Happy Birthday Lisa McPherson

I'm actually a day late now, but I'm sure she won't complain. She's dead after all.

If you're the kind of person who is even likely to read this article, you're probably up to date on this affair, but I'm holding out the naive hope that someone accidentally stumbles onto the blog who didn't already know any of this. For you people who probably don't exist, a brief history can be found here. Yes, I know, wikipedia is full of all sorts of misinformation due to open editing ability, but feel free to confirm any of the events with other sources. The article is cited after all.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, a group of hackers based out of the *chan image post forums known as Anonymous delivered a manifesto to the Church of Scientology, in response to the Church's copyright abuse in trying to cover up the release of one of their propaganda films. Don't make the mistake much of the mainstream media did, the removal of that video was not the cause of the later actions so much as the last straw. The Church was extending its reach into their domain, and they finally were enraged enough to act, though it is certainly not solely in the name of that offense.

Please, do not make the mistake many made in response to the South Park episode that included the entirety of the OTIII revelations about Xenu. Many decided either that Parker and Stone were lying to the viewers, believing that nobody would believe that, (they weren't) or that Scientology is merely a goofy religion that is best ignored. It isn't. The Church has killed, and will kill again. The Church fanatically pursues legal actions to cripple or destroy dissenters, called Suppressive Persons or SPs. SPs were for a long time under the founder's (L. Ron Hubbard) directon considered Fair Game, which described a number of aggressive actions that could be taken to stop the dissent, including murder. Admittedly, the official position of the Church is that they no longer practice Fair Game law, though they still act like it. The Church requires its followers to separate ties from non-Church members, in exactly the same manner as your garden variety cult. All of this information can be found on well cited articles on wikipedia (which you can use the citations to track down primary sources and determine validity for yourself, and you really should), and more sources and even more damning information can be found on xenu.net.

L. Ron coined a word, "enturbulated," which apparently means "turbulent or agitated and disturbed." This is commonly used by Church members in the face of dissenting opinions, asking why the SP is coming to enturbulate them, and so on. Well, it may not be a word to those of us who have not paid extraordinary sums of money to be brainwashed into believing anything we're told, but it is to them, so in context it would make sense to say that Anonymous set out to enturbulate the Church. Shortly after that first manifesto, the members of Anonymous began a DDoS attack against every Church of Scientology web site and affiliate. They have more puppet organizations than you probably think, and most will be listed on xenu.net so I won't bother again here. Additionally, some members were faxing loops of black paper to cause infinite black pages to be printed on the receiving end, prank calling with a number of internet memes, or simply calling their 800 numbers from pay phones and hanging up immediately for an hour or so in hopes of running up their service bills (800 service is more expensive to the company than you probably think).

Yes, most of this is illegal, and it's certainly childish. It also wasn't the point. Mainstream media outlets caught wind of the offensive, and as the attacks went on they even started getting the facts right for a change. Fox News previously made Anonymous out to the second biggest threat to US national security after al-Qaeda, but as Rupert Murdoch is no fan of the Church of Scientology, NewsCorp outlets were giving an actual fair and balanced account of the crimes of the Church rather than pounding their fists into desks and crying menace. In these broadcasts (available on youtube, they are many so take your pick), actual awareness of why a large group of hackers would even bother to attack a supposed Church was spread. This was a victory.

Yesterday, on the birthday of Lisa McPherson, the next phase began. Protestors took to the streets outside of Scientology churches across the world in varying numbers. Most came in masks, for hiding your identity is all but necessary when your opponent is willing to sue you into oblivion. The most popular mask was that of Guy Fawkes, probably the only good thing about the hack job the Wachowski brothers put out was the fad rush causing high production of these props from a good comic. Anyway, some photographs of the events can be seen here, along with some news coverage of this round. Notable people who came out are the family of Lisa McPherson, Arnie Lerma (a former member of the Church who escaped and has turned critic), and the man who originally outed the OTIII document, among others.

The first post of that thread includes approximate counts of the people who came out to support the cause. If you know of the Church's evil but didn't think anyone was really willing to put in the effort to picket, you were wrong. If you are just learning of the things I shared and things I didn't (Operation Freakout and Operation Snow White are good places to start looking, without going into any detail) now, you know you are not alone. In either case, the opportunity to help is not past. Another round of protesting is scheduled for March 15th, L. Ron's birthday. Do not fear being the lone man with a sign, looking like a lunatic on the side of the street. You are not alone, and you can make a difference. Every person helps. Look for details on the forums of enturbulation.org to see where the churches are, and where there are already people planning to protest. If you know of a church that is not listed, feel free to start the process.

Salvation should be free.

Religion shouldn't harm its followers.

Edit: This will teach me to write on a massive sleep deficit. The Church did not attack themselves.