Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Another Open Letter

So I love the AFLAC duck commercials; they are the best. I hate advertisers, but this series is so cute, it's the best. Well, some poultry rights people have some protest against it, like it negatively portrays a duck or abuses it or whatever. It was at http://www.upc-online.org/alerts/020304aflac_duck.html

Supposedly ducks are being degraded. So I wrote the head honcho the following:


I understand your concern and humane foresight for the portrayal of a duck being abused, but the notion of protesting AFLAC into changing the nature of their duck's portrayal is illogical at best. Why is this a quest of yours, when, as an animal rights conscious citizen, I see so many other injustices in today's society, particularly with poultry, that you waste time with a campaign that I find amusing, creative, and clearly without abuse to a live duck? I despise advertising and their nefarious practices but found the AFLAC duck to be a breath of fresh air and incredibly cartoonish in nature - and most importantly, harmless.
As a supporter of animal rights, there are limits to where protests and contention must extend. When those limits are breached, such activists and supporters of animal rights merely appear overzealous and idiotic with oversensitive protests that carry little effect or gravity in the scope of greater efforts. I sincerely applaud AFLAC for their commercials, as they are some of the few that amuse me, and clearly no live animal is being harmed. Firing shots at this campaign is an embarrassing gesture of oversensitivity and I, as others that have heard of this, strongly recommend you rescind the complaints and seek the myriad other injustices and abuses that exist in the food industry, etc, rather than a mere portrayal. Any such campaign against a comedic character merely strips away credit and respect from your cause, I hope you see that. I am not against your goals, merely pointing out a mistake in logic.

You are welcome to publish my thoughts, despite their dissention. As stated, I support your general cause strongly, but find this protest a bit of a joke and thought better of you to redirect efforts elsewhere. Is there a protest against Daffy Duck being shot up by Elmer Fudd a future campaign? Common Sense.
Sincerely,
Mike Caldwell


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