Dave Neiwert, a thoughtful voice on the left and with an experienced, informed view on America's right-wing racist fringe, has a rather confused post up on whaling on his blog, Orcinus. http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/02/standing-up-to-japan.html.
Neiwert sends a mixed message by saying we need to "stand up to Japan", by prominently posting recent footage of a whale's death struggles at the hands of Japan's "scientific" whaling fleet, and then by calling for the need to build bridges and networks over physical confrontation - but doesn't really begin to explain why whales have become so politicized or the best way to turn deadlock into a desperately needed victory for management of the ocean commons:
Copied below are my comments to his post:
Dave, with you and others thoughtlessly feeding the political grandstanding, it's hard to see how the bridge- and coalition-building that is needed to tackle whaling - or the much more serious and pressing global fisheries - issues is ever going to get off the ground.
As others have noted, the Japanese came late in the whaling game, mainly after WWII (with US encouragement) and after the stocks were already starting to crash after a 150 years of western industrialized whaling pressure. They persist in whaling despite the obvious damage it does to their long-term national interests because Westerners have done a great job of stiffening the spines of conservative politicians - so much so that while private industry has abandoned the hunt, it persists as a wholly government-owned (and loss-making) endeavor!
Have you ever spent any time wonder WHY we care so much more about a few whales now (which make no noticeable impact on growing populations, and a return to commercialized whaling under the IWC nowhere to be seen) tan we do about the millions of very intelligent pigs, and less intelligent cattle etc. that we slaughter annually? The answer is simple, of course - though we should care about how humanely animals are killed to satisfy our wants, we have our greatest political battles over resources that NOBODY owns and for which unrestrained take can obviously imperil their very existence and lead to extinction. Because there are no ownership rights, political action has been needed.
But politics may often simply feed rancor and provide opportunities for politicians - at our long-term detriment. Japan should be an obvious ally in preventing the crashing of global fisheries and ensuring their sustainability, but it lets itself be caught up in this emotional nonsense. So should environmentalists care about building coalitions to rationally manage the oceans as a whole, but they choose to fight what should be one of their greatest natural allies - because the partisan battles provide such a rush and keep those contributions rolling in.
There are obvious solutions on whales, that would allow some take of abundant species while protecting others. Establishing property rights of the kind that are now being seen as the solution for managing fisheries (ITQs) is one, and one that would allow environmentalists to directly express their preferences by owning and managing their own stocks, and buying rights from others.
But it's time to start realizing that the current terms of discussion about whales are not only unproductive, but actually imperil much more important issues about fisheries.