My family is the Democratic offshoot of a staunch Republican family tree.
The staunchest. As in, most of the branches grow the big bucks and spend their leisure time fertilizing the growth of the green.
Whether the move away from the clutches of the Deep South to reside in what was once free-thinking Florida or my mother's marriage to a Damn Yankee, I don't know which is responsible for changing the trajectory of my immediate family's political leanings...but what I can tell you is the political conversation among those who share my same DNA is way beyond Carville-Matalin cool couple talk.
Picture a Cujo attack.
We're the family trapped inside the car, fighting our way past rabid sick hate.
Sarah Palin is the poster child for my familial Republicans. I'm certain--most certain--that upon Palin's presentation to polite Political Society, my aunt immediately wrote out a check with lots of zeros and mailed it off pronto. Maybe two checks. One to McCain, the other to the RNC.
Knowing all that--ignoring the hot breath of Cujo blasting through the crack in the window, his body a battering ram against our Obama bumper sticker, my mom still had to ask her sister her impression of Sarah.
She loves her, said she liked the children, the little baby, and the daughter being pregnant..........................said she was like us. Also, the next time she visits Alaska, she will go and visit her. Can you believe this?
Yes. I do believe it. (And I hope my aunt gets her wish after this country recovers from the Palin Effect and kicks this babe all the way back to AK).
But I think my mother asked the wrong question.
If I get my chance over the next 50 some odd days, I'll ask my aunt what her take is on hunting down wolves from airplanes?
Then just for kicks, I'd ask what she thinks about the photographs circulating of wolves with their limbs hacked off?
The photos taken after the grand animal finally succumbed to exhaustion, running, running, running, with no place to hide, no place to turn because some asshole in a plane can fly above it all, sort of like my family with all their cash who--just like the aerial hunters--don''t expose themselves to the risk of reality because they refuse to enter the territory of heartbreak and hardship that the last eight years have had on the habitat of us regular folk, a target on our back as surely as a wolf fleeing shots fired because lawmakers said, sure go ahead.
They can't fight back.
Yeah. That's what I'd ask.
As Governor, Sarah Palin has championed aerial hunting of wildlife.
Despite strong scientific, ethical and public opposition to aerial hunting, Governor Palin has…
- Proposed paying a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf.
- Approved a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to promote aerial hunting.
- Introduced legislation to make it even easier to use aircraft to hunt wolves and bears.
Warning: This video is extremely disturbing. It contains graphic images of aerial hunting of wolves -- a brutal and needless practice that Governor Palin has fought hard to promote and expand.
"Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals suffering?
Because government is not.
Why not?
Animals don't vote."
~Paul Harvey
