Sea Shepherd: Eco Terrorism or Environmental Justice?

Sea Shepherd: Eco Terrorism or Environmental Justice?

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I have a personal confession to make: I adore Captain Paul Watson. Now this may not come as a major newsflash to those who know of my avid support and deep admiration for the man who has devoted his life work and given tirelessly to the ocean conservation movement since his early days as the youngest founding member of Greenpeace -- a fact some Greenpeace archivists sometimes prefer to tritely omit. Of course history speaks for itself and Captain Paul Watson and The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which he formed in 1977, have championed the cause for several decades as is evidenced in Pete

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These people are idiots. They have been stranded at sea many times by, among other things, running out of fuel, mechanical break downs of which none of them had any idea how to diagnose much less fix, and running aground as well as ice. It's a wonder these people aren't dead already. Their luck will run out one day and the picture's not gonna be pretty. And this all just their seafarring skills. It's a friggin miracle everyone just doesn''t shoot them on sight. They fly the Jolly Roger for god's sake. They have admirable goals, but are complete and utter idiots about how they go about obtaining them. I actually find myself rooting for the Japanese whalers (never thought that would happen).

One day a fishing vessel is going to report they are being attacked by Pirates. The Australians or the Chinese are going to respond and sink the vessel. The time and money would be better spent on a coming up with a captive breeding program to help restock sea life insted of harrassing others, gettting arrested and giving the money to lawyers.

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reply to post by joyride0187


These jackholes are dangerous. I totally agree. Undisciplined and reckless.
The message is a good one.
But the way that slack jawed yokel implements them sucks.

He needs to be stripped of his captains license.

that bloke is a pure n utter nutter!!

not a chance wud i sacrifice meself for a whale

While I support what they do, I can not support the methods, especially putting human lives in danger.

Captain Paul Watson is a complete and utter imbecile and most definately an Eco-terrorist. He abandoned and kicked out his own man and fellow captain Pete Bethune while he was in Jail after boarding a Japanese whaler that he himself O.K.'d. even after Mr. Bethune used and lost his own boat for him.

www.japantoday.com...

While Whaling may be illegal this is a matter that Japan needs to be held accountable for in front of the international whaling commission and not by some sea Captain vigilante.

Captain Watson is effectively committing acts of war on the Japanese whalers by attacking them using boat crippling tactics which endangers the ship and it's crew in international waters and they have every right to defend themselves even using deadly force.

I watched the show in it's first season but will not any longer in hopes more people are not watching which will drop it's ratings and in turn get it dropped from animal planet.

As a sailor, I view these nimrods as a menace to the safety and sanctuary of the sea. Pull stunts like this on land and see what happens to you. They are walking a fine line and they will keep walking it until someone dies. Their actions used against some of these whaling vessels could easily lead to the sinking of a commercial ship and the potential to kill its crew members. These goons often attempt to foul the props of these ships. No props = no control in heavy seas. These heavy seas can easily swamp and sink a disabled ship.

Pull their tax exempt status because their publicity stunts are doing far more harm than good. You can kiss any compromise goodbye as long as they are allowed to continue.

Wikileaks released a cable regarding this group back in January

Japanese and American officials discussed taking action to weaken a prominent anti-whaling group, with Tokyo insisting that Sea Shepherd’s confrontations on the high seas actually hurt efforts to reduce whaling, U.S. diplomatic cables show.

The U.S. representative to the International Whaling Commission, Monica Medina, discussed revoking the U.S.-based conservation group’s tax exempt status during a meeting with senior officials from the Fisheries Agency of Japan in November 2009, according to the documents released by WikiLeaks on Monday. (…………….)

Action against Sea Shepherd would be a “major element” in achieving success at international negotiations on the number of whales killed each year, the cables cite the director general of Japan’s fisheries agency, Katsuhiro Machida, as saying.Referring to Sea Shepherd, Medina said “she believes the USG (U.S. government) can demonstrate the group does not deserve tax exempt status based on their aggressive and harmful actions,” according the cables. (………………)

The diplomatic cables, posted on WikiLeaks’ secret-sharing website early Monday but dated Jan. 1, show Japanese officials repeatedly told U.S. counterparts the group’s actions were making whaling a political issue and hurting any chance of a compromise on the numbers of whales killed each year. [Associated Press]

rokdrop.com...

It's all a giant hollywood backed publicity stunt designed to make all of the donors feel a warm and fuzzy inside. Meanwhile, American families in Appalachia and elsewhere are still living hand to mouth day in and day out. Sadly, helping these folks out does not make for a good cable reality show. IT SHOULD!!!!

Of course what they are doing is eco terrorism.

Enviromental justice would be sending a naval warship to give the whalers an ultimatum - stop hunting whales or be destroyed.

Ecco terrorism is a title which a big company would endorse as propaganda because that's what they do. It's cheaper to create emotive names and make sheeple succumb to their nature of taking the path of least resistance.

I'm not saying SSCS are perfect. I don't like the way they take the law into their own hands. The thing is, they attract the scorn of some very corrupt industries.

I for one, don't want to see the end to biodiversity. It's clear enough that corporations don't care a whit about what they are doing.

If you want to name anything a terrorist try attacking TEPCO. It crazy how we make ourselves slaves to profit driven entities and just accept their propaganda, knowing that they will make a nationalist issue out of their profit and make it all political. The Japanese Fisheries Department spent 100's of $millions on paid trolls and naive looking media to sway public opinion against SSCS... and that's when they aren't playing the race card.

I feel like I'm banging on about a tired old topic. Had things been different I'd have labelled SSCS members as self important nobodies with a relatively good cause and poor tactics.

What startles me is just how easy it can be to use the media to create opinions (see above). There appears to be another world where people ONLY concern themselves with the generalised public opinion and as such massive industries exists to create a vibe that makes their position credible, whatever that may be. They believe only what they want to believe. This is ultra-partisan politics on a world scale, driven by corrupt immoral corporations - issue by issue.

SSCS are small fish. That's why this thread exists this way. The two choices in the title are ridiculous and would never be attributed to TEPCO. They are not small fish and will garner political endorsements and media blackouts. They can't be touched, but SSCS can be touched and ecco-terrorists is a lovely catch phrase. It's just a pity that this spells an end for cetaceans.

reply to post by joyride0187


This man and his team are my heroes,i wrote a letter to him asking can i be on the show next year,he is awsome for what he is doing.

Meh, they got the job done.

Japan has suspended all whaling operations indefinitely.
Some may say it was worth it.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

ITS SAD HOW MANY FREAKING PEOPLE WANT THE WHALES TO DIE.
I WONDER IF THE SHOES WAS ON THE OTHER FOOT,I WONDER IF YOU ALL WOULD PRAY EVERY YEAR THAT MR WATSON WOULD COME SAVE YOU.
KARMA IS A REAL BITCH.







Mod Edit: All Caps – Please Review This Link.

i would say they are eco-anarchists before calling them eco-terrorists? thats a little much. they're metheds may not be the best but these guys have my support.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

I am all for the Sea Shepard and it's fellow ships stopping whaling...

I think I heard that they got their mariner license from the Dutch,... which has put many restrictions on what they can get away with,...which explains why their tactics are so impotent and ineffective,...

They need to be more militant, the reason Paul Watson left Green Peace is he felt they were too soft...
Part of the reason, I think,... is he is also doing the bidding of the producers of "Whale Wars"... and they probably have a different agenda then him,... meaning they are looking to milk each encounter for dramatic effect, rather than actually get the job done...

Maybe Paul Watson is not as extreme as he claims...

reply to post by Adamanteus


By definition the 'Eco-Terrorists" are companies like BP (Gulf oil leak anyone?), TEPCO (Fukishima?) - The Sea Shepherd Society has bigger b&*ls than most people on this web site by a country mile....

Eco-terrorism is considered and treated much worse in America than general terrorism. Fact.


Quite said tbh.

hmmm..so we have a group useing...unconventional tactics...,..not unlawfull.. i'm assuming...or they would have been arrested a while a go, ...against an unlawfull act...

im not sure what to think about this...i do give them a 'thumbs up' for 'walking their talk'...which is much harder than it seems

Originally posted by Immortalgemini527


This man and his team are my heroes,i wrote a letter to him asking can i be on the show next year,he is awsome for what he is doing.

Figures.

Originally posted by Immortalgemini527

KARMA IS A REAL BITCH.

I find that absolutely disgusting that you would even post something like that. You should be ashamed of yourself. So karma kills innocent Japanese people because their country (not them) kills a few whales every year? You seriously think that?

So, if you have a family member that dies in a tornado, or a flood, or in Iraq/Afghanistan, or dies for any other reason, how would you feel if I said that your family member died because karma blamed you for the acts of the US government? How about if I show a video of your mother dying and say "karma is a bitch huh?"

Unbelievable. I cannot believe people like this share the planet with me. Nobody else here on ATS finds this as repulsive as me? Poor little whales, but a bunch of Japanese people die and it's cool to just say "oh yeah karma man?" Awful.

Anyway,

I'm not going to call them eco-terrorists, because the whole terrorist title I feel is horribly overused and has largely become meaningless now.

What I will call them, is criminals. They have no legal standing to do what they do. They should be treated in the exact same way as the pirates in Somalia.

What makes whales so special? We kill Buffalo, Elk, Cows, Chickens, Pigs, the list goes on and on. Would you support a boat full of criminals going around attacking a beef packing plant? (why a beef packing plant would be on a boat is beside the point)

I cannot support what these people do. I find no logical reason for the Japanese to be any worse by killing whales than the US, and pretty much every single other country in the world is for killing the millions of other animals they do.

This man and his team are my heroes,i wrote a letter to him asking can i be on the show next year,he is awsome for what he is doing.

I am not surprised in the least that this man is your hero.........

Check out the definition of terrorism......

In the 1600s people taking part in activities they are , would have been made an example of and killed.......

They are nothing more than pirates