Subject: Re: Whaling Moratorium and U.S. National Security

From: [email-masked] (Peter da Silva)
Date: 9 Sep 1996 05:28:45 -0500

I don't know about any of that, and I wouldn't be surprised by any
shenanigans Washington gets up to, but I do know that crossposting between
alt.animals.dolphins and the whaling activism groups has never in the
life of the net produced any useful information. Please don't. Thanks.

THIS message not crossposted to alt.animals.dolphins.

---

From: Masaaki Ishida <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 17:59:23 +0900

If someone knows more detail of the following story, please 
let me know (sorry for my poor written English).

1. In June 1972, the U.N. Human Environment Conference was held in Stockholm.
   Prior to the conference, Olaf Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister had
   announced that the U.S. defoliation tactics in the Vietnam War would be
   discussed.

2. U.S. President Richard Nixon was to have the election in Nov. 1972.
   It was likely that he would be elected again, but different from other 
   candidates he did not have strong policy on the environmental issue.

3. In April 1971, he settled the Marine Mammal Protection Act and
   transferred the responsibility of whaling from the Department of
   Commerce to the Executive Office.
   Operation of two small whaling companies in California was stopped.

4. In June 1971, a symposium on whaling was held in Shenandoah National 
   Park.  It was sponsored by the U.S. government, Smithsonian Institution, 
   and some other organizations.
   People invited were scientists on the whale from ten countries.  
   At the symposium it was presented that whales were divided into
   two categories - those which were depleted by intensive whaling in the
   past, and those which could sustain commercial whaling if regulated
   properly.   It also agreed about the following request to IWC (International 
   Whaling Commission).

   1. To stop BWU (Blue Whale Unit) system to determine the catch quota, and 
      set catch quota specie-by-specie.
   2. To promote the scientific research of whale stock.
   3. To implement international observer system of whaling.

   1 and 2 of above requests were adopted by IWC in 1972.
   One thing to note was that no expert insisted the necessity of total ban
   of whaling.

5. In June 1971, the tentative agenda of the Human Environment Conference
   was completed.

6. In July 1971, Maurice Strong, the secretary general of the conference 
   announced that 10 years' moratorium of whaling was added to the agenda
   due to the request of the U.S. government.
   (Discussion about U.S. defoliation tactics in the Vietnam War was removed
   from the agenda, but I don't know when it was removed).

7. The U.N. conference started on June 5, 1972.
   At first U.S proposal about whaling moratorium was critically viewed 
   because it ignored IWC and it did not have scientific background.
   The proposal was to be discussed on June 8.
   On June 7, about 3,000 of environmental activists and hippies had "Save the 
   whale" meeting in the suburb of Stockholm.
   It was witnessed that Maurice Strong, the secretary general of the 
   conference, did "Save the whale" speech at this meeting though any official 
   deliberation on the U.S. proposal had not started yet.
   In the morning of June 8, the Japanese delegation was surprised to see
   that conference hall was empty.
   It turned out that the discussion in that day was somehow postponed without
   prior notice to them.
   Next morning, before the beginning of the discussion, Japanese delegation
   learned that many nations which were doubtful to the U.S. proposal had
   changed the position.
   The discussion started.   There was no explanation why the discussion was
   cancelled previous day.
   The resolution to propose 10 years' whaling moratorium was adopted by
   majority vote.

8. However, the 10 years' whaling moratorium was rejected by the IWC Scientific 
   Committee this year and next year.   Then U.S. changed the tactics and 
   finally achieved the moratorium in 1982 IWC meeting...
 
Seeing this process, I wonder why U.S. government strongly proposed the whaling
moratorium which was not supported by scientists.
Some people say it did not wish that the defoliation tactics in the Vietnam be
discussed at the conference, and some say Pentagon wanted to avoid the discussion
about disposal of nuclear waste to the deep sea, whose failure became known in
1980.   It is said that Pentagon mobilized so many activists and hippies to
stockholm.   It is likely that to promote whaling moratorium at the conference
was "two birds by one stone" for Nixon, one for his election and the other for 
Pentagon.   Of course, anti-whaling people say it was a purely motivated 
'environmental' politics to save whales.   

But one question remains.
The U.S. government does not disclose the documents about the process to the
U.N. Human Environment Conference because of the "national security of U.S."
If someone know about this better or have idea, please let me know.

Masaaki Ishida   <[email-masked]>
                 <http://www.a-web.co.jp/~golgo13/whale.html>

---

From: Barry Bruyea <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Sep 1996 21:53:43 GMT

The poster of the original article is obviously Japanese; so, we wonder
why he is trying to make the U.S. the bad guy in this discussion when
the worst whale butcher on earth is Japan; and has been for the last
20 years.

---

From: Masaaki Ishida <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 06:13:49 +0900

> the worst whale butcher on earth is Japan; and has been for the last

Which point in my original article, do you think I was trying to make the
U.S. bad guy ?   It was only a question to know the behind-the-scene of the
history.
It is the fact that U.S. is opposing the whaling not from the scientific basis
but to fawn upon the interest of only environmental groups and animal right
groups.   Probably you have very poor knowledge on the whaling  because most 
U.S. media reports it based on the information of above groups.

---

From: CouncilOf3 <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 21:45:16 -0700

> U.S. media reports it based on the information of above groups.

It's not just the media, Masaaki!  The propaganda these groups spew forth infests 
our educational systems at every level.

---

From: [email-masked] (Peter da Silva)
Date: 13 Sep 1996 06:44:43 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>,
Masaaki Ishida  <[email-masked]> wrote:

I know Barry crossposted to both places, but could you guys please take
alt.animals.dolphins out of the group list in your followups?

---

From: Masaaki Ishida <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 21:57:17 +0900

> alt.animals.dolphins out of the group list in your followups?

Oh, sorry that I was careless to have posted to all newsgroups that Barry 
crossposted.
After your first posting, I re-posted my original question to three politics
newsgroups since they also seemed to be adequate.
I added them this time in the list.
Since the Stockholm conference was 24 years ago, it looks no one is familiar
with its detail.

I have ever read that George Kennan (sorry if the spelling is incorrect) 
said at the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Upper House that the motivation
of U.S. government was to hide nuclear disposal.
But I don't know detail of this and whether it can be found in documents...

---

From: Masaaki Ishida <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 22:24:14 +0900

> our educational systems at every level.

Yes.   You are right.
And also many celebrities such as Gregory Peck, Carl Sagan, Paul McCartoney,
Olivia Newtonjon, John Denver, an old well-known German female movie-director
(I don't remember her name, but I have read her interview) who made propaganda 
movie of Nazis before WWII (the title was something like "Victory of Will"), etc.
(I know that Paul is a vegetarian, but I've never heard he laudly accuse other 
meat-eating habit as he did to whaling).
Maybe you can list up more.

---

From: CouncilOf3 <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 09:32:26 -0700

> Maybe you can list up more.

This is anecdotal, but true:  A few years ago I enrolled my son in junior high school 
here in the Bay area.  The school was under a consent decree (basically gave liberals 
free reign) and filled to the brim with enviro-fanatics.  When we entered the building 
to registar we were greeted by three armed police officers that directed us to the 
registration area.  As I found out, they were assigned to the school full-time.

The next day I dropped my son off in front of the school.  The three officers were 
standing there drinking coffee, and about twenty feet away two students were taking 
turns hitting on a joint.  The cops were completely oblivious.

The day after that I had to pick my son up early because he had a doctors appointment. 
I went to his science class to let him know I had arrived.  I watched outside the door 
for awhile in utter horror as the teacher drew a picture of an atomic bomb on the 
chalkboard and then proceeded to write "= George Bush and Dan Qualye" next to it.  He 
then brought out a globe and had the kids pass it around to each other while they 
chanted "The earth is our mother".  This is a common brainwashing technique.  The walls 
were plastered with pictures of whales and dolphins doing everyday human things; 
shopping, driving cars, dressed up in suits, etc.  On either side of the chalkboard 
were maps of Japan and Norway - both had darts stuck in them...

I removed my son from the school the next day and enrolled him in a private 
institution.

To top all this off, I received three calls from the junior high over a two day 
period were a secretary asked me why my son had been absent the passed couple of 
days... By that time it had been six months since I took him out of that school.

---

From: Terry James <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 07:14:56 -0700

Thr japanese have only comerically gone whaleing since the second world
war with assistance of other countries. This was to supplment the
protine
needed by a nation crushed after the war. that is now over 50 years ago
and there are many other ways to obtain this now besides killing whales.

-- 
TERRY AND ADRIENNE JAMES
ZL1UFY and ZL1UUQ
Email	[email-masked] / [email-masked] / [email-masked]
Packet Radio ZL1UFY@ZL1AB - Snail Mail 	PO Box 100-028. North Shore Mail
Centre
		Auckland, New Zealand

---

From: Masaaki Ishida <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 08:25:29 +0900

> days... By that time it had been six months since I took him out of that school.

It looks situation in U.S. is much out of my imagination.
My own experience on the whaling issue while I was in U.S. was the following, but the 
degree of severity is much less than your story.

    In 1989, the annual meeting of the IWC (International Whaling Commission) was held
    in San Diego.   Since I was interested in what were going on, I watched CNN news.
    It reported that the number of blue whales in the Antarctic was estimated to be 
    several hundreds, and it was broadcasted that Japanese commissioner to IWC was saying 
    that the whaling issue is cultural crash.

    Watching this, I wonder how many people would think that Japan was exploiting the
    depleted blue whale on the pretext of culture.
    The fact that the species of whale Japan was taking was minke whale whose population
    was estimated to be several times of the initial stock size, was not mentioned at all.
    I wondered whether it is a 'technique' to report only the part of truth so that
    viewers would accept the wrong story as facts.

---

From: Masaaki Ishida <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 10:01:06 +0900

> and there are many other ways to obtain this now besides killing whales.

I want to know from what material you learned such a story.   The fact is -
Whaling industry in Japan, which was based on the coastal whaling, started in 
17th century in several villages.
Whales were consumed not only in these villages, but also consumed by
near large cities.
To utilize the whale body not only as food but for many other purpose,
the highly specialized form of industry emerged prior to other industries.
But in 19th century, because of intense whaling by western nations such as U.S.,
large whales around Japan depleted, and seeing the success of Norwegian whaling 
in Antarctic, we started whaling there in 1930s.
What happened after the WWI was that because of shortage of the food and 
supported by poor knowledge of whale stocks at that time, too many blue and
fin whales were taken.   Also, eating of whale meat became popular because
of use of the whale meat for school lunch.

To your last sentence, I reply as follows.
If you see what you eat in your life, you will find substitute for each food.
Instead of eating A, you can eat B.
Also, instead of eating B, you can eat C, and so on.
Except for special cases, such as doctor's recommendation or religion, selection
of food is highly based on taste, and freedom of the choice of food is common
nature in the world.
Of course, harvest of depleted animals should not be done, but the population
of minke whale which whaling nations want to harvest is abundant.
(in the Antarctic, scientific study suggests that population of minke whales
started to increase before they started to be comercially harvested in 1970s,
because they could have too much food  as the result of decrease of blue whale 
which live on the same food)
Some people say whales are beautiful and harmless animals, but the critera of
'beauty' differs with individual and 'harmless' is applicable to many other 
animals which are harvested (if I say like this, soneone will oppose that whales 
are intelligent, without acceptable scientific evidence...).

The phenomenon seen in the whaling issue is that some people or groups, many of
them consume animal protein of not only domestic animals but also wildlife such
as fish, shellfish, etc. are trying to impose their taste on animals to people
who have different taste.
What I see here is a kind of selfish attitude which does not bear that other 
people have different taste, and thus want to block freedom of others.

In case of Japanese scientific whaling in particular, we are doing this based 
on the Article VIII of the International Convention for Regulation of Whaling,
on which IWC is based, and taking only several hundreds of minke whales from
estimated three-quarter million Antarctic minke whales, and scientific data
which can only be obtained from lethal study are accumulated so that resumption 
of whaling commercial can be done without damaging whale stock.

Anyway, whaling issue started to be as it is today when U.S. government started to 
determine its policy based not on experts' view but on whale/dolphin lovers' view.
The current situation inside IWC is anomalous because many decisions which are
contrary to the Convention are passed by simple majority vote.
It is questioned from the point of international law, and U.S. government is
responsible for distorting the IWC which is merely a fishery organization and
is not the forum to discuss moral or ethics.
This is the reason why I want to know what happened in U.S. govt. in early '70s
as described in my first posting.

---

From: Doug Von Gausig <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 17:48:26 -0700

CouncilOf3 wrote:
(snip)
> were maps of Japan and Norway - both had darts stuck in them...

For those of you in countries other than the US, who may believe what's
been said, the forgoing is what we politely call "bullshit".

---

From: CouncilOf3 <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 18:38:09 -0700

> been said, the forgoing is what we politely call "bullshit".

So you were there, Doug?  Everything I said here was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth.  This story is not unusual here in the states.  Our public school system is 
in utter shambles, and we can all thank our "enlightened" liberals and socialist teachers 
unions.

BTW, Doug, I don't like being called a liar, so GFY!

--
Eo

---

From: Doug Von Gausig <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 08:44:15 -0700

CouncilOf3 wrote:
(snip)
> So you were there, Doug?  Everything I said here was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  This story is not unusual here in the states.  Our public school system is in utter shambles, and we can all thank our "enlightened" liberals and socialist teachers unions.
> 

Get Fine Yaks? Good for You?

---

From: Hakan Thyr <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 14:15:25 -0400

> BTW, Doug, I don't like being called a liar, so GFY!

Would you mind telling us the name of the school, just for clarity?

-HT 
=============================================
Håkan Thyr	
Phone/Fax: 617.787.2273
[email-masked]

---

From: Donald Ulin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 14:43:36 -0400

I'm new to this group, so if there's a history to this thread I don't
know about it.  And while I would say "liar" is a pretty harsh word, I
should think "CouncilOf3" might make a good candidate for a reporter job
with the National Enquirer or some other such journal.  Even if I were
inclined to accept his or her account of what went on at that school,
the assertion that "This story is not unusual here in the states" erodes
this person's credibility a little too far.  Such behavior would be
extremely rare and would almost certainly be grounds for reprimand or
worse in any public school system.  (On the other hand, maybe it
happened in a private school, where a political agenda might be
perfectly acceptable.  But then the answer is to stop sending your child
there.)

Don Ulin

---

From: [email-masked] (John McCarthy)
Date: 19 Sep 1996 00:45:12 GMT

The environmentalist, political indoctrination at my son's school,
Lucille M. Nixon Elementary School, in the Palo Alto School District,
Palo Alto, California wasn't as bad as that described in the previous
message.  The school had an outside organization, the Bay Area Action
Network, to come in and teach the children to make posters and recite
slogans.  My son's part was to recite the slogan, "Full Circle Food
Cycle" as rapidly as possible.  So far as I know, no named politicians
were described as bad guys.

In 1992 my son was six.  His nanny told me that when told him, in
answer to his question, that she thought I was going to vote for Bush,
he cried.  Somebody at school must have got to him, but maybe it was
just other kids.  Stanford is a liberal place.

-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/

---

From: CouncilOf3 <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 20:20:07 -0700

> Would you mind telling us the name of the school, just for clarity?

James Lick Middle School - (415) 695-5675.  Give 'em a call if you want a good laugh.  Just 
hope the person you reach can speak English...

---

From: CouncilOf3 <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 20:47:48 -0700

Donald Ulin wrote:
> with the National Enquirer or some other such journal.

No I wouldn't, I'm not a liberal willing to compromise my integrity...

> Even if I were inclined to accept his or her account of what went on at that school,
> this person's credibility a little too far.

Which part?  The fact that police officers are assigned to schools, that schools are filled with 
leftist propaganda, or faculty are incompetent?

> Such behavior would be extremely rare and would almost certainly be grounds for reprimand or
> worse in any public school system.

Baah!  Like the teaching of gay ethos?

Even Camille Paglia admits that the downfall of EVERY modern culture was preceded by the 
cultivation and acceptance of perverse sexual practice.

> (On the other hand, maybe it happened in a private school, where a political agenda might be 
> perfectly acceptable.  But then the answer is to stop sending your child there.)

I did mention that I transferred my son to a private (respectable) institution, right?

--
Eo

---

From: "Paul Rinear" <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Sep 1996 01:45:01 GMT

Hey,
      since you GFY'ed someone and are stupid enough to think liberals are
to blame for your own smallheadedness, here's to you, asshole!

Paul

---

From: [email-masked] (Bruce Scott TOK )
Date: 19 Sep 1996 17:56:50 GMT

John McCarthy ([email-masked]) wrote:
: The environmentalist, political indoctrination at my son's school,
: Lucille M. Nixon Elementary School, in the Palo Alto School District,
: Palo Alto, California wasn't as bad as that described in the previous
: message.  The school had an outside organization, the Bay Area Action
: Network, to come in and teach the children to make posters and recite
: slogans.  My son's part was to recite the slogan, "Full Circle Food
: Cycle" as rapidly as possible.  So far as I know, no named politicians
: were described as bad guys.

As a Green, I think this sort of slgan-chanting is really bad.
Replacing one stripe of non-thinking conformist disinformation exercise
with another (I did all the hide-under-your-desk bomb drills at that
age) is not what you want to see in places of learning.  Slogans and
cheering remind me too much of what cults do.

: In 1992 my son was six.  His nanny told me that when told him, in
: answer to his question, that she thought I was going to vote for Bush,
: he cried.  Somebody at school must have got to him, but maybe it was
: just other kids.  Stanford is a liberal place.

It's OK.  If you had told this group you'd voted Clinton there would
have been lots of heart attacks (OK, maybe just spilled coffee).

:-)

--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott                                Congratulations to
[email-masked]                    Ghada Shouaa,
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik      Olympic heptathlon champion!

---

From: Masaaki Ishida <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 11:56:10 +0900

> hope the person you reach can speak English...

It looks that some people are dubious about the story.
Does it sound so unrealistic to ordinary people ?
Since my stay at U.S. was only two years and I did not have opportunity to visit any of
schools, I have no idea.   

But it looks some people believes that whales/dolphins are intelligent, the high-level 
communication with mankind can be achieved someday, and therefore they should not be killed.
It looks they think human language can be translated to their language, but when I think about
words used even in books for children, I wonder the idea that whales/dolphins have the same
concept as in human language, or there had been necessity to develop those concept during the 
process of their evolution.   
Even to translate a fairy tale, you have to suppose whales/dolphins can understand not only
concrete concepts such as what is "money", what is "king", what is "castle", what is "letter",
etc., and many other abstract concepts.
In my view, because of their superiority in size among marine animals, I think they could have 
survived without developing creative function of the brain.

Several years ago, I read a newspaper article that a drawn man was saved by a dolphin in 
Australia.   It reported that people in Australia believe dolphins are so intelligent and kind 
that they wish to help human being in trouble.   The bioloigical fact is that dolphins have habit
to push anything afloat in the sea, even a dead body or a log, and sometimes the direction to 
push them is toward the land.   There are many people who believes what they want to believe  
rather than what were proved by scientists.   Also even some scientists, who are well known in 
other area rather than biology, believe such fantasy (Carl Sagan, for example).

Some of people who believe this idea are so fanatic that I'm not surprised some of them
happened to be teachers and behave as the story in James Lick Middle School.
But I have no idea about how common such story happens in U.S.

I remember a story of Dolphin-killing (in Iki Island, Japan, many Dolphins were killed by
fishermen because so many fish they catch were eaten by dolphins).
At that incident, an American guy (he was a school teacher, I think) came to the island.
He asked the fishermen not to kill dolphins, and assured since dolphins were intelligent and 
could understand human language  he would persuade them not to eat those fish which were 
valuable for fishermen's life.   Of course, he failed.
If my memory is collect, it was for this incident that Olivia Newtonjon cancelled the concert
in Japan saying that she did not want to go to the barbarians' country.

Another story, which was not so serious, was at my company's English conversation class about
10 years ago.   A teacher who came from west coast queationed Japanese attendants about the 
opinion on whaling.   Since they did not deny whaling, the teacher got angry and the atmosphere 
of the class became awkward.   He also seemed to believe amplified fiction about cetaceans' 
intelligence.

---

From: CouncilOf3 <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 07:40:58 -0700

Masaaki Ishida wrote:

I elect Masaaki as "Best Newbie Poster" to alt.kill.the.whales for 
September!  Whatdaya say folks?

--
Eo

---

From: CouncilOf3 <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 14:50:33 -0700

> to blame for your own smallheadedness, here's to you, asshole!

BUZZOFF, liberal trash!

--
Eo