CRIMES AGAINST NATURE, PART 3

As a member of the NRDC i regularly receive email notices and updates from them. last November i received an email entitled "Marine mammals are innocent victims of war on terror." i have saved that email, printed it out, have most of it by memory now. from that email:
           Under the cynical pretext of protecting national security, the Bush administration strong-armed the Senate Armed Services Committee into approving the most far-reaching rollback of marine mammal protection in the last 30 years. It exempts the U.S. military from obeying core provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
          Because these unprecedented exemptions are part of a "must-pass" defense bill, they were quickly approved by both the House and Senate, and President Bush is sure to sign the bill into law.

These exemptions from the provisions of the two Acts mean that the military can use high-intensity sonar and detonate explosives underwater, practices that disturb, harass and kill marine mammals, the dolphins, whales and others. probably many of you reading this have gone out of your way to visit the playgrounds of these creatures, taken whalewatch boats along the Atlantic or Pacific coasts to see the awesome antics of these beasts.

if i forget everything else i’ve ever done or known i will probably always remember my first whalewatch boat out from Cape Ann, MA, the first sight of a humpback whale breaching right beside the boat, ancient massive body encrusted with barnacles, huge watchful eye looking right at me from feet away, fins slapping the water. it was a primeval connection to something so beyond me, to life itself, to the enormity of all creation. today these creatures are increasingly beaching themselves to die upon the shores of North and South America, Australia, New Zealand. pods of whales come ashore where i lived on Cape Cod, groups of people are organized to try to save them, and no one knows exactly why it’s happening. it doesn’t take much imagination to connect this behaviour with their being driven suicidally mad by Navy underwater sonar, by gigantic underwater explosives detonations.   (Continues)