Time: 12th of November, 2000
Place: Advanced Organization of Copenhagen, Denmark
Protesters: Ake, Birgitta, Catarina
Handlers: Anette, Erik
Leaflets: mostly Xenu, some Beware!, leaflet count unknown
Form: Dining-and-leafletting
Event:
- The Bridge to Total Freedom I'm happy the constructors of our shiny new Oeresund Bridge, connecting Sweden and Denmark, were Wogs(TM):

- it exists in the physical universe, rather than an imaginary one - it's safe, comfortable and even nice looking - the passage takes less than half an hour, not years - although car tickets have been criticized for being expensive at $30 (for a single crossing, there are discounts for frequent travellers), the train ticket is extremely affordable - at the end of the bridge, people are openhearted, cheerful and hospitable Birgitta, Ake and yours truly had found a good excuse to inspect the Bridge on this beautiful Sunday morning. We opted for the train. It's almost as fast as driving, no headaches about finding a parking spot in downtown Copenhagen, and we could spend the trip chatting and immersing ourselves in an old copy of the "Advance" magazine (the one with OT Phenomena success stories).
- Business Birgitta had some completely non-picket-related business to attend to first, as had me and Ake. (OK, most of *my* business had something to do with drinking a nice cappucino and appreciating old Danish architecture...)
- Xenu invaders We had brought a bunch of leaflets just in case, mostly bright yellow A5-sized Xenu. We decided to combine dinner with a little public warning service. After all, we were going to eat in a location that was within a stone's throw of the Advanced Org in Copenhagen. So close that we could actually see the org through the windows from there.

Starting before 16.00, we spent about 15-20 minutes handing out our Xenu leaflets to passerbys in the areas surrounding the org. This is a district with plenty of restaurants and cinemas, lots of foot traffic.

Then we retreated to our dinner appointment, just in time to watch half a dozen Sea Orgers frantically but fruitlessly try to zoom in on the source of the Xenu revelations suddenly appearing in people's hands. That failing, they resorted to trying to clean the area of entheta, including the litter cans in the street.
- The return of Xenu When we had finished the main course of our tasty dinner, me and Ake returned to the streets for a quick round of Xenu promotion. Then back inside for coffee and viewing the performance of the Sea Orger street show. Some familiar faces of the security staff were seen in plain clothes, rather than their usual spiffy uniforms. Our old friend Erik "the video man" also turned up. It was starting to get dark outside, which made their task of locating SPs even more ardous.
- Xenu revealed All good things come to an end - we had to start to think about returning home. But first, a farewell round of the org. Ake and Birgitta went out in time for the 18.00 org break. I stayed behind for a while to finish off what I was doing, and have a second cup of coffee (you can add that to my DA pack - caffeine addict).

As I spotted Erik "the video man" and Anette OSA PR Denmark in search of prey, I called Ake up on the mobile phone and asked him to have pity on the poor staffers and allow them to catch up.
- PR vs. PR By the time I joined them probably 20 minutes later, Birgitta (ex PR officer for the CoS in Malmoe, Sweden and once awarded "PR officer of the year" for getting Hubbard quotes printed on all the milk cartons for a month in her region of Sweden) , and Anette (current PR officer for the CoS in Denmark, who knows what awards she has received if any) were having a conversation. They were discussing the major critical tv show on scientology that was aired on Danish television in June 1999, where Birgitta had been one of the people interviewed (Jesse Prince was another). It seemed Anette had a little trouble fully grasping the fact that it was her own inept handling that made Birgitta participate in the show, after initially having pulled out of it for personal reasons. So let's repeat the story once more:

Birgitta had made the taped tv interview, but was having second thoughts about participating, and told the tv company she was pulling out.

Anette as the editor of the Danish Freedom magazine ("Frihed") published a special edition before the airing of the tv show - it's the one with the headline "Sporgsmalet besvares", do you remember it now, Anette? It was obviously printed *before* the program, not after as you said, since at the bottom of page 3 you discuss what will happen if the Danish tv will go ahead and air the program. Future tense.

In the editorial, Anette claimed Birgitta is "hostile to new religious movements" (ROTFL!), and that she had decided to withdraw from the tv program because "she knew that the program was going to attack individual persons, and did not want to participate in that" (a misrepresentation of a conversation Birgitta had had with Anette, where Bid had talked about the way *the CoS* attacks individuals).

I got hold of a copy of this Freedom magazine, and let Birgitta know what had been printed about her. She quickly decided to tell the tv company to put her interview back on.

Yes, Anette, you caused it.
- OT 7 leaving vs. freezoners A part of the conversation that I did not overhear but Birgitta related afterwards concerned the OT7s leaving the CoS. Birgitta had asked "do you consider it ok that the OT 7's have to go to Flag every 6 month for doing a sec check ... wouldn't an OT 7 be able to keep his own ethics in?" to which Anette had not come up with any good answer.

Birgitta had said that 7 OT7s have left the CoS in the last month, to which Anette replied that there are only 5 people in the freezone in Denmark. That may or may not have had some logical connection in Anette's universe, who knows.
- Ethical level of scientologists For some inexplicable reason, the org staff who are in charge of handling evil protesters seem to think it's a good idea to send scientologists outside to pick up leaflets, pretending not to be scientologists. Ake asked several people "are you a scientology member?" to which they said no, grabbed a leaflet and went inside the org. Perhaps they actually do believe that lying will improve their public image...?

Friendly hint to OSA: we almost always have leaflets left when we end off a picket, even though we may keep them in our bags and don't show them to you. Trying to get us to give the org a lot of leaflets does not make us go away any quicker. But you could speak to the Danish railway authorities and make them change the train schedules to Sweden, that could work.
- The unexpected appearance of Mr Nice Guy Just as we were about to leave, a friendly scientologist turned up and tried to invite Ake inside the org. He seemed to be a public member (and I bet he was Italian, I like the Italians best!). It would have been nice to accept his invitation, we were truly tempted. However, we did have a train to catch and regretfully had to say no. (I doubt that Anette would ever have allowed us into the org, she didn't look overly pleased at the prospect. But still...)
- New adventures of Xenu The final Xenu leaflets were handed to people outside the central railway station. Who knows what parts of the world they ended up in...

Catarina http://xenu.just.nu - Scientologi till vardags

I have some points I want to add after reflecting on yesterday's activities.

For me it was a fun game to play hide and seek with the OSA / AO people, but the fun stopped for me when I was thinking about how wrong and unsensitive it is to ridicule people regarding something they choose to believe in. People should have the right to believe in whatever they want, and if they want to worship the Xenu story it is their right to do so. I agree that people should know what they are paying for but I think it could be done in a different way.

This ridiculing nature of the Xenu fliers is nothing but a way to degrade people, in the same way scientologists are doing when they are degrading the whole psychiatric establishment.

I think it is much more important to give out more relevant information. Like information about the lawyers of CST who are the real wog-owners of all copyrights, like Meade Emory who worked in the IRS when the GO broke in who is one of the incorporators of CST.

Information about the niacin (vitamin B3) which is harmful in the dosages taken in the Purification programme, information about the abusive sec.checks at Flag, the terrible conditions on the RPF .....

etc.

There is a whole ocean of abuses to inform scientologists and the public about, and I at least would prefer to do so in a non-ridiculing way.

Scientologists are usually people who wants to help other people. To understand this, and to try to inform them about what the non scientology public concerns are and how the management misleads them about internal abuses and disasters is to my belief the right way to go.

Bid

wrote:

>Thanks Catarina for a very good report of what we were doing
>yesterday.
>
>I have some points I want to add after reflecting on yesterday's
>activities.
>
>For me it was a fun game to play hide and seek with the OSA / AO
>people, but the fun stopped for me when I was thinking about how
>wrong and unsensitive it is to ridicule people regarding something
>they choose to believe in. People should have the right to believe in
>whatever they want, and if they want to worship the Xenu story it is
>their right to do so.
I understand your point, Bid, although I disagree with it.

The way I see it, people are absolutely free to believe in whatever they want (how would you even stop them?) . But I don't think they have an indisputable *right* to demand that anyone else show reverence for those beliefs. Respect them as persons, absolutely - no person should be physically attacked or harmed or have their free movement restricted (unless as a last resort by the judicial system, when there is no other option to keep the person from severely harming others).

No person should be stopped from expressing themselves freely, and communicating with others as they wish. People should not even be ridiculed or humiliated *if they are in a position where they have no opportunity to fight back*.

I don't hold to any advanced philosophy or system of thought, and it's very possible my reasoning is full of holes and shortcomings in logic.

I'm not really an intellectual person. A lot of what I believe is "gut-feeling" based, I'm afraid... To me, it's not a problem if anybody disagrees with me or makes fun of me, as long as I have any kind of fair chance to defend myself. The point is not whether I succeed in defending myself or not. Perhaps the other person or entity is more clever, witty or have better arguments. Point is, did I have an opportunity to counter them?

As for Xenu fliers, I have no qualms about using them.

First of all, I do find the Xenu story silly so I can honestly say it reflects my views. Anybody who did not find Xenu silly should of course not use it!

Secondly, I do think there are different ways to get across to different people. Some will be interested if you tell them about the RPF or the CST. Others will be more interested in Xenu. I personally don't mind at all reaching also those who get interested because of the outlandishness of the Xenu story.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the CoS have every opportunity to counter my statements about Xenu. Compared to myself, they have enourmous resources. They have money. They have influence. They have a bunch of PR professionals (or if they don't have any left within the org, they can hire them). All they need to do is apply their intelligence and wit, and convince the public that my Xenu fliers should be ignored. If they wanted to, they could even turn Xenu into an asset for the CoS.

You can't demand respect (you can scare people into obedience, but that's not the same thing). You can only invite respect. If the CoS truly wish to, they should work on getting their Xenu beliefs respected by showing people convincing reasons to respect it.

Now, if the CoS beliefs in Xenu were ridiculed by much larger and more influential groups than themselves such as the US or even Swedish government, or let's say the Roman Catholic church, and the CoS were denied access to any means of communicating their view to the public, the situation would be different. Then the CoS would not have a fair chance to defend themselves.

> I agree that people should know what they are
>paying for but I think it could be done in a different way.
Feel free to do it in any other way you like - I don't remember anyone forcing you to join me and Ake...

Seriously, I understand that you see things differently than I do, and I don't hold that against you in any way. I'm just sorry that you for whatever reason participated in something that you didn't really want to do, and hope you will not do that in the future.

>
>This ridiculing nature of the Xenu fliers is nothing but a way to
>degrade people, in the same way scientologists are doing when they
>are degrading the whole psychiatric establishment.
Personally, I don't feel all that sorry for the psychiatric establishment. They are very much bigger than the CoS, and if psychtrists world-wide would find it urgently necessary to counter CoS criticism, then they would certainly have the resources to do so.

I can feel sorry for individuals who have been mislead by CoS anti-psych rantings, so I think it's a good thing to inform as widely as possible about where the CCHR come from and why they are attacking psychiatry. But I still prefer the idea to counter CoS statements, rather than try to stop them from speaking.

>
>I think it is much more important to give out more relevant
>information. Like information about the lawyers of CST who are the
>real wog-owners of all copyrights, like Meade Emory who worked in the
>IRS when the GO broke in who is one of the incorporators of CST.
>Information about the niacin (vitamin B3) which is harmful in the
>dosages taken in the Purification programme, information about the
>abusive sec.checks at Flag, the terrible conditions on the RPF .....
>etc.
Why would you want to attack niacin, sec checks, the RPF - they are all part of the religious doctrine of the CoS? At least according to the church's own statements. (Read the first paragraph at http://www.whatisscientology.org ) Perhaps it's easier for you to conceive of Xenu as religious belief than Thursday 2 P.M. statistics reports as religious belief? But that's not for you to decide. The CoS themselves determine what are their own religious beliefs.

>
>There is a whole ocean of abuses to inform scientologists and the
>public about, and I at least would prefer to do so in a
>non-ridiculing way.
That's fine - and perhaps I should add that the majority of the leaflets we have ever used in Copenhagen have been more about protesting the abuse and warning of deceptive recruitment methods.

You just happened to join us on a Xenu day.

>
>Scientologists are usually people who wants to help other people. To
>understand this, and to try to inform them about what the non
>scientology public concerns are and how the management misleads them
>about internal abuses and disasters is to my belief the right way to
>go.
I understand that your first concern is to reach the people inside the CoS, so I think you are absolutely right in that distributing Xenu fliers outside the AO does not in any way achieve your goal, and you should use other methods.

It was great fun to have you around anyway, Birgitta. You do what you want.

Catarina http://xenu.just.nu - Scientologi till vardags

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