Archive for the ‘Scientology’ Category

Updates – Strange Days.

I’ve been mulling over even mentioning this, however someone reminded me that I sort of asked for this junk to happen by getting involved. The problem with me is, If I see someone in trouble, if I see a crime being committed or somebody doing stuff they simply should not be. I have a tenancy of getting involved. There are people out there who don’t want me involved, they don’t want you involved.  So they attack people like me to frighten and drive away. I’ve seen some evidence of this happening, especially lately.

I cannot keep quiet about this stuff, because if you keep quiet, it gets worse, if you keep quiet, they win. The people who are doing this are bullies and if you allow bullies to win even a little bit they become bigger bullies. We all lose when that happens. You – me  - everybody.

Last week I went to the regular Scientology protest in Downtown Clearwater. Clearwater is a special place to Scientology, it’s a place they make a majority of their income and even in these tough economic times (I believe) they are making a profit in Clearwater. Things to remember about Scientology, it’s not about religion or freedom to them, it’s all about the money.

Protests in Clearwater are boring for the most part. We don’t have people running out and randomly assaulting protesters like in other places. We don’t seem to have the viscously rude bull baiters   (bull baiting is a Scientology skill where they make people sit around and insult each other. It’s startling when you first see it, then when you find out that they actually go to school to LEARN how to insult people it’s kind of sad.)

Last week was different. We had (what I believe) were at least four “operations” running against the protesters. I’ll describe a couple of them.  We had anomalous cars with Scientology bumper stickers slowly cruising around, there were several people walking by who stopped, pulled expensive SLR type cameras out and  made a big deal about photographing the protesters. A couple of bikini clad girls alternately rode bikes and strolled past the protest – like five times. It was all noticeable and rather unusual.

And the one which really burns me up, towards the end the protesters were camped out at Cort and Ft Harrison, this is the main drag to the beaches and there is always lots of traffic on weekends. I observed a car pull in across the street from us, a small boy of no more than nine or ten got out.  He started walking towards us, then turned around and got back into the car. He did this several times until finally “mom,” the driver of the car got out and fairly pushes the kid across the street. He came over to us and started talking about porn site he visits, all they while recording us on his cell phone.

That’s just too much! I mean, you have got to be freaking kidding me!

This could all be a coincidence. The kid, the bikini girls and the other things I didn’t mention might all be just random occurrences, but I don’t belive so. Because another thing happed much closer to home.

I had an incident from one of my co-workers. He’s a fellow we hired some years ago, a pretty smart guy to  tell the truth. A bit reckless, but he knows his stuff.

I tend to keep work separate from the protest thing (other than I’ve made my employers aware of it.) I don’t as a rule bring it up unless other people do first (which they do from time to time.)

This guy has always seemed a bit, I don’t know; odd to me. He seems to know his stuff but there are strange gaps in his knowledge. Like he seemed unaware of a lot of popular “geek” culture that several of my collages and I enjoy.

He’s also constantly trying to sell something, you can hear it the way he pitches his voice. He brags about how good at selling he is. He also regularity comes into my office to tell me about some new hacking tool or whatever. I’m polite to him, but really – I’m not into breaking into computer systems.

The other day, he walked by my office and said in a loud voice “How’s project Titstorm going?”

“Titstorm” was some thing regarding an on line. protest against  Australian Government web pages.  I’d heard about it but I was not otherwise involved. I tend to shy away from illegal activity as a rule. (Duh!)

Well I approached this gentleman and  asked “why do you think I wold have anything to do with that?”

He said, “because you run proxy servers in your office!”

“I certainty do not” I said. (which is absoulutly true.)

He said “you are blatantly lying - you always do that!”

The conversation went downhill from there. We were in front of our immediate supervisor who eventually put a stop tot he whole thing. I spoke to the supervisor about this and how upsetting that line of questioning was to me. You see, among other things I do computer security work and accusing me of such a thing is like asking a police officer how his bank holdup went last night.

Work handled the thing to my satisfaction, but I’m a bit disturbed about the larger aspects of the issue.

I don’t know if my colleague is a member of Scientology and frankly I don’t give a flaying damn. He urged us to buy products from Sunbelt Software once (a Scientology company,) but otherwise he has not attempted to bring his personal crapola to work. (until now.) The fact that he’s running scans on me is troublesome, the idea that ‘somebody’ at work has  been putting pressure on my bosses has been in the back of my mind, but I don’t like to be paranoid.

So anyway, here is how it’s going to work.  I’m not doing anything illegal. If somebody think s I am, that’s their problem – not mine. Take it to the authorities.  Stop playing little kids games.

As for Scientology.  your reputations(s) proceed you.  If you get me fired from my job, I’ll get a nice vacation where I can document and ‘publish’ the bulls&%t you people pull, not just on me, on everyone around this community since the mid 1970s. Then I’ll get a better job. You get me arrested on some bogus crap, I’ll let my record speak for me. You try to mess with my reputation? People will know what you are up to, lots of people. My reputation is for me to create, not for you idiots to mess around with. You create your own flaps.

You’d better worry about your own reputation for a change.

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Weekend

Weekends flash by these days, seems you blink and they are gone.

Did a good fighter practice on Saturday last week, a good number of people showed up and I was bruised and tired by the end of it (a good time was had by all!)

Did Mother’s day stuff Sunday, I made Deb a nice gluten enriched waffle breakfast. She gets that kind of stuff very seldom these days since I’m breakfast guy. Next we went car shopping, our ten+ year old Rav4 got rear ended a week or so ago and we had to replace it. Deb was the only person in it and thank providence that she was not badly hurt (so far as we know, she’s still sore.)

We looked at a few light trucks and vans, then settled on a white Honda Odyssey. It’s bigger, has some miles but at least it’s paid for. It’s also in very good shape. We took it home Monday. E’ is thrilled because it  has a TV, non working because of the DTV conversion, but I suspect I can tinker with it and get  some use out of it. The doors freak me out, it has two van type side doors that open automatically. I thought electric windows were a luxury!

This weekend was quiet. I did a bit of yard work, we cleaned house and I went to the Anon protest in Clearwater. I rode my bike as apposed to driving. It’s all of three and a half miles so, why not?

Nothing much was going on, the Anons were sitting around – all three of them! It’s gotten very hot around these parts and nothing much is going on in the Clearwater area. The numbers are up some months, down others.  I spent some time chatting with one of the Clearwater PD guys and we looked at a bunch of Scientology literature.

Nothing much else is going on. E’ made honer roll at school and he looks to be on track to graduate.  Operation “Burger flip” is still rolling slowly along and I need to get back onto the submission train. Mr. PH and i have another writing challenge, “A totalitarian dystopia that uses social networking tools to control population” was the theme as I recall. This dovetails  nicely into a concept I’ve been mulling over  - based on the doggerel ”they make the trains run on time.”

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Of March and Protests.

I needed a few days to digest this.

About  two years ago I decided to start going to the local Scientology protests in Clearwater Florida. Probably the most important location in Scientology.

At the time I didn’t take them too seriously. I mean people have been protesting Scientology around Clearwater since the 1970s, this new wave would probably not accomplish much. True the current wave was (this time) world-wide in scope. Scientology it seemed finally caught the attention of a whole lot of people who (like me) thought the convoluted hodgepodge of writings fo L. Ron Hubbard were, at best silly, at worst dangerous.

So with my trusty vidieo and still camera(s) I set out to defy the “beast of Clearwater” in it’s native habitat. IN February of 2008 I talked to many of the protesters, got to know them a little (not who they are but “why” they are, I respect that they want to remain anonymous.) I filmed them and I filmed Scientology’s reaction. But mostly I stayed out of their way and kept to myself. The Anons in Clearwater are an interesting bunch. They have evolved into a small but rather passionate group which follows some interesting patterns.

But the real draw was Scientology itself. It’s a brooding presence in Clearwater. In the short term it’s the largest landowner in Downtown Clearwater and people must be in good graces with it if they intend to do business there. Not many do it seems. There are just a couple of franchises in Downtown, most businesses tend to be small mom & pop affairs owned by Scientology members and there is a dwindling number of those. The Flag Service Organisation of Scientology seems to be doing a booming busness although it’s difficult to tell and Scientology tends to mask its real number in favor of hyperbola.

Most of the protests outside of the very first few have been quite calm – almost boring affairs. The Anons would march around, chant slogans form time to time. The Scientology members would scurry away as if even hearing the protesters would corrupt them . They didn’t come out to talk with the protesters and when they encountered some of the street, they acted like no one was there. In sharp contrast were places like New York, Los Angeles and Michigan where people would, on occasion come out and tear up signs or try to “bullbait” protesters into anger. There was a single incident in Clearwater where a random individual confronted protesters, began poking them in the chest and screaming until the CWPD came by to ask him to behave.

It’s been very quiet, until this last one. I went to the protest on Saturday, March 13th. We had some people from Arther Guthry’s auteroge come by. (He was playing in a nearby venue.) Soon after about seven Scientology members showed up and began asking questions, “why are you here,? what do you have against my religion,? Did you know many members of Anonymous will be spending the rest of their lives in prison for terrorism?” and so on. I wandered away and filmed some of the protesters up on Court Street, when we got back there was another surprise.

A film crew claiming to be doing a documentary was setting up. They would not give anyone their credentials but they said they had worked on a number of “true crime” things (I forget which ones and I’m too lazy to plow through the audio.) I didn’t really buy it and I don’t think any of the others did either. I had a nice chat with Film Guy’s assistant who made some noises about wanting to more about what goes on in Clearwater. He was not very convincing, on the one hand he talked about Scientology being a local Clearwater thing, then he would comment about how many buildings they own world-wide. I didn’t try to point out the inconsistency of what he was saying. If they feel it necessary to play games like this and lie, nothing I say will help the situation.

Later the protesters and I left Downtown Clearwater and traveled to the front entrance of Ruth Eckerd Hall. We were met by several Scientology “handlers” who were more or less polite, but insistent on getting people to admit that they were members of this group Anonymous. They could not get it through their heads that Anonymous is not an organisation, people don’t join it, there is (at least from my point of view) no hierarchy and no chain of responsibility. It’s not even a noun, its a verb! I tried to explain this going so far as to ask one of them to look it up in a dictionary.

Well it was interesting to say the least. the handlers clustered around me like BTs (Body Thetans)  shooting questions and avoiding subjects. For example when they would ask why I was standing on this portion of public easement I told them there was a protest going on and I wanted to witness it. This was not sufficient and they wanted to know what the protest was all about. I would start to tell them and they would change the subject. It was all a big game I suppose.

This went on for awhile until their bossman came over. They immediate backed off while the boss (we can call him PM.) laid into me. According to PM, I was a bad person because I was here.  I was invading “his” property and insulting his religion. I was part of Anonymous and therefor responsible for whatever people did under that name.

I was very polite to him, he got more and more rude. He started creeping into my personal space and began staring dead into my eyes, which is a game I play with my children. I matched him and did not back away.

This seemed to piss him off more, here I was a wog, an SP probably and I had my Training Routines  in better than he! How embarrassing for him (especially since I’ve never done the TRs.) I introduced him to someone, “This is (PM) and he’s trying to bullbait me right now.”

Then a strange thing happened. I think he attempted to voodoo-curse me! Just as I was leaving he came up along side of me (now remember I was being icy and polite to him the entire time.) He said “you are a F@#$ing lunatic” in a very loud and forceful voice.

Now with most people I would laugh that off or shoot a cherfull FOAD ! (Freak Off And Die yah!) in their direction. I don’t remember what I said exactly, it was something like “Gee, I hope that makes you feel better!” I knew instantly what he was doing, however. He was not trying to insult me, he was trying to command me. he kept repeating this odd statement, “you are a F@#$ing lunatic.”

Scientology is like a magic religion where people believe they can change their environment by taking certain courses and thinking in specific ways. They do this thing called “postulation” which is a bit like praying, if you want something you picture it and if you are powerful enough (so they believe) it will happen. With people, this postulation is accompanied by commands. When “PM” said you are a f@#$ing lunatic he was trying to command me to to become a lunatic. In other words he wants me to become crazy, I would be less of threat to him if I were and make no mistake. PM is deathly afraid of anyone he cannot control. I’ve seen him confronting people who are no threat to him whatsoever and his body language suggests that he is scared, right down to his ill- fitting shoes. PM in my humble estimation wants me to come to harm. He was, according to his intent and belief system, communicating a threat to me.

I wonder if he understands the ramifications of that? I also wonder about a group that expounds on “sanity,”   at the same time demonstrating how little they understand about acceptable behavior . The irony of this does not escape me.

I feel sorry for them. They can’t see what is going on all around them. They only look inside and cannot see the game as it really is. They lack the insight because they have chosen to stick a bag over their heads and pretend the world is a different place than it is for most people. When I say most people I’m talking about the billions who have never heard of Scientology. Some of them are getting the message. A few (and PM is one of them I’m afraid,) can’t understand and he will either snap out of it or ride this this thing to wherever it is taking him. From my point of view it certainly not to “freedom.”

However: I’m the lunatic from his point of view.

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“The World is a Vampire!”

OK , so the weather has changed from steamy-hot to nice Florida Fall/Spring. This weekend was unbelievably pleasant compared with the last couple. At practice last weekend I almost got overheated.

I haven’t been writing a whole lot of late. I have not been in the mood (and I invariably hear the voice of Patrick Stewart roar “MOOD! MOOD is a thing for cattle and loveplay!” Well mood does have something to do with it. I was (over the summer) in one of those periods where I pretty much didn’t follow my own path, I followed the path of that other people wished for me and (inevitably) I had some difficulty coping. Hopefully that’s over and done with, for better or worse I need to follow my own instincts on some things and worry less about the possible consequences. As my lawyer so correctly says, don’t do anything illegal and you will be fine.

Segueing into…. I went to the Anonymous protest last weekend. it was very small; only about eight of the Florida Anon contingent were there. I didn’t make the first march but I followed them around for the second and took lots of video.

I have no idea where I’m going with this, I mean; filming in downtown Clearwater is fraught with peril. Scientology is not known for turning the other cheek and allowing things that offend them to pass unanswered. I’m of several minds on this, on the one hand I don’t like the idea of tangling with a fanatical “religiously cloaked” psychological mind game focused on extracting as much money and time out of it’s member as possible. People in Clearwater for the most part don’t like them, but they also don’t want to get involved. I quite understand! I don’t want to get involved either.

But then the other side of me starts yammering and it goes kind of like this. “The United States of America was formed by a group of people who didn’t want to make the same mistakes that were made in Europe in the previous 400 years or so. They wanted to create a better place, free of the twin tyrants of theocracy and autocracy. They wanted a system of government that was not based on someones interpretation of “teh truvth” but a system of laws that could be dynamic and change over time. A government that reformed, remade itself, adapted.

Scientology stands to challenge this concept. By the words of it’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard it blankly states that Scientology intends to gain influence in federal, state and local government and replace our current system with something of it’s own manufacture. Not just in the US – everywhere. Once this is done they will forcibly bring their form of “enlightenment” to all of humanity “clear the planet is the way that they put it.” Anyone who opposes this plan is thought to be a “degraded being” in their eyes and if they take action to oppose it, they are labeled a “suppressive person” or SP.  Once again, according to their “scripture, SPs are to be “disposed of without pity.”

That’s what they believe. This to my eyes, this is just like the Klu Klux Klan making blank assertions about white supremacy or the National Socialists talking about the Jews.

I have a huge problem with this. First of all, Scientology is not the end-all-be-all of religion. It doesn’t even appear to BE a religion (not to me anyway,) but of course that designation is completely subjective. Whatever Scientology wants to be, it has become a liability in my mind. It brings conflict and corruption to everything it touches. Hubbard had a few good ideas but his psudo-psychological programs amount to little more than hypnosis and wishful thinking. People who stay with the program think differently than people outside of Scientology and I don’t see that  as an improvement. In fact (again, my opinion;) people who sty in Scientology and adopt Hubbard’s dogmatic way of thinking don’t even communicate very well. It’s either “I tell you” or “you tell me.” There is little idea exchange and no synthesis of thought to them.

“Try it out and see for yourself!” the Scientology members shout. “How can you make a judgment without trying it!? It helped me!”

The difficulty lies in what is helpful to an individual, this can also be subjective. People claim that cigarettes are helpful or schedule one drugs. People claim that chiropractic faith healing is helpful and I have no doubt that it is – to a certain extent. Scientology could indeed be helpfully to people ,but psychological counseling would probably have worked just as well. Everyone is different and there there is no telling what will assist one person over another. Scientology is not a panacea to cure all ills. It strikes me as unscientific and arbitrary, perhaps helping people in some small way by boosting confidence but costing far more terms of money and psychological damage than benefits.

That’s just my opinion mind you, if people like spending big bucks to have some high school dropout inform them that they have to repurchase expensive courses over and over again because someone didn’t transcribe them right – that is completely their own business. I think it’s stupid and might even say that I think it’s stupid. You can call me stupid back but you don’t have the right to tell people I’m a criminal just because I think you are being a dope.

Anyway, my inner voices tell me that organizations like Scientology must adapt to societal norms (such as they are ) or perish. They need to understand the environment that they exist in and instead of trying to “handle” it, try to live with it and enhance it. An amoeba understands this.

Scientology can’t seem to do that. They want to take society over, destroying their foes and manufacture lies about them. This is right out of their so-called “scripture.” What they accomplish in most cases are poor relationships with the people around them and many unnecessary conflicts. Their friends turn out to be people just  using them – not friends at and their foes become hardened.

It’s big fat bunch of wasted effort and it has the same results, every-single- time.

I’ve been watching this group for a long time and I’m not sure they can fix themselves, the whole premise is wrong, Hubbard created a big fat fantasy for people to live in. They firewall themselves against society and when they poke their heads out they find that people have moved on and changed.

There is too much corruption in their structure, too much institutional deception, too much pressure on members and they have a terrible reputation, one that will be difficult to shake in the coming decades.

And they don’t seem to be even trying. In fact, if I’m reading the jungle drums right, they have just got started with Anonymous and things are about to get interesting.

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More Interesting Times.

I suppose some of you have read the Sunday Saint Petersburg Times feature on David Miscavige. He’s the head mucketymuck of the Scientologyt  organization. Chairman of the Board is what they call him or the acronym “COB.” COB is more than apt because, according to the Times piece, he beats his staff members. This according to the Times is based on several high level defectors from Scientology , apparently, according to the Times, he’s got a nasty temper and uses a management style right out of Joe Stalin’s playbook.

That’s not really news to anyone following this little teapot tempest, Miscavige’s comical rages and predilection to violence have been a persistent rumor for years now.  I don’t remember when I first hear about this, five years ago? Ten? Seeing this story sitting on my driveway was…different! I’ve been hearing that something like this has been brewing for a few weeks now. They certainly didn’t disappoint!

Scientology responded in their usual ham-handed way. Their pet spokesperson Tommy Davis tried to say that it was all lies, that they never had a chance to respond (other than the three months the Times reporters gave them, other than the eight hour rebuttal sessions where reporters were blocked from leaving the room by a hoard of people trying to tell them that Miscavige would never –ever –ever hit any one.

“After eight hours, when reporters readied to leave, church spokesman Tommy Davis brought in nine senior members of the management team. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the exit and insisted they be heard. Marc Yager, Guillaume Lesevre, Ray Mithoff, Mark Ingber, all said Miscavige never struck them.”

Actually Tommy Davis rebuttal makes him sound like a complete lunatic!

Do you really think I’m making this up?

Then…THEN  he informed the Times reporters that it was the DEFECTORS who beat up people and it was Miscavige who, when he wasn’t saving little birdies had to go in  and DISCIPLINE this nest of vipers abusing his staff. (Marty Rathbun) “he’s a bastard and a coward, and he’s psychotic… psycotic!” exclaimed Tommy Davis during a calmer part of his rebuttal.

Sheeze! A simple “f%& you  no – comment” would have been 1000 times more effective. They might as well have signs around their necks which say “I CANNOT tell the truth!”

One really interesting thing about the Times piece is they publish excerpts from the Defector’s PC folders. Now a PC folder is a record of a Scientologist’s confessions. They get hooked up to their lie detector thing (which just measures electrical resistance like an electrician’s volt-ohm meter,)  Then they are asked all sorts of leading questions. like “do you have any bad feelings about our glorious leader?”  Supposedly a skilled operator can tell if a person is lying, I think you could fool such a device in any number of ways. But people are forced to confess their “crimes” and make up some if they can’t think of any.

Those PC folders are supposed to be confidential, so how did the Times get them?  Tommy Davis the Scientology spokesperson provided them to discredit the defectors! “Now they say the defectors are trying to stage a coup, inventing allegations so they can topple Miscavige and seize control of the church.”

One really funny thing is, there is a rumor going around that Scientology was so alarmed by this feature that they’ve had people going all around Tampa Bay buying up every issue of the Times they could get their hands on. I’ve looked around a bit and yes, all the Sunday edition of the Times are sold out. Having some experience in the newspaper business I can tell you that some circulation manager is rubbing his hands together in glee right now.  I can say that I did find one box with papers in Largo -  just one!. I drove by around 25 empty ones to find it.

I went to the World Protest Scientology day on Saturday, it was rather small, only about a dozen people showed including a couple of gents from Sarasota who didn’t seem to fit the “anon” type, they were both very overweight, did not protest and were going on and on about PIs and Scientology members with cameras. I told them that after the first couple of protest the Flag people were more or less leaving the protesters alone. They seemed disappointed.

However this small group made one sortie in the blazing Florida heat. They marched over to Ft Harrison and Gulf to Bay, then waved at the beach traffic and listened to the love in the form of blaring car horns. Flag hired a couple of Clearwater’s finest to make sure the Anons didn’t rob a bank or something.  We spoke with one of them who was pretty concerned that we had enough water (there were several cases.) He told me that Clearwater has several thousand Bosnians living here now and they were a bigger problem than Scientology.

One lady made a point to chew the group out saying they didn’t understand the word “cult” and they should look it up. “All religions are cults” she said.

That’s a pretty typical response here in Clearwater; most of the Scientology folk are angry about the protests but can’t seem to come up with an effective retort. Sure all religions are cults if you are not a member. If you are a member of a cult, you don’t think you are in a cult. So what?

***

Downtown Clearwater is quiet tonight; the usual people are hanging around Starbuck’s. Some Bosnian ex-patriots, some fellow pretending to read the paper. There are a few Sea Org and Flag staff marching by, I’m seeing a few dozen, never the groups of two hundred or more like I used to see.
I’m starting to get an end-game feeling. I can’t predict what the future is going to hold for this town. I’m sure it’s going to be interesting.

It usually is.

Popularity: 2% [?]

More Crazyness!

I’m seeing a general uptick in activity against anti-Scientology protesters in the last few weeks. Lots and lots of those cease and desist letters are going out and they are four pages long now. The additional material seems to be screeds against alleged “Anonymous” activities on the Internet. Of course Scientology can’t seem to connect the protesters with some of this other stuff (the flashing .GIF files sent to epileptic BBs for example.) That’s a bit like connecting the antics of Fred Phelps’s idiots and your local Methodist Church.

Someone apparently working at the behest of Scientology did on the order of 4000 DMA take down requests on YouTube. Most of the requests were bogus because the owner of a work is supposed to  be the only person making such a request. Well some fellow who does a bunch of online business (including a gay-porn site) started systematically putting out thousands of sworn statements suggesting that he was the owner of lots of videos having anti-Scientology content. YouTube initially took the vids down but just as quickly restored most of them.

There was another World Protests Scientology Day a couple of weeks ago in Clearwater and many other Scientology offices across the globe. This was number eight, like the other seven it was completely peaceful. I attended for a short time, mostly to talk with people and observe. I spoke with the single CPD officer stationed to watch the protesters (in stark contrast to the 25 or so at the first one.) One thing I asked was if he’d heard of the many bomb threats the Scientology legal affairs guy told me about in a previous protest. According to the Flag Official Representative, the Scientology offices in Clearwater were getting multiple bomb threats every day last summer.

The Police officer hadn’t heard of that. He said everything to his knowledge has been peaceful and the protesters were behaving themselves. That’s what I’ve been seeing too but it helps to ask around. I’ve also checked on the CPD web page and their police blotter (which like most PD s is on line these days.) Not a mention of it. It’s not mentioned by the FBI either (I get their bulletins.)

Mmm, either Mr. P was um.. telling me a big o’ fib that day back in May or the Scientology offices are covering up information about people making phone threats against them. I’d say you were just telling me a lie Peter, aiding and abetting terrorist activity has a Federal rap is I’m not mistaken. That pretty much invalidates the old Hubbard mantra of “SPs can be lied to.” No one should be lied to Mr. P. Certainly not in an environment where facts can be easily checked.

I’m not upset that you lied to me Peter, I’m amused by it. Lies tend to complicate things, lies tend to make things worse. I would expect that a 50+ year old fellow who’s the “head of the Flag Legal Department” or whatever your title is might understand that. Most very young children understand this, why can’t you? Or do you just violate that rule because Hubbard tells you to. In my world that would tend to invalidate lots of what Hubbard has to say, but that’s another subject.

Peter tells me that the Anons are terrorists who make harassing and threatening phone calls, then show up in scary masks to terrify people. Other people in Clearwater tell me these are ignorant kids out on a lark. I think both ideas reflect on the general ignorance of the people stating them, but is there a kernel of truth to it?

Weeeell sure, I think the EFG masks are kind of intimidating, I think some of the Anon’s I’ve spoken to didn’t really understand what they were messing around with.  A lot of them (the majority) do however.

What of it? The general movement is the important thing, not the individuals. Individuals can only deal with things in their own idioms. Each can only be true to themselves and each must be dealt with as a separate entity. But individuals can work together without formal command and control if the goal is important enough. Scientology has a history of attacking the center of a “push” as they put it. If the Anon movement has no center, they must attack individuals who may not have a large part of the movement as a whole. but each individual has the power to communicate with the entire movement at a moment’s notice. I have a saying that “how can one expect a mob to be smarter than an average person?”

The answer? “Make the mob out of above average people.”

That is what Scientology truly fears.  They have good reason to.

My only regret is that more people who are into Scientology are not permitted to see the truth for themselves as I’ve done. I think Hubbard himself said that people need to find out things for themselves and not take one person’s work for it. “What is true for you is true,” but you have to verify.

Since I don’t need to buy myself a bridge and I don’t have regs and Sea Org members telling me what to believe, I can go out and talk to anyone about anything I want. I can come and go as I want, can people like Peter truly say that? Could he sit down with me over a cup of coffee and tell me what he  thinks, irregardless of the Scientology bottom line? I sincerely doubt it. He MUST speak only about approved things, he MUST have only approved opinions and I suspect he can’t sit down with someone who has an open mind.

I’d invite him to come, sit down with me once and talk, perhaps listen for a bit. I don’t think he can.

Does that make him more or less free than I?

You know what? I still don’t give a fig about what they believe in. The issue, the only issue seems to be spelled out in Keeping Scientology Working.  If they can decide to give up KSW. If they can give up that kind of thinking and declare. to the world that it’s counterproductive to attack people and ideas they don’t agree with, I think Scientology would find it suddenly had less problems. But they actually have to DO it not just say it, not just pretend or lie about it.

***

During the protest one of the many Flag transport van  swerved (I thought) very abruptly towards a fellow on a bike. I thought the van might have intended to run the guy down but then I saw he only intended to splash him with a nearby puddle of water. It was obviously on purpose he made a “you’re crazy!” hand gesture while he was driving past. It’s not the first time that this has happened, a few months ago one of the vans swerved out into the opposing lane of traffic to (presumably) freak out a protester, he did get that one on film.

I have noticed a general lack of courtesy by the many van and bus drivers in Downtown Clearwater. They tend to share the street like a dog shares a bone. I have observed them racing around the downtown area seemingly oblivious to pedestrians and bikers. They seem to do pretty well in some very tight streets but they remind me of NY cabbies. Heck I’ve seen pedestrians (in Sea-org get-up) walk right into traffic like they didn’t believe a car would actually hit them. I wonder if the pedestrian related accidents are more or less than average around Scientology buildings?

Is it really worth this kind of playing around, what if the bike rider had gotten hit? Is it worth the unbelievable shitstorm that would once again envelope Clearwater, “Bike rider run down by Scientology,” do you folks really want those kind of headlines?

***

In other news;

There have been a number of protests at the Scientology Gold Base in California and this may have gotten some kind of reaction. The local CA police at first permitted the protests, now they are waving an injunctions written in Clearwater ten years ago claiming anyone with an association with people of the now closed Lisa Macpherson Trust may not come within so many yards of a Scientology building yada-yada….

Someone is VERY upset that people are protesting Gold.

Then last week, for some reason the cops pulled back and allowed the protesters to protest, so the staff over at Gold put up a number of large speakers and blasted the protesters with “annoying sounds.”

In New York, Katy Holms arrived at the début of a new Broadway play she’s in, to number of Anon protesters. Scientology was well aware of that the Anons intended to be there because they sent a welcoming committee, several in fact. One fellow was reportedly trying to get the Anons to riot. “Go to the Org and break all of their windows!” he reportedly said.

More importantly, there has been a sharp upswing in harassment activities, surveillance, sabotage and even violence. This mostly seems to be centered on California where, admittedly the protesters have been a bit more aggressive. Some people have been noting that Scientology. members have been growing weary of the constant protests.

At their Gold Base, they (allegedly) have a high concentration of “volunteer” workers who operate the Scientology binderies and CD manufacturing. Volunteer means that (allegedly) they are working at far below minimum wage to produce very expensive products. Apparently the Scientology masters are using their “hide tech” and keeping people inside buildings when protesters show up . This will have a specific dollar value to whoever is benefiting from the sales of this merchandise so I can well understand why the powers that be in Scientology do not want protesters around Gold. It all comes down to money in the end.

I wonder what the workers think of the noise?

Enturbulation.org seems to be down permanently. Why I do not know but this will probably  spawn lots of other sites just like it. (ed note, it looks like http://whyweprotest.org has taken up the mantle.)

***

I don’t see the  people at Gold or the folks marching around Clearwater as being very free.

As I said, giving up my freedom for provisional salvation (not to mention lots of my money) seems silly, especially when I have millions of books at my fingertips, Hubbard’s works (should I so desire) and the much larger wealth of human endeavor. I think I like having the freedom to investigate and criticize, I’d bet most Scientology members would too, if they were allowed. Freedom is a funny thing, we often don’t know when we have it and we cannot always tell when we have lost it. BTW, in case some of you Sea Org member reading this think that I talking out of my bunghole, think again. Look at my DA pack, Peter can show it to you. I gave up several years of my life so you can march around in your salor suits.

It’s easy to tell who’s lost their freedom, who gave it up for no reason. From the outside, it is very easy to tell.

I hope Peter can someday sit down over a cup of coffee with myself or somone and actually talk, actually communicate, as apposed to just stating the party line over and over again. That has got to be frustrating.

I feel for you folks, I really do I and I wish there was some way to help.

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Dark Nights, Bright Days…

Well on Friday, Deb and I went to friend’s house to take in the  Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies.

Beijing Olympics?! I remember when we called the city Peking and no round-eye set foot there. On Friday we were treated to a “spectacular-spectacular” the likes of which is seldom seen outside of Pyongyang.

Networks make note! I would watch  and buy your sponsors products if you could get broadcast rights from the North Koreans.

What we saw was really impressive-over the top entertainment full of good old Chinese values. There were thousands  – tens of thousands of performers including cute little girls on peter-pan rigs. People marching around the outside of a giant hollow sphere that lifted slowly out of the arena floor (I started shouting “AAAH! It’s a MISSILE!”) They had huge floor mounted LCD screens , fireworks that created local fog alerts (they grounded all vehicular traffic in Beijing to keep the smog down, then burned enough magnesium and gunpowder to smoke up the whole place. )

(A few days later the news services were full of a story about how some of the fireworks were faked.)

We made lots of catty comments throughout while being impressed with the immense effort and choreography. It really was spectacular; I can’t wait for closing ceremonies.

The parade of nations became the “Parade of Costume” along with our parade of catty comments. We liked the folk costumes of some countries.  Russia had a strange combination of blazers over their traditional embroidered tunics. Each by themselves would have been OK, the combination looked silly.

Hungry had the worst one, red flowers over stark white dresses for the women, which made them look like they had been machine-gunned.

The US athletes looked dorky in their Disneyish – “Revenge of the Boatnicks” get-up.

I think our illustrious President must have picked those uniforms out.

Bermuda was pretty bad too, red shorts, black socks and tennis shoes. What were they thinking! You don’t HAVE to dress like a tourist!

Saturday was a complete wash, Deb was out of the house so I set about fixing our washing machine, it has a debris build-up problem that a helpful service technician would have charged us $200 bucks for.  I did it and got my hands all cut up. The insides of our washing machine is like a wet-dirty car engine with razor blades in random areas.

Deb and I went to see the new Batman flick . Short version; It’s an excellent psychological thriller masquerading as an action film. I loved the interplay between the various characters, then they broke for relatively boring action bits, then more interplay. The late Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was marvelous. I’ve always thought of the Joker as the perfect villain, insane; no particular goals or motive, working towards anarchy and chaos but uncaring of the consequences should he achieve it. “Ledger stated that his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.”

I think he got it perfectly. Overall the film was a bit hard to follow, it was edited into the current – edgy  style, whatever they call it. The editing was harsh and unforgiving. Many- many tracking shots to the point of absurdity.  I really liked that the film was on location most of the time, Gotham City was not some weird backlot fantasy of  giant statues (that always annoyed me.) The city looked like a freaking city for once, nice touch.

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Catching up; Interesting Times 7.0

I’ve been off-the-blog for a while, the wife and kid were away for two weeks and I’ve been taking a break. Last Saturday there was another Anonymous protest and I ambled over to Clearwater on my trusty bike to take in the locals and see what the Anons were up to.

Like the other protests, this one had a theme. It was “Spy vs. Sci,” to highlight Scientology’s intelligence gathering wing the Office of Special Affairs. Naturally they deny that the Office of Special Affairs (OSA) is any more than a PR department, just like they deny that harassment and vicious litigation are sacraments in “their religion.” What? Litigation and harassment are sacraments? How can that be?
Scientology’s core belief is that anything said by L. Ron Hubbard is true and correct. Furthermore they have to read and sign a document called “keeping Scientology Working” which says in part,

(Hubbard describing non-Scientology-like thinking.)

This point will, of course, be attacked as “unpopular”, “egotistical” and
“undemocratic”. It very well may be. But it is also a survival point. And I
don’t see that popular measures, self-abnegation and democracy have done
anything for Man but push him further into the mud. Currently, popularity
endorses degraded novels, self-abnegation has filled the South East Asian
jungles with stone idols and corpses, and democracy has given us inflation and
income tax.

So in other words, it’s OK to attack anyone who refuses to join Scientology or is skeptical of it. That’s because freedom, democracy and all of that crap has produced nothing of value anyway. Only good old fashion tyranny works in human society.

What kind of twisted- demented person could sign such a piece of drivel?

Drivel or not, this is part of the Scientology religion and is therefore a sacrament, that is assuming Scientology is a religion at all.

This is of course utter nonsense, East Asian jungles are full of stone idols put there by thriving civilizations that lasted far longer than this one has. The only reason Scientology was able to grow at all is because of a tenancy in our society to be liberal and tolerant of new ideas.

Hubbard was nothing if not completely ignorant of history which in my experience is reflected in his followers.

But the point is that the basic tenants of Keeping Scientology Working are twofold, 1) Anything Hubbard said is correct and true. 2) any idea that Hubbard did not come up with is false and harmful. Then Hubbard makes additional statements demanding that his ideas be applied to everyone on Earth.

It’s difficult to read that stuff and NOT get a sense of dread urgency about how far this organization has run afoul. It’s my understanding that this document is read and signed each time a person takes a course. It is a sacrament of their “religion” to hold the document in high esteem and hold the tenants described in it as truthful. Anyone who holds those words in the center of their being is (in my estimation) sick. Don’t take my word for it! I’m not a doctor. Read this crap for yourself!

Said Hubbard. In Keeping Scientology Working.

“We’re not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn’t cute or something to do for lack of something better.The whole agonized future of this planet, every Man, Woman and Child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.”

I suppose if this were not a recipe for a fanatical belief I don’t know what would be. I can only hope some of these people pinch themselves and realize what they are looking like to the rest of us. Upon reading KSW a few times, it’s no wonder some Scientologists behave like loons.

***

So the protest last Saturday was small, about 30 people picketed downtown Clearwater. A couple of people wandered off the main group and were reportedly accosted by Mr. P. I’ve heard this story repeated, it seems when the Anons are alone or in small groups, Mr. P. pops out of the woodwork and begins demanding names. They had a couple of blokes covered from head to foot with voice distorters and they told me that Mr. P. seemed pretty frustrated with them.

I met a couple of fascinating people at the protest. I didn’t see Mr. P. or “KP.” But I have bumped into people who know them. Reputations run deep and the folks who have ended up running things in Clearwater have some very interesting pasts. “KP,” has got some interesting history in Clearwater.

Some of the most fascinating stuff is happening away from Clearwater though. There are minor incidents happening every day it seems like. People get accosted, followed, one lady says that some people followed her into a bar and she stayed there for over five hours. In Stockholm a couple of young girls grappled cameramen, in Battle Creek MI some folks marched out of an org and tore up protest signs.

One of the strangest tales comes from Hollywood California, a lady brought her kids to a protest and when they broke for lunch they found a Scientologist barring them from entering a restaurant. It’s unclear if the restaurant owners cared one way or the other but the Scientologist supposedly physically prevented the kids (five and six years old) to take off their masked of not go inside. The police were finally called and the Scientologists fled. Apparently the woman has nothing to do with the restaurant, she just took it upon herself to block people she didn’t like from this public place.

Now… where have I heard this before?

I remember now!

There is another story, again from California (LA this time) where they roped off several city blocks for some gathering. Apparently they were making people who live in the area walk three or four blocks out of the way to get to their homes, one old lady on a walker was seen to accost the people guarding the empty side walks, “L. Ron Hubbard doesn’t run my life,” she shouted… “Bad people!” and pushed passed the guard..

Bad people indeed, the evidence of just how bad is mounting.

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Happy Independance Day!

I ventured to downtown Clearwater last night, on my bike. I’ve been restoring an old all-terrain bike that someone had placed on a curb with a “free-take it!” sign. It looked like it had been in a ditch, there was a lot of rust and crap all over it. But the mechanical bits were in fine condition. I repacked the bearings and I’ve been cleaning the other parts. It is not as good a new but it is very usable, and free!

I mounted lights and last night I took off to see the fireworks. An easy 30 min later I arrived at Coachmen Park.

Well, sure (Mr. P.) I had ulterior motives, don’t all SPs have ulterior motives? The Anons were holding a protest and I wanted to see what they were up to. There were a small group of them in a “protest paddock” that the Clearwater PD set up. It didn’t matter much, there were a lot of people walking by and talking to them. I met a couple of Anons that I had not run into before and they told me an interesting thing. The told me that someone was handing out letters with names on them.

Not cease and desist letters it turns out. I’m not sure what I would call them, dead-agenting letters? Attempts to intimidate people with their real names? After I read a few of them I can see that Scientology is still under the assumption that anyone associated with Anonymous is guilty of whatever anyone does anonymously, anywhere in the world.

Such a long, strange leap in logic but what can you expect from them?

Ironically, Scientology members have been joining Anonymous protests as Anonymous members protesting Anonymous! It’s happening in California and a few other places.

I wonder if that idea makes their heads hurt as much as it does mine?

So anyway, technically (were I to nit-pick at the level that they do,) anything that is done in the name of Anonymous is also being done with the endorsement of Scientology! Since the Scientoligists posing as Anonymous protesters are doing so under the direction of the higher-ups in Scientology, it makes it a matter of official policy as well. I really don’t think they want to go there, but common sense does not seem to be their strong suite.

Well the fellow handing out letters was none other than Mr. P. He’s apparently been hatted with handling the protesters. Most of the conversation between he and they Anons can be found here. Like before he steered the conversation into places he wanted. He kept repeating that he didn’t want to speak on camera. I still get the impression that he really does not know what to do about the whole Anon thing. ( I don’t really blame him, Shawn Lonsdale was (I think) a simple non-problem and they made him into a major headache. They don’t wan to make the same mistake with 10,000 Shawn Lonsdales.

I would be happy to have a conversation with Mr. P. or anyone over at Flag, heck I invite any of them to respond here. I have this wacky idea that anything one has to say to another should be for public consumption for ultimately, nothing it private. I hope none of the Anons make the mistake of entering into negotiations with Scientology. They really don’t seem to have anything to offer. All they can do is attack and threaten (and if you think what Mr. P is doing is not a threat, think again.) It’s more subtle than their usual thing but a threat is a threat. They will try to dead-agent the protesters like they have always done. I don’t think there is much room to compromise in any case. Compromise in Scientology lingo is just a bribe.

But Mr. P and his bosses need to remember what also happened last Friday night in Clearwater. The place was full of non-Scientologists. In fact the palce was full of people indifferent if not actively hostile to Scientology. The protesters are a group, only a few hundred people in the area have taken part. But their feelings about Scientology seem to be echoed by almost everyone in this community.

The next protest is on Saturday, July 12th, 2008. The Anons will be mustering at Coachman Park at around 10:AM.

More info can be found here. PM me if you would like to know more about what this is all about.

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Interesting Times 6.0

Went to the anti-Scientology protest Saturday. (The pics were unabashedly ripped from here) There were around 40 people at peak. It was all very orderly and peaceful. I me a couple of people that I’d only gotten to know on line. The Fort Harrison is a beehive of activity, construction people are on the roof waving at us.

The only notable thing was the fact that the Scientologists seem to have decided that the protesters are not raving lunatics (not raving in any case,) and that they are in no physical danger from them. They were out and about in usual numbers (my thumbnail average is sighting about 10-12 people in Sea Org uniforms at any given time, more if it is during a shift change.) They were not out in force and they were avoiding the protest routes. The few we encountered made a big show of no making eye contact.

We had one rather rude lady hassle some of the people who stayed behind watching the rally point. She was reportedly yelling and cursing people, one fellow approached her and she did a camera grab. She came by several more times just giving people the finger and suchlike. Some of the homeless people hooted at her.

I chatted with one older fellow who claimed to have been on Hubbard’s ship back in the 70s. He made a point to tell us that “Scientology is the only religion that offers a refund!” I didn’t argue the point with him (what would be the point?,) I did mention that some people seemed to have difficulty on that score.

I asked him what he thought was going on here and he said that he had no clue. He was very nice, but rather insistent that “young people nowadays don’t bother to check out things for themselves – they really don’t know what Scientology is” He said that he was not really a Scientologist any more, I don’t know if that was true or not and it really didn’t matter. He scoffed at some of the fashion choices of the Anons, their hair especially. I gave him the line about “every generation thinking that they invented sex and Mohawks, and being wrong on both counts.” Conclusion? He was probably posing, it’s difficult to tell. He did not behave like some of the Ex Scientology people I’ve met, he was a bit more scripted for lack of a better term.

I spoke with some of the Clearwater homeless, they seem to get a kick out of the anons, one fellow was in the Nav about the same time I was. I was wearing my Ship’s ballcap and we chatted about Navy stuff. I get a little irritated at the Sea Org and their military pretense. Phony people bother me and they are phonies in my book. Some of the guys sitting around the park were pretty vocal in their support. Oh yes and so are many people passing by on the roads.

As with the last few protests, Clearwater was very quiet. I didn’t see as much as a furtive camera man although there seemed to be a few PIs around. They mostly stayed in their cars with the windows rolled up and the AC running. I said hi to Mr P. and the Flag security honcho (Mr. K.), it’s the very first time I’ve seen him at any of the downtown protests. He’s one of the folks who claimed that I encourage people to shoot Scientologists with machine guns, I suppose if he really believes that, even showing his face must be a tremendous act of bravery on his part. If he does not believe it, I wonder how he looks himself in the mirror. I sincerely hope I didn’t frighten him.

So; once again I thank the Anons for putting on a fine protest, the Clearwater Police who (as always ) did an exemplary of keeping order. Scientology – once again was on its best behavior, the “no anonymous “ signs in the store windows were amusing as allways and I think the construction people on the Ft Harrison got a kick out of the protesters. I bet next time, they won’t even look up. What are the odds?

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