Double protest! What does it mean? Today we did two demonstrations today in two different locations, just for the fun of it. Event #1 - Chicago Org For the first time that we've observed, the Scientologists set up a table in front of their building and were actively trying to pass out fliers with "The Truth About Drugs," Scientology introduction DVD's (not in English, always in Spanish, for some reason), and possibly other stuff too. Of course, this setup provided us with a lot of entertainment and a chance to talk with the Scientologists. Good times were had despite the crappy weather. Mediation? I could be wrong about parts of this, but my understanding is that a woman came by at one point saying something to the effect that she was with some part of the city and that she was at the also at the hearing for the 150-foot law citation during the whole legal spat over the past few months. Anyway, she wanted to bring both parties together to sit down and have some sort of mediation between the groups or something? Other people could fill in the details on this a lot better than me. Sounds like a totally worthwhile effort to me. Anons: "Stop breaking up families." Scientology: "No." Mediator: "..."
Event #2 - Millennium Park With the weather getting crappier and the day winding on, I was wondering if maybe the Millennium Park part of the day would be a relatively quiet little get-together of a couple people. But no, the Millennium Park part ended up being a completely legit event in its own right. The wetness, chilly temps, and wind couldn't stop us as we danced, held out fliers, and goofed around. In Chicago, we don't give a fuck if it rains! We've been through a lot worse!
Fuck the mediation shit. Delorme McKee Stovall attempted to try to "mediate" between Anon San Jose and the OSAbots of the three local orgs after she conspired with them to commit the crime of false light defamation by having her minions walk the streets with scifags distributing fliers accusing anons of seven different types of crimes including burning a school bus. tikk has the story at his blog. This mediation shit sometimes involves going to some bullshit PC indoctrination classes about tolerance, mutual acceptance, and all that shit.
I think we'll be fine. The mediator lady seemed pretty enthralled when some anons explained PC Freakout and Snow White. All around, we got to talk to tons of people about Co$. And we got cookies (some of which, Xenu-shaped). And rain... a lot of rain and wind. Besides the obnoxious Donkey Show Dave incident (thanks google for a good nickname) and aforementioned rain and wind and cold, good times all around. EDIT: Vid incoming/eta?
Great pictures, Strong. I hope that you get the video up soon! We need to let the Xenu minions that Anon will fight them... Through the power of poorly choreographed Caramelldansen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wASO4uH8avg&feature=channel_video_title Apparently, this has been done before. Strong still has his moves down.
Great job on the photos Strong me and my bro will be at any future events as well. Also trying to get the word out so we have even more people to protest.
This is the department that the mediation lady was from (I believe): http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cchr.html Great dual protest! And Xenu cookies:
The raid got off to a great start when Marla Flora (Social Reform Officer & OSA) and Meenu Mann (Dissem Sec & IAS Patron with Honors) set up their anti-drug table right in front of the Org. Here I and others had been keeping a look out for any sign of them setting up an VM tent downtown and they set something up right in front of us! That gave us plenty of time to ask them all sorts of questions, none of which they really answered of course. Meenu's husband Jay showed up a little bit later, and although it might have appeared to others we were having a good conversation I'm not really sure he was there. Him and Marla are hardcore. It will take a lot to jar them, but maybe we said something that might stick. I hope. Yes, the lady we spoke with is Aracelis Castandeda of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations. She told me she was at my court case, and although I didn't remember her at the the time I believe it was her who stood up at the podium with the city attorney (I think I might have confused her with Rebecca Cusano who was definitely at the hearing as well). Anyway, yes she mentioned mediation and all that. I'm not sure what that could possibly accomplish, but I'll email her and see what she has in mind. If anything, we've educated another person about the evils of Scientology. And thanks to whoever posted the link about Anon San Jose. I'll definitely give that a read. Another weird occurrence happened when a lady pulled up on a bike and engaged Anons in a little conversation. She seemed aware of the evils of Scientology and said when she lived out in L.A. her friends would never drop her off near PAC because they were worried she would never come back. Then she proceeded to walk right into the Org. Then she came out a little later and I think she talked to Marla and then took off. ????? Other random observations: -Dominic Cusano and others at the Org seemed resigned to our presence. Only one officer showed up, and that was almost a full hour into the raid. In the good ole days, there would be at least two officers there in under 20 minutes. Chatting with that officer later, he told us during a different raid the Scilons wanted him to arrest us because our masks scared them. Good stuff. -The taller dude standing at the anti-drug table assaulted me as I stood in the little well next to where they were set up. I was stashing some of Dra's awesome cookies (Thanks Dra!!!!) when he saw me and started loudly (and he had that wild Scilon look in his eye that they all get when they go into attack mode) telling me to move. Then as I picked everything up he pushed me in the back. -We were blessed with the presence of a bona fide Sea Orger! He had the cool belt buckle and everything! As opposed to the Chicago Scilons, he actually had a pretty pleasant demeanor without the vacant stare look. Of course, he was no more willing to engage in substantive discussion (he wouldn't even tell us where he did his EPF) than the regulars, but hey, the belt buckle is cool. All in all, a pretty good raid. It got wet and cold at the end, but I think a lot of Scilons saw us for the first time and know we're here to stay. See you all next time.
I agree the general public and the city should know the reasons why people protest COS and those reasons should be recorded and put on public record.
Good job Chifags. If you go to mediation it will be lulzy because even the Anons that show up for the mediation could be totally in agreement with whatever is said there... and the rest of you can show how many fucks you give since none of us speaks for all of us.
The white-haired grumpy man in the baseball cap who was manning the anti-drugs table is the guy that Xander said pushed him. Anyone know who he is? Incidentally, he's another guy that can't have a genuine conversation with you. Paraphrasing from memory: - Have you read [Chicago recent ex-Scientologist]'s blog? It explains the reasons why she left. - No, I haven't read it, but I think I know the reasons. - And what would those be? - I don't want to tell you. - Why not? - Enhh... You should take off your mask. (but clearly he knows she left because of "hidden crimes") I briefly got to see Bob Grota and greeted him with something like, "Hey Bob, have you Googled [whatever] yet?" He freaked out that I knew his name and said that meant I was "harassing" him. Unfortunately, this has pretty much been par for the course for my interactions with Bob. Uhh... a long time. Late next week, maybe? For the main protest vids, I mean. I need time for editing and I have other stuff going on too. I didn't really interpret it that way. I mean, they still called the police trying to get us kicked out. I overheard something about them claiming a (Dianetics?) seminar with 25 people, but the police officer was like "whatevs." I don't think they'll ever give up trying to use the police against us. They'll just try Plans B, C, D, and E.
Let me clarify. I didn't mean to suggest they are fully resigned to our presence. They still called the cops and were at times antagonist towards us. But, compared to prior raids, they only kept the cop there for like, what, 10 minutes maybe? In the past they kept him there for double that. And they would have them out there in 20 minutes flat for the first of at least two trips out. This time I kept checking my watch waiting for the first visit, which didn't come until almost an hour in. Also, Dominic just walked right into the Org without any yelling or anything like that. Of course, they could just be distracted with all the Ideal Org events they got going on and this is just the calm before the storm. I don't really know what I expected, but I guess I thought they would keep pushing the 150 foot angle somehow. I dunno. And yeah, I love how Bob "2010 Green Party candidate for Cook Country Assessor" Grota said calling him by his name constituted harassment. Our Scientologists are some good jokers.
Sorry for spamming up the thread, but here's some of the other drama that happened at the org. Make of it what you will. I was a little disappointed with the response of the officer who showed up, because I was hoping he'd tell the Scientologist to knock it off. But the policeman seemed to think the thing was mostly a non-issue. Trying to remember the stuff he said, paraphrasing as best I can from memory... - "Look, it's part of a protest that you guys are here to annoy them, right?" - "They feel intimidated too, by the fact that you guys wear masks." - "We've never really had any problems with you guys, 99% of the time..." - "In some cultures that's just how people talk to each other, real close." - "What he was doing is legal. If a law wasn't broken, then I don't even want to talk with him." It was kinda weird, because I asked if it would (hypothetically) be okay if one of the anons was doing the same thing, and he said no. So, I dunno, I imagine the CPD wouldn't want people on either side doing the in-your-face, chase 'em around stuff even when the person is clearly saying "get away from me," but part of me is worried that the blah response from the cop may encourage them with this type of thing. Jay Mann, the Scientologist in the video has a reputation of being a major pudwhack - someone accused him a couple years ago of grabbing their camera out of their hands and not giving it back until they'd deleted the picture of him - and I was hoping to nip this sort of behavior in the bud. I'm not sure if the policeman got the whole picture of what happened. Initially, he said he saw the whole thing take place, but then I think later he said something to the effect that he hadn't seen all the chasing around that the Scientologist had done. Not sure if it would've changed his reaction any. ......................... Anyway, maybe it's me who's wrong? I don't know, I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, and the blah response from the cop has me second-guessing myself now. But it's not every day that I have some guy rushing up with ZOMG SAY IT TO MY FACE and chasing me around. It's easy to look at the video in hindsight and say, "Well, it was no big deal, the guy's hands were in his pockets, the other anon was smiling, etc." But at the time, I didn't know if the guy was about to hit me or what. I dunno. I just felt like it was a volatile situation with the potential to escalate somehow. I mean, I don't know how unreasonable that concern was, given that nearly everybody was roped into it at the end and it was getting to the point where the two sides were touching and bumping each other. Am I just a whiny idiot? Was I wrong for feeling unsafe in that situation? Did the policeman react appropriately? I could sort of use some outside perspective on this.
Well that's just bizarre. I'd like to know what exactly makes him think he can hold Anons and Scientologists to two different standards. Also if you're concerned about your safety and the choice is between you taking steps to protect yourself, even if it turns out hey maybe he's just a really touchy-feely kind of guy and didn't mean to come across as aggressive, and you not taking steps to protect yourself because you didn't want to be overcautious, and the guy turns around and slugs you, then I think everyone present would prefer you choose the former, IMO.
suggest you guys check out this thread: http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/sydney-14-may-2011-operation-west-side-story.88417 tl;dr Sydney clams getting really-really aggressive and borderline violent, cops not really helping to defuse the situation hopefully better /b/lackup from police, next raid. [seems that the main problem was LACK of police presence, rather than specific incompetence or retardation] either way: jittery clams with sore hinge muscles that can't decide Open? or stay closed?
Trufax. Nothing to mediate. If it was an official official, just a bureaucrat trying to fill their time. Your tax dollars at work.
Good raid I was proud to be part of it. Good job to all that attended. I loved the spying cop routine though, that was funny.
Awesome picket Chicaganons! Y'all ROCK! Odd about cop response thing, not sure what to make of that one.
I found a pic on Facebook of Ms. Aracelis Castandeda of CCHR (hmmmmm....) with Rebecca Cusano at an Ideal Org fundraiser. Uh, yeah.
I tried to post but couldn't. Perhaps someone more technologically adept could go to the Chicago Ideal Org fundraiser page and flip through the pics. The pic is about half way through the photo album. Ms. Castandeda is wearing a cat mask. Can't miss it.
your tax dollars at work: paying bitches to be evil cult shills anon needs to do more lavish fundraisers to invite bureaucrats to no strings attached, right?
Hmmmmmm, so how does a CCHR shill end up being able to proclaim working for the city to 'mediate'? Seems to be a blatant lie or serious conflict of interest going on, or just your normal, everyday, cult shenanigans.
