Melbourne "Demo" also a flop.

Frank Copeland, Thu 21 Mar 1996

From: fjc@wossname.apana.org.au (Frank Copeland)
Subject: Re: Melbourne "Demo" also a flop.
Date: 21 Mar 1996 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <fjc.2zn7@wossname.apana.org.au>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

Andrew Milne (milne@crl.com) wrote:
: David Gerard's "demo" outside the Church of Scientology in Melbourne, was,
: like those last week in the US, a flop with minimal turnout -- at most
: about half the "high point" of last year when they scrambled up to about
: 15 through extraordinary efforts.

Andy, are we living in the same universe? I was at both demos and
everything you say below is complete and utter bullshit.

: * They handed out a leaflet which nobody was really interested in and
: most people dumped in the trash soon after. People were much more
: interested in the Freedoms that were handed out.

We handed out a minimum of twice as many leaflets as the Scientology
anti-protesters, who struck me as extremely slack and disinterested. Quite
a few people waved off the glossy brochure and took one of our photocopies
instead. Not to mention all the people in cars that we leafletted. Andy, a
word of advice: tell your people to put a bit more effort into it next
time.

: * For most of the time there were only about 3 people there. A few
: stragglers came and went.

I must have been pissed and seeing double, then. There were never fewer
than 7 of us at any time. What there *was* a serious shortage of was
Scientologists. Usually only two out on the footpath, and maybe another 10
inside the Org who played non-confront all day.

: * Contrary to what Gerard expected (he seems to have had the impression he
: would be the high point of the day for the Scientologists), the
: Scientologists in the Church didn't think it worth their while to talk to
: him.

They didn't want to talk to us, but they did seem to spend a lot of their
time standing around looking out the window.

: * The "demo" had absolutely no impact whatever and was more of a
: curiosity for passersby.
:
: All in all, a sorry affair. In fact, it is revelatory that after weeks of
: touting these demos as a big international "protest", the total
: turnaround around the world was utterly insignificant.

You know, you are right Andy. Most people *don't* give a shit about
Scientology. They have already written it off as a nut cult, and all we
were doing was preaching to the converted.

: I guess that's what comes of following Steven Fishman.

Following who? Make up your mind Andy, are we following Dennis, David,
Stephen or someone else today? What about Cyril Vosper, he's a nice guy,
why can't I follow him?

: If Gerard wants to "demonstrate" again next year, he may.

Well its good of you to give your permission.

: But with the
: Church's new sites up, people are now going to be finding out what
: Scientology really is on the Internet. I recommend to Gerard that he give
: up a hopeless cause (whatever his cause may be, I'm not sure) and take a
: look at the sites and find out the truth about Scientology.  Otherwise he
: runs the risk of becoming like the flat-earth society -- irrelevant and
: unnoticed.

This has got to be the funniest thing I've seen all week. Its too late,
Andy. The cat's out of the bag. No amount of glossy promotion, desperate
floods of theta or howls about persecution are going to make the slightest
difference. People now have access to all the information they need to work
out exactly the kind of scam that Scientology is. If you are so confident
that your multimedia circus on the Web will sweep all the entheta away, put
a link to Ron Newman's page on www.scientology.org. I won't be holding my
breath.

Frank Copeland
--
MODULE Sig;
(* $Author: Frank Copeland <fjc@wossname.apana.org.au> $ *)
IMPORT StdDisclaimer, CleverQuote, AdvocateOberon;
END Sig.