I picked the late afternoon for the first picket at the Toronto Org itself because I knew that the foot traffic at that time was high on a Saturday. I met with my two co-demonstrators at the Brothers Restaurant at 2:30 pm. I had to, of course, go right past the org to get in to the restaurant. The org was all a-buzz. They had 5-6 people, cameras and displays ready and waiting and were milling about even at 2:30.
My fellow demonstrators wish to remain anonymous at this
time and I can respect that. I shall refer to them as D'Artangnan and Artemis.
We conferred for awhile and reaffirmed the ground
rules and discussed some of the advice I had received and they had read
on ars. Gandi Tech was to be the rule of the day. The flyers would be
offered to passersby, but no chasing would be done. If the Cos wanted
heated street debates they weren't going to get it. The sidewalk in front of the
org is about 8 feet wide so if passersby had questions we would move to
the curb side. Flyers could not be given to cars that stopped (if any)
unless it was a taxi. If a passerby dropped a flyer we would pick it up.
Flyer Recipients were to be thanked. Artemis and I would give out flyers
and D'Artangnan would be doing most of the curbside chats (for reasons
that will soon be obvious).
At 3:15 we repaired to the local parking facility where I had the Picketing supplies. I had assembled a selection of signs to match the requests of prospective participants. The signs were all 30"x20" bright yellow form core with black 3" high lettering in Helvetica Bold Italics. (Clearly visible as a sign for at least 300 feet and the content was readable from about a 50 feet.)
Artemis chose a sign that had: What 'Church' Intimidates and Sues
Maliciously? and: What 'Church' Persecutes and Frames Its Critics?
My sign read: Scientology: DANGEROUS UFO CULT and: Canada has only one CRIMINALLY CONVICTED CHURCH: Scientology!
D'Artangnan carried: Lisa Macpherson: KILLED BY HER 'CHURCH'? and: IS Scientology Practising Medicine Without a Licence?
Each of us were 'up' on the topics we displayed so as to respond adequately and knowledgeably to the questions of the passersby . We figured the Lisa sign would draw a lot of questions and it did.
I also had 250 of the Roland Xenu flyers in packets of 50. (No eggs
all in one basket.) I had the flyers in a Paper Carrier Bag I wore. Other
equipment I carried in belt pouches were a camera, micro-recorder, spare
film and batteries and a Cell phone. I also had $XXX dollars in Bail
money on hand, just in case.(Thank you Ted.)
Accoutred and ready we returned the one block back to the org. We carried our signs inverted on the way there because I didn't secure a 'Parade' permit ($$$). We did catch them a bit off guard by starting 30 minutes later than on the Notice. One Scieno spotted us about 50 feet out and dashed inside to rally their resources. They started scrambling out the front doors of both halves of the org.
They immediately were in our faces with cameras and video recorders.
Infact they had two video cameras. One or the other taped us during the
entire demo.
Artemis and D'Artangnan were immediately approached by one woman in her early forties, (an OT7) for their names,which they declined to give. When she asked me I told her mine. (See tape transcript on Street Talk.)
I had it on good advice that the good Reverend Buttnor or his representative assigned to 'handle' me, would immediately
try to dominate the situation verbally. I was treated to the Rev'd up Rev
hisself. What a maroon!
(Again, see tape transcript on Street Talk.)
I had determined to engage him
very briefly and not be distracted from what we were there to do: display our justified
displeasure and inform the public. We weren't there to do protracted public debates
with the Org staff.(More good advice.)
After a short confront with the Rev the picket proceeded.
The public LOVED IT!
Typical comments were:
About Time! Keep it up! I hate these wackos! Could I have another
flyer for my friend? Your against them are yah, well way to go! Thankyou
for this. etc.
All I had to do to get a flyer snatched from my hand was to make eye contact and smile broadly. On more than one occasion a passerby would blow past with that 'you are invisible to me and I don't want to be bothered glazed-eye look and then a moment later the signage I carried about UFO CULT would register (*Bing!*) and they would turn around, come back and ask for a flyer. I had one lady, whose hands were full, who asked me to fold it and stick it in one of her bags.
People were crossing through the four lane traffic from across Yonge Street to get a flyer. Bicyclists would stop. Cars did not honk or stop, but we got too many 'thumbs up' Acks from motorists to keep track of.
There seems to be a very low opinion of the Co$ in Toronto.
Of course Org staff were trying to chase down anyone who they could to
take their stuff which consisted of a Freedom Magazine, an 'Invitation' to the 47
Celebration and a one page
DA
of me, CAN and the Internet sweetened by
Religious Freedom and abuse of Free speech bullshit.
For those of you unfamiliar with Toronto there are a few interesting
public conventions you need to know.
First, this is a real clean city.
Lots or public waste baskets and many separated for recyclables. These are
used a lot. Second, experienced city dwellers have learned the art of
dodging the handouts to a high degree. Third, If a passerby takes a
handout they only do so, for the most part, because they *want* it.
Fourth, Once a passerby has taken a flyer, they very rarely will discard
it by dropping it or wadding it up and tossing it on the ground. If they
are going to dump it after they have read it on the street then they use
the waste baskets.
By 5 pm the street was littered with Co$ discards, many crumpled and contemptuously dropped. This is a big insult. Not one RX Special was wasted and we went through 150 in 90 minutes. Given that we all spent some time answering questions from the public, I would say that when I was trolling for recipients I averaged a flyer every 30 seconds, most eagerly received and often, happily snatched or asked for!
One sorry Org specimen, a short stocky dark haired loud mouthed guy
kept carping from a doorway, "Three? Only Three?" Yukka,Yukka, Yuk.
Unfortunately this lump couldn't count.
There were more than 200 demonstrators, falling into three classes:
All three of us spent considerable time answering questions but especially D'Artangnan. On more than one occasion he had small audiences of three or even four people listening to the facts on poor Lisa. Co$ staffers would invade these groups to try and counterpropaganda, but from what I saw D'Artangnan handled them well.
[I hope that both Artemis and D'Artangnan will post their own 'KR's, but if not that is ok.]
I did have one chap who almost caused a ruckus. He had taken a
flyer from us and gone on his way. Then he read it and came back to ask
me some questions. He wanted to know if this stuff was true. I told him,
No, it was all an artificially and deliberately created
secret mythology.
He said he knew that it was BS, but was it *my* BS or did the Co$ actually teach
this? I told him that it was not verbatim, but a paraphrase as the Co$
was vainly trying to keep it secret using Copyright and Trade Secrets, but if he
didn't believe me to ask the Co$.
Well he thought that was a good idea and approached one of the counter-flyer gals.
(NOTE: the Toronto org almost exclusively used women for their interventionist countermeasures. One guy was on video camera for about 30 minutes.)
He waves the RX
flyer at her and asks, Is this truly taught by the Co$? The woman
refuses to answer and says he should ask one of the other ladies,
pointing at the OT7. This guy persists. The Gal starts to get panicky and
shrill about how he should go ask this other lady. This guy is getting
the brush off and he doesn't like it so he is getting louder and more
annoyed. I see the Co$ staff *letting* this develop into a confrontation.
They could see this was trouble brewing and just watched. So I
intervened. I told the guy to ease off as this lady genuinely believed
that if she saw this stuff she would be hurt or even die and he should
ask that lady over there, who had permission to see this. So the guy
cools down, says to the FemClam how he is sorry for getting carried away and goes over to
the OT7 and asks her, Is this stuff true? The OT7 says No! Its from the
Internet and the Internet is all lies! At this the guy starts to laugh
and leaves saying, So it is true, you people are being had!
I had a pair of lady tourists from Germany ask for a flyer. They were young, blonde, in their early thirties, obviously sisters and had looks to die for. They said they hated the Co$, it was hurting Germany and was undemocratic. A Co$ staff lady heard that and said something I didn't catch in German. The two ladies laughed and said in English to me, That stupid woman thinks we are Fascists, which is stupid, the Scientologists are the Fascists. They make propaganda just like they show us in school that the Nazis did. They should get out of Germany etc.
During the whole picket the police came by about every 15 minutes to
take a peek, which I felt was reassuring. When we started there was a Bicycle
Beat Cop parked across the street for at least the first 10 or 15 minutes.
I think he was satisfied things were going to be 'quiet' and went off.
At 5 pm sharp we stopped the protest by inverting our signs and leaving. We went back to my vehicle and dumped out stuff. (BTW the new ARSCC (WDNE) Mark 47 Hummers are a real bitch to park. Gas guzzlers too.) We went back to Brothers and had a bite to eat and analysed our performance and shared our experiences.
And. of course, to get ready for the Second Picket later that evening.
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words/photos© by Gregg Hagglund (elrond@cgo.wave.ca) Last modified: Monday October 20, 1997.
