Will Potter's Blog, page 8

That time Propagandhi talked about “Green Is the New Red” on stage

“Will Potter is the author of a book called Green Is the New Red… He’s up here fucking moshing.”

This is the best. Thanks to Greg for sending in this clip from his phone. Can’t wait to see them again this Saturday in Baltimore!

Also, I love the weirdo who for some reason decided to yell out “RIP Howard Zinn” at the end. What a goof.

Oh, and if you’re not already, you should be listening to Chris and Derek’s podcast Escape Velocity.

That time Propagandhi talked about “Green Is the New Red” on stage from Green Is The New Red

Factory Farms Are Going to Absolutely Hate this New Video Game

In “tower defense” style video games, players are usually fighting off marauding armies (or zombies). They’re usually set in medieval times, or on distant planets—not farms.

But Relevant Games has just announced a new twist on the genre, and a biting new commentary on an agriculture industry run amok.

In “Fat Chicken,” players

“build a factory farm armed to the udders with towers that provide feed, water, growth hormones and antibiotics to the oncoming herds of farm animals. Upgrade your towers to boost their efficiency and don’t forget to fend off pesky protesters with your well-armed force of rent-a-cops!”

Players earn “MurderBux” as their farms grow increasingly extreme and militarized. It’s that relentless pursuit of profit—at the expense of animal welfare, and our health—that motivated the games’ designers, they say.

“Fat Chicken is a passion project for the team at Relevant Games, and is inspired by the work of Will Potter (author of “Green is the New Red”, activist and journalist), his efforts to expose the horrors of factory farming and challenging Ag-Gag legislation. Our Sr. Creative, Randy Greenback, went to work collecting data, bringing in real-world elements and issues, then weaving them into a blown out looney-tunes satirical world full of interesting gameplay challenges.”

In the game, when protest groups send in drones to film what’s happening, players can upgrade their towers and shoot them down.

Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen in real life with my new project.

Maybe I should practice my drone skills in the game first?

If you like the game, you can vote for it on Steam Greenlight.

Factory Farms Are Going to Absolutely Hate this New Video Game from Green Is The New Red

The FBI’s latest case? A butcher shop’s broken window

The FBI has a hot new case. Someone broke two windows at a grocery store.

Yep, you read that correctly.

Windows are broken all the time, and most businesses would be lucky to have local cops respond, let alone the FBI. So how does such an insignificant crime get on the national radar?

As one NBC reporter noted, “This is no ordinary vandalism case.”

That’s because the FBI says the window was broken by animal rights activists.

The website Bite Back published an anonymous message that said the windows were broken at “Star Meats in Berkeley CA, a butcher shop that boasts about its organic and locally sourced meat. Cage free, organic, murder is murder and death is death.” The message was signed by “veganarchist lone wolf.”

For year, the FBI has been prosecuting animal rights and environmental activists as “terrorists,” even going so far as to call them the “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

Yet for all the broken windows—or the recent terrorism prosecution of two activists accused of saving mink from fur farms—no one has been injured.

Meanwhile, a new report says that the sovereign citizen movement is the most pressing threat for law enforcement.

“Such changing perceptions about what is a serious terrorist threat is an important finding,” the report says, “because identifying and prioritizing a threat is akin to hitting a moving target and evolves as new intelligence, data, and events develop.”

One thing is clear: the FBI is never going to hit this evolving, moving target if it’s wasting terrorism resources investigating a broken window.

The FBI’s latest case? A butcher shop’s broken window from Green Is The New Red

National Geographic: Drones Will Change the Way You Eat

National Geographic‘s Mary Beth Albright reports:

“Investigative journalist Will Potter has been long frustrated by state ‘ag gag’ laws criminalizing the use of false pretenses to access a farm for purposes not authorized by the owner (such as photographing animal cruelty). In some cases, the photographer is subject to greater punishment than the perpetrator of animal cruelty. So Potter got creative with a Kickstarter campaign to buy drones…”

You can read the full article at National Geographic.

Wonderful to see my new drone project creating such a buzz, and it’s not even off the ground (yuck yuck yuck). Be sure to sign up for email updates and follow along. Excited to get moving on this!

 

 

National Geographic: Drones Will Change the Way You Eat from Green Is The New Red

Pork Industry Leader Arrested with Gun at US Capitol

The president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council has been arrested for carrying a gun into a Congressional building.

Ronald William Prestage was attempting to enter the Cannon House Office Building, which is where U.S. Representatives have offices.

As UPI reports, he was carrying a 9mm Ruger handgun and magazine.

No word yet what the gunman was planning.

The offense carries up to five years in prison.

However, what wire stories have not picked up on is the fact that this is the same Ron Prestage who is the president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council, an ag industry lobby group.

The NPPC has been out front opposing modest animal welfare reforms, like the elimination of gestation crates which keep pigs confined their entire lives without being able to turn around. (For background, check out this great Washington Post piece.)

Ironically, the NPPC has also lobbied for new laws labeling animal advocates as “extremists” and “terrorists.” The NPPC was one of many industry groups that advocated for the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, for instance.

Just a few weeks ago, animal rights activists were indicted as terrorists under this law for allegedly freeing mink from fur farms.

Think what would happen if an animal activist had been the one carrying a weapon into a capitol building.

Instead of wasting resources by focusing on non-violent activists as “terrorists,” perhaps lawmakers and the FBI should be investigated ag industry lobby groups.

After all, they’re the only ones who are armed.

 

Pork Industry Leader Arrested with Gun at US Capitol from Green Is The New Red

The FBI Considers These Animal Rights Activists Terrorists

I was recently on HuffPost Live talking about the recent case of two animal rights activists being prosecuted as “terrorists” for allegedly freeing mink from fur farms.

Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff are being charged under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

Watch the full video here:

The FBI Considers These Animal Rights Activists Terrorists from Green Is The New Red

Rise Against supports Green Is the New Red

Well this made my day.

Tim from Rise Against says: “My new favorite thing is a book called Green Is The New Red by Will Potter.”

Watch the video below, with Tim talking about ag-gag laws, and how protest is being labeled as “terrorism.”

Rise Against also has a song on their new album The Black Market called “The Eco-Terrorist in Me.” Check it out!

PS: You can order a copy of Green Is The New Red here.

Rise Against supports Green Is the New Red from Green Is The New Red

Democracy Now: How did freeing animals from cages become an act of terrorism?

[image error]I was on Democracy Now this morning talking about the recent indictment of two animal rights activists as terrorists for allegedly releasing mink from fur farms.

Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff allegedly opened cages on at least one fur farm, allowing the animals to run free rather than be skinned and turned into coats and fashion accessories. They also allegedly spraypainted “Love is Liberation” on the fur farm.

Amy Goodman asked me about how actions like this—which are clearly illegal, but injured no one—can be prosecuted as terrorism. We discussed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, ag-gag laws, and also my newly-funded Kickstarter.

“This radical expansion of terrorism powers is in the name of protecting corporate interests.” @will_potter http://t.co/G7TNXEyS8C

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) July 15, 2014

Huge thanks to Democracy Now for consistently covering these issues!

PS You know times are changing when you have Gotham’s Police Commissioner on your side:

@will_potter good job on #democracynow – important work. @AdamRackoff

— Matthew Modine (@MatthewModine) July 15, 2014

Democracy Now: How did freeing animals from cages become an act of terrorism? from Green Is The New Red

BREAKING: 2 Animal Activists Indicted as Terrorists for Freeing Mink

Two animal rights activists have been indicted on federal terrorism charges for allegedly releasing 2,000 mink and foxes from fur farms in the Midwest.

Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff were charged with two counts of violating the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and committing “animal enterprise terrorism.”

Olliff is currently in jail in Illinois, where he was sentenced to 30 months in jail for having boltcutters in his Prius.

Lang was arrested outside of a Veggie Grill restaurant in Los Angeles on Thursday. He had arrived to prepare for a fundraiser at the restaurant to benefit the Bunny Alliance, an animal rights group with which he volunteers.

When he saw FBI agents walking up to the restaurant, he said he knew something was wrong. He was on the phone with a friend, who joked that they were there to spy on the animal rights fundraiser. Before he was arrested, he told his friend “call my lawyer.”

At Lang’s bail hearing at a Los Angeles federal courthouse, the government asked for a $30,000 bond, which is $20,000 above what pre-trial services had recommended.

The prosecutor did not request that Lang be jailed awaiting trial, but said Lang was a flight risk because of his “extreme activism.”

“He has plans to travel the country for what he calls non-profit work,” the prosecutor said, “but what the government calls violent civil disobedience.”

Lang told me he had planned on beginning a tour this weekend with other volunteers, protesting airlines that transport primate for animal experimentation.

Lang may not be able to attend the protests, but other volunteers say they are undeterred.

“We know that Tyler would want us to carry on with the Fight or Flight tour,” said Amanda Schemkes, a Bunny Alliance volunteer. “It’s to further the campaign against the transport of animals to labs, as well as to build and empower grassroots activism in the face of state repression. Our work to help animals continues to be motivated by them rather than stifled by attempts to chill activism.”

The indictments come as hundreds of animal rights activists are in Los Angeles this weekend for the National Animal Rights Conference, where a prominent theme is corporate efforts to label non-violent protest activity as “terrorism.”

Releasing animals from fur farms is clearly against the law, but in the history of underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front not a single human being has been harmed; yet the FBI continues to label animal rights activism as “terrorism.”

New ag-gag laws go even further, criminalizating whistleblowers, undercover investigators and journalists who expose animal cruelty on factory farms.

As FBI agents and prosecutors prepared for Lang’s bail hearing, it was clear that even they were a bit confused about this “terrorism” case.

Outside of the courtroom, one FBI agent was overheard on a cell phone saying: “No, he is being charged with damaging property. Not damaging animals—they are against that.”

BREAKING: 2 Animal Activists Indicted as Terrorists for Freeing Mink from Green Is The New Red

BREAKING: 2 Animal Rights Activists Indicted Under Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

Two animal rights activists have been indicted on federal terrorism charges for allegedly releasing 2,000 mink and fox from fur farms in the Midwest.

Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff were charged with two counts of violating the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and committing “animal enterprise terrorism.”

Olliff is currently in jail in Illinois, where he was sentenced to 30 months in jail for having boltcutters in his Prius.

Lang was arrested outside of a Veggie Grill restaurant in Los Angeles on Thursday. He had arrived to prepare for a fundraiser at the restaurant to benefit the Bunny Alliance, an animal rights group with which he volunteers.

When he saw FBI agents walking up to the restaurant, he said he knew something was wrong. He was on the phone with a friend, who joked that they were there to spy on the animal rights fundraiser. Before he was arrested, he told his friend “call my lawyer.”

At Lang’s bail hearing at a Los Angeles federal courthouse, the government asked for a $30,000 bond, which is $20,000 above what pre-trial services had recommended.

The prosecutor did not request that Lang be jailed awaiting trial, but said Lang was a flight risk because of his “extreme activism.”

“He has plans to travel the country for what he calls non-profit work,” the prosecutor said, “but what the government calls violent civil disobedience.”

Lang had planned on beginning a tour this weekend with other volunteers, protesting airlines that transport primate for animal experimentation.

Lang may not be able to attend the protests, but other volunteers say they are undeterred.

“We know that Tyler would want us to carry on with the Fight or Flight tour,” said Amanda Schemkes, a Bunny Alliance volunteer. “It’s to further the campaign against the transport of animals to labs, as well as to build and empower grassroots activism in the face of state repression. Our work to help animals continues to be motivated by them rather than stifled by attempts to chill activism.”

The indictments come as hundreds of animal rights activists are in Los Angeles this weekend for the national animal rights conference, where a prominent theme is corporate efforts to label non-violent protest activity as “terrorism.”

Releasing animals from fur farms is clearly against the law, but in the history of underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front not a single human being has been harmed; yet the FBI continues to label animal rights activism as “terrorism.”

New ag-gag laws go even further, criminalizating whistleblowers, undercover investigators and journalists who expose animal cruelty on factory farms.

As FBI agents and prosecutors prepared for Lang’s bail hearing, it was clear that even they were a bit confused about this “terrorism” case.

Outside of the courtroom, one FBI agent was overheard on a cell phone saying: “No, he is being charged with damaging property. Not damaging animals—they are against that.”

BREAKING: 2 Animal Rights Activists Indicted Under Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act from Green Is The New Red