We're all Anonymous on April 12th

I've never been into the protest gig. I'm more a sign the petition of season type of gal, shooting off the occasional postcard to my congress critter. But "Anonymous" has got me intrigued.

Scientology(or as they write it, $cientology) always looked like a scam of some kind. Even before Tom Cruise got assimilated. But the flyer I got this last weekend while shopping(or trying to shop; my favorite retro second hand store vanished when I wasn't looking), got me to thinking more about Scientology than I ever want to. (This is a different flyer from the one above. My scanner is broken)

Among the references listed:

www.whyaretheydead.net

Pretty bad. Whatever else anyone thinks its just not normal for any organization to have this many "accidents" and "suicides". Unfortunately this page was last updated July 2006 so it doesn't have the latest suspicious death: Shawn Lonsdale.

Shawn Lonsdale - Scientology smear flyers across Clearwater



Slandering a protester isn't very original, guys.

Anyway, Lonsdale was found dead on February 16th, 2008:

Critic of Scientology Shawn Lonsdale found dead

This article raises good points but makes my inner gumshoe cringe. Never speculate or go "over the top". Lines like "Did Scientologists have a hand in the death of Shawn Lonsdale?" make you look crazy. Instead focus on the facts that don't add up.

For starters, did Lonsdale look or act like anyone who might be suicidal? And, as the article points out, with so many known "persons of interest" and an obvious documented campaign to discredit him, why has this been ruled a suicide so quickly?

Back to the references. Google "Scientology costs".

Then Google "Scientology psychiatry". And I'm the first to admit psychiatry has it's own problems.

When your through with that, move on to these:

Scientology Slaves
Project Snow White
Scientology disconnect
Scientology south park

Many pieces make my inner journalist cringe too, but the facts paint a picture, however amateurishly, of an organization run like a criminal syndicate.

That's where I think "Anonymous" could use some help getting their message across. When you say a "cult" people nod their heads and move on, assuming someone is dealing with the crazy people. But the Scientologists have been good at re framing these problem as differences in belief. And when you say cult, even if it's true, there's still an idea somehow the victims were at fault; isn't it obvious it's a cult?

Not when they've registered themselves as a respectable corporation, it's not.

Bottom line? Most organizations, religious or otherwise, never have people connected to them dying under dubious circumstances. The only organizations that mimic this pattern are organized crime. Someone needs to tell "Anonymous" to go lighter on the "cult" rhetoric and call Scientology what it's acting like: a criminal syndicate.

Maybe I'll go and tell someone.
On April 12th.

Anonymously, of course.