Warning: If you are sensitive to seeing animals killed, do not watch this video. The video at the bottom of the post has the turkeys blurred out as they’re being slaughtered. This one does not.
Sarah Palin did an interview after pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving at an Alaskan turkey farm. She talked in her general, hokey way about campaigning and her work as the governor of Alaska now that she’s back in office. The only difference between this interview and the other moments when she’s been taped talking about politics in her chatty way is that there were turkeys getting pushed head first into what’s called a “killing cone” directly behind her, their legs kicking and struggling as they were slaughtered.
Palin pre-approved her appearance in front of the turkeys being killed. Her representative told MSNBC that she was asked if she could be filmed in front of the turkey killing scene and she said “no worries.”
At the end of the interview she talked about how great it was to be there. There was literally a turkey in its last moments right behind her as she said how much fun it was.
Calls it fun as the turkeys are getting killed right behind her
“This was neat. I was happy to get invited to participate in this. You need a little bit of levity in this job… It’s nice to get out and do something to promote a local business and to just participate in something that isn’t so heavy handed politics that invite criticism. Certainly we’ll even invite criticism for doing this too, but at least this was fun.”
In our society we’re disconnected from the realties of how meat gets on the table. Many meat-eating people find it disconcerting to be around animals getting killed - even animals they would gladly consume once they’re converted to food. I eat meat pretty much every day, and if I lived a century ago I probably would have had to kill and pluck the chickens that my family eats. I don’t think I would have considered it “fun” though, just necessary.
Do you think she did it for publicity or that she just went along with the interview request, completely oblivious to the controversy? It looks to me like she knows exactly what she’s doing and is getting a huge kick out of it. She’s certainly getting enough attention for it. She enjoys hunting so at least she’s consistent.
Here’s MSNBC’s coverage of her pardon and the subsequent interview. The turkeys are blurred out in this one.
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