still dont get why the japanese bother with it anymore. sea shepherd royally fucked their whaling harvest last year. you'd think they'd just go 'enough already, we give in'. oh. thats right. fucking "face", cant be "lost"... stupid fucking cultural traits...

sea shepherders are willing to totally, like, die, this year. should be interesting.

personally, i'm behind them all the way. fuck the japanese. fuck their selfish pointless harvest.

Well this is where the whole - white man sail round and teach others how to behave. Sort of irritates other cultures, it has done for some time.

Fraser wrote:Well this is where the whole - white man sail round and teach others how to behave. Sort of irritates other cultures, it has done for some time.

Meh, we're not talking about sailing into Japanese waters and preaching the one true white mans god here. We're talking about folks coming down to international waters and killing something of value to all of us.

By playing the 'cultural imperialism card' are you suggesting that it is only the place of other Japanese to protest against this? But this isn't a Japanese internal issue, they are doing this slaughter in international waters.

I think the problem lies in that Sea Shepard wants all whaling to stop and all the countries who have signed the international agreement incl NZ have done so under the provision of these exclusions.
So it is more to do with your own government than a japanese one.

Fraser wrote:I think the problem lies in that Sea Shepard wants all whaling to stop and all the countries who have signed the international agreement incl NZ have done so under the provision of these exclusions.
So it is more to do with your own government than a japanese one.

There is definitely a difference in opinion between Sea Shepard's approach and NZ government policy, I wouldn't expect it any other way. I thought the problem you had identified was us (rich western folks who don't like whaling) telling the Japanese (and Norwegians) what to do.

Let's face it, to have time to worry about the environment you typically have to be rich already, it's hard to worry about next year or next century when you don't know where your next meal is coming from. Hence the over abundance of environmentally aware do-good types from western / rich countries.

hey, um, Norwegians are 'white' people too. for that matter, so are the japanese. i'm browner than your average japanese, and i'm of 100% anglo-saxon stock...

cultural imperialism, my arse. whales deserve a break. we (humans) industrially slaughtered them to near (or complete) extinction, and we (all humans) just shouldnt be doing it anymore. Unless we're still doing it traditionally, out in a rowboat with a spear. power to them inuits

Simonius_Titius wrote:

benw wrote: ... to have time to worry about the environment you typically have to be rich already, it's hard to worry about next year or next century when you don't know where your next meal is coming from. Hence the over abundance of environmentally aware do-good types from western / rich countries.

Norway and Japan are desperate and starving?

The people most affected by environmental degradation are the poor. E.g. Darfur, New Orleans, much of Africa, China, India etc.

You mis-read my post. I was talking about people who campaign / worry about environmental issues or at least have the means to get their voices heard on the subject, like Sea Shepard. I wasn't talking about who was affected by it.