We’ve all been there. We’re eating at a restaurant, enjoying ourselves and having a delicious meal, when we suddenly forget where we are entirely! Well, the next time this happens to you, look out for these telltale signs in the off chance that you happen to be eating in Brooklyn!
Are they wearing a beanie or a fedora? Are their jeans skinny and cuffed? Wearing suspenders and covered in tattoos? Yeah, you’re probably in Brooklyn.
It was 2002 and Will Potter, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, decided that he wanted to do something good for the environment and in a safe, peaceful way. He hoped it would get his mind off of the recent sadness surrounding the country from the recent 9/11 attacks. So, he decided to join some fellow activists and hang door knockers to help stop animal testing.
That day, they were all arrested and the police took a blurry photograph of Potter holding leaflets as evidence of his “crime.” Two weeks later, Potter was greeted by three knocks on his front door. It was the FBI. Continue reading
Many people know of the three main reasons for going vegan: health, environmental, and ethical. But most are not aware of the huge economic benefit that going vegan can have for both an individual and for the country.
Photo: iScience
During the past eleven months that I’ve spent as a vegan, I have noticed that there are a few things almost every meat eater likes to present me with as a way of reasoning why they have decided not to hop on the veggie bandwagon. Continue reading
“Eco-terrorism” was a term developed by the FBI out of the necessity to label and persecute the radical and violent actions of several individuals and groups of activists standing up for the environment.
The FBI defines an “eco-terrorist” as “as the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.”
Between the 70’s and the early 90’s, groups such as Earth Liberation Front and Earth First! were putting innocent lives at risk and causing millions of dollars of damage to car companies and mills across the country and it needed to be stopped.
While at first it seemed that these efforts to combat eco-terrorism were a step in the right direction, a way to prevent senseless damage and injuries as well as a promotion of peaceful activism, today we can see a clear abuse of these laws and labels by the government. Continue reading
Photo: One Green Planet
New York Times writer, Mark Bittman, has been credited with the coining of the term “ag-gag”in his 2011 article about whistleblowing within the Animal Agriculture Industries, though the laws which the term refers to have been in place for over two decades.
These laws outlawed any recording within an animal facility in order to protect these businesses from the journalists and activists who had been going in undercover as employees and documenting the horrifying cases of animal abuse that had been going on.
Photo: The Daily Beast
The term “Eco-terrorism” was established in the 1970’s out of the need to persecute the groups and individuals who were committing acts of violence in defense of the environment. It is defined as “the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against people or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature,”(USLegal).
At first glance, this all seems well and just. After all, there were several groups who were committing crimes in order to make statements that would lead to innocent people being hurt or even killed. Continue reading
Without using any gas, oil or fuel from today forward, we would still exceed the maximum carbon equivalent for greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030, purely because of our raising of livestock. We are seeing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years and the Rainforest is being cut down at a rate of an acre per second due to the needs fueled by animal agriculture (Cowspiracy).
Sunday, November 22nd, 2016:
Marianne Belanger was woken up at 11:45pm by a call from one of her friends, and fellow volunteer at the Sweetpea Animal Shelter, informing her that the shelter was on fire. Suddenly filled with fear, she jumped in her car and raced to the shelter as fast as she could.
“Upon arrival,” Belanger said, “I was overwhelmed by the sadness from the other volunteers – at that point five dogs and one cat had been rescued – and so we sat in the boarding kennels, cried and held the survivors in blankets and tried to warm them and sooth them.”
Photo by Amanda Keohane
Belanger had been volunteering for the shelter several times a week since last summer (2015), when she was recruited to help plan the annual “Spooktacular” event. She has been passionate about the non-profit ever since. Continue reading
