This is from Week in Review after the March 13 1998 pickets:
> Pickets
Worldwide pickets were held on March 13th and 14th to coincide with L.
Ron Hubbard's birthday. Scientology locations in 15 cities were
picketed.
Picket report from John Ritson, at the Poole, England mission:
"About ten suppressives converged on Poole, together with 'Duke' the
lovable dog in water wings commemorating Judge Swearinger's drowned
dog, the boombox capable of playing L. Ron Hubbard's ravings,
placards, leaflets and helium 'Xenu' balloons to give away to the
kiddies. Plus - a lady calling herself 'Xenu's wife' complete with
Xenu cloak, a Ferengi mask, sunglasses, blue lipstick, red teeth and a
glowing sword. At about 13:30 we turned up in 'Ambush Alley' where
the Scientologists regularly do their body-routing, to find a marked
lack of body-routers. So we wandered round to the local 'Dianetics
Bookshop' (which has now reopened, the landlord being forced to accept
such notoriously bad payers as nobody else wanted the tenancy) to
inform them of our arrival, and the body-routers duly appeared.
"As usual the scientologists called the police and complained about
our picketing, and were informed that we were within our rights, but
we had to turn off the boom-box. So instead of listening to L. Ron
Hubbard explaining how to get rid of Body Thetans, the bodyrouters had
to listen to some *very* loud picketers explaining what a scam
Scientology is.
"They were handing out a bizarre publication called 'WINNING!' 'News
Journal of the Office of Special Affairs Volume 2 Issue 2' with
articles about claimed victories over 'Suppressive Persons', Mike
Rinder talking about 'all-out war against suppressive elements' and a
back page saying: Do you know who is restoring religious freedom
wherever it is attacked? The Office of Special Affairs - OSA!"
From "Meklar" at the Sacramento, California org:
"The Sacramento Org was subject to a solo picket from 12:20pm to
1:20pm. There were 12-15 cars in the Org parking lot. Foot traffic was
good, for downtown Sacramento. Vehicle traffic was excellent. My
picket sign read 'Scientology is a SCAM' and '$370,000 for Religious
Salvation? SCAM!' The reaction from the Org was underwhelming. When
the receptionist saw me she immediately picked the phone and began
frantically dialing. The second reaction of the Org was to lower the
window blinds. After a few moments an attractive young woman came out
to take photographs of me. When she couldn't operate the camera she
actually ask me if I could help her with it."
From "BooHoo Weeper" at the Seattle, Washington org:
"Scienos could be seen using the rear entrance to be building while we
were there, very little traffic in or out the main entrance. Their
building adjoins what appears to be a modest sized commercial parking
lot, and it was not possible to estimate any vehicle count clearly
related to the org. Ironically, the org street level storefront
windows contained two large signs blaring 'Lies exposed' in white on
black lettering. The rest of the lettering on the signs was too small
for passing motorists to make out on the move, so the signs almost
looked like they were ours!"
From Catarina in Gothenburg, Sweden:
"Got to the org just after 11.00 a.m. No signs of life. We occupied
the usual bodyrouting corner and started handing out leaflets. (We
chose to not use picket signs, as they are rarely used here unless
it's a much bigger protest, and would possibly just make us look odd
and threatening). There was not very much traffic about on this
Saturday morning. It's in a side street and far away from the city
center. There was only about 10 people leaving or entering the
building while we were there, and the org is just one out of several
companies using that entrance. One middle-aged woman wearing an OT
necklace came out, and accepted our leaflets as she was passing, but
just kept going. A man coming out seemed vaguely familiar, but he
wasn't there to 'handle' us either."
From Mike Gormez in Amsterdam:
"Amsterdam Org was peacefully picket today between 14:00 and 17:00.
During the demonstration an odd 13 or so picketers attended and some
200-250 leaflets in different languages were handed out. The usual
response when asked if they wanted a leaflet was 'I'm against
scientology!' to that we said 'So are we!' - after which they took
them and told us how great it is that people are taking some action
against the cult. Shouting 'Against Scientology' was often enough to
see our leaflets fly. The scientologists were quickly enturbulated and
locked the door of the org for a reason unknown to us."
From Frank Copeland in Melbourne, Australia:
"Saturday morning was the picket proper at the Org in Russell St,
which was a fairly quiet affair. There was just me, David and Cyril
Vosper for most of the time, and Barbara turned up later. We started a
bit after 11, and finished around 1pm. It was a very slow day
traffic-wise, with hardly any foot traffic, and no sign of the tourist
buses that used to pull up in droves at the Hyatt next door. For some
reason the silly git in the white hat with the *big* camera decided to
be more obnoxious than usual, getting literally right in our faces
with it. He gave me a filthy look when I asked him if it had film in
it today, after posing for him with a Xenu leaflet."
From Jeff Spencer in Boston:
"6 SPs at cause over the Boston org, and the Boston weather. There
was a Boston Herald reporter there at the beginning of the picket.
Also, the CoS called in the police, and were visibly upset when the
officer did nothing more than stand there and make sure both sides
obeyed the law. The CoS brought out some huge banners about
lobotomies. Why was the 'Lobotomies performed here' arrow pointing at
a Lexus?"
From Gregg Hagglund in Toronto:
"As advertised on ARS and other places the Toronto Picket was
scheduled for our usual start time of 2 pm. But in a 'Birthday
Surprise!' move we launched our Picket at 10 AM catching the org
completely off guard. The usual panic phone use ensued. For the 10
am to 1 pm first half of our picket we had 5 hardy souls in 30F
temperatures later followed by a brief but very Xmassy flurry. DSA Al
Buttnor had the Org turn up the sound almost immediately on the
external speaker so I went to the Megaphone in response.
"Soon after the music was cut and Uncle Al came out to confront me
about the Megaphone. (I guess he didn't like my talking about Xenu so
much.) He shoved a tape recorder in my face and demanded I cease using
the MP. I refused and pointed out it was on the Notice. After
repeatedly asking me the same question I finally asked him 'What part
of the word 'No' don't you understand?' I guess he had an M/U on that.
He returned into the org and the music came back on but at a lower
level."
From Joe Cisar in Washington, DC:
"I drove down to Washington, and approached the big red brick building
with the Scientology Swastika on it at Connecticut and R Street. My
throat was dry; I couldn't talk. But I recognized Arnie Lerma and
talked to him and he let me use his picket sign while he passed out
leaflets. I made it around the picket line once more and a drone made
a pass by me. This one started out in the invalidation mode -- 'Do you
know who the leader of this picket is he is a member of the liberty
party a racist group who is similar to the Nazis he is like Hitler he
hates Jews if you are here with him that means you hate Jews too why
do you hate Jews?' I told him I didn't mind if he spoke to me but I
wasn't going to speak back at him.
"It was good to see so many picketers there. There was a lot of
positive feedback. The DC cops were right there in front of the
building. Beautiful day, but windy. I felt sorry for the Scientology
teenager who was passing out pieces of paper to people and saying
'free movie inside.' If there was any doubt in my mind about whether I
was doing the right thing, it disappeared when one of the wgert-drones
told me, 'You hate Jews.'"
From "Mad_Cow" in Atlanta:
"In attendance were myself, Wynot, Laudanum, Jeff, Slax, and Special
Guest appearance by Xenu. Our seven-foot Xenu really got a lot of
attention! He was the most congenial of Galactic Overlords, waving to
everyone and yelling 'Xenu loves you!'. Exactly how much attention he
was drawing was realized when a police car rolled up directly next to
us about 15 minutes into the picket. The policeman pulled Xenu aside
to inform him that there was a Mask Law (oh puh-leez) in Atlanta that
is enforced every day but Halloween. The officer said that our picket
was perfectly OK except for the mask and ask Xenu to remove his face.
Because he was on his lunch hour, Xenu decided not to scare the local
populace to death by revealing his true identity, but instead chose to
return to work early. The officer then turned to the lovely scieno
info-babe Susan (one of our handlers from the February 28th picket)
and told her what we were doing was perfectly legal and lawful.
"During this picket we got maybe ten honks and a few thumbs-ups. I
managed to pass out all 15 of my Xenu flyers and the same number of
'In LRH's Own Words'. We didn't get any middle-finger signs this time,
but one guy yelled 'they gotta right to be here too', to which I
replied 'So do we.'"
From Bruce Pettycrew, in Los Angeles:
"I was in the first group of picketers to arrive at the
Cedars/ASHO/etc. complex on Friday afternoon. The Scientologists had
blocked both ends of the street with the ugly name, so we proceeded up
the sidewalk with Taniwha leading the way in serene disregard of the 3
stooges dressed in LAPD/CIA drag. They waved paper in our faces
claiming they had a permit to close the street. Taniwha pointed out we
were on the sidewalk (duh!) and continued marching. They claimed the
sidewalk was part of the street, I asked them to tell me when they
were going to be driving so I could get far away. I also pointed out
the private
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