To whom...,
So let me get this straight: Makak whaling good, Norwegian
whaling bad? Isn't this obviously absurd? Isn't the issue how many
whales - our common property - are killed?
There are a few dozen saw mill operators in the Pacific Northwest
whose mills are only designed to process old growth logs. Do we blithely
end their way of life? Do we tell Massachussets cod fishermen that they
are out of luck after a couple hundred years in the same business? Of
course we do. It's their own damn problem and they have no more right to
those resources than anybody else.
If the Makah want to make the claim that they should be given a
special settlement, okay, but this asserting of "rights" is not valid.
You gonna let the Sioux walk into Yellowstone and kill all the buffalo
because they have a "right" to hunt them?
Clearly native Americans and Canadians have been screwed but you
have to realize that these people are not really trying to preserve a
stone-age way of life - they are trying to preserve tradition and ritual.
A ritual slaughter of a few whales is no big deal. Letting people go into
the whaling business is. If the Makah want to make a living off the
forest, let them become forest rangers. Let them demand those jobs. Let
them contract out to do Coast Guard and Department of Fish and Wildlife
work off shore. That seems far more appropriate.
peace
