Now that I have your attention, let's talk about something incredibly more important than Obama, Hillary or Edwards. Don't worry, they'll still be there, warts and all when you finish this.
So what's so important? Whales. That's right. We've stopped exterminating them, but the Japanese apparently haven't.
AP dispatch ran a story today on Japanese whalers who ‘scattered and ran’ when it realized the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza was "heading toward them at high speed," in an effort to prevent the killing of nearly 1000 whales. The murder of the cetaceans was ostensibly for ‘scientific research’, but anti-whaling nations and activists say it’s merely a front for commercial whaling.
A spokesman for Japan's whale hunt called Greenpeace's actions illegal and demanded it stop its disruptive actions.
"Greenpeace actions are illegal under international law (and) it's time the public stopped treating Greenpeace as heroes," Glenn Inwood, spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, in Tokyo, Japan, said Monday.
"It's time the public saw this fringe group for what they really are: environmental imperialists who are trying to dictate their morals to the world."
I’m not sure what rock Glenn Inwood crawled out from under, but in the words of my old philosphy professor, this is ‘bullshit’. Greenpeace is not ‘imperialist’ by any rational definition, and certainly their actions obtain to a universality that should far outwieght the local legal niceties of whatever the Japanese might dream up for their so called ‘scientific’ research team. But the real ‘tell’ is when they the talking head for the scientific front group to murder whales says that they are not heroes.
Newsbrief, Glenn. Greenpeace and its members are some of the last heroes left. You won’t find heroes like them in an over protected army, navy, or air force, nor any much vaunted 'special forces' or 'ranger' program. Not a single one of these military types would dare to take on anything bigger than a lambchop without a weapon. Without a huge institution, training, pay, and state of the art death machines behind them. A single Greenpeace member outshines everyone of them. You want to see courage? Try working with these people who, without weapons and, many times, without much in the way of material resources, have put their lives on the line to help you and everyone else on this planet. They get no fame, they get no treasure, when their job is done, and done correctly, the only satisfaction they get is to know they saved a life. That’s what being a hero means.
You don’t need to be a killer to be a hero. In fact, just the opposite, and Greenpeace proves this every time they set off on a mission. With regard to this specific action, the area the Japanese fleet are hunting in has been designated as the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, designed to help whale populations recover after the devastating commercial whaling of the last century. Many countries were responsible for this collapse in whale populations. Most have since realized the tragic consequences of their actions and now accept, support and promote whale conservation and a complete end to commercial whaling.
Furthermore, the claims of scientific research are ludicrous. You don't need to kill your specimen to understand them and scientist for the last few decades have artfully found multiple ways of tracking animals without murdering them for 'scientific knowledge'.
According to Greenpeace:
"Modern scientific research does not require whales to die. In addition to confronting the whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, we are proving that nobody needs to fire exploding harpoons into whales and kill them for science. Our Great Whale Trail research program, in collaboration with scientists from the Cook Islands Whale Research, Opération Cétacés (New Caledonia) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, includes satellite tracking, skin biopsy, and photo identification of whales. The program has already yielded a vast amount of valuable information. But not a single harpoon needed to be fired.
Scientific whaling is an expensive hoax -- with most of the results being stockpiled in commercial freezers or ending up in dog food."
In short, Japan and their ‘research’ team is lying and Greenpeace is calling them on it.
Not only do these ‘imperialist’ selflessly put their lives on the line with each of their actions, they benefit all of us in many ways, great and small. From preventing indiscriminate logging and rainforest burns in the Amazon to stopping Japanese commercial whalers from intruding on a whale sanctuary, Greenpeace is defending a world that will be lost forever –and sooner than we think. To make this a bit more concrete, I’m including a short segment from a novel I’m working on called "The Guardian’s Angelo." Based loosely on fact, the scene is Miguel Hernandez Juarez, a wizened environmental activist (and semi-immortal cook from Ponce de Leon’s army, but that’s another story), talking with his ‘trainee’, and great, great, great, great, grandson, Billy Juarez about the founding of Greenpeace:
"I remember when I worked with poor Bobby Hunter at Greenpeace. He was feeling as despondent as Luke, pitiable guy. We had sailed together aboard the first Greenpeace voyage in 1971 to Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands. Of course, it wasn’t called ‘Greenpeace’ then. We were just a bunch of folks onboard a rickety old Halibut schooner called the Phyllis Cormack. We lived so close together I swear I could recognize everyone by their smell! We were trying to stop a US nuclear weapons test. This was before your time, during what was called the ‘Cold War’ but it was plenty hot for the planet. America had started a policy of testing nuclear weapons in what they thought were remote areas. But the test they wanted to conduct was near a tiny island just off the West Coast of Alaska, which is one of the world's most earthquake-prone regions. Amchitka was also the last refuge for 3000 endangered sea otters, and home to bald eagles and peregrine falcons. All could well have been wiped out by the continued testing.
Ah, I remember the glory of that voyage, though, like none other I had taken, for it’s intended destination was in the middle of a target zone for a nuclear test, rather a frightening thing to undertake, especially if you didn’t happen to be immortal. During the voyage, I told Bobby about the legend of the Warriors of the Rainbow. Have you heard of that one, Billy?"
Billy shook his head.
"Well, you should. It’s wonderful, not the least because the legend and prophecy, according to Winston, are true."
"What’s it about?"
"Nearly three centuries ago, Winston whispered a few ominous tidbits to an old lady from the Cree tribe, named "Eyes of Fire". You see, the Indians are more apt to listen to someone like Winston than the so-called ‘civilized’ man, whose mind tends to be blinded by a deluded belief in his own abilities. Anyhow, Winston talked with her and she prophesied his words."
"What did he tell her?"
"Nothing you don’t already know. That one day, because of the white mans' greed there would come a time when the fish would die in the streams, the birds would fall from the air, the waters would be blackened, and the trees would no longer be. Mankind, as we would know it, would all but cease to exist. Of course, Winston also explained to her that during this time all the keepers of the legend, stories, culture rituals, and myths would be needed to restore the world to health. In fact, Winston told her that they would be mankind’s key to survival. She coined the phrase "warriors of the rainbow" to explain this because Winston told her that his vision of what would happen came from the rainbow. Thus the prophecy: there would come a day of awakening when the "warriors of the rainbow" would spread these messages and teach all peoples of the earth. They would counsel a respect for nature as one would respect oneself. They would counsel the honoring of a tree.
If and when mankind learned these things, then their children would once again be able to run free and enjoy the treasures of nature. The restoration would be subtle, yet invaluable: the rivers would run clear again, the forests would be abundant and beautiful, the animals and birds would be replenished. The powers of the plants and animals would again be respected, and conservation would become a way of life.
That, of course, was the prophecy I told Bobby. And I had just finished relaying this wonderful vision when we heard the first bullhorn announcement come crashing over the waves.
The US Coast Guard was forcing the Phyliss Cormack ashore at Akutan Island. They would not let us proceed to the test zone.
Bobby was close to tears he was so agitated. "Ignore them!" he shouted at Captain Cormack, "Out run them!"
We all gazed through the portal glass at the Coast Guard ship bearing down on us.
Captain Cormack throttled the engine down.
"No!" Bobby pleaded. He was in quite a state, "No, you can’t! We’ve come so far!"
"It’s the Coast Guard, Bobby, I can’t ignore them."
"You must, please." Then Bobby lunged at the Captain, but I restrained him, hugging him like so." -- Miguel took both his arms off the wheel and made a hugging motion, much to Billy’s dismay—"and I whispered in his ear, ‘Bobby, let it go. There’s nothing now you can do but suffer the failure’, for Winston had let me in on how things would turn out."
"But why?"
"Because suffering failure is sometimes what we must all learn. Even Rainbow Warriors. And here’s the sad part: as you might guess, we did fail. We failed to stop the test. We were surronded by the Coast Guard, charged with a customs infraction, and sent back to Sand Point for formal customs entry.
And Bobby was as despondent as I had ever seen him.
He banged his forehead on a table in the ship’s galley when the Captain pulled back, banged until blood covered his face. I still remember how he looked, like a beaten seal cub.
The nuclear test went off the next day.
Our voyage back to Vancover seemed almost a funeral procession on the open sea, for at that point, none of us realized the enormous good that had come out of that apparent failure. Our journey to stop the most powerful nation on earth from firing off a nuclear weapon had sparked a flurry of public interest. The US still detonated the bomb, as I said, but the public relations fall out was disastrous. Nuclear testing on Amchitka ended that same year, and the island was later declared a bird sanctuary.
A disastrous trip, you see, but in the long run, even though we failed to make it to the testing ground, the trip was a success beyond anybody’s wildest dreams. That bomb went off, but the bombs planned for after that, did not. Poor Bobby was miserable, at first, because the journey failed, but the nuclear program at Amchitka was cancelled five months after our trip. In addition, of course, the legacy of the voyage itself was not just the eight of us in a fishing boat failing in that particular mission, but, in fact, the birth of Greenpeace."
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