What is the real meaning of Governor Palin's clumsily staged interview in front of the turkey-killing apparatus? I got something a bit different than most of the posts I've seen.
First, it's not about cruelty to animals. The fact that they slaughter turkeys by putting them into a chute where they own body weight holds them in place while they are decapitated is irrelevant. Who cares? I don't. I eat turkey and know that they are raised to be killed and eaten by those of us who eat meat. They people who raise the turkeys have devised an efficient means of slaughtering their livestock. It works for me.
Secondly, it's not about the fatuous hypocrisy of "pardoning" one turkey out of a flock of thousands in deference to Benjamin Franklin's recognition of the nobility of the animal. It's a political stunt. Many politicians do it every year. Sarah, the hot chick, was dutifully following through in a traditional photo opportunity.
It's about insensitivity. Sarah Palin doesn't get that some people have feelings about killing animals. It doesn't bother her to see turkeys being beheaded because she hunts and dresses her kills. Still, she should understand that many people don't have the same values on the subject as she does. People feel the way they feel, and it has nothing to do with objective reasoning. It certainly doesn't have anything at all with her normative view about any topic.
Now we're getting somewhere. Sarah doesn't see how anyone could think differently than she does about anything! In her mind, there is right and there is wrong, and what she thinks is what is right. This attitude is the cornerstone of all arrogant, self-serving, callously inhumane demagoguery. Every fascist pig in history has always been supremely assured of his own correctness, usually feeling it was divinely ordained as well. They show their monumental stupidity by ignoring and mocking everyone with a different opinion.
Republicans have been trying to raise this brutish world view to respectability for about a century now. Ever since they became the party of big business, they have been treating the great mass of the people as stupid children who can't be trusted to lead. Every few years, the people of this nation recoil in horror and realize that they have left the governance of the nation to monsters. They put the other party in power for a while until the Republican noise machine again wins over the mindless automatons they dupe into voting against their own best interests. It used to be the fascist rags like the Hearst newspapers who beat the drums for war and swayed people with phony wedge issues. Now it's Fox News and Rush Limbaugh trying to get you to be afraid of homosexuals and lesbians taking your money away from you and forcing you to submit to having universal health care.
So, what's the connection with the turkey interview? Governor Palin was fully aware that the turkeys were being put to death on camera, and assumed to everyone in the world would not care, just as she does not. She continued with her blathering patter from the campaign about how good and righteous she is and how right her world view is, despite the resounding rebuke delivered by the electorate. She got in another dig about being happy to be back in Alaska where people think they way she does, strongly implying that only Republican states are truly American and patriotic, the same way she said precisely that on the the campaign trail. Sarah is as blithely unaware of the absurdity of mouthing these ridiculous assertions as she is that killing an animal in the background as she speaks makes her look like a bloodthirsty ghoul.
I'm going to repeat my thesis for the slow-witted. She can't see how anyone could see anything differently than she does. It doesn't matter to her how anyone outside her clique sees the world. It doesn't matter to her what any educated person might think; she knows better. She is her own god.
What frightens me most is how close she got to power. When someone this stupid is in charge, they start an insane, suicidal war on the flimsiest of pretexts, such as invading Poland, Vietnam or Iraq. They brazenly steal as much as they can from the public coffers and blithely refuse to provide for the people's welfare because there isn't enough money left. We have trillions of dollars for Wall Street, Halliburton, and AIG, and golden parachutes for CEOs who have run firms into the ground, but no food, health care, housing or schools for you peasants!
Being totally oblivious to others' thoughts and feelings is a sign of being a sociopath. I see her behavior, and most her world view, as a form of mental illness. It's her attitude that offends me, not the dead turkey. I'm going to eat some tomorrow and give thanks for not having to spend another four years in despair for the soul of our nation. We have been subjected to a reign of terror that will leave its mark on history, but we should be optimistic. We can become a moral, caring people again. I think we were once, but it may not have even been in my lifetime. As a child, I remember the implicit assumption that our leaders had our best interest at heart. I haven't felt that way since Nixon took over in 1969.
In time, we will again be able to travel abroad and say with pride, "Yes, I am an American." We won't be able to do that for a while, though. We won't feel at ease doing that until we have a humane society that addresses the needs of everyone within our borders, and treats people outside our borders with respect. Until that time, people in civilized nations will disparage us as the savage barbarians that we are.
Ridding ourselves of the fascist neo-con mind set will take patience and perseverance. Let's start by being more spiritual and a little more humble tomorrow. Aspire to being a good person in a moral society rather than thanking a deity for all your material possessions. Come up with something you can do to make things better and follow through in the ensuing months and years.
Happy Thanksgiving!