On Sunday, February 10, 2008 Anonymous staged a worldwide protest (or raid as they call it) against the Church of Scientology (or Co$ as it’s called for short). First off, the protest was a resounding success with around 10,000 participants worldwide. A list of participation estimates at each protest around the world can be found at this site called Enturbulation.
The protest in Los Angeles started at around 11am and originally was scheduled to end at 4pm. I got up at around 12pm and studied a bit and then when 2pm came around I decided I’d go to the protest, spend an hour or so there, take pictures, and then come back home. I ate something and then I spent 20 minutes making a sign:
Now, they were not my best work, but they sufficed. So after I made them I drove rather quickly to the Scientology HQ on Sunset Blvd in LA. It took me 25 minutes to get there. There was traffic on a Sunday. Seriously, California is going to hell (and the rest of the world too by the looks of it). Sean would be happy to know I was listening to Radiohead’s In Rainbows for the duration of the drive.
Being wary of Scientologists and about to enter into a crowd of people I did not know, I decided it would be appropriate to first drive around the protest area and survey the action before participating. So, I finally get there and what do I see?
No one.
Holy crap did I go on the wrong day? I was sure it was the right day. I suspected the protest might have marched down deeper into Hollywood to protest at one of the multiple Scientology buildings located there. I went ahead and called the party hawtline which is just some guys cell phone number posted on the protest organizing site as a number to call for information. A cute-sounding girl picked up (which is probably a biased assessment on my part since any girl associated with a protest against an evil and false cult would pretty much automatically sound cute to me). She told me the protest ended at three. Why? For security reasons. They didn’t want to protest until night for fear of any shenanigans occurring in the dark. Now, two things passed through my mind at that point, first, BUMMER, and second, IT DOESN’T GET DARK UNTIL FIVE…why couldn’t the protest have gone on until 4pm? Dejected, I drove back home. But first, I made a buzz around the blue Scientology HQ. It’s rather large and I saw a guy riding on a bike looking like a police officer, but I saw on his shirt the Scientology logo, so he turned out to be one of their guard stooges.
I got home and feeling a bit pissed I staged my own protest. I took my sign out, stood in frong of my house and protested:
Ten minutes passed and no cars passed by nor did any pedestrians. So I went back inside. I probably weirded out some of the neighbors with such antics though.
So that was my Scientology protest amazing adventure.
Now, some links to pictures of the the AWESOME and EPIC protests around the world.
Wow, nice work.
Thanks! I’m quite proud of it.