May I lob in my un-asked-for two cents' worth?
I feel like it's 2008 again. Exciting... and challenging. Not everything is going to plan. Also, we've gone back to 2008 in that Scientology cult dirty tricks and lawyer tech appear to be something to be feared again.
It makes me think about why Anonymous fucked up Scientology so much: suddenly, their process servers and cease and desist letters wouldn't find their mark. Their intimidation tactics and the threat of disconnection faltered in the face of a sea of masks. We should learn a lot from the mask, but also from the concept of anonymity. Who does Scientology go after? Named individuals... and it flounders comically when it tries to cope with the amorphous. Clams hate a mystery.
Now, of course Scientology is greatly diminished from what it once was, and so it seemed timely to give the teetering husk a good hard shove... but Flagdown means playing by 'their' rules: names, dates, places. What resources OSA has left are bound to be concentrated on such an identifiable target. It'll be 2pm Thursday before you know it: they're desperate and they need to get a few licks in, before Midget Davey gets in a few on them.
We're in danger of forgetting the lessons that were learned in 2008: use the Internet to the full. If Mark Bunker was likely to stir up a legal shitstorm by going to Clearwater, why wasn't he invited to address the audience via videolink, or in a prerecorded statement? To show up and then get excluded was most unwise. (It should still be possible to schedule in a link-up with him, though.) If his exclusion comes about in part as a result of personality issues between different factions in the anti-Scientology community, that's just plain dumb. Minton-gate all over again?
Adapt. Change. Be amorphous: because Hubbard-tards can't be. Also, never forget to laugh it off. On their most successful, most upstat days, your opponents in Clearwater are still fucking miserable. They're still losing the fight: and they know it, although they daren't speak about it. Private investigators and lawyers will take the Asthmatic Dwarf's thirty pieces of silver... of course. But who cares? They don't believe. Nobody does!
Now, it's called Flagdown 2014, and there's a clue in that '2014' part: there will be more, in years to come. You don't have to get it right first time; all you have to do is learn, adapt, and keep on swinging. Anybody who regrets the low production values of this year's Flagdown should remember that Hubbard's cult started from beginnings so humble it had to be published in a science fiction magazine... yet it grew to be a billion-dollar crime syndicate. Sure, I would have liked a technical rehearsal and sound check at Flagdown... but the important thing is that this is happening. Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable. Another Anonymous axiom: do something. Any action is better than all the talk in the world. Maybe later, we can do something more spectacular, but here we are in May 2014 and something is being done about Scientology's abuses.
The end of this weird UFO cult won't come about in Clearwater alone, though. Flagdown is a significant point on the curve that plots the downward trajectory of Hubbardism, but I'm actually more pleased about the widespread closure of orgs and missions, plus the significant reduction in the footprint of the Narconon scam. The 'Church' of Scientology is going spectacularly tits-up whether you or I get sued or not: stay safe.
