Picket Report, Brent Stone

Scientology Lies > Pickets > Mountain View >Picket Report, Brent Stone

From: Brent Stone 
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Picket report Mt.View plus
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 21:30:14 -0700
Organization: not usually
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On 5 Jun 2000 03:26:12 GMT, Keith Henson  wrotf:

>
>It was a three org kind of day . . . .
>
>Yesterday an interviewer and her taping tech spent a few hours with me. 
>She is from France, and her camera guy has a limited command of English. 
>
>My paranoia was set a little too high yesterday--I suspected OSA was 
>running an op to be sure I would not picket Hemet over the weekend.
>Not so it seems.
>
>She wanted to see the orgs in action, so we made a date to picket an
>org today.  Brent Stone had seen a new one which was to open today in 
>Mt. View about two blocks toward San Jose from the old one so that was 
>the choice.
>
>I was late (too much party last night) but we managed to connect not far
>from the San Jose org at 11 am.  Since we were close, and I wanted her to
>see the org which as sucked in such a number of Indians (she is Indian) so
>we went by there for a short picket.  Car count was *up*, 51 today.  I
>don't know if this is the result of a growing org or a major effort to get
>people to the "Sunday services."  If they are doing that well, they don't
>have the money available to deal with the weeds growing through the
>pavement.  Anyway, they got a 10-15 minute picket.  Not much action but
>the guy I refer to as blue shirt came out and cursed a blue streak at me. 
>Being on camera though he refrained from his usual nazi salute. 
>
>Then we went off to the new org in Mt. View.  Brent was nearby when we got
>there and wisely had refrained from starting to picket them before he had
>someone to picket with.  We started picketing them and *instant* heavy
>entrubulation.  The new org has floor to ceiling windows facing the
>street, and there was no way to block our picketing from the people
>inside.  Nice Mark and some other dude who has picketed my house in the
>past came out and made an attempt for about an hour to handle us--walking
>with us and trying to introvert us.  It was complete bust.  They also
>called the cops, who told them the sad news that there was nothing they
>could do about peaceful protest, even if they were claiming to be a
>"church." 
>
>At the end of an hour they got orders from headquarters to quit trying, 
>and the rest of the picket was much like my recent experience in Hemet, 
>kind of boring except for the honks of support as the cars drive by.
>
>Their "grand opening" offered the usual suck-them-in personality test,
>etc., but I don't think there were *any* new people there.  A shame
>because new people often take pickets as a hint they should be somewhere
>else and bug out.  We could see inside where it looked very much like the
>people were running TRO, sitting across from each other (under the
>watchful eye of an LRH photo) an staring at each other. 

It was interesting that their main point when they called the cops was
that we were disturbing a church service.  The "grand opening" event
was at a "Dianetics Testing Center" where the events described on the
flyer were: "Free Personality Tests", "Free IQ Tests" and "Free Aptitude
Tests".  A week earlier, the same building had a big yellow "Scientology"
sign on it, but that was removed and a "Dianetics" sign replaced it.
Not that it matters much, as protesting illegal and abusive behavior
is as valid if the organization is "religious" as if it is not.

Seems to me they "forgot" which valence they were operating under.
If they don't see any difference between "religious" services and
Dianetics, perhaps they shouldn't be attempting to instill those
services in the public school systems either.

As far as I could tell, all the attendees were members already who
showed up at the start of the event.  I didn't see anyone drop in
for the "free testing" being offered.  If anyone _had_ showed up
though, they looked like they were fully prepared to personality
test the heck out of them.

>After maybe an hour and getting the cops to check on the camera guy, Brent
>went across the street for a long interview.  I continued picketing with a
>number of honks and thumbs up for my efforts.  Brent finally finished 
>our news people left and he joined me for a short time before he had to 
>leave due to the press of other business.  By this time the event had 
>kind of wound down, but I stayed till most of them had driven off, and 
>then I left.

They seem to have been exercising their new "hot button" of "protecting
the children".  They claimed that the video had pictures of children on
it.  This claim was made because the video had at least a couple of shots
that included the org on it, although 95% of the video was taken of just
us picketing and the insane rantings that were being thrown at us 
(especially Keith, 'cause I really didn't feel like playing that much).
When I walked by, they were showing the cops how, when the video guy
turned around when we changed direction, his camera flashed past the org.
The camera guy ended up taping over all shots of the org.  Actually, I 
really don't recall seeing any children except for one in a stroller.
Even that one was immediately moved inside the windowless office when 
we showed up (perhaps there were other, faster moving children that were 
moved inside before I saw them).  It's interesting that they can use
children (like dressed up in Nazi uniforms or unsupervised cleaning up
trash on a busy street) for their purposes freely,  and then the powerful
OTs run and hide behind them when they can't handle a situation.

>Near the end, a desperate staffer came out and hit on some Mexican dudes 
>who were looking at the cars in a lot next door.  This is a lot where no 
>car is more than $800.  He managed (by being really obnoxious) to sell 
>this guy a copy of Dianetics and to get his phone number.  The guy also 
>got a recent flyer by Kristi which should immunize him.
>
>As things were winding down, nice Mark mentioned to me that for all our
>efforts they were still expanding.  This event was advertized as the Mt
>View org going to St.  Hill size.  Considering that there were not more
>than 40-45 people there, I have to hand it to the ARSCC operations in
>England for their highly successful efforts which reduced St. Hill to such
>a tiny size. 

Gotta hand it to the fine ARSCC organization over there, they must be
doing a wonderful job.

>Since I was going that way, I stopped and gave the old Mt. View location 
>a short picket.  They saw me and one guy had me turn my picket signs so 
>he could read all 4 surfaces, but they mostly ignored me.
>
>I would guess that as many as 200 scns were out in this area doing scn
>today.  That seems like a lot, but the south bay has about 2.5 million
>people in it.  At one percent of the US population, and 45k scns, they
>should have about 450 members here.
>
>Keith Henson
>
>PS, these reports are more effort to write than the picketing.  But rules 
>are rules and if you don't report, you don't get credit.

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