Around The Clams In Three Days
Fredric Rice, Clearwater Knowledge Report, 08/Dec/98

Over the next couple of weeks a.r.s participants will be getting reports of this year's Memorial Protest and Lisa McPherson candle-light vigil in Clearwater, Florida. This is a review of my perspective of this event though I know that many other participants will also cover some of this stuff. Forgive me for any redundancies.

The annual event started long before I arrived in Tampa though at the time I was unaware of all the idiot nonsense the cult had been pulling during the time I was in the air. Upon meeting my contact at the airport, I learned that the cult's RPF slaves had snuck across the street in the dead of night and jack-hammered the sidewalk across from the Fort Harrison Hotel where the protesters were to have been picketing. Though the city doesn't seem likely to fine the cult for this idiotic attempt to put an end to this annual exposure, the effect of cutting up the sidewalk was that we -- the protesters -- were allowed to picket on the sidewalk just three feet in front of the cult's headquarters.

Woops! The cult's many attempts to silence and intimidate individuals and organizations (including the news media) nearly always results in such "foot bullets." It's almost as if these nuts don't even bother to think about the consequences of their idiot notions. In this case their scheme merely helped the picketers move from across the street to right out in front of the cult's headquarters.

My flight arrived too late for me to attend the press conference at the hotel where most of the protesters were staying though that was soon rectified since the news conference was covered in some detail on the various news stations in the area. Photographs of the press conference was also available so it seems I didn't miss much.

A couple of things that I _did_ miss participating in was the airplane flight and the bus advertisement operations. A group of SPs chartered a fixed-wing aircraft to pull a banner which read (if I remember correctly) "Scientology: Remember Lisa McPherson." The airplane flew back and forth for several hours for at least two days. I found out that the cult threatened the airplane's company with a lawsuit if they pulled the banner around and, sadly, I heard that the company actually didn't fly the banner the first day so that they could get with their legals and verify that the cult was, as usual, full of what-else.

The audacity of the cultists! I guess they don't _want_ to remember the people they kill. Bastards.

Sadly, I was unable to get a photograph of the airplane as it flew back and forth. Though the airplane was in view of the Sandcastle property owned by the cult (which I was picketing outside of at the time) my camera just didn't have the focal length needed to pick up the lettering clearly.

The other piece -- the bus advertisement operation -- I missed entirely. From what I understand, the local mass transportation had advertisement space sold to members of the protest which, I can only surmise, gave some details about Scientology's involvement in the death of Lisa. And, like the airplane, the cult threatened the bus company with lawsuits if they went ahead and sold us the advertisement space. I was informed that the advertisements were posted to the buses on schedule and that the cult's insane demands were merely ignored.

Upon arriving at the hotel, the first thing I did was get myself into the lobby and start putting faces to people's names. Not everyone was around at that moment but eventually I got to meet everyone (at least everyone I wanted to. Garry Scarff was nowhere to be found. I need to apologize in person to the nut for my behavior concerning him in a.r.s. His act is "merely Garry" and should be considered such.)

It's great meeting everyone for the first time and seeing if my mental image of these characters matched the real thing. Grady Ward reminded me of Harcort Fenton Mudd from the old Star Trek series and Arnie, that pony tail? It's _you_. Mr. Tilman was there with his cool camera equipment and Deep Wog was there, quietly and coolly collected and aloof. For some reason Mr. Deep Wog liked to poke about in the bushes and trees -- no doubt looking for OSA agents. Deep Wog had camera equipment that, I thought at the time, probably weighed more than he did but perhaps I was mistaken. Regardless, the guy was taking photographs of everything from every angle, feet spread wide, one eye closed, and mouth hung open in concentration.

Mr. Bob Minton walked by and, after I passed a "Hey, It's Bob Minton!" over my right shoulder, stopped to shake my hand. This guy is so cool! Personality-wise, he's a warm, friendly customer who put an arm around me and thanked me for coming, posing for a photograph of his arm around my shoulders which Mr. Tilman took. (Be sure to send me a copy!) My opinion of Mr. Minton was that he's a charmer with a quick wit. That was confirmed later in an amusing incident I'll get to later.

Jesse Prince plopped himself down onto a chair. I introduced myself and noted with some amusement that Mr. Prince didn't seem to trust me very much at first glance. <snicker> Relax, guy, I'm with the good guys.

While a number of SPs were off doing suppressive stuff, a bunch of us collected in the ballroom to put together some picket signs. Damned if I can recall who, exactly, it was that brought these wonderful signs! I think it was Frank but I was just getting to know people's faces at the time. These signs were large and small, consisting of corrugated plastic with plastic spray-painted signs, some of which were photographs of Lisa. I grabbed a bunch of them from out of the back of a car and dragged them up to the ballroom, picking through them for the one particular message I wanted to convey during my part in the protest.

The one I settled on was short and to the point, "$cientology Kills!" on one side and damned if I can remember what was on the other. At times I carried a sign which read, "John Travolta Has Space Cooties!" with the Operation Clambake URL WWW.XENU.NET offered for further information. While others were using this sign, I noted a number of puzzled looks it was receiving but most people who drove by couldn't help but laugh aloud and clap. By now most people know about Xenu and body thetans.

While these signs were being put together, T-shirts were brought up. Again, I can't recall who brought them but let me tell you, they were a complete success! At _minimum_ 100 residents of Clearwater asked me where they could find T-shirts like that and one woman, after reading aloud my T-shirt outside of a restaurant near the hotel, told me that _everybody_ in Clearwater needs to wear these shirts.

Next year (always assuming the cult's still around) let's create a money pool and purchase a thousand T-shirts if we can afford it. The general public loved them and, of course, I've covered the other uses in private E-Mail. Someone could make one hell of a lot of money selling these shirts on the sidewalk outside of the cult! Someone in the area should think about doing so full time as I would bet some real money could be made -- the public loved them so much!

While the T-shirts were put on and the signs were being put together, Shydavid brought up a bunch of bumper stickers with WWW.XENU.NET on them. Some people put the bumper stickers on their shirts, some on their picket signs. These bumper stickers, as were many of the T-shirts, were handed out to the general public as they stopped their cars and asked for them.

We loaded up the cars and vans and headed to the cult's headquarters for what was to be my first picket of this annual event. Right from the start the response from the public was amazing. After we showed up, the cultists mysteriously vanished back into the slime, leaving only two OSA goons outside to try their idiot games of -- what they want to pretend, anyway -- intimidation. Yeah, they got photographs of everyone (at least they pretended to. The cult may not have bothered using film since it's unlikely they're able to pay for it.) And the cult goons tried to get people's names and license plate numbers.

One would think that the cult would learn that such silly games does nothing to put an end to the embarrassing exposures. Indeed, as I'll cover later, three old-timers were walking past and the OSA/GO goon who called himself "Vincent DeLaRocca" took their photographs, to which the old woman, hooking a thumb in the cultist's attention, expressed her disgust at the clown having taken their photographs without first asking for their permission to do so. Though these three old-timers had already been fully aware of the predations of this nut cult, this little antic of "Vince" added to these guy's mild annoyance. They already wanted to have the cult "run out of town" was the phrase that was used.

The first session I participated in resulted in more thumbs-ups and horn honkings than could be counted. Nearly every damn car that drove past the cult's headquarters responded thusly else leaned out their windows and yelled support. "Run those bastards out of town!" one old woman screamed, fist upraised outside of her window. "They killed her!" yelled one guy. And the number of "Right ons!" and people clapping their hands together as they drove past simply couldn't be counted. Children and their parents in vans and station wagons gave family-wide thumbs-ups and clapping. It was amazing! Utterly, fucking amazing! This cult is hated and feared by everyone in town.

Even walking to and from the cars with our picket and protest gear resulted in people honking and giving thumbs-ups. Even with our signs upside-down as we walked to restaurants and such, the response from the citizens of Clearwater was amazing. The people in that city -- shop owners and people who work in the stores and restaurants -- nearly _always_ read our T-shirts and gave us horror stories about the cult in their town. "I saw you guys on the news," one High School girl said. "A bunch of us at the High School were going to come over and picket with you guys but we chickened out," she said. (Actually, the next day three kids from the High School _did_ come and join the picket.)

At every turn, we stayed and talked with the general public, by the way, when they asked about our shirts or -- as was very common -- how the protest was going and whether the cult was being violent or not this year.

That's part of the fear that many residents expressed to us, by the way. The cultists parade around in their little toy sailor suits and, I'm told, during the summer, swap their sailor suits for little toy air force suits. Always the cult likes to have cultists ride their bicycles around dressed-up like the Clearwater police and, I'm told, only get away with it because the city has taken measures to keep these cultists from strapping on firearms and putting "POLICE" on their uniforms anywhere. The cult wants to pretend they're part of the community when in fact they're considered a deadly organism invading the otherwise healthy body of Clearwater. Even as the cult holds "public" events from time to time, only cultists ever attend them. All attempts to get the citizens to join in any event results in absolute failure. The people of Clearwater absolutely hate and fear this deadly cult! And the response from the public, hour after hour, proved the fact.

That night I, Shydavid, and Bulldog Curry -- a founding member of the local Humanist Association -- got to know the good guys better. The Mexican food at the local restaurant was horrible, to say the least. Being from Southern California, I'm used to _real_ Mexican food and the stuff this place served could just as well have come from a tin. It was a lot better than the rice and beans the RPF prisoners are fed, any way.

There were about 20 of us at that dinner and we had our fun! On the right of me the Danish and Swedish guys and gals were laughing it up about something and damned if I could tell what it was all about. While they were drinking margaritas, I had the biggest damn cup of beer I've ever seen. I hate bear -- and alcohol in general -- but fighting the cult is thirsty work. I ordered the ARSCC (wdne) official sacrament (Diet Coke) to help get the beer down.

Across from me was, as I recall, Brent and Deep Wog, the other vegetarian at the dinner table. I was unable to get a photograph of Bulldog Curry using pepper (which is a blasphemy of the twelve-faced leather-clad salty bitch he worships) and, in retrospect, I'm not sure where he was sitting anyway. All that really mattered was the fact that plenty of chips with a bowl of fairly hot salsa was within arm's reach.

One of Clearwater's citizens had seen us on the news and sat down to talk with a few of us at some length. This guy expressed the desire -- felt by most citizens -- to "take hammers to that place and tear it down," meaning the cult's headquarters where Lisa was killed. It evidenced a desire for violent revenge for what the cult has done to Clearwater that us protesters want no part of. Taking hammers to the place wouldn't do a damn thing to help get the victims out of the cult whereas inoculating the populace against the cult's predations will. Once the next round of federal raids start, hopefully all of the "Pre Clear" folders the cult maintains to blackmail one-time followers will be blacked-up and included in the federal court record, allowing the general public to have a bewildering supply of direct evidence -- something that is available now but only for a couple of dozen one-time members.

The next couple of days was "more of the same" only Friday was more exciting than Saturday -- which was the main picket -- was. On Friday the response from the public was that nearly every car that drove past the cult's headquarters honked or yelled encouragement out their windows. Saturday, probably since there were a large number of police officers protecting us from OSA goons, the general public that drove past was much quieter. Still, the thumbs-up and hand-clapping was constant though some people laid on the horn all the time they drove by. Indeed, several cars drove back and forth, honking and giving us the "okay" sign repeatedly. "I've seen that car come by before," was often remarked by us protesters.

The phenomenal response from the public was the subject of some debate as we walked back and forth. Every time someone gave us a honk or thumbs-up, most of us waved back or otherwise stopped, gave them a thumbs-up back, or let them know that we acknowledged their support. It made the event a participation sport for the individuals of Clearwater who, on any other normal day, is intimidated into silence by the cult.

Some of the citizens who drove by parked their cars, walked over, and asked if there were extra picket signs so they could participate. (Note to ARSCC (wdne) we must bring extra signs from now on! Three girls who came from the High School managed to get T-shirts and put them on but they sat across the street doing nothing but watching the protest since they didn't have signs.)

This is good and bad. Good because in all cases this year, these guys and gals were well behaved and peacefully walked back and forth with us, talking about the cult, giving us their horror stories. It's also bad because the cult's terrorist goons observed the phenomena and I can expect that next year we'll have OSA agents join the protest in an attempt to make trouble or incite violence. Knowing that we'll allow walk-ups to join the protest means that they'll exploit the public's desire to throw them out of town and, I fully expect, they'll plant a couple OSA goons under cover of walk-ins next year.

The debate that I often picked up and dropped, picked up and dropped as the dynamics of everyone's movements required, was about what the cultists inside the building must think about the public's response. They _must_ hear the horns beeping, even though the cult tried to drown out the real world with extremely loud Christmas music. (This is an irony since Scientology's dead god demands that Christianity and thus Jesus Christ is an "implant" which never really existed. The music which sang of "three wise men" visiting the Jesus god was delicious hypocrisy and a blatant denial of the cult's beliefs to the contrary. The cult no more believes in the Jesus legend than I do.)

How does the cult's leaders explain the resounding and loud response from the public which was 100% favorable to the protesters? That's a question I would like to have answered. The cult's leaders tried their best to keep their followers from seeing us but they couldn't have been successful. The cult soaped-over the windows in their vans, adding "Happy Holidays!" decorations to them to try to keep their victims cum members from seeing out the windows. The cult's leaders also put signs in the front of their vans demanding that nobody sit in the passenger seat -- another attempt to keep victims/members from seeing us outside; not to mention the public's response. The cult papered over their building's windows (at street level) and otherwise hung black curtains over walk-ways to keep their victims from seeing us.

When we were picketing outside of their Sandcastle property, the cult was having a meeting of some kind and made the mistake of having their windows open. Someone forgot to alert them to the fact that we were on the way and damned if we didn't surprise the fuckers and catch them out in the open. They quickly rectified the mistake by disappearing utterly and, after a few passes on the sidewalk with our picket signs held high for all to see, the cultists closed their curtains. Darn!

This was doubly amusing since the cult had put up Christmas trees all around their fence to try to put up another barrier against us picketers. The trees they got were packed in side-by-side but damned if they just weren't tall enough to block their victims/members' view of the picket signs. Maybe next year they'll spend a little more money and buy bigger trees. Guess who has to pay for such expensive nonsense.

I told "Vince," the OSA goon who was trying to intimidate people, that the loud music wasn't annoying anyone but the cops, a couple of which commented on the fact that they had had to stand there for hours listening to the same tape over and over again. While the officers were listening, I told "Vince" that if he would have Barry Manilow put on, I, for one, would leave the picket. The cops, bless them for being impartial and professional, couldn't help but grin at this suggestion. Even "Vince" gave a grim little smile. After that it was suggested that an Elton John tape be provided or a number of CDs provided. Someone even asked "Vince" if he would be interested in fulfilling the picketer's requests but "Vince" didn't seem to be as amused as the protesters and police officers seemed to be. Poor little guy.

By the way: The people who picketed outside the Sandcastle property noticed that the police officers protecting us needed a break from the heat so we decided to knock-off early, have a late lunch, and get back to the main 3:00 p.m. protest out in front of the cult's headquarters. The officers were good guys, a couple of which talked with some kids (about ages 8 and 10) who stopped by to ask about the picket and try out the yo yo I had brought along.

One of the kids asked us if the reason "they" weren't "walking around" was because we (the picketers) were here. I assured the kid that his "cognition was in," yes, that the cult pulled its toy sailors off of the streets so that they wouldn't have to face the truth about their cult. The older kid said that "they" should "lock 'em all up and throw away the key." The younger kid didn't seem to know or care what the cult was about but the older kid fears the cult.

I mention the fact that the police was protecting us because right when we were collecting our signs to start the picket outside of the Sandcastle property, we ran into trouble. An unshaven, dirty individual who was walking on the sidewalk stopped beside our van and started talking about shooting and demanded that we go away. The nut threatened to "fuck us over." I believe that this clown wasn't in fact a cultist but was telling us that he didn't like the picketing because he feared the cult was going to shoot us, putting _him_ into the line of fire. (This unwashed nut was disjointed, to say the least.)

What this violent nut didn't notice was that not 10 feet away, hidden on the other side of the van, was a police cruiser with two officers inside and an officer standing outside the passenger door. I stepped into the street, motioned to the police officers, and told them, "I think we have a problem here." I told the officer that walked over that this individual had been saying something about shooting and two of the other protesters informed the officer that the nut had threatened to "fuck us over."

The police once again put their bodies on the line to serve and protect. Our little group owe the city of Clearwater a resounding "thank you!" for their service to their community. They made the nut leave and made sure he didn't come back.

What's important about this incident is the fact that the public really does fear and hate the cult. This was the only negative comment from any resident and this one appeared to be insane -- literally. The guy couldn't fight the cult so expressed his fear and anger at the cult by claiming he was in danger of ending up getting shot by the cultists who were going to shoot us. Disjointed and insane. All in all, I think the officer who took command of the situation realized the guy was a nut and did the right thing by shooing him away.

Several incidents during the protest are worthy of being covered in some detail.

First off, Shydavid reported that a woman had parked her car right in the middle of traffic outside of the Fort Harrison Hotel -- the cult's headquarters -- got out, ran over to him, and gave him a hug saying "God bless you! God bless you!" Then she ran back to her car and drove off.

What must the OSA goons who saw this incident think about it all? The "God bless you" comment was repeated within my hearing range at least a hundred times. "Drive those bastards out of town" -- or variations on the theme -- were yelled out of car windows at least three dozen times. What must the cultists think about this resoundingly popular expression of the protests?

On Sunday, at around 6:00 p.m. or so, one guy driving down the street across from the cult's headquarters drive be slowly, giving us thumbs-ups, "okay" signs, hand-clapping, and ended with the first display I saw during this event of the pantomime "shove it!" which amused the police officer and three or four protesters standing on the corner who witnessed the display. Man, this city _hates_ these cultists with a passion! We all got a chuckle out of this display of community opinion.

Another incident involved three old-timers which I commented briefly upon previously. They were "members" of some kind of Year 2000 group -- nobody asked for specifics within my hearing range so I didn't get any details about this Y2K group.

These three, together with two police officers, and a rotating number of protesters who walked past the group, were discussing Year 2000 problems and what they felt the results were going to be. One of the police officers opined that the end of the world was near. <grin> Only he didn't phrase his opinion in just those words. The other cop considered the problem to be somewhere around 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Someone walking past considered the Scientology cult to be just one of the many "manifestations" of the gleefully-awaited end of the world, claiming that the cult -- being anti-Christian -- was the work of "the debbil."

Well, okay. Um, let's not forget that the cult has been around for 40 years now. And the Scientology cult is hardly significant in terms of body count -- alive or dead. While the cult likes to pretend it has eight million "followers," it's more likely that there are less than a million world-wide and that number is dropping -- thanks, in part, to SCAMZDAT and the repeated foot-bullets.

The Y2K Trio (as I called them) were also discussing the Scientology cult. "Vince," the OSA/GO goon, was leaning up against the cult's building behind and to the left of one of the police officers in the Y2K-discussing group. He was, of course, listening to everything being said and was covertly taking photographs. (The poor dear had his camera pointed at us at all times, finger pressing the button from time to time, held against his chest.)

The woman in the Y2K Trio commented on the fact that "Vince" had taken their picture without asking their permission and she used the word "audacity" in her opinion of the guy. She at first thought that "Vince" was one of the good guys. She expressed surprise that he was a cultist goon and I described what it was the OSA/GO goons did for the cult. She took a step toward him, looked him up and down, and commented on the fact that the clown was trying to "look like a Secret Service." I said that real police officers earn the respect and dignity they desire and that this plastic cowboy would never make it past the application form of a _real_ law-enforcement agency.

I told "Vince" that if he wanted to look the part, he should bleach his temples gray to add a little dignity and make him look a bit older. I got a smile at this suggestion.

At this point I'll add the fact that several ex-Navy people voiced their displeasure at the cult's use of Navy terms and behavior. It was said by one guy working on an electric cable in the street that "these people" -- meaning the cult, make a mockery of the fine tradition of the Navy and that their pretensions insulted them greatly.

An ex-officer of the law expressed his great displeasure at the many idiot goons in the cult that want to pretend they're real police officers. "They don't know what it's like to earn and deserve the respect of the community," the ex-cop told me. "Any one of them," he told me, "aren't fit to carry a real officer's shoes." Okay, the image the guy was trying to create was a strange one but the sentiment was there: these public displays of mockery are hated by those who worked hard to achieve the real thing, much like real doctors who go to college for decades to acquire their degrees have extreme distaste for quacks who purchase their degrees through the mail.

We talked about poor ole' "Vince" for quite some time. I pointed out that "Vince" didn't really have much choice as to what he was being forced to do as he would be punished if he didn't follow orders. I covered the RPF prison punishment/torture rituals the cult engages in and informed the Y2K Trio that, despite the robotic behavior, "Vince" stilled showed signs of humanity from time to time and that under all that pile of cult-heaped shit, he was still human.

One of the guys in the Y2K Trio confirmed this by saying something to "Vince" which made him break the robot routine and laugh out loud. The old guy waved his hand and said, "Aw, the guy _is_ human!"

While the discussion progressed onto the cult's tax-exemption status and the evils of not paying one's fair share of the tax burden in a State which has a high percentage of citizens on Social Security, "Vince" decided it was time to go somewhere else. We were talking about the guy right in front of his face, wondering what his future was going to be inside of the cult and he didn't seem to like being described by SPs in friendly, concerned terms.

A number of people I talked with discussed the tax-exemption status of this cult. One of the guys working at the hotel told us that when the cult was granted its tax exemption status, he considered it nothing less than an outrage and an affront to his religion. "Those nuts aren't no religion," he informed me, giving a number of examples of the criminal actions the cult has been indicted for. "_Real_ religions don't do those sorts of things," he said.

Another event involving our new-found friend "Vince" revolved around Bulldog Curry -- a friend of mine who is one of the founders of the local Humanist Association. Bulldog acquired his nickname after years of getting to the heart of issues and pressing individuals tirelessly for answers to tough questions. At this year's protest, he was absolutely fearless and had to be reigned-in a couple of times when his desire to get answers and information out of a couple of cultists placed him on cult property without permission.

After the memorial service, Bulldog walked over to "Vince" and struck up a conversation. While most of the participants were gone and only a few stayed around to mourn Lisa and watch over her marker (which, as you'll recall, disappeared last year only 5 minutes after being placed.) Hopefully Bulldog will give me a write-up of his discussion with "Vince" so I can forward it into a.r.s yet here's what I recall of his conversation as described later.

Bulldog asked "Vince" whether he was the one who was responsible for removing Lisa's marker. (The marker was placed as close to room 174 as possible, you see, with a candle at the bottom. As the people in the vigil walked by, we set a flower at the marker, blew out our own candles, then collected silently on the opposite side of the marker.) "Vince" said that he wasn't the one who was supposed to remove it so Bulldog asked him if he knew who was, to which "Vince" replied that he didn't.

Bulldog asked what "Vince" thought about the way Lisa had died and "Vince," I'm told, actually started to comment upon what he felt and thought about it. "Vince" seemed to catch himself and, if you'll pardon the pun, started to clam-up, stating that he didn't want to talk about it. Bulldog asked whether he was able to talk to his family about it and Bulldog reports that "Vince" started to tear-up, indicating again that he didn't want to talk about it.

For one moment, any way, the OSA/GO goon showed some real humanity and feelings for what Lisa went through. His inability to talk to his family was a cause of distress to the poor guy. Bulldog reported that "Vince's" programming "slammed down," resulting in a visible transformation right before his eyes. A human with real feelings and needs, someone who desired communication with his disconnected family, was quickly replaced by a brainwashed robot which had suddenly remembered its programming.

For "Vince DeLaRocca:" I hope you get out, man, while you still can. You hate what you're forced to do, addicted and brainwashed, knowing that you're enslaved to a dead madman. I'm sure your family wants to hear from you and know you're all right and that you're healthy. Your family misses you, I'm sure. Your feelings for them are right, not the result of some alien body infestation you need to get rid of. I know you'll be punished because of my report on your "down stat" behavior -- showing humanity -- but let that serve as further data as to your unfortunate problem. Get out, guy, while you can. You don't need what the "church" is selling. You certainly don't need to do what the cult's forcing you to do. Get out while you can.

Another thing that I noticed was the way the cult leaders were treating its followers. They were shuffled around in those white vans with the windows soaped over so their victims couldn't see out, of course, but when it came time to load or unload the vans, the cult leaders made them _run_ one at a time. If they were slow, they were pushed or kicked in the ass to hurry them up. I can't imagine what the cult tells their victims about the protesters to make them accept this kind of abuse. I had brought field glasses with me but never used them. A pity as it would have made seeing this phenomena easier.

What the hell are they telling their followers to make them accept this punishment? Why wouldn't their leaders allow them to walk with dignity, out in the open? Why not allow their followers to see the protest signs and let them THINK FOR YOURSELF? "Think for yourself." That's the cult's latest motto. Why won't the cult's leaders allow their followers to think for themselves?

Last year, about 3,000 cultists were ordered to surround the Clearwater Police Department and protest "Civil Rights Abuses." In fact the cult's leaders were annoyed at the many criminal indictments handed down to followers and, of course, the police department's lack of cooperation with the cult's demands that the hundreds of pounds of court documents and FBI reports covering the cult be destroyed. As was reported last year, few of the cultists who had been ordered to surround the police department even knew why they were out there. They just did what they were told else faced the RPF consequences. So much for "Thinking For Yourself."

At pool-side, I got to talk one evening at some length with Arnie. In fact, I think it was after 2:30 in the morning that I finally walked off to find a bed for a few hours. Arnie is so interesting and knows how to cover a subject so well that I learned some things I had never head about before. Arnie said that the current used in the E-meter was addictive. I seem to recall reading something about that quite a few years ago before I became interested in this deadly cult yet I had no data. I asked Arnie if he would give me a write-up on the current addiction aspects of the E-meter so that I could submit it to Skeptic Magazine, a publication which covers the scientific debunking of claims of the paranormal and which has covered in some small detail various aspects of the cult.

I'm not so sure that the current used in the E-meter is enough to become addicted to. Yes, it _obviously_ affects the brain inasmuch as _any_ current passed through the body affects the whole body. Addiction is a possibility yet I would need scientific data on the effects. When a _changing_ current is directed through the body, physiological effects are recorded in the relevant medical journals yet I would need to see something specifically on the E-meter and the current level that's used in it.

The addiction, I think, to the E-meter is rooted, I believe, in the physiological aspects of the nervous system related more toward the reproduction subsystems. Orgasm is the result of the spontaneous release of tension, as I recall. The use of the E-meter during "auditing" rituals is, I believe, not responsible for the addiction; it is the light trance and tension-stimulating aspects of the ritual which, I believe, is responsible. The feeling of euphoria after the tense ritual ends is something that becomes addictive. I could easily be mistaken since I don't have an education in the biological sciences yet it seems to me that hypnosis is a relaxive state which becomes something sleep-deprived people (which the cult's victims are) become addicted to.

Addiction and hypnosis is an integral aspect of the cult. It could not exist in its current form without these. The addiction accounts for why the victims of the cult accept the punishment and abuse that we all witnessed this year in Clearwater. The brainwashing, hypnosis, and cutting-off of their victims from any contact with the public is disgusting and evil, I must say. It's something that has to be witnessed first-hand to be fully believed. As this was my first exposure to the predations of the cult, I got an education. Seeing what the cult did to "Vince" was an eye-opener.

Shydavid told me that he and Bob Minton had gotten thrown out of the "One Stoppe Shoppe" next to the Scientology-owned bank building. Bob had asked Shydavid if he would like a cold drink and, still wearing his "Scientology Kills" T-shirt, Shydavid followed Bob into the place.

Mr. Minton was asked, I'm told, whether he was a Scientologist. Bob held up the three one-hundred dollar bills he was holding and said, something like, "I have three hundred dollars! How could I be a Scientologist when I have three hundred dollars?"

Both Shydavid and Bob Minton were bums-rushed out the door. Bob promptly stuffed a dollar bill into the soda machine outside and managed to get a can before the cultists inside pulled the plug on the machine.

Pretty childish, huh?

One guy, Paul E. Morph, dropped by the hotel's pool side and sat for a long time, telling us about his father's "declare." Mr. Morph was still a Scientologist in good standing but he was going to be joining us in the picket in the morning. (Which he certainly did!) That night he gave us a lot of details about what it's like being a kid inside of the cult, watching one's father get used, abused, and then discarded, ruined financially and emotionally.

It's possible that there were three OSA ops that I knew about this year though they were certainly not well thought out or at all planned. An OSA goon with two prostitutes were at the hotel. <yawn> We've seen that one enough times, I'm sure, for it to be boring.

About four of us went to a titty bar which was a first for two of us. While some of the songs played inside were mildly amusing, I found the experience idiotic and childish to the extreme. I won't describe what went on inside this place. Grown men who actually _like_ this kind of entertainment might need psychological assistance. I watched the door and the football game on the big-screen television, holding my fingers to my ears and at times nodding off, trying to catch some REM cycles.

Possible op? Damned if I know but when we had first arrived, a white car pulled to the side of the road and watched us walk up to the front door. I and another guy, cameras at the ready, started walking toward the white car which then pulled away. It's impossible to say whether this was an intended OSA goon op but it's enough to note that we were aware of the type of things the cult engages in so were aware of our surroundings at all times. Rather than jump to unfounded conclusions, we told ourselves that anyone can stop to look at a map.

One other thing: I didn't trust one of the guys who went with us. I was told that he was a lawyer for someone or a group of people. Since he didn't picket with us and, so far as I know, hang out pool-side, I didn't "know him from Adam," I believe the phrase is. He called someone who showed up later and said, "hello" to everyone in our group. He had asked me if I knew anything about anyone who would like to give deposition or something.

I think that next year let's have Arnie bring a rubber stamp and stamp the good guys with an "OKAY!" so that we're all reasonably sure of everyone else. <grin>

Of particular note was my social dinner with the local Humanist Association. Shydavid and I, along with Bulldog Curry, arrived late at the social dinner and were either followed from Clearwater else were simply observed by a cultist who called in the sighting. (I feel like Elvis!)

Shydavid and I noticed the white-haired guy walking past the restaurant with a radio who then later came into the restaurant and sat down at the bar. Shydavid recognized his photograph from an Internet site though he couldn't place the picket he was photographed at.

About 15 minutes later, another guy came in and sat down at the bar. I will call this guy "No Blink" because the guy never blinked. This is a common result of the cult's "standard tech." Cultists are trained not to blink for hours on end. If they blink, they're told, "Flunk! Start over!" and they must begin again.

White Hair claimed he had just seen our shirts and picket sign (which was leaning up against an unused bar.) That was a lie -- Shydavid and I observed the guy observing us and using his radio. He played stupid and asked a lot of stupid questions. He tried very hard to get our names and some background on the other people at the social dinner. He thought that everyone at the dinner were protesters, you see.

Eventually he called over his fellow OSA goon who came over and started being _extremely_ hostile to Bulldog Curry, Shydavid, and I, but with particular attention to Bulldog. (Maybe it's that baby face of yours, Mr. Curry. You could play Jeff Jacobson if you really wanted to.)

We played with these goon's heads for a time then decided it would be best to leave the social dinner. We informed some of the others that these two strangers (who sat down at our table uninvited, by the way) were Scientologist goons playing games. The goons noticed that they had been made and slunk away to continue playing dumb at the bar.

It was easy to make these guys trip up. White Hair pretended that he didn't remember the name I had given him and wanted me to repeat it for No Blink. I told No Blink that my name was Sam Good -- as in "Good Samaritan." White Hair told me that wasn't the name I used before and, in typical Scientology cult-speak, accused me of being "no better than they are." White Hair played dumb trying to recall the name I used and, when he realized I wasn't going to play, asked me, "Didn't you say your name was Captain Ahab?" I denied having said that (which was a blatant lie) which caused the clown to work his mouth open and shut several times without uttering even a squeak.

Funny how the cultists feel free to utter blatant lies when asked direct, embarrassing questions yet are totally unprepared when the general public use the same "standard tech" they're trained to use.

White Hair tried to get No Blink to stop being so hostile. It was amusing, to say the least, because White Hair couldn't just come out and tell him _why_ he needed to tailor his behavior for us. When No Blink asked an idiot question in a hostile way, I told him that I would rather he and his buddy settle their argument first. What's ironic is that _that_ finally got it into No Blink's head that he wasn't going to be able to pump us for information if he kept up his hostile behavior.

I got lots of photographs though no audio. The cult tried to use out-source "tractor tech" on us by parking two tractors on the sidewalk outside of their cult, one on either end. They has also cut up a piece of the sidewalk on their end to try to slow us down and, amusingly, the signs blocking-off the chewed-up sidewalk said "Bob's Barriers" or something like that. Bob Minton, I hope, got a photograph of that.

A couple of us -- myself included -- got a photograph of a clam standing inside one of these "cheery pickers." "Stuck on the bridge" came to mind.

The cult had been putting up a "Happy Holidays!" sign on the front of the building, amusingly enough. They had gotten to the point where the sign said, "HAPPY HO!" Talk about your gut-wrenching laughter! Helena Kobrin, that 'Ho of Babble-on, must have had a hand in this.

What wasn't so funny was the cultists who were ordered to dangle from the 10'th story windows to affix the sign to the building. On the previous day, a cultist was standing on the three-inch ledge outside the window -- 100 feet up, I'd say -- without strapping himself in. One of us yelled up at the nut to go back in and get a harness or something; which he did, amazingly enough.

I got a photograph of one of these poor guys dangling from the end of a two-inch strap as he worked on fixing an "O" to the building. I saw the idiot scrambling and kicking, trying to get back into the window and, muttering a "good fucking grief," a police officer stopped leaning up against the building, walked over to the curb, and looked up at what I was seeing. His mouth dropped open and he himself muttered, "good god!" Kenneth, the shirt-less walk-in who joined the picket yelled up at the nut, "What are you, crazy?!"

Eventually the poor clam was able to scramble up the wall and make it back safely into the building. He probably needed to change his underwear immediately thereafter. What these people make their followers do is absolutely evil. These victims have no medical, no retirement, and, of course, no workman's compensation. They're paid anywhere from $15 a week to $40 a week for anywhere from 50 hours a week to 80 hours a week; many of which get one meal a day -- provided they're not RPFed and on short rations.

Forcing these people out the windows at 100 feet up without safety equipment should be something that local authorities need to look into. Several of the police officers saw people hanging from the windows. With the one I photographed, it was a damn near thing that he made it back in alive. We could very well have added another name to the growing list of people killed by the cult.

It would be just like the cult to sacrifice one of their own to put an end to the picket. Had the guy fallen, there's no way the protest could have continued and even the memorial vigil would have had to have been canceled. Due to the history of this cult's unethical and criminal behavior, I wouldn't put it past the cult ordering one of their brainwashed victims to sacrifice himself "for the good of humanity."

This year's memorial protest was a resounding success. The citizens of Clearwater want these bastards out and are not shy in saying so anymore. The felony indictments on the death of Lisa was known to all the citizens of Clearwater and, with no exceptions, simply want the cult to leave.

In the traditional PR lies of the cult's shills, the cult demanded that the picketers didn't reflect the opinions of the community that "the church serves." One has to wonder why they persist in trying to fool themselves into such idiot beliefs. It's doubtful that, despite Draconian efforts to keep its remaining victims from seeing the truth about their cult exposed in the media and in the courts, the remaining victims inside are totally unaware of how the people of the city feel about them.

I believe it was Brent who pointed out that telling a stupid lie was bad, but that it's much worse when the lie involves making claims about what those being lied to are thinking.

One thing's for certain: Though the cult's leaders did their best to pretend the 60-plus protesters didn't exist, not a one of us mysteriously disappeared and, at _minimum_, a million residents of Tampa, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg were once again treated to yet another exposure of the true meaning of the Scientology cult.

If Scientology's fundamental claims were in any way true, any one of their alleged "Operating Thetans" should have been able to take care of all of us protesters merely by "intention beaming" us out of existance. L. Ron Hubbard claimed that OTs could knock the hats off of people at 75 yards and had absolute control over MEST -- Matter, Energy, Space, and Time. The fact was, these nuts expended a great deal of money, time, and energy to try to hide their victims from having to look at the truth behind the scam they fell for.

These pickets do more than enturbulate the leaders of this psycho cult. It inoculates "raw meat," the "wogs" which live out in the real world. It also forces the cult's leaders to react to the actions of the picketers which shows the victims inside the cult that those who are controlling and manipulating them are themselves not the super- humans they like to claim they are.

Lisa, this one was for you.