======== Subject: Picket Report - 12/28/99, Los Angeles - Oddness near the millennium From: seekon@ix.netcom.com (Conner) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 00:54:37 GMT Message-ID: <386aa059.58425437@nntp.ix.netcom.com> Barb and I drove up from San Diego, arriving at the parking lot of the California Science Center just north of the Sports Arena about 3:45. Jeff Jacobsen, and Bruce and Karen Pettycrew were already there, and we found them with help of some cell phone tech. Keith Henson was just arriving at LAX. We could see busses already pulling in, so Barb, Jeff, Bruce and Karen went off to picket. I readied my signs, and waited for Keith. Keith pulled in shortly, and we got our signs together and headed out. For the sign aficionados - I selected subtle signs that I hoped would stick in the scn subconscious and work for a while. One side read: "Scientology - Clear Minds, Clear Wallets". The other side said in somewhat smaller letters "Addicted to Auditing?", followed by a bold lettering that said "Who Gave You Your Reactive Mind?" Keith took along two 2-sided signs, putting them back to back, giving him the opportunity to make many messages as he chose. One of them had to do with space cooties, and another to do with "the religion with a body count", but I'm afraid well have to get Keith to tell us the rest. One of Barb's signs said "Ron is Gone, But the Con Goes On", and the other side said Casavius Tababoyon = Please Contact Your Parents" (approximately). Bruce wore a signboard kind of thing that said "UFO Cult", and Kathy's sign said "Scientology: Stop Hurting People" I have the signs to do that 2x2 picketing tech, and will plan on it next time. I didn't expect much opportunity to leaflet, but I took along a couple of Scams and Xenus, anyway. I was glad I did. The LA Sports Arena is a pretty good sized place, and we had a bit of a hike to Martin Luther King Blvd, where the others were picketing. The cops were a bit weird (and this would continue), and made us walk first on one side of the lane, and then the other, until we got to MLK. I never really thought to go anywhere else, as I was busy enough there, but Jeff later said the cops told him we couldn't picket on Figueroa. This is weird, since Figueroa is public. I believe probably they told the cops there would be a disturbance if we were on Figueroa, because that's where the celeb entrance is, and they didn't want us to upset the mighty celebs. I'm pretty sure we would have been legal there, and I think we got aced a bit on this location. We were on MLK from the entrance to the main parking area uptraffic. Right behind the wrought iron fencing, scientologists from all over were rehearsing some sort of pageantry. They didn't practice hiding tech on us. They just went on with their business. A couple of the younger troops (12-14?) joked with us about space cooties. The pageantry apparently involved a worldwide scientology presence. There were flags from all over the US, Europoe, and even from Guadalehara. They were Nuremburg type signs, on a long pole with a cross piece from which the flags hung, and there were lots of them, so I think DM was exorcising some sort of Nazi engram, maybe. We were joined by a cool guy named Ahmad (I think), who kept his message in front of the rehearsers, and another whose handle I didn't get. Also, Thadd dropped by at one point, and Fred used cellphone tech to express his regrets at not being able to make it. Then people starting coming in. Things backed up getting into the parking area, so we could parade along the stalled line of cars, showing them our signs. About half of the people looked straight ahead, or away, not acking our presence. I expected that. The rest showed they had a reactive mind. I expected that. What I didn't expect was that about 2/3 of those who reacted smiled, waved, gave us a friendly honk, or thumbs up or a V sign. Only about 1/3 scowled, gave me a finger or a thumbs down, or another negative gesture. Keith and others experienced the same reaction. Bruce gave Xenu fliers to people who then turned into the parking lot to go to the rally. Is this some new scn tech? If so, I welcome it. BTW, I'm pretty sure they were *reading* the signs. I saw their lips move. And there was that sort of delay that indicated they read, thought, and then reacted. One guy, seeing my "clear wallets" sign, yelled "HEY IDIOT!! DID YOU EVER HEAR OF CO-AUDITING". I yelled back "HEY IDIOT - IT DOESN"T WORK? DOES IT?" well, not all that original, but i did respond. I had a friend on the inside who called me from time to time to tell me what was going on. It seems that they were very paranoid about something. They made everybody go through a single entrance to go in, and they had metal detectors set up there. Whether intended or not, it's obvious this would make sure no videocams, recorders, or "wires" would get in. But another effect was to create very long lines to get in. I'm betting many were in line an hour or more. Maybe next time they'll just set up a bank of emeters, and sec check everyone to get in. Jeff was listening on a scanner, and heard some pretty funny stuff. At one point, they became convinced Dennis Erlich was inside the arena, and there was a whole flurry of dev-t about it. And later, some "homeless guy" showed up with tickets, and they wouldn't let him in, but it caused a stir. Did they think it was Zinjifar? I'm unclear as to whether Don_Knots' drag disguise enabled him to penetrate security or not, but I'll wait for his report. The word from inside is that the whole program consisted of a light show, the pageantry, and 3.5 hours of Miss Cabbage going through the history of scientology. I think this is odd too. No celebs? No call to action? But the place was apparently packed (15,000 - 20,00), and all the faithful had to feel good about the showing of the flag, and how scientology must be growing. I'm guessing it'll wear off a bit, and a lot of people will ask themselves "what did I get from that", but we'll see. There was a rumor about scn trying to disrupt the picketers. The only thing we saw was a couple of J&D scn types come out to join us, to try to ingratiate themselves a bit, maybe. I mean, their signs said "Entry -->". still, they were ok. Jeff says he has seen them before. I saw Mark, the OT8 who attended all the hearings in Whyte's court, in SJ. Hi, Mark. Jeff chatted with Russell Shaw a bit. Russ, I should have come over and introduced myself. Sorry, I didn't know. Barb knew you right away, too. She thinks you look like a squirrel :-) Oh, yes, Scott Meyer also joined us. Donned a Scn Kills t-shirt and held out a sign. Scott, let's do LRH's birthday party. Let me make the sign :-) Tell me what you want it to say. After it was over (about 7:30), the cops told us we couldn't go back along the north side of the arena to our cars with our signs, because "our signs had sticks" Sounds to me like more scn badmouthing. The cops did offer to guard our signs while we got our cars, but we got bruce to go get his car and gave him our signs. We had a quick dinner at a Sizzler's up Figueroa, and then were off. Keith had a plane to catch (actually, he didn't have time to join us). Barb and I drove back to San Diego, Jeff stayed over to "visit" a couple of places on Wednesday morning, and I understand Bruce and Kathy are visiting some Southern California sights. Hope you enjoyed them, but you need to visit my BBQ pits, too. So anyway, that's all I can remember. Honest engrams. I had a great time. So did Barb, and I think most others -- seekon@ix.netcom.com (Conner) Eppur si muove - Galilei ======== Subject: Re: Picket Report - 12/28/99, Los Angeles - Oddness near the millennium From: Ahmad Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 18:28:26 GMT Message-ID: <84g7jl$tr2$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Thanks conner I tried to be cool, also with security person- when I was talking to Barb, untill I got harrased by Men in Black.. It was also great to meet you and Barb in person rather than reading posts on the ARS. By the way event was packed inside, I have seen hundreds of people standing in the lobby and the arena itself was full. AHMAD In article <386aa059.58425437@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, seekon@ix.netcom.com (Conner) wrote: > > Barb and I drove up from San Diego, arriving at the parking lot of the > California Science Center just north of the Sports Arena about 3:45. > Jeff Jacobsen, and Bruce and Karen Pettycrew were already there, > and we found them with help of some cell phone tech. Keith Henson > was just arriving at LAX. > > We could see busses already pulling in, so Barb, Jeff, Bruce and Karen > went off to picket. I readied my signs, and waited for Keith. Keith > pulled in shortly, and we got our signs together and headed out. > > For the sign aficionados - I selected subtle signs that I hoped would > stick in the scn subconscious and work for a while. One side read: > "Scientology - Clear Minds, Clear Wallets". The other side said > in somewhat smaller letters "Addicted to Auditing?", followed by > a bold lettering that said "Who Gave You Your Reactive Mind?" > Keith took along two 2-sided signs, putting them back to back, > giving him the opportunity to make many messages as he chose. > One of them had to do with space cooties, and another to do with > "the religion with a body count", but I'm afraid well have to get > Keith to tell us the rest. One of Barb's signs said "Ron is Gone, > But the Con Goes On", and the other side said Casavius Tababoyon = > Please Contact Your Parents" (approximately). Bruce wore > a signboard kind of thing that said "UFO Cult", and Kathy's sign > said "Scientology: Stop Hurting People" > > I have the signs to do that 2x2 picketing tech, and will plan on it next > time. I didn't expect much opportunity to leaflet, but I took along a > couple of Scams and Xenus, anyway. I was glad I did. > > The LA Sports Arena is a pretty good sized place, and we had a > bit of a hike to Martin Luther King Blvd, where the others were picketing. > The cops were a bit weird (and this would continue), and made us > walk first on one side of the lane, and then the other, until we got > to MLK. I never really thought to go anywhere else, as I was busy > enough there, but Jeff later said the cops told him we couldn't > picket on Figueroa. This is weird, since Figueroa is public. I > believe probably they told the cops there would be a disturbance > if we were on Figueroa, because that's where the celeb entrance > is, and they didn't want us to upset the mighty celebs. I'm pretty > sure we would have been legal there, and I think we got aced > a bit on this location. > > We were on MLK from the entrance to the main parking area > uptraffic. Right behind the wrought iron fencing, scientologists > from all over were rehearsing some sort of pageantry. They > didn't practice hiding tech on us. They just went on with their > business. A couple of the younger troops (12-14?) joked with > us about space cooties. The pageantry apparently involved > a worldwide scientology presence. There were flags from all > over the US, Europoe, and even from Guadalehara. They were > Nuremburg type signs, on a long pole with a cross piece from > which the flags hung, and there were lots of them, so I think > DM was exorcising some sort of Nazi engram, maybe. > > We were joined by a cool guy named Ahmad (I think), who > kept his message in front of the rehearsers, and another > whose handle I didn't get. Also, Thadd dropped by at > one point, and Fred used cellphone tech to express his > regrets at not being able to make it. > > Then people starting coming in. Things backed up getting into the > parking area, so we could parade along the stalled line of cars, showing > them our signs. About half of the people looked straight ahead, or away, > not acking our presence. I expected that. The rest showed they > had a reactive mind. I expected that. What I didn't expect was > that about 2/3 of those who reacted smiled, waved, gave us > a friendly honk, or thumbs up or a V sign. Only about 1/3 scowled, > gave me a finger or a thumbs down, or another negative gesture. > Keith and others experienced the same reaction. Bruce gave > Xenu fliers to people who then turned into the parking lot to go > to the rally. Is this some new scn tech? If so, I welcome it. > > BTW, I'm pretty sure they were *reading* the signs. I saw their > lips move. And there was that sort of delay that indicated they > read, thought, and then reacted. > > One guy, seeing my "clear wallets" sign, yelled "HEY IDIOT!! > DID YOU EVER HEAR OF CO-AUDITING". I yelled back > "HEY IDIOT - IT DOESN"T WORK? DOES IT?" well, not > all that original, but i did respond. > > I had a friend on the inside who called me from time to time to > tell me what was going on. It seems that they were very paranoid > about something. They made everybody go through a single > entrance to go in, and they had metal detectors set up there. > Whether intended or not, it's obvious this would make sure no > videocams, recorders, or "wires" would get in. But another effect > was to create very long lines to get in. I'm betting many were in > line an hour or more. > > Maybe next time they'll just set up a bank of emeters, and sec > check everyone to get in. > > Jeff was listening on a scanner, and heard some pretty funny > stuff. At one point, they became convinced Dennis Erlich > was inside the arena, and there was a whole flurry of dev-t > about it. And later, some "homeless guy" showed up with > tickets, and they wouldn't let him in, but it caused a stir. > Did they think it was Zinjifar? > > I'm unclear as to whether Don_Knots' drag disguise enabled > him to penetrate security or not, but I'll wait for his report. > > The word from inside is that the whole program consisted > of a light show, the pageantry, and 3.5 hours of Miss Cabbage > going through the history of scientology. I think this is odd > too. No celebs? No call to action? But the place was > apparently packed (15,000 - 20,00), and all the faithful > had to feel good about the showing of the flag, and how > scientology must be growing. I'm guessing it'll wear off > a bit, and a lot of people will ask themselves "what did I > get from that", but we'll see. > > There was a rumor about scn trying to disrupt the picketers. > The only thing we saw was a couple of J&D scn types come > out to join us, to try to ingratiate themselves a bit, maybe. > I mean, their signs said "Entry -->". still, they were ok. > Jeff says he has seen them before. > > I saw Mark, the OT8 who attended all the hearings in > Whyte's court, in SJ. Hi, Mark. Jeff chatted with > Russell Shaw a bit. Russ, I should have come over > and introduced myself. Sorry, I didn't know. Barb > knew you right away, too. She thinks you look like > a squirrel :-) > > Oh, yes, Scott Meyer also joined us. Donned a > Scn Kills t-shirt and held out a sign. Scott, let's > do LRH's birthday party. Let me make the sign :-) > Tell me what you want it to say. > > After it was over (about 7:30), the cops told us we couldn't > go back along the north side of the arena to our > cars with our signs, because "our signs had sticks" > Sounds to me like more scn badmouthing. The cops > did offer to guard our signs while we got our cars, but > we got bruce to go get his car and gave him our signs. > > We had a quick dinner at a Sizzler's up Figueroa, and > then were off. Keith had a plane to catch (actually, he > didn't have time to join us). Barb and I drove back to San Diego, > Jeff stayed over to "visit" a couple of places on Wednesday > morning, and I understand Bruce and Kathy are visiting some > Southern California sights. Hope you enjoyed them, but you > need to visit my BBQ pits, too. > > So anyway, that's all I can remember. Honest engrams. > > I had a great time. So did Barb, and I think most others > > -- seekon@ix.netcom.com (Conner) > Eppur si muove - Galilei > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ======== Subject: Re: PicketReport - 12/28/99, Los Angeles - Oddness near the millennium From: Keith Henson Date: 30 Dec 1999 08:08:23 GMT Message-ID: <84f3tn$4t$1@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net> Conner wrote: snip > believe probably they told the cops there would be a disturbance > if we were on Figueroa, because that's where the celeb entrance > is, and they didn't want us to upset the mighty celebs. I'm pretty > sure we would have been legal there, and I think we got aced > a bit on this location. If we had had more people I think I would have been worth picketing the front as well, but where we were was just great! > We were on MLK from the entrance to the main parking area > uptraffic. Right behind the wrought iron fencing, scientologists > from all over were rehearsing some sort of pageantry. You never saw such a motley crew! There could not have been as many as two dozen of *any* uniform there, people were dressed in purple crossed out cross shirts, black navy uniforms, white ones, and most people in regular clothes or national costumes. For more than an hour they marched about looking at our signs through and over the fence They > didn't practice hiding tech on us. They just went on with their > business. A couple of the younger troops (12-14?) joked with > us about space cooties. A lot of them were looking at the signs and giving slight nods. I have the suspision that a lot of people "in" scientology are actually not serious about it but have some other motive like family in it. snip > Then people starting coming in. Things backed up getting into the > parking area, so we could parade along the stalled line of cars, showing > them our signs. About half of the people looked straight ahead, or away, > not acking our presence. I expected that. The rest showed they > had a reactive mind. I expected that. What I didn't expect was > that about 2/3 of those who reacted smiled, waved, gave us > a friendly honk, or thumbs up or a V sign. Only about 1/3 scowled, > gave me a finger or a thumbs down, or another negative gesture. > Keith and others experienced the same reaction. Bruce gave > Xenu fliers to people who then turned into the parking lot to go > to the rally. Is this some new scn tech? If so, I welcome it. I concur with Connor on this. I really did not expect positive reactions from the people going in, but we indeed got more positives than negatives. I don't know what to make of this. I don't think we had *that* many of our agents inside. > BTW, I'm pretty sure they were *reading* the signs. I saw their > lips move. And there was that sort of delay that indicated they > read, thought, and then reacted. The lips moving as they read the signs was nothing short of weird. Is this something which is due to too much word clearing? Or is scientology the group for people who move their lips when they read? > One guy, seeing my "clear wallets" sign, yelled "HEY IDIOT!! > DID YOU EVER HEAR OF CO-AUDITING". I yelled back > "HEY IDIOT - IT DOESN"T WORK? DOES IT?" well, not > all that original, but i did respond. I was mostly using Arnie's "NO OTs HERE" line. > I had a friend on the inside who called me from time to time to > tell me what was going on. It seems that they were very paranoid > about something. They made everybody go through a single > entrance to go in, and they had metal detectors set up there. > Whether intended or not, it's obvious this would make sure no > videocams, recorders, or "wires" would get in. But another effect > was to create very long lines to get in. I'm betting many were in > line an hour or more. It delayed the start by at least an hour. I think they might have been worried about someone bringing in the technical equipment to take over the show. > Maybe next time they'll just set up a bank of emeters, and sec > check everyone to get in. > The word from inside is that the whole program consisted > of a light show, the pageantry, and 3.5 hours of Miss Cabbage > going through the history of scientology. I think this is odd > too. No celebs? No call to action? But the place was > apparently packed (15,000 - 20,00), and all the faithful > had to feel good about the showing of the flag, and how > scientology must be growing. I'm guessing it'll wear off > a bit, and a lot of people will ask themselves "what did I > get from that", but we'll see. My guess is that they got 75-80% of the LA scns there. As a guess, there are 10k scns in LA, so the local crowd made up at about half. I know from inside information that one place with 1-2%% of the US population was required to pull in 100 people, so there was 5-10k of scientologists from outside the LA area. That would mean they pulled in close to half of all the scns in the US. On the other hand, perhaps some of those who came were not scns. > There was a rumor about scn trying to disrupt the picketers. > The only thing we saw was a couple of J&D scn types come > out to join us, to try to ingratiate themselves a bit, maybe. > I mean, their signs said "Entry -->". still, they were ok. > Jeff says he has seen them before. They were not in the group that tried to disrupt the last Shrine picket. The response was *lame*. They *finally* came out and tried to block our signs, but it was almost at the end, there were only two of them, only one of even tried, and he quit after about ten minutes. He did engage in a dance with me while people on a bus looked on in total amazement. Next time we just *have* to get video and put it on the net. This was nothing like the effort they put into the IAS picket at the Shrine two months ago. My guess is that the scns had laid a major trip on the LAPD that we were this *incredibly* dangerous crew and to expect something like the Seattle riots. The cops were non plussed to find what actually turned up, 7 middle aged or older adults, including two women. After prevailing on the cops to protect them, it was hard to go out and bother the picketers in front of the cops so they had to wait till the cops were not watching. The LAPD officers who talked to us knew they had been put on, which made them very interested in the criminal acts of scn. I have never before had an LAPD officer take a flyer, but these took a Lisa flyer and were horrified by the Lisa story. Said they would spend some time on the net and learn more about scn. Big win fellows! > I saw Mark, the OT8 who attended all the hearings in > Whyte's court, in SJ. Hi, Mark. Jeff chatted with > Russell Shaw a bit. Russ, I should have come over > and introduced myself. Sorry, I didn't know. Barb > knew you right away, too. She thinks you look like > a squirrel :-) I knew who it was, but I didn't want to take time off the ideal traffic situation going by my sign. Incidentally, Moxon was there too. A lot of the scns were really unhappy looking people. I commented about this through the fence to one woman in a black uniform. She put on a smile which was more of a grimace. At one point I moved to the west on MLK so I could be near another entrance. One guy threw something at me from inside a car, another one didn't like what we were saying so bad he threated to get out of the car. One woman tried to intimidate me by insisting on my name. I told her and proudly remarked that I was one of the most famous high ranking SPs. Took the wind out of *her* sails. Played TR0 with a woman in a car and when she blinked I yelled FLUNK! > After it was over (about 7:30), the cops told us we couldn't > go back along the north side of the arena to our > cars with our signs, because "our signs had sticks" > Sounds to me like more scn badmouthing. The cops > did offer to guard our signs while we got our cars, but > we got bruce to go get his car and gave him our signs. > We had a quick dinner at a Sizzler's up Figueroa, and > then were off. Keith had a plane to catch (actually, he > didn't have time to join us). Worse yet. I just got my car turned in and made it to the gate with few minutes to spare--but my plane was delay an hour. Barb and I drove back to San Diego, > Jeff stayed over to "visit" a couple of places on Wednesday > morning, and I understand Bruce and Kathy are visiting some > Southern California sights. Hope you enjoyed them, but you > need to visit my BBQ pits, too. > So anyway, that's all I can remember. Honest engrams. > I had a great time. So did Barb, and I think most others It was effective, very, very effective. On an enturbulation per dollar basis I think it did better than the last CW picket. For sure there were lots of reactive minds. Keith Henson ======== Subject: Quicky LA picket report From: cultxpt@primenet.com (Jeff Jacobsen) Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 05:54:29 GMT Message-ID: <386af0fb.1691788@news.primenet.com> It was fun picketing again! I always enjoy it even though it's never the way I think it's going to be. The cops were really overly strict with us and required us to be in one place on King Blvd. Of course, that's legally not kosher but then you have to take the LAPD to court to prove your point, and the night was not that long, so... 7 of us picketed at the south entrance, Hoover Street. and King Blvd. When we got there at 4pm the Scientologists were practicing for their event in the parking lot right next to us, so of course we just made sure they saw our signs while they were practicing.... a captive audience for a whole hour! The event they were practicing looked like previous rallies I've seen on tape before... lots of pagentry, people moving around and waving, banners, flags, etc. At about 6pm the cars started really streaming into the parking lot, so we just stood on the corner and showed our signs to everybody coming in. There must have been thousands of Scientologists who not only saw but read our signs. I had my well-travelled Lisa sign. There wasn't any real contact between Scientologists and us except for the few who parked across the street and walked in, and they tried to ignore us. Russ Shaw came by and said hi. We had a nice chat, then he went in. We quit about 7:20 and started about 4. I listened to their security guys on 467.90 frequency on my scanner. They thought they had spied both Dennis Erlich and Vauhng Young in the audience! They seemed very disorganized to me; for example they said there were hundreds of people coming from one locked door to another, being told at each to go to the other doors. When the cleaning crew came later, they were told to go to both the west and the north entrance. There were buses loading people on the south side right on King Blvd. When those buses left, there were still people waiting there for another bus to come by, but none ever did. I went around the next morning looking for any literature flying in the breeze, but I only found a ticket to the event. The stage must have been huge because I watched some people tearing down the pieces of it outside this morning. Another fun picket with a fun group of people! Oh, and I think that it's going to dawn on Scientologists more and more that these rallies are exceptionally hollow. What are the Big Wins that they can shout about? What awards can they grant? For the org that shrank the least? Pageantry cannot hide weakness. No OT's there for sure. * * * * http://www.primenet.com/~cultxpt/cos.htm