So, Ive watch a show on the channel Animal Planet for several years called Whale Wars. Its about an group (Sea Shepherds) that was formed when the board of Greenpeace thought that a man named Paul Watson was too extreme. They go down into Antarctic waters and try to prevent Japanese whalers from killing whales. At first, it seemed like something I could really get into. Japanese ships have for a long time been pretending to do scientific research on whales when theyre really just killing them for the meat. Whale meat isnt popular anymore in Japan, in part because its LOADED with mercury (builds up in the tissues over the long lives of the whales). So, they were giving it away to senior centers and schools (the worst places to serve mercury laden meat, btw). So, the Japanese whalers seemed like a perfect bad guy to root against...and they ARE. But as I watched the show, it because clear that the Sea Shepherds were vastly and wildly incompetent in boats. They seem to have a couple engineers, bridge and deck crew, and a pilot or two who know what theyre doing. The rest are really well meaning people who have no frickin clue. They talk about being willing to die to save the whales, but honestly theyre much more likely to die in because of their own incompetence in a small boat accident. I watched for a while to see if they ended up hurting themselves or...if by a miracle...they managed to actually have an impact on the Japanese whaling. After all the seasons, the answer to that second question is not really. The leader, Paul Watson, is a megalomaniac...and I dont use that word lightly. Hes all about saving the whales, but really hes all about self promotion. His followers are basically a cult around him. Anyone who tries to make a sensible decision about not flying a helicopter in a storm or whether its too dangerous to take a small boat out or do maneuver a ship in a certain way, those people are treated as traitors to the cause and verbally and emotionally abused. There hasnt been a regular season of the show in a couple of years, just two specials that each ran for a couple of hours. The specials were nearly unwatchable, even as hate watch kind of things. Watson and the Sea Shepherds claim the most tenuous or ridiculous things as victories. At the end of the most recent special, they tried to take credit somehow for the victory of the Australian government against the Japanese whalers in international court. As if the Australians never would have noticed the supposed research vessels in their territorial waters were actually whaling. Ridiculous. The first year or so, you could say that the show Whale Wars was raising awareness of what the whalers were doing...but then the show really became a showcases of how incompetent the Sea Shepherds are. OMG, then they had a short series of episodes of how they were going to stop whaling in the Faroe Islands. Ok fine, but it ended up being well meaning but crying and screechy Sea Shepherd folks yelling at very nice and polite islanders. The one time they were threatened was when a few drunk guys on the way home from a pub stopped on the dock to yell at them. No impact on whaling in the Faroe Islands at all. Basically, the Sea Shepherds were just rude to the locals, cried a lot in public, then left. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 13:16:29 +0000
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