Environmental Terrorism

Kauri said:

i guess if someone stuck a hook into you and reeled you in kicking and screaming into a mobile slaughterhouse you might politely call them a terrorist..

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Dear Kauri,

I can't understand all this keening over whales. If you took your argument to its conclusion, frustrated loud heavy set middle aged men with beards would be throwing our oldies fishing off piers and bridges for putting worms on the end of their line.

Garpal

Garpal Gumnut said:

Dear wayneL,

Language changes constantly, life's drama doesn't. I'm sure both the Japs,. sorry the Japanese, and the Aggressive Greenies would have been put sitting in Lady Macbeth's tent by the great bard, if he were alive and writing today.

Garpal

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Dear Garpal,

I never really took to Shakespeare. I suppose one must have a passion for it... or perhaps an expediency for... nevermind.

Language evolves, however certain words lose their import through overuse/misuse and eventually become passe' for a time. If language is TOO dynamic, we lose the ability to understand each others meaning. Consider the word 'fulsome' as a case in point.

I suggest in this case the use of terrorism is a gross misuse. What the environmentalists are participating in is activism, not terrorism. It is important in these emotionally charged times to make that distinction, lest the word terrorism loses its important function in describing a particular type of activity.

Some may disagree with the modus operandi of these particular environmentalists and that's fine, but let's not misrepresent their activities.

Cheers

Garpal Gumnut said:

Dear Kauri,

I can't understand all this keening over whales. If you took your argument to its conclusion, frustrated loud heavy set middle aged men with beards would be throwing our oldies fishing off piers and bridges for putting worms on the end of their line.

Garpal

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Worms aren't endangered. That's the whole point.

Various contributors said:

Dear wayneL,

Dear Kauri,

Dear Garpal,

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Jeez, we're being rather formal in this thread.

wayneL said:

Dear Garpal,

I never really took to Shakespeare. I suppose one must have a passion for it... or perhaps an expediency for... nevermind.

Language evolves, however certain words lose their import through overuse/misuse and eventually become passe' for a time. If language is TOO dynamic, we lose the ability to understand each others meaning. Consider the word 'fulsome' as a case in point.

I suggest in this case the use of terrorism is a gross misuse. What the environmentalists are participating in is activism, not terrorism. It is important in these emotionally charged times to make that distinction, lest the word terrorism loses its important function in describing a particular type of activity.

Some may disagree with the modus operandi of these particular environmentalists and that's fine, but let's not misrepresent their activities.

Cheers

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dear wayneL,

That is a reasonable point

However unlike a civilised modern army which has rules of engagement and is answerable to a government and ultimately the voters, some activists, without civilised supervision go beyond merely being "active". They cross a line and produce a sense of terror in common folk, e.g. the Japanese recipient of the acid throwing episode.

Garpal

Garpal Gumnut said:

dear wayneL,

That is a reasonable point

However unlike a civilised modern army which has rules of engagement and is answerable to a government and ultimately the voters, some activists, without civilised supervision go beyond merely being "active". They cross a line and produce a sense of terror in common folk, e.g. the Japanese recipient of the acid throwing episode.

Garpal

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I would say in that case, the perpetrators have crossed the line into terrorism, as innocents were involved.

In the case of the greenies, they were attempting to protect an endangered species against those who were in the act of creating further endangerment... different kettle of 'fish'.

Garpal Gumnut said:

Dear Kauri,

I can't understand all this keening over whales. If you took your argument to its conclusion, frustrated loud heavy set middle aged men with beards would be throwing our oldies fishing off piers and bridges for putting worms on the end of their line.

Garpal

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Are these oldies using the last few worms in our world not to catch fish to eat, but to conduct a scientific study into the life cycle (albeit threatened) of the worm? No doubt upon the final demise of the humble worm the modern day silver tongued bards will have odes rolling off their tongues lamenting their loss.

wayneL said:

Jeez, we're being rather formal in this thread.

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Dear wayneL,

A salutation such as "Dear" in correspondence is not the end of the world as we know it. It does not indicate formality. When we are long food for whales and worms , people in the English speaking world will still use it to address each other.

Its a bit like saying to the owner of ones fish and chip shop, "Please may I have a fish n chips" or " A fish n chips thanks mate", rather than saying "fish n chips !!" !!, or worms or whales!!

Garpal

Kauri said:

Are these oldies using the last few worms in our world not to catch fish to eat, but to conduct a scientific study into the life cycle (albeit threatened) of the worm? No doubt upon the final demise of the humble worm the modern day silver tongued bards will have odes rolling off their tongues lamenting their loss.

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Dear Kauri,

You have a point actually. I haven't seen a good worm outside of a bait shop for a long time. Perhaps someone in this thread should let Greenpeace know.

Garpal

Garpal Gumnut said:

Dear wayneL,

A salutation such as "Dear" in correspondence is not the end of the world as we know it. It does not indicate formality. When we are long food for whales and worms , people in the English speaking world will still use it to address each other.

Its a bit like saying to the owner of ones fish and chip shop, "Please may I have a fish n chips" or " A fish n chips thanks mate", rather than saying "fish n chips !!" !!, or worms or whales!!

Garpal

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You take me far too seriously

Whales revenge....????

SBS..8.30pm tonight.

Kidnapped? From the early 1970's many ordinary Japanese citizens disappeared without a trace, many snatched from beaches and remote villages along the Japan Sea coast.........

Regarding the "terrorism" issue, what about things like spiking trees? The sole intention of that practice is to endanger those felling the trees thus halting the logging. It's been done at times in NSW with a couple of incidents in Tasmania and I think it may have happened in Victoria too(?).

One one hand the logging is a legal operation. On the other hand the activists would argue that they had no other means of stopping the activity other than to make continuation physically dangerous.

Or what about the great Tasmanian blow up the train tracks incident? In short, explosives were placed under a railway bridge on a line that is used largely to transport wood. Nobody seems really sure who put them there (the bomb didn't actually go off). The logging industry says environmentalists did it to stop logging. Environmentalists say the loggers did it to sway public opinion against environmentalists (this was shortly before a state election). Either way, if the bomb had gone off then lives would have been lost.

And then there's always the outright stunts. Greenpeace "shutting down" the Yallourn E power station (Victoria) over a decade after it actually closed being a classic example of grabbing media attention. "Look, we've shut down the plant" says Greenpeace whilst waving banners from the chimney stacks. In reality the owner of the plant (the Victorian government's SECV) closed it due largely to issues concerning the health of workers. I wonder if Greenpeace ever told the activists just how much asbestos was on that site? That site being generally accepted to have exposed more workers to asbestos than anywhere else in Australia, actual asbestos mines included.

Whoever painted the anti-forestry graffiti at Spencer St PS (Melbourne) would have also been at risk of asbestos exposure if they reached the top of the stack by any means that involved going inside the disused plant. I very much doubt those activists knew of the danger inside that building.

And what happens when some environmental protest results in direct loss of employment for Australians? Is that activism? Economic terrorism? Or something else?

What if some group of activists decided that the way to make a point about global warming was to actually shut down coal use in Australia by blockading every single major plant that uses it? That would all but completely shut down NSW, Victoria and Queensland (including the cities) in the process. An act of terrorism? Or just plain activism and making a point? The economic impact would likely far exceed any 9/11 style bombing etc even though a simple blockade and locking out the workers isn't in itself normally considered an act of terrorism.

The environmental debate is rarely straight forward in my experience although the whaling issue might just fit into that category given the relative lack of genuine "losers" if the activity is stopped. I think that's why it's seen as such a "black and white" issue - there's far more losers when it comes to coal, uranium, forestry, dams, roads etc than there are by simply stopping whaling.

The word "terrorism" has be come far too subjective to use in connection with these environmentalists.

I remember Nelson Mandela (in his biography) talking about how he could not received aid from certain organisations as his actions were regarded as terrorism, although he has detailed plans that show he went out of his way to destroy government infrastructure without endangering human life.

Although it does bring the wrong connotations, piracy is perhaps a better descriptive term for the Sea Shepard crews, given the difficulties in obtaining registration.

Kauri said:

Whales revenge....????

SBS..8.30pm tonight.

Kidnapped? From the early 1970's many ordinary Japanese citizens disappeared without a trace, many snatched from beaches and remote villages along the Japan Sea coast.........

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Dear Kauri, wayneL, and all others in this post,

This post has gobsmacked me. I have had a great hearty laugh and will withdraw in the face of keener minds than I. I shall line up behind you all as a disaffected private (not corporal, remember AH) .Perhaps we should have a thread on "Revenge" or "Tolerance" . Perhaps this is the "Revenge of the Wailers"


Garp wha le

Teach me porpoise sense of humour, leaping sunlight beams,
Teach me antlike industry to play my part in teams;
-Teach me canine gratitude, -Cute koala attitude -Longitude and latitude of
Gum-tip flavoured dreams.
.........
Let me learn to sing with whales, echo-friendly bark,
Teach me twenty thousand tales of inmates of the Ark;
-Let me learn to know them better, -Whether whale or Irish setter, - Make “EXTINCT” a silent letter-
Then I’ll disembark.

hey Garpal, plenty of poems on birds on poetry thread as well - as well as the sad state of the world that we are heading into.

"but if I were the Mother of Nature, and my world was a breaking shell,
and someone was pouring black oil on my birds , and poisoning slowly the well,
and deserts were growing like wildfire, and wildfires were burning like hell,
I'd be just a tiddy wee bit concerned, and I'd probably opt to sell -
or make a new pact to clean up my act, this dome, my home, where I love to roam,
and help to make patient well...."

2020hindsight said:

Teach me porpoise sense of humour, leaping sunlight beams,
Teach me antlike industry to play my part in teams;
-Teach me canine gratitude, -Cute koala attitude -Longitude and latitude of
Gum-tip flavoured dreams.
.........
Let me learn to sing with whales, echo-friendly bark,
Teach me twenty thousand tales of inmates of the Ark;
-Let me learn to know them better, -Whether whale or Irish setter, - Make “EXTINCT” a silent letter-
Then I’ll disembark.

hey Garpal, plenty of poems on birds on poetry thread as well - as well as the sad state of the world that we are heading into.

"but if I were the Mother of Nature, and my world was a breaking shell,
and someone was pouring black oil on my birds , and poisoning slowly the well,
and deserts were growing like wildfire, and wildfires were burning like hell,
I'd be just a tiddy wee bit concerned, and I'd probably opt to sell -
or make a new pact to clean up my act, this dome, my home, where I love to roam,
and help to make patient well...."

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Dear 2020,

Agree totally,

But why just bloody whales.

And why are the people who protest about whales so aggressively, so .... aggressive.

Is it the whales or is it they.. or me or thee.

Garpal

Garpal

Garpal Gumnut said:

1. But why just bloody whales.
2. And why are the people who protest about whales so aggressively, so .... aggressive.
3. Is it the whales or is it they.. or me or thee.

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1. who's saying it's just whales. - anything that's endangered.
2. otherwise no one listens (although praps you're right - the Japanese might roll over on this if we back them on the abductee question ? - now there's a thought - thanks Kauri )
3. m8 people spend a fortune just to go out on a boat to catch a glimpse of one of these magnificent creatures.

I keep thinking of that movie "Soylent Green"

http://www.sciflicks.com/soylent_green/
Plot: In the year 2022, the starving masses depend upon the government manufactured food item Soylent Green to exist. But in the midst of a murder investigation, a cop uncovers the chilling source of the product..." etc

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Basically shows a world of the future, where you stay indoors because the air outside is unfit to breathe etc. And in your dying moments you are allowed to see a brief video of the world when it had clean air and trees and animals and so on. - anyone who hasn't seen it , make sure you have a bottle of whisky handy. (stars that new child wonder of the screen, Charlton Heston, 1973 )

ok, 1984 has come and gone and we didnt have Big Brother to the extent they predicted (maybe we did lol)
and 2022 is a bit early for this scenario - but my guess is our grandkid's grandkids will only survive if they mutate and grow smoke filtering gills.

On a more positive note....
Anyone interested in helping the cause through peaceful means go check out

http://www.whalelove.org/en/wagon/

There are some interesting videos aimed at educating the Japanese about whales and whaling.
And PLEASE send the website address to anyone you think will be interested especially any Japanese people you may know - they are the ones who can really make a difference on this issue. And this site is taylored to suit the (super-cute) tastes of young Japanese.

Dukey , wilco.
meanwhile - SBS had a show about the possibly 400 japanese abducted to NK around the 70's and 80's. Bludy interesting. You get much exposure to that over there - hot political topic I guess?
You can hear the Japanese almost regretting that they disarmed after WWII, such are the taunts that the NK have subjected them to over the last 10 years or so.

2020hindsight said:

I keep thinking

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Hello 2020,

How about some oracle of your own thoughts ?
Introspection will apply

Bob.