Desiring Machine

This clip of Sarah Palin doing a local TV interview with turkeys being slaughtered in the background has been making the rounds.

I am instantly reminded of the lines from the a Tom Waits song Murder in The Red Barn.

And no one’s asking Cal
About that scar upon his face
‘Cause there’s nothin’ strange
About an axe with bloodstains in the barn

There’s always some killin’
You got to do around the farm
A murder in the red barn
Murder in the red barn

Now the woods will never tell
What sleeps beneath the trees
Or what’s buried ‘neath a rock
Or hiding in the leaves
‘Cause road kill has it’s seasons
Just like anything
It’s possums in the atumn
And it’s farm cats in the spring
A murder in the red barn
A murder in the red barn

Say what you will about Palin and the PR disaster that this clip might present. But one thing is for certain she is true hick through and through. The casualness of the killing around the farm just reveals it more so than many had even imagined.

The interesting thing is perhaps ironically the visceral and graphic depiction of this clip and Palin’s apparent obliviousness in it will do more to promote PETA than all the naked athletes and movie stars could ever hope to accomplish.

As we go into thanksgiving turkey day I think it is a healthy reminder of all the killing we depend on but refuse to remain conscious of. Palin offers a rare unfiltered glimpse to an event that so called polite company would never acknowledge. If a PETA group tried to get footage of turkey slaughter on the major news outlets they would most likely be dismissed and railed against for disrupting social tradition and more often be ignored by mainstream media. Palin offers a rare moment to subvert that entrenched bias we seem to have against bringing up the brutal realities of our meat culture.

Now I am not particularly advocating vegetarianism. I am about 85% vegetarian in my routine diet, but I appreciate a good turkey dinner or hamburger as much as anybody. But as an ethical and moral matter I think it is appropriate that we are made viscerally aware of the killing that underlines our culture and society. This goes for animals as well as humans. Sarah Palin in the interview has done us all a great service, albeit perhaps unwittingly.

Here is some more of that viscerally provocative stuff:

Watch more videos at PETA.org

And for the record when it comes to thanksgiving I enjoy the mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberries much more than the actual turkey meat.