Wednesday
Jan062010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Are the Japanese being too gentle with the greens?
Jan 6, 2010 Greens From the comments to the previous thread, this video of the anti-whaling vessel, the Sea Shepherd, in action.
Crazy people. I'm no maritime expert, but I think it fair to say that people could have died in these circumstances. I would have thought the Japanese would be quite justified in taking much stronger action than the use of a water cannon.
Reader Comments (27)
I'm sure you're quite right, the Adi Gil was reported on this morning's NZ radio as having sped up into the path of the whaling vessel, after having attempted to snare its propeller and rudder with ropes. Such an action could rip the propeller off, thereby likely sinking the boat.
Green's are of course alleging ramming, much as they always allege "police brutality" when on demo's. There's not a great deal of symapthy for them here, in fact the head green/left honcho in NZ is busy right now protesting at the Auckland Tennis Centre over the presence of an Israeli player.
All signs of the red/green left running out of steam and sympathy.
This reminds be of the old story of a drunken minsiter who re-ended the back of a car of an oppressed minority (fill in your own) stopped at a red light. The sympatheic officer asked the reverend, how fast was he backing up when he hit you?
It's getting a bit "Somali pirates" now. I would have thought a deliberate ramming like that, with the clear video evidence you show, is certain grounds for an International Maritime Order, impounding the Sea "Shepherds" boat(s), bank accounts and assets. In those very cold seas the action was potentially murderous.
The YouTube comments on this video are superb examples of people seeing what they want to see, in accordance with their beliefs. Though I suppose some may be mistaken because they don't understand that a ship's wake is the history of their direction, and the SS is clearly at an angle to its previous direction at impact while the Japanese ship is not.
This is terrible. The Japanese navy needs to protect its citizens from piracy.
Under Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGs) http://www.imo.org/Conventions/contents.asp?doc_id=649&topic_id=257
The overtaking boat has a duty to avoid the boat it is overtaking in ALL circumstances.
Anyone from the occasional weekend sailor who has done the RYA training scheme (like me) to the saltiest sea do knows that you never, ever, take risks at sea, it is a very unforgiving environment.
Far too gentle. They belong in Davy Jones' Locker.
If I were the insurance company for the Adi Gil (However the name is spelled), I would be suing them for what they did to the whaling ship, who is sure to sue for whatever damage that happened to that ship.
The video is pretty clear that they fault belongs to the fanbois.
Can you imagine someone doing that on the road, ramming you and trying to drive you off the road? They would be banned at least, and likely jailed for attempted murder.
If there's no way of getting these murderers off the high seas then other vessels should have the right to use reasonable force to restrain them from such murderous actions. Obviously that can't be water cannon.
Frankly, I'd like to see divers attach mines to all these ecofascist's vessels and sink them. Or submarines take them out. They could just disappear quietly, without anyone knowing how or why. They should at least be impounded and confiscated when they next come into port, and the crew put on trial.
The problem is that, whether or not these environmentalists [sic] actually caused the collisions (in the SS case yes; in the batboat's case it's fifty-fifty) they are clearly setting out with the sole purpose of disrupting the whaling boats' activities by getting in their way and attempting to foul their propellers, as well as damaging the crew's eyesight with their lasers. As far as I'm concerned, those people are therefore liable for anything that happens as a result of those actions (in what would otherwise be a nigh empty ocean), including damage to shipping, injury and loss of life on a "strict liability" basis.
Where's the DGSE when you need them?
Lies are the usual green/animal rights tactic. We have seen the tactic used often in the past, as when birds electocuted by high tension cables, are collected, then shot, and the Xrays circulated to the press to defame hunters.
In other incidents dead birds were collected, frozen, and the corpses used three years running, with sympathetic press people to take photos, (of the same birds). The tactics do not change. But they would have no effect if the press were more analytical and less committed to the principle of publishing what they think "sells".
If there was a blanket embargo on visual material from the actions of the Shepherd, or the emphasis had been primarily on the safety issue, the "actions" would soon cease. Greens do not like to waste resources on unpublishable action.
Nik
I watched the Discovery program "Whale Wars" with considerable interest.
Those aboard the Steve Irwin, and their supporters, want to stop what they consider to be illegal whaling by the Japanese.
In order to do that they put themselves at risk. Often anger gets the better of judgement.
Whilst I find their tactics dubious at times, I do admire and support what they are trying to achieve, an end to the slaughter of one of the most intelligent and gentle creatures on the planet.
There is no justification for whaling, none.
It's rather sad that this blog, and it's contributors, don't recognise this.
Armed escort by the Japanese navy is required. Champagne corks would be popping watching these ecofacists sink.
(no whales were harmed in the making of this email)
Well those "ecofascists" did sink apparently. Complaining loudly while their ship the Ady Gil sank that the Japs ignored their distress call. Hey thats not on. Just because we rammed you and we sank - doesnt mean you dont respond to our distress call. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10619089
Disappointed by this post and most of the comments. Mindlessly slagging off 'greens' for having the temerity to get in the way of a Japanese 'scientific research' ship? It's really playing into the hands of those who want to portray 'deniers' as right wing thickos.
David
I don't think criticising the greens for ramming another ship can be reasonably construed as "mindless slagging".
Bishop
Apologies, but the general tenor of your post and comments seems to be that little people should not attempt to stand up against the state or big business, and if they do, they deserve to die!
Isn't this the exact opposite of what you are supposed to stand for?
How is it possible to reconcile the two points of view that lie beneath these incidents? One view is that all things non-human are best viewed as resources; the second is that whales are creatures whose intelligence, playfulness, and affection to family (among other characteristics) make them akin to humans and therefore give them special (protected) status.
If, some of the the world believes that whales are primarily resources, and the rest believes that whales are, like humans, not to be viewed that way, how do we decide? (I think in this discussion it's probably important to realize there isn't much if any middle ground, since you're either killing them for food or research, or you're not.)
I think the only way for the whale-is-human viewpoint to win out in the end is for each nation (each individual?) to make that decision. My reading of Hochschild's brilliant book Bury The Chains is that a single dedicated group grew to influence the rest of the world that slavery was simply wrong. It took a long time, and a lot of slaves died between the time this group started and the time that finally slavery was abolished, so it must have been incredibly frustrating for the people who were trying to speed things up. Still, I don't recall any ramming of slave-trading boats or anything like that. It was all very above board, appealing to the common citizens (of England) to put pressure on parliament.
If Paul Watson equates whale-kililng with murder, then one can perhaps understand his frustration. And one can also understand a moral point of view that allows him to see himself as acting under a higher order. But so does the committed anti-abortionist who reasons that one dead abortion doctor is less bad than the deaths of all the "unborn innocents" that doctor will "kill" and so murders the doctor in good conscience. One can understand the reasoning, but still recoil, no? Is that recoiling just not facing up to facts, or is it something more?
@David:
Deliberate staging or misrepresentation of facts for the purpose of media propaganda with the goal of forcing social change ... anything like this, for any cause (right, left, whatever) should be exposed. Truth is never the wrong thing to stand for.
@Ted Douglas
"Deliberate staging or misrepresentation of facts for the purpose of media propaganda with the goal of forcing social change ... anything like this, for any cause (right, left, whatever) should be exposed. Truth is never the wrong thing to stand for."
So will the Bishop be doing a post where he investigates the "scientific research" being done on the Japanese vessel?
"New Zealand police have been asked to arrest the captain of the one of the Japanese whaling fleet that collided with the anti-whaling protest vessel Ady Gil in Antarctic waters."
Talk about insult to injury. You ram a ship you disapprove of, sink and then demand that the Capt of the ship you rammed gets arrested!
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/6660183/nz-police-drawn-into-antarctic-whaling-scrap/
And David the Greens and anyone else have the right to protest against the killing of whales, but not by ramming a ship, period. You do not protest violence with violence. If you do, and sink - tough luck. But they should be made to pay for damages to the Japanese ship.
I'm a bit bemused by some of the comments from Dave and other whale fanciers.
Of course, I am 100% in favour of anyone having the right of peaceful protest, even for points of view that I absolutely despise, providing it IS peaceful and that excludes people trying to whip up racial violence and so on.
And I will even accept that in extreme circumstances, even violence may be appropriate - but you have to be prepared to accept the consequences.
To take an absurd (I hope) hypothetical case. If a group of climate skeptics had been rounded up on Gordon "Flat Earth" Brown's orders and were being shipped off to Spitzbergen to feed to the Polar Bears, then if I had a £1.5M boat available, I'd certainly feel justified in behaving like the Sea Shepherd crowd did here. Even if it was a bunch of Hamas supporters being fed to the Polar Bears, I still wouldn't condemn direct action. But to perform like this to 'protect' wales? No, I'm sorry, that is absolutely criminally irresponsible.
I'm not a vegetarian. If you want to be a vegetarian, then that's fine. So long as you don't give me lectures whilst you wear your nice leather boots and sneak bacon sandwiches when no-one is looking. After all Adolf Hitler was a strict vegetarian, which may or may not shine a light on your belief system.
But if you do eat meat, I can see little difference in the ethics of eating a whale or a cow or a bunny rabbit. Unless perhaps you believe that it is somehow more humane to eat chickens held in atrocious conditions in a battery farm rather than hunt whales on the high seas.
Of course, one of the reasons why whales are supposed to be exempt from being eaten is the fact that they are endangered. Even here I have a problem because I'm not sure why whales must be preserved at all cost when there are lots of other life forms about which no-one gives a shit. (Smallpox virus?)
No, I don't know enough about marine biology to say whether whales are GENUINELY endangered or not. If they are, then I would support a whaling ban because there are still, despite the greenies best efforts, plenty of alternative things to eat.
But I'm really sorry, my experience with the AGM scam has made me extremely skeptical about people who shout from the roof tops about environmental 'problems'. Sometimes they are a bit wrong. Normally they are completely wrong. Very occasionally indeed they may be right although they can never resist taking their point to the reductio ad absurdum limit.
However, I have to admit that whenever I see a 'cause' supported by Fiends of the Earth, by Greenpiss, by the World Wild Lies Fund and all the rest of them, my bullshit meter goes off the scale. You are going to have to come up with some pretty good scientific evidence before I will criticise the Japanese for hunting (and scoffing) whales.
Sorry, but that's how I see it.
@Martin
I don't think I mentioned whale fancying at all in my posts. What I was concerned with was the irony of using the term "ecofascists" in the same breath as calling for the Japanese navy to be used to sink a fibreglass dinghy.
But reading your post I am struck by your equating all non-human life with the smallpox virus, and deciding whether it is acceptable to hunt something only on the basis of how many of them there are, or whether there is a "scientific" reason to preserve them. Completely missing in your argument is empathy with the creature being hunted or whether some creatures are more intelligent (conscious even?) than others. And it obviously follows from that that you don't care how barbaric the procedure is.
The logic of your comment is that we should bring back bear baiting because that is no worse than training dogs to fetch sticks for our entertainment. And alongside the merry england hunting scenes that may adorn your living room walls why not add some colourful seal clubbing pictures?
@David
No, I'll not let you get away with that.
I never suggested that one can "equate all non-human life with the smallpox virus" - that's your invention - but I did point out, if you bother to read what I did say) that there are loads of species out there which are neither fluffy and cuddly (including polar bears, apparently) or majestic (like whales) and which no one is much bothered about. Don't battery hens or intensively farmed pigs deserve better? And what about all the other species that the sub-prime 'scientists' claim are on the brink of extinction (without any evidence, so far as I can see. An excellent posting on WUWT on this a couple of days ago). But the ecofascists only use these (mainly anonymous) species as statistics in propaganda for their weird beliefs.
I'm not sure why empathy with the species hunted is relevant, nor the intelligence of the species in question. (Pigs are quite smart, for that matter). It all sounds very 'middle class urban' to me. And the "not caring about how barbaric the procedure is" is once more your invention. In my experience death is very often a nasty and messy procedure and, if you are going to hunt (which I never have) I accept there is no merit in not hunting efficiently.
I've no problem with killing bears if you intend to eat them or if they pose an unacceptable danger to humans but see no point in killing just for the sake of killing so your 'bear baiting' comment is also completely wide of the mark.
I'm not vegetarian (as I said) and I have no particular problem with hunting for food. I'm not a marine biologist but I do believe there is (at the very least) valid arguments both for and against seal culling. There may well be with whaling also. But such evidence as I have seen to justify a whaling ban seems very tenuous at best. And I am certainly not about to accept anything the ecowarriors say on trust.
And behaving like a bunch of morons in the Antarctic seas cannot be justified. Far too dangerous, potentially including people completely uninvolved. What happens if they had succeeded in snagging the propellor and rudder? Next someone has to go to the rescue and you put them at risk.