In the past, when there was an important message to get to the people, a town crier would yell the information from the top of a building to the people below. Today, we have an important message to get out about how McDonald's is butchering animals, destroying the environment, contributing to world hunger, exploiting its workers, and trying to silence free speech. And like the town criers of the past, we should be yelling this message from the rooftops -- and what better rooftops to yell from, than those of McSlaughter?

This year, on the Worldwide Day of Action Against McDonald's (October 16), scores of protests occurred across the nation and around the world. But in both Santa Cruz (see story) and Minneapolis, activists did rooftop demos!

At the Minneapolis protest, four activists did a "human octopus" on top of the roof while over a dozen other activists on the ground chanted in support. At one time, protesters counted seventeen police, fire-fighters and McDonald's' employees and managers standing on the roof trying to figure out what to do. Two fire trucks, half a dozen police cruisers, and media vans (one which drove their satellite antenna into the electrical wires, temporarily knocking out power) were all on site to add to the confusion. It took the authorities two hours to saw through the protesters' U-locks and remove them from the roof. The rooftop demo received extensive local coverage and was featured on CNN -- making those protesters pretty good town criers.

Considering the effectiveness of these protests, there should be more rooftop demos at McDonald's. McDeath buildings are perfect for rooftop demos -- most are free standing, single story buildings that can easily be climbed with the aid of a ladder or the pipes and gutters attached to its sides. McMurders' low security also makes it easy to take over the roof before anyone notices, and the roofs are such that it is hard to fall off of them.

The roof-top demos could be even more successful if the door allowing access to the roof was blocked. If the door had been padlocked closed or in some way blocked, the police would have had to scale the walls or use a cherry picker to even get up there -- further frustrating the attempts to remove the activists. And considering the looks of those cops, it is doubtful that three-fourths of them could have made it onto the roof.

If rooftop demos against McDonalds were more frequent, I wonder what McProfit's would do to try and prevent them -- add more security? Change their building design? Or just give up and suffer through them? It would be interesting to find out.

So the next time you protest McDonald's' evil ways, don't take it to the streets -- take it to their roofs! Vegan Power!

Organize Against McMurder!

Contact the US McLibel Support Campaign if you: * need help organizing a McDonald's protest. * want to protest the McDonald's 1996 annual share holders meeting in Chicago at the end of May. * want to take part in a worldwide day of action against McDonald's after the outcome of the McLibel trial is determined this April.

US McLibel Support Campaign
P.O. Box 5461
River Forrest, IL 60305-5461
t: (312) 282-8236
f: (312) 282-8238
e: wildvegan@hotmail.com
w: www.mcspotlight.com