Whales & Karl Marx

The front-page news article and the opening paragraph said it all.

“Whaling ban strains US-Japan relations”

“The U.S. is locked in a power struggle with Japan over control of the International Whaling Commission, with the winner to decide whether whales can be legally hunted for PROFIT” (my caps on this last word).

I will just skip over all the propaganda and misinformation in the article and in the US position. Things like,

- “Whaling doesn’t belong in the 21st century” (Says who? Why?)

- “Fifty-six members of Congress (53-D’s & 3-R’s) signed a letter” “expressing serious concern with the erosion of U.S. influence and leadership within the International Whaling Commission”. When the U.S. position is so emotional–based and anti-management in the midst of constant harping about depleted commercial marine fishery stocks, I for one say it is best for whales and best for commercial fish stocks and best for American citizens and other fish consumers if U.S. influence in the IWC does wane.

- “Anti-whaling advocates say that while it’s impossible to accurately estimate the number of whales worldwide, whale populations are nowhere close to levels where commercial hunting should be allowed”. How stupid is this one? The “anti-whalers” admit they don’t know how many whales there are but they know they “are nowhere close to levels where commercial hunting should be allowed”. As though they, like the wolf-lovers and grizzly bear advocates et al, will ever recognize any “LEVELS” where management or use “should be allowed”!

“About three to five countries have been joining the commission in recent years. Many of these countries are siding with the pro-whaling contingent, leading to accusations that Japan is recruiting new pro-whaling members in exchange for development grants and other financial assistance.” Oh, really? Isn’t that exactly what the “anti-whaling” NGO’s and their surreptitious US partners in the Federal bureaucracy did in the 1970,s and 80’s to parlay an unjustified a 5-year moratorium in 1982 into a 10 Commandments-like iron-clad-law forever? The NGO’s bribed (big time) little island nations and other NON-WHALING nations to join the IWC and vote to “save” the whales. The descendants of whalers in the U.S. and Australia and New Zealand joined the emotional “feel-good” tide of forcing the rest of the world to live by their emotions (as the UN does to Africa and Asia every day) at the expense of nations that do whale and want to continue whaling (through harvest, management, data collection) for their own good and for the fish stocks they depend on. Think Japan, Norway, Iceland, and Greenland for starters.

Remember that bugaboo at the beginning of this “news article”, “PROFIT”? That really says it all. Like the wolves and the grizzlies that are killing people and destroying property in ever widening arcs and the Wildernesses and Roadless Areas that are strangling rural communities and livelihoods, the whale “harvest” has nothing to do with the “ecosystem” or “populations”. Like the irresolvable incidental porpoise take in tuna nets or global warming, all these bugaboos are merely constantly expandable (like putty or play dough) precedents to force by hook or by crook (s?) nations under international controls and in the US to force state governments to be digested by the Federal government.

By allowing unfettered whale populations (like sharks are being touted currently as “in danger”) and the “only” answer being “protection” you put the highest form of government (the least responsive and most authoritarian) in the equation as “the answer”. In the case of whales you force nations to submit to international laws regarding everything from fishing (they “can’t” otherwise recover) to turtles to mining to desalinization, etc. All the falderal about “populations” and “levels” and “the ecosystem” are just tools (like wolf and grizzly bear introductions and protection, and Wilderness and Marine Sanctuary Declarations, etc.) meant to work everyone up and justify ever more powerful government and ever more remote rulers to “save our environment”.

The word “PROFIT” is emotional and stirs up everything from a hatred of capitalism and corporations to memories of someone that once over-charged you. This just reinforces the “government is our only hope” approach. What does it have to do with whales of tunas or ranches or sheep or any of the many things the folks behind these contrived political maneuvers are out to eliminate? Would someone whale for free? Would they whale to lose money? Don’t whalers, like ranchers and sheepherders and hunters and fishermen (both kinds) FEED PEOPLE? Don’t they have a stake in perpetuating what they do and depend on? Do whale-eaters and whale-users want to maintain whales populations? Who has a “stake” in the future of whales and commercial marine fish stocks, certainly not urban elites? Anti-everything Non-Governmental-Organizations that profit from the affair? The IWC? The UN? A bunch of urban advocate US politicians that haven’t the slightest contact with (like their constituents) the whales or the commercial fisheries? Or is it the Japans and Icelands and Norways that EAT FISH and CATCH FISH and live in contact with the sea AND ANSWER TO THEIR CITIZENS THAT USE AND WANT TO CONTINUE TO USE SUSTAINABLY AND AT THE LOWEST COST THE RENEWABLE NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE SEAS? Why does one even have to ask this question?

My country is wrong on this whale matter as it is on the introduction, protection, and continued expansion of wolf and grizzly bear populations. We have become hostage to harmful emotions that masquerade as “science” and “enlightened policy”. We, in spite of our history as a free Republic with guaranteed rights, have allowed socialistic and communistic governmental principles to subvert the management and use of our natural resources and the functioning of our government. Radical groups and hidden agendas are rampant. Like Robert Mugabe claiming in Zimbabwe that he kicks white farmers off their farms to return the land to the native people, we watch the disappearance of the farms and their capacities as cronies use what they can and let the land revert to waste. Likewise we watch these “save the whales” and “save the porpoises” and “save the seals” “save the salmon” et al policies while bemoaning the “depletion of commercial and sport fisheries” and ignore the coming population “crashes” that our feigned naturalism creates.

No one dares (outside the nations to whom this all matters) census these marine mammals and relate that to the current fish levels and propose levels of each that MEETS MAN’S NEEDS over time. Our Universities no longer even teach such things, as global warming and desertification are much easier to stir folks up about when no one knows anything true or practical. Better to mumble about “computer models” and “satellite telemetry” as predators ravage stock and hunting and commercial fish stocks. Better not to even mention all the human and other animal diseases that wolves are known to carry and spread or the actual history of the danger of wolves and grizzly bears and mountain lions to humans down through history or the current injury and death rates of humans in Africa from all the protected and unmanaged predators thanks to the US and the EU et al and their UN hammer. Marine Mammal numbers are way up and way out of kilter especially in light of the need to “recover” fish stocks (which the radicals don’t want done to begin with anyway).

Karl Marx figured it out long ago. “Profit” will stir up all sorts of emotions. Add in the whales (“they’re so ‘smart’ and ‘cute’ and ‘intelligent’ and ‘important’ as well, as on TV every night) and who could question that the “laws of nature” can’t be bent to the policies of U.S. “influence” in the IWC?

Wow, someone might “PROFIT” from killing and using a whale: and some people say that the way we feel shouldn’t be the basis of public policy. All you sport fishermen and commercial fishermen and those that eat fish - get your fish from fish farms while you can because they’re next. Have you seen how they pollute? Have you seen how “cruel” they are? Have you seen how little they pay workers in Africa and Thailand and Chile? If not you, then your kids, better get used to tofu and TV because when they eliminate everything else no one will even remember how good we had it and how we let it all slip right through our fingers just so some powerful folks could “feel” good while assuring their own future at our expense.

Jim Beers
26 April 2007
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- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact:
jimbeers7@verizon.net

- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.

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