literature

Subtlety Does Not Come in Black and White

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The first time I saw a bus advertisement
that appealed to emotions, rather than logic,
I was barely old enough
to think for myself.

Still, I nevertheless instantly understood,
that more than a few things about it were Bizarro-World,
but that most people would take it at face-value, as intended,
and never be able to tell.

Though I encountered this ad in the Eighties,
when Ronald The Great was still sleeping in the Whitehouse,
I think it had the same graphic designer,
as the more recent 'Pornography Hurts' campaign-

because it was in the same jagged black & white,
with lettering in the same stark and primitive font,
and exaggerated characterisations,
that would make even Thomas Nast hang his head in shame.

The ad showed a series of thumbnail portraits:
a young, white woman, a white baby in cradle,
and a young, African American couple,
and several little kids...

with the Damocles-dangling caption overhead,
that asked the 'innocent' yet ominous question:
'Which of the following pictured here,
does not deserve to live?'

Of course, even then I knew it was all about the baby,
and that precious little angel's crib was the tip of the iceberg:
so very innocently hiding,
all the larger agendas in the murky depths below,

and that the loaded phrases: 'baby' and 'family'
and 'for the children', are magical, evocative code-words;
because you're a wicked, soulless bastard,
if you even dare to say no.

Yet it also occurred to me that day,
that, though manipulative, the question was still a fair one,
because, heartless shitheel that I am,
I thought that none of those pictured deserved to die.

But both then and now, I could see a series of follow-up ads,
that explored that question further and deeper,
and which would eventually force the ad-creators,
to be caught in their own hypocrisy and lies.

I'd pick the lowest-hanging fruit first of all,
and invoke Godwin's Law for the win-
I'd show Oncle Adolf, Josef Stalin,
Pol Pot and Idi Amin.

And then Papa Doc, and Baby Doc,
and all the other best psychopaths
history has to give...

Because, after all, fair is fair,
and every one of them was once a baby too:
so, tell me: which of these
does not deserve to live?

And then, I'd go a little more subtle,
with the words of Abbott Amalric,
who was infamously quoted as saying:
'Kill them all, God will know His own.'

Then I'd show a picture of an ISIS Jihadi,
holding up a freshly-severed head,
with an ambiguously-questioning caption:
'Does the right to life belong to him, alone?'

Then I'd show a picture of some little boys,
salting slugs, and pulling the wings off of flies:
for every torture and cruelty mankind can afflict,
surely the evidence is right before your eyes?

And then the liberation of the death camps,
of the Holocaust folks now say never happened:
all those inconvenient piles of rotting corpses,
in front of the Auschwitz and Dachau 'Tourist Resorts'-

and every senseless crime,
and every hapless victim,
indeed, every ghoulish fantasy,
that the media breathlessly and gleefully reports.

Every cost-accounted bullet,
used in every Chinese execution,
and every political dissident,
whose inconvenient words just had to go away...

And every so-called 'vile sodomite',
ponderously twisting in the hot and dry winds,
after they've all been publicly hanged
high from Iranian cranes.

And I won't stop with humanity,
after all, that's far too simple.
What about when you call the exterminator
For rats or roaches in your home?
And the bacteria you destroy when you pop a pimple?

And what about a tapeworm, or scabies mites,
or the bedbugs that keep you up at night?
The West Nile you got from the mosquito you smacked,
or the maggot, whose adult life you wantonly ended
with the flyswatter's crack?

Yet, those, who'd have us believe,
that only God has the right
to take the life of His Creations...

Without fail,
tend to be more than a little selective,
in that particular Law's interpretation.
This piece is a follow-up to 'Pornography Hurts', in that I recently realised that I'd seen an earlier iteration of that particular bus ad all the way back in the mid-Eighties, and that it had an equally unsubtle message that masked a lot of unspoken, hidden agendas, as well as more than a little hypocrisy.

Hell, even as an ignorant, early-teen kid, I was able to understand it just fine. Beyond that, I'll let the piece speak for itself.
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