Six picketers turned up, (another suppressive joined us after the picket). We established ourselves across the street from the entrance of the 'org' and started up on the boombox. There is practically no foot traffic on the street, but interestingly, practically everyone who did come past thanked us. There was one guy who claimed to be a local resident and asked us to stop as we were disturbing him. Since he said he wished somebody would kill all the Scientologists, I doubt if the Scientologists would want to claim him as a supportive member of the local community. We continued, observing perhaps ten people entering or leaving the 'org' in the two hours we were there. There is also a small alleyway leading into the back of the 'Org' from Tottenham Court Road, with a small 'Dianetics' sign above the entrance, where they were trying to sell copies of 'Dianetics',
If Whitfield Street is supposed to be their great success story, then the 'Day Org' must be doing infinitely better than the 'Foundation Org'. In other words, they are not recruiting anybody in regular employment. The economic problems implied by this are obvious.
Six intrepid suppressives, four veterans - John, Hartley, Tony and myself - and two new protesters - new guy 1 and new guy 2, braved the English summer and protested outside one of the shops in London of the criminal cult known as the "church" >spit< of $cientology. The weather held out (just to cut down on the suspense).
We picketed in front of the current bOrg in Whitfield street which is at the back away from the shopping street of Tottenham Court Rd where the clams have lived for quite some time. Two policepeople were on site from the beginning, in addition to two vans full of London Transport Police (two doors down on Whitfield Street). A transport police person was most curious, but one of "our" police people informed him that we were OK to protest. A local resident expressed no love for the clams but would like us to shut up. We - and our police person - informed him that we would leave when we wre good and ready, but we turned down the boombox (Whitfield is very, very, quiet anyway, so we don't need full blast :-) ).
We did see some half dozen staff members and three - four clams which were probably students. Two or three clams came out to take pictures at various times, but not the usual DSA[1]. One clamette was left to be ready to leaflet any passing foot traffic. There was hardly any foot traffic, and we did not have a stellar day, leaflet-handing-out-stat wise.
The clams presumably routed the other four - six people ( ;-) ) who were in and out of the org through the Tottentham Court Rd entrance (entrance to the yard, disguised as a shop-front and through to the back of Whitfield street).
Other than the clams really not liking us being there (and informing the police about this at length), Whitfield street is not an ideal pickting location. John tuned the shpiel to be more for the benefit of the clams thatn for random passers-by, so we had some readings from the alien-infested space opera madness of "A History of Man" and we told them again and again that they can just walk out (how could they get worse off) and that any "freeloader debt" was not enforcable anywhere. Repeated request to be told where Marty Rathbun had gone went unanswered :-(
After some hour and a half, we called it quits and retired to a nearby hostelry for some well earned refreshments.
A grand day out was had by all.
Best Regards
Jens
[1] She was limping time before last, but not last time. I hope she's OK.
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