Worldlog 6 March 2017 - Main contents
Just one and a half week more to go before the Lower House elections are on. We have gained momentum and are busy with interviews, debates on television and all around the country, lectures, film performances, and of course polls. We are also all over social media. Our Dutch Facebook page passed the 100,000 likes last week, by far the largest number of all Dutch political parties.
In between all interviews and debates, I am travelling throughout the country together with Ewald Engelen to give our lecture on The Canary in the Coal Mine, the book I wrote about before (the book is also available as an English ebook). The lecture attracts a great number of people each time again, many who are not a member yet but are eager to hear our story. Of course they can vote on the 15th of March, but that is not the only way they can take action themselves. We can also do politics with our bankcard en with our knife and fork. Politics with a small letter ‘p’ is what Ewald calls it. We are definitely not powerless as a citizen, employee, investor or consumer!
My colleague Esther Ouwehand, MP and ranking No. 2 on the list, is travelling through the country with Lammert van Raan, who is ranking No. 3, with the lecture called ‘Idealism is the new realism’. They talk about expressive politics and demonstrate that idealism is the new realism, which is what the world urgently needs. On the basis of 10 years of the Party for the Animals in the Lower House and our election programme, they will introduce the real political alternative for the Establishment to people. It is time for Plan B because there is no planet B.
Those 10 years of the Party for the Animals in the Lower House can also be viewed at a public photo exhibition, in the heart of Amsterdam. The parliamentary history of the Party for the Animals is displayed on 22 photos. I revealed the photos together with other candidates. The exhibition outlines the booster role of the world’s first party elected into the national parliament that focusses on ‘non-humans’. If you happen to be in the neighbourhood, please drop by, the exhibition is free and in front of the Stopera .
Watch the video of the opening here.
New is also our interactive party programme, The Big Picture: Plan B, a specially developed form of informative entertainment aimed at a younger target group. There was never before an election programme in the Netherlands that was made visually accessible the same way. It gives visitors the opportunity to see at a glance what the Party stands for. Anyone who wants to get a better view can start an audio tour or browse through the many viewpoints of the Party thanks to a unique zooming technology. The topics are explained with a thematic video, an audio fragment, or short text. Unfortunately it is only in Dutch but it is nice to watch any way.
Just before we went on election recess we achieved two great successes, which I would like to share with you. The Lower House accepted our motion which obliges the Dutch cabinet to make an extra effort to stop the dolphin slaughters on the Faroe Islands and in Taiji.
And to many’s surprise: during the last parliamentary debate prior to the elections, the Lower Houses decided that cows must be led to pasture. A majority supported our proposal to ‘legally guarantee’ pasturing.
At the next Worldlog, the elections will be over and we will know the result!
Kind regards,
Marianne Thieme