From: fun@athene.tertius.net.au (David Gerard) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Australia: Meeting with Brian Johnston (CoS) Date: 21 Nov 1996 12:41:50 GMT Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie Lines: 91 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: suburbia.net X-Newsreader: slrn (0.8.8.4 (BETA) UNIX) Well! What an interesting evening! Got to Paladin around 6:45pm. Frank Copeland was already there, as was Cyril Vosper (who had decided to show up). At about seven, Tim Jones showed up - the same one who has been posting to a.r.s recently. Tim is a perfectly normal human being; American ("Some people are kind to me and ask if I'm Canadian" [smile]); has life; has job; a normal businessman. He had a company function to go to, but came along earlier on at Brian Johnston's request and was in on the first half-hour or so. Tim is a likable fellow and as nice in person as on the newsgroup. (Discussed news software. Tim says that he did try werple.net.au's news server, but DejaNews apparently has a *lot* more articles on it. In case you were wondering.) Brian showed up soon after and we discussed all sorts of things. Frank has the tape and we'll post a transcript within a week I hope (and, as we promised, will be giving a tape and transcript to the local CoS for their entertainment). It was all was much lower-key than I had been expecting. Topics included: * religious beliefs vs. the CoS as organisation - our repeated emphasis that our objections aren't to the beliefs (as evidenced by how freezoners are treated on a.r.s - the tech might get discussed negatively, people might take the piss, but there is nothing like the same objection as to the CoS's *actions*) but to the actions of the Church * what is the Church of the SubGenius (answer: an art-joke) * who is Modemac (hmmm) * the McLibel case (where McDonald's is spectacularly failing to sue two critics out of existence) and its parallels to the present cases * the appropriate action for a large organisation to take in a copyright case * Cyril Vosper and deprogramming/exit-counselling (good rant here, and Brian promised to send me a copy of the Church's documents on Cyril - gave him my PO box and email address as he left) * comparison of public Scientologists (e.g. Tim Jones, Heidrun Beer) on a.r.s to Church representatives - and why it isn't good public relations for an organisation's official spokespeople to be caught out lying repeatedly * what the Internet means for businesses and having their internal information leak out to the public (the Pentium maths bug and what bad public relations their initial reaction to it was; comparison to the earlier 386 maths bug that no-one made much fuss over) * the importance of getting the dat for yourself. Brian had apparently been shown a selection of a.r.s postings to prepare for the meeting, but seeing someone else's selection is nothing like reading the newsgroup for oneself over an extended period of time. Getting this information second-hand is just not good enough. * that when we wave signs outside the Melbourne CoS, it isn't even terribly much to do with the Melbourne org, but simply that they're the local branch of the multinational organisation * nothing at all about our personal lives. Well, some of Cyril's. I think Brian was really quite put off by Cyril having come along. Brian left around 8:40pm and Frank, Cyril and I hung around drinking and chatting. We were *kicking ourselves* that we'd forgotten all about the Liars' Club (a Melbourne radio show that the CoS did in). Dammit. Something specific and Melbourne and we missed mentioning it ... Meetings like this are ... interesting things. Even though neither side came along expecting to convert the other, it is a good thing to meet and swap viewpoints. Meet the other side and see that they're human. As I said, the transcript will be posted for your entertainment and dissection. -- http://www.suburbia.net/~fun/scn/ <-- the problems some people have been having with this page appear to be fixed. That is, Ron Newman and h3 have both successfully managed to load it when they couldn't before. Perhaps *you* should give it a try - I quite like it myself. Lynx- friendly, but quite nice under Netscape too.