Obama Talks About Animals
Okay, he didn’t really talk about animals.
But he did, unfortunately, have the inability to refrain from answering the pitbull-with-lipstick call with his own dig at McCain’s talk of change by saying "You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig." Then there was "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called ‘change,’ it’s still gonna stink after eight years."
There’s somewhat of a history of lipstick-on-a-pig remarks, from both sides, and I’d like to see it stop. Pigs have hideously treated and disrespected by humans ever since (and don’t even try to say there’s no connection) men decided they were unclean and vilified them in their religious texts they wrote (and rewrote) well over a thousand years ago.
For me, McCain won the tasteless remark contest with a comment about not responding to Romney’s attacks during primary season. "Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty–and the pig likes it." Yeah, the pig likes it. Check out Ryan’s evidence to the contrary from a while back, and don’t forget to bask in the glow of all of the delighted people in the background.
I’m sure you heard Obama, I believe it was yesterday, say of Palin: "Mother, governor, moose shooter. That’s cool."
The thing about animal rights is that it’s impossible to be single-issue when it comes to voting because there’s rampant disrespect for sentient nonhumans in both parties (with one exception-Kucinich), so you’re forced, if you had a single-issue inclination, to look at the entire candidate.
Maybe I’ll send Obama a couple of reading recommendations, beginning with Jeffrey Masson’s "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon" and Sy Montgomery’s "The Good, Good Pig."
I too would like to see all the references to animals cease… some of the time it's a challenge, man has utilized nearly every animal for literary example and impact. Colleen Patrick-Goudreau offers many fine alternatives in her podcast "Compassionate Clichés"
http://feeds.feedburner.com/VegetarianFoodForThought
And about the pigs… I can think of no more disgusting and vile "use" of the animal than as a "garbage disposal". "Important in China and Korea, at one time, was the privy pig, kept to process human excrement into flesh for human consumption. Four young pigs could derive sustenance from the waste of a family of four humans".
http://www.cambridge.org/us/books/kiple/hogs.htm
These "garbage pigs" are particularly sad when one considers this from "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon": "Never will a pig defecate near its sleeping or eating quarters. Fastidiousness is one of a pig's most salient characteristics. Kim Sturla has repeatedly seen old arthritic sows waking up early in the morning, getting their stiff bodies up with enormous effort, then dragging themselves through deep mud to walk a long distance away from the barn before they would urinate. We can only imagine the suffering involved when pigs are confined in such a small space that they refuse to foul their own stalls…"
Yes Mary, please do send Obama these books. Maybe the next administration can look more closely at "factory farms" and the cruelties done to animals in them (?). Maybe the next administration will close the EPA loopholes and special privileges "hog warehouses" have been granted for the last 8 years? Maybe the next administration will cast just a thought, a small consideration for the poor, "lowly" pig (?).
As a Canadian, I hope Obama wins – especially considering the terrible alternative which will make the U.S. a permanent pariah in the world and cause the U.S. to lose what little respect remains for it from the rest of the world (stupid voters electing corrupt politicians who are only looking out for themselves and their corporate masters).
However, Obama should be strongly publicly rebuked for compromising his principles by kissing up to the hunting and gun lobby, making disparaging remarks about animals, and giving a token of respect for 'The Killa from Wasilla' by complimenting her on her moose-shooting skills. I saw on TV last week, Republican women be equally impressed with her animal killing being an attractive reason to vote for her and McCain.
One more thing, it was reported that the Obama children were promised a puppy after the election, I hope that they adopt a dog or puppy from an animal shelter and make a political statement about it. The sinking U.S. housing crisis has caused many animal companions to be abandoned. One more reason to be glad to be rid of Bush and to send McCain and Palin packing.
Mary, thank you for being on top of all this.
Through the associations constructed through rhetoric, we represent animals as symbols rather than present them as the subjects they are. Pigs, for instance, become characterized by a gross stereotype that only reinforces people's mass conception of their total being. Because few people come into contact with pigs and animal others, those animals are never present and are thus always represented by others.
On the other hand, using animals as metaphors existed since human language. Paul Shepard discusses this at length in his books, particularly Thinking Animals. Unfortunately, he is unpopular among people in this movement (although Jim Mason likes him a lot) because he is opposed to animal "rights," vegetarianism, and domestic animals. He wrote a really great book called The Others (1996), which I highly recommend. In them he ties the domestication of animals to classism and sexism. The sow, he notes, was worshiped as a matriarchal deity until patriarchal cultures came in and replaced her with the bull, and then the human hero. The pig eventually became a symbol of gluttony and greed under Christianity, rather than maternal strength, wisdom, and fertility.
So, I'm skeptical of moving away from using animal metaphors. Shepard discusses how we form our own identities by relating to the Otherness of different species. Without these metaphors, I think our world will only become all them anthropocentric and removed from our kinship with others. On the other hand, we ought to be careful not to violently stereotype these creatures and associate them with sin.
So why the pig metaphor? Working on a farmed animal sanctuary this summer, I can say that pigs are the most human (or perhaps modern American) of all farmed animals. They are witty, family-oriented, competitive, whinny, inquisitive, friendly, very hungry, and (at least with factory farmed breeds) very lazy/sleepy–they sleep around 16 hours a day! They also have very light colored hair and very human eyes, making them look all the more like us hairless apes. Pigs, thus, threaten our human identity the most by reminding folks that we are animals no less than them. To paraphrase Agamben (The Open, 2004), they like the monkey mock us as we can only see our humanity by seeing ourselves through them.
P.S. Mason's book is anecdotal and doesn't represent all pigs. Pigs may not defecate on their beds or next to their food, but they'll often take a rest break in the very same barn they inhabit–I've seen it happen a lot.
Speaking of politicians, here's what Boris Johnson, the new mayor of London, thinks of the call to eat less meat for the sake of the environment:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/09/do0901.xml
If anyone refers to me as a pig, I'm angry both for me and for pigs. It's a mean-spirited comment that's both sexist and speciesist. Shame on Obama. He needs to cut it out.
I made certain to watch & re-watch over & over (with the media's help) every word Obama said before the fatal "lipstick/pig" comment and there is no reference to Palin. The colloquialism was meant to address, illustrate and compare McCain's lack of focus on the issues – such as "energy, education, economics & the 2 wars we're in". I didn't get any negative sexual reference – And believe me, I tried…
It is a debating tactic… No doubt Obama selected it because McCain uses the phrase often – his daughter said "he says it all the time". A good way to get under your opponent's skin is to match their policies and ideas (or lack thereof) with "their" favorite words of criticism.
And if indeed Palin is to represent a "woman of leadership", a "bull-dog", a champion, an example of how "tough" a woman can be – why isn't she voicing her outrage? Why is she still repeating the same lines from the same speech we all were so upset about? It's rhetoric. Her "silence" in this supposed attack makes her (and the "liberated" women that she represents) look like a weak, mindless, "damsel in distress" awaiting "rescue" from the "men of honor" in the Republican Party – The "warriors" who will "defend" her instead. It's sickening. And I as a woman find that more offensive than anything else – That to me is "sexist".
And I love the part where spokesmen for the Republican Party are questioning why Hillary hasn't come forward to speak out against Obama's "sexist" remark – It's all a ploy to keep American minds away from the issues.
We are in an energy crisis, our education system is failing, most of us don't have health care, we're loosing jobs and homes and we're fighting 2 wars! I believe that is all Obama was calling attention to… the issues.