Thanksgiving may be the loveliest of our national holidays -- a truly American tradition that anyone can be a part of regardless of faith. Yet, it has a dark side that haunts me every year: Turkeys, 40 million of them, are slaughtered for this holiday. And slaughter is only the gruesome end to a turkey's short and miserable existence.
Punctuating my dismay is the annual National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation to the president. In times past, the president was not obligated to pardon the turkey given to him. When President Reagan was asked in 1981 what he would do with a gifted turkey he replied: "Eat him."
In 1989, the peculiar tradition of pardoning turkeys officially began. Ironically, the to-be-pardoned turkey (and its alternate) are given to the president by the National Turkey Association, a "national advocate" for the turkey industry, i.e. by those who lobby in Washington to "increase demand" for turkeys.
It is an incongruous and bizarre ritual, the camera-friendly exception that only serves to prove the rule. It is a moment of false mercy sponsored by those in the business of being increasingly merciless in the pursuit of profit. A farce designed to make us, as a nation, feel the brief high of witnessing a seemingly compassionate act.
But what about all of those other turkeys that get served up at the White House Thanksgiving dinner? What about the millions and millions of Thanksgiving turkeys without faces, those we don't see until they are dead, naked and neatly wrapped in plastic?
The presidential turkey pardon reminds me of a butcher shop sign with a grinning pig in its logo.
The life of a turkey is brief and wretched. While the natural lifespan is up to 12 years,
turkeys are typically slaughtered within 5 months. According to PETA, most of them spend their lives:
[O]n factory farms, where thousands...are packed into dark sheds with no more than 3.5 square feet of space per bird. To keep the extremely crowded birds from scratching and pecking each other to death, workers cut off portions of the birds' toes and upper beaks with hot blades... No painkillers are used during these procedures.
[H]ung upside-down on shackles that pass over an electrified water bath.... The birds are given an electric shock that is meant to render them unconscious and immobile while their necks are cut. However, when shackled turkeys are conveyed through the water bath, they may experience electric shocks before they are stunned into unconsciousness, because their wings, hanging lower than their heads, may touch the water before their heads are submerged. Additionally, not all birds are stunned adequately prior to exsanguination and are conscious while their throats are cut.
Want ideas for vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes? Check out "A Vegan Thanksgiving: 12 Recipes That Could Change Your Holiday" or Food and Wine's "Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes"
Learn how you can sponsor a turkey and make a difference: "Thanksgiving Turkeys: How You Can Support Ethical Treatment"
Follow Kerstin Shamberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@kerstinshamber
Adele Scheele: The Thanksgiving Challenge
He knows he'll be criticized if he don't do it and be hounded by questions about why he didn't do it, so truck them Turkeys out here and get this over with.
I think Kirsten Shamberg summed it up well when she wrote: It is an incongruous and bizarre ritual, the camera-friendly exception that only serves to prove the rule. It is a moment of false mercy sponsored by those in the business of being increasingly merciless in the pursuit of profit. A farce designed to make us, as a nation, feel the brief high of witnessing a seemingly compassionate act.
Some speak of freedom, sharp teeth, digestive enzymes, food chains, intelligence disparities, biological imperatives, nutritional requirements, customs and traditions, evolutionary fitness, natural selection, moral relativism, "humane" treatment, soul endowment, etc., not for purposes of honest debate, but as after-the-fact justifications for their appetites. It is difficult to overcome any activity that gives us so much enjoyment.
For some, a kind of smug superiority and sense of entitlement underlie every "argument" they present. Some portray themselves as callous and jaded, adding humorous overtones in an attempt to appear detached. Some view these discussions mainly as opportunities to make fun of people. Only a handful, I believe, are amoral. Most are motivated by a sense of subconscious guilt, at least to some extent. Whether you wish to acknowledge it or not, there is a conflict beneath that self-satisfied veneer. That which permits us to mistreat and/or unnecessarily kill another sentient being is fundamentally at odds with what constitutes a civilized society.
Compassion is neither selective nor conditional; it simply is or is not. Which one applies to you?
Last night, I had a small group of family at my house. I lit a fire, opened a nice bottle of wine, and served a wonderful vegetarian soup that filed the house with a sweet and spicy smell. When it was over, I scrubbed out one pot. My stomach was satisfied, not stretched to the max with meat, gravy, and pounds of butter.
Today, I will attend a crowded parade in front of a huge department store. People dressed as pilgrims, Indians, and even cheeseburgers will parade past us. We will see licensed cartoon characters float by. At the end, Santa's sled will appear -- marking the end of the event and the beginning of a frenzied shopping season in which people will buy stuff they don't need, with money they don't have. After the parade, I will join a huge group of family (some of whom I'm not speaking to, but for just today, I'll have to pretend that everything is fine), where we will shovel down as much food as we can -- including the tortured animal -- in the space of a few hours. After this, some people (who are already dangerously overweight) will lie on a couch, unable to
Regardless, humans are omnivores. It's in our biology. It's in our history. Even when we had to slaughter our own livestock, we were still omnivores. I will continue to enjoy my meat sans guilt, but nice try there.
*please, I beg of you, if you ever meet me, please don't treat me humanely
WAY too much). Knowing and learning that is good for all children, including President Obama's. That said, the tradition has been a harmless and humorous one for a long time and making a big deal out of it is just looking for a reason to be outraged.....
That makes no sense. Us making a choice is a consequence of our physiology? Well I guess in the trivial sense that any decision-making by us is based on neurophysiological processes. In this sense, watching tv or serial killing are consequences of our biology.
(And for the record I'll happily eat dog or horse or cute bunnies or anything. If it moves I'll eat it).
Is it cruel? Yes it is. Is cruelty always a bad thing? No it's not.
Have you written a Hamlet? Should the quality of your argumentation be used to evaluate your moral worth?