Once again I managed to turn up idiotically late to the protest, as I rapidly realised that I would as soon as I awoke. With it starting at 11 and me regaining consciousness at 10.36 this was effectively inevitable, along with everything else.

My time of arrival was further delayed by the nuisance of a closed tube station, something that was becoming irksomely common. I had to wait for an era for a rail replacement as well, something that made me glad I had not donned mask. That happened at the line switch, where I waited until the area of the platform I was on was suitable secluded and then donned the V mask that I had obtained from Forbidden Planet, along with the boxer shorts that I used to cover my scalp.

The attention of a civilian was attracted almost instantly when a small girl and her mother were to be seen standing next to me, the former gazing towards me in a mixture of uncertainty and awe. The gaze was maintained until I got onto the tube and seats were taken, with her occasionally gazing over. I was, however, approached by a pair of brash voiced Australian wenches who asked me:

“Why are you wearing undies on your head?”
“Because my hair is distinctive and I don’t want to be identified.” I replied.
“Who by?”
“The Church of Scientology.”

They nodded and left me alone.

I found a newspaper and sat reading it, which must have made quite a sight, until I was talked to by a tramp of some description with rather damaged teeth. He asked me where I was off to and whether it was a fancy dress party and I told him what I was doing.

I encountered three other latefags on my way out of the station and chatting we headed towards the first protest location, the London Church. I was wary of a massive turn-out shrink and initially as the protest came into sight I feared that that was exactly what had happened. On closer inspection and more thorough mental comparison it was only a minor reduction, I thought, but then once I reached the concrete platform that overlooked the Church I discovered that a vast swathe of Operation Party Hard was to be found up here.

Last time there had been but a smattering of anons up here but on this occasion there was copious amounts of cake and a vast horde of anons milling around, obtaining stickers, talking and enjoying themselves. It was clearly a considerably increased turn-out and better still there was a lot more cake, on which I gladly gorged myself. There were brownies and donuts and all manner of tasty, sugary things.

The protest was fully underway by this stage, with megaphones being used to blast music out including the inevitable Rick Rolls and, of course, Andrew WK’s Party Hard. The $cilon response was to stand inside looking furtive, with most of the windows vacant and the rooms empty besides some in the middle which had blinds down and thus presumably were full. The Church is adept at toying with preconceptions though, so that could simply have been a ruse. They only showed up in them in order to film us or to fill the hallway, with one fellow turning up on the Church roof with a camera and being met with a chorus of “Jump!” from the gleeful anons, to which he responded by trying {and failing} to hide behind a chimney.

The memes were out in force, as per usual. There was stretched across the balcony a set of print-offs taped together with longcat drawn across it and the slogan “Longcat is LOOOOOOONG!”, which was much like last time but even longer. Another informed us that “$cientology makes Longcat SAD”. Many posters involved mudkips and others simply stuff in reference to $cientology, such as “Scientology kills”. Some, of course, fused the meme and eaning, such as this picture which declared “Scientology’s closed, due to thetans.” “No Scientology please, we’re British” also deserves a special mention and twelve internets, as does “Down with this sort of thing”, which on February 10th was the funniest hand-sign but now become a proper banner.

A few were familiar there, such as the “404 Protester Not Found” hoodie pair and a couple, such as the lampshade men, I had heard would be there on Enturbulation. There were a few unexpected and utterly awesome costumes, like Medic Man, who had dressed up like a Battleship Trooper and handed out chicken after collecting money for a bucket in a bucket, and Mr. Marcab Mask Man who won the “Coolest mask” prize as easily as Pig Mask Man did last time.

There were not, on this occasion, protesters who surrounded the doors but apparently there were some Co$ plants who tried to break in last time so that might have been wise. The opportunity to Rick Roll right next to the Church itself would have been nice to repeat, though. The music was fun, but there was insufficient dancing for a true party, although more than enough cake. Perhaps the two were more than correlational.

Soon after I arrived, a lot sooner than I was expecting, the call went out that we were to move on. I had anticipated this occurring for 2 but it seemed that at least one anon had gotten bored and the rest of us listened to him as he was using a megaphone. Or perhaps this was some consensus established before my arrival, there certainly are a lot more people outside Tottenham Court Road. The police offered to escort us as we went to the train station and we accepted, the officer who informed us that it was available was very friendly, chatty and happy and the police received a massive round of applause just before we left.

As we headed off I commented to an anonywench that the boys in green {blue is too old school, it seems} had not really clocked that we were an international terrorist group yet and she laughed. We headed across the street and down the road, with the sight of the vast number of guy fawkes mask clad protesters behind me truly a vision to behold. Apparently we had not obtained {or sought?} permission to march so instead of doing that we simply all walked together, which apparently an event distinct from marching since we didn’t wave banners or chant as we went.

The video of us entering you can see here and was in fact filmed by an anon standing right behind me. It displays the glorious sing-along to the theme tune of The Fresh Prince, a programme which is the favourite of Anonymous, besides perhaps House. It occurred to me, though, that the idea behind memes was partially Richard Dawkin’s effort to explain the source of much pure human stupidity. A meme spreads not because it is worthwhile but instead because it is culturally contagious. The content of much of the material spread by Anonymous is of questionable worth, such as the Rick Rolls, but all that matters is that they are suitably spreadable. Some is truly of worth, such as 300 and, in its own way, Chocolate Rain but often Anonymous simply has a power to take the nadir of western culture and make it enjoyable. Even Andrew WK, the man who epitomised the nadir of British music when he headlined the NME tour and people turned up just to see Lost Prophets and left early. When you are being rebellious by enjoying the Lost Prophets then shit is bad yet Anonymous named the event in his honour and his sole memorable contribution was aired heavily and utterly enjoyed. That youtube film covers the even more devotional love Anonymous feels towards the Fresh Prince, who there are efforts to save from $cientology’s clutches, in much the same way they attempted to save a masturbating teen from a deranged hyper-feminist mother.

What he missed was that once inside one of the carriages the anon with the speaker played some pulsing techno that lead to us jumping wildly around to its meme-flavoured grooves as the train tore through the tunnel. This winful moment ended with us bundling out onto Tottenham Court Road platform and heading towards the “Dianetics and Scientology Lifestyle Improvement Centre”. The long walk was long but on the way I met someone who may or may not have been the awesome win lady who last time impressed us with her organisational skills and funness (a similar role being adopted this time by medic man) so that was alright.

This was arranged little differently to last time as there was no road block and instead of restricting the car traffic we were left clogging up one pavement entirely and thus restricting the human one. This also resulted in our large group being forced into spreading over a far larger area of the pavement than we had done last time, as there was no pen to hold us in. This resulted in many, myself amongst them, remarking “Long protest is long” quite approvingly.

Here there was more cake, or rather much the same cake relocated on a table that was brought over but abandoned once the protest had ended. The gathering was confronted with the same $cilon in command as before, the grumpy looking chap who I dubbed bald man. Unfortunately we were down perhaps the most popular member of the group there last time, thus gave demanding chants of “We want Red Tie!” Unfortunately he was not forthcoming {we speculated hopefully that he might have blown, but my own suspicion is that he simply proved to popular to post again}.

In attendance again though was fit window lady, who was snapping and filming us throughout. They had leafleteers at the doors as well as at other areas on the road {I encountered the latter later} and rounding up the $cilon posse was a fellow dressed in a fluorescent green jacket who seemed to be trying to use it to blend in with the identically dressed police, and failing. Later he was joined by a burly bulky man dressed in black, who was basically a bouncer, minus “If you’re wearing a mask you’re not coming in.” Both of those secfags were effectively rendered redundant by the massive police presence but I imagine that they wanted to feel other than totally impotent in a face of our cake-wielding protest so they put on a good show.

Finally of mention, of course, is all the cameramen. According to some gents I met later the police had one of their own but also shooting were various media, copious anons and the obligatory $ciCams which covered our every meme. The latter were intended to obtain material both for OSA (Office for Special Affairs, which is somehow even more sinister than it sounds) and in order to ensure that if anything nefarious was performed by anons it would turn up in propaganda videos.

I engaged in some chants and then wandered around to the outskirts of the long protest to see what was occurring. It seemed that a good deal of cake was being handed out to passersby, along with leaflets. I was given some of these but since that end was covered I moved down to the other, where I came across awesome azn girl. All I can say to describe awesome azn girl is that awesome azn girl is awesome. She was handing out fliers, talking excitedly and danced and sang along to the Rick Roll along with me, even admitting to forgetting some of the words, which is true of everyone but nobody admits to.

When I got to the end of my leaflets I was planning on just pissing off but she simply took some more and kept at it so I followed the example and quickly distributed some random news report which showed OSA being evil. Not enough in itself, I though, so I told the people passing it to examine “Xenu.net” for further information. Hopefully one of the numerous banners they would pass bearing the evil alien overlord’s name would help them work out the spelling.

At one point I attempted to cross the road and hand out some leaflets there, mainly because I had spotted a $ci doing it far away from the Centre and figured that it would be fun to balance things out. The thought of them using the increased traffic on that side of the road to profit from our protest was irksome to me. When I reached there the $ci said that I was not permitted to be there and threatened to fetch the police, so I told her to do so since I had committed no crime. She did and surprisingly the police woman concurred with the $ci in saying that I was “Not allowed” to be on this side of the road and suggested that I knew that already. In hindsight I should have said something encouraging to the $ci, or at least told her “You know the rules, and so do I.” Instead I decided to depart but as I was about to head back across someone asked me about what I was there for and I explained before crossing back, feeling glad that I had at least gotten the word out to one person.

That aspect, the firm restrictions, was strange and I decided to investigate further. I asked another policewoman on the other side of the road whether it was illegal for me to return and leaflet on the forbidden side. She said that we were not allowed to, or words to that affect, which did not really answer the question. When asked why she said that it was for reasons of public disruption, that we were already causing a good deal of. Disrupting the public, however, is by no means a crime and thus I asked her again if to disobey would be breaking any actual laws and whether I could get arrested. She answered in terms that made it pretty clear that the answer was “no” but that they would definitely prefer it if we remained on the assigned side. I decided to make her job easier as she seemed nice (another anon and I later had a lovely talk with her when she discussed the hardships of her job and told us that the police transport is filled with their own cake so they neither needed or were allowed ours, meaning that they really do have a partyvan) but it irked me that the lines between illegality and inconvenience were getting so blurred.

At any rate, to cheer me up two encounters heartened me: while passing by a pair of middle aged women asked me what we were protesting about, “Against them, I hope” and I replied happily that we very much were and they left pleased and with a leaflet. Another man can across with a piece of Co$ drivel and asked if I had a lighter. I had soon disposed of all the leaflets and left the awesome azn girl to distribute her stuff, encountering on my way one of the most awesome displays of the day. As the man responsible said: mudkips make everything win.

(Our tech is free!)

I came across a group of four middle aged men wearing no masks, which usually designates little but here meant that I was in the presence of win-pirate legends.

‘Are you the Old Guard?’ I asked.
‘Am I the old guy?’ one replied, with a laugh.
(My mask had left me muffled.)
‘Old Guard I repeated.’
He chuckled and replied in the affirmative, with his friend remarking “They’re just platinum highlights…”
The third I had met already but I was in a different mask on this occasion so I had to re-introduce myself. He had no idea who angry bald fag was but was as affable and friendly as ever.

The misunderstand man was also friendly and explained that he was there since his son had been Disconnected from him for six months. Apparently it had left the poor boy a mental wreck and taken him a matter of years to recover, even seven or eight years later he was now left damaged from the experience. Talking to somebody who had actually suffered as a consequence of the cult was not something that I had done much and it made my sense of purpose yet greater.

According to this man David Miscavige was likely to batten down the hatches and attempt to ride out Anonymous’ efforts but if the cult did go into implode then there would need to be some facilities even beyond the Free Zone (who he talked about in dismissive tones) required to allow the continued existence of the “parishioners” to survive without the edifice of the Church. Effectively they are left institutionalised by the experience and simply can not exist as a functional being beyond its clammy confines and mad rituals.

This was a worry but not a case against tearing the whole thing down. So long as more can be prevented from encountering such a situation then profit has been made.

I then saw the Free Zoner that I met last time. The best way to describe Free Zoners is that they are like normal Scientologists but without all of the lies. I had to explain to him, like with the Old Guard, that we had met before but that I was masked differently and thus he would probably not recognise me. “That’s the idea” he replied, with a chuckle, and I agreed.

He was as friendly as last time and in discussion with a pretty blonde anon. His history with the cult I had heard before but he went into it in greater detail this time: apparently when he criticised the Church’s structure and activities they ploughed through his life to try and find evidence for him not being “Clear”, eventually settling upon a point in his American childhood when he had encountered a psychiatrist at age three. Their suggestion was that he had chemically hypnotised and thus a tool of theirs ever since. At this point he simply “blew” and left the Church altogether without permission. He did not, however, leave Scientology and blonde anon asked him something that I had been wondering since February 10^th: a good deal of Anonymous’ rhetoric was aimed at associating negatives with Hubbard, indeed the choice of the 15^th as date was to make mock celebration of his birthday, which was 2 days before. How exactly did he, as a Scientologist, feel about this? It was here where he really surprised me.

When he spoke of L. Ron Hubbard he did not cloud his talk with the hagiographic praise that I associated with all $cilons, refraining from canonising him and instead stating that although in his later life he became “paranoid” and rather unhinged, perpetuating many unethical actions, in his earlier years prior to this he created a philosophy worthy of following. As a defender of Red Ken I understand and appreciate the argument that an utterly odious man can still create considerable achievements, indeed the existence motivational fallacy shows that even someone interested solely in making money can still create something worthwhile, so blonde anon and I pressed home about the nature of his philosophy.

It turned out that neither of us shared his basic premise that humans are spiritual beings but she skilfully described my view and hers in better terms than I ever could, saying that she thought she was a physical being in possession of a mind capable of coming to consider itself as a spiritual being, which is impressive in itself. Free Zone chap described the nature of Scientology some more regardless, with the central idea being that there is a “Reactive mind” that is the same sort of type possessed by a deer in a forest, which relies entirely upon instinct to guide its actions. Alternatively there is the “Analytic mind” which is the distinctively human form that assesses things with reason and logic rather than responding to stimuli directly and doing that alone. Scientology states that the two minds are hosted within one brain for humans and through purging yourself of the former and ascending the latter you can become a superior person to before.

This is something of a fusion of a philosophical tradition stretching back to the Classical Greeks with a heavy dose of Buddhism, that blonde anon identified, and heavy amounts of psychology in the process used to switch the states of mind (auditing is effectively an unorthodox form psychotherapy using a stripped down polygraph machine as a prop). When we discussed the nature of the “e-meter” he fell a little quiet, perhaps as we seemed dubious as to the reliability of this “monograph” given that even devices which measure far more readings than merely skin electricity levels are not considered dependable.

However he was perfectly happy to talk about the Church’s nefarious activities, which he suggested did not constitute a critique of the philosophy but instead a perversion of it. He confirmed that Scientology’s “Twelve Dynamics” had been altered by the present leadership, with David Miscavige having changed the Second Dynamic from “Sex and procreation” to “Creativity” since members of the SeaOrg (an elite organisation of chronic ultra-loyalist $cis who sign billion year contracts and paid £25 a week) are forbidden to have families and in fact forced to have abortions if they fall pregnant. Just for context, this is somewhat like if the Pope declared that he was going to alter one of the Ten Commandments in order to make specify explicitly that statues of saints and the Virgin Mary were ok, except even more extreme. “Squirrelling the tech” is a great crime within Scientology and anyone making alterations is seem as the vilest form of traitor, for that reason the Free Zoners are invariably accused of as much by the Church.

Indeed, the sheer amount of hatred for the Free Zone exceeds even that they express towards critics. The entirely external opponents of the Church are a threat, while the Free Zone are a challenge. Anonymous has always used the Free Zone as an example of us being opposed to an institution rather than faith. We have no grudge with them and if they were to be all that was left of Scientology then the matter would be considered a triumph and Anonymous would move on. They have not attempted to censor the internet, they did not kill Lisa McPherson, they have never tried to drive anyone to suicide. They are eccentric, certainly, but also harmless and often downright useful.

Like, for instance, when he started to talk to me about magic.

This was another surprise but it was included without ceremony as the final point in a discussion about influences. Anyone who investigates briefly can uncover Lafayette relationship with Aleister Crowley and his “magickal” theology, Satanism. Hubbard was immersed in the occult for a considerable length of time, indeed he had a close relationship with the Thelemic scientist Jack Parsons, with whom he conducted sex rituals in order to summon a Goddess named Babalon and who’s fusion of empirical science and magic (he gave a prayer to Pan when launching his first rocket) no doubt served as something of an inspiration for Hubbard as well.

Crowley, though, clearly had an even greater impact upon him. Scientology is a philosophy which teaches that through a process of ritual and a mystical act that a person can improve their existences through altering their perception of everything. Magic is entirely based around ritual and the power of perception. The Church will deny this tie and indeed stated that Hubbard’s involvement consisted of “Infiltrating a black magic ring in America in order to destroy it”, yet the Free Zoner told me of a speech where Hubbard had announced that he would recommend to anybody attempting to understand the Universe the works of “My good friend, Aleister Crowley”.

Some deep discussion followed this, with the blonde anon initially arguing against Alan Moore’s suggestion (repeated ineptly by me) that the existence of God in the minds of humans is the most important place that it can happen, suggesting that reality does not change according to the suspicions of individuals. We talked deeply for a little while and the Free Zoner seemed to become a little lost. I decided to talk specifics and asked him if the massive stone cross with a cross on the top of the building, the Scientology logo, was originally a symbol of Aleister Crowley’s. He told me that he wasn’t certain but knew it to be a magical symbol of some form.

His forthright honesty with this issue was striking and it seemed that he posed the perfect contrast to the furtive secrecy which the Church protects itself with. The difference, of course, was that he was a lone individual able to tell what he knew while they are concerned with popularity and the profit margin. If he was wishing to “Clear the world” he was certainly going about it in a strange way, given that so many would recoil from Crowleyian influenced anything since he was a man that declared Christianity an obsolete relic of the last aeon and proclaimed himself the Dark Messiah. But for the Church that is their ultimate aim, perhaps even their sole goal. So he could tell me all manner of interesting facts about his faith’s founder while they were left spewing white washed lies.

After this I got back to the proper protesting, waving a banner which he had given me advising that the $cientologists “Google Free Tech”, not because I admire Church devoid Scientology but simply because I knew that nothing would irritate or worry the high-ups more. The chants were heavy at this stage, ranging from the entirely truthful “We’ve got better leaflets” to the hazing, droning “Xeeeeee-nuuuuuuuuuuuu, Xeeeeeeeeeeeee-nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu”. “We have cake, they have lies” was another popular line and, naturally, Happy Birthday Dear LRon was sung at a few points, but not excessively. The stereo anons were trying and failing to use the aforementioned Anonymous affect on “Cotton Eyed Joe”, which stubbornly remained overly shiny shit. I gave a few calls of “Anonymous, what is your…?” and found the power of the response utterly satisfying. Red Tie did not return but we had a new target named “Angry Woman”, who was angry. She refused to offer us any smiles despite repeated demands.

Also, cocks:

I then encountered a pair of people I was not expecting to see at all that day, the anarcho-communists which I had clocked last time around. My considerations of them since had presumed that they were simply going to go to Stop The War in Trafalgar Square instead but it seemed that I was mistaken. When asked I was simply told “The Trotskyites aren’t as funny”, which was undeniably true. If there is one thing you can rely upon the SWP for it is being a vacuum for all humour. They were not going to be standing around exchanging far-lefty esoteric Marxist in-jokes and neither would they have cake, thus their experience was far inferior to the one I enjoyed. Apparently though, the anarchs had paid a visit during the break between the Church and Centre protests, albeit a brief one.

I stayed with them talking to one about his views on anarchism and so on (apparently anarcho-capitalist is an oxymoron, although I suspect that they might say the same thing about anarcho-communist) but deemed it fairly obvious why an anti-hierarchical and anti-clerical pair would object to a Church that dominates and exploits its “parishioners” quite so thoroughly, so didn’t ask.

 

The rain had began to spit down sporadically, warning but not really wetting very heavily. A surprising amount had stayed but then dispersed. We remained standing around until the police approached us and told us we had to move along. The other anarch asked why and was told that we could move along or “You’re coming with us”. He stripped this of the euphemism quickly, enquiring as to what law we would be breaking in order to warrant arrest. He was told that the protest had ended at five (since Anonymous has no leaders exactly who this was agreed with is an enigma to me) and we replied that the protest was over and that we were no longer protesting. The anarcho-communist flag had been wrapped up, we were no longer chanting. Apparently us wearing masks and standing in the same place that the protest had been was what mattered though. We replied that we were wearing the masks since we were wary of being identified and recorded by the $cilon cameras and then the Other Anarch Anon was informed that since he was wearing a mask and that the policeman was “not satisfied” with this he could be stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act and then the $cientology Centre would “get a nice picture of your face”.

Why exactly he was treating the anarchs (and, I suppose, me) as if we were terrorists and using the unethical practices of a wealthy cult as blackmail was not something that I received an opportunity to ask us about as another anon advised we moved on and we followed this, crossing the road to the tube and heading off to the pub, which is a story in itself.

The protest was perhaps not as fine in atmosphere as the last one but then for a second event it could have been far worse. Our numbers were even greater when I had imagined they would be diminished and this time we had far more cake and thus much more pleasure. We should have stuck around at the Church for longer but the Tottenham Court Road protest was better for us not being boxed in. Again, we raised awareness to all the passers-by as well as those inside the cult, which are both equally important. Better still many lulz were had and the entire thing was permeated with epic win. If this becomes a monthly feature, which it seems likely to given the triumph, then it is hard to see how the $cilons can long survive the endless PR disaster. The anarch explained himself to me by pointing out that the protest against the war was the 5^th anniversary of the largest one. This was not an achievement but instead an indication of their constant, persistent failure. With $cientology, at least, it seemed like they stood a chance of success in achieving their aims. And even if he was wrong we’ll still have had a fun time.

As my history with protests go this was certainly a first.

But then, the same went for just about everyone there.

The first and most vital stage was to mask up. Scientology, especially for a group that ostentatiously promotes free speech, has a shoddy track-record when it comes to its treatment of critics and as Vamp said the most cunning and sly tactic of Anonymous is their concealment of identities. Unfortunately I had no scarf to hand, or rather there was one which would not wrap properly owing to consisting of an inappropriate fabric. Instead I improvised and used a pair of brown boxer shorts to conceal up to my nose, with the scarf covering my hair and the back of my head assisted by a hefty hood.

I arrived after quite a delay owing to the District line being dead for much of its run. I ended up arriving nearly an hour late but it was hardly as if anyone besides me was going to complain. When I finally got there another masked anonymous was to be found at the exit, who made a quick phone call so that he could find the way. I followed.

(more…)

This just about sums up the Torygraph, doesn’t it?  They’ve managed to take the thoroughly anti-establishment act of scrawling on walls - and turned it into a discussion on investment.

More seriously, this upsets me.  I knew Banksy had effectively become a part of the artistic establishment, albeit an unconventional one.  I’d no idea that the sorts of people who bought public artwork and hoarded it for the sake of their wallets were looking to expand, though.

Doesn’t this really run counter to the whole point of guerrilla art?  Quite aside from the fact most of it tends to be left-wing and anti-capitalist, it’s also very deliberately public.  It’s a very public political statement or protest.  People are meant to see it.

So, buying it up and taking away kinda defeats it, you know?

Of course, you could claim that it’s okay, the statement’s already been made, it doesn’t matter after that.  But, frankly, that’s rubbish.  The statement is meant to stay there, in the public view, for all to see.  Many of these “collectors” can’t even claim that they’re buying the art because they enjoy it - certainly not those taking their mark from the Telegraph.  It’s quite openly scathing of it, and is very clear that it’s in it for the money.

This is nothing less than a complete subversion of the movement.  It’s taking a blod, anti-establishment movement - and making it yet another part of that establishment’s money-making machine.  But then again, I suppose that’s just what the Torygraph wants, isn’t it?

Maybe someone needs to infiltrate their press soon…