Picket Report, Kristi Wachter

Scientology Lies > Pickets > San Francisco >Picket Report, Kristi Wachter



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Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 18:28:16 -0800
From: Kristi Wachter 
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Subject: picket report, San Francisco, April 1, 2000
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Date: Saturday, April 1, 2000
Start and End Times: 12:20 - 2:00 pm 
Location: San Francisco
Picketers: Jeff Liss, Kristi Wachter, Peaches, Phr
Handlers: Jeff Quiros (barely)
Weather: beautiful and sunny
Number of Handouts given away: 167 (upstat!)
Comments: very uneventful, but high alien content

flier stats:

  99 whole lot of nothing fliers
   2 Xenu fliers
   9 Lisa fliers
   2 Rodney
   1 Mint/Law
   2 Belgium/France
  51 Tax Exempt Status Illegal?/Lisa    
  
 166 total 

-----------------------------------------------

Familiar faces seen:

Jeff Quiros
Josh
Mr. Get-Your-Facts-Straight


Familiar faces not present during this picket:

Craig
Mr. Lady-I-Work-Here
Burly Guy
Movie Star
Miss Pixie
Lucretia

-----------------------------------------------


 
Note: Quotes may not be exact, since I didn't listen to my tape recording
at all. Also, I occasionally rearrange the chronology slightly to enhance
the narrative flow.



Four of us picketed the San Francisco org today. It was delightful to see
old friends (I hadn't seen Phr in ages!). We had the usual brief photo
session with regular OSA photographer Jeff Quiros. It was a pretty
uneventful picket.



THE PRE-PICKET PICKET
=====================

Before leaving for today's first-Saturday-of-every-month picket, I put
together a new flier, which I'll describe below.

I called the police, as usual, then I donned all my usual accoutrement and
headed out the door. In honor of April Fool's Day, I thought I'd load
myself up with a few more aliens than usual, so I inflated three of them
and lodged them all under the straps of my backpack.

I felt so alienated. 




NOTHING FROM NOTHING LEAVES NOTHING
===================================


On the way to the picket, I displayed my usual signs. On my large sign, I
had:

SCIENTOLOGY: -> STILL <- BREAKING THE LAW     www.scientology-lies.com

and

SCIENTOLOGY: -> CONVICTED <- OF LYING    LEARN THE TRUTH
www.scientology-lies.com


On my front sandwich sign, I had

SCIENTOLOGISTS CONVICTED *AGAIN*!



As I approached the org, though, I thought I would try Ted's blank sign
trick (in honor of April Fool's Day), so I simply opened the pouches on my
nifty modular sign-holder and flipped the slogan pages around, thus
producing a sign that was blank on both sides. (My sandwich sign has
slogans stapled to both sides, so I left that as it was.)

To go with the blank sign, I had made up new fliers. On one side, I put:

$CIENTOLOGY: A WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING

and some text explaining that the other side of the flier contains lots of
stuff, like Scn's apology to Paulette Cooper, the helpful things Scn did
for Lisa McPherson, and all the links from Scn's web site that point to
critic's pages.


The other side was, of course, completely blank.



ONCE YOU GET STARTED
====================

When I arrived at the org, I saw Jeff Liss, but no other picketers. We
greeted each other, then he set up his equipment, and I picketed away.

I saw Jeff Quiros shortly thereafter as he walked into the org. I said hi
and wished him a happy April Fool's Day, but I don't think he actually
said anything in reply. (He did make eye contact, though.)

I picketed for a while with my blank sign, but after a while I decided to
go back to the slogans. Thanks to my nifty slogan holder, it only took
about 60 seconds to flip the slogans back around.

After a little while, Peaches arrived, and we had a nice trio, with
Peaches and me strolling the sidewalks and Jeff (Liss, of course - I'll
use Jeff Quiros' full name whenever both Jeffs are present at a
picket) manning the camera. Peaches and Jeff had a lengthy conversation
with a gentleman who came by, took a few fliers from me, and began asking
some good questions.

Quite a bit later, Phr joined us, equipped with a camera of his own.

I was able to hand out quite a few fliers. I'm still finding that "it's
worse than you think!" is an effective fliering slogan, and I again thank
Arnie for coming up with it.



I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW
=====================

Jeff had brought special eyeglasses for us all. When you don these glasses
you can see all the aliens that lurk all around us. 

They're EVERYWHERE!

Apparently aliens flock to the light - wherever there are bright spots,
these glasses let you see aliens around them. Peaches and Phr were most
amused to see the aliens around the sunlight reflecting off my sign and my
inflatable aliens. I was downright infested with the things.



PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORIES
========================

After Peaches arrived, Jeff Quiros came out for the obligatory photo
shoot; we all cooperated and posed for him. He was unusually tight-lipped
- although he did speak to me briefly when I asked him how he'd like me to
pose (he needed me to turn a little so he could get the purple alien into
the shot), he barely spoke to us otherwise.

I hope his reticence isn't the result of some ethics action or some
admonition from uplines that he was getting too chummy with us.

After Phr joined us, I predicted that Mr. Quiros would come out for some
more photos, but now that I think about it, I don't think he did.



UNTIL I HEAR IT FROM YOU
========================

As I was fliering and chatting up the pedestrians, a tall gentleman came
over and accepted a flier. I asked if he was a Scientologist and he said
he was. I asked if he was aware of RTC squirreling the tech, and I gave
him some details about what I've heard. (He said, "Well, I've heard so
many things ...") 

I also told him I wasn't against Scientology per se - and that I support
Freezoners - that I just wanted Scientology to stop hurting people and
breaking the law (and that I figured Scientologists would want Scn to stop
breaking the law too, if they could confront the evidence that Scn is
doing that).

Although he didn't say much to me, he seemed to have reasonably high
confront, and he didn't lose his composure the way some Scientologists do
(like Mr. Nancy did in January). I was very glad he stopped to talk with
me.



TALK TALK
=========

At 2 pm, we were all in the mood for a cool drink, so we adjourned to the
cafe for iced beverages and an ad-hoc non-meeting of the disbanded
Temporary Committee of the ARSCC(wdne)-BA(wd).

It was a splendid picket and a splendid after-picket-get-together.





My revenge picketers have been coming by on Sundays lately, so I probably
won't know until tomorrow whether I'll be harassed this month.


My thanks to all the wonderful SPs - Jeff, Peaches, and Phr - for joining
me! It was utterly splendid to see you all!

The next regularly scheduled first-Saturday-of-every-month picket is May 6
from noon until 2 pm, rain or shine. See you then!




Kristi



--
Kristi Wachter
the activist formerly known as "Jour" (before $cientology outed me)

I think $cientology is hurting people and breaking the law, and I
want them to stop it. See http://www.scientology-lies.com for more.
         Can you say "Xenu?" ... I knew that you could.




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