From: jensting@imaginet.fr (Jens Tingleff)
Subject: London protest Sept 7th
Date: 1996/09/09
Message-ID: <jensting-0909962250130001@snews.zippo.com>
newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
London picket Sept 7, -96
Jens Tingleff
Arriving late at the pre-demo pub session, I was disappointed to see a startling lack of ARSCC approved headwear. Still, I wore my fedora proudly throughout the demo, so we were better off than last time.
The turnout was impressive, and after a bit of time (and beer), we set off to the shop ('scuse me, "org"). The usual band was there, doing their usual thing to completely innocent tunes. We took up positions on both sides of the street, but were initially outclassed because of our lack of picket signs. (The signs arrived later, which did marvels for our visibility.) Sadly, the clams did manage to confuse the passer-bys by sheer force of numbers. People could definitely *not* clearly make out that a protest against $cientology was ongoing. Even with signs, it was tough to engage their attention.
I was mainly on the far side of the street, which was great for being able to engage passer-bys in conversation (the near side being way too noisy). I only got positive responses from the general public. One gent looked at my leaflet and asked "so, are you an anti?" - "Yeah" I grinned. "Good for you -- there's too few of you." I had to agree with that. Another passer-by had been in the hospital close to East Grinstead. He said that the bulk of their suicide attempts were from Saint Hill. Spooky stuff.
The clams tried on their (for London) usual "Say No to Drugs" shtick. Several protesters responsed in kind, with beautiful cries of "Just say no to the money-grubbing, suicide-inducing, dog-drowning cult of $cientology." One thing about the say-no-to-drugs thingie is that the clams look kind of silly to the average bypasser who takes an interest. Here you have some people handing out leaflets (beautiful jobs, titled "$cientology, the cult that wants to be a charity"), and some clams who hand out an anti-drug issue of "Freedom" <yuk> with wimpy comments like "read the other side" (of the argument, presumably..). Since the protest leaflet is marked with "CULT", it shows a remarkably low opinion of the public to assume that they see an anti-drug tract as being opposed to an accusation of being a cult. The clams also handed out single A4 sheets with five points about why drugs might not be a great idea. It sounded like 50s and early 60s US anti-drug "information". Like the notion that "druggies" (actually in quotes in the text - as if anyone actually called drug-abusers druggies) spend so much money on drugs that they can't afford fashionable clothes.
Jacques, rumoured by Lance to be European head of OSA Invest, had borrowed a much more snazzy camera than last time. He took particular care to photograph protesters actually *handing over* leaflets. When one thins about how far the clams are able to sue people, based on handing out leaflets, this was somewhat sobering (see ya in court, if we must, Jacques). One older male clam (the one reported to be OT5 or OT7 depending on whom you ask) looked at my picket sign and yelled "that's bullshit, you know!" The sign said '$cientology is bad for your Wealth.' Jacques upped the ante re the status of this sulky and somewhat decrepit looking individual by saying "he's OT8, you know." "He's a very happy man." Sounded like a miserable git to me, but then again, I don't know what passes for 'happy' in $cientology... Jacques explained to me that all the clams could communicate with anyone, they just chose not to (on occasion). He claimed it was intolerably bad manners to show up at their doorstep and say bad things about them. I'm afraid I was perfectly willing to be rude ;-)
I, and many other protesters, had long conversations with Jacques. He was particular keen to find any protester with some personal experience, and taking personal details so he could look up all the relevant case details. He seemed to be on a kind of charm offensive, but I'd be surprised if he didn't go away better informed than when he came. He hung out at the pub after the protest for hours and hoursm trying to actually communicate. The best he could do in a pressed situation was to say "I acknowledge that this is your view." He was pretty scary about the use of courts to harass critics. I would go on about how it seemd silly to claim to be working against religious persecution using trade secret and copyright laws, and he remarked that the church would use any means (in order to fight enemies) which the courts would offer. Brrr. All in all a very nice person, in appearance, but of a completely different mindset (he said he felt that he joined in -64). He was very gentle, and lied ('scuse me, told stories at variance with my traces of knowledge) with complete conviction; he explaied to a junior clam that the '75 million years ago - spaceships shaped like DC8s - volcanoes' spiel had nothing to do with $cientology ;-) The junior clam tried to claim that he "wasn't duplicating." Good for him.
Ralph Hilton was a tonic. He was able to out-tek any of the clams; he floored Jacques by casually relating how Paul Laguerre (spelling? - the international justice chief in early 80s) had experienced no case gain in Ralph's course in -81. Later, Ralph went to the shop, and came back with a complementary LRH mousepad. Everyone was suitably impressed; although it may not be a great mousepad, he had gotten it for free! Later, after another pint (or two), a smaller group of us went back. The clams were somewhat short of patience, and called the police. Two bobbies turned up after some 10 minutes (we had been standing dejectedly outside the shop) and explained that the shop was perfectly in their rights to ask the police to ask us to leave (potential break of the peace). We could stand two shops up or down the same side of the street, or stand across the road, but we could not be in the immediate vicinity of the shop ("org", 'scuse the heck out of me). After Ralph had asked a few questions a few times, we left quietly. A friend of Ralph's had spent most of the time at the demo trying to use his eyes to fry a hole in the wall inside the door of the org; the clams didn't like that... A lady friend of the friend, the friend, Ralph, Dave and myself went for a bit of food, eventually. Dave and the aforementioned lady lent a certain air of grace to the dinner, which would otherwise have been a complete drunken brawl. (I shudder to think what would have happened if the restaurant had called the police and gotten the same two bobbies ;-) ;-) ;-) )
All in all, a nice event. I was not worried that we had not scored an outright victory. I tend to think that *any* demo is a good demo, and that we handed out a rather siginificant number of leaflets. One of the senior antis in the area reminded us that the London org would be the target of intense interest from the rest of the church <spit>. Members would have to go through endless hours of remedial auditing, would write copious KRs (boy, we know how *that* feels ;-) ), and generally be berated for attracting all this attention (and we didn't even tell them what we have in mind next, hahahahahahahahaha..).
Expect pictures by the time I get 'round to putting them on my Web page...
Yours, in praise of Xenu
Jens
=====
From: "Lance S. Buckley" <lance@avalon.demon.co.uk>
Subject: UK Picket KR
Date: 1996/09/08
Message-ID: <842195401snz@avalon.demon.co.uk>
newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Where do I start?
* Record breaking attendance.
* Record breaking duration.
* Record breaking enturbulation.
To all those who missed it... You shouldda bin there!
As usual, the whole thing was totally disorganised. It's the price you pay for anything net related, so no big deal.
I arrived at the meeting pub about 12:45 to find I was one of the last to arrive, and I was only 15 minutes late. Already a good sign. I sat at the SP table and said hello to all the familiar faces, and quite a few new ones. I was pleased to see Ralph Hilton had decided to attend, and he had brought a friend. Bonnie and Richard Woods were there, along with the usual ARSCC contingent. We sat in the pub making up posters, banners, and catching up on stuff you can talk about in real life but rarely makes it to the net.
At 13:30 we gulped down our drinks and headed out to the org, some 30 seconds away just around the corner. Immediatetly the clam band "Jive Aces" (Who oddly enough are all Sea Org members, not CC) started playing. They wouldn't stop for the rest of our visit there. Constantly pounding out ragtime to drown out the voices of picketers and hardly a 5 second break between numbers. It was exactly the same stuff as they played last time, but at least it was in a different order today. This was in conjunction with the usual "Say No To Drugs" campaign they trot out to make us look pro-drug whenever we turn up. What they fail to realise is that their reputation is so bad that few people were falling for it. I'm happy to report that Scientology's reputation is now so bad, and so well known, that the drug campaign has little effect on the public perception of our protest.
Our banner consisted of photocopied headlines of the recent suicide of Richard Collins, UK scientologist, Nora Lottick, who also died recently under similar circumstances. A colour printout of the infamous "Cult of Greed" Time cover, and things of that nature. It didn't take long for Jaques Vollet to complain about the banner. Unfortunately I was too far away to hear the conversation, so maybe Martin Poulter can fill in that bit. He didn't look very happy though. Much to my delight, none of our banners mentioned the net at all.
Soon afterwards, Jaques was doing his usual thing of photographing everyone from all conceivable angles. I think he read my last report as he had a nicer camera this time. It was an old Practica SLR with a 50mm lens and StarBlitz hammerhead flash. He took many pictures, but as I was filming him at the same time, I imagine most of them were of the lens of my camera. Oh well, I'm sure he got a few good shots during the day. He also tried to get a shot of Bonnie holding a copy of "Freedom", but unfortunately she dropped it before he could get one. Butterfingers Bonnie! Hmmm... it just occurred to me. Jaques was snapping away like a mad thing all day, and I didn't see him reload his camera once! Interesting. At the rate he was taking pictures, I would imagine he'd have used at least 3 rolls of 36 exposure film. Also the flash on his camera never went off. The only other scn camera I saw being used was one of those Fuji preloaded cardboard disposables.
It's time for me to change my sig. His name is Jaques Vollet for sure (no Ledderer) and I have it on -very- reliable authority that he is currently European head of something called "OSA Invest". This department took over from where GO-B1 left off, and Jaques is probably the sole survivor of the GO's "night of the long knives". Don't mess with this guy. He has been in a long time and exerts a lot of influence in the cult. If anyone out there knows any more about him, please let me know. I want to update my WWW page on him.
Obviously things weren't going well for the scienos. It was time to call in the clowns! About 4 performers from the Celebrity Centre were drafted in, dressed up as clowns and proceeded to bounce around to the music handing out leaflets. I think they put the fear of god into some passers by.
Dave Bird had his trusty Clam toilet seat out, and was banging away in time to the music. I think the poor thing's on it's last hinges. We need to get some funds out of ARSCC petty cash and pay for a new one. He deserves it.
Ralph was proving that he really knew his stuff. At one point he was telling some poor guy about how long and how expensive OT3 will be. The guy was really enturbulated and tried to get away,, but Ralph had his TRs in and wasn't giving up that easily! It's hard for a scieno to ignore the opinion of someone who has audited people up to OT8. It's not like they can say "You don't know what you're talking about". I could see the guy visibly caving in as Ralph went for the jugular. T'was cool to watch and I learned a lot.
The scienos had a table outside liberally sprinkled with campaign shirts and signed photos of celebs who had been fooled into signing up for the drug free scam. The table was manned by a pair of OTs. I think they were married. The guy was OT5(?) and the woman OT8 according to Ralph, and he should know! They both wore OT jewelry which was nice, as I'd never gotten a look at it before. I approached Mr. OT5 and attempted to engage him in conversation. At first he didn't realise I was a critic, as I wasn't wearing my SP shirt. He was happy to flick thru the Say No To Drugs autograph book, and I taped the pages with my vidcam, whach had revived just in time for the picket. Big Win! However, my ARSCC conditioning soon kicked in,, and the urge to enturbulate became too strong. I mentioned the recent suicides, and the German legal situation. His demenour changed dramatically. He called me "evil" and refused to look me in the eye, pretending I wasn't there. I persisted. With my camera running I enquired about the shirts.
Me: "How much are the shirts?"
OT5: "We're not allowed to sell them on the street. Just shows how ignorant you are doesn't it?. Just goes to show how ignorant you are. Ignorant!"
Me: "Okay, if they -were- for sale, how much would they be?"
OT5: "None of your business!"
Me: "You don't know?"
OT5: "Nasty destructive little nits like you."
Me: "Don't you like me?"
OT5: [Looks away, no answer]
Me: "He doesn't like me!"
OT8: "I strongly suspect that you've been listening to a whole lot of evil talk without finding out for yourself"
Me: "What is the truth?"
OT8: "Everything you see for yourself."
Me: "What I see for myself is reports of people throwing themselves off bridges."
OT8: "Oh come on! That was only one person. There are plenty of christians that do the same thing."
Me: "Sure, but I bet they don't do it because they are christian."
OT5: [Puts a copy of "Freedom" in front of my lens] "Here have this!"
OT8: [B-movie manic laughter]
We were soon to be graced by the precence of a Sea Org babe. She was nowhere near as horny as the one I saw last time. Her uniform was different too, with 2 steel coloured chains adorning the front of her blazer, and no braid. She gave me a nice smile as she passed into the org, and I didn't see much of her after that.
Dave Bird was sporting a photocopy of LRH's infamous "Tomato Auditing" photgraph on his shirt. When Jaques was asked what he thought of it, he said it was a "made up" picture. It was only later we discovered that an article about that very incident was printed in the copy of Freedom they were handing out that day. Jaques Vollet, you are a liar.
It was about this time that a pair of fundie christian preachers appeared. Not one to let oppertunity slip by, I took one aside and told him about the LRH quote "there was no Christ". After that there was no stopping him, and for the rest of the day you could see him collaring scienos and giving them some -real- verbal, shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard over the band, and endlessly quoting scripture. Worth his weight in Dev-T that chap was.
A humorous interlude. Mr OT5 had to go to his car to get more copies of "Freedom". They came in a bundle all tied up neatly. He spent 2 minutes trying to free them. Mrs. OT8 was no help either. Eventually they gave up and took them into the org. Looks like they'll have to wait until OT9 to be "At cause over string".
Eventually the noise of the band caused one of the nearby storekeepers to snap. He came out and complained mightily to the OTs. They said it was nothing to do with them, and said he should complain to Bonnie Woods. Bonnie of course set they guy straight. Soon afterwards the police arrived. When pressed, the scienos had to fess up and admit that the guy in charge was none other than our old friend Jaques Vollet. The police took Jaques aside and wrote down his address and phone number (I won't disclose them here) and I think they asked him to moderate the noise. It cetainly seemed to get quieter for a while.
We were also graced by the precence of a beer bellied OSA goon. He stood in the org doorway, drinking coffee, and "evil eyeing" anyone he could get to notice him. I rarely saw him blink, and never saw him smile. In fact I'd go as far as to say he looked extremely pissed off about something. Can't imagine what. To make his day complete, one of the "down and outs" who abound in London, decided to join in the show. dancing (stumbling) around to the music, this little guy looked like dragging him hrough a hedge backwards would effect an improvement. And boy did he smell. The scienos just couldn't get rid of him, and resorted to standing in front of me every time I filmed him. Didn't work though, I got plenty of footage :)
We'd been there about four hours, and decided it was time to leave the org to the tender mercies of evangelical preachers and passing bums. It was time to head back to the pub. Normally this would signal the end of the day. A beer or two, some polite converation, and away to home. But not this time.
Soon after setling down, Jaques turned up. Instead of his usual smalltalk while waiting for people to inadvertantly disclose personal details about themselves, he sat at the table where a recent ex-scn was drinking. I was told that Jaques was trying to "recover" him. As this guy is effectively freezone, if Jaques had managed to get him back, he would have been a mine of information about squirrel groups. As an added bonus, Jaques would have become his FSM, and made 10-15% on any money the guy spent in the cult. Life was made a little difficult by the precence of richard Price and Ralph Hilton at the same table. They knew all his little tricks and wouldn't give Jaques any leeway. He was there a -long- time trying to recover this ex member, but didn't even get close. Big Win!
We were chatting and generally having a great time, when some of who shall remain nameless (won't we Ralph and Richard?) got extremely drunk and decided to go hassle the org some more. I couldn't resist and went along to watch. When I arrived an argument was if full swing in the org between the receptionist and the ARSCC. It looked to me like the ARSCC were winning despite their inebriation. ARSCC tech works even when you're out of your tree! After a tactical withdrawal, Ralph decided he wanted to go back, but was looking for a reason. I told him I'd seen an LRH mousemant in the window, and said he should ask for it. Well it was another win. They gave him the mat just to make him go away. While he was standing outside the org brandishing his new aquisition, they threatened to call the police if he didn't leave "their property". One of the staff tried to forcibly remove him from the vicinity, but as soon as I pointed my camera in his direction he ran for cover.
I decided to call it a day after that. I said goodbye to all, but few of them noticed me as they were all deep in conversation. I slipped away into the evening, satisfied with a job well done. On my way to the tube station, I was struck by the number of Freedoms and scn leaflets that littered the Tottenham Court Road. I kept a careful eye open for any of our leaflets, and only saw one.
In conclusion, a cracking day out Grommit! Lance.
