Picket Report : Brisbane, Fri 14 Mar

Neil Muspratt, Sat 15 Mar 1997

From: Neil Muspratt <neil@fit.qut.edu.au>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Picket Report : Brisbane, Fri 14 Mar
Date: 15 Mar 1997 06:08:33 GMT
Message-ID: <5gded1$713@dove.qut.edu.au>


Ahh. Back home, fresh from the latest Brisbane picket. Cooked dinner.
Ate dinner. Settled down to watch some telly. "Hmm, what's on the box
tonight?" I mused as I scanned the weekly TV guide. Heh, Tom Cruise in
"Top Gun" at 8:30 pm.

I started writing the picket report instead.

I'm starting to get seriously pissed off with the criminal cult. The
whole week has been interesting to say the least. It started late on
Monday afternoon when my immediate boss brought in a copy of one of my
posts to a.r.s advertising today's picket, printed from the Deja News
WWW site. Apparently the local DSA Lyn Smith didn't like it very much
and lodged a complaint with my faculty's admin officer over the phone,
faxing the copy of my post afterwards. Now Lyn, you don't strike me as
the computer geek type. Own up. Someone else sent you that, didn't
they?

I'll be posting more about this little event later. Really, I can't
imagine why Lyn complained. The last time we payed the org a visit, I
overheard Lyn agreeing to someone's comment that they always get more
enquiries after pickets. Good for business and all that. So Lyn, how
come we never get asked to come back? Huh?

Stuart Riley started the ball rolling outside the local org at about
4:00 pm and I turned up 10 to 15 minutes later. Work. You know how it
is. They had prepared a big welcome for us. Up to 12 $cientologists
were out there at one time. I didn't know they had that many in
Brisbane. Gosh, new faces keep cropping up at every picket. Soon I'll
have met all of them. One big happy clam family. Smile for the camera
please! *click*

Speaking of photographs, I found out why the Co$ keeps taking mug
shots of SPs all the time. Lyn said she has to keep replacing the
photographs because they get dart holes in them. Very cute. Did you
think that one up all by yourself or did you have help? And did you
know that you can reuse the negatives to make more of the same prints?

We didn't get as many leaflets out this time around, probably just
over 100. People walking past just didn't seem interested, probably
because of the large Co$ contingent. We were hard to pick out in the
crowd. I wonder if a Xenu costume would go down well over here? He
seemed particularly effective in sending the clams ape at Clearwater.

Just like last time, it seems the reputation of the Co$ is quite well
known among the members of the general public who work in the city and
pass the org regularly. I have not once encountered a pedestrian who
has said I'm doing the wrong thing. Plenty of them have said the exact
opposite. We were even getting thumbs up from some people pulled up in
cars on the road, waiting for the traffic lights to change.

Stuart and I stood at the periphery of the crowd, one concentrating on
each end, so we didn't get to speak to each other much. I attracted
the attention of two women I've not seen before, who seemed to take it
upon themselves to find out why I was doing what I was doing. What the
heck, I may as well be civil and engage in conversation. Pedestrians
were ignoring me anyway.

It was the usual stuff. Psychs, drugs (she claimed not to take any,
even aspirin), Dianetics, ECT, more drugs (I told her I like to have
my daily dose of Prozac), conspiracy theories, the Purif, copyright,
the Internet, how great L. Rong^H was, how wonderful Narconon and
Criminon programs are, etc. She attested to OT something or other but
didn't seem to know where $cientology first started up its activities.
"... in England ..." Oh, and she didn't know Xenu. Strange. I do.

She seemed particularly interested in my laboratory assistant job. I
think she got the impression I like to cook things up in the lab in my
spare time. Actually, as I said to her more than once, I work with
computers, not organic chemicals. I do have a good recipe for quiche
though.

Struth I hate the way some of them look. Those eyes. There's something
just not right with the eyes. She was like that. Brrrr.

Most of the conversation and interaction was fairly polite, even good
humoured at times, which seems to be a feature of most of the devotees
here in Brisbane. Unlike some of the ones I've read about at the org
in Sydney. You know who you are, cockroaches.

Surprise, surprise. Lyn proposed that we meet somewhere to discuss my
dislike of $cientology. Well why not. Murray? Here's your chance. Want
to come along for a chat with you know who sometime? Make a list.

The highlight of the picket for me was the response of one particular
female pedestrian. She just stopped in her tracks a few metres away as
she approached me and my shadow, stunned that there was actually
someone *picketing* $cientology. The praise for what we were doing
just flowed spontaneously from her and was totally unexpected. She
refused to speak to the $cientologist beside me, saying to her
repeatedly that she "would not engage in dialogue" with her. To this
woman, seen and heard but still anonymous, I give you my thanks. You
made my day and made the picket all worthwhile. And by the way, I'm
single and unattached. :-)

We finished up right on 6:00 pm. The crowd let off a small cheer as we
departed. Thanks guys. I think we did pretty well too.

The fight goes on. Stay tuned.

--
 _.-_|\     Neil Muspratt (SP3)              Tel : + 61 7 3864 2146
/      QUT Technical Services Section        Fax : + 61 7 3864 1959
\_.--,_/  Faculty of Information Technology  Net : neil@fit.qut.edu.au
      v  GPO Box 2434 Brisbane Qld 4001      PGP : 2.6.3i (send email)

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then
quietly strangled.

- Barnett Cocks