===== A message from the 'makahwhaling' discussion list ===== FROM WASHINGTON CITIZEN'S COASTAL ALLIANCE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please don't forget to attend the rally in Port Angeles TOMORROW! The Peninsula Citizens for the Protection of Whales (PCPW) invites you to attend the Clallam County Commission meeting on June 8, 1999 at 10:00 am. A BIG show of support will demonstrate to the Commission that it is high time they adopt a resolution condemning the Makah whale slaughter. After the meeting, a rally will be held in front of the Clallam County courthouse at 12:00 noon. There will be speakers, guests and we've just been informed that Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will be there, as well! If there is only ONE rally you are able to attend- THIS ONE IS IT! Spread the word about this event far and wide..... we have heard from people in at least five different states already, and plenty more right here in Washington. Come one, come all, and pass the word... It's time to make our stand right here, folks! Contact Chuck Owens (360) 928-3048, or Dan Spomer (360) 317-6345 DIRECTIONS: Take Highway 101 to downtown Port Angeles, take a left on Lincoln St. The location is at 4th and Lincoln, across from Safeway Be there- join with others who feel the same as you about the senseless slaughter now going on in Washington! HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Clallam County commissioners will be asked (again) to adopt a resolution opposing the Makah whale killings, and we think it's high time they did so. We also think they might be interested in hearing from you folks about the matter... so, if you can't make the rally, help us out by letting them know how you feel! If applicable, we encourage you to explain to them how the ongoing Makah whale killing will affect your plans to travel on the Olympic Peninsula in the future. Be sure and let them know how you feel about visiting Clallam County-"Whaling Capital USA!" Encourage them to take a stand and DO THE RIGHT THING! Please call, fax or e-mail your comments before the Tuesday rally. Those of you that can't make the rally can help make a big difference here. Get your friends and neighbors to start calling and writing! You can reach the commissioners at: COMMISSIONERS: Carole Boardman (D) Mike Doherty (D) Martha Ireland (R) Telephone: (360) 417-2233 Fax: (360) 417-2493 E-mail: commissioners@co.clallam.wa.us ***** RACISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT ----------------------------------------------------- (Posted with permission of the author) Friends, A few year ago we had conflict with some Hispanic activists in New Mexico about a timber sale that are similar to those we are now having about this whale hunt. I wrote an essay then about how forest activists should view "bad" environmental activities by minorities and I am reposting it again as the underlying philsophical and ethical issues are very similar. Jim ----------Repost from Wallist 10/30/97---------- Recently forest activists in New Mexico have been subject to much virulent criticism for opposing an old growth timber sale which will directly benefit a Hispanic timber company. (I understand that because of this issue activists have been hung in effigy by demonstrators that possibly included some people who were leaders of other progressive movements). The following are my personal views and should not be taken as reflecting the views of any other forest activists, in NM or elsewhere. Lately we have seen allegations of "racism" , and "colonialism" against white environmentalists because we oppose the La Manga timber sale that will benefit certain Hispanics. We are accused by some of our former allies of elevating urban, white, and environmental values above respect for Hispanic values and traditions. Some feminists have attacked environmentalists over this sale because we are not being sensitive to long standing cultural traditions of the Hispanic community. While we should always be supportive of other progressive movements, mutual support requires mutual respect for each other's core values. Forest activists have certain non-negotiable positions, among these are: the inviolability of roadless areas to entry and road building and logging; the complete protection of remaining old growth forests, which to us are sacred; and the need to retain a full complement of God's creatures upon the land. If other movements advance schemes and projects which violate our core beliefs and values then we must reluctantly part company with them and oppose them. They should understand that and respect us for our core values which we hold as deeply as they hold theirs. Respect us, and we will respect you. If we begin qualifying our opposition to bad Timber sales based on the political beliefs of who is holding the chain saw and the sorts of people who benefit from the proceeds of sales, we unravel the forest protection movement. If we bought this argument, years ago we would have acquiesced in allowing our forests to be cut to "benefit" timber workers and their families. So we have already passed on this ad-hominem argument and found it wanting. Our opponents arguments are indistinguishable from those used to force the "opening" of Wilderness areas to disabled wheelchairs, (merely road building with a nobler justification). Using the same arguments of sovereignty, cultural development, and historical imperative, Native American Corporations in Alaska, often controlled by whites, have conducted horizon-to-horizon clear cuts on their Tribal lands Stripped to their essence "custom and culture" arguments are a mere recasting of the right wing - wise use notion that you can't tell a man what to do with his own land. We reject this idea for white ranchers and sleazy real estate developers and for Native Americans and Hispanics too. We understand that for political reasons certain folks in the progressive community, (esp. N.M)., must promote this pandering to consolidate their political base, but these leaders must realize that we will still oppose them. Here is the basic notion the proponents of the La Manga sale have advanced. Anything a Hispanic anyplace in the Southw est has ever done, or claimed to have done, at anytime in the past is to be slavishly respected as a traditional, integral component of an irreplaceable thousand year noble Hispanic tradition and culture. Thus anyone who objects to any aspect of anything so umbrelled is ipso-facto labeled a running-dog racist and colonialist. We are forest activists so this means our first responsibility is to advocate for the beings that have no voice. They are our only constituents and our only responsibility. The motivations behind a ecologically bad sale are always irrelevant. We must never, never, allow them into our thinking in any way. Why? Because any other path is a fatal strategic vulnerability, as we will allow forest protection arguments to be displaced from the practical effects of the sale, where it belongs and where we are on high ground; over to the irrelevant question of our political correctness (or lack of). There we will be on the low ground, consumed by free-floating angst, and open to savage attacks from the muddle-minded among us. Extractive industry has always been very keen to move the forest protection argument away from harmless defenseless species, over to the bogus issue of our alleged insensitivity to the human hostages which they always put out in front of their nefarious schemes which they can never ever sell on their intrinsic merits. Our responsibility is narrow and circumscribed. It is solely to advocate for the forest, and the helpless defenseless creatures that live there. Hispanic and any other minority timber companies are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. And if they are not, it is none of our concern. We are tasked with the miserable job of saying no to all the manifold heartbreaking reasons why everybody and their brother, from the chamber of commerce to school boards, to minorities feel duty-bound to liquidate other innocent species. If we become morally and ethically confused about who we are and what we are here for, we will not be discharging our first responsibility: to the species who have selected us as their spokesmen because trees and birds cannot go to meetings and defend themselves. If some environmentalist feels they have been called to defend minorities who want to cut down our forests; fine. But they are not forest activists any more, just the reverse. A world wide orchestrated campaign is on to reduce grassroots forest activists to moral idiots through all this crap, as it is well known that some of the weak-minded and angst-ridden among us, wilt before anything that even smacks of a teensy bit of possible political incorrectness. Lets reduce this argument to its absurdum. Lets take an extreme hypothetical case. Say we are faced with an old growth timber sale proposal, and all the proceeds, every single dollar, is earmarked to construct a desperately needed battered women's shelter to serve disabled, Hispanic, Native American, lesbian, dwarfs. What should out position be on that sale? Only one path is possible. We should absolutely and immediately stomp that sale just as vigorously as we would stomp a sale earmarked for the worst sleazy trans-national timber beast The bible says no man can serve two masters. Three points on the racism/colonialism argument. 1. Racism is differential and selective treatment of different groups based on their ethnic origin or color. We have not allowed sales by white companies and just opposed sales of Hispanic companies. Our opposition is even handed - color and racial blind, and applied evenhandedly and consistantly to all bad sales so I do not think it is fair to characterize our attitudes or behavior as "racist". Forest activists may be stubborn and willfull and even stupid or insensitive at times, but we are not racists. 2. If we are to begin name calling; advancing a timber sale that places human's interests and human values, (no matter which humans they are) in a supreme position over the interests of all other species is really "speciesm". And Speciesm is worse than all the other "isms" because it is prejudice against helpless, defenseless creatures who cannot speak for, or defend themselves in any way. The other prejudices like sexism, racism and colonialism are merely directed against humans that at least to some extent, can write, speak, and organize to defend their interests unlike the species potentially involved in this sale like goshawks, flammulated owls, pine martens, black bear, neo-tropical migrant bird species, wolverines and cougars. 3. Endorsing the idea that an ethnic group can destroy forests because deeply rooted, cultural and social traditions must be respected no matter what white outsiders may think about them, is no different from endorsing clitorectomys in Africa or the stoning of adulteresses in Afghanistan. Whether it is respect for women's rights or protection of forests, when core values of any western progressive movement come up against the longstanding tradition s of other cultures all progressive movements put their own core values first. Forest activists are no more racists to oppose this sale then feminists are "colonialists and racists" to oppose rural India's treatment of brides, or the treatment of young women in Africa. So do not become ethically confused by all these criticisms about minorities, sexism, racism, and colonialism when it merely shills for logging schemes that threaten endangered species. There is a very fine line between shilling and pimping. Now we don't mind activists from other movements doing a little shilling for the timber industry from time to time, hey we're human too, but we always draw the line at pimping. Thanks, Jim Latest installment of "Devil's Environmental Dictionary" is online at: http://www.britell.com/devil/devil.html Jim Britell P.O. Box 1349 Port Orford, Or 97465 ***** FROM WORLD WHALE POLICE ------------------------------------------------ This is really about money, Pacific Rim trade agreements, sushi on the plates of Japanese diners, opening the door to worldwide commercial whaling. NAFTA, GATT, Al Gore's campaign money from Norway and Japan. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours internationally. The result of the new global economy which values nothing but the bottom line. We live in a society whose corporations will go offshore to find the cheapest labor while they for instance allow the folks of Akron to starve to death. We will kill the last otter, we will harvest the last old growth tree and sell it to Japan, we will devalue the occupants of the natural world to the place of a food product or clothing item. Reduce the California Gray Whale to the status of a throw away bargaining chip. The ethic that if you can make money you must make money. If it isn't worth money it is worthless and if it is worth money it must be exploited. The new global economy. The double speak, back speak backasswards speak of global corporate interests. The loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires. It was one thing for them to have and control my money. Quite another to control the fate of an ancient and beautiful sea creature with who's fate lies my faith in humanity. These acts are nothing less than very well orchestrated crime against nature. They are destroying the ancient rain forests. They are polluting the Amazon with arsenic to mine for gold in its tributaries. They are facilitating a global assault on the whales of the world. All for what else? Greed! Power! This is no less than the final solution for whale. This is speciacide. This is Cetaceacide. This is self hate and suicide. Without the beauty of the natural world there is no beauty in humanity. Without respect for the lowliest of creatures we have no respect for our fellow man. We have no respect for ourselves. We all come to this earth in the same way. Naked and alone. We must not leave here having taken more than we have given back. To attack the natural world and to kill it's inhabitants is the blackest of crimes. You prove you are powerful but you show you are no good. When those of you who do these thing die the world is a better place. In the meantime, we all others, suffer with you, our natural world comrades. ***** LAST ITEM ----------------- "Though men now possess the power to dominate and exploit every corner of the natural world, nothing in that fact implies that they that right or the need to do so." Edward Abbey