An hour and twenty minutes of this crap, folx.
"Excuse me, but can you just tell me one thing? How is it
you can justify religious persecution? How can you justify
hating a religion?" [My internal response: What the hell is
there on my T-shirt or my sign that says anything about hating
Scientology? My T-shirt says "stop hurting people." My sign
says, "stop human rights abuses" and "stop abusing former
members." So unless it's a holy tenet of your religion to hurt
people, abuse their human rights, and harass former members, how
am I demonstrating any hatred of your religion at all? ;]
"Did you know Lisa? I knew Lisa. She helped me stay in
Scientology. [I was very tempted to say, "Oh, so you had doubts?
You almost blew?"] Lisa loved Scientology. And she would hate
what you're doing right now. Why are you doing this? Do you
even know why you're doing this? He doesn't even know why he's
doing this."
[To imagine this part as it was for me, you have to constantly
remember while you're reading it that you're paying respects to
someone these people have killed. These people who claim so
loudly to be her friends. You're mourning, feeling and
expressing grief for a beautiful life that was extinguished, and
trying to do so in a dignified manner. Against this background.]
BTW, I lied about only having my candle blown out once. I had it
blown out near the beginning of the vigil by the girl, and about
halfway through by a man in his twenties who just walked quickly
toward me, blew my candle out, and walked quickly on. He threw
some insult at me, but I can't remember what it was. I was
already so sad by that time that it didn't even really come as
much of a surprise.
"What you're doing is not all right. It's not all right.
You come here, some girl dies and you come here a year and a half
later. Someone dies and you come to her funeral a year and a
half later. You're a hypocrite. I say you're a hypocrite. You
don't care about her. You don't care about her at all. You're
just using this to make yourself look big. You're just using
this to build yourself up. You're just doing this to push
people's... [I could tell he wanted to say, "buttons," but he bit
his tongue] to push people about death. Has anyone close to you
died? Has your father died? Has your mother died? What if I
went to your mother's funeral. Would that be all right? What if
I went to your mother's funeral and told everybody that you
didn't care about her. Would that be all right? But that's just
what you're doing here. You're just trying to push people's--
people about death. A girl dies and you come to her funeral a
year and a half later. I say you're a hypocrite. You don't care
about her. You don't care about her at all. You're just trying
to push people about death. You're just trying to scare women
and children about death. You're just trying to intimidate women
and children. You're just tring to intimidate women and chilren
about death. You're just trying to push women and children about
death. You're just pushing people about death. You don't care
about her. You didn't even know her. You're a hypocrite."
"Actually you're doing us a favor, here. I haven't seen
this many people out in a long time. You're making us look
good."
"I offer myself, here. I offer myself to talk about
Scientology, I offer to talk to you man-to-man. To talk to you
man-to-man about what you don't like about Scientology. But you
won't talk. I say you're a hypocrite. I say you're a chicken-
shit. I offer to talk to you man-to-man, but you won't. You're
a chicken-shit. You're a chicken-shit. You don't care about
Lisa. You just came here to push peoples buttons [at last!]
about death. You're a chicken-shit."
for about 25 solid minutes. Like I said, the guy should have
been a DJ.
"These people came from who knows where, they just crawled
out from under rocks somewhere, and they know absolutely
*nothing* about Scientology. They are the rejects of society."
After going through all this, I believe that Operation Foot-
Bullet is both on-tech and on-policy.
Gandhi Tech(tm) v. Hubbard Tech, March 8, 1997
[Jeff Jacobsen, 12 Mar 1997]
From: cultxpt@primenet.com
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Gandhi Tech(tm) v. Hubbard Tech, March 8, 1997
Date: 12 Mar 1997 10:50:02 -0700
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GANDHI TECH(TM) V. HUBBARD TECH, MARCH 8, 1997
L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the church of Scientology, taught
methods to deal with problematic people. These methods I call
generally the Iron Fist approach, where you pummel the person into
silence or into stopping what you want them to stop. For instance,
"The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on
somebody... will generally be sufficient to cause his professional
decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." (Magazine
Articles on Level 0 Checksheet, p. 55)
Gandhi, on the other hand, taught to peacefully confront the
problematic people and let them show their true colors or character,
and then publicize their actions. I call this Gandhi Tech. Gandhi's
methods were to help all humans equally. "Often, in fact, Gandhi was
more interested in improving the human means than in attaining
political ends." (Gandhi, by Louis Fischer, p. 23). Gandhi called his
method "Satyagraha" which he defined as "the vindication of truth not
by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on one's self," or as
one author said "It returns good for evil until the evildoer tires of
evil." (ibid., p. 35). While I don't follow Gandhi's methods
precisely and I do have disagreements, I believe in Gandhi's general
theories.
The March 8 picket of the church of Scientology in Clearwater
Florida was in the planning stages four months before the event. As
one of the organizers, my goal was to have a peaceful picket of the
church at their most sacred site and let them respond. At most
pickets I've done the person or organization being picketed basically
ignored us. We had our voice of complaint and went home, and that was
that. But from reading Hubbard Tech, it was pretty certain that this
is not how the church would react. So we did all we could to make
sure we had a peaceful event, planning for any possible reaction and
keeping the local police and media informed of our plans. This was,
in a way, to be a contest between Gandhi Tech and Hubbard Tech [please
note that this is my opinion of the event and not necessarily that of
the other picketers].
Sure enough, on the night before the picket, a Clearwater policemen
came to our sign making session and told us what the church had
suggested for the day. They would be washing their hotel building on
one side of the sidewalk where we might be picketing, and they would
be having a kid's event on the empty lot along the sidewalk on the
other side of the street where we had been all along planning to
picket. They had not informed the police of these events until one
day previous. On top of that, if we did picket where we planned and
did not instead go to their suggested picketing site for us that would
have taken us around non-Scientology businesses, they would come out
with 500 counter protesters. Obviously, the goal was to shut us down
before we even started. Hubbard Tech was swinging into action. By
the end of the evening, we had agreed not to change our plans.
When we arrived to picket, we were indeed faced with hoses and
cleaners in front of the hotel and an "Anti-Drug Awareness Day" event
on the other side of the street. I arrived a few minutes after the
picket started and had a hard time finding any of us 30 picketers! We
had thinned out along the sidewalks on both sides of the street and
most of us were surrounded by Scientology counter protesters. The
method the church members used against us was to surround us, badger
and harass us with inane statements [like one guy said to me "do you
take videos of naked kids?"], get in our way, and try to hide our
signs from view with their signs. From 11am to 3pm we absorbed this
abuse. Their signs accused some of us of being porno kings, deadbeat
dads, or child molesters. By listening to the church radio
frequencies we could hear that this was a highly organized event on
the church's side. They were ordering people around to picketers
whose signs could still be seen so that counter picketers could hide
our signs.
At the candlelight vigil for Lisa McPherson that night, we came
with only candles, we didn't even bring any signs. This time the
church's tactic was to fill the sidewalk with probably 300 people so
that we would have to wade through this sea of antagonists for the
whole time that our candles burned down. As we slowly tried to wind
our way through this tight tangle of people, we were again cajoled,
made fun of, bumped, blocked, and often had our candles blown out.
We, on the other hand, were mostly silent and continued walking back
and forth through the crowd until our candles had dwindled to little
stubs. We then left and a great cheer came up from the crowd of
Scientologists.
Now we can ask, which worked better on March 8, Hubbard Tech or
Gandhi Tech? First, what did Hubbard Tech accomplish? It did not
stop us from doing anything that we planned on doing. It did prevent
passersby from seeing our signs. It also showed to the world how
cruel and unethical Scientologists can be. They seemed to view us as
some lower form of life instead of as fellow human beings. Their
iron-fisted approach did not work this day, in my opinion, except to
hide our signs.
What did Gandhi Tech accomplish? Exactly what Gandhi taught it
would. It exposed to the world (with the help of the media) just how
evil Scientology can be, how intolerant they are of free speech, how
willing they are to attack, and how uncivilized their moral code is.
Their facade of being a persecuted nice religion was shattered. We
succeeded this day.
Gandhi Tech worked in India, Czechoslovakia, the Philippines, and
in the US with the civil rights movement. I believe it can be
successfully used to stop the Church of Scientology's evil policies
and actions that hurt people. Again, I don't follow Gandhi's
theories completely, but this protest demonstrated to me that his
basic ideas do indeed work.
PICKET REPORT - Clearwater $cientology Protest '97
[Mark Dallara, 13 Mar 1997]
From: mdallara@kcii.com (Mark Dallara)
Subject: PICKET REPORT - Clearwater $cientology Protest '97
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PICKET REPORT: Clearwater $cientology Protest '97
- Mark Dallara
PRELUDE
The whole weekend was a lot of fun for me for a number of reasons. Of
course it was deadly serious for many of the people in our group, and
some of them came into town with a lot of emotional baggage because of
personal experiences with the cult. But up until recently, the whole
organization has had zero impact on my life. They would still have
zero impact on my life, except for the fact that I choose to stand up
and fight for free speech. So I was able to picket happily, and shrug
off their lame illogic, taunts, Death Stares(tm), and attempts at
physical intimidation. My cheery passive-aggressive attitude either
pissed them off or wore them down, and I enjoyed frustrating them and
pushing their buttons, because I knew they were trying to push mine
(they just couldn't find any).
I first considered participating in the picket when Maggie emailed me.
She had read my letter to the editor of the Weekly Planet, which was
primarily a jab at the "miracle" image of the Virgin Mary in
Clearwater, but ended with a dig at the clams:
"Of course, it could be worse, especially in Clearwater. If
the windows had taken on the image of L. Ron Hubbard, the
$cientologists would have sued Seminole Finance, seized the
building, copyrighted and trademarked the image, and started
charging admission."
(The Planet left the $ as written, and even included my email address,
at my request - gotta love 'em.) Surprisingly, the only hate email I
received over that was from a few enturbulated Catholics and one neo-
Nazi punk at USF. Maggie and a few others emailed their approval, and
she asked if I wanted to join the picket.
Why not? I had never been in a picket before, the clams are as big an
affront to the First Amendment as any, and the fact that they try to
hide behind it under false pretenses is utterly vile. I've just
recently become a paid member of the ACLU and the EFF, and it promised
to be an intensely interesting weekend, so I said what the fuck...
WAR ROOM
Meeting everyone Friday night was a trip. Some I had heard of, some I
hadn't, some I had corresponded with on occasion, but here they all
were in meatspace, planning strategy and making signs and getting to
know each other offline. I am not nearly as active on a.r.s or in the
clambake movement as most of the people there, so I spent a lot of my
time that weekend asking questions and learning more about $cientology
than any sane person wants to know.
I was glad to hear from attorney Ken Dandar that Lisa's family was
appreciative of the planned activities, and they were supporting us.
It would have really sucked if they objected to her picture and name
on many of the signs. I was also glad that I had an immediate
opportunity to pitch in. After making signs and going out for dinner,
I got to take two disks full of Rob Keller's pics home and start
uploading them.
FRONT LINES
The next morning, I showed up at the Pinellas County Courthouse in my
brand-new EFF t-shirt. I also had my backpack, which has a rather
interesting patch on the back pouch. It's the logo of NASA's
Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) Project, which was
the theme of my senior Engineering Design class. I wonder how it
looked to the clams? The image has elements that I think would strike
a chord with those following Hubbard's cosmology, or perhaps they just
thought I worked for NASA. :)
The first clam to glom on like a body thetan was Joe Neal, who claimed
to be a reporter for Freedom magazine, but is apparently a big-time
OSA prick. I whipped out the microcassette recorder when he started
talking to me, and said, "We can talk if you want, but I'm going to
record the conversation." It didn't faze him, but it startled many of
the counter-protesters that day. Unfortunately, the batteries were
low, so the quality of that tape sucks, but the effect alone was worth
having it there. I recommend it strongly as a standard picketing
item. :) Just bring fresh batteries and several tapes.
Neal tried to convince me that he was also a free-speech advocate,
while he also tried to find out who I was. He asked if I was a former
$cientologist (yeah, right), if I post to a.r.s (of course!), why I
was out there (free speech, jackass!), and who I work for. I didn't
answer most of his questions, and told him that I wasn't going to do
his dead-agent work for him. I gave him my first name, and explained
my motivation, and stonewalled on the rest. Of course, they had
enough information to find out who I was by lunchtime (and if you're
just now getting clued in, OSA, then YOU REALLY SUCK!!!)
Their counter-protesting tactics were easily defused for the most
part. If they tried to block me from the curb, I said, "Pardon me,
after you," and either refused to move until they gave me the curb, or
started walking along the curb in the other direction. If they got
too close, I asked them to give me some room and made it clear that
they had no choice but to accede. They only bumped me once or twice,
and I ignored it. If they had gotten too physical, I would have
gotten the cops involved immediately.
Many of them engaged me in debates on the First Amendment, the general
media, copyright law, and religious persecution. Some were amiable,
some were hostile, but I argued politely with each of them and
expounded upon the hypocrisy of their "church" and the fact that TIME
magazine has more credibility in the little finger of its lowest copy
boy than Freedom rag ever will. They kept looking for an opening and
trying to wear me down, but I **LOVE** a debate, and their points were
frivolously easy to counter or dismiss. Many walked away when I
started talking about Advanced Tech nonsense.
About halfway through the day, they changed strategy and started
bullbaiting me. One piece of trash glommed on and tried junior-high
provocations like "what did you say about your mother?".
Another tried to stare me down and annoy me by whistling. Another
made a big show of taking more pictures of me. I shrugged it all off,
and started taunting them, particularly about their sign-blocking
tactic. I moved my sign around, changed direction, and announced that
their behavior was typical, predictable, and pretty fucking pathetic.
One foreigner threatened to smack me in the mouth when I said,
"fucking"... I laughed, and taunted him more, saying "fucking
pathetic" a lot, and enjoying his enturbulated glares, as we walked
pass pairs of cops. ;P
The beauty of it was the fact that they COULDN'T get out of line with
all of the cops around. Too close, too aggressive, and they risked
getting reprimanded or arrested. It must have been driving them nuts.
All those god-like OT powers, all that control over Matter, Energy,
Space, and Time, and _they_couldn't_stop_thirty_wogs_from_picketing_
_at_their_front_door_. All of their "handling" had failed, and was
still failing. How frustrating that must have been! No wonder all
the top clams were out there! No wonder all the little clams were
snapping!
I observed here and there how other picketers were being "handled" and
how they were dealing with it. The clams clearly went after the
former members more aggressively, trying to dig their hooks in where
they thought they could draw blood. It was a bit surprising that
everyone, including me, seemed to want to picket at their own pace,
over a wide area, so that most of us spent most of the day solo,
surrounded by a clamknot. Of course, it spread the clams out all over
the area, too.
On the way home, I took precautions to keep from being followed. It
won't stop them from finding me, but there's no reason to make it easy
on them, and the more time and money they waste trying to tail and
investigate me, the better.
VIGIL
During the day picket, I kept telling myself that only some of the
$cientologists out there were predators; many of them are victims.
During the vigil, however, it became clear that any clam victims were
elsewhere, and that the $cienos crowding the sidewalk were filth.
Other protesters have documented how the vile motherfuckers behaved,
so there's no point rehashing it here.
As for me, I had come for a silent vigil, and I was silent almost the
entire time. It was immediately clear that the night was too breezy
to keep the candles lit, so I marched with the unlit candle in one
hand, and my tape recorder in the other. If someone blocked my way, I
walked around them. If they talked to me, I ignored them and kept the
tape recorder running. The batteries were fresh, the tape was new,
and the recording is good. You can clearly hear one of their
cocksucker lawyers ask if my recorder is on, and then loudly complain
that it's illegal to record people without their permission. Someone
(don't know if it was a cop or a protester) replied, "No it isn't.
Not in public." The lawyer tried to argue that my BT-clams were
talking to me, and that it was a private conversation. Moron. I
wasn't talking to them or trying to engage them in conversation. I
think I'll upload the more interesting portions of the tape. Clams
followed me almost constantly, trying to get me to talk or otherwise
elicit a reaction. I smirked at them once or twice, but that was
about it.
MAYOR CAZARES
After the vigil, I realized that the gentlemen marching with us was
former Clearwater Mayor Gabe Cazares. He was talking with Arnie, Bob,
and me, and someone suggested that we go get something at Harrison's
Bar & Grill.
Mayor Cazares is a very likeable fellow, and a sharp guy who still
keeps tabs on the cult's activities. He said that he never says
anything in private that he wouldn't say to a $cientologist's face,
which is a good thing, as it turned out, but he has a lot of
information, and I enjoyed the discussion thoroughly.
Arnie left to go back to the hotel, and Bob and I hung out some more
with the mayor. As he finished his burger, and we polished off our
beers, and got up from the table, a voice from the other side of the
partition from our table said, "Hey Gabe!" We all looked around the
partition, and saw two clams, a man and a woman, either OSA or just
lawyers, sitting in a booth. They had been eavesdropping for a while;
we think they were there for about the last fifteen minutes, and had
sat down only after another dinner party in that booth had left.
The guy said, "Thanks, Gabe! We'll transcribe every word." Mayor
Cazares smiled and waved - they didn't hear anything useful, and he
knew it. They called our attention to their presence because they
wanted a reaction from us, and were again trying pathetically to
intimidate.
The really funny part, though, was when the woman pointed at me and
said, "Your cover's blown, buddy." I snorted, and we all walked out
of the restaurant laughing. Cover??? What cover? I've been posting
under my own name FOREVER, my picture is on my (horribly outdated)
home page at Memphis, and I signed my name to the Weekly Planet LTTE.
My only cover so far has been their incompetence, and the only effect
their little game had was to put me even more on my guard. Morons.
DEBRIEFING
All in all, I'd say it was mission accomplished. The protest raised
awareness, made for some bad clam PR (Left foot! Ready! Aim! Fire!
ow ow ow ow ow ow), and forced their top officials to waste a whole
weekend on us. And I personally enjoyed the whole event. Of course,
there are a number of ways we could have been more effective, and I'll
compile my suggestions for another post.
I've been taking precautions to protect my personal life from OSA
meddling. Although I expect to be contacted or harrassed somehow, I
haven't noticed anything untoward yet. If I suspect any games, I
intend to make one thing very clear to Rinder, Neal, and the rest of
the fuckheads: The more I'm pushed, the louder I get. Italians can
be funny that way. If I find out that they're running any kind of op
against me, I'll start yelling about it to anyone who will listen, and
if necessary I'll get my lawyer involved. Right now I don't allot
very much of my time to criticizing $cientology, but I'll spend a lot
more time on it if I have to.
I have a lot of different ideas for clam-themed t-shirts, and I really
wish we had thought of getting some made up to commemorate the event.
(Perhaps that's just the lingering frat boy in me.) In any case, both
Andreas and I have started t-shirt threads on a.r.s to solicit ideas
and artwork, and he has a section on Operation Clambake devoted to
that now.
Whew... I think that about sums it all up for now. Thanks, everyone!
I'm looking forward to next year. ;P
FUCK CENSORSHIP.
Picket stories
[Rod Keller, 13 Mar 1997]
From: rkeller@netaxs.com (Rod Keller)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Picket stories
Date: 13 Mar 1997 13:24:40 GMT
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[reposted, because nobody seems to have seen it]
I think the basic story of what went on this weekend has been well
covered, so I'll just tell a few stories y'all might like to hear. I don't
think I've even told the other protesters about some of these.
One kid I saw was refused entrance to the Ft. Harrison. He was probably 18
or so. They asked him "Are you a Scientologist?"
"Yes"
"No you're not, you have scabs on your arms."
I think they let him in eventually, scabs and all. I don't recall any
protesters having scabs visible. Like somehow Scientologists don't get
scabs if they fall off a bike.
I tried, but failed to get Elliot Abelson to repeat his famous "Liar,
liar, liar, lair, liar, hateful liar" statement for conversion to a sound
file. He also refused to comment on the allegation that Lisa died 6 hours
before she arrived at the emergency room.
I tried to get a picture of Leisa Goodman at the picket. I had a group of
very persistent high school girls at the time, and they waved their signs
in front of my camera. I called over to her "Leisa, can I take your
picture? Can you tell these young ladies not to block me with their
signs?" She looked at me with the eyes of a veal. No reaction, but she
clearly heard and saw me.
For quite a while, I parked myself in front of the FH. I would go about 10
steps in each direction before turning around. I had my group of about 4
at the time, and I got them all to school with me. I'd call out in a very
loud voice "3-2-1 Turn!", then we would all do an about face
simultaneously. It was pretty funny to see. Some of the clams couldn't
even keep a straight face. The smile was dropped when I said "At cause, my
ASS".
There's a row of newspaper boxes by the FH, with about 2.5 ft. of sidewalk
next to the street. I went through there a lot, because some of my squad
would have to go around. Once, I went through, and a counter-protester
came in the other way. I turned around, and one had followed in the lane
behind me. I turned back, looked both ways. Neither one was moving. I
looked over to the police, and told them I couldn't go either way. They
told them they had to keep moving, and I got out.
I took a break after a while to unload my camera and rehydrate. While I
was waiting over by the courthouse, Bob Minton and Lawrence Wollersheim
came around the corner with two couter-pickets in tow. I walked over and
told them "You must be misinformed, Mike Rinder said that there would be
no counter-pickets around the courthouse, so you have to leave
immediately." Happens to be true, he told the police that. They looked at
each other and left. I found that funny, dunno why.
I previously posted about the little girl who asked me about Lisa. I also
spoke to a 10 year old whose picture is on the web site. He asked me why
we were out there. I told him about Lisa, the dehydration, etc. I asked if
he could pose for the picture, and when he was walking away, he turned
around quickly and said sarcastically "Yeah, like I really believe you."
He wasn't very convincing. If I could keep only one picture from the
bunch, I would keep that one. I may have it blown up to remind me what
they did out there.
The older kids were trying their best, but their level of taunting doesn't
really work on adults. Remember high school, except pretend that the
adults are encouraging them to be cruel. I explained about the cockroach
bites to one high schooler, and the newspaper article that quoted an
entomologist. He turned around and told me I should know about cockroach
bites, since I have cockroach teeth in my mouth. He was winging it, I
guess. The high schoolers did the majority of the candle-blowing that I
saw at the vigil. But one guy in a hawaiian shirt and a moustache got me
once also. I think I had 4 or 5 candle blowers.
The series of handlers at the vigil was interesting. They would assign one
after another, first a pretty young girl, then a loud young guy, then a
middle-aged woman who was sorry about the candle blowing. Then my DC OSA
pal Sylvia Stanard came over. I told them all, "This is a silent vigil,
I'm going to be silent now."
I was interviewed by Channel 28 during the vigil. He asked me why we were
doing this, as I walked along. I answered as best I could, but the 7 or 8
kids yelling over me made it impossible for him to record what I was
saying. I told him to run the tape, that the fact that they had to shout
me down said more than I could ever say in a 10 second sound bite. He
agreed with me, but it didn't make the news.
I was really proud of the protesters, we all kept our cool. A few of the
local women who joined us had a hard time at the vigil. I was trying to
keep it a silent vigil, letting silence speak louder than the words we
used earlier in the day. When I saw some of the locals getting really
upset in an argument with some Scientologists, I just walked over and put
my arms around them. It was funny, because I didn't know them, hadn't even
been introduced. It just felt so right to do on the spur of the moment,
and they returned the hug. We walked down the sidewalk, arms around each
other's waist until we had to break for the oncoming traffic. I did this
twice.
I really think that this year was a lot like last year. Not for us
protesters, but for the impact we made. We got stories on all 4 TV
stations, the front page of the metro section of both newspapers, and a
lot of people saw folks protesting Scientology as they drove down the
street. The main differences are that Scientology showed in public what
complete jerks they are. A _church_ told its members to go out and be as
nasty as possible to people on the street. The implications of displaying
that in public just astound me. The second main difference is that they
exposed our message to hundreds of their own people. In particular, the
kids, many of whom I think are at an age when they start to question what
adults are telling them. This picket could have lasting effects for them,
at least I hope so. But if I had my preference, I'd rather not see the
kids out there. It's really a shameful tactic to use your own children
like that.
--
Rod Keller / rkeller@voicenet.com / Irresponsible Publisher
Black Hat #1 / Expert of the Toilet / Golden Gate Bridge Club
The Lerma Apologist / Merchant of Chaos / Kha Khan countdown: 9 to go
Killer Rod / OSA Patsy / Quasi-Scieno / Mental Bully
my Clearwater vacation
[Dave Touretzky, 17 Mar 1997]
From: dst+@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: my Clearwater vacation
Date: 17 Mar 1997 02:26:26 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Lines: 100
Message-ID: <5gia4i$dak@casaba.srv.cs.cmu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: dst.boltz.cs.cmu.edu
Here are a few brief comments about my experience attending the Clearwater
picket. The best word to describe it is "surreal".
On the way down to Clearwater, my traveling companion and I watched a bit
of the movie Buckaroo Banzai, where Earth is imperiled by Red Lectroids
from Planet 10 by way of the Eighth Dimension. Favorite bit: two Red
Lectroids are trying to break into a car:
RL1: It's locked. Take that hammer and break the window, John Smallberries.
RL2: Why *me*, John Bigbooty ?
RL1: It might be booby-trapped.
RL2: Ah! (gets the hammer)
Needless to say, this movie put me in quite a whimsical mood, and I was
unable to take the Scientolgists seriously for the rest of the trip. I had
a terrific time, though. Was grinning constantly. Jeff Jacobsen said I
looked like a kid on his first trip to Disneyland. It actually felt that
way. When we arrived at the courthouse Saturday morning, we were
immediately approached by Elliot Abelson (senior clam lawyer flown in from
LA) and Mike Rinder (head of OSA), wearing gray business suits. (Abelson
changed into sportswear later in the day.) Someone said "Look! There's
Rinder and Abelson!" And it was just like at Disneyland:
"Look! There's Mickey and Goofy! Let's get our picture taken with them!"
In the evening I had brief exchanges with both these characters. At the
vigil I said "Mr Rinder, when do I get my DA pack?" He did a double-take
and said "You have to do something to deserve it." I grinned and told
him "Thank you."
What everyone else wrote about the protest was true for me too: we were
verbally harassed, jostled, bullbaited, had our signs covered during the day
and got our candles blown out at night. Mine was blown out about 20 times;
half the time by children and half by adults.
On the one hand this was annoying, but it was also way cool: we got to see
clams being clams. Sort of like going down to Colonial Williamsburg to
watch the "colonists" do blacksmithing and butter churning and so on. We
got to see clams in their native habitat putting on a nasty little exibition
just for us, and we didn't even have to pay an admission fee.
I'd only read about bullbaiting before; I'd never seen it done. One guy
started in on me and a fellow protestor, asking if we were religious bigots
and so on, and after a few seconds of this I said "Hey! He's trying to push
our buttons! Keep pushing. Come on, push 'em harder! Harder!!" Poor guy
didn't know what to make of me. He couldn't understand why I was having
such a great time. I've been studying this cult for 18 months now; it was a
genuine thrill to visit their world headquarters and see their pathology
displayed, without inhibition, for my personal benefit. Henson is right:
we should put together an Adventure Tours package so everyone can see this.
Late in the afternoon I got bored and decided to wander off down the street
and see what I could see. In a few blocks I reached the Clearwater Bank
Building, now a Scientology facility, and since I was still carrying my
sign, I picketed there for a bit. A guy and a girl, both in their 20s, were
washing the windows out front. I walked around the building in both
directions. Neither would talk to me; probably both were on the RPF. But
as I passed by the guy I was so happy to see him and so pleased to be out in
the beautiful Florida sun, I gave him a big smile, and as he turned back
toward his window I could see he was smiling too. Scientologists are
people; let's not forget that. Some are deranged, but most still have human
qualities.
I spent some of the day puzzling over why the Scientologists had staged this
huge counter-protest of 300 picketers. Why hadn't they just ignored us? It
wouldn't have done them any damage if a few hundred cars traveling down Ft.
Harrison that day had been able to read our signs. And their clumsy attempt
at drowning out our free speech was not going to fool the media for an
instant. In fact, it was going to cost them some nasty newspaper coverage.
So why were they so intent on attacking us as forcefully as they could,
right in front of the police?
Finally I figured it out. This counter-protest was not to shield the public
from our "lies" or dead-agent us to the press. It was conducted solely for
the benefit of the church members. The CoS leadership had to show its
membership that it was not impotent; that it could not be abused with
impunity by a few dozen SPs. Besides salving their ego, the counter-protest
functioned as a thought-stopping technique. Scientologists who were kept
busy holding stupid signs and bullbaiting the protesters did not have time
to question whether our grievances with the church might be legitimate. The
church had given them something to "do" so they didn't have to think.
I explained this insight to some of the Scientologist counter-picketers who
were following me from the Clearwater Bank Building back to the main picket
site. They were not happy with my theory, but they didn't have any good
arguments to refute it. Logic is not their strong point.
Overall, this was the best vacation I've had in years. Mike Rinder greeted
me by name. Elliot Abelson gave me free legal advice. ("Keep moving.") I
took pictures of Abelson and Rinder, but what I should have done is gotten
someone to take my picture standing next to them. Duh! And I'd like a
picture with Leisa Goodman too. On TV that night she called us the "rejects
of society." Clam PR at its finest. I'm sorry I didn't get to meet her.
And of course we all missed Helena Kobrin; pity she couldn't make it.
Oh well. There's always next year.
-- Dave Touretzky, KoX (SP4+++++): traveling NOTs scholar extraordinaire.
PS: special note to OSA: Andrew Fleisher did very well.
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