Your Mommy Kills Animals

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Last night I watched a terrific documentary titled “Your Mommy Kills 
Animals” that is scheduled for theatrical release on July 20 and will be 
available on DVD in November. Although I consider myself well-versed in 
the ideas and activity of the radical movement, director Curtis Johnson 
uncovers a reality that was hitherto a blur in my mind, namely the 
animal rights movement. Structured as a debate between opposing sides on 
the issue, it succeeds both in terms of dispensing information–as any 
documentary should–as well as telling a highly dramatic story about some 
unique characters, namely the activists who John Lewis, the FBI’s deputy 
assistant director for counterterrorism, described as the nation’s top 
domestic terrorism threat in 2005.

There’s quite a rogue’s gallery in opposition to animal rights. We see 
Christopher Hitchens holding forth on how the activists become 
self-righteous absolutists in their desire to crush their enemies. 
Hearing these words coming out of his mouth was sufficient to get me to 
bag up all my leather shoes and bring them down to the thrift shop and 
to swear off chicken and fish (I have already given up red meat because 
of my blood pressure.) We also see Ron Arnold, the author of 
“Eco-Terrorism”, making the case against animal rights. Although I am 
very familiar with Arnold from past debates with his British allies, the 
ex-Marxists organized around the website Spiked Online, I have never 
heard him before. Arnold is an odd character. He couches his 
anti-environmentalist and anti-animal rights arguments in populist 
rhetoric, but has been exposed as a tool of big timber and mining interests.

But the chief opponent of animal rights heard from is one David 
Martosko, a truly sleazy character of the sort that has taken money from 
tobacco companies in the past to argue that smoking is harmless. 
Martosko works for the Center for Consumer Freedom, one of a number of 
pro-industry groups set up by Rick Berman, a long-time lobbyist for the 
food, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries. The group was created 
in 1995 as the Guest Choice Network with $600,000 from the Philip Morris 
tobacco company. Ever since the tobacco companies have been forced to 
retreat in the face of law suits and exposures, the focus has shifted to 
new battlegrounds. Apparently, American big business has no patience for 
unruly protestors who question their right to torture animals in the 
pursuit of profit.

On the other side of the barricades are people like Kevin Kjonaas, who 
was among the seven arrested for terrorism in connection with their 
involvement in Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), a group that has 
targeted employees, clients and associates of Huntingdon Life Sciences, 
a British research company that tests chemicals and drugs on thousands 
of animals each year. Their appearance and their words are sharply at 
odds with the allegations. Kjonaas is a wispy 29-year-old 
Catholic-school graduate who speaks in a high-pitched voice and might 
remind you of the comic Emo Phillips who was popular in the 1980s. As 
president of the U.S. affiliate of SHAC USA, Kjonaas posted the home 
addresses and telephone numbers of Huntingdon employees on the group’s 
website and organized protests in front of workers’ homes. I can 
certainly understand why somebody who owns a $5 million townhouse in 
Manhattan would not want to have such people mounting a noisy 
demonstration on his sidewalk at 2am, but this hardly amounts to terrorism.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/06/08/your-mommy-kills-animals/