If they are whaling in another nations waters, then by all means, that government should step in and raise hell. Are these anti whalers members of the navy? Are they official representatives of the government in question?

I did make a bit of an assumption while stating my opinion, in with that assumption, I did technically commit a logical fallacy. Since this seems to upset KnivesOut, I will attempt to correct the wording of said opinion.

Ahem:

"While I can not see the future, nor accurately predict the reactions of my fellow man, I propose the following: Had these anti whaling activists been of a different skin color,and nationality, and had they been harassing American fishing vessels, I believe the American government would consider them to be committing acts of terrorism and would take action accordingly."

I know I had a bit of a run-on sentence there, but I figure I can always correct my grammar later.

>> ^KnivesOut:
>> ^LordOderus:
I'm glad their ship got rammed. I don't care one way or the other if the Japanese kill whales. It is not my place to tell the Japanese what they can and can not hunt. That is a decision to be made by the Japanese government. The only reason I side with the Japanese in this case, is because what the folks from Whale Wars are doing would be considered terrorism if it were done to us.
Imagine if the crew of that ship wasn't white, and was harassing American crab fishermen or something of that nature. They would all be locked up in one of our lovely maximum security hotels and interrogated for information on their terror cell connections. It is a ridiculous double standard. If groups of Hindus (to whom cows are sacred) started racing around American cattle ranches on 1.5 million dollar ATVs and harassing farm hands, we would have a whole bunch of arrested (and probably dead) Hindu activists on our hands.
The crew of that little ship should consider themselves lucky that the Japanese aren't as trigger happy as we are in the "civilized west".

They're whaling in waters where they're not supposed to be. It's not up to the Japanese government because they're outside their legal jurisdiction. They're poaching animals in international waters, or in US waters.
Does that change your ridiculous logical fallacy at all?

>> ^LordOderus:
I'm glad their ship got rammed. I don't care one way or the other if the Japanese kill whales. It is not my place to tell the Japanese what they can and can not hunt. That is a decision to be made by the Japanese government. The only reason I side with the Japanese in this case, is because what the folks from Whale Wars are doing would be considered terrorism if it were done to us.
Imagine if the crew of that ship wasn't white, and was harassing American crab fishermen or something of that nature. They would all be locked up in one of our lovely maximum security hotels and interrogated for information on their terror cell connections. It is a ridiculous double standard. If groups of Hindus (to whom cows are sacred) started racing around American cattle ranches on 1.5 million dollar ATVs and harassing farm hands, we would have a whole bunch of arrested (and probably dead) Hindu activists on our hands.
The crew of that little ship should consider themselves lucky that the Japanese aren't as trigger happy as we are in the "civilized west".


They're whaling in waters where they're not supposed to be. It's not up to the Japanese government because they're outside their legal jurisdiction. They're poaching animals in international waters, or in US waters.

Does that change your ridiculous logical fallacy at all?

I'm glad their ship got rammed. I don't care one way or the other if the Japanese kill whales. It is not my place to tell the Japanese what they can and can not hunt. That is a decision to be made by the Japanese government. The only reason I side with the Japanese in this case, is because what the folks from Whale Wars are doing would be considered terrorism if it were done to us.

Imagine if the crew of that ship wasn't white, and was harassing American crab fishermen or something of that nature. They would all be locked up in one of our lovely maximum security hotels and interrogated for information on their terror cell connections. It is a ridiculous double standard. If groups of Hindus (to whom cows are sacred) started racing around American cattle ranches on 1.5 million dollar ATVs and harassing farm hands, we would have a whole bunch of arrested (and probably dead) Hindu activists on our hands.

The crew of that little ship should consider themselves lucky that the Japanese aren't as trigger happy as we are in the "civilized west".

They had a big report on CNN last night on this - I guess there are certain countries standing up against Japan on this. If anyone can find an online version of the report, I'd be interested to see it again, I only caught it half way through.

My opinion is "Stop Poaching & Killing Whales" but then my voice means nothing. I'm not an environmentalist, but I know when humans have no respect for other creatures. Whales aren't like fish, there aren't thousands of them under the surface. There are only so many pods out there. Why should we let people (who cares about what country they are from), over-fish them into extinction. Aparently the pods they were targeting here were a protected species.

The smashed boat was just a boat - The guys in the boat don't care about their boat - They only care about protecting the whales and put their own lives at risk for their cause. They are out there to interrupt the whalers. Yes they parked their boat in front of the whaler, who in turn could have stopped. They didn't need to just ram through. That's why they call it Whale Wars.

The whalers don't care about the wales or the people, they only care about their profit. Maybe they are just paying the bills but they truly don't care about what they destroy. And that's the bottom line here. Of course the activists will use the footage in their favor if it means they can slow down the company. Their only plan is to cut into the profits so they can slowly put the waling company out of business.

This isn't about who hit who, it is about buying some time. The longer they are not whaling, and the closer the company is to bankruptcy, the more the activists win. This could be a big win, despite the wrecked boat.

>> ^lavoll:
acid throwing, laser and noise gun wielding hippies 0 - japan 1


Agreed, they are wusses. If they really want to stop them they could... get an RPG-7 and a couple of rpg´s and there goes the japanese whaling fleet... just look at http://www.videosift.com/video/South-Park-Whale-Wars-are-a-bunch-of-pussies-no-more

Tags for this video have been changed from 'whale wars escalate, japanese, whaling, southern ocean' to 'sea shepherd, ady gil, ship, trimaran, japanese, whaler, whale wars, collision' - edited by Sagemind

I really don't know of any company that would allow their ships to return home because they were being "annoyed" by some lasers and sirens. I think the whole Sea Shepard/Whale Wars thing is a giant waste of money and time. Anyone know any figured about how much these people have affected the whaling industry?

I can't stand the Sea Shepherd Society/Paul Watson and I hate Whale Wars. Why? Because the Sea Shepherd Society is actually hurting their own cause and Whale Wars is glorifying it.

Let me explain. I lived in Japan for eight years and I saw that every time the Japanese whaling fleet was attacked by the Paul Watson's group sales of whale meat went up in Japan and the resolve to continue hunting strengthened. The sales of whale meat has been falling for years in Japan, to the point now where there is over 1000 tons of frozen whale meat, some of it going back 12 years, in government freezers. The government can't give it away, but they try. If this trend continues it just won't be financially viable for Japan to continue whaling.

I taught at a university in Japan and I would ask my students if they eat and/or like whale meat. The vast majority of my students (90%+) said they didn't eat whale meat (however almost all of them had eaten whale meat at some point, usually served to them in their elementary school lunches, of course provided by the government). Almost the same number said they didn't like whale meat. Then I would usually give them the above statistic and ask if Japan should continue whaling, again a big majority would say "No". However, when stories about the Sea Shepherd Society attacking Japanese whalers hit the news (and it hit BIG TIME), attitudes would change. Then most of my students would say Japan should continue whaling. This was not just found in a university setting either. Editorials and opinion letters to newspapers would echo the same feelings.

In direct response to the Sea Shepherd's attacks on Japanese whaling ships supermarkets, restaurants, street vendors, etc. would suddenly begin carrying whale meat. More schools would serve it in their lunches (kids don't get a choice of what they can eat at school, one meal for everyone), and a restaurant in Osaka made headline news when they began to sell 'whale burgers'. There was a line around the block for those burgers and many of the people in the line made it clear that they were there as a giant 'fuck you' to the Sea Shepherd Society for attacking the Japanese whaling fleet.

As I said above Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Society are hurting their own cause. What they need to do is put more effort into better information campaigns within Japan. Record and photograph what's going on then use Japanese bloggers and YouTube to get the info out there. This worked very well when the Sea Shepherd Society and others documented the Taiji Dolphin Hunt:
http://www.seashepherd.org.uk/taiji/taiji_sscs_in_taiji.html
http://www.savejapandolphins.org/

Many people in Japan were shocked to find out that Dolphins were being hunted by Japanese, and the hunt now gets regular news coverage in Japan which has led to Japanese themselves protesting.

Pacifism has been so ingrained in the Japanese people since the end of WWII that using even mild violence to get what you want will assuredly turn the average Japanese person against you and whatever cause you are promoting, even if the cause is a 'good' one.

This fight will be won only if the Japanese people can be turned against whaling and make it too expensive for the Japanese government to continue to fund the whaling fleets, it won't be won by using the tactics of the Sea Shepherd Society.

Sorry for the long rant, but you can probably tell that I feel strongly about it.