ANIMALS IN THE MEDIA—Guy with emphysema casually suffocates a fish

The irony apparently escapes
the makers of this spot for Astra Zeneca’s Symbicort©
A guy who can’t breathe very well makes fish gasp for air

By Patrice Greanville

Click to enlarge

Ahh, what do we have here today? Nothing out of the usual: Just the banal oblivion of advertising copywriters and their employers when it comes to animals. The guy in the spot is just teaching his kid how to fish.  What could be wrong with that? He catches a fish and, after hooking him, very PC, he actually releases the animal. That ought to be applauded, wouldn’t you say? (I do. Every bit counts.)  So it seems like all’s well in Leave it to Beaverland. But is it? 

Try empathy
Folks, let’s change the script. Let’s try putting ourselves in the fish’s place. Let’s empathize with his plight.

How would YOU like to have someone —while you’re just going about your business—put a big hook through your lips and drag you into a chamber devoid of any air, and hold you there for what seems like an eternity (ever heard of waterboarding–it must feel like that) while the fellow rattles on some incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo, only to be delivered later to  the replenishing atmosphere, whimsically,  in the nick of time? Would you consider that suffering? A callous act? I would. And I would be pissed. Of course, animals can’t retaliate against us. Our advantage is so enormous that—unless we go looking for trouble— it dwarfs anything an animal might be able to do by a stroke of miraculous luck. Being oblivious to the suffering of animals is a facet of what we now call speciesism.
[pullquote] Pretty odd that a medicine to help a man breathe better has the same man denying another creature the right to breathe. [/pullquote]

So think. Sport fishing, like hunting, are extra layers of needless atrocity we inflict on the sentient world. Mainly because we can. Let’s face it: Fish don’t grow on trees, they’re not vegetables (like Reagan said of Ketchup) and they are being extinguished in astronomical numbers by industrial overfishing practically everywhere…while unchecked industrial runoff and climate change kill the waters in which they live. If you  lived in a waterborne environment, how would you look upon our species?

The invisible but always present messages
Little ads like this for Symbicort© are never innocent. Nothing that the corporate system does is innocent. The corporations are not out to change the world and make it better.  They are only interested in growing infinitely and acquiring more and more wealth. They are by definition amoral entities. Those who serve them share (and reinforce) this amorality. Out of sheer self-interest (and because it aligns with their worldview) they always play to the mainstream conventions. The sanctified, still unexamined traditions that often harbor bone-chilling horrors. Problem is, in that way they reinforce the status quo and act as a conservative force. Which makes badly needed social change extremely difficult. Plus, at times the hypocrisy can be hard to take. Even when it’s standard operating procedure. When you watch the spot, I hope you don’t miss that precious windup, so typical of the repugnant double-dealing at the core of the corporate mind: “If you can’t afford your medication (b/c you are charging extortionist prices, you pricks!) Astra Zeneca “may be able to help”. Wow. That’s what I call generosity.

CODA
If you fish or eat animal flesh of any kind, please think about it. Just a few years ago there were no real good substitutes for any kind of meat.  I know because as a vegetarian I used to look for them everywhere. Today we do. And—credit to the souls who developed these products—in almost all cases they are literally indistinguishable from the real thing. This from a man brought up on French cuisine.

Meat substitutes offer us a nonviolent diet that is also a lot better for us in terms of health benefits. And if you don’t want to revise your ways about animals out of compassion, or health concerns, do re-examine your habits on account of what “meat” does to the environment. On strictly ecological grounds, meat production is one of the chief contributors to climate change, not to mention that, like open-pit mining, it disfigures the landscape in atrocious ways. Today, a serious environmentalist with a hamburger in hand is a huge, glaring contradiction. Some would call it hypocrisy.

This has been a Greanville Tweetio. Thank you for your time.

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Patrice Greanville is founding editor of The Greanville Post, a lifetime leftist and animal liberationist.