Greenpeace Renounces Nonviolence

Amsterdam, June 19, 2010 -- Greenpeace, the activist group known for its risky, but non-combative, worldwide efforts to protect the environment, declared today it has officially renounced non-violent tactics.

The Terminal Avenger, now with torpedoes

The act is seen as a reaction to an increasingly hostile activist environment that has frequently pitted Greenpeace in one-sided violent confrontation against both anti-environmentalist corporate interests and the often corrupt governments that support them.

"We've been broadsided, beaten, Maced, bombed, sunk, sued and spat on for years, and that's just by the politicians," Redwing Beetleboi, a senior Greenpeace spokesman, said. "And so far, we've always turned the other cheek, as the saying goes. Well, fuck that. From now on, the gloves are off."

The new approach was conceived, according to Mr. Beetleboi, after an Icelandic whaler intentionally harpooned a hole in the hull of the Greenpeace boat Sparkly Contender during an encounter near the Vestmannaey Jar off the coast of Iceland last week, swamping the fragile craft.

The two-man crew, once safely aboard the mother ship Cuddly Dumpling, retrieved the harpoon and hurled it back at the whaling ship, the Blubbaerii Tubbaerii, reportedly shattering a communal pumice stone and breaking a jar of pickled herring, resulting in minor brine leakage.

"I don't know what came over me," Kid Love, the Greenpeace member who threw back the harpoon, said. "We're so used to getting shot at that normally I don't even react, but this time something snapped. And damn, did it feel so, so right."

Following consultations among Greenpeace senior management, a briefing was sent out the following day to all central and regional Greenpeace offices: "From now on, we fight back."

"Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, Gandhi – all of them advocated non-violent resistance, and what happened? They got whacked," Catalina Butterfly, a spokesperson with Greenpeace International's Amsterdam headquarters, said. "If they'd been carrying RPGs, maybe their fates would have been different."

Ms. Butterfly said a call for weapons donations had been sent out to Greenpeace members worldwide, with an immediate and impressive response.

"Contributions have been pouring in by the crate," Ms. Butterfly said. "M-16s, samurai swords, fragmentation grenades, cluster bombs – even a howitzer. You wouldn't believe what some private citizens have stashed away in the attic."

As a public signal of the new "armed response" Greenpeace strategy, the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has been renamed "Terminal Avenger" and equipped with torpedoes and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The hull has been reinforced and smeared with ketchup to repel potential acts of sabotage by French agents.

Mr. Beetleboi stressed that the new Greenpeace armaments will mainly be used in a deterrent capacity, but pointed out that Greenpeace is ready and willing to respond with "overwhelming force" in the event they are attacked again.

"I figure, if I'm an Icelandic whaler, and I have the choice between not killing and dragging home 15 tons of whale blubber, which no one even wants to buy, or taking a shot at us and having my entire ship turned into an oily smear, I'd probably choose the former," Mr. Beetleboi said.

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor