========
Subject: Protest Report, Washington DC, July 10, 1999
From: rkeller@netaxs.com (Rod Keller)
Date: 11 Jul 1999 15:37:27 GMT
Message-ID: <7madnn$993@netaxs.com>

Arnie, Nuke and I protested at the Dupont Circle org yesterday, July 10th
for about two hours. We were delayed an hour by some heavy rain. The org
had a large reaction to us, sending out three body routers to bother
people about personality tests. Arnie said he saw two or three people stop
to talk to them, but I didn't see any. They also had OSA and OSA publics
come out to hand out false and defamatory flyers, which I told them were
similar in nature to the ones in the Bonnie Woods case. One was about
Arnie and the pipe bombers, the other just called us names.

Arnie was giving out a flyer about Travolta and Cruise and the nature of
the deception. You've all seen the text, he's posted it several times to
a.r.s. Nuke had a list of URLs about Scn and cults. I handed out a new
flyer which I'll post in a few minutes.

When I was there the last time, Michelle Rochefort asked me in a very
serious way why I was out there protesting Scientology. I couldn't beleive
it, having seen her there at least 10 times, but she sounded very sincere. 
So I took the time to write up "Why I Protest", copied on bright, bright
orange paper, and handed out about 250 of them yesterday. I padded the
second side out with quotes from Anderson, Latey, Breckenridge, Angelaki
and Robinson. Even on a rainy day, you can give out over a hundred an hour
at the DC org. For every flyer I give out, there are probably two or three
folks who tell me they don't need it, already know about then, agree with
me, etc. I wish they'd take one anyway. I was wearing my white Scientology
Kills shirt, and several people asked me for copies even when I wasn't
picketing, at other locations, including a stack of 20 to a guy to
distribute at his workplace nearby.  He said they always ask him to see
the movie, and he asks "Is it Star Wars?"

I was first handled by Matt Bratschi, OSA PR. He hated the flyer. He kept
up a constant stream of patter for about an hour, which is quite unusual
for DC. They usually sit on the wall and watch us. He started to tell me
quite forcefully that it was untrue in my flyer that the Drug Free
Marshalls don't say they're Scientology. I was able to give two examples,
the Clearwater race, where they swear in all the participants, and the
schools in the Boston Herald articles. Didn't he read the Herald series?
"Why would I want to do that?" he asked. To be informed on what you're
talking about, Matt. 

He got quite upset at one point that I kept turning away from him. I was
just trying to keep handing out flyers and refused to get into a long
debate. He started yelling and was very hostile. I just ignored him. He
later said he was going up and down the tone scale to try to get a
reaction from me, and that "your TRs are in, part-way." I suppose this is
about as high a compliment as I should expect.

When I was there last time he was trying to convince me of something,
maybe how valuable Scientology is, and I told him it was a useless
argument because "you would never let me in anyway." He has taken this as
a sign that I really want to be a Scientologist. He told me he wanted to
communicate with me, to really get to know me. I asked if he was asking me
out on a date, which cracked us both up.

At the end of the hour he started babbling. "I'm babbling. You know I can
babble for hours. I have nothing else to say, so I'm just saying anything"
or something close to that. He admitted that he'd run out of arguments on
me.  When I crossed the street to the Miss Mary Happy Ass memorial
triangle, he didn't follow and I didn't see him for the rest of the day. 

Sylvia Stanard was sent out for a short time. The only thing I recall
right now is that she said Bob was deceptive in saying he would be in LA,
then going to Clearwater, and that was as bad as any deception that
Scientology might be guilty of. :-)

Thierry and Leslie Duchaunac came across to handle me on the MMHA
triangle. Her picture is at http://i1.yimg.com/1/80f4/14.jpg, the one on
the left. She's LeslieTLC on Yahoo, and was responsible for kicking off
all the critics from the Scientology Online club. I was less than
impressed. As I handed out flyers, she would try to get a DA flyer to them
also. One time I said "that's the flyer calling us hatemongers or
something." She said "something like that, I don't know." Well, I told her
I couldn't believe it, that she had, in fact, no idea what was written on
the page, no idea what she was communcating. "It doesn't matter, as long
as it's against you." :-)

Thierry was acting very silly, imitating my walk, imitating the way I ask
people if they want a flyer. He took torn-up strips of Nuke's flyer, and
would go up the street trying to scare people, so they wouldn't take any
flyers. "Flyer, flyer, no thanks." I guess if somebody hands you a strip
of paper, you're less likely to take a flyer. It didn't seem to work. It
seems to me that antics like this are what causes the community to dislike
them, not the pickets.

They went back, and out came some OSA public they used the last time. He
was terrible on dissem, wasn't handing out any DA flyers at all. He kept
telling me that I wasn't into survival, that Scientology is making people
more able, more intelligent, etc, etc. I asked him what his name is, I
think it's Steve. "You would have a better memory if you were in
Scientology", he said. "What's my name?" I asked. "Rod." "Rod what?"
"That's not important." :-)

It was a good day, I wish I'd had time to talk to the couple on the
triangle. If you're reading, folks, drop me an email. One or both of them
were reporters, I think, and it would have been nice to talk more. But I
couldn't get into a 5-way debate with them and the Duchaunacs when there
were so many people to give flyers. He was interested when I told him
Hubbard died of a stroke, alone in a trailer in the desert, injected with
Vistaril to keep him from thrashing. So much for the fruits of your
efforts. 

-- 
Rod Keller / rkeller@voicenet.com / Irresponsible Publisher
Black Hat #1 / Expert of the Toilet / CWPD Mouthpiece
The Lerma Apologist / Merchant of Chaos / Vision of Destruction
Killer Rod / OSA Patsy / Quasi-Scieno / Mental Bully