Anthony Damiano

Too often have I wretched over watching video depicting or learning of the brutal slaughter of many species at the hands of uncaring and unscrupulous men. However, it was not initially my main goal to try and convince all of you to stop eating meat or to stop buying items from specific corporations as I know so many of you can not take such steps either as of yet or ever. I have been doing my very best to remain realistic with my intentions. Many of you who may be reading this eat meat, always have and possibly(I use the word instead of probably out of hope) always will. I can not agree with the slaughter of animals, but I can not give grief to every person I know in my life because they are in fact meat eaters. This has always been my view and I believed firmly that everyone was entitled to their choices and opinions. Unfortunately, our choices have placed us on the brink of self destruction and the problem with opinion is that it seldom resembles or coexists in harmony with fact. The fact is that there are just too many of us, most of which are unwilling to make any form of sacrifice at the expense of personal comfort in the name of ecology. Our current "needs" now far exceed what our planet is capable of providing for us.
It is a difficult endeavor and usually much more expensive to shop only in certain places which you know are environmentally friendly. If you left your home with a list of twenty items you needed to purchase and made it a point to buy from stores other then Wal-Mart, you might have to make several stops in order to procure them. In comparison, Wal-Mart would probably stock nineteen out of those twenty items and also at a competitive price. I can not deny this, but I also can not deny that the Wal-Mart company is in direct responsibility for the death of much marine wildlife, and I am not speaking only of fish. Currently Wal-Mart holds stock in an Asian version of itself that has dolphin and whale meat on its shelves. The Japanese so called "research" vessels that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society confronts and battles each whaling season no doubt play a role in stocking those shelves.
What about the clothes we buy and where do we take our loved ones out for meals? We want to conform to the spring fashions and have family dinners, do we not? Who is to blame when companies like Dolce and Prada, or restaurant chains like Red Lobster and the Outback Steakhouse purchase from the same sources that bludgeon baby harp seals to a bloody pulp? Is it the consumer who is at fault for not knowing? The truth is that if I sat here dedicating all of my time to researching and listing every company with blood stained hands I would probably be here for months without sleeping much in between going to work.
The mere fact that there are still humans harpooning whales, clubbing seals and hacking up dolphins for meat is absurd and horrific. In my naivety as a teenager and a younger man in my early twenties, I was under the impression that this had, for the most part stopped. I thought that the slaughter was more isolated. It was only until more recent years that I found out this was still happening on a mass scale. May any god you wish to believe in forgive me for thinking that we had surpassed the stone ages of our existence because by my standards, we have not even come close. Our oceans are the cradle of life and we are defiling them with sludge and brutal butchery.
Our lust for oil and our waste has devastated the planet in immeasurable ways. What do you truly know about global warming? Even if you subscribe to the theory that we are not the sole cause, proof that we have significantly contributed to it and accelerated its process is everywhere. Our apathy and our importance placed on personal comfort can also be seen in simple statistics. Most people do not even realize that if everyone on Earth simply switched their light bulbs to fluorescent, a technology that has been with us for about 100 years or so when Tesla invented it, we would be pouring out only a fraction of the greenhouse emissions that have been deteriorating our ozone all of these years. Thus far only about two percent of the world's population have switched over. That piece of knowledge alone fills me with shame.
We as a race have already passed the crossroads and there were only two paths. Sadly, we have always been walking the wrong one. The current state of the world reflects the truth of the matter and recorded history is a testament to our apathetic nature and brutality. However, the path we did not choose is still there waiting for us. It is a daunting road, I would not try to deceive you. We have walked our current path for far too long and gotten quite lost in the process. Finding the correct path will be hard enough and walking it will be all the more difficult because of what has been ingrained into us. Even if all of our wrongs were righted tomorrow, all species on Earth, including ourselves, will still be headed for frightening times in the near future and it will only get worse the longer we do nothing to change our ways.
In letters that some of us wrote in "08" to Anthony Marr(president and founder of H.O.P.E.) for him to present to Secretary General Ban Kai-Moon of the United Nations in an effort to shift global military funding towards environmental issues, we spoke directly of our dire situation. We as humans have become a disease, a viru upon our living planet. If that statement strikes you offensively then you are not looking at the big picture and pleas do not give up on me yet, as I have not given up on you. In the defense of all humans, my letter also spoke of the great beauty that we are capable of creating. The truth is that we in fact not only could become the cure to the illness that we have caused but we can evolve into something much greater. I have such faith in that, in all of you, whether you believe me after reading my words or not, it is absolute truth. I have faltered many times, myself. I know that I have lost hope in and patience with all of humanity, but in the end, hope and faith in my own kind is what drives me to keep doing what I do.
I know what beauty lies in the human heart. I have seen it in my life among my family and friends. It has been shown to me by all of the selfless souls I have come to know in my dealings within these circles of change. It exists in heroes, the great men and women of the past and present who stood and stand for the preservation of life. The message here is simple. Now is the time for us to look within our hearts and find something more then what we have allowed ourselves to be. Evolution will proceed with or without human beings and we must decide in which direction it will take us. Does it really matter what label of god you subscribe to or which universal accident made us the amazing creatures that we are? All that matters is that we are all one race which actually has the capacity to choose its own fate. For a positive change to happen, we must each take a more serious look at our responsibility in spreading awareness to others. Together as a global family, we must stave off indifference, greed and ignorance.
Please join us, all advocates of wildlife conservation, environmental awareness and global reform in our efforts to stop the atrocities that we ourselves have afflicted upon the world. Help us to educate the masses and change the direction in which we are headed. Aid us in saving the human race from itself.
Please add Anthony Marr, founder and president Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE) at www.myspace.com/anthonymarr
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.ARConference.org
www.AnimalVoices.org
(604)222-1169
Learn more about the A.L.F. at www.animalliberationfront.com
I humbly thank you for taking the time to read this.
I love you all.
Anthony Damiano


Anthony Marr at Pt. Reyes National Park (Pt 1 raw footage)

Kindness of Strangers for the Earth & Animals | MySpace Video

Anthony Marr Raw footage part 2

Kindness of Strangers for the Earth & Animals | MySpace Video