Protest Safety Let's hug and bond and share. Scilons are becoming more aggressive. Anons are being attacked. ITT looking for tips, advice, insight, and reminders on how to stay safe protesting against the bad, bad people. I'm talking to you: Atlanta/Sandy Springs, GA Basel, Switzerland Berlin Calgary Chicago Copenhagen Dallas Dublin Edinburgh Edmonton Frankfurt Göteburg, Sweden Halifax Hamburg Israel Kansas City Kitchner London Manchester Montreal Munich Nashville Omaha Oslo Toronto Salt Lake City Stockholm I apologize if I left any active cell out of this list. Let's hear it.
Re: Protest Safety Don't let anti-scientology zealotry get the best of you. Keep your cool when talking or chanting at the scientologists. Remember, you can't save the world, but with enough effort you will bring down the SeaOrg and force Scientology to adhere to child labor laws.
Re: Protest Safety Several posters have taken to parroting similar assertions, but all support proffered has been purely anecdotal. Is there any solid evidence that there is a concerted institutional initiative to be more aggressive? Has anyone been privy to a confirmed leak whereby practicing Scientologists were given instructions to systematically ramp up their level of aggression? I would be quite grateful should someone with such information expound upon the claims. More aggressive relative to who, what or when? Is it a centralised directive applicable world-wide or is it a series of coincident local initiatives? How do we know that reports of increased aggression do not simply reflect typical Scientology responses to individual threats, such as Aaron Saxon, who, unmasked and well known, crawled straight up the Sea Org's arse in a manner few Chanologists have ever ventured. In response to the OP's request I volunteer that keeping one's head and thinking straight is the greatest asset any protester has. Do not panic, leap to conclusions or chase ghosts.
Re: Protest Safety Anon stats in last week: Russian bans LRH books, major news article showing DM beats his staff and Tom Cruise a drug taking manboy. 9999 points Scientology: Thread failure: -1000
Re: Protest Safety Yea, how dare some one question Anonymous at all! Who needs proof of anything amirite?
Re: Protest Safety I don't think there is any official effort to increase Scientologist aggression at protests. It is more likely that we are seeing a number of Scientologists losing control because of the pressure they are under from both inside and outside the cult.
Re: Protest Safety Not much aggression in Birmingham UK. The scilons do get on the phone to the police pretty much every raid. Their usual accusations are that they're hosting a childrens' party and we're intimidating the children or something. Over the years, we've got to know the local officers on patrol and have a little chat with them. A few months ago, one of the cops received a call from the co$ claiming we were attacking them and besieging their building. The cop received this call while he was standing with us having a peaceful chat. Footbullet. Get to know local cops wherever possible. They know that we don't cause any trouble and that co$ makes time wasting calls.
Re: Protest Safety I stopped when it became a cause for infraction... Having said that, OP is making allegations without substantiating them. New comer or not, it won't go far IMHO.
Re: Protest Safety Oh and insulting people's weight while protesting is probably only going to make them run their TR's which validates KSW, right?
Re: Protest Safety Here's our old-time "rules" from the 90's: Lisa McPherson Memorial Page: killed by the Church of Scientology
Re: Protest Safety Or wear one of these: Dark Knight Motorcycle Suit Roars Back | Underwire | Wired.com
Re: Protest Safety OP is not claiming that scilons have instigated some seekrit plan, central or local, to up the ante with the physical contact but is merely stating an actual observable point. Scilons on average have indeed become more agressive at protests as a matter of statistical fact. So far though, apart from Anon Orange's experience with goldbase guards, I don't think we've really seen anything that you could really count as an "initiative" as such. However, it doesn't take a giant leap of faith to understand that tensions inside the orgs must be running high (we have had reports on that from the recently blown exes).
Re: Protest Safety Get video of fucking everything, always check the permits of the other party, know your local laws, take photos to prove your location, be in good with the police, have contacts with lawyers, don't back down but don't be a douche to them, keep protesting despite what they do.
Re: Protest Safety I'm a lazy fag, but what this needs if its to be used as evidence is a timeline. It doesnt mean shit if they average the same amount of violence over time. I'd do more if I gave a shit about this.
Re: Protest Safety [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Nj-GXKq3A&feature=PlayList&p=F292D33C064C6BF0&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=4]YouTube - Retro Bill - Why should you stay with your friends in public places?[/ame] also locking gas cap. but seriously be safe guise
Re: Protest Safety A couple of things come to mind. I have to agree with Sponge. I think we are seeing a reaction to the pressure the scns are already feeling from shrinking stats, media attention and two years of anons protesting. I think they are feeling like cornered animals and reacting like them as well. Until anons came along Scientology could silence critics pretty fast, but those tactics haven't worked on us. They simply don't know how to make us go away which goes against everything they are programmed to believe. As for the safety issue, Juche said it well. I would only add a couple of things. Don't protest alone, don't leave a protest alone, don't arrive alone. I also think that protesting directly in front of the org is a recipe for disaster. We protest across the street from our org, as many of you do. If they want to get near us, they would have to cross to our side of the street. We also don't let anyone address any member of the public alone, someone is always standing nearby, camera rolling. To keep them from successfully following me after a raid I park in different places each time and go home different ways each time. Most of all be aware of what is going on around you. Hard to be a target when you see what is coming.
Re: Protest Safety i agree with staying across the street when protesting. also...common sense...keep your cool. personally, i think that the people who start personally attacking people they knew while they themselves were in by shouting insults at them are doin' it wrong. what you want to do is be safe, and have fun! you don't have to scream and shout like some douchebags do, just play it cool and make it fun for yourselves while informing peoples.
Re: Protest Safety Yeah it seems their best tactic with anonymous is usage of the P werd - "pathetic". I keep seeing them use it over and over in all these protest videos. "No ma'am, I'm empathetic"
Re: Protest Safety I agree with you. During the LMT era in Clearwater, protesters were assaulted a number of times. Mr. Scary was punched in the stomach by Dennis Clarke, who also put a wad of gum on Mark Bunker's camera lens. WBM was also attacked by a guy with a hammer, and Bob Minton was also assaulted. Let's look back to February of 2008; a skanky, barefooted Scilon was caught on camera kicking a big anon fellow. She stole his sunglasses and ran into the org. Paris, Nono le Clown was assaulted several times over months. Tommy Gorman, suckerpunched outside the San Francisco org. One of our cell was attacked in a parking lot by three thuggish scilons, including Colonel Buttfucked, who tried to rip off his mask. Our boy had left the group, and was alone at the time. Australia has recently become an anomaly; maybe that branch of the cult is desperate and angry enough to attack those they feel are responsible for their woes. Losing James Packer must have been a serious blow to their income. Some assaults seem staged, using "don't take my picture" as an excuse to attack anons, but for the most part it appears that some Scilons just can't control their tempers. We've all seen the videos of Scientologists so furiously wound up that they spew profanity and stupidly scream at people not wearing masks to take off their masks. Then there was the "you wanna fuck?" boy, so angwy he was hopping around like an enraged ape. But, after two years, actual assaults are still unusual except in Australia. Still, Scilons are opportunists quick to take advantage of a lone anon. Stay together. Keep cameras handy. Don't wander off by yourself, and be aware of your surroundings at all times. Just use common sense. If you don't have any, you should find a raid buddy and handcuff yourself to them.
Re: Protest Safety You mean something other than the increased number of videos and pictures documenting assaults and attempted assaults, and other than the increasing number of threads reporting assaults and attempted assaults? To be fair, these things appear to come in waves. A couple of weeks will go by with no incidents. Then we will have another couple of weeks where reports pile up globally. Also, I don't think anyone has seriously suggested that Scientologists have been ordered to behave more aggressively / like cornered animals. I think that the pressure (internally from fellow Scienos and externally from Anon, ex-Scis, the news coverage and litigation, etc.) and the increased cognitive dissonance is inspiring them to behave more aggressively / like cornered animals on their own initiative, regardless of how many witnesses there might be or how many cameras might be pointing their way at the time. The fluctuations in amount of reports might imply that orders have come down from on high to be more aggressive, as the number of reported incidents does seem to wax and wane, but I suspect it is more likely to be coincidence.
Re: Protest Safety In addition to all of the above (yes, all of it ), it probably wouldn't hurt to keep in mind that "aggression" isn't limited just to physical assaults, though the implication of same (beefy goons standing close by with unfriendly expressions, for example) along with the non-physical aggression isn't impossible, either. At least with the open Scilons in ATL, they don't seem to be up to much of anything other than a few pictures. "Closet" Scilons, at NarCONon, on the other hand, seem much more ready to try to intimidate anons protesting that particular front organization, though they still need to work on the "shatter" part of "confront and shatter". Really, there's one bit of advice that makes all others much more effective, in dealing with confrontations with Scilons: (Yeah, he's Doinitrong, but you get the idea.)