2005-12-18

In Defense of Animals

Portland, OR

Anthony Marr:

Turn Compassion into Action
Saturday, December 18, 4 - 6pm
Old Wives Tales Restaurant

A talk for budding and veteran activists alike. In this lecture, Anthony
shares his experience gained from his successes and failures in a decade of dedicated and relentless activism (see www.HOPE-CARE.org). He'll talk about how to become a 24/7-full-time activist, use direct, indirect, overt and covert actions, conquer fears, take calculated risks, lead project teams, launch expeditions, conduct speaking tours, handle confrontations, endure ridicule, engage media, captivate children, forge coalitions, act abroad, and raise action. All in all, the lecture will cover the dos and don'ts of effective campaigning.

Anthony Marr is a world-known wildlife preservationist, a vegan animal rights activist, a dynamic campaigner and inspirational public speaker, and a highly respected scientific philosopher and author. He has dedicated his life to action on behalf of animals and this planet, and to further civilizing our species, and has been extraordinarily successful in these regards.

* * *

2005-09-29

Dolphin Protection Coalition

Anthony Marr presentation tonite!

topic posted Thu, September 29, 2005 - 10:07 PM by star_fish

It was a real honor to have Anthony Marr from HOPE with us tonite to show us his Power Point presentation. He's very knowledgebale and trully motivated, and I would highly recomend him to anyone interested in saving the dolphins...and seals and tigers! We leart a lot tonight if a very short time from someone who has their facts down and been doing this for some time.
I can't help but feel like a juvenile sitting there looking up to him...our group is only a month old can you believe this?

posted by:

Captain

Re: Anthony Marr presentation tonite!

Fri, September 30, 2005 - 9:49 PM

     One thing he shared that hadn't been seen before is that there are two swim with the dolphin aquariums in Taiji. If I am not mistaken, one of them is besides the cove where they kill the dolphins. And they serve dolphin meet at the aquarium. Its sounds too ridiculous to be true.
     And to think that the dolphins do not attack the humans seems even more amazing.
     The seems such a great example of cognitive dissonance. The same type shown by cigarette executives and other such jobs that are obviously unhealthy for other human beings yet the people in those positions still maintain a belief in self that they are not doing anything wrong.
     Education is the answer. I would highly recommend Anthony as a speaker. Perhaps there are some people in this tribe that might invite him down to give a presentation in your city?
     As Starfish points out, here is someone, like Ric and DJ, who is in the front lines working on this issue on a daily basis. Its very inspiring to see their work and what they have accomplished.

star...

Re: Anthony Marr presentation tonite!

Fri, September 30, 2005 - 10:35 PM

     thanks for bringing that up, i wasn't sure if that classified info or not :-P
     either way it is very disturbing to have a dolphin swim, but right next to where the water runs crimson from their blook as they get slaughtered!!!
     this gets even sicker - you can buy a piece of dolphin jerky and then go for a dolphin swim a few feet away. we saw the images and it looks like disneyland gone very bad - unreal, i would think it to be a hoax! but it's real and as SICK as it gets!

star...

Re: Anthony Marr presentation tonite!

Fri, September 30, 2005 - 10:36 PM

please excuse my typos, it's been a long week.

Re: Anthony Marr presentation tonite!

Sat, October 1, 2005 - 11:23 AM

dolphin meat for sale? no way -- i couldn't believe it -- so i googled -

www.cdnn.info/eco/e030911a/e030911a.html
20,000 a year !!! oh my god! i'm in shock.

Re: Anthony Marr presentation tonite!

Sat, October 1, 2005 - 11:33 AM

sorry i should have read more of your previous links
i 'thought' that the oct 8th action was protesting dolphins who were killed by fisherman while they were hunting other fish

* * *

2006-05-30

My take on the Vancouver Parks Board meeting

by Anthony Marr

The official focus of our segment in the Vancouver Parks Board meeting was the proposal by Parks Board Commissioner Marty Zlotnick to basically rule out any referendum process on any thing that has to do with the Vancouver Aquarium, be it its planned 30% expansion, or further acquisition of whales and dolphins.

There were 26 speakers in total, listed below in chronological order of speaking, and color-coded for good and evil, 5 minutes each.

1. Anthony Marr (HOPE-CARE)

2. Kelly Bunting (Coalition for No Whales in Captivity)

3. Janos Mate (Whale Friends)

4. Anita Romaniuk (ex? ParksBoard commissioner)

5. Lea Johnson

6. Robert Light

7. Bruella Battista

8. Keith Edwards

9. Isabel Minty

10. Stuart Makinnon (Green Party of Vancouver)

11. Joan Reekie

12. Laura McDiarmid

13. Jamie Lee Hamilton

14. Rebeka Breder (tentative)

15. Ron Rothwell

16. Janet Lenarduzzi (Chair, Vancouver Aquarium)

17. Stephen Thompson (Sea Shepherd)

18. Clint Wright (VP Operations and Animal Care, Vancouver Aquarium)

19. Tom Mayenknecht

20. Martin Haulenna (Veterinarian, Vancouver Aquarium)

21. Penny Hentzel (Volunteer, Vancouver Aquarium)

22. Eleanor Hadley

23. Brook Wade (Board Director, Vancouver Aquarium)

24. Jim Varah (Volunteer, Vancouver Aquarium)

25. Carolyne Varah (Volunteer, Vancouver Aquarium)

26. John Nightingale (Executive Director, Vancouver Aquarium)

Being the first speaker, and presumably the only person in the room to have performed missions in Japan, I saw my task as setting the platform, the main concern, the deep focus and the tone. I deliberately ignored the subject on the table (the Zlotnick motion) out of contempt (the biggest insult is to ignore), and concentrated on the global ramification of hundred of individual aquaria buying a few dolphins each, even if certain aquaria (e.g. the Vancouver Aquarium) have policies to not purchase dolphins caught from the wild ("Japan will just capture more young female dolphins to breed captive-born babies which the "civilized" aquariums would then purchase.") I pointed out that at $20,000+ per captured dolphin and only $500 in meat per slaughtered dolphin, it is the dolphin-capture industry that is driving the dolphin-slaughter industry ("If no aquarium buys any dolphin, the slaughter industry would cease, and 20,000 dolphins a year would be saved."). At one point, the chairperson, one of the pro-Zlotnick commissioners, ordered me to get on topic. I responded "I'm sorry, commissioner, but my stand on the topic should be clear. I will use my time allotment to press my point. I want all present with the power to vote to have a clear picture of what they will be voting on before they vote, and I hope when they do that they will be voting with their conscience." He let me fnish. I concluded by saying "With what I have outlined, if the Vancouver Aquarium still purchases dolphins from Japan, you will have the blood of 20,000 dead dolphins on your hands, year after year."

Obviously, someone from our side had to address the official topic (the Zlotnick motion, which has more to do with democracy than animal rights), and Kelly Bunting took it up with gusto, and every speaker after her, all in all a powerful performance.

One of our speakers quoted MacKenzie King that those opposed to a referendum are the ones who are afraid of losing.

There were about ten speakers from the Aquarium, and they were scheduled towards the end, with Dr. John Nightingale given the honor of the grand finale and the last word. Steve Thompson had the misfortune of being placed in the midst of Aquarium speakers, but his combative eloquence did Sea Shepherd proud. (Could you post a summary of your speeches, Kelly and Steve?)

Eleanor Hadley (age 83) brought up the rear, whose speech moved Steve to make a special trip across the chamber-floor to shake her hand.

After the speeches, the commissioners (6) took a vote - 4-2 in favor of the Zlotnick motion. We groaned. At least one woman on our side broke into tears.

Here is my take on this matter:

1. We were unwitting poster boys/girls for the system to deomonstrate to the TV viewing public (very dangerous voters in the case of a referendum) how democratic "our" societal mechanism is (I mean, if this were China, I would have been led away in mid-speech and thrown into the slammer, and the key thrown away, right?).

2. Not a single word we uttered meant a hoot to the pro-Zlotnick commissioners (including of course Zlotnick himself). They may as well have put on head phones and listened to elevator music; the result would have been the same. Not a word that poured out from our hearts made one smidgeon of difference to these commisioners. The whole thing was premeditated, preplanned, predetermined, rigged, staged, signed, seal, delivered, on TV.

3. The Parks Board and the Aquarium have become one ("breathing through the same nostril", in graphic Chinese slang). They can plan behind closed doors at will, and twist any rule in their favor.

This meeting is the last straw in my humble opinion. While there is no doubt we have to continue following this avenue of pursuit (since the avenue exists, and since we can), but to follow it and it alone is to fight in the enemies' arena, by their rule, with whatever weapon they allow us. To ask them to do anything is to give them power - ours. And to react to their initiatives in which they have total control, and even to protest their actions, is to submit to their will.

We should by all mean continue to speak at their meetings, but our interest in doing so should be mainly to take advantage of these soapboxes that they provide us to speak our minds, perchance to reach the broader public through media (within the room itself, our words would by and large fall on deaf ears). In this we can be highly successful.

But this alone is not enough. We must create initiatives of our own, where the enemies have to fight in our arena, by our rule, with the weapons that we allow them.

As to what such an initiative is, it is limited only by our imagination, courage, determination and stamina.

* * *

2006-06-08

Declaration of Boycott

against Japan and Norway

To:

The Ambassador of Japan, Embassy of Japan, Ottawa, ON, Canada

The Ambassador of Norway, Embassy of Norway, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Dear ambassadors of Japan and Norway:

You might consider this a declaration of war on the wildlife front.

From July 2 to December 10, 2006, Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE) will be conducting its 4th Compassion for Animals Road Expedition (CARE-4), which will cover 35 U.S. states and 6 Canadian provinces. The media events to be conducted in every state and province will be called the Funeral Motorcade for the Slaughtered, to commemorate the 325,000 seals massacred in Canada this year with the participation of Norway (see below), and the 20,000+ dolphins and 1,000+ whales slaughtered by Japan and the hundreds of whales murdered by Norway over the last few months. In previous CARE-tours, we supported the international boycott of Canadian seafood products. In CARE-4, we will be calling for a general boycott of all Canadian, Japanese and Norwegian goods and services, worldwide.

50% HPIM4207

35% - 2005-07 CA,
SD to LA Motorcade
for

These Funeral Mortorcades are media magnets. By year end, millions of consumers in the 100+ ! cities on the CARE-4 itinerary will have heard our message, and begun acting accordingly.

Case in point: Stephen Thompson of Richmond, BC, Canada, a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (an ally of HOPE), recently purchased a new Austin Mini Cooper in spite of his favoring a competing Japanese model. Rest assured that this will happen, in short order, all over North America against Canada, Japan and Norway, and subsequently worldwide.

Yours truly,

Anthony Marr, founder

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)

604-222-1169

www.HOPE-CARE.org

[email protected]

* * *