Battleship Antarctica

you call them "hypocritical cowards sporting a holier than thou attitude" and then you wonder why they don't want to co-operate? Come on, Paul. You constantly antagonize Greenpeace and then act surprised that they don't want to work with you. Put away the Battle-axe and make a sincere effort to make peace - for the sake of the whales - please?

06/05/2008 - An Appeal for Cooperation from Captain Paul Watson

Okay, here we go again, but nothing ventured and nothing gained.

This is the official 2008 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society request to the Greenpeace Foundation to work in cooperation with each other to defend the whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for the 2008 and 2009 Antarctic summer.

The targeted whales need all the help they can get when the Japanese whaling fleet returns to illegally slaughter endangered whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in December 2008.

During the last season we stopped them for 50% of the time and cut their quota by 50%. If only we had two ships and sufficient funding we could stop them up to 80% percent and perhaps to 100%. But we are a small organization with only one fast ship to deploy and we need to raise funds to finance the campaign.

But there is a solution. If both the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Greenpeace Foundation could cooperate in a joint coordinated effort to oppose the Japanese whaling interests we could stop the pirate whalers cold in Antarctica.

Every year Sea Shepherd has supplied Greenpeace with the Japanese coordinates when we have found the fleet although Greenpeace has refused to return the favor. And yes there have indeed been harsh words between Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace over the years but the word Greenpeace does include the word “peace” and therefore I am appealing to Greenpeace once again in the name of peaceful cooperation to work with Sea Shepherd to protect the whales.

Let the past stay in the past and let’s deal with the present with a focus on a constructive future. There really is no practical reason why Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd cannot work together.
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You didn't leave Greenpeace Watson, you were sacked - for being a dangerous idiot who put his own glory ahead of the lives and safety of his crew. Just as well there's only a small minority of suckers who fall for your bullshit.

Capt. Paul Watson is indeed a correction on the question of violence. Thoughout the world there has been proven only two types of violence, just and unjust, which implies international law and morality when the world and its living sentient beings gather to make their practices on this issue. International law has made certain kinds of violence illegal namely fascist violence that wars nation against nation, species against species, gender against gender, empire against empire, class against class, religios against religion, all to the sickening and destruction of the living planet. This can also be included where the organic and inorganic world in considered, such as making the East and West coast of America into a toxic waste dumps, and then foolishly wondering why the whales sometimes rush up to the shores and die a miserable lingering death seemingly inexplicable, with officials saying it must be some sort of metaphysical idealist happening that we'll never know the material answer for. In politics of the people Marx explains this phenomena through the practical day to day unity and stuggles of opposites that causes changes that are either progressive or retrogressive, just or unjust.

The comming into being of Sea Shepard Conservation society was a process of fine tuning on these important questions, because as Greenpeace got larger and more sucessful money wise, it correspondingly became less and less of an activist organization that actually intervened and stopped the unjust violence being inflicted on the helpless species by commercial interests who only think of money but not sustainablity of the endangered species in question including our own species.

We all thrilled with Greenpeace when they unfurled their banners on top of building which exposed the worst of the polluters and mass killers of the planets wild life and domestic plants and animals, this was their time of victory and justice and all honest peoples knew it, and flocked to their banners. Things like putting solar panels on the netherlands parliament buildings, thusly offering non-pollution solutions to the peoples and the law makers. Great ideas and practice, or recently the Pittsburgh Greenpeace raising its banner on the chimmney of the now closed steel mills which read ' George Bushs' energy policy kills tens of thousands of Americans each year it is in place. For which they were arrested and fined. Such knowable truths cannot be said with justice and violence that arrested those Greenpeacers was indeed unjust , as the violence in Japan and Germany was and remains unjust when they arrested no pollution advocates during the thirties and forties of last century and continue to do so in todays America which leads the world in unjust violence against the planets livability. The difference is that the ecological green movement in the thirties and forties in the fascist countries were taken to public squares and shot to death to intimidate the peoples from arising to the liberation side. The trade unions, ethnic organizations, gender parity activists and socialist and communist parties united together to stop fascism in a world wide united front against the unjust aggressive violence and brought about the defeat militarily of the fascist killers of innocent life. This is not ancient history or herstory. The fact remains that the class stuggle for justice continues and mostly it does so through organizations that unite and struggle for an end to exploitation of the worlds livability. It would be great if Greenpeace would put solar power on Canadas' governement buildings for instance, so that the rivers could be liberated from dams that are ruinous to wildlife such as fish, and other forms of life that are giving life to fish etc. There is much to do on the land , in the air, and on the worlds oceans. In fact the ecological crisis is larger today then it ever was. The need to continue the practice of intervention to end the destruction of the planet is in all of our faces, and the need for non-violence is only useful as long as it works. Capt. Paul Watson's complaint is valid, in that he sees it is not working for the benefit of the living world when only the policy of 'bearing witness' is practiced. What would have happened if the world had only bore witness to the Fascist invasions and occupations of the worlds countries. Ho hum. In truth the anti-fascist interventions were necessary and just in the sense of moral imperative. Again we can believe that of course non-violence is preferred but it does not work as long as the fascist powers in the world are killing and destroying the worlds democracy as ecological green balance. Capt. Paul Watson is correctly intervening to teach a lesson to the worlds' anti-fascist fronts, that fascism is not fully defeated yet and in fact we need to intervene and end its death dealing lawlessness through might make right policies, its unilateralness, its pre-emptive strikes against life. We need to renew the activism that does effectively end the planets destruction. In this we need to re-tool the entire industrial revolution to wind, tidal, and solar power which transforms to electricity and ends the pollution caused by coal, gas, oil, and atomic energy, and in this we need both Greenpeace and Sea Shepard and again Paul Watson has correctly and very maturely once again called for a united front to get the liberation sides work done. Greenpeace needs to co-ordinate its efforts and re-vitalize its on land campaigns so the world can see the liberation paths that it so early on taught the world that it needs. Viva socialist liberation. End pollution wars, not endless wars for more pollution.

It is best thing to disarm the fascist powers in the wolrd, so all sides can disarm and thence to the social programmes that we all know need fullest implementation to save this planets life. Canadas' first division says that.

I doubt you will be able to make the dams go away on solar power - solar panels, although low-maintenance, are highly inefficient; an entire roof of solar panels may be able to support one office in the building. And what happens when snow covers the panels?

Be careful of the use of Fascism, as its undercurrents can be found in any organization. De-valuing individuality by viewing only "the group" as mandated by its "collective vision" is a cornerstone of Fascism. Recall Capt. Watson's inflammatory remarks about he 4 dead sealers being less important because they do not conform to the SSCS organization's vision of non-hunting - That falls squarely in the territory of fascist thought. If you're not part of us and share our vision, you don't matter. Fascist does not equal Nazi, although they were the most historically famous Fascists around.

I am not getting into the right or wrong of the actions either group. I believe that everyone has a right to make a choice or not to make a choice. If Greenpeace doesn't want to work with the SSCS, then that is their right. And while we're talking about it, why is Capt. Watson so sore about it? He should be happy for any animal rights people to show up, regardless of who gave who the coordinates. Part of Greenpeace's "bearing witness" involves photography and redistribution to inform the public - something that the SSCS does, too. If the main point is to stop the whaling, the more cameras, the merrier, I would think.

The bottom line here is that both groups are there to help the whales in their own way. Both parties have a distaste for how the other goes about it, but both should rise above personal feelings and appreciate that they both dragged themselves to the bottom of the world to do something. At least respect each other's dedication to the cause.

Going back to the original thought: Totalitarian control of an organization by an individual who sets the policy of thought for the organization also defines fascism, as well as "removal of the opposition, sometimes by force".

I am not comfortable with the current state of affairs of the SSCS, as I see Fascist processes going on within it. I won't say that Fascists are bad people or that the SSCS is wrong for what they do, but don't go throwing around the Fascist brand until you have examined your own viewpoint in relation to others, especially when badmouthing Fascists. The moment you refuse to see things from another's perspective, you have already taken the first step to being a Fascist yourself.