Rex Brocki – August 9, 2016

After reading Dana Larsen’s impassioned screed on Facebook lately, detailing the “high crimes” of one Mr. Robert Moore, an astute observer might wonder why Mr. Moore has not risen to defend himself.

There’s a very good reason why he hasn’t: due to a legal action wherein Mr. Moore is the plaintiff currently sub justice, Mr. Moore is specifically enjoined against making any statements in any public forum which might even at the furthest stretch be considered defamatory against Mr. Larsen… no matter how true such claims might be.

Mr. Larsen is not yet technically a party to that legal action, and is thus at liberty to make whatever statements he pleases on the matter… a freedom he has indeed taken liberties with.

Reviewing Mr. Larsen’s statements, it is quite clear they all fall into the same category. There is a correct technical term for this category. The term is “NONSENSE.”

We’ll try to make some sense of Mr. Larsen’s accusations, such as there is and what there is of it.

First of all, Mr. Larsen’s oft-repeated claim that Mr. Moore stole money from him in the past is utter and complete foolishness: the money Mr. Larsen was referring to was in a bank account in Mr. Moore’s name, and was thus Mr. Moore’s property by any test which can be applied. The details of the matter would be much more embarrassing to Mr. Larsen than to Mr. Moore, and this is the reason why such details have been conspicuously absent from Mr. Larsen’s claims.

Let’s try another claim by Mr. Larsen: that Mr. Moore has “hijacked” the protests at the Art Gallery downtown. Well, in 2015, Mr. Larsen didn’t even BOTHER TO SHOW UP at the Cannabis Day protest, leaving Mr. Moore to do all the work, run the show, etc., etc.. It’s just a little difficult to make an accusation of “hijacking” stick IF YOU WEREN’T EVEN THERE TO HAVE ANYTHING OF YOURS HIJACKED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Perhaps Mr. Larsen is hinting that his stature towers so high that he has absentee ownership of the annual protest, an interesting theory… in the same sense that The Flat Earth Society has a similarly “interesting” theory of the shape of our planet.

Mr. Moore made the same effort at this year’s Cannabis Day Protest as has did in previous years: stage, equipment, tents… and Mr. Larsen’s minions did at least appear this year… to challenge Mr. Moore’s right to do anything at all. I’m not remotely kidding: I was present, working to help a friend with his booth, and heard with my own ears Mr. Moore’s multiple invitations for Mr. Larsen to come take the microphone and address the crowd… and also a shrill diatribe by a harpy cleverly if unconvincingly disguised as a human female, screaming that one of Mr. Moore’s helpers had “….no right to be here! Mr. Larsen has the right to be here, you DON’T! GET OUT!!” plus profanity beneath my dignity to repeat in print.

With “friends” like this, Mr. Larsen needs no enemies.

Mr Larsen didn’t attend last year’s global marijuana march either, so his claims of harassment at that event are even more laughable. Videos of the event are all over the Internet. Take a look for yourself: if Mr. Moore hadn’t been there with tents, banners, equipment, crew, etc., the entire event would have consisted of two guys and a truck!

It has been said that government is run by the people who show up. This statement is even more true for protests against the government… and Mr. Moore has done a lot of showing up over the past few years.

One last point concerning Mr. Larsen’s first piece: he makes many claims which he wisely precedes with “I can prove any of this, but…” which is indeed wise of him, since none of them are true. I’ll pick just one: the claim that Mr. Moore is harassing him by papering the vicinity of his headquarters with World Cannabis stickers. Ahem. I live nearly twenty miles away from Mr. Larsen’s address, and there is one such sticker on the light pole directly in front of my home, and more on the stop sign at the corner and around the block (and I have no idea who put them there… it certainly wasn’t me or anyone working for Mr. Moore). I will admit that I haven’t seen any of them as far east as Hope… but I have seen them in both Abbotsford and Chilliwack. Mr. Moore has printed up tens of thousands of those protest stickers and given them away free to activists all over the lower mainland. Harassment? I don’t think so.

Mr. Larsen opens his second piece with a regrettable lapse of judgment by dropping the disclaimer ( “I can prove any of this, but…”) with which he wisely modified his claims in the first article, and now calmly asserts all of them as fact… but this assertion doesn’t make any of them true.

Pictures seem to play a larger part in Mr. Larsen’s second and third pieces (perhaps he’s running out of words?). Unfortunately, the pictures he uses are no more proof than his words were. The screen shot of a “threatening” email from Mr. Moore plastered prominently through all three of Mr. Larsen’s pieces? That’s the BEST THING HE HAS, and it’s NOTHING. It refers to the very legal case I referred to at the beginning of this article, and while stating that you are going to sue someone may be a “threat” in the linguistic sense, it’s certainly not an actionable one in any court.

The remaining “shocking” photo of Mr. Moore which Mr. Larsen has seen fit to publicize in his piece(s), showing Mr. Moore’s face running with blood? Mr. Larsen’s use of that photo is even more disingenuous at best, and stupid at worst. Do you want the background of WHY Mr. Moore’s face is running with blood? Here it is: Mr. Moore and a disabled friend of his were attempting to serve court papers against an individual at Mr. Larsen’s place of business… AND BOTH OF THEM WERE ASSAULTED AND BEATEN BLOODY WITH BATONS… BY SEVERAL OF MR. LARSEN’S EMPLOYEES!!!

Yes, the employees involved were all charged with assault with a deadly weapon… while Mr. Moore was not charged in the incident at all.

I must say that I have to admire Mr. Larsen’s gall gut nerve, in attempting to use a photo of his own employees’ brutality to make Mr. Moore look bad… but then, I’m similarly compelled to admire the consummate professionalism of the Wehrmacht when they conquered France and the low countries in the opening days of the Second World War.