July 12 Protest Statistics - Crash in Active Anonymous Members, not Scientologists, Continues

Trend continuous to crash though, surprisingly, the London protested drew twice the amount of June, from 300 to 600! London is now 1/3rd of the rest of the world!

Some of the American cities crash (such as New York that went from 225 to 30 and used to peak at 700 in March!) may be explained by a possible confusion with the National demonstration on July 19 but this does not explain the spectacular crash for so many non-US cities (such as Sydney that went from 80 to 10 and used to have 225 in Feb!). Many other cities just got cleared from the protest map with nobody attending anymore.

See stats details.

What is Being Revised in Republished LRH Books?

Type of things edited in the posthumously revised edition of LRH books:

Not a religion:

Older versions:

"Scientology has opened the gates to a better World. It is not a psycho-therapy nor a religion."

Newest versions:

"Scientology has opened the gates to a better World. It is not
psycho-therapy." [Creation. p. 351.]

Zulu:

Older versions:

"The number of engrams in a Zulu would be astonishing."

Newest versions:

"The number of engrams in a primitive would be astonishing."

Anonymous discusses "Using Youth as a Weapon"

On July 9, 2008, Anonymous started a thread on enturbulation.org titled

"TIP: Using Youth As A Weapon"

I did not put that much attention at the time but two incidents that happened a few days after this thread makes me wonder in which way that idea didn't find its way in the mind of some anons.

The first one is an incident where Anonymous forces their entry in a Subway shop hosting a

"No Anonymous"

sign, using three masked children. The argument was "why do you deny the right of these small children to buy ice cream?", and the incident was further exploited in outraged titles about "Scientology harasses little girls".

The second incident happened slightly later, in which critics were successful to get the management of mall in the UK to ban the CoS from its premises on the (unsubstantiated) accusation that the stress test was offered to children, something the CoS denies.

See below for details of these two incidents.

Anonymous Uses Children as Weapon

A family with 3 masked kids were prevented by a Scientologist to go in a Subway shop because they were wearing masks. Later on, LAPD arrived, the Scientologist went away and they were allowed to go in.

Dramatized exploitation of the incident abound:

• "Church of Scientology Hits Below The Belt, Harasses Little Girls"

• "5 Year old denied into Subway by Scientologist"

• "Actress and Scientologist NOELLE NORTH : Tried to rob 2 little kids of their civil rights"

• "Filthy Scientology woman against 2 little girls"

However, consider this:

1. during the protest, an anon posted about the sign at the Subway shop: "

   "I was eating at the Subway deli across the street from Kaiser Medical Center (which had their own security officers assisting the Scilons) when I short, blonde-headed woman accompanied by OSAbot Ed Parkin walked in and sat down next to me preparing a "No Anonymous" sign which she taped to the window of the deli.
   
   She continues to sit at a table there monitoring the area. (Hey, it's freaking hot outside. She picked an air-conditioned place to do her surveillance). "

   This report was further clarified in comments after the incident:

   "I was the one that first reported on ARS of the sign going up. In fact, I was quietly eating a sandwich prior to the protest when Noelle came into the restaurant, sat down next to me, and proceeded to put loads of tape on the “No Anonymous” sign, then proceeded to attach it to the window, reinforcing it again with even more tape. She had the OK of the manager. Most of the employees were Hispanic - I say this because the residents in the vicinty of the Big Blue on Sunset Blvd are primarily Hispanic & they have to live with the cult & their goons every day. I suspect that manager gave Noelle the OK to hang the sign out of fear. I also watched her take a table by the door to assure that Anonymous didn’t enter the deli."

   Therefore, Anonymous knew about that ban before the incident happened
   
   
2. Anonymous recently discussed "Using Youth as a Weapon"
   
   What are the odds, then, that, knowing adult anons may have difficult to enter, they didn't use children "as a weapon", knowing that if they would be barred entry they could make the type of titles as above?
   
   
3. My impression is re-enforced by the fact that the video they show even recorded the "we are hungry" expressions of the girls
   
   
4. The video has been heavily edited and whole chunks are missing. It would have been interesting to see the video in full
   
   
5. The end of the video is particularly outrageous, as we see the little girl spouting things she obviously can have no idea of, such as "my right to free speech expression". It reminds me of terrorists using children for their propaganda.
   
   
6. For that matter, what business does anon have to bring their children at the protest? The believe the CoS is highly dangerous then bring their 5-years old at an emotionally laden protest, yeah right... In this sense I agree with a comment posted on the glosslip page:

   "I love me some anonymous, and yes, the cult sucks, but I am always bothered when parents of any stripe indoctrinate their children into very adult activities like politics or civil disobedience. I don’t care if it’s a “good” cause or not. Children aren’t able to hold sophisticated concepts like: “Scientology is run by unscrupulous people who are harming the people like the lady who stopped us at Subway. We are protesting to help the bad lady because she’s been brainwashed”. How different is it in practice than Fred Phelps making his darling little grandchildren sport “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” T-shirts? I’m serious, my parents used to take me to rallies against the Vietnam war and they got very hairy and I used to think anyone in a military uniform was a murderer. I learned better as an adult, but when I was seven, I just wanted to please my folks, I had no frikkin’ idea what was going on. Using young children in emotionally charged situations like a protest is a very bad idea. Scientology sucks, but lets leave the kiddies out of the fray."

   
   

Church of Scientology banned from shopping centre

The Birmingham Mail.net reports that

"THE Church of Scientology has been banned from a Midland shopping centre after a string of complaints that they had been preaching to children."

...

"We had complaints that kids had been invited to take part in a stress test and were then being asked questions about religion,” said operations manager Colin Quinton."

However, Graeme Wilson, the church’s public affairs director, said:

“Apparently there was one complaint by one person, who didn’t identify himself, saying he had seen children approached and offered stress tests.

“I understand that he did not claim to be a parent of any such children, and no evidence has been presented.

“Our stress tests are not offered to children,” Mr Wilson added.

The reasons I find the CoS report in this case more credible are:

1. Where are the evidences of the parents complaining?
2. Operations manager Colin Quinton is obviously biased at the start, as he is quoted saying

   "we wouldn’t have allowed them in if we had realised who they were"

3. False accusations using children is a favorite anti-cult tactic. One will remember the recent FLDS incident, as well as the Waco tragedy:

   "According to CAN critic Dr. Gordon Melton of the Institute for the Study of Religion in Santa Barbara, California, CAN has used a number of means to try to destroy small religious groups: they unsuccessfully tried to expand "conservatorship" to allow families to remove members from "cults"; they unsuccessfully tried to have laws passed against "cults"; they unsuccessfully sued the American Psychological Association for rejecting their views on "brainwashing." However, they have found one successful method of disrupting groups: false anonymous charges of child abuse. Anonymous reports are legal under current law. [24]

4. Anonymous has recently discussed the opportunity to "Using Youth As A Weapon"
   

Beck Wins Over His Critics

Beck's new album is so good it even wins over his critics:

"Beck, we were pretty much done with you. It wasn't so much the whole Scientology thing. Or the egomania. We just had not been that jazzed with the last few records. But then you had to go and make the record of your career. We always hoped you would get back to the "Mutations" style, but with the addition of some Bowie and some Pink Floyd spaciness, we may be falling in love all over again. Damn you."

Daily Argus Hamilton

July 16 entries

"Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt gave birth to twins last weekend in France, adding to their growing brood. It's one noisy house. The children they have adopted have already begun demanding international development aid from the children they have had."

"Miss Venezuela won the title of Miss Universe Sunday. Miss USA slipped onstage and fell legs up in a slit evening gown for the second straight year. Ever since Britney Spears started doing their choreography they get a lot more views on YouTube."

Magoo's Super Dupper OT Powerz

Tory Magoo, opinion leader of Anonymous, now has "super powers" too.

During a visit to Saint Hill, in the UK, she and fellow Mark Bunker went for a walk as of course they could not gain access to the organization.

Suddently:

"Back in the trees, a bit down the road, we found a storage container that Tory felt was full of PC folders."

This is not written as a joke or satire but in all earnest by Emmy Award winner Mark Bunker! They went on harassing the guy in that container on that basis.

Now, anybody who has a modicum of knowledge about the CoS would know that the possibility for the CoS to keep PC folders in a container outside from the organization and among the trees is practically nil.

Tory Magoo , being a long time Scientologists, should know that. But no, she FEELS that the container is "full of PC folders".

And there I thought "Magoo" meant "nearly blind and constantly confused". I was wrong. She really DOES have super dupper OT powerz after all...

Portland July 12 Protest

The Willamette Week, a local Portland newspaper, has an article about the July 12 Anonymous protest.

It gives a fairly equal time to the views on both sides, something that tends to infuriate anonymous members in their comments. Nor is the depiction of CoS' harassment strong enough for anons demonized views:

""Heckling" is an awful mild description of the treatment received by people like Mark Bunker and Paulette Cooper"

The author's depiction of the protest, however, is quite accurate:

"the group tromped off, clad with accusatory signs ("Scientology Kills," "The Church of Scientology is a Criminal Organization"), blank name-tags and spirits driven by conspiracy theory"

Scientology's point of view was parted by Gwen Mayfield-Barnard (photo).

"She maintained a matriarch's composure, calling out "There are cookies!" and gesturing to a table laden with nibbles whenever a new Scientologist walked in the door."

She reminded me of Yvette Shank, the New York Scientologist, whose warm motherly attitude transpired from one of the Anonymous videos trying to demonize her and twist her words.

The cookie note also shows what I reported earlier, that Scientologists increasingly just ignore Anonymous protesters at their door and have their own small parties inside, while Anonymous hold their "Epic" parties outside, sharing "ceak".

Mind you, even such an innocent gesture is questioned by anons, who have to ask:

"Ok, Gwen. What's in those cookies?!"

CoS Buys Historic Stevens Building in Portland

The Willamette Portland article also enlighten us about yet another historic building purchased by the CoS, the Stevens Building, bought according to the Portland Business Journal for $5.38 million in cash.

Google Trends Follow Up

LA Times featured an article last July 14 on how Anonymous tricked Google Trends with false information.

In a follow up article, it explains that these results are achieved by
searching for the malevolent terms en masse, skyrocketing them up the ranks.

It also notes about the comments to the article that

"many of those responses were immature or snide remarks, seemingly coming from 4chan members, which prompted Zoey Hampton to write: "The comments make it very clear that the members of 4chan need to get a life, as well as learn to spell and write cogently."

which is the impression I get in general when reading comments left by Anonymous members.

Some of the selected comments went along the same line:

"Indeed! As we enjoy a more free communication, so too with schoolyard bullys, semi-literates and disruptive elements."

"In days gone past it took great effort to rouse a demonstration. Today it takes only a few phrases on a disruptive website, a few minutes of discussion, and a few dozen computers running dedicated software"

"People dedicated to disrupting normal communication have found their comfort zone on the internet"

"Scientology may indeed be a cult, but these anonymous mask-wearing website-hacking "kids" (and I use that term loosely - many of these 4chan troublemakers are middle aged and living at home) are far more dangerous. Committing vandalism and hate crimes are NOT just "kids' play""

Still, LA Time is interested in continuing the discussion and posit the interesting interrogation:

"What's your take on the issue? Tell us whether you think 4chan's Google bombing is overstepping the boundaries of Web decency, or if it's just something that comes with the territory of an open dialog?"

Related blog entry: R-CryWolfComments-

Maxim Does Anonymous

Maxim, one of the most popular men's magazines in the US with a subscriber base of 2.5 million, published a very good article about Anonymous vs. Scientology.

Nicely written and documented, it contains excellent graphics.

This being said, the content is a bit lacking when it comes to Scientology itself, but it has a very good historical perspective on the development of Anonymous.

Another criticism is that the article is a bit complacent with Anonymous self-aggrandizement proclamations such as:

"A new dawn of social protest"
"Our generation movement"
"A big social experiment"

Sooner or later anons may realize how stupid they have been for uncritically swallowing that much crap from the Internet and may feel a bit ashamed for having been a participant in that "big social experiment".

One last thing, the statement that Anonymous protested "sometimes with more than 10,000 people" is a bit exaggerated. Even by their own inflated statistics, Anonymous never reached 9,000.

Jive Aces to Be Censored at the Summer Fete - 2nd August 2008

Ah, the irony!

A critic emailed the organizers for assurances that the Jive Ace team won't be allowed to "marr" the mini-festival by trying to distribute Hubbard literature.

At the same time, Anonymous feels free to stalk musical events of Scientology artists with their anti-Scientology propaganda.

Which illustrates the second law of Anonymous: "Free Speech is a one-way street", the first law being "Good is us, bad is not us".

E-Meter in action

I thought it would be fun if YouTube had some videos of an e-meter in action. The most direct demonstration I found was this one. However, this is part 3 of a three parts series and you'll get a lot of bla bla before the actual action if you are first going through parts 1 and 2. This being said, the series is probably the best introduction to Scientology I saw to date.

Searching YouTube also reveals the fact that there is little to nothing to "counter" that CoS' demonstration.

The "best" is this demonstration of what a simpler machine does, but it's borderline idiotic, because it only shows that it registers values in certain conditions and that the values changes as you adjust the level - and the video then finishes by a pompous line stating "before you join a religious group or any group, check your facts", when in guise of fact it offered barely nothing and what it offered was irrelevant. Here is a good answer to the argument from Homer Wilson Smith

Xenu.tv offers a clip about the history of the e-meter, that may be interesting in another context but does little to demonstrate anything here, and Anonymous offers a static image series taken from Wikipedia - boring and a waste of the potential of videos.

For the rest we are gratified with the usual bad taste jokes of Anonymous and their irritating mocking laugh.

I didn't bother to go much further down the list.

Anne Archer in Privileged

Scientologist actress Anne Archer, who has starred in such hit movies as Fatal Attraction and Patriot Games is now in a new TV series called Privileged.