anyone or vandalizing any property. One of the defendants in that case, Lauren Gazzola, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging the AETA.

Currently, as noted above, activists for the humane treatment of animals can be prosecuted if they share with the public abusive industry practices that result in a revenue loss for the slaughterhouse company. Yes, you read that right: if an individual US citizen exposes the cruel treatment of animals, and the public is repelled from buying meat or chicken from that company as a result, the animal activists can be sued for the loss of profit and treated as, essentially, terrorists.

This nation — the United States — has clearly walked through the looking glass as far as justice. In terms of mega-slaughter house companies, Wall Street, transnational corporations, etc., the Constitution can be bought through campaign contributions.

It’s up for sale to the highest bidders, being sold off section by section.

News Link:-http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17872-animal-slaughter-industry-making-it-illegal-to-show-you-cruelty-including-veal-calves-skinned-alive