=====
From: plmlp@mail.bris.ac.uk (Martin Poulter)
Subject: PICKET REPORT: Freak Show in Poole!
Date: 1997/05/18
Message-ID: <EADqzG.5oJ@fsa.bris.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Yesterday, the 17th of May, eight protestors staged a surprise picket at Poole, Scientology's most successful org in England. This was the fifth UK picket of this year. There was no violence, but our confidence in the ability of Scientologists to remain calm and composed was shaken once again.
Along with myself, Jens, John, Roland, Dave and of course Duke the Dog were in attendance. We were also joined by some anonymous entities. There were a lot of props in this picket. Four of us wore "75 million years ago, Xenu nuked billions of people in volcanos and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" t-shirts (thanks for the idea, Andreas). We also had Xemu leaflets, Xemu posters, "Xemu loves you" balloons, which we gave away free to the kids, and Xemu himself, in the form of Roland and a rather fine cape. The balloons were a great idea: it gave us all a good feeling to be making children happy.
Eight of us is a good minimum number: at one point, we had a pair of people at each of the approaches to the area where the body-routers work, another pair of people down a side-street inflating balloons, and two more (including Roland) at an outpost further up the street.
The public were not as receptive as we would have liked. It was hard to convince a lot of them that we were not scienos, despite our shouts of "Picket AGAINST Scientology- Don't fall for the Scientology Scam!" Among a most of the people on this busy high street, we sensed a "canvasser fatigue"; they knew that in this area they were going to be pestered by someone with leaflets, so they mentally switched off. The public were *definitely* unreceptive to the scieno's. Plenty of them told the scieno recruiters to F*** off. Several more came to us and congratulated us for taking a stand.
Why do I call it a freak show? Well, we SP's are a diverse buch of people: Roland was in his Xemu costume, Dave has a huge beard, I've got quite remarkably short hair etc., but the *real* freak show was the *cognitive* freak show: the extraordinary closed-mindedness and inability to empathise displayed by the Scientologists. As someone who spends most of his time in an academic environment, I am always intrigued by the Scientologists' distinctive ways of dealing with opinions that they don't agree with. If you're interested in the mechanisms by which people preserve outrageous beliefs, then you can't do much better than pop along to one of these pickets.
I had extended conversations with two people at this picket. The first was a short woman with black hair and a bright red jacket, whom we nicknamed Fruitloop. She kept reading out names from the leaflet I was carrying and asking me if I any of them was my name. I patiently explained who the names referred to, and that in fact one of them was a pseudonym. When asked why the news articles had to use pseudonyms, I said that people are very afraid of being harassed. I was then accused of harassing the body-routers, so I patiently explained that I was standing a long way away from them and was not interfering with them.
Fruitloop asked if I had done any courses and I gave my usual reply that, although I've never injected heroin, I still know it's a stupid thing to do. She then told me that I would never treat people who had taken drugs, because I would view them all as stupid. I stressed that that isn't my attitude, but she persisted in telling me what *I* really *think*.
I quickly tired of the conversation, told her "You're just wasting time" and turned my head away. This was when she became outraged, snatched a think wad of leaflets out of my hand and ran off. I chased after her, and when she put the leaflets in the bin, I just picked them out again and walked back to where I had been standing. I heard a shout of "You should *tear them up* and *then* put them in the bin."
Fruitloop was convinced that she is a really good communicator, and yet she failed to establish the basic affinity with me that would have led to a more productive, less hostile conversation. The conversation, and the eventual theft of the leaflets, reminded me of the playground antics in my junior school. Did she feel proud of herself? Did she think she was showing how Scn makes you capable? I wonder.
The other long conversation was with a very short bloke in a white shirt, let's call him "Persil", who seemed to have some connection with OSA. His manner was like a game show host's, but more so: imagine the fixed grin and bogus camaraderie of the very worst game show host, and take *that* to an extreme. Persil was very keen to hear what we thought was wrong with Scn, and just could not see the irony that his *own manner* was demonstrating to us the warping effect that this Hubbard tech has on your behaviour. At several points, he put on an obviously fake laugh- this was always when the argument was going our way. For instance, he expressed disbelief that we should trust Dennis Erlich (he pronounced the name with considerable venom), and I responded that Dennis had been Chief Cramming Officer at Flag, and hence has that all-important First Hand Experience [tm]. The result: a long, totally unconvincing laugh.
Other odd habits were saying "I *agree* with you *one hundred percent*" at odd times, in a very forced way, and *agreeing* with people who interrupted the conversation to tell us how much they supported the protest. He explained that he was "matching their tone level".
Each time we made a sarcastic comment, Persil smiled and said "That's a 1.1 comment!" Again, the irony was beyond the mind of a Scientologist: "1.1" means "covertly hostile", and *his* manner while talking to us was of someone filled with hostility, just barely covering it up.
From my picketing experience, these seem to be some recurring features of how many scientologists deal with critics face-to-face:
* (Blatantly) false friendliness, including flattery.
* Blanking out valid points against them, with a feigned laugh or other
physical response, rather than acknowledging them.
* Telling the critic what the critic believes or means.
* Interrupting the critic, and then telling the critic off for
interrupting *them*. Other hypocritical tactics include mocking the
critic, and then complaining about being mocked.
* Bringing the whole conversation into Scn terms, refusing even to
acknowledge that we don't believe in the underlying ideas.
As we all left, the various scienos gathered into a group and jeered us goodbye, Persil making 1.1 comments, repeating what we said in a silly voice and generally acting like a kid.
As we always say, "We come back!"
PS: We still really need a video camera at future pickets to deter overt harassment. I would be *very* grateful if a volunteer with a video camera would get in touch some time this week.
=====
From: Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine <dave@xemu.demon.co.uk>
Subject: POOLE [UK] --- Clams threaten to sue NCCL/Liberty.
Date: 1997/05/03
Message-ID: <XAMWHCAdV5azEwWJ@xemu.demon.co.uk>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Following the Poole demo, Liberty/the National Council for Civil Liberties received a letter from Scn solicitors based near Saint Hill saying they might have various unspecified grounds to sue. Liberty's reply was they were satisfied no such grounds existed thank you. The letter alledged that I was attending the demos on behalf of Liberty. Liberty's response reaffirmed that this is not so, and they passed the points concerning me for me to reply individually. Unfortunately I am not allowed to publish anything that was not to/from me personally, but here is what was in my reply.
================================
Dear Mr Hodkin,
I am appraised of your letter to Liberty. I do not represent them; any problems you have with them have been replied by them. I did not participate in pickets outside scientology orgs/missions as their representative; any problem you have with that should be taken up with me personally. I note that you represent the college at St Hill (COS- RECI) in its dispute with Richard and Bonnie Woods, but am puzzled what standing you have to represent CSI's orgs and missions against me.
I aim not to prevent exercise of the scientology religion but rather to regulate deceptive selling etc by the organisation, whether it is a religion or a tennis club. I do not wish to enter into irrelevant debates about the German government. There is to the best of my knowledge no campaign "by Liberty" against your clients.
There was indeed a demonstration in Poole organised by a group of people including myself. I went there entirely individually and not as a representative of Liberty. Characterising any criticism of Scientology as "harassment" is absurd and arises from the mindset of its deceased founder Mr Hubbard. The likening of any criticism to the Nazis is likewise absurd. You should consider that, while it is one thing for your client to make frankly unhinged statements, it does not reflect well on the legal profession for you to echo them. Perhaps you would care to specify what the abusive language was? The reference to "clams" from Hubbard's book The History of Man is hardly a big deal.
Re your fourth paragraph I am sure you are aware that:
(1) no part of what we said was an incitement to attack Scientologists
(2) a member of the public attacked your client's staffmember because of persistent attempts to recruit his friend, which had nothing to do with our protest
(3) one of the protesters afterwards went to the aid of your client's staffmember who thanked him for it and acknowledged to had nothing to do with the protest. I would therefore ask you to check the facts and make written retraction of this paragraph.
I am astonished to hear that Mr ******(#) participated in any pickets, since I don't recall ever seeing him at one. [(#)Liberty staffmember-- the allegation is simply insane, he's never attended such pickets].
Your sixth paragraph is also deeply confused as to agency and authority. Liberty did not "allow me to pass the case of Bonnie Woods...to the pro bono solicitor panel." I do not have and was not given authority to contact the panel, have never contacted the panel & do not know who is on the panel. I merely requested--not instructed--Liberty officials to investigate and decide on this matter.
Whether you have any cause of action against Liberty is between you and them. If you have anything to say to me please spell out (1) what specific acts you are complaining about, (2) what cause of action in law you are complaining about them under, and (3) what redress or assurances you expect me to offer and will pray the courts to enforce on me if I refuse. On the evidence volunteered so far and absent anything to the contrary I believe any action you proposed would be vexatious, and so would ask the High court to strike it out as an abuse of process.
Yours Sincerely, etc.
=====
From: John Ritson <john@jritson.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Poole: UK - Picket Report
Date: 1997/05/17
Message-ID: <NMj9CAAU+hfzEwcj@jritson.demon.co.uk>#1/1
Organization: British Bodythetan Society
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Saturday 17th was marked by yet another stealth picket against a Scientology 'org'. This time it was Poole (on the South Coast) again. Xenu or whoever must have been smiling because although it started bucketing down with rain when the first pickets arrived in Poole, by 1PM, when the picket started the sun had come out again and our three-hour picket took place in warm sunshine.
We inflated 100 helium ballons, which went down (or should that be up?) a treat with the kiddies we gave them to, and we had leaflets, and of course the lovable stuffed dog with waterwings 'Duke' (in memory of Judge Swearinger's dog, drowned in an attempt to intimidate the judge). PLUS we had Xenu himself in costume handing out balloons and leaflets.
The Scientologists were doing their usual body-routing (Free personality test, anyone?) in the middle of the pedestrianised High Street. But that stopped when we arrived and eventually they were able to muster their full forces of about a dozen with two placards about 47 years of Dianetics and a banner. As per standard routine, they called the police, and were politely informed that we were within our rights. The response from the passers-by was amazing. Poole is a small town which is by now heartily sick of having Scientology in its midst. It could have been called the 'AGAINST' protest. All we had to say was 'Against' and people were taking the leaflets. Little old ladies would come up, inquire timorously 'Against?' and on being reassured that we were against Scientology would thank us for our efforts. One picketer achieved results just by saying 'We're AGAINST THEM' and pointing to the Scientologists.
One female scientologist went in for leaflet-ripping, and another showed his great communication skills by shouting out ONE POINT ONE over and over again. Perhaps the population of Poole have been so exposed to Scientology that they now all understand the Tone Scale?
All in all a cracking day out at the seaside.
=====
From: jensting@imaginet.fr (Jens Tingleff)
Subject: protesting a-GAINST!! $cientology in Poole UK, May 17th -97 [Xenu]
Date: 1997/05/19
Message-ID: <jensting-ya02408000R1905972217290001@snews2.zippo.com>
Organization: ARSCC Operation Clean the Planet
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Fellow Suppressives!
[and Hi! to the clam lurkers ;-)]
Well, I enjoyed our protest in Poole tremendously!
The weather had been somewhat foreboding (i.e. p*ssing down with rain), but cleared up right before we left for the actual protesting (only 20 minutes late - we're getting better). There was the usual crowd of Internet hard cases, plus a few buddies, one of them new, who were very welcome.
We had balloons for the kids, Roland's Xemu leaflet for the bored and a press-clippings leaflet with excerpts from three different national newspaper articles about Poole. (The latter is "my own invention", and is on http://www.imaginet.fr/~jensting/muslinger/pool_leaf.html ). Someone was seen in the background, clad in a truly excellent light blue sweat-shirt with XEMU across the chest and a blue cape (lined in red). I hear he passed out hundreds of Xemu leaflets, in addition to the one we handed out. Duke the dog was present, as ever, just rearing to have a go. We had some very neat T-shirt ('scuse me: BT-shirts) with the words "75 million years ago, Xenu nuked 15 billion people in volcanos, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" (I would have preferred the three words "these lousy BTs" at the end, but what the heck ;-) ).
When we arrived at the usual intersection on Poole high street, there were only a couple of bodyrouters. Preety darn soon, reinforcements arrived, brandishing ready-made picket signs (Wow[tm]!!) which turned out to be about the 47th anniversary of something or other (they weren't exactly obvious ;-) ). I nattered some with Paul Landon (?) and got into the swing of things. This was the first time I did any heavy duty shouting, but I hope I made up for my previous reticence with some fairly loud "we're protesting a-GAINST!! $cientology".
At the start, one of the little clams came up and started a conversation. I stringed him along for a while, and went back to doing my shouting part. Somehow, they didn't seem to enjoy it when I just turned my back on them and picked up on the shouting, when they were trying sop hard to wate my time.
No, the clam was not on the Internet, he wanted to know who I was - I told him to look it up for the sheer thrill of finding out for himself - and cornered me to the extent that I had to admit that I did call them clams on the Internet. He asked if I didn't think that was like the persecution of the jews in the 30s, and I went back to shouting.. Somewhat later, he asked for copy of my leaflet, and a copy of the other leaflet (i.e. the Xemu one). He then asked for more, to give out to his friends. I told him to photocopy, just like I had to. When he insisted, I had to turn around and shout some more. I don't know what they thought they were doing, but I didn't end up wasting that much time on them (and they had nothing interesting to say, anyway).
Down at the other end of the little square, we had a demonstration of what happens when a clam isn't happy with the direction a converstion is taking. I noticed from far away that a short woman in a red jacket was hauling wads of leaflets off to the trash. They were my leaflets, too ;-) I strolled over there, and refilled the protesters with leaflets. The woman was endearingly shy, and claimed I had no right to take her photograh (demonstrating again that actute grasp of right and wrong which has given me so much motivation through these last two tears...). She sulked some, and then started sucking down another cigaret.
Later in the pub, I heard what it had been - more or less - about. She had baan dev-T'ing Martin and a few others, and Martin had just told her that she was wasting her time when she started tearing leaflets out of protester's hands. Martin has a great tape recording of this (I guess the taperecorder was in the same hand that held the leaflets). What one hears is Martin going "you're just wasting time" - *VERY* dismissively (I guess studying philosophy is good training) - immediately followed by loud tearing and crumbling noises.
I had rather expected this temperamental clamette to go for the Xemu leaflets being handed out by another intrepid protester, so I stuck to the side of this protester for the duration (camera at the ready ;-) ). She didn't freak aout again, though, and contended herself with heckling from the side-lines.
Prety soon, there was a goodly crowd of clams (they must have flushed out all the rooms back at the Dianetics Center), the ready-made picket signs and the banner from the last time in Poole. One of the clams (who had spent hours at the last demo, discussing philosophy and things with protesters) took to emulating the shouts of us two protesters, with brilliant lines like "we protesting a-GAINST people who look very serious", "we're protesting a-GAINST the protesters" and similar pieces of information. He was really trying hard to copy our intonation - I guess he thought that he was being clever and that he was running some routine on us. We didn't respond (loudly) to his disorientated mumbling, and after 1.5 hours, the whole cluster of clams retreated. They had been following us around (moving so that they were immediately behind us) for some time, then we headed back so that we were behind *them*. This didn't work (they didn't take a big loop back), so we went back to the front (i.e. the direction of approach of people coming towards the demo site). At this stage they finally thought of the idea of standing between the protesters and the oncoming trafic, but we coped. The main bulk of clams, at our end of the protest, were clustering around the Dianetics banner, applauding the feeble, and not very loud, efforts of the clam who thought that he was being funny, or distracting, or something. They managed to drop the banner at least three times during the (approx) 1.5 hours they had the thing there - I guess the clam holding up one end had too many banner-dropping engrams, or something. I was too nice to take a picture of them with their banner all over the street (i.e. I forgot :-( ).
It was terribly interesting (well, *I* thought it was fun) to observe the reaction of the passer-bys. They all had that bunched-up DON'T-GIVE-ME-A-LEAFLET look you see whereever people are canvassed all the time. Then they would hear the "a-GAINST", walk a few steps, stop, half-turn and say out loud "against??!!". Then some of them came back, took leaflets, told us it was about time that someone did something, etc. The only negative reaction from passer-bys was from the local drunks (could be tramps) who, apparently, took exception to our use of the space on the street.
From the experience of seeing so many people display a two-second delayed response to, followed by an echo of, the word a-GAINST, I guessed that they were so used to seeing clams out body-routing, that they automatically associated any public canvassing with clams (Hey, next I'll discover that it's easier to serve soup in a deep plate..). From this, we learned that the only significant part of our message ("we're protesting a-GAINST $cientology") was the a-GAINST part. Somehow, we didn't quite feel like simply chanting "a-GAINST!!" "a-GAINST!!", but I think it would have done just as well ;-)
Not a single one of the clams reacted particularly against the Xemu leaflet. This was - frankly - a relief for me. Of course, I don't know whether OSA is blowing a fuse, but we saw no indication that they "went for" those handing out Xemu leaflets. The person who was handing out Xemu leaflets down the street didn't get *any* response from the clams throughout the protest. (There was another leaflet mentioning Xemu, but it hasn't had a shigh a profile as Roland's, recently.)
Two really nice things: One passer-by came up, took a Xemu leaflet and said "Oh, yeah, a girl told me about that yesterday." It seems that Xemu leaflets are making their way 'round Poole. Since the place if really a very small town, and we're approaching summer (where *nothing* happens), I think a lot more people are going to be telling each other about Xemu. Like it says on the leaflet "Don't let us put you off joining" ;-) ;-) The second was the runaway, uncontrallable success of our balloons. These went as fast as we could blow them up. The kids were *dragging* their parents to the protesters, asking for balloons. Unfortunately, the size of cylinder which can sort of be moved around will only hold enough gas for 100-150 balloons. We could lose that number in less than an hour, handing out from only one position. All the balloons came with little cardboard signs talking about Xemu and about "doing the clam". I guess a lot of kids are going to ask their parents what *that* is about. The people who thought up, and implemented, the balloon part are truly stars!
All in all, this went really, REALLY, well. We didn't even deploy all our tactical resources and we still handed out 500 - 1000 leaflets. Add that to the outrageous sight of a dog with waterwings, someone hanging around with a Xemu costume, and Xemu leaflets finding their ways into Poole in other ways, I think we're just about to make a *big* impression on the Poole mission. Ahh, I can't wait to go back for more ;-) Jens
------ No PGP signature, no authenticity. Vive La France!! ---------
http://www.imaginet.fr/~jensting/.
=====
From: Roland <RolandRB@nospam.netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Poole picket report - 17MAY97
Date: 1997/05/18
Message-ID: <337EE77B.5DC4@nospam.netcomuk.co.uk>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
I was sort of picketing yesterday. Since the Co$ ~seem~ to want to pay me what they owe me I have toned it down to the sidelines. I am concentrating on the Xemu side of things, getting people to know about the switch side os the bait-and-switch scam.
We had balloons this time. 100 of them. They all went very fast. I had about 20 balloons and they did not last more than about 20 yards before the children had asked for them all. I must have a kind face or something because children just came up to me for them. Maybe it was the Xemu outfit I was wearing though.
I was down the street about 20 yards from the main picket. Even though i had a Xemu outfit on and was shouting "Find out about the space alien Xemu. Get your free leaflet here", I was still being mistaken for a Scientologist by most people. I did not want to shout "I am against Scientology" because I was just wanting to give out the information (The Xemu leaflet of course) to help people make up their own mind about it.
To get round this problem of being mistaken for a Scientologist I see no alternative to having a bold tshirt making it clear. Unfortunately that would clash with the Xemu costume.
The balloons were great. The clams knew what was printed on the balloons and they could see young children trailing these balloons around Poole, with the balloons bobbing up and down making a mockery of this story. The children loved the balloons. I saw one girl whose red balloon had burst, proudly trailing the piece of string with the red nozzle attached as if it were her dog. She did not seem in the least bit disappointed. Because of the Xemu outfit and me shouting about the "spce alien Xemu" a lot of children were taking my leaflets. I thought it would be a case of the children taking the balloons and the adults taking the leaflets. Not so. I gave out about 200 of the leaflets, 90% of them going to children. Word will get round at the schools in the area. I think at least the very young people of the area have been innoculated aginst the cult.
I did not get any hassle from the Clams. I did at first but then i moved 20 yards away. The clam must have had orders not to get out of sight and so he returned. He was trying to enturbulate my pitch by shouting "find out about Rod Hull and Emu" when I was shouting about Xemu. If he had persisted then he would have heard the whole OT III story.
It seems the RX leaflets were already being distributed around Poole by the local shopkeepers. It seems someone or other had gone down to Poole and donated 1500 colour Xemu leaflets to one of the shopkeepers. That not being enough they were being photocopied in large numbers and spread around. I feel I can safely predict that the clambed in Poole will be a chowder-pot in about 6 months time as the leaflets do their work.
At the end of my demo duty I went back to the pub to watch the second half of the Cup Final. Since I had my reflective spectacles some of the locals were taking the mickey. But one of them explained the situation and said "I'll show you what's in their leaflets". He came up and asked me for one of my leaflets which i said was okay. i had two types of leaflet - the DX and the RX. He knew what he was looking for though. He basically knew what was on the RX leaflet and pointed it out to his friends. I heard him say "so what this leaflet seems to be saying is that it is a confidence trick". This is bad news for the Poole clambed.
I feel good about Poole. No matter what stunt the Clams pull now they are as good as chowder. In six months time I will be back there. I hope to see them gone away. I will then claim my chowder pot. Roland
--
Xemu leaflet (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemuleaf.zip
Unix/Mac Postscript http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemups.zip
Swedish Xemu (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemusw.zip
Swedish Postscript http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemuswps.zip
Dutch Xemu (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemunl.zip
Dutch Postscript http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemunlps.zip
French Xemu (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemufr.zip
French Postscript http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemufrps.zip
Finnish Xemu (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemufi.zip
Finnish Postscript http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemufips.zip
Norwegian (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemuno.zip
Norwegian (PS) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemunops.zip
Spanish (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemusp.zip
Spanish (PS) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemuspps.zip
Italian (Word) http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rolandrb/xemuit.zip
======(0)======
The Incomparable Operation Clambake www.xenu.net
