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"Anonymous" Takes Scientology Protest to the Streets
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Feb 11, 2008 06:35 PM
from the watch-out-for-the-hit-squads dept.
from the watch-out-for-the-hit-squads dept.
This past Sunday members of the group "Anonymous" that has been running an attack on the church of Scientology took their battle from the tubes of the internet to the pavement of real life, staging a protest outside the central Phoenix Church of Scientology. "The protesters said they gathered Sunday in lieu of the birthday of Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist once cared for by church staffers. Her 1995 death sparked media attention and a civil wrongful death suit against a branch of the Church of Scientology. A wrongful death suit by her family was a public-relations nightmare for the church for years until it was settled in 2004. The Church of Scientology declined to comment on the Phoenix protests. It did provide a news release calling members of Anonymous cyber-terrorists."
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Turn the tables (Score:5, Funny)
Not just Pheonix (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not just Pheonix (Score:5, Informative)
http://forums.enturbulation.org/ [enturbulation.org]
- A bit of planning, a early rough estimate of attendees around the world, post protest media being uploaded all the time.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_international_report:_%22Anonymous%22_holds_anti-Scientology_protests_worldwide [wikinews.org]
- Wikinews with pics/vids/links related to 10feb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanology [wikipedia.org]
- About the project so far (sources only from credible media)
http://www.partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology [partyvan.info]
- Anonymous own wiki on the project, mainly used to gather information, results, future plans and events.
Re:Not just Pheonix (Score:5, Informative)
London, UK - around 500 people.
LA - around 500 people
Sydney, Australia - around 300 people.
Clearwater, Florida - around 250 people. This one is scientology headquarters.
New York - around 320 people
Boston - around 270 people
Atlanta - around 250 people. They called out the riot squad in full gear, with a helicopter. There was no incidents at all.
Washington DC - around 200 people.
Toronto - around 200 people.
In total, the estimates are around 8000 people worldwide. The aim was, of course, to get over 9000.
grip: i submitted details of these protests to slashdot twice before this took place, hoping we could get some of you folks out. *shakes fist at editor*
COME NEXT TIME - MARCH 15TH.
what (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny that you mention that. Slashdot allows Anonymous Cowards to post precisely for the same reason: To protect them from retaliation.
The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:5, Informative)
As a non-scientologist, this is scary. Possibly the most scary part of it is the editing. I have no problem with people having convictions but when he talks about "fightin' the fight" and "people needing them" and "people depending on them"
Whatever the case, I will not ever affiliate myself with a Scientologist and after reading Have You Lived Before This Life [wikipedia.org], I will do everything in my power to convince those that I know and love to avoid Scientology.
The thing that concerns me about Scientology is that after reading some books by Hubbard about it, I have found very little criticism of it. A book [amazon.com] & some articles [cmu.edu] with the most notable one being Time Magazine. It seems like such an easy target. It takes seconds to find books criticizing Catholics or Muslims
Re:The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:5, Informative)
Though the CoS claims that it revoked its official "fair game" doctrine that specifically endorsed these tactics in 1968, there have been a number of scientology defectors who have confirmed that they were instructed to carry out similar exercises against those whom the CoS has declared to be "SP".
This is, by the way, one of the reasons why Anonymous has been careful to conceal its members' identities. During the protest, the Scientologists are known to have videoed the protests; and taken special effort to photograph any members of Anonymous who were not wearing a mask, any cars that members of Anonymous entered, and in some cases, cars that stopped and received literature that Anonymous was handing out. It does not take any imagination at all to determine what the CoS is likely to do with this information.
Better coverage of the London protest (Score:5, Interesting)
There's an LJ Account [livejournal.com] from a participant in London that's a great read; sounds like something I would have been proud to participate in!
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
Never mind proof, what indication do you even have of this other than your gut feeling?
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
He said he was an atheist; he never indicated that he was guided by reason/logic/scientific method.
Remember kids,
Atheist does not imply scientist/logician
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
A guarantee (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a religion; therefore, I guarantee it isn't accurate.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Voiceless [youtube.com]
Thats one. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more. Including the niece of David Miscavish (the current leader of scientology).
Come on people, the information is out there. You can easily take a balanced view by READING the accounts of the hundreds of people who've been victimized. Look up Paulette Cooper. Shes still alive today to tell her story of being harassed and sued for 15 straight years.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with aliens "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth. Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of "renegades", he defeated the populace and the "Loyal Officers", a force for good that was opposed to Xenu. Then, with the assistance of psychiatrists, he summoned billions[1] of his citizens together to paralyze them with injections of alcohol and glycol, under the pretense that they were being called for "income tax inspections". The kidnapped populace was loaded into spacecraft for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The spacecraft were identical to the Douglas DC-8 with the exception of having different engines."
The "origins" story of Scientology is total bunk that sounds like bad sci-fi written by a sleep-deprived crackhead. You can't even spin this as a parable like with Biblical accounts, etc. It's just plain trash that doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is a for-profit organisation masquerading as a religion, the secrecy, their aggressive legal tactics, their apparent refusal to ever apologise for any mistake they've made, and their underhand tactics to get and keep recruits.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymous has explicitly noted that the "Free Zone"--that is, the Scientologists outside the organization--are just fine and dandy.
O'course, the "Free Zone" doesn't charge for its teaching...
But I don't think the antagonism against psychiatry is what you think it is--I think it's more a control structure (given that the auditing, in essence, imparts a codependent relationship between the auditee and the auditor (and by extension, the CoS)). Also worth noting is that the founder, Mr. Hubbard, had a very distinct antipathy towards the profession, and which created certain aspects of Scientology specifically to counter standard psychiatric practice.
I would note that, while not a member per se of Anonymous, I do think that their efforts against Scientology are a good thing, and were carried out remarkably peacefully and with remarkably good organization.
(I've also heard there's more planned for 3/15--beware the Ides of March!)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
The regulations of the Catholic church are very strict that what is said in the confessional -stays- in the confessional under all circumstances (except for a -very- restricted few).
The Church of Scientology -says- that what is said stays confidential, but routinely uses any information obtained during an audit as either a method of coercing the auditee to take more auditing sessions, to refrain from leaving the Church of Scientology, or to attack the ex-Scientologist when they have left with blackmail, or ruining their reputation in the community.
This has been documented by nearly every ex-scientologist--sometimes, all three instances.
Re:Photos (Score:5, Informative)