Operation Five Dock Goes Where
Despite the changing of meeting plans without informing anyone, Operation: Five Dock Goes Where went off with minimal hitches. The protest as always resulted in epic win, this time not from flyer numbers, but from public response. We had countless honks from cars, and even people walking down the street saying "Honk" and "Beep", with the numbers going well over a hundred.
We had an extremely friendly guy come up and talk to us for a while, laugh with us a little, borrow a spare mask, and joined us for about 5 minutes before heading off. It was also discovered that the majority of the Five Dock area seem to know about the Scientology Org there, despite how well hidden it was. It was also fantastic to note that almost everyone there seemed to oppose them.
Later in the evening, things took a turn for the truly epic, as shortly after DC returned with caek, a scientologist from the org took a stroll down to talk to Publius and myself. At first we thought he was new, but with a little patented Snapple Probing, he mentioned that he was OT7. This man, was THE most rational and conversational scientologist I have encountered.
We suspect the seeds of doubt were planted, as the man was willing to hear everything we said, and responded not with a defence, but with his experiences of the church. He then proceeded to tell us a story about his experience of the church as an accountant. Going over the books one day, he noticed something amiss, so he contacted the non-scientologist accountants responsible, they informed him that international management had told them to "ignore it". He contacted head management, who denied this, and made it seen to that things were fixed.
If his ability to accept that there WERE some things that go wrong within the church were not enough, he then proceeded to elevate himself to the status of Snapple's Favorite Sci when the Xenu story was brought up. Rather than taking the PR-approach of Blatant Denial, he realised that we knew what we were talking about, so he began mumbling and appearing obviously uncomfortable, when we said "We know you can't really talk about it", he nodded and seemed appreciative, and we quickly moved on to the next topic. The fact alone that he DID NOT DENY the story, makes him one step above the rest in my opinion.
This man, calibrated himself to the level of knowledge of who he was talking to, was rational and receptive rather than defensive, and was a generally amiable guy. The Church of Scientology needs more people like this man, who treat Anonymous as people rather than as enemies. If any church members are reading this, be more like this man. If you are rational and friendly to us, we will be rational and friendly to you.
Apart from 2 eggs being thrown (and poorly aimed) at us, which was swiftly reported to the police, there was an overwhelmingly positive response to us and our cause. Hopefully Five Dock is indicative of the general public opinion, because if it is, then we are winning this war.
Also, YPG is cool.
-Snapple