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Like The Ojibwe

We in Wisconsin have been following the Makah whaling controversy very closely. It has close echoes of the conflict over Chippewa (Ojibwe) spearfishing in northern Wisconsin in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Substitute "walleye" for "whales" and it seems about the same.

In Wisconsin, militant anti-treaty groups carried banners reading "Spear an Indian--Save a Walleye," inspiring the banner at a recent Seattle rally that read "Harpoon Makahs--Not Whales." Wisconsin anti-treaty leaders inflamed public opinion with their claim that the Chippewa would "rape" the fish resource, even though the tribe never took more than 3% of the walleye. Wisconsin anti-treaty mobs committed numerous acts of violence--including rock-throwing, swamping of Chippewa boats, death threats, and pipe bombings. Riot-clad police and National Guard helicopters were deployed to northern lakes.

Like in Washington, the Wisconsin anti-treaty protesters would racially lump the specific treaty tribe together with all other Native Americans. They assumed that the tribe had a commercial reason for exercising its treaty rights--until they found out that tribal members would not accept millions of dollars to give up their rights. They also opposed the tribal use of modern technology (such as motorboats) that were not used in the treaty era, assuming that Native cultures are dead relics, instead of living, evolving cultures. They would not similarly oppose Americans' use of electronic voting machines, which were not in use at the time of the U.S. Constitution (a document almost 70 years older than the Makah treaty).

The environmentalist facade of Wisconsin anti-treaty groups fell away when mining companies such as Exxon and Rio Algom started coming into the Northwoods for metallic sulfide minerals. Even though this type of mining can release sulfuric acid into trout streams, the anti-treaty groups still chose to blame the Chippewa for all environmental and economic problems. But many sportfishing groups began to get wise, and started to understand the history of the treaties, the Chippewa respect for the environment, and the threat that mining would pose to fishing by Indians and non-Indians alike.

The sportfishing groups and the tribes began to realize that instead of arguing over the fish, they could come together to protect the fish from a common outside threat. Today, Wisconsin has a strong interethnic alliance of Native Americans, sportfishing groups, and environmentalists opposed to sulfide mining, and has won victories to protect the fishery. Please see the Midwest Treaty Network web site for more on this story at http://www.alphacdc.com/treaty or see the book "Walleye Warriors," by Walter Bresette and Rick Whaley.

Just as Wisconsin anti-treaty leaders focused more attention on the Chippewa than on the mining companies, Sen. Slade Gorton (a strong backer of harmful mining) and the Sea Shepherds focus more attention on one whale taken by the Makah than they do on the threat to the entire North Pacific ecology from companies such as Mitsubishi and Tyson Foods. We trust that the people of Washington will also get wise to this new anti-Indian movement as a diversion from the real environmental problems facing marine life, and facing human beings of all nationalities.

Debi McNutt and Zoltan Grossman, Midwest Treaty Network, Madison, WI

Like the Norwegians

Virtually everything about the Makah whale kill leaves me feeling sad. I mourn the young whale killed, and I mourn the sight of whale-defenders denouncing the Makah as murderous savages, while the Makah and Makah-defenders denounce the whale-defenders as racist assholes. The bloodbath has extended far beyond Neah Bay, and none of it is pretty.

Lots of heat - precious little light. What does Eat the State! have to offer? More heat! Rants! Amid this exercise in polarization and vilification among erstwhile allies, is more ranting and ridicule really what we need?

Not that there haven't been lots of boneheaded public statements truly deserving of criticism. I read the two pages of letters in the Sunday Seattle Times right after the kill. The constant refrain among the more polite critics of the Makah went something like: "Let go of the past & join the modern world! Assimilate into our culture & play by our rules, & you'll be better off. Really." Nauseating.

Both Geov & Troy make good points in their rants, but both miss an opportunity to introduce constructive dialogue and healing into a situation that has been almost completely devoid of it. Both sides of the conflict have shown evidence of noble intentions, steadfastness, and heroics in pursuit of their (conflicting) goals. Why not write about that for a change, instead of attacking the idiots?

What's more, from a purely journalistic standpoint, ETS! has been missing the real story, as it focuses--like the Big Evil Corporate Media--on the relatively trivial sideshow of insults and invective among a minority of partisans. (The fact that anti-Indian racism still exists in America, while not something to be ignored, is hardly big news, unfortunately.) The most significant aspects of the story are left untold.

Here are two key points that have been absent from most news coverage & partisan condemnations.

Pop quiz: How many more whales will be killed worldwide this year because of the Makah hunt than would be killed without it? Zero. The International Whaling Commission allows the killing of 140 gray whales each year; native Russians gave five whales from their quota to the Makah. This means the real question here is not "Will a whale be killed?", but "Who will it be killed by?" Given that, I find it difficult to make a righteous moral argument that it should be Russians rather than the Makah...

...Except for one thing, which is the second, bigger, point to this story. As Sea Shepherd has been trying to explain all along to anyone who will listen, the real problem is not the act of the Makah killing a whale, but the legal and political fallout from how that act is being justified. The "cultural necessity" argument put forward by the U.S. government in its petition to the IWC opens the door for any culture with a tradition of whaling (e.g., Japan, Norway, Iceland, etc.) to kill in the name of tradition. It strengthens the movement by these countries to overturn the international ban on whaling, and undermines the U.S. moral position to stop it. The U.S. further undermined its authority by allowing the Makah hunt without the approval of the IWC.

Paul Watson has said, "The truth is that it is not the Makah who are our enemy. We were in Neah Bay to oppose the Japanese and the Norwegians, who manipulated the Makah into this situation."

The chickens are already coming home to roost, as Japan utilized the Makah kill to highlight U.S. hypocrisy regarding traditional hunting at last week's IWC meeting.

If international whaling is resumed under the guise of "tradition," the televised carnage we recently witnessed will be repeated thousands of times over. That's the issue whale advocates should be focusing on, rather than venting our frustrations at the Makah.

Lansing Scott, Seattle, WA

The IWC Meeting

Opponents of the Makah whale hunt claim that the Makah hunt will open the way for Japan and Norway to resume greater commercial whale hunting. Japan has cited the Makah hunt in order to argue for resuming "traditional" coastal whaling for Minke whales. Both countries have tried to get the restriction against whaling moved from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). It is expected the CITES will be more supportive of allowing commercial whaling once a species, such as the Gray or Minke whales, is no longer considered endangered.

However, if the Makah whale hunt gave the Japanese and Norwegians additional leverage, it sure didn't help them much at the 51st annual meeting of the IWC, which ended on May 28th. At the meeting, according to a press release from the environmental group Greenpeace "...a majority of delegates rejected nearly every proposal by Japan, Norway and their Caribbean supporters to ease restrictions on commercial whaling..." Greenpeace reported that the IWC reasserted its role as the world authority on whale management, defeated a motion by Japan to re-open the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary to whale hunting and passed resolutions questioning and opposing Japan's "scientific" whale hunt.

The battle isn't over, of course, and Japan and Norway are both expected to push to have the ban on trade in whale meat lifted at the CITES meeting in April 2000. However, the International Whaling Commission has significantly weakened these moves and reasserted the extent to which world opinion opposes whaling.

John Chapman, Seattle, WA

Racist Website

Someone told me the Makah Nation had a web site. I tried to find it to educate myself a bit more about the issues involved. I typed in Makah.org and found a web site filled with horrible, vituperative racist raving. I typed in Makah.com and found a website that was visually identical but was very obviously the true Makah web site. Does anyone know who put up the horrible Makah.org? Is it illegal to "copy" something so closely?

If anyone knows who the Makah.org people are, please make the information public.

Thank you.

--Thalia Syracopoulos

KOMO Squelches Ad

The Campaign for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition recently placed the following radio ad on KOMO-AM, a self-proclaimed news/talk radio station. The station's sales manager, Bill Aanenson, pulled it minutes before it was to air because it was: a) "too controversial," b) "too negative," and c) he usually "walks away" from such material. KOMO-AM is owned by Fisher Broadcasting, which owns several radio and TV stations in Seattle. After you read the ad copy below, I'm sure you'll be afraid, very afraid, that corporations can hold more than a walkie-talkie in your city.

The ad: "Attention allergy sufferers: Rep. Jim McDermott is working overtime in Washington, D.C.--against you! Drug giant Schering-Plough, maker of Claritin, gave Rep. McDermott a $7,000 political contribution. Now he's paying the company back by pushing a special interest law that will block less costly Claritin competitors and cost allergy sufferers billions of dollars. Tell Rep. McDermott to stop favoring corporate pals at your expense. Call his office today at 206-553-7170. Paid for by the Campaign for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition."

Pretty radical stuff, huh? I wonder who else KOMO-AM has turned away because they didn't meet the station's corporate objectives. E-mail me for more information at larryco@cais.net. Also, if you have a chance, call Jim and ask him how much it will cost to "buy" him back from Schering-Plough.

Thank you.

Larry Richardson, The Campaign for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition, via e-mail

The Other Group

In your article, "Whither the Sierra Club?" by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, you stated "Gore, who authored a preface to a book Pope wrote in the '80s on hazardous waste, needs the support of the club (the only major environmental group that hands out political endorsements) to have any shot at winning the presidency."

The Sierra Club is not the only major environmental group that hands out political endorsements. The League of Conservation Voters and the autonomous LCVs in states across the country also provide endorsements and are widely viewed as the political arm of the environmental community. In fact, the various LCV entities consistently raise more money and do more on behalf of pro-environment candidates than any other organization in the country. For more information, please contact LCV at www.lcv.org.

Thanks,

Matt Blevins, Oregon LCV Program Director, Portland, OR

Eagle Porn

I just thought I would drop you a line to share some information with your readers about how to end junk mail. The weapon of choice is called Postal form 1500, and what a wonderful weapon it is. This form is intended to stop mail that is of an "erotically arousing or sexually provocative" nature. However, the U.S. Postal Code leaves it up to the mail recipient to decide what is or what is not erotic and/or sexually provocative. Therefore, if I happen to find an Eagle Hardware flyer arousing (and let's be honest, who doesn't?), I can fill out Postal form 1500 and then the Post Office will notify Eagle Hardware that they are now prohibited from sending me mail. In addition, Eagle Hardware must notify anyone else they have sold my name to and have me removed from their lists, too! If after 30 calendar days I continue to receive their mail I can take them to federal court where they will be held in contempt of court. I have used this form a number of times and have had much more success than going through the Direct Marketing Preference Service. In addition, I am looking forward to the day when I get to sit in a federal courtroom and declare the Eagle Hardware catalogue sexually provocative! For those looking for more information, the specific code is Title 39, Part IV, Chapter 30, section 3008. Enjoy!

Greg Harrington, Seattle, WA