True Lies: January 2016

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Whenever we champion a cause for animals, for the Ocean, for the forests or for nature we are lectured on how we are a threat to people's jobs. For example, this question from last week: "We can't abolish the force-feeding of ducks for fois gras, that would cost 30,000 jobs." Or: "If you oppose industrialized fishing, you're taking away people's jobs."

I think this cartoon strip from Calvin and Hobbes sums up my response to people who put jobs before the environment, suffering and slaughter.

The end of slavery cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. A "job" that entails slaughter, cruelty, human rights abuses and destruction of nature is not a "job". It's a crime.

Jon Burgwald of Greenpeace supports the sealing industry because it provides Jobs. Cutting down the forests of Amazonia provides jobs. Himmler justified the construction of Dachau when selling the idea to the people of Munich by promising jobs.

Nobody should have a job that entails destroying life and habitat on this planet. Nobody should have a job that entails cruelty and slaughter.

"Thou shalt not kill" means also that "Thou shalt not have a job that involves killing."

JOBS
by Bill Waterson,

Calvin and Hobbes:
The aliens came from a far distant world
In a large yellow ship that blinked as it twirled.
It rounded the moon, and entered our sky.
We knew they had come but we didn't know why.
Bright the next morning, with noisy commotion,
The ship slowly moved out over the ocean.
It lowered a tube and drained the whole sea
For transport back home to their galaxy.
The tube then sucked up the clouds and the air,
Causing no small amount of earthling despair.
With nothing to breathe, we started to die.
"Help us! Please stop!" was the public outcry.
A hatch opened up and the aliens said,
"We're sorry to learn that you soon will be dead,
But though you may find this slightly macabre,
We prefer your extinction to the loss of our job."