Turkeys not thankful for Thanksgiving

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ellenr
Posts: 176
Joined: Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:30 pm

Turkeys not thankful for Thanksgiving

Post by ellenr »

Dear folks,
Martha Rosenberg wrote a brilliant piece on Alternet.com about 'Thanksgiving'.
http://www.alternet.org/story/108906/ho ... getarians/

A few excerpts and below them my letter in response to Martha:

"Most people admit they don’t want to watch laws or 40-pound Thanksgiving turkey carcasses being made. Nor do they want to watch a helpless turkey unceremoniously fed into a wood chipper behind Sarah Palin's head as KTUU-TV broadcast.

But will they eat the same bird when it is passed to them on a plate next to mashed potatoes on Thursday? You betcha.

How it lived, how it was shipped, who hung the struggling bird upside down on the conveyer to transport it to the awaiting blade, etc. -- are not thoughts that improve the taste of the cranberry sauce.

"A worker tried to throw a turkey up to the double-sided dock from its rail side. The bird was about to hit the rail when another worker kneed the bird and then kicked it, knocking it back down to the floor. The worker threw the turkey a second time, but it hit the underside of the dock and dropped straight down to the cement floor for its third time that day. The bird lay in watery feces for about two hours before being picked up and hung on the line -- the turkey could keep its head up and blink; it was otherwise motionless."

One worker holds a turkey to be crushed under a truck's moving tires just for the heck of it; others pull heads and legs off turkeys for fun. Workers insert their fingers into birds' cloacae (vaginal cavities), remove eggs and throw them at each other in a depraved game.
===
Dear Martha,
I've ALWAYS hated Thanksgiving, but how does one speak up without sounding like the Gringe who stole xmas.
Most people, when they ask 'how was your thanksg.?', they expect, 'fine, how was yours?'

This year I can no longer be silent-
I reply about
-the celebration of gluttony when much of the world is experiencing famine and the entire food supply is in the hands of a few corps.
-the genocide of the Native people
-the sadism toward the turkeys.

Most people don't let me finish, when I start about the beaks being torn off, they scream and run away. Or they say, 'Gee I'll never ask you about thanks. again'

fine. all these years I've been silent so as not to 'offend'.
I will no longer be silent and complicit.
I'm thinking of wearing a button "Ask me about my Thanksgiving" just to have the opportunity to speak out.

There really is no way to be pleasant while talking about sadism toward living creatures, about unimaginable horrors.
People would rather stay in denial.
But thanks to articles like yours, it is harder for them to stay in denial.
And I will do my part.

Every Sat. we have a vigil protesting the Iraq war. At the close, we gather in a circle and read the names of the soldiers who died that week, and have a moment of silence.
Last Sat I asked for a moment of silence for the turkeys.
And got it.
I had a moment of wondering 'Is this appropriate?'
But
in my heart I know it is always appropriate to speak for the voiceless.

It will take all of our voices all the time to break through the cement wall of denial.

many thanks,
ellen rosner
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Melissa Morgan
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:36 am
Location: New York New Jersey NYC New Brunswick.. New Fits Me.

Post by Melissa Morgan »

Ellen,

You are so right. I loved reading the article and your response. I am the only vegan (veg-anything really) in my family, so although they go out of their way to make sure I have food to eat they still gather around the table and say thanks for the corpse of a tortured animal that did not have to die. I keep quiet most of the time now because I would throw out facts and horror stories before and they'd argue and debate with me even though there was no winning... I think my favorite response was "But animals don't have souls, so it doesn't matter." And by favorite I mean that person and I got into such an explosive argument that we could not be friends. I just can't understand why people think it's ok to abuse and slaughter a sentient being because it feels good for all 30 of those seconds that it's in their mouths. It's hard to know which tactics will influence what people, so I just make as many delicious vegan dishes as I can and hope that it will open them up to more veg*n meals and help them to eat less meat throughout the year.

Melissa
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