The Hunt for the Japanese Whale Killers Resumes - onboard the Steve Irwin

[Annces]

The Steve Irwin departs with the New Year to hunt pirate whalers


"Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all."
- Walt Whitman


Posting from Captain Paul Watson
From Onboard the Steve Irwin

The Crocodile Hunter is now hunting pirate whalers and with a bone in her teeth, the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin is presently cleaving the swells in a race to return to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary where the blood of the whales is flowing freely amidst the heart -breaking screams of whales dying in horrific agony at the hands of black hearted cetacean serial killers.


It has been a frustrating week but thanks to an incredible effort on the part of a few crew and shore supporters, the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin now has engine efficiency restored to 100% and we are ready to resume the search for the elusive Japanese whaling fleet. It was a difficult decision to return in mid December after reaching the coast of Antarctica. We could have proceeded on our one engine which still allows us over 14 knots but I decided we needed speed superiority over the Japanese ships and that could only be done with both main engines working together.


The truth is that this mission is of absolute commitment and dedication. This is not rhetoric when we say we are willing to risk our lives to protect the whales. We have done so many times and we will continue to do so. We are not afraid of losing our ship and we are not afraid of dying and I will tell you why.


We sail as shepherds in defense of some of the most incredibly awesome living beings on this planet – we sail to save lives and to oppose horrendous cruelty and we sail against a violent ruthless opposition – whalers from Japan, all members of a Yakuza controlled union, all crewmembers on one of the largest floating aquatic death platforms ever constructed. The Niishin Maru is the Cetacean Death Star and the most evil ship sailing the high seas today. It must be destroyed if the whales are to live.


There are a thousand sentient, intelligent, socially complex, awesome citizens of this planet whose lives will be ruthlessly snuffed out by these vicious Japanese harpoons. In fact these whales are dying now, spilling their hot steaming blood into the frigid black waters of the Southern Oceans, slaughtered in an area designated as a Whale Sanctuary and killed for no other reason than to assuage Japanese national pride.


When one is at grace with the sea, then the sea is friend, protector, and guide. We become in spirit, the sons and daughters of Poseidon. We need not fear the sea nor those enemies that ride upon or within her. We need not fear any citizen of the sea and we need not fear for failure. We flow with the sea and we let the sea guide us and we allow the sea to bring us to our objective. In return the sea demands nothing – but our courage, our resolve and our absolute respect. Let any of these three demands fall by the wayside and the consequences are always disastrous.

I love this Earth and I love her oceans especially so. Since the day I sat as a boy on a pier on Passamaquoddy Bay to this day as I command this ship in the Roaring Forties of the Southern Oceans en route to do battle with pirate whalers, I have served the sea with all of my strength and endurance. And the sea has been good to me and as a result I have never lost a crewmember to accidental death or injury, and I have never been the cause of a death or an injury to those we intervene against. But there is a cost for the sea is a harsh mistress but it is a cost that I decided many years ago was acceptable for the rewards have been worth the ordeals and the treasure I have sought is the living heart of the sea itself and keeping that heart beating is the greatest contribution that I can imagine bequeathing to the future….. and yes I could die for that.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=165320542&blogID=342870853

[Bonobo]

1. May I vomit now?

"At grace with the sea..."

Man is so full of his own shit, I'm surprised it doesn't leak out of his ears.

[NorthernSpy]

6. oh, man -- you don't know the half of it!

Watson has opportunistically claimed to have been inducted into the Lakota nation during the siege at Wounded Knee.

Thing is, no one who was actually there remembers him.


The details of his story don't check out, either.


Basically, the man's a legend in his own mind.

[JanMichael]

11. ummm was anyone there still alive?

? that was late 1800's---wouldn't an infant there be like 115 or something? Little old to be messin' about on boats.

[NorthernSpy]

12. we're talking about the 1973 incident...

You've never heard of it?

[DS1]

10. I support these guys, but when you read this article in the voice of Eric Idle

it becomes friggin hilarious.

[colorado_ufo]

2. An inspiration for the soul and for the New Year.

[InvisibleTouch]

3. Success and safetly to Capt. Watson and the crew.

For all of us that fight the good fight with words and support the cause with donations as we can, the highest courage is shown by those who actually put themselves in harm's way to make an immediate difference. Though I admire the efforts of everyone who works for the benefit of animals and our planet, I have the greatest respect for the Sea Shepherd crew and those who take similar direct action. May their quest be successful, and may they return safely.

[flvegan]

4. Keep them on the run, good Captain.

May your prop foulers be on target and the can opener sharp.

[NorthernSpy]

5. after they helped to whip up a racist furor against Indians in the Pacific NW...

... Watson and his bunch became PNG, as far as I'm concerned.


http://www.certain-natl.org/makahindex.html

[The Stranger]

8. I'm not sure what your personal axe to grind here with Watson is,

but that is really a poor excuse even for an ad hominem attack. Maybe you should leave Sea Shepherd and the efforts to save dying species out of it.

Opposing a native group because they still hunt whales really doesn't quite get anywhere near racism. And with all of the true racism to fight, it is regrettable seeing someone trying to hijack it in support of this little campaign.

[NorthernSpy]

13. alrighty...

Opposing a native group because they still hunt whales really doesn't quite get anywhere near racism. And with all of the true racism to fight, it is regrettable seeing someone trying to hijack it in support of this little campaign.

That last clause of yours is a little opaque in its wording, but never mind. I'm not objecting to people disliking the Makahs' decision to resume subsistence whaling. I AM objecting to the racist furor that was created and encouraged by the whales' self-styled defenders.

If you missed that, then I take it you didn't read any of the material that I linked to.


Very well. I'll provide some excerpts of it here:

• A sign held up during a May 1999 anti-whaling protest read "Save a whale, harpoon a Makah." Bumper stickers advertising this same sentiment became widespread along the Olympic Peninsula and other places. Sources say that Chuck Owens, Co-Founder of Peninsula Citizens for the Protection of Whales, a Port Angeles, WA based anti-whaling activist group, made the sign – though he has not responded to my attempts to confirm this.
  
  
• A widely distributed "poem" by Athena McEntyre, then of Sea Defense Alliance, spread an anti-whaling message using venomous racist stereotypes of Indian people. The "poem" described the Makah as alcoholic ("I'll sniff a little meth/I'll drink a keg of beer"), violent ("I'll beat up my wife/Leave my kiddies bereft/This is Makah training/And tradition must not be left") and lazy ("O great Creator/Send a whale, but heck/I think while I'm waiting/I'll pick up my welfare check").
  
  
• In June, anti-whaling activist Jim Robertson recently forwarded a "humorous" message which compared the Makah and other Indian cultures to the Third Reich, referring to Chief Littlehitler of the Makah." It also said the tribe would be using their traditional "ceremonial beer" to prepare for the hunt -- a tasteless reference to the high levels of alcoholism in Indian Country. This would be the equivalent of referring to inner city African Americans drinking traditional, ceremonial Olde English. The source of the message, a Canadian “satire” site, also contains messages overtly hostile to gays.
  
  It's disturbing enough that these ideas exist in an ostensibly progressive movement. What's even more disturbing is this: no one within the movement appears to condemn these ideas. Robertson himself seems dangerously anti-Indian, having spoken of an “Indian agenda” to control natural resources in the Pacific Northwest.
  
  
• Death threats poured into the Makah Reservation. A bomb threat that closed the Puyallup Tribe's Chief Leschi School – nowhere near Neah Bay. When the Neah Bay high School football team reached the state finals in 1999, protesters showed up with bumper stickers stating "Save a whale, kill a Makah" on their cars, throwing things and screaming obscenities at the players. (Jayda Evans, Seattle Times, Dec. 12, 1999). At THE HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM. Other non-Makah Indians reported the same kind of threats as Makah tribal members.
  
  
• Kenny Clark, then of the anti-whaling Sea Defense Alliance, told the Salt Lake Tribune that "I've had phone calls here telling me, `I've got . . . a gun, tell me who you want me to go after." Thankfully, Clark told the paper he tried to quell any violent impulses. The Seattle Times quoted a protester who wanted to "keep faith" with his ancestors who killed "every Redskin they saw."
  
  
• The Seattle Times also published about a dozen of the more racist letters they received. One letter concluded "these people want to rekindle their traditional way of life by killing an animals that has probably twice the mental capacity they have." Another suggested that "we should also be able to take their land if they can take our whales" -- a perverse inversion of the treaty. Or consider this letter: "Natives were often referred to as 'savages,' and it seems little has changed." (Seattle Times Archives can be searched by clicking on "SEARCH ARCHIVES" - use keywords: "Letters" and "Makah")

That's just a sample. CERTAIN has more material at their site.

[NorthernSpy]

15. oh, and here's the link for that info...

the link

[The Stranger]

18. So just so we're clear: You are AGAINST whaling but ONLY OBJECT to the terms used in the link?

Given the energy and vitriol you have devoted to this, it would seem doubtful that the Makah are your only concern here. If it were, you would be more measured, less attacking the anti-whaling folks at Sea Shepherd.

Which brings us back to my question about what personal axe you have to grind with Watson? You seem to be missing the overall great meaning and message here: We need to save a species from being hunted to extinction.

[NorthernSpy]

16. Indian-hating poem by anti-whaling activist Athena McEntyre

I guess this is what happens when animal activists get creative:

I AM NOBLE MAKAH WHALER!
I LOOK UPON THE SEA
FONDLING MYSELF, I WONDER
WHAT THE JAPANESE HAVE FOR ME

I'LL HONOR NOBLE WHALE
BY DOING UP SOME SMACK
AND WHEN I FINISH THAT
I'LL DO A LITTLE CRACK!

I'L SNIFF A LITTLE METH
I'LL DRINK A KEG OF BEER
THIS A GREAT CULTURAL TRADITION
TIL A BABY WHALE GETS HERE

I'LL BEAT UP MY WIFE
LEAVE MY KIDDIES BEREFT
THIS IS MAKAH TRAINING!
AND TRADITION MUST NOT BE LEFT!

TERRORIZE OLD WOMAN
HER DEAD DOG LIES NEAR
GOT TO HAVE SOME FUN, BOYS
TIL' THE WHALE GETS HERE

O LOOK HERE COME WHITE RAVEN
SHE WRITING US A POEM
WE'LL SEE IF WHITEY BUYS THE JUNK
THAT COMES FROM THAT OLD CRONE.

SEE MY NOBLE RIFLE
50 CALIBER YOU HEAR
I WISH THAT I COULD LICK IT
TIL THE WHALE GETS HERE.

HA HA I'LL TELL OLD WHITEY
A LOTTA "TRADITION" BUNK
BUT, HECK IF HE DON'T BUY IT
I'LL JUST GET PISSING DRUNK

HE JUST MIGHT BUY MY GARBAGE
YOU JUST CAN NEVER TELL!
IF HE DON'T. I'LL JUST SCREAM "RACIST"
WHEN I BLOW A WHALE TO HELL

I JUST CAN'T WAIT TO DO IT!
BLOOD AND GORE I LICK ANBD SUCK
HEY WON'WHEN THE WHITEFOLK ALL UPCHUCK.

O GREAT CREATOR
SEND A WHALE, BUT HECK
I THINK WHILE I'M WAITING
I'LL PICK UP MY WELFARE CHECK!

David Duke in a wetsuit.



By the way, McEntyre has since had this to say about her "poem":

ya little weasel cowards. I am delighted with it. I CLAIM

ATTENSION ALL!!!!

I ATHENA MCENTYRE, DID WRITE, SCRIBE AND AM THE SOLE AUTHER OF

"NOBLE MAKAH WHALER"

I WOTE IT ALL BY MY WIDDLE SELF! I CLAIM IT! IT IS MINE!

I HEARBY GIVE PERMISSION TO ANY AND ALL TO POST IT ANYWHERE THEY WISH. I
PROMISE THAT I WIIL NOT CHARGE YOU WITH COPYWRITE INFRIGEMENT AS LONG AS
YOU CLEARLY ATTRIBUTE THAT LITTLE PUP TO ME.
AND BE SURE TO SPELL MY DAMN NAME RIGHT!

:eyes:

[Annces]

9. Good for you

Now go jump in a lake.

[NorthernSpy]

14. that's all ya got?

By the way, seals are not royal blue.

[The Stranger]

7. FIGHT ON, SEA SHEPHERD!

We are with you all the way.

[InvisibleTouch]

17. A kick for the evening crowd. n/t