What IS The Right Thing To Do?

(Photo Credit: USA Ad Council)

By Mike Madsen

I am a child of the 70’s, and I am unapologetic about it.

I grew up watching Star Trek (the original series), Sanford and Son and All In The Family. I also watched The Brady Bunch, Flipper and Gilligan’s Island in syndication. It was definitely a different time with a different mind set. The counter culture in the 60’s had raised awareness of our world around us, but hadn’t had any central vision.

It’s arguable that gradually much of that visionless movement turned into the conservation movement. However at the time its message hadn’t gelled and it certainly hadn’t become mainstream.

Around the time of the visionary and hopeful Star Trek era in 1971, a commercial began running that I remember vividly. It really impacted me and how I saw my place in the world.

It featured a Native American (the actor Iron Eyes Cody) who was standing beside a freeway, looking down at the trash strewn along the highway, tears streaming from his eyes. It was a “Keep America Beautiful” campaign and it really affected me. I credit both that commercial and Star Trek for starting me down the path that led to my personal liberal political stance.

But you have to understand the thinking back then to understand why.

We thought nothing about opening up a car window and just throwing out trash. We didn’t feel any responsibility for the earth – it was something to use and use up. Even the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign started out purely because of aesthetics. Trash along our highways was out of control and ugly.

It didn’t take long before we realized that a lot more than just “keeping things pretty” became important. Gradually, the message changed as we became more aware of what we were doing to the planet, how we were poisoning our ecosystem and killing “Mother Earth”. Anti-littering laws began to be passed and we saw a dramatic decrease in roadside litter, all because of some dedicated individuals with a powerful message.

However, it wasn’t just individuals. There were some really wealthy and powerful corporations behind the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign. It was founded in 1953 by a consortium of American businesses (including founding member Philip Morris, Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola), nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and of course, concerned individuals.

Just so we all understand, up until that time throughout our history, there was no big public outcry for conservation and caring for our planet. So there wasn’t any pressure on these companies to do this because it was “The Right Thing To Do”. People just didn’t care.

“The Right Thing To Do” as a widely held public sentiment was born of these campaigns. It was created with the money and talent provided for by these American businesses. So these companies, for profit organizations, were creating a positive message, changing the way people thought, in order to change the mindset that the earth was our trashcan.

This wasn’t just about good publicity; it was about awareness of our world and what we needed to do to take care of it.

Now I’m not going to claim that these organizations were responsible for changing the world on their own. There were and are plenty of entities that worked along side this campaign to gradually change our minds and make us all aware of what our responsibilities are as citizens of this planet. Certainly, Phillip Morris has done its share of harm too, with what we know of cigarettes and tobacco today but that’s not the point.

The point is, these companies participated in this campaign because it was The Right Thing To Do. A positive message and positive thing to change our world.

Arguably, that Crying Native American commercial changed my entire viewpoint on the world, and I’d bet there are others who grew up seeing that commercial that would say the same thing. It was a powerful message, one that ingrained itself into my psyche.

I remember as an older kid, during the 80’s, my liberal friends and I took action because it was “The Right Thing To Do”. How we would pick up trash when we saw it, how when camping, we’d go out of our way to not only haul out anything we took in, but would clean up others mess too and haul that out. How we would contribute to any campaign we saw that really helped the environment. Action was louder than words, and words that spurred action were the most important words of all.

We got involved in important organizations that were taking steps to change things, better the planet, promote conservation. We would support any business that supported these important causes, because of course, in our society the only way we can accomplish our goals is with money.

Along with the ecosystem conservation, I began to be involved in animal conservation as well, as we slowly watched our world’s animals dying off and entire species becoming extinct. I began to follow organizations that were fighting to preserve these species in any way they could in order that they not be lost forever. Our hope of course is that somehow as humans begin to be aware of the need to conserve these species, we would still have them to reintroduce them to their natural environments.

So imagine my delight and happiness at discovering SeaWorld!

Here was a company that’s entire focus was on “The Right Thing To Do”. A conservation message, funding conservation methods and efforts around the world with the non-profit SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, and animal rescues and rehabilitation out the wazoo!

I was so stoked to learn that here is this huge company that was so focused on animal care and conservation.

Excited, I started talking to my liberal friends about it, preaching the SeaWorld message.

I was floored when they recoiled in horror!

My friends started telling me horrible things about SeaWorld that I KNEW weren’t true because I had first hand experience with SeaWorld.  I knew it was the opposite of what they were saying. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I tried to tell them differently, but they had “read all about it on the internet and it had to be true.”

SeaWorld had me fooled and shame on me for listening to some profit-minded greedy corporation.

It was then that I realized there was some really powerful negative messaging out there about anti-human care and SeaWorld specifically; so powerful my friends would not listen to me and were convinced that the animals SeaWorld had were better off dead than “in SeaWorld care.”

I felt like my liberal friends were living in the world of the 1950’s, where animals still lived in cages, not enclosures, and we had very little knowledge of how to preserve or keep them healthy and happy. So I began to patiently and kindly explain to them exactly why SeaWorld and other AZA accredited zoological organizations were so important to the efforts we all started so long ago.

I explained why it was critical to preserve these species for the future until such time we could change the world’s mind or the way OUR minds were changed by the “Crying Native American” ad and other campaigns. We needed to give the world a chance to embrace the values of preserving nature the way we had embraced them over a period of many decades and with patience by organizations spreading the message, who gradually made us understand over time.

I was met with not just resistance, but stone cold hatred and acidic anger.

As a lifelong self-proclaimed liberal, this shocked and dismayed me. Growing up, my liberal friends and I had prided ourselves on taking real action to preserve the environment and our world ecosystem. We physically cleaned up rivers, beaches, lakes, trails, camp spots, highways, etc. We gave to organizations that were non-profit and were all about The Right Thing To Do. We supported corporations that gave money to our causes and were happy that they did.

Now suddenly anything a for-profit corporation did to support these causes was somehow evil.

I think the idea of a corporation that embraced “The Right Thing To Do” became somehow evil, as during the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s we saw companies taking advantage of people. Major rip offs happened, mortgage bundling and bank greed, deceit and even treachery on the part of some companies began to be known, and We, The People started to become jaded.

We started to think of ALL corporations as evil greed machines with no goodness or purpose behind them other than to make a profit and worship the almighty dollar. We know deep down it isn’t true; there are good companies and bad companies, just like there are good people and bad people. It’s all about choice. But somehow it was just easier to blame any company making a profit and say they were all evil. Therefore, any company that was putting out positive messaging was only doing so for their own evil ends, to make themselves look less evil. Good publicity.

The only problem with applying that to SeaWorld is, they were doing all these things for decades before they started advertising that they did it.

They were doing it with little to no kudos or celebration. They were doing it because their owners at the time, Anheuser Busch, knew it was “The Right Thing To Do”.

Yes, it is true that they were sold to another company and that company took them public for the first time in the companies history, but that didn’t change the message or the beliefs of the people who worked there or the everyday conservation efforts that make up what and who SeaWorld is!

For instance, SeaWorld banned plastic bags at all their facilities two years before California banned them! Why? Because it was “The Right Thing To Do”…and they continue to embrace that mentality and continue to love the environment and love our world by taking action and doing real life, real world things to preserve wildlife, the ecology and our world.

But there are powerful forces at work against them.

There is the movie Blackfish, which used former trainers who had been fired from SeaWorld (think there’s no sour grapes there?) and emotionally manipulative messaging in a deceitful way to spread a powerful negative message about SeaWorld. The messaging about Tillikum and other captive cetaceans is insidious and smeared with just enough truth to sugarcoat its deceptive and clearly manipulative messaging and make it seem legitimate.

Many of my liberal friends have seen that film and their entire opinion about SeaWorld is formed on that – and that alone.

There are activists who constantly spread this cancerous message of hate about an organization that clearly does real world good on an everyday basis.

An organization that funds real conservation efforts around the world, who rescues and rehabilitates animals every day. That has rehabilitated and returned to the wild over 23,000 animals. SeaWorld doesn’t get paid for that, they do it because it’s “The Right Thing To Do”.

They never even advertised it until they began to be attacked by anti-captivity activists. Now they advertise it because otherwise the general public would only have the negative messaging in their ears and the anti-SeaWorld terrorists would win.

Because that’s what they are – terrorists.

I want my liberal friends to stop and listen to the insane messaging these people are supporters of. Remember, these are the people who think captive cetaceans should be murdered, that they are better off dead than in human care.

That is a real fact. I hear the more hard core ones talking about it on a daily basis.

Also, PETA, one of the most vocal of sources, believes you should not even have pets.

Think this isn’t real?

Think that I’m spreading propaganda about PETA?

Look for yourself. That organization feels you should not have cats or dogs or any pets because it is animal captivity. That no one should eat meat because it is evil. That all animals should be free. They are proposing that animals be given constitutional rights.

That’s correct; you didn’t read wrong. Constitutional rights.

The people spreading these negative messages also believe that an animal species being dead and extinct is somehow better than preserving them for the future, until such time we can do for the world what the “Crying Native American” did for us – give the world a chance to change their mindsets, preserve wild spaces and animals species. Give the world the same chance we had. We changed our minds and our hearts over a period of 60 or more years. Doesn’t the rest of the world deserve that chance to bring balance back to the world?

I want to make an appeal to my liberal friends – please, take a good long look at what is going on in the world today and think back on what it was like during the time we were maturing. Think back about what we did to preserve the world, how we took action to change things, preserve things and bring hope for the future.

Now look at who is out there doing the real work.

Is PETA out there rescuing animals and preserving the environment?

Or are they screaming about how evil SeaWorld is, when SeaWorld has rescued and rehabilitated over 23,000 animals? (and believe me, that is just the tip of the iceberg. They supply help to any number of organizations out there who come to them for help and advice, but that is another story to be told…)

Are they out there cleaning up beaches and saving ecosystems or are they staging showy and disgusting protests with naked women and foul mouthed actors?

If you have any doubts after that, I will personally take you to any SeaWorld park and show you that it isn’t true. Introduce you to any number of animal care specialists and show you how dedicated and loving they are, what stellar human beings they are. People I’m proud to call my friends.

Who is really doing the work that needs to be done to save our planet? Now take action; it’s up to you.