9-city picket yesterday!
06 May 2001
cultxpt@primenet.com (Jeff Jacobsen)

Yow, a 9-city picket yesterday: Atlanta, Clearwater, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Tampa, Toronto, and Washington DC!

The first big picket about Scientology I remember being organized on the net had 150 picketers who protested in 15 different locations. This was when everyone was pissed off about Helena Kobrin's attempt to close down a.r.s. and such other nonsense, thus creating the largest pool of Scientology critics in history. In fact, I think Helena Kobrin should get honorary SP 5 status for that.

From what I've heard, all the picketers behaved peacefully and legally. It's wonderful that, despite such a diverse and unstructured group as we are, we can and do voice our opinion about Scientology in a proper and effective manner that reaches both the public and the Scientologists.

Picketing educates the public, shows Scientologists that there is dissention to their harmful practices, allows some peaceful (on our side anyway) interaction between critics and Scientologists, and also shows Scientology that they live in a "wog" world and are NOT At Cause over their entire environment.

This last point to me is important. Every year at the annual picket in Clearwater in December, Scientology tries different tricks to CONTROL their environment by trying to stop our protest. They've overwhelmed us with their own picketers and taunters, torn up their sidewalks, gone to court to get a restraining order against all of us (even though it was only one protester who ever touched anyone), and even closed down Flag. None of these methods have stopped us, showing that they are NOT At Cause. As Arnie says, no OT's here controlling Matter, Energy, Space and Time (MEST). Scientology needs to learn that they must abide by "wog" laws and respect the community they are in. As it is now, they want to be in control of everything and are seperate from their community (as the 100 security cameras, security guards, and motion detectors around all their properties in Clearwater shows).

Gandhi Tech [tm] has worked successfully around the world, and it works for us too.

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When a Scientology staffer used a syringe to force a mixture of aspirin, Benadryl and orange juice into McPherson's throat while others held her down, it was "spiritual sustenance," the church argues.