Taiji supermarket refuses access to Ric O’Barry and Save Japan Dolphins
September 3rd, 2009 by James
On the second day of Taiji’s dolphin hunt, animal rights activist Ric O’Barry tried to bring his entourage of foreign journalists into a local supermarket to get a look at the dolphin meat being sold there. Here’s a report from Japan’s NTV news:
The owner of the supermarket told them to go away. Just like the TBS News report from the first day of the dolphin hunt, no mention was made of the activists’ claim that dolphin meat being sold contains dangerous levels of mercury. I’m guessing that they avoid reporting it because they don’t quite trust the activists and don’t want to deal with the legal issues that might arise if they report that Taiji is selling dangerous dolphin meat.
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Good for the owner of that market. He doesn’t deserve to be bullied by a bunch of retards.
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But it’s cool for him to sell poisonous meat?
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So it’s cool to sell something that people eat and are just fine and health afterwards.
Something people make their living off of, and they don’t have other skills to make that quality of life. Forcing your culture and values on someone else about something that may seem culturally wrong to you but fine for someone else.
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The guy’s puportedly selling meat with dangerously high levels of mercury. Who’s the retard?
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why don’t you go any convenience stores and tell them to stop selling cigarettes?
why don’t you try stop liquor stores from selling alcohol?
how about McDonald’s..big mac is plain evil for human body!!
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You think that in this day and age people don’t know what they’re getting involved with when it comes to alcohol, tobacco or fast food? The point is that something which is essentially lethal is being unknowingly consumed. If you try to defend that then you’re not worth arguing with because you have no care for the health of others.
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Do you really believe what they are trying to do is to warn the Japanese how dangerous dolphin meat is?
Do you really think they are concerned about Japanese people’s health at all?
Mercury level is not the point, this guy just wanna make some cash broadcasting dolphin killing Japanese bastards, nothing else!
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The mercury claim is a complete red herring. Shark can also contain higher levels of mercury because it’s an alpha predator. Shellfish can also contain high levels of mercury and other environmental pollutants.
But nobody ever thought a clam was cute and sharks have terrible PR.
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The guy’s purportedly selling meat with dangerously high levels of mercury. Who’s the retard?
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Possibly the person double-posting?
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Outsiders should not over meddle with a country’s internal affairs. This should be something for the Japanese gov to take care of (and of course, take responsibility for); not some self righteous film director.
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I’m sure the government is making it a top priority
meddling foreigners! Arrr!
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If you have no intention at all to buy, you have no right to go into the shop.
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You don’t even if you want to buy. It is private property.
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As pointed out in the other article, the makers of this film didn’t really do their part to market this film properly, all the way from the title to presentation. Anyone in any country would be upset if you came into their backyards and acted like some in your face activist, no matter how right the message.
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This was his intention. He wanted the owner to not let him in and be able to say “Look, these slanty-eyed dolphin holocausters are trying to cover something up.”
He should just get kicked out of Japan. He’s there to cause trouble and nothing else. The dolphin hunt sucks, but if I’m not mistaken, it’s 100% legal. Taiji is a town of about 3,500 people, but he’s making it appear that Japan as a whole condones, and participates in this hunt.
It’s easy to target people who don’t look like you. I don’t see him going to Norway and Iceland and protesting their hunts.
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1) Just because something is legal doesn’t mean people can’t petition for a change of law. In fact, they quite frequently do.
2) Glad to see people are still busting out ye olde “well he’s not doing” misdirection. One person can’t be everywhere so don’t look at their inability to solve all the world’s woes as denigration of their efforts to solve one of them.
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ya but why japan? why not, like nakamura25 said, going to norway? why not russia? why not canadians seal bashing?
They dont even bother to have a Japanese title for the movie. So is he trying to “educate” the Japanese, or attack on their hundreds of years old tradition? You cannot just say, “oh, this is wrong because we said so, and you should stop this”
This is like if Indian Hindus tell Westerners to stop eating cows.(because its wrong, they are sacred, yada yada yada) This is Westerners telling Japanese to stop eating what they have been eating for hundreds of years. Not that i condone dolphin hunting- but people shouldn’t stick their noses in places they dont belong in.
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domo: Are you comparing farm raised cattle to wild dolphin? There are more than 4 glaring problems with that argument.
Are you also raising the “it’s their culture” issue?
Foot-binding is part of Japanese culture, too.
If Taiji started practicing foot-binding, would you support them? It’s been a practice for hundreds of years, just like dolphin hunting.
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What makes wild animals so much more precious than domesticated animals?
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Foot binding is an old ‘Chinese’ culture. Not Japanese.
What is wrong with foot binding? “I do not like it” is not an answer. Some people do all kinds of ugly cosmetic surgeries, that I hate to see, but I do not have any right to stop them.
Some people circumcise their baby boys. Do you think we should stop them? Some people let their babies go though medical surgery without the babies’ consent “for the best interest of the babies”. For arguments sake, if Chinese parents bind their daughter’s foot for the best interest of her, can we blame them?
Leave them alone. You do not have any right to peek into every household on earth to dictate do this or do that based on your preferences.
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The argument could be applied to the practice of brutally farming, and killing cows, pigs, chicken etc.
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“I do not have any right to stop them.”
People who get their feet bound do. And they have the right to ask for help.
““I do not like it” is not an answer.”
Is “it is extraordinarily painful and cripples you for life” a better answer?
This whole issue (of rights and culture) is far too complicated to be settled by blog posts. Nothing will be achieved here but some smart-arse comments and feel-good rants.
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1) Is he a citizen or resident of Japan? If not, he has no right to demand a change of law and disrespect an entire nation based on the completely legal actions of a very tiny minority. If he is “petitioning” for a change of law, why not travel to Tokyo to talk to the lawmakers? Why not get 100,000 signatures of Japanese people opposed to the dolphin hunt? Why does he have to harass the people of Taiji? Because it’s easy.
2) If he was really committed to this cause, O’Barry would travel the world. Sure, he can’t be in two places at once, but he can go to Norway next week and Iceland the week after. The bottom line is that he targets Japanese because it’s easy to attack another ethnicity.
The store owner in the video is just trying to run a business, selling 100% legal products. There is no need to harass him, and it won’t bring about any change. Like I keep saying, it’s easy to attack these people and look superior. That’s all this asshole is looking for.
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“The bottom line is that he targets Japanese because it’s easy to attack another ethnicity”
This is just a guess.
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It’s just a guess and it’s another attempt by Nakamura25 to cast an aspersion on someone other than the people brutally murdering dolphins. His “best” arguments are all attempts to deflect attention away from the people that slaughter dolphins in a completely cruel fashion and somehow make everyone else look bad.
It’s the same type of tactic Muslims in America use. Oh sure their religion mentions waging war against unbelievers no less than 120 times in the Qu’ran and it’s a practice they’ve waged unchanged for 1,400 years. But if they can cast themselves as “victims” they deflect attention onto their accusers. Different facts, same tactic here. It’s just funny that this guy is using the “mind your own business, the country that attacked Pearl Harbor does,” tactic.
In the end you can ask yourself one simple question. If there is nothing wrong with what they are doing in Taiji then why would they go to such lengths to conceal their activities from not only the world, but their own people? They are brutal, inhumane and deceitful and if that doesn’t warrant being “attacked” then I don’t know what does.
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Surely people killing, say, cows, dissecting them, selling beef, eating it, don’t want to be filmed when they know they will be the target of hatred in the film.
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“If there is nothing wrong with what they are doing in Taiji then why would they go to such lengths to conceal their activities from not only the world, but their own people?”
I don’t agree with this premise either. It could be that media frenzy is exploited for political gain, stirring up problems. The “if you’re innocent you have nothing to hide” idea is only valid if the other side is equally innocent (as in honest and incorrupt).
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All this arguing makes me hungry for a dolphin steak!
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Interesting to see people get so wound up over this issue. I would wager if there was an attempt to remove all the American military from Japan there would be a different tone. American military forces do not assimilate and are just as outlandish and cause simular social damage as this whole debacle.
In summary, just because you have a interest in Japan and her society (which I hope most do) you should still be able to see a wrong is occurring from both parties.
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“you should still be able to see a wrong is occurring from both parties.”
What is Japan’s wrong? Maybe the 26 fishermen of Taiji are wrong for killing intelligent animals, but that has nothing to do with the nation as a whole.
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Have you taken the time to look at the manner in which they slaughter the dolphins? They don’t just kill them, they make it slow and painful to “bring out the flavor of the meat.” The adrenaline “makes it taste better.” Contrast that with the way livestock is humanely slaughtered.
Where it isn’t humanely slaughtered it is prosecuted as cruelty by nearly every government on the planet. People would be less hostile to the practice if it wasn’t so outrageously cruel.
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Uh, aren’t you confusing the claim the Koreans make when killing dogs slowly and painfully?
I know that that’s a belief held in Korea and it has been criticized for being cruel and inhumane to dogs, but I’ve never heard that claim being made for dolphins in Japan.
If you have sources, please do post.
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I do not understand what you are trying to say.
US military stays in Japan based on agreement, whereas those activists are uninvited. There should be difference in welcoming attitude of local people.
You say, “American military forces do not assimilate.” Are you trying to say that the Japanese dislike foreigners if they do not assimilate? I can say assimilation has nothing to do with likes and dislikes of Japanese. The people in Taiji are against them just because they are against the dolphin hunt. If a Japanese anti-hunting group comes to Taiji, the local people will surely dislike the group.
There are a large number of Japanese who want to end US Japan security treaty and want US troops out of Japan. Their reason is not about assimilation but about US imperialism. US may start invading small countries like it did in Nicaragua in 1983 and 1984, or in Panama in 1989. Certain numbers of politicians in DPJ are against US imperialism. Now that DPJ took majority of the Diet, we will see how things develop.
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This is exactly the reaction Mr. O’Barry wanted, I’ll wager. This market owner fell right into this little trap.
The viewer will think “He wouldn’t deny entry unless he had something to hide.”
All sea animals have mercury, dolphins just so happen to have 5-10 times the safe amount set by THE GOVERNMENT. Therefore, it’s toxic. Full Stop.
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That is funny. THE GOVERNMENT says it is safe to eat limited amount of meat of Bottlenose dolphins.
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/bukyoku/iyaku/syoku-anzen/suigin/dl/051102-1en.pdf
The local people know the mercury issue of the dolphin meat. They buy the meat knowing the facts. What is the point informing people hundreds of kilometers away from the store about the mercury issue that the potential buyers already know?
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Because children don’t really get to choose for themselves whether or not they’re fed poisonous meat, they can’t really consent to it.
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http://karapaia.livedoor.biz/archives/51491834.html
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“…don’t want to deal with the legal issues that might arise if they report that Taiji is selling dangerous dolphin meat.”
That’s why we have the Konjunktiv 2 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood#The_subjunctive_in_German ) in the German language, so that the news can report what people say and state without being held responsible.
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