May 9, 1998 - Deep Wog

The Toronto Unit of the Marcabian Expenditionary Force staged another picket of the Toronto, Canada Org from 10:00 to 13:00, 13:00 to 16:30 (about 5.5hours in total) on 1998 May 9. Turnout: 5 in the morning, 4 in the afternoon, and finished with 3 at the end.

Most of the time was spent offering the secrets of the criminal cult to any takers. And takers there were: we handed out all of the printed flyers. Right down to the bottom of the bag. I believe 750 were printed for today, and another 150 or so came from left-overs of previous pickets.

We are currently using the Xenu flyer on one side of a single sheet of paper, augmented with the details of the cult's criminal conviction in Canada on the obverse. Again, the juxtoposition of space aliens and criminal convictions appears to be too hard to resist for the average citizen of Toronto.

Highlights:

* The Org received notice weeks in advance. And the only sign of any planning is that they apparently cancelled the normal "classes" -- gotta protect the members from reality, don'tchaknow!

Otherwise, the response was typical -- except that it started at 10:00 instead of the usual 11:30 or so from previous pickets [late response as people are called in]. If anything, this the most peaceful picket yet. I hear the police have put the Fear of Bob into Buttnor. There were no camera-wielding clams [except one sucky looking P&S dangling daintily from one woman's shoulder] no attempts to interfere with our leafletting or trying to be assholes by standing in our way...

* Morning session has light traffic, due to being the morning, but sidewalk reconstruction north of the Org probably shunted more than a few people onto the opposite sidewalk. We still did brisk "business" with the people arriving from the south.

We quickly scared some of the clams [a leafletter and the mobile stress-tester] off their own turf and onto the other side of the street. Tempted to shout out "**FLUNK!!" for this display of a total non-contront..

* Just after the beginning of the afternoon session, I consciously realize something. I was walking north, and watched, to my amazement, a guy cross 4 lanes of busy traffic, tip-toeing around moving cars at some risk to his life and/or limb all >>just to get a flyer from Artemis<<.

How many times has anyone actively sought out a Org flyer? I can not recall witnessing such an event. Not once. Yet I am regularly asked for flyers -- though certainly not as dramatic as the fellow who sought out Artemis.

* The E-meter is wheeled out again. First a Mark V. They try to replace it with the "high tech" Mark VII -- injection molded, microprocessor controlled, networkable, and hideously expensive. What can you buy for the price of the Mark VII? Maybe the EF 300/2.8 lens? A used car? Make a downpayment for a house?

Most hilarious was the Mark VII didn't work, so it was back to 1950's technology for the rest of the day.

This is the second picket where a meter shows it's face. Perhaps it is time to make our own meter, and give our own demonstrations on the tricks one can play with such an instrument.

* Clam overheard trying to give out Co$ 'information': "Here you go. This will explain what is going on today." Of course, it was a fat, smelly, lie: the material they were giving out is the usual dianetics mumbo-jumbo, lacking any kind of substance. "Watch our movie", "take our stress test", try the "Free Dianetics Demo" -- no counter to our material [weeks of preparation time, remember!], etc.

I find this kind of misrepresentation particularly vile. Passing out leaflets for your side while pretending to be on the other side? An admission of nothing less than total, abject, failure. And a perfect example of the practices we protest. And that we will continue to protest until the Co$ ceases to behave in this manner, ceases killing and imprisoning its members, ceases the harassment of critics (both in and out of court) or the Co$ ceases to exist.

It is an open, and interesting, question as to whether the Co$ can continue to exist and not lie to the public from whom they must ultimately draw new members.