June 26, 1999
Picket report; Atlanta, Georgia
From: ethercat@netcom.com
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Picket Report: Cult Caves In In Atlanta
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 18:57:46 GMT
Message-ID: <377a6843.92981932@news.mindspring.com>
Time: ~11:30 till ~12:30
Cars: Fluctuated between 7 and 11 during the hour
We arrived late to meet Mad Cow, and didn't see him immediately,
so we got lunch at the St. Louis Bread Company (excellent bread,
btw!) for some brunch. As soon as we ordered, we spotted Mad Cow
undaunted by our absence, and picketing with a hastily-made
poster board (we had the ARSCC-ATL's signs).
Mad Cow and wynot covered the picket pretty well, so I'll just
add a few comments below to what they've written. As always,
their reports can be found at www.arscc-atl.com/pickets/index.html .
Cult reaction can be summed up pretty quickly. Bubbles took our
pictures again for the umpteenth billion time. A guy came out
and laughed at us for a while. Looks like everyone there has
caved in except Bubbles.
Re the pictures: I can't imagine why they need so many, unless
it's to document who was at each picket. What legitimate purpose
this could serve is beyond me, but pictures taken of us in the
past were used on both harassment flyers and on the
parishioners.org page, so if they are sent uplines, then they are
also sent back downlines when upper management thinks they need
to use them. This would seem to me to be a centrally directed
pattern of intimidation tactics.
Mad Cow mooed:
> Indeed, the residents of Dunwoody understand and appreciate our
> efforts.
Yes indeed they do. Just the number of positive ACKs (52, I
believe) from the public convince me of that, since each ACK
comes from someone who already knows enough about the cult to
understand what we're doing. I don't know where these people all
heard about the cult, whether it was from the various TV shows,
printed articles, word of mouth, or from the internet, but they
know enough about it to recognize us for our efforts. Pickets in
general are somewhat unusual here, these people will mention
having seen it to their friends and co-workers.
> One young lady yelled out "I'm a criminal too!" as she drove by
This young lady has been reading the newsgroup, I believe. :-)
> and another lady made it a point to pull into the org parking
> lot to thank us for the picket.
This was the woman from Clearwater who said they had taken
over her home town and ruined it. We told her about how the
property in Clearwater owned by the cult is untaxed, and that it
hurts the city. She was grateful to us for being there. She
undoubtedly will tell friends and relatives about seeing us.
> Over at the bread store, an elderly lady mentioned how we had
> guts to stand up to the cult.
The cadillac full of senior citizens pulled up to the bread
company as wynot and I waited for Mad Cow to finish his solo
picket. I could see they were looking over at Mad Cow, and
commenting to themselves before they got out of the car. After
they had gotten out, and were still looking over at Mad Cow, I
saw one of the ladies hand a bible to the driver to lock in the
car while they ate. I heard one of them say, "He's got some
nerve." I remembered Ted Mayett having said that he once
encountered a devout Catholic Hispanic man with a gun, ready to
shoot him for picketing a church on Sunday, until he let the man
know that it wasn't a real church. I told them, "it's not a real
church, they only claim to be a church for tax exemption". One
woman said, "We know. We admire what he's doing. He's brave."
We smiled and knew these people would pass the word along too.
We seem to be developing quite a lot of support from the
surrounding neighbors. And the steak dinner later that evening
with Mad Cow and Mrs. Mad Cow (the cannibals!) was wonderful.
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--(((---(((----------| ethercat |-------- (ascii art by Mike Rosulek)
