The Empire of the Odd

Two videos have come my way. Like the last few they were dropped on the fine Imperial slate-stone doorstep by persons unknown. Stuffed in a plain manila envelope labeled “For Great Justice!” they apparently come from someone who hangs out in Downtown Clearwater far more than is healthy.

The first one is a puzzling conversation with someone, did he really say “I got paid 100 dollars to protest FOR Scientology?

This one is utterly fake, I know Marcab high command would never send a brief in this form. They are usually very serious…. perhaps I’ve been away too long?

Here are some important points from L. Ron Hubbard, this is from “The Way to Happiness, a timeless classic full of common sense rules that absolutely NO ONE has ever thought of before. RUN! Don’t walks to your nearest Scientology office for a free copy of this wonnerfull pamphlet of joy.

From “The Way to Happyness….”

• Set a Good Example
• Don’t Do Anything Illegal
• Do Not Steal
• Try Not to Do Things to Others That You Would Not Like Them to Do to You
• Try to Treat Others as You Would Want Them to Treat You
• Seek to Live with the Truth

And to demonstrate how much Scientology staff members follow The Way to Happiness, here are a couple of Battle Creek MI staffers!

By Bruce Walker
web posted July 14, 2008

The weak vital signs of free speech has been a hot topic lately.  What is happening outside America is more frightening than what is happening within America.  Mark Steyn in Canada faces legal harassment from “human rights” commissions for impugning, allegedly, Muslims.  Reverend Stephen Boisson, also in our neighbor to the north,  has been ordered to stop expressing his Biblically-based views of homosexuality “in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet.”  Canada has language similar to our Bill of Rights, but Canadian ideologues and bureaucrats ignore any Canadian heritage of free speech.

Bridget Bardot has been fined again this June by French courts for objecting to the way Muslims treat animals.  This was her fifth prosecution for the crime of saying what she believes.  Bardot has been sentenced to prison, with the sentence suspended, for simply stating that Islam is cruel to animals. The state prosecutor has complained that the court needs to impose a harsher sentence on the starlet next time for saying what she believes.

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I ran across this from the deeply spammed alt.religion.scientology SIG. Normally I don’t comment on Scientology weblogs, boring things they are.

This fellow has got some interesting stuff. Mostly he blathers about how Scientology is the best-best-best-BEST THING EVAH! Sure! Once and awhile he talks about other things, he gives us a glimpse of the world he lives in. He tells us what he thinks of the world outside of Scientology.

Now that is interesting stuff!

From My Scientology Blog

“There seems to be a lot of hullabaloo about the school that Will Smith and his wife Jada are opening. Because the school uses the study technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard some news reports are calling it a “Scientology” school.

My guess is they are calling it that for two reasons:
• Ignorance
• So they can make it sound “Controversial” to “sell more papers”

Neither reason is forgivable. Both reasons are a betrayal of the public trust given to the media and a threat to freedom of speech. Every inaccurate report in the media gives fuel to those who wish to curb that right.”

Ignorance or acknowledging that the newspaper business is a “business?” That’s unforgivable?

I’d say guess again!

There might be another reason. Perhaps-perhaps it is just possible that Study Technology is not as effective as other methods, and (let us not forget) Scientology has got a bad reputation, one that gets worse by the day. Anything associated with Scientology is going to have a bad taste and there is no conspiracy about it. Scientology has brought all of their current problems on themselves. That’s not just my opinion BTW.

The media is not making it sound controversial, it is controversial. It would be controversial no matter who said it. The media is simply passing along a newsworthy story. They are as a matter of fact, doing what they are supposed to do. A newspaper’s “public trust” is whether or not it brings interesting content to the public and keep their advertisers happy by getting people to read their paper. They put in interesting stories, I.E. stories that have some sort of conflict. People often find conflict interesting.

What is the story on the Will Smith school?

Scientology is controversial, so is anything associated with it. Will Smith’s school is using Scientology “Study Tech.”

Why is that controversial, I mean really; why does anyone give a flying fig what Scientology wants or does?

It’s complicated, but I will try to sum it up as simply as I can. Scientology teaches people that they are superior to normal humans. It teaches that they are superior. It teaches that, only by being a Scientologist can one become a super-being, a homos-Novus.

However, the evidence would suggest otherwise, Scientology low level courses appear to remove critical thinking skill and indoctrinate people into a Scientology group-think. One that is very suspicious of anything outside of Scientology and one that reflexively validates people for acts of recursive self-deception.

In other words, people are encouraged to lie to themselves.

The result is lots and lots of boorish, overconfident people who don’t seem to have the slightest idea of what they are doing.

Remember that Holiday Inn Express ad campaign?
(Person 1) ‘That’s a man-eating grizzly bear! Don’t worry! Just scratch him behind the ears and he will calm down!”
(Person 2) “How do you know so much about bears?
(Person 1) I Don’t, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!”
(cue) Sound of people screaming and bear growls.

“Why ask permission? We are the authorities!” says Tom Cruise spouting official church doctrine.

This is just one thing that rubs people the wrong way.

This is why Will Smith’s opening a school that uses Study Tech is instantly controversial. Study Technology (based on works) presented by Science Fiction Writer L. Ron Hubbard (who had no formal training in education) flies in the face of standard education methodology.

Controversial? You bet!

Not to mention that Hubbard (apparently) didn’t even write study tech. Study Technology was written in the early 1990s, he died in the mid 1980s.

Hu? What? Where did it come from?

They explain it this way.

“His personal research projects comprise “major contributions to the prevention and cure of social ills such as drug addiction, crime, and illiteracy. His contributions in these areas have found widespread acceptance and use throughout the world in many sectors of society, including families, schools, businesses, governments and religious organizations[sic]… Although mainly known for his career as a writer, L Ron Hubbard was fully professional in many fields. His career as an educator spanned the globe and the decades from the 1920s to the 1980s. It spanned the lecture halls of Harvard University and the ships and crews he commanded and trained during WWII(sic), as well as the expedition crews he led as a member of the Explorer’s Club.” His research “formed the basis of entirely new subjects in the fields of mental science and religious philosophy.” He also recognised (sic) a collection of barriers to learning “apparently not previously recognised (sic) by educators, yet they proved to be the senior factors in all learning.”

(quoted in Magill magazine, June 2002)

So in other words, L. Ron Hubbard lectured a lot so that makes him an “educator” and if he’s an educator it stands to reason that he might have come up with a “wevolutunawy” new way to teach children, wait a moment… why HERE IT IS! We found it buried in one of his old suitcases!

Ya- sure-sure! I go back to my first statement on Scientology, If you can believe Hubbard could come up with a new form of Psychotherapy, you can believe almost anything.

Well; back to blogging guy.

(conventional education, ed) These methods are good methods and have helped us produce our current civilization but what about the poor guy who “just can’t get it”? The answers of the existing methods are: “you are stupid” or “you are not smart enough” or “get it or you will fail the class” or “if you fail you won’t get that well paid job.” or “you will end up flipping burgers for a living” or “you have a learning disability, take this drug so you won’t worry about it.” These are “blame the student” or “threaten the student” type solutions and are not very helpful.

Whoa-Nelly! First you admit that conventional education works, than you point out that it does not work for everyone, (Duh! Everyone in public-ed knows that! ) Then you imply that it’s the systems fault that the fellow on the street corner with a “will work for food” sign and a sixth grade education. Is it not also public education’s fault that most of his classmates probably went to become contributers to society? They are in fact the people he’s begging money from?

So; if someone fails to get themselves properly educated it’s the system’s fault.

No it’s not! It is a combination of things. Ultimately it is up to the individual to play the cards he or she is dealt. He is as much to blame for his predicament as the system; I would say he’s mostly to blame.

But I don’t go around blaming my problems on other people as a rule. Scientologists’ blame other people for their problems AS a rule!

“Study Technology has solutions to those things which stop you from understanding and being able to apply what you are studying. The problems of leaning (you mean learning (ed)) and education have been solved in Study Technology. That is a bold statement to make, but from personal experience I can tell you that it is a true statement.”

No; that’s a hyperbolic, over the top, sweeping statement, one which is almost completely without merit. So you think Study Tech is perfect just-coz it worked for you? Great! I wish your kids luck! They are going to need it if they plan to compete in this confusing, rapidly changing world. Study Tech might help people to read better in a somatic-rote sort of way but It (IMO) does not promote real comprehension and discourages original thought.

The bottom line is, Applied Scholastics and Study Tech are not magic pills to solve education problems. I’m sure they work for some people but it had nothing to do with the great strides in almost every field that humanity has enjoyed for the past six hundred years. Humanity’s advancement is about the adoption of the scientific processes, implantation of mass production techniques and engineering. Things are no longer done by the proclamations of one man. Truth has to be established by way of reproducible evidence, not in “what is true for you.”Get Study Tech some open debate, some study and peer review and then see if people accept it more. You can’t make people adopt it by attacking established education methods. All you can do is make it a topic of controversy. YOU make it a controversy, not the newspapers.

You do that by rejecting conventional wisdom and trying to reinvent the wheel. You do that by making wild claims without a shred of verifiable evidence. You do it by proclmaing everything one guy says is somehow true.

You do it by attacking people when they point these things out.

Scientology is a controversy machine.

So, controversial? Ohh yes and it will just be getting worse as time goes on.

My Scientology Blog

Rush & Malloy , from the Daily News.

Tuesday, July 1st 2008, 4:00 AM

Critics of Scientology say they plan another theatrical protest against the church - this time targeting its intelligence division.

The anti-Scientology group known as Anonymous says its July 12 “Spy vs. Sci” demonstration will be held in “cities all around the world,” according to a press release.

Anonymous members - who include former Scientologists - are focusing on alleged “abuses” of the church’s intelligence agency, known as the Office of Special Affairs (OSA), says the release. It asks, “Why does something that describes itself as a religion need an intelligence agency that aggressively persecutes critics?”

According to the group, the OSA is charged with administering “justice and punishment” for the controversial faith, whose members include Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. The group charges that critics are “targeted, harassed, threatened and intimidated in an attempt to silence or punish them.”

“Most Scientologists are unaware of the functions of the OSA and accept what their leaders tell them about it,” says the release. “However, there is a growing body of evidence that OSA agents operate to attack perceived enemies by using infiltration, bribery, burglary and blackmail, in addition to threats, intimidation, assaults and worse.”

Due to fear of reprisals, Anonymous members are reluctant to give their names. One organizer, who goes by the nom de guerre of “93,” tells us the church has sent warning letters to “our more public members” calling them “‘terrorists.’ They’re attempting to stamp out our constitutional right to free speech.”

Scientology critic Mark Ebner charges that “armed private detectives hired by Scientology have invaded peaceful rallies.” A spokeswoman for the church didn’t return an e-mail seeking comment.

Last month in London, Sydney, Toronto and New York, Anonymous sponsored a pirate-theme protest that parodied Scientology’s private navy, the Sea Org. Or, as the demonstrators, called it, “Sea Aaargh.”

According to 93, protesters at the “Spy vs. Sci” rally will don costumes of characters like Austin Powers, James Bond and Modesty Blaise. What about that actor who starred in the “Mission: Impossible” movies?

“Nobody wants to be Tom Cruise,” she says.

A previously unpublished saga of an $8 million check
by Tony Ortega
June 30th, 2008 8:00 AM

Six years ago, when I was a reporter at New Times LA, I’d written several stories about Scientology (Los Angeles is one of its headquarters), and I was about to uncork the longest one yet—a 7,000 word piece about an embarrassing, $8 million defeat Scientology had just suffered, when the weekly paper suddenly folded.

That unpublished story has been sitting in storage ever since. Fast forward to 2008, and the world of reporting on Scientology has changed radically, thanks in part to the lunacy of Tom Cruise, but also in part to a worldwide, leaderless movement that calls itself Anonymous. Ravenous for any information about L. Ron Hubbard’s strange organization, Anonymous scours the world for the least tidbit about Scientology.

Well, here was a pretty meaty morsel just sitting in my hard drive. It’s still a substantial bit of reporting, and it fills in some gaps in the historical record of one of the most humiliating court losses Scientology has ever suffered.

Originally scheduled to be printed in October 2002, the piece follows. (It’s unchanged except for updates in [brackets].) This material may come as a revelation to some readers, but even for the know-it-alls at Anonymous, there are juicy bites. —Tony Ortega

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BY BRUCE LIVESEY

JUNE 23, 2008

The first time I met Gerry Armstrong, I thought he was paranoid. I’d driven down from Vancouver, summer 2007, into the verdant Fraser Valley to Chilliwack, BC, a somnolent, wind-blown town surrounded by jagged mountain ranges. A place as far removed from Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Scientology’s loopiness as one can possibly get. Armstrong and his third wife Caroline live in a walk-up, one-bedroom apartment above a tiny strip mall that’s seen better days.

When I arrived, Armstrong suggested we drive to a nearby park, rather than talk in their apartment. It was a beautiful July day and, except for a couple of stoners milling about out of earshot, the three of us were alone on the manicured grass beside a pond. Now sixty-one, Armstrong is an alarmingly small man, with elfin features, a beaky nose, sallow skin and large limpid blue eyes. The baseball cap he wore to ward off the hot sun made him look even more vulnerable. Amiable, soft-spoken with no trace of aggression, he chose his words with deliberation. Caroline seemed protective of him.

Armstrong’s wariness toward me stemmed from his concern that I might very well be a Scientologist on a spying expedition. This has happened before. Four years ago, a middle-aged man showed up in Chilliwack, rented a storefront across the street from their apartment and tried to ingratiate himself into their lives. He was there for a year and a half before Armstrong and his wife finally figured out that he’d been sent by the Church of Scientology to keep an eye on them. When they confronted him, he said “You turned the tables on me,” and bolted. “And in the middle of the night he disappeared from the office space,” Armstrong told me.

Armstrong finally began to tell me fragments of stories about being relentlessly harassed by the church, pursued by its private investigators, run off the road, targeted in elaborate sting operations, slandered at every turn by what he calls “Black PR” and “dead agent packages” and stalked through the US courts. In fact, since last fall, a California court order has been reinstated, demanding that he be remanded to a state jail and pay Scientology $500,000 US for breaking a confidentiality agreement he signed with the church twenty- one years ago. Hence his exile in Chilliwack.

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The Church of Scientology, notoriously ruthless at crushing its critics, may have met its match.The Times joins a demo by ‘Anonymous’ - the vanguard of a new internet-fuelled radicalism

There were signs, if you knew where to look, that the launch of Operation Sea Arrrgh was imminent. In a hundred corners of the internet plots were being plotted; in fancydress shops sales of Guy Fawkes masks were rising and in thousands of dank teenage bedrooms young men and women were making plans to converge on sites around the world, dressed as pirates.

Their target was the Church of Scientology - and this was an altogether new way of protesting. It was all so different from how it used to be. For more than a decade, a small group had gathered opposite the Church’s London offices to stage lonely demonstrations. Some were former Scientologists, some just angered by an organisation that they claimed split up families, extorted money and employed its followers as slave labour. Leafleting passers-by, explaining themselves to the police and countering - they claimed - the harassment of the Scientologists, they were happy if a dozen turned out.

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FOXNEWS.COM HOME > SCITECH A scrappy Web site that’s built a reputation for taking on Goliath-sized corporate and government corruption is now fighting a holy war over copyright infringement.

Wikileaks.org — a watchdog Web site that leaks corporate and government documents — hasn’t officially launched, yet it has already uncovered human-rights violations in China, claimed to have swayed Kenya’s Dec. 2007 elections and exposed the inner workings of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

So many were surprised when it recently turned its sights on two lawyer-heavy religious groups: the Mormons and the Scientologists.

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