By NADIA PFLAUM
On Saturday, members of Anonymous, the Internet-dwelling Scientology protest group responsible for leaking that insane Tom Cruise-laughing-in-an-armchair video to the world, gathered at 39th and Main to "celebrate" L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. They wore party hats in honor of Scientology's creator, along with the prerequisite bandanas, Guy Fawkes masks and signs calling the religion a hoax. Sadly, there was no birthday cake.
This guy was there, wearing a burqa:
The video's shaky, mostly because my ungloved hands started to go numb from the freezing
wind. Also? I'm a shitty videographer.Particularly paranoid members of Anonymous will be interested to learn that I received a visit from members of the Kansas City Scientology headquarters after my first blog on the February 10 protest. Maggie Kittinger gave me a too-firm handshake and a packet containing a DVD of 30 Scientology public service announcements titled "Youth for Human Rights" (NOT as entertaining as the Tom Cruise video, unfortunately) and a press release responding to Anonymous' protests, calling the group "cyber-terrorists."
"'Anonymous' is perpetrating religious hate crimes against Churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists for no reason other than religious bigotry," the statement reads. "'Anonymous' initially justified its attacks by claiming that the Church's requests to some website to remove a stolen video of an internal Church event [crazy Tom Cruise video!! -NP]
somehow constituted an affront to free speech. In fact, the Church, as would any copyright owner, had simply sent routine notices that the video constituted a copyright violation. Similar notices are sent daily by the television and recording industries to those who display pirated, copyrighted works."The statement went on to say that the church's services would continue uninterrupted despite the protests and that they'd contacted local authorities to "minimize the negative impact of this mask-wearing, cyber-terrorist group."
I didn't see any terroristic activity, but then again, I left after the chants of "SCIENTOLOGISTS HAVE BUTT SEX!" began. Beware the Ides of March, indeed.
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"why "scifags"?"
It's chan-speak. Everyone is a fag. On the outside, it looks offensive. You have to understand the humor from the inside. On the inside of the joke, it really has no meaning. It means a "member of" at best.
You and me? We're now blogfags. Get it? And there is nothing offensive about it. How does anonymous posting work? One person posts an idea. It's either good, or everyone dumps all over it. Even when it's good, there are going to be some finding a way to dump all over it. Anonymous trolls itself. It's like a group of comedians sitting around telling jokes and heckling each other. Imaginary points are awarded to good heckling, and in the end, no harm was meant.
Is "scilons" preferred? I mean, they already have the sci-fi angle going. And Battlestar Galactica was a pretty good show in comparison to Hubbard's writing.
Also, this is war. It brings out the ugly in people. Anonymous is already pretty ugly and beautiful at the same time, and has no problem with being labeled, because no individual is being labeled. Label anonymous what you want, and it doesn't stick. Anonymous is absurd. Scientology is absurd. Scientology however, does not know it is absurd. They try to fight seriously. Anonymous knows it's absurd, anonymous knows itself, and is therefore the best...or at least most annoying weapon against the CoS.
Anonymous has always done what is stupid, ridiculous and taboo. Going against the CoS? You'd have to be stupid to try with their history.
"The Truth is the only weapon we use."
And Rick Astley. But, Rick Astley is truth, so there you go.
I'm not a Scientologist but it sounds like
they have some workable technology to help the people who are against them with their crimes.
The report gives the impression that we are a unified group. Anonymous is a movement - not an organization. We have no leader, no structure, no HQ. We will destroy $cientology, not by force, but by exposing it, and it's crimes, to the world. $cientology has been tearing apart families since 1952 using its policy of disconnection. Unfortuneatley for $cientology, you cannot disconnect the TRUTH. The Truth is the only weapon we use.
Fuck "Freezoners" (wtf?!?)! Fuck Scientology! Fuck False Religion! Fuck Scifags!
a Cult is a Cult
I hear they are changing their image hoping that the public is stupid enough not to recodnize a cult.
Go ANONYMOUS!
On Saturday, members of Anonymous, the Internet-dwelling Scientology protest group responsible for leaking that insane Tom-Cruise-laughing-in-an-armchair video to the world, gathered at 39th and Main to "celebrate" L. Ron Hubbard's birthday.
Anonymous has nothing to do with leaking the insane Tom-Cruise-laughing-in-an-armchair video. They just disliked how Scientology tried to erase the videos existence, as they have tried to erase the public existence of most of their strange dogma.
THERE WAS CAKE
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=...
NO CAKE IS A LIE!
YOU ARE WORTHLESS AT REPORTING.
Talking to your dumbass friends is no way to get any sort of balanced concept of the situation.
We separated ourselves from those idiots on that corner for a reason. Next time cross the damn street and talk to someone who's head isn't filled with their ego.
Doesn't everybody know that $cientology is a hypnosis scam?
If you hook a guy up to an e-meter and run a light electrical current through his body and get him in a meditative state, over and over, pretty soon his critical thinking skills turn to goo. HYPNOTIC CONDITIONING. Duh.
he'll believe anything he's told, and fork over his money and time willingly.
I can't believe people are still falling for this crap.
Ouch, that man really didn't know anything. There is a community of scientologists who build as a community and not an agressive organization -- they're called FreeZone (google it). They use L. Ron Hubbard tech without requiring ridiculous fees.
And there're plenty of sites out there. That man wasn't really coherent...
In any case, good article c: Hoping that you won't be harassed -too much- by CoS officials.
My favorite chant is:
L. Ron is gone, but the con lives on!
In all honesty, I feel for Scientologists, they were conned at a vulnerable point in their lives and is very difficult to extract oneself after paying thousands of dollars for nonsensical "Tech". If they do decide to leave, they are Disconnected--and family and friends in the cult are no longer allowed to speak to the ex-member.
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