On April 17, Anonymous DC raided the Founding Church of Scientology’s “Ideal Org”. This was to be a fun raid, once we figured out how to deal with the weather conditions. It was windy. Really windy. If it gives you any idea about how windy it was, the wind was blowing so hard that we couldn’t wear our Guy Fawkes masks. Anyman tried to wear his Guy Fawkes mask, but actually lost it to the wind. Seriously. It blew right off his face, and blew down the street and out of sight before anyone could recover it. And it was a pretty cool take on the Guy Fawkes mask, too, with half of it colored black, seen here in this June 2009 file photo:
As you can see, it was a pretty cool mask. No more. Anyman has vowed to recreate it on a new mask, and I hope he does, because that design was pretty cool, if you ask me.
So with the Guy Fawkes masks pretty much out of the question, people went to their backup masks, which were bandannas. I had my black hoodie with me as well, still in the bag from the “Funk the Weekend” demonstrations last month, and so my look ended up being the closest I’ve been to full black bloc since the March on Crystal City last year.
If it gives you any idea about how windy it was, look at this gentleman’s mask:
Note that the bottom point of his bandanna was up and to the side. Normally, the point would be going straight down. This was some serious wind.
But wind or not, we had the “troll cannon” blasting out tunes, and we were dancing up a storm:
This time around, the Scientologists’ technique was to just call the police on us. Talking to us got them nowhere, so perhaps they figured that they could just use the police to get rid of us. They never learn, do they?
This time, they zeroed in on one of our Anons who was handing out flyers on the corner. The cops stopped him, took down his ID, and asked him a few questions before determining that the complaint had no merit.
Meanwhile, notice Vici Turrisi (orange shirt), one of the Ideal Org staffers, just standing over there watching with a smirk on her face. Along with Sylvia Stanard, I don’t know how Vici’s type sleeps at night, considering the way they abuse the police department to harrass their critics. Of course, considering both of them managed to get suckered into a cult that brainwashes people, perhaps they’ve been thoroughly convinced that they’re on the side of freedom and justice. Either way, their tactics are despicable, a waste of taxpayer money, and it takes police away from more pressing matters.
Of course, that didn’t stop our Anon, who later was holding up our “cult arrow” sign:
Then meanwhile, witness the fail that was the Scientologists’ latest attempt to remove our chalkings from the sidewalk during our raid:
You can almost feel the fail emanating from that. You know, most of the time, if they’re going to de-chalk us mid-raid, they just throw a bucket of water on the sidewalk, or they take a broom and a bucket and start removing it. Either way, it’s more effective than this tactic, taking a little scrub brush and removing the markings like that. I wonder if his Scientology superiors didn’t send him out there with such ineffective tools on purpose, as punishment for something. Meanwhile, witness his fail in action:
Needless to say, we had fun making fun of him. Also, notice that the police officer stopped him mid-scrub. Score, one for the good guys. This is where still photos might not do the situation justice. The Scientologist wasn’t talking to the cop. The cop was talking to him. That’s an important point. Otherwise, Sparrow mentions “RPF” while recording his own video, which stands for Rehabilitation Project Force, which is Scientology’s controversial program for “rehabilitating” wayward Sea Org members.
And then the man was so epically fail in his cleaning of the sidewalk. This is just about all he did:
Meanwhile, a wedding was going on at the Carnegie Institute across the street. The happy couple was absolutely adorable:
While they were out on the sidewalk, we Rickrolled them as a good-luck gesture from Anonymous. Think about it – if you pay attention to the lyrics of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” song, you will see that the whole thing is about being faithful to one’s mate. That was the perfect song for the occasion in many people’s minds.
Then of course, the most-discussed photo of the whole raid was one of a Scientologist in his little bell-hop uniform that we caught smoking out behind the Org:
Yeah, I was waiting for him, and caught him mid-exhale. Looks like the body thetans are trying to escape out his mouth. A number of Anons had mentioned wanting to “shoop” this particular image, meaning to photoshop the image for amusement purposes. “Oh, exploitable,” as the saying goes.
Then after our raid, we headed to dinner in Ballston. Then afterwards, no better thing to do than take a nap, as Anyman demonstrates at the Macy’s furniture store:
Then going home from dinner, I spotted prices at a gas station in Foggy Bottom that were too ridiculous to comprehend:
$3.90 for regular? Seriously? And $4.19 for premium? Seriously? This was right in front of the Watergate, and so maybe gas is very rare over there. Of course, the gas being sold at the station across the street was a lot closer to reality, a whole dollar per gallon less than these guys. This at a time when the price per gallon near my house is $2.79. Either way, if this gas station ever had a fire, with the price as high as it is, I could understand it if some people mourned the loss of gas.
And that was our raid! See you in May? Hopefully the wind will be calmer next month…