VegNews, one of the most popular vegetarian/vegan magazines, has a great review in the current (Sept-Oct) issue. Green Is the New Red is the editors’ pick:

“Journalist and blogger Will Potter’s Green Is the New Red reads like a spy-thriller novel and would be much more enjoyable if it were. Green is an expertly detailed, 100-percent factual account of how corporate interests created the term ‘eco-terrorism’ in the 1980s, then led the march to the passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that criminalizes and characterizes First Amendment free speech as terrorism. Potter makes a compelling argument that what’s happening in the 21st century to environmental and animal advocates is a replay of Joseph McCarthy’s communist ‘red scare’ of the 1950s. If you read one book in 2011, make it this one. Then act.“

You can order a signed copy from this site or from Amazon.

The factory farming and agriculture industries in Iowa and Florida are trying to pass two bills that specifically target anyone who photographs, videotapes and exposes the animal cruelty that takes place behind their closed doors.

In Iowa, Senate File 431 and House File 589 create new penalties for wide range of activities, including undercover investigations. They prohibit anyone from producing, possessing, or distributing a record of a “visual or audio experience occurring at [an] animal facility.”

In Florida, Senate Bill 1426 would make photographing a farm without the written consent of the owner a first-degree felony.

It should come as no surprise who is behind these bills. For example, Iowa State Rep Annette Sweeney, a proponent of the bills, is the former Executive Director of the Iowa Angus Association. And Simpson Farms, Florida’s second biggest egg producer, helped draft the language of that bill target animal welfare activists with up to 30 years in prison.

Why is this happening? Civil Eats summed it up well:

In Florida, The HSUS and other groups pushed for the adoption of the first statewide law in the country to restrict the extreme confinement of animals on factory farms. In 2002, voters there passed Amendment 10, to phase out the caging of breeding sows in gestation crates. In Iowa, HSUS and other animal welfare groups have conducted a series of undercover investigations (see the video below) to expose cruelty in the nation’s biggest factory farming state.

“There are definitely groups out there that have an agenda that don’t want animal agriculture in business and that’s not right,” said Kevin Vinchattle, chief executive officer of the Iowa Poultry Association, told the Associated Press. “I think that some people will go a long way to do or say anything to try to make a group of people look bad.”

To be clear, though, these bills are not a few extreme examples. They are part of a very long campaign by corporations, and the politicians who represent them, to demonize and criminalize their opposition.

This type of legislation has not been confined to the factory farming industry. In Utah, for example, the animal experimentation industry has campaigned to hide public information about animal experimenters, and public information about their actions. And for good reason: when groups like PETA have exposed what goes on in animal experimentation labs, it has led to USDA citations for animal welfare abuses.

Even more revealing is that the language of all of these bills is quite similar to the model “eco-terrorism” legislation that was created by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate front-group. ALEC’s model legislation specifically targets “obstructing or impeding” animal industry operations (in the Iowa bill, it is “animal facility interferance”) including undercover investigations, photography, videotaping and non-violent civil disobedience.

Corporations have been trying to label these undercover investigations and whistleblower operations as “eco-terrorism,” and hit investigators with disporportionate criminal charges and sentences, for one simple reason: they are effective. While books like Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer have become increasingly mainstream, there is still no substitute, there is still nothing more powerful than showing photos and videos of what happens in these places.

And for industries dependent on secrecy and ignorance, that is indeed a threat.

CNN has a great article up, “Global bake sale is ‘sweet’ vegan activism.” It features the fantastic Jasmin Singer of Our Hen House, who has what may be the best quote I have ever seen on CNN:

(CNN) — When animal rights activist Jasmin Singer found herself face to face with a scientist who conducts animal testing, a cupcake was exchanged instead of harsh words.

“A good vegan cupcake has the power to transform everything for the better,” Singer said. “It’s almost like a political statement with icing.”

The accompanying slideshow has photos of vegan bake sales, including one in New York City where the lovely Sarah is wearing a “domestic terrorist” apron from GreenIsTheNewRed.com!

McDonald’s has rolled out a new logo in France, replacing the iconic red background of the golden arches with green. Here’s some info from ZLOK design blog, and here is where I saw the story originally (although I can barely stumble through the French!), at TerraEco.net.

There has been so much fluff news lately about “easy ways to go green.” You know what’s an even easier way to go green? Changing a logo. And adding some hippies into your advertisements! If anyone has friends in France, I would love to hear more about how this transparent green-washing has been received there.

News like this is a little bit outside the normal content of the website, but I think it’s striking how environmental activists are the “number one domestic terrorist threat” at a time when nasty, multinational corporations are simultaneously climbing all over each other to appear “green.”

Sarah Kramer makes “domestic” terrorism look good.

Check out some of her fantastic vegan cookbooks below, including Vegan a Go-Go and the classic How It All Vegan. If you buy them through these Amazon links, a portion will be donated to GreenIsTheNewRed.com.

And holidays are coming up, folks, so show the domestic terrorists in your life you love them. You can order an apron at GreenIsTheNewRed.com/blog/shop. Every penny goes back into website costs, flier distribution and other projects related to exposing the Green Scare and campaigns to label animal rights and environmental activists as eco-terrorists and domestic terrorists.

Thanks very much to Sarah for having the same twisted sense of humor that we do.

You know, when I started GreenIsTheNewRed.com I was actually concerned about the site being too much of a “specialty” publication. All “eco-terrorism” and civil liberties, all the time. Fine by me, but niche markets can reach an extreme (not that I have anything against magazines like Coin Collector, Air Traffic Management or Crochet World, mind you).

Little did I know I’d actually get to write about film, sexuality and now…gourmet food?

Get this. Anthony Bourdain, a chef and TV personality, says vegetarians “are the worst kind of terrorists.” Joshua Valocchi at Philadelphia Weekly asked about what Bourdain calls a “plague of vegetarians”:

“These fucking people are not really all about us not eating duck liver,” snarls Bourdain. “No, no, no. They don’t want us eating any animal product whatsoever.

“When they win this tiny battle, they’ll move to the next one, like freeing the lobsters.

“These people,” says Bourdain, “are the worst kind of terrorists. And they must be stopped.”

Really? The “worst kind of terrorists”? The DHS threat level is clearly upside down. Green and red need to be inverted. Move over Al Qaeda, your bombs and guns and planes flying into buildings are no match for tofu terrorists.

I was a “domestic terrorist” (what else?) last Halloween, complete with black apron and balaclava. Nobody seemed to get the joke. “Are you a ninja?”

So I LOVE the label on Isa Moskowitz’s apron. She is one of the vegan culinary minds behind Post Punk Kitchen. The “domestic terrorist” joke plays off of the FBI labeling animal rights activists the “number one domestic terrorist threat.” Get it? “Domestic.” Terrorist. I know, I’m a nerd, I just can’t help it.

The photo is from the Post Punk Kitchen myspace page.

Speaking of MySpace, have you added “Green Scare” as your friend? Do it.

I tore this headline straight from Democracy Arsenal because, well, how could I not? Lorelei Kelly, “a carnivore with constant remorse,” had a great post linking bio-terrorism concerns to animal welfare.

About 75 percent of emerging diseases come from animals, Kelly reports, and dangerous microbes have become “generalists” that bounce around between animals and humans. Avian Flu has been in the news the most lately, but Sars, Anthrax, Ebola and many other nasty bugs started with animals.

Things get even scarier when considering that, in 2004, the world required 21 billion food animals for 6.5 billion people. And trade in exotic animals is second only to illegal drugs. Those make conditions ripe for creating, and transporting, deadly diseases.

“So it’s really the wildlife, domestic animals, human intersection that creates exotic diseases. The more we import them into our midst or crowd them out through over-population, the more we risk ourselves… So the real question is, when is PETA going to hire a national security director?”