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11/05/2022
Where To From Here?
Dismissed, Betrayed, Ignored, Censored and Erased from the History of the organization I founded and threatened with legal action if I use the name or the logo I designed.
Wow!
Okay, I can whine, and complain, but that won’t get us anywhere.
The question is what are we going to do about it?
It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve had my history removed. After Co-founding Greenpeace in 1972, I was demoted to the title of “just an early member” years after leaving.
I suspect that is how I will soon be referred to in Sea Shepherd – just an early member. Already some directors are saying that I did not create the Jolly Roger logo and that my history and reputation are an embarrassment and an obstacle to the organization. The revisionism has already begun.
In 1977, I was dismissed from Greenpeace for being too confrontational, too aggressive and too controversial.
They at least had the decency to dismiss me at a Board meeting with a discussion and a vote. The Greenpeace Board made their decision. I accepted that decision and walked away.
I responded by founding Sea Shepherd so that I could continue to be confrontational, aggressive and controversial.
Amazingly some of the directors who voted to oust me from Greenpeace later joined up me with Sea Shepherd. Bob Hunter, John Cormack, David Garrick, Rod Marining, and Bobbi Hunter.
A few months ago, I was dismissed from the organization I established in 1977 because once again, people who became quite comfortable with their jobs and power status decided that I was too confrontational, too aggressive and too controversial.
This time there was no Board meeting, I was dismissed from the Global Board without a meeting, a discussion or a vote. I was notified of my dismissal by an e-mail and they have not spoken to me since.
Only one director in Global had the courage and the commitment to the cause to support me and that was Lamya Essemlali of Sea Shepherd France and she was not invited to the meeting nor given the right to vote on my dismissal.
So, all that can be done now is to do exactly what I did in 1977 and that is to rebuild, reorganize and continue to do what we have done so effectively for over four decades.
I’m looking at this as a reboot.
And I have to say that the situation has strengthened my resolve and inspired me to carry on. In truth I am feeling quite liberated from an invasive bureaucracy that was working to diminish my activism and to stifle my effort to effectively campaign for life in the sea.
This time I am not alone. I continue to be a director of Sea Shepherd France, the U.K., Austria, Brazil and New Zealand and I continue to have the honour of their support.
And today, I can confidently state that by the end of this year, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation will have a ship and that ship will be made ready for action on the high seas. We also intend to secure a 2nd ship in 2023.
We will rebuild our Conservation Navy and we will continue to do what we have always done and I am not alone. Dozens of my former crew and quite a few of my fellow captains will join the crew of the new ships because they joined originally for action, results and transparency.
If you want to continue to further this legacy of effective intervention through aggressive non-violence and if you are unafraid of confrontation, controversy and doing what needs to be done, please consider joining us.
We have an Ocean to save and time is running out. No more time for greenwashing games, for talk and more talk.
We need to get our ships back out to sea to once again sail into harm’s way and not to run away from confrontation and controversy.
Let’s make waves again.
Please consider joining my Foundation as a monthly or one-time donor.
Or the Ocean and Life