Animal Cruelty on DVD - an issue of free speech?

There's an interesting case going to the Supreme Court in the US this fall, which I am looking forward to hearing the verdict for...

It involves a man charged with animal cruelty for selling DVD recordings of illegal dog fighting, portraying animal violence such as dogs eating a live pig and tearing its jaw off. The defense is claiming that even though the act portrayed is illegal, it is not illegal to sell recordings of the act. This opens up a floodgate of problems, because if this case will be deemed in favor of the defendant, that means that generally the legal system deems that making a profit of a violent act is alright, just as long as you don't actually, physically, perform it.

Under such thinking, there should be nothing wrong with selling snuff films - as these DVDs are basically animal snuff films - nor would there be anything wrong with selling child pornography, if you are not involved with the actual violence. It should be noted that the first child protection cases were tried under laws of animal treatment, back in the 19th century, and it would be a great double standard if the Supreme Court will allow animal violence videos as "free speech" without following the same path with e.g. child pornography videos: "Animal cruelty is illegal in every state in this country. It is a crime. To make money off a crime is to compound the crime. That's one of the many good reasons that child pornography is illegal." (LA Times, April 21, 2009).

More articles on the issue: CNN.com and The Washington Post.

Indeed, the before-mentioned "crush videos" (see post below) will be part of this case, making the upcoming trial all the more gruesome and interesting.

Gorilla Women of the Amazon

According to Sue Hubbell's book about genetic engineering through the ages, Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes, there was a Phoenician explorer in ancient times, by the name of Hanno, who was allegedly among the first Mediterranean people to see a gorilla. The name of this great ape is derived from a word in an unknown African language that the Phoenicians heard local people call the animal.

A Greek document has been handed down that supposedly contains original transcriptions of Hanno's description of the strange "Gorillae" jungle people that he and his crew encountered in Africa. When reading the following lines, bear in mind that we humans share an almost complete genetic likeness to gorillas, so it's not really that much of an odd step for Hanno to interpret the animals as a strange, human tribe:

In the recess of this bay there was an island full of savage men. There were women, too, in even greater number. They had hairy bodies and the interpreters called them Gorillae. When we pursued them we were unable to take any of the men; for they all escaped, by climbing steep places and defending themselves with stones; but we took three of the women, who bit and scratched ... and would not follow us. So we killed them and flayed them, and brought their skins to Carthage.

Apparantly a number of writers from later times reported having seen these skins in Carthage (before the city was destroyed), which were believed to have belonged to strange women of a mysterious tribe living in the South ... and some think that these gorilla skins may have been the inspiration for the legend of the fierce warrior women - the Amazons.

Crush Erotica

Am I always the last one to hear about these things, or is this stuff common knowledge? Holy fuck.

Crush fetish (Wikipedia)

Mickey Rooney protesting against the making of crush videos

The Rooney thing is from 10 years ago! And they're still making them. Always sexy to see a scantily clad woman in stiletto heels crushing rats and kittens . . .





Still images from an alleged crush video can bee seen here, although it's not recommended. At all.

Apparantly there's a petition out to ban this at the care2 website, but it doesn't seem to be doing too well...

Anyhow, fetish crush videos are also called Trampling or Squish videos. Watch out.

Vegetarian Butchers . . .

Two interesting articles regarding the ethical stand of vegans/vegetarians who base their actions on the handling of meat, rather than any sort of intrinsic value given to the animals' lives in and of themselves ... A vegan for many years becomes a butcher, after starting his own "organic" slaughterhouse, and eco-conscious Earth-loving people learn how to slit chicken's throats on their own, thus getting rid of any third party factory farms, in the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma":

Vegetarian Butchers?

The Omnivore's Rationalization

A World Gone Mad!

Tom Regan writes in his wonderful Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights that "being kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages."

Imagine that there are no cages left on Earth... Or, that all the cages have been left empty. The animals are free. Roaming the Earth. What will they do? What happens if they decide ... to strike back?

Is this the horrible reality that awaits humankind when all cages are left empty?

WHAT WILL BECOME OF US HUMANS IF ANIMALS ATTAIN THE BASIC RIGHTS TO LIFE, FREEDOM AND WELL-BEING?

Surely not this...



This late '70s piece of horror trash cinema is an interesting piece of work that taps into a fear of animal freedom... How easily would the animals be able to take revenge, if the opportunity arose...?
As the promotional poster so dramatically proclaims:
FOR CENTURIES THEY WERE HUNTED FOR BOUNTY, FUN AND FOOD ... NOW IT'S THEIR TURN.

However, the basic plot has nothing to do with animals freed from the tyranny of man, but takes place in a possible future where the gap in the ozone layer has become so large that ultraviolet rays are starting to mess with the minds of creatures living at a certain altitude. For a group of people hiking in the mountains, all the surrounding animals go berserk and try to KILL ALL HUMANS in sight. Indeed, it also affects some humans who become violent (Leslie Nielsen - of all people - goes on a homicidal rampage and even tries to rape a woman...), so the idea of the "animal revolution" implied in the title and the whole promotional campaign is just balls.

That said, the film remains very bad, even though it has its funny moments (...crazy Leslie Nielsen!), but still remains recommended for anyone interested in the presentation of animals in low-budget horror flicks and the whole "nature-run-amok!" sub-genre.

The idea of liberated animals ganging up against their oppressors is much more interesting in Derek Jensen's graphic novel, As The World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay In Denial, which deals with the true meaning of living "green". It's illustrated by Stephanie McMillan.

Jensen vividly describes the terrifying truth about the state of our planet and gives an important reminder that the simple solutions are only distracting us from the root of the problems . . . Finally, it's the animal kingdom that rises up against the ones killing our planet and starts the revolution us humans are too weak-willed to begin ourselves, all led by a one-eyed, vivisected, terrorist bunny. It's an all-out War of the World. Really inspiring stuff. This is a book that - hopefully - will truly destroy all your illusions about eco-friendly living.


Conveniently enough, someone was nice enough to scan and upload the whole book, which can be read HERE.

And if you happen to like it, you can buy the book directly from the author HERE.

So many ways for us to die . . .

SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM

The Donkey Headed Adversary Of Humanity Opens The Discussion



Mankind is a plague
Breathing hell into every corner of the rotting earth
Even now in this our finest hour I feel the hate of every stone, tree & flower
Eaters of the soil take us into the ground
Death by worm
Eaters of the air drive us from the blue
Death by sparrow
Eaters of the sea take us into the green
Death by eel
Eaters of the scraps take in our beds
Death by dog
Eaters of the soil take us into the ground
Death by sand
Eaters of the air drive us from the sky
Death by flower
Eaters of the green take us into the sea
Death by water
Eaters of the scraps take us in out beds
Death by stone
Death by silence
Death by sorrow