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Media Shocked To Discover How Farming Works

They Prefer Unemployed Farmers. Better News Angle.

By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary)  |  November 21st, 2008 at 12:34 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

In a perfect emblem of (1) how insular the media really is and (2) the national spotlight that will continue to focus on the Governor of Alaska wherever she goes, Sarah Palin did one of those typical silly ceremonies politicians across the country get asked to take part in, and went and pardoned a turkey in advance of Thanksgiving. But while the President has a turkey brought to him, Gov. Palin went to the turkey, handing down the pardon from a barnyard in Wasilla, then giving a news conference to reporters.

Why did this end up in the national news, including a sneering report on MSNBC? Well, the turkey farm went on with its usual business this time of year of slaughtering turkeys for Thanksgiving tables, and cameras caught a farm employee doing just that in the background while Gov. Palin talked to reporters:

The NY Daily News pronounced this a “shocking video”.

(You can catch the longer video of the whole pardon ceremony from the NY Post, although the Post’s video – via the Anchorage Daily News – has to keep panning away from Gov. Palin to follow the guy slaughtering turkeys).

Folks, this is how farming works: you raise animals, then you kill them and eat them. Here in New York City, we don’t get much exposure to the business end of that process, but people across the country who have farmed or hunted know that it’s part of life, and has been as long as human beings have been eating animals. It’s not a bad thing to have some people in public life who aren’t shocked by where our food comes from.

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  • aaronbg

    n/t

    • Moe_Lane

      …visibly wondering whether he should be doing his job while the cameras were rolling.

      Personally, I would have added a few loud KER-CHUNKS! to the audio – no sense in showing a hit piece unless you’re ready to go full bore on it.

  • jcheney

    …because, most of us are used to getting our meat in those little plastic packages.

    Even though most people still eat meat, folks have subconsciously bought into the whole PETA thing.

    It’s a shame that the extremists have made meat eaters feel guilty.

  • Scope

    I figure if I don’t see what I am going to eat walking around in front of me I’m OK.

    BTW- Thanks Aaron for your words of wisdom last night. I appreciated you explaining the lay of the land. Good advice.

    I am sorry Moe, I didn’t mean to misbehave.

    • aaronbg

      It would have been great if he had “accidentally” lost control of one of the Turkeys during the process…head danglin’ from the neck while it runs in circles…makes me miss my youth..and my Grandpa’s sense of humor…odd….;^)

  • paulag1955

    I once heard on a local talk radio program. The host, John Carlson, was interviewing two young PETA activists, Jason and Jennifer. They were advocating for a vegetarian diet and Jennifer commented that when she was nine years old, she realized that when she ate chicken, it was actually a chicken.

    Okay, I thought she was a little slow on the uptake but whatever. Then she went on to say that most people don’t realize that their meat comes from animals. At the time I wondered how many screws she actually had loose, but after seeing the response to this “shocking” video, I can only believe that the answer is, maybe not anymore than the idiots in the media.

  • Vladimir

    Woman, in butcher’s shop: “Tongue? OMG, I could never eat anything that had been in an animal’s mouth! Better just give me a dozen eggs!”

  • izoneguy

    …where do the libs think Turkey dinners come from?

    The same places they find all that tax money from?

    You have to kill a Turkey to have a Thanksgiving feast.

    Now the business’s of America are becoming the Turkeys.

    Once they kill the Turkeys for taxes how will they make new

    Turkeys?

    I still have vivid memories of my grandmother on her farm.

    She raised chickens and when it was the chickens time,

    she would step on the chickens head – pull – and

    the chicken would run around for a few minutes with

    no head – hence the saying. As young children, my

    brothers and I took great delight in chasing the headless

    chickens. Once they stopped we gathered them up and

    we started plucking feathers. In a few hours we would be

    eating freshly roasted chicken for dinner.

    I can’t wait until the dems start running around like chickens

    with their heads cut off. I will be waiting – ready to pluck,

    boil and roast.

    • aaronbg

      Did you go back and read the last one?….just wondering cause you didn’t respond….Also if you want to apologize to Moe I would put his name in the title of the comment so it doesn’t appear as an afterthought…anyhow glad to give advice and hope you have a long life here.

  • JeffWoehrle

    How about the carnage that is Green Giant canned corn? Have you even seen that process? Young ears of innocent corn are stripped of their kernels via evil capitalist machination.

    Sickening…

  • Scope

    Please forgive me for misbehaving.

    • Dan_McLaughlin

      5

      • Moe_Lane

        Which I wouldn’t mind seeing less of in general, if folks catch my drift. Consider it already forgotten.

        • Scope

          Aaron- I read your comment this morning, and by the time I came back the thread was thankfully gone. Thanks again, and, I do enjoy reading the diaries on here. I have learned alot, and don’t wish to be banned.

  • mbecker908

    We used to live in northern Delaware. DuPont had a plant where, late at night trucks would roll in, filled to over-capacity with little helpless virgin Vinyls. Cute little critters. Ripped away from their mothers at the secret farms where they are bred for their skin.

    The trucks would disgorge their helpless charges and they would be skinned alive, their little bodies burned in high temp furnaces to remove all traces of the hideous process. When the wind was blowing in the right direction, their pitiful screams would wake us up late at night.

    Joe Biden knows all about this, we lived right around the corner from where he lived in Hockessin (Wilmington suburb). The media covered up this atrocity so BO could get elected.

    We need to act!

    SAVE THE VINYLS.

  • buzzbrockway

    It wouldn’t surprise me to find Palin wanted that guy to be slaughtering turkeys in the background just to rile up the east coast leftists.

  • bs

    He should be beating a rug with the turkey.

    • DONTREADONME

      Had no idea, those kinds of atrocities were going on over the border in DE. I am shocked and disgusted.

      I can not believe I have had vinyl that was not free range.

      • E_Pluribus_Unum

        I thought some of our esteemed regulars were showing less than their best Sunday manners that day.

  • 1SGinTN

    in terms of food processing, it gives a stark example of the utility of a pardon.

    I’m not a preacher, but I could almost make a sermon out of it.

  • jeffreywturner

    Don’t you love it how the liberal media is so horrified at the way turkeys are slaughtered in order to provide food for people, but they seem to be just fine with the way innocent babies are slaughtered in partial birth abortions when they are pulled from the womb by their little kicking legs, only to have those little legs go limp as the baby’s neck is intentionally snapped by a person who took an oath to “first, do no harm”?

  • Jack_Savage

    I guess I might not want to put that on YouTube now. And to think I was doing it as a public service.

    Remember – there’s always room for animals. Right beside the green beans.

    • aaronbg

      • Naqamel

        Wait until you see what they do to those poor little Nuagas to make Naugahyde…

        • antisocial

          compared to these “animal atrocities”. These guys are “nice” people with a heart. I don’t know whether to laugh or bang my head against the wall. Of course that’s how food makes its way to dinner tables. I would love it if these guys go all vegetarian.

  • Sarracuda

    WOW, the media is absolutely SCARED TO DEATH OF THIS WOMAN, because she is gonna run against their beloved false prophet Obama. I have never seen anything like this EVER, the liberal media is scared to death of her, I LOVE IT. Liberals don’t know where food comes from, they expect it all to show up in their laps when their maids bring it home from the market. Sarah is SO REAL, usually Presidents have the turkeys brought to THEM, Sarah goes TO the turkey. She is SO awesome and when she said “no worries” thats not a politician talking, that’s a regular person talking. she is real, she is legit, she hunts moose, goes fishing, and doesn’t mind going to a slaughterhouse. HEY MEDIA, THE MORE U MOCK HER THE MORE LOVE SHE IS GONNA GET SO KEEP IT UP!! They hate her because she is happy, she has a wonderful life, while their lives are crap. They are SO jealous of her it’s hilarious

    • Dan_McLaughlin

      (Yes, I know. I just liked the mental image.)

  • aesthete

    and what do you know… it is!

    Very funny vid. Love it!

  • tsil

    I prefer this Sarah Palin much more to the one who showed up on that dopey skit show, or was subjected to oral exams from the drive-by media, or the one who had to try to prop up her running mate for 10 weeks.

    • Next93

      I’m surprised MSNBC hasn’t “enhanced” the image to show the turkeys being waterboarded.

  • olsmithie

    Roasted, fried, smoked, ground, soup, sandwiched, hash…

    What did I miss?

    Also perfect when cozied up to large baked sweet potato”e”.

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    Regards

  • Darin_H

    Poor guy was just trying to do his job and go home. I love how he looks around a bit. Those turkeys won’t slaughter themselves!

    Those same people who have a problem with Gov Palin doing this better not be enjoying any light meat, dark meat or real gravy next Thursday.

    We lived about a mile from a turkey farm when I was a boy, when the wind would switch direction a few times a summer, the smell was something awful – ever smelled the excrement of a couple thousand turkeys baked by the hot Colorado sun?

    • Dan_McLaughlin

      nt

  • 2006_personoftheyear

    …actually let me amend that. I don’t think that the fact that she would have an interview there reflects poorly on her as a person, but it reflects poorly on her politicking abilities…because a serious interview, in which she is trying to get out her message or whatever, suddenly becomes a punchline and nobody even knows what she was talking about because everyone is watching the background.

    But that just makes her a worse politician, not a worse person.

  • dld1717

    This is just another way to mock Palin by comedians

    • Darin_H

      it’s probably pretty similar.

      Advantage: Turkeys.

      • 1SGinTN

        nt

        • Bob_Frazier

          My first good political laugh during the transition period! Thanks!

          I just wish we had republicans with enough courage to “Just say no” to a pardon.

          Lets cook it, and eat it, and have the best Thanksgiving Day feast ever!

          “I have eaten animal flesh, and I have enjoyed it!” -Mr. Spock

          • Finrod

            Been a long time since I heard this via Dr. Demento:

            I’ve heard the screams of the vegetables

            Watching their skins being peeled

            Grated and steamed with no mercy

            How do you think that feels

            Carrot juice constitutes murder

            Greenhouses prisons for slaves

            It’s time to stop all this gardening

            Let’s call a spade a spade

          • bs

            But now I have that song from Spamalot! running through my head…

          • Scope

            Sarracuda- I couldn’t agree with you more, she is a total threat to the lefties, and, unfortunately, some self identified conservatives as well, like Parker for example. What bothers me is that we need to turn some Blue people Red, and, they will listen to these assinine false stories and believe them. Remember, like those in the poll that didn’t know why they voted for Obama. But then again, I don’t think it will take too long for them to realize that they really aren’t going to get all the freebies he promised. Instead they will be cutting grass or picking up garbage off the streets as part of his community service edicts.

  • KyleH

    Why are they pardoning perfectly good turkeys in Alaska? I can somewhat understand the silly custom in the White House, but I expect better from our friends in the rugged north. I have never heard of any other governors doing this, although it wouldn’t surprise me if this is fairly common.

    • Socrates

      that have been slaughtered by the cold, greedy hand of Man to make Faux Mink fur.

      [Shudder]

      • Achance

        and if another Gov, even the Democrats, ever pardoned a turkey, I never heard about it. Maybe it was all that time she spent back east.

        • towdogInCal

          A common misconception about the nauga is that they are horribly skinned much as is currently done with the vinyl. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!

          The small chameleon-like animals known as Naugas? have long been known as the source of beautiful and durable fabrics that look like fine, soft leather. And since Naugas shed their hydes without harm to themselves, the fabrics they help make came to be known as Naugahyde?, The Cruelty Free Fabric?.

          Suicidal naugas could of course reasonably be eaten, but they taste like chicken and as we already have so many other foods which taste like the venerable yardbird (rattlesnake, everything else unidentifiable on a plate at my grandma’s house), low profits preclude the nauga from our grocery stroes.

          • Next93

            That would be a moosetrap, right/

          • Next93

            Tough, but alliterative.

          • Next93

            The farmers in the midwest have been working on a self-slaughtering turkey.

            They show them tapes of The View and then hand each one a box cutter.

          • Next93

            She had JUST PARDONED A TURKEY. How serious is the interview that follows that going to be?

  • janis

    cram 4 pounds of cornbread dressing into a brick of tofu. Gruesome, I tell you, just gruesome.

    Reporters should have to watch a video of a beef slaughterhouse before they order those pricey filet mignons at a business lunch. Or a pig farm before they order ribs–smell included. They would be fainting right and left.

    • Dan_McLaughlin

      so it may have been the turkey farm’s idea.

  • redpeginabluehole

    have made my day…I can only hope that while she governs Alaska with integrity and a clear sense of purpose, that she continues to outsmart, outmaneuver, and outflank the media. Take one more look at that tape…the worker not only looked back at her several times, but nodded his head in agreement when she spoke of how great it was to be out supporting local business. Right on…

    • Achance

      in Alaska. We ain’t much on that agriculture stuff – except the legendary Matanuska Thunderf#$k pot. Only the Maui stuff is better, or so I’ve been told. Oh, and we do really good horse radish and potatoes, catnip too. You just can’t make enough money growing stuff to actually live here without some serious subsidy, so mostly it all comes on the barge or in the container and we buy it at Safeway.

  • bs
  • Scope

    After this story broke about Palin pardoning a turkey, I thought, how can anything grow and thrive in Alaska with such cold temperatures, especially poultry. Low and behold, there really is a poultry farm in Alaska. Don’t know what farm Palin was at when she taped her pardon but-

    http://www.alaskatripled.com/about_us.html

    Apparently there is a family of five that run a thriving poultry business. And, they are antiobiotic free.

    • emgbane

      lol

  • MichaelBDR

    Home Economics should include killing, dressing and preparing a chicken or frog legs from scratch. People have become desensitized to the violence that they live by and think they are pacifists just because they are a few steps removed from the death of their food.

  • kogmedia

    It’s a subliminal scare-tactic… a warning to all who oppose Sarah Palin’s bid for presidency in 2012

  • Joelim

    Palin is not going away. The Media in Palin Derangement Syndrome will constantly and consistantly go out of its way to try to mock her and smash her.

    In so doing, she will have the United States as her audience and people won’t have any trouble knowing her positions and the way she governs.

    The rest aren’t going to be front and center no matter how good they govern. She is a star.