March 27, 1999
Picket report; Atlanta, Georgia
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Picket Report - Atlanta - March 27, 1999
From: ethercat@netcom.com
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 08:43:23 GMT
Message-ID: ethercatF9AqwB.3sM@netcom.com
Car Count for Ted:
14 in front, 4 in back (as near as we could tell)
STATS:
Length of picket: 1 hour
Number of picketers: 5
People stopping to talk: 2
Flyers: none
Reaction from locals: positive
Reaction from co$: non-confront, photos only
Incidents: none
The 5 of us arrived at the new Atlanta org in Dunwoody at 5pm, on
Saturday March 27. The banner sign which had supposedly disappeared the
night wynot and I did a reconnaisance has still not been replaced, so
there is no way other than the street number to identify who occupies the
building. I guess they're not counting on walk-ins for fresh meat.
I heard a rumor that the Atlanta org's assets are frozen, so I wonder if
that could be the reason they haven't replaced the sign. If anyone has
any concrete information on the allegedly frozen assets, I would
appreciate if they would post it or email me. It might be helpful to us
here, in some way.
There was very little foot traffic, since this is the suburbs, but LOTS
of car traffic. 3 of us were veteran picketers of Co$, and we had also
gained 2 new picketers in the last week. The ARSCC-ATL hadn't expected
the sudden rise in membership, and so only had 3 picket signs ready to
distribute among us, but had managed to get hold of a video camera, and
so we took turns carrying the 3 signs and the video camera.
2 of the signs read:
$360,000 for Salvation?!?!?!
Scientology Is A Scam!
My sign had 2 sides, one for the org:
CO$ Stole My Friend
and one for the street:
Scientology and Dianetics Suppress Free Speech and Free Thought
(with the word "suppress" in a different style font, to stimulate those
engrams!)
As soon as we started picketing, we started getting honks, thumbs-ups,
people craning their necks to read our signs, and shouting out agreement
with us from their cars. We waved, we smiled, we thumbed-up back at
them, and generally had a good time making sure as many cars as possible
could see our signs. One person running with someone else across the
street was so eager to read our signs, he failed to see a road sign in
front of him, and banged into it. He appeared to be ok afterwards,
though, because he continued running. Thank Xenu.
Soon after we started, a man drove into the parking lot, looking very
enturbulated at the sight of us, and then went inside. We made sure he
saw what the signs said. We thought "good, now they will know we're
here," but no one came back out to handle us...
Another man drove into the parking lot, and we thought he was going to
the org, but it turned out he had just seen us and stopped out of
curiousity to ask, "What's the deal?" He stopped in the driveway,
blocking it, and C. (one of our new picketers) was in a position to talk
to him without standing in the driveway herself, so she began to explain
about her friend who had disappeared into the Church of Scientology and
emerged a zombie, and as I walked back and forth, I heard her continuing
on about Xenu and the body thetans, and the high cost of ridding yourself
of them. Wynot went and filled him in on the IRS and the shadowy tax
exempt status, and how it's up for reevaluation this year, how to find
more info on the net, and then the guy thanked us, gave us a smile, and
drove away. He had stopped for about 10 minutes to talk to us.
We still hadn't had any attention from inside the org, so when we saw
another Scientologist, we asked him where Susan and Linda were. He said
nothing... Friendly bunch, these scientologists... Quite out of line
with our ideas about southern hospitality and all that...
While we picketed, several people left the org, some came back. People
were exiting from a side door and going around back to smoke, and I
assume they must have been told not to hang around the front smoking
(Dunwoody is conservative). One man left the org with a small boy, who
he made duck down when he drove out. We're not sure why, but we assume
it was so he couldn't read any of the signs. We believe this small boy
will remember the day his dad was so afraid of the evil SPs, he made him
hide. We hope when he does, he will wonder why...
We started getting disappointed when 45 minutes had passed and we still
had no handlers or photographs taken... We had planned to leave after an
hour, and it was getting close to 6pm, so we began to discuss leaving
soon, when a lady came out of the org with a camera! YES! Our existance
is validated! (Instead of the digital camera I mentioned in an earlier
post, this time it was a film camera. The digital must not belong to the
org...) She refused to speak, but stood there with a strange grin on her
face as we posed for her, smiling with our signs. She obliged me when I
asked her to take two of me since I had two sides to my picket sign, so I
could make sure the "CO$ Stole My Friend" side was seen. C. insisted on
posing with the "CO$ Stole My Friend" sign too, since my scientologist
friend was also her friend. S. posed with the vidcam, taping her as she
photographed him. Wynot kept telling her, "If there were any OTs anywhere
in the world, we wouldn't be here." She ignored him, and took his
picture, then went back inside. We were glad to have some new faces for
the files uplines. I wonder what was up with the grin, wonder if she's
been reading the posts...
We guessed that Susan or Linda (the handlers) must not have been there,
and decided since we had only planned for an hour, and T. had to go
grocery shopping, that we would go ahead and leave. As we were walking
away, who should pull in but SUSAN! "SUSAN!!!" we cheered! Wynot and I
wanted to stay and talk to her (and extend MadCow's regrets that he
couldn't attend today), but T. said, she's probably come all the way from
home just for us, so let's leave now so she came all the way for
nothing. So we left, amused at the thoughts of whether someone in the
org was due a scolding for not having called her sooner, and whether or
not she will resent having been called this time, only to watch us leave,
and remember this next time she's called into the org from home.
We had parked up the street, so we could tell if anyone followed us,
since the police had told wynot and MadCow at the last picket that if
they did follow them, it would be misdeamor stalking. Wynot, T., and I
had to pass the org again on the way back home, and as we did, Susan was
walking back from the street, as if she'd come out to the street to look
for us (maybe she was disappointed too, thinking that she might have
missed seeing MadCow). We honked and waved at her as we passed, and she
turned and BLEW US A KISS!!! I think we may actually serve a purpose for
them, to give them evil to fight against, and to allow them to continue
to believe in the Grand Conspiracy of the Enemies of Scientology.
All in all, a good picket. Pictures soon.
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