Monday, June 26, 2006
WAR Visits Pfizer & Novartis Executives

Happy Birthday Peter Young!

Tonight's protests were special to us as we gathered to honor imprisoned animal liberation freedom fighter, Peter Young who celebrated his 30 th birthday. Peter, we would have loved to visit a mink farm in your honor, but there arent any here in New York City. So, we visited some pharmaceutical scum instead.

Demo #1:

WAR activists started the evening with a visit to Novartis Vice President, General Counsel and head of the Tax Department, Wayne Merkelsen. We hand delivered a packet of information to Wayne's friendly doormen and then notified them that a protest was about to begin in front of their building. A dozen activists held the large graphic banner and posters depicting the atrocities that have happened at HLS. This neighborhood is popular for NYU students who showed interest, empathy and support. Some even vowed to attend our next protest. We hated to leave this high visibility spot, but we had other visits to make

Demo #2:

Off we went to the home of Pfizer Director of Marketing, Carl Swedberg. Carl wasn't home (or was he?) so after delivering our packet of information and DVD of the undercover investigation of the cruelty that takes place in HLS, we started our protest. Multiple residents of the building showed total disdain for us, telling us among other things that our demo was illegal (meanwhile the troll who said that was double parked on the narrow street blocking traffic). We were mocked and we were threatened with physical abuse. We were pushed…all this by people who claimed to be protecting their rights from “illegal protesters”. Strange reaction when only 2 blocks away we received nothing but support and well wishes.

Demo #3:

After the extremely loud and energetic demo that took place at Carl's, we decided to tone down our next demo. Since it was getting close to sundown, we lost half of our contingent. 6 activists continued to the brownstone home of Kevin Williams, Regional Director of Pfizer. We have dubbed this location the “Home of the Screaming Women”.

After verifying that Kevin did in fact reside in the building and delivering our packet of information to a very nice lady, we started a low key, toned down demo. Within moments of starting, the same sweet woman who had taken the packet came out on her 2 nd floor balcony and started to scream at us at the top of her lungs. It was ironic that she was screaming in front of the open doorway to her apartment as her compalint was that we were waking up her newborn baby.

We ignored Screaming Woman #1 on the balcony only to have another screaming women, this one much older, get up in our faces screaming about how her family was in the middle of a medical emergency. From what we could make out, this woman's sister had a baby and she was having a medical emergency and the newborn baby was sleeping. We explained to Screaming Woman # 2 that the screaming of two women was louder than the chanting of the demonstrators.

Screaming Woman #1 continued to scream from the balcony while the older one screamed at us inches away from our faces. Screaming women # 1 took out her garden hose and threatened to attack us with water. We explained that we would call the police, so she backed down. Screaming woman #2 eventually went inside only to be replaced by Screaming Woman #3, who claimed to be Screaming Woman #1's sister.

Screaming Woman #1, who accepted the package for Kevin Williams now screamed that Kevin didn't live in the building. We guess she forgot that she was the one who told us he did. We reminded her of the package which she had delivered, so she quickly undelivered the package by throwing it at a protester. Meanwhile Screaming Woman #3 told us that Kevin lived there, but didnt work for Pfizer. We suggested that all 3 screaming women get their stories straight. Although police had been called numerous times, no one came.

Demo #4:

Our final stop of the evening was the luxury building of Novartis General Counsel and Vice President, Dorothy Watson. Although this building was only 2 blocks away from Kevin's place, it was like being in a different world. People were friendly and supportive. Everyone was interested and asking for flyers. Nice neighborhood, nice people….but, we hear that Dorothy is not well liked by her neighbors. After a short but spirited protest, police arrived just as we were about to leave. We stopped to ask if they were looking for us and if they had spoken to the “Screaming Women” and by the way they rolled their eyes and wished us a pleasant evening, we knew they had responded to that call.

WAR wishes to take this opportunity to wish Peter Young a happy birthday and to send him a message to stay strong and focused and know that he is admired and supported. We dedicate this day's activities to our friend, Peter Young.