Sunday, September 16, 2007

WAR Launches Campaign against Goldman Sachs

Demo #1 - Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer - Goldman Sachs

Five activists gathered at the meeting location at E. 86th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It was quickly apparent that we were being followed to our first location, 941 Park Avenue, the home of Goldman Sachs head honcho Lloyd Blankfein and his wife Laura. Following a not too discreet distance behind us were half a dozen of NY’s finest including the head of the 19th precinct. We could only deduce from this that the folks over at Goldman Sachs must have juice (political/financial clout)!

Deputy Inspector Murtaugh challenged the protesters suggesting that the precinct had not been notified. After showing him a copy of the demo notifications that were faxed to his precinct on 9-14-07 at 2:17 pm, We queried him about how he knew about the demos if the precinct had not been notified and he told us that they had “police intelligence”. We think maybe it had something to do with the fact that we posted the notifications extensively on the internet, to our mailing list and to 20,000 MySpace friends. Thank goodness for police intelligence!!!

Since this was our first time at this location, we did what is customary for us and had a relatively quiet low key demonstration. We held signs and banners and chatted with Lloyd’s neighbors, many of whom were very sympathetic to our cause. One well spoken woman even suggested the names and locations of other influential Wall Street tycoons, who have a soft spot for animals and that might be willing to help us. We passed out lots of flyers and several passersby rolled their eyes and said they were so happy to see that police outnumbered demonstrators because it made them feel so safe from us dangerous looking protesters. After an hour, we moved to our next location.

Demo #2 - Gary D. Cohn, President & Chief Operating Officer - Goldman Sachs

Demo #3 - Esta E. Stecher, Board of Directors – Goldman Sachs

A short walk north on Park Avenue to 85th Street brought us to 1021, the home of both Gary Cohn President and COO of Goldman Sachs and GS Director Esta Stecher. Our police escort, which was at this point supplemented by a police van, positioned themselves at intervals and on all corners leading to the building. We can only hope that New York City’s bridges, tunnels, airports and ports are as well protected as this posh residential building.

Once again, being a first time visit, we focused on displaying our banner and posters and speaking to as many of the neighbors as we could. Many took flyers and promised that they would check out our website and make the appropriate calls and letters. Support seemed quite high and we were gratified that so many were open to our message. Goldman Sachs is a key NYSE player and holds over 7,000,000 shares of stock in the NYSE Euronext. The 3 powerful individuals we visited today are in a position to influence Goldman Sachs and the NYSE.

The Community Affairs Officer of the 19th Precinct stopped by to chat with activists who explained that since there were so many influential executives living on Park Avenue that WAR had plans to visit on a weekly basis. With Derryck Maughan of GlaxoSmithKline at 730 Park Avenue, John Thain of the NYSE Euronext at 740 Park Avenue, James Robinson of Bristol-Myers Squibb at 778 Park Avenue and now the Goldman Sachs crew just a couple of blocks further at 941 Park and 1021 Park, no doubt we will be spending many future weekends on Park Avenue until the killing stops at Huntingdon Life Sciences.