Pirating for Publicity
Commentator Ezra Levant of Canada’s Sun News takes on eco-terrorist Paul Watson and his fraudalent publicity scams that netted $11.4 million last year for his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Once affiliated with Greenpeace, Watson was banished from that organization because of his violent and patently illegal “interventionist” tactics. He hasn’t just engaged in monkey-wrenching against fishermen, whalers and trappers, but gone so far as to use sabotage and ramming techniques against much smaller ships, placing their crews in danger of suffering injury or even death. To Watson, it matters not, because he’s a militant environmentalist who once proclaimed “earthworms are far more valuable than people.”
While he’s wanted for arrest in several nations and skipped bail following an arrest in Germany, Watson has been quite adept at manipulating the media to gain money for his cause. He’s the subject of Whale Wars, a show seen on Animal Planet, and his society has garnered support from such notable celebrities as Pamela Anderson and former TV game-show host Bob Barker. Here is Levant’s take on the Sea Shepherd brigands, as well as an excerpt from Whale Whores, South Park‘s lampoon describing Watson as “a smug, narcoleptic liar with no credibility.”
