I don’t know, it sounds more like a pissing contest between two twelve-year-old bullies.
Evidently a few goons over at SomethingAwful have started in on it as well. The thread on it was nearing 200 pages early this morning.
This is fun - not effective, but fun to watch, nonetheless.
4chan will get tired of it before Scientology does. I’ve seen a lot of Anonymous projects die out because the kids get bored.
Feb 10 might be funny if the various CoS churches do anything crazy in front of cameras, but I doubt they will.
I think the SA Goons have gotten one of the main guys at XenuTV (Mark Bunker) to come to the 2/10 protest in L.A. Anyone know if they’ve managed to bring other anti-CoS groups in on the action? Having real, live people willing to be leaders of the movement and stick their necks out in front of the cameras (presenting great targets for CoS in the process) would be a logical next step.
I’m expecting a fizzle, but hoping for a bang, which is why I think it’s so entertaining to watch. Almost wish Scientology had a branch around these parts; I’d consider going on Feb. 10, since everyone has it off for Chinese New Year, anyway. Then again, Sino-Scienos would probably have it off, too. 
Scientology is far more sinister than that.
Arnie Lerma (lermanet.com ) has (allegedly) been posting to the SA thread; no idea if he is showing to anything. That thread is mighty long and I don’t subscribe to SA…yet.
Andreas Heldal-Lund (the guy who runs Operation Clambake) initially came out against the DDoS attacks but is now claiming that there is not enough proof of such an attack. OC is advertising the protests.
If I didn’t have a midterm on the 11th and hopes of joining the CA state bar in the forseeable future, I think I’d go, if just for the laffs. The protests actually look pretty organized.
Nice, Queen Bruin.
Apparently, Jenna Miscavige Hill, the niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige, is supporting the just-released unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise (which shows the CoS in an unflattering light).
She has some pretty damning things to say about the cult in the full letter :
I wonder if she’s gonna join up with Anon…
The thread is long. I’ve been reading in since the beginning because it looked interesting. It is.
Arnie Lerma is a frequent poster in the thread and has been giving tips for protesters and stories from his work. He has also been providing some very good links to information.
There was also a radio show that had both Mark Bunker, several SA goon call-ins, and finished with a Scientologist. An MP3 of it is floating around, and it is quite good with general information about the protests and the Church of Scientology in general. You can find a like to it (and others) on Xenutv.com.
There have also been some interesting viral marketing to come out along with the flyers that have been posted. One is the website You Found The Card. People have been leaving cards with just the URL in computer labs and other interesting places. It is like the viral marketing movies are using. Lots of people making posters, flyers, and other media know there stuff and they are eye catching.
The movement has moved from just messing with websites to many large protests. There are some planned in most major cities by people who are actually serious. The story was even covered by The Economist. It has evolved. Many of the people who first spearheaded the movement have given up- most notably 711chan.org who was responsible for much of the DDoSing. Mentioning this on 4chan is bannable.
So far this has had a lot of momentum. I’m not sure if it will continue, but more people are thinking seriously about CoS than before and information is out there. Just getting people talking about this is winning, as Scientology is fueled by secrecy.
Even if this whole thing goes nowhere it is amazing to know something like this can sprout out of nothing. The internet is incredible.
You know, I’d take them a little more seriously if they had bothered to do just the tiniest bit of homework. Xenu is not Scientology’s God, he’s their devil. Shouting out that Scientologists worship Xenu makes one look like a fool. Well, more of a fool than standing on a sidewalk and waving a magic marker sign anyway.
For anyone who’s curious and has more time than they know what to do with, here is a link to the Something Awful thread, which is currently up to 192 pages. IIRC, you should be able to view it if you’re not a registered member of SA, but any bad words in the thread will be filtered to more family-friendly alternatives.
I am going to start leaving cards everywhere. And I may participate in the protest. Who knows. I hate what they’ve done to the mental health profession.
Your name in relation to the thread made me laugh. It is perfect.
Yeah, I must agree. That was really poorly done. A lot of people involved seem to be clamoring to go about this in a smarter way, and they’ve been getting tips from Mark Bunker (xenutv host and longtime CoS critic). In particular, he’s urging Anonymous sympathizers to quit with the illegal stuff, and it seems people are taking it to heart. A lot of folks are trying to organize silent protests for 2/10, letting the information speak for itself. This may be a good idea, considering how CoS responded to one of their critics at one of their events here. Also, a few of the Anon-associated groups have also called the police in advance, letting them know what was happening.
The second Anonymous YouTube video also seems less scary and more aimed at the general populace.
This whole affair seems to be getting more and more organized by the day, as more serious people take over. However this turns out, it’s been a fascinating show.
I’m still kind of amazed that this has gone from some random oft-ridiculed community of imageboarders to, now, a full article in The Economist: “An online onslaught against Scientology.” It’s a surprisingly positive take on the whole Anonymous movement (unfortunately you need print edition for the whole thing).
hurriedly scribbles some cards before she leaves for class
Does anyone know where I can see the video The Economist article talks about?
Oh, yes! The world’s second-greatest academic authority! (The greatest is Ibid.)
I don’t really like what I’ve seen of the various chan incarnations. But I appreciate internet subculture, and I especially appreciate anyone who says knowledge is free. I guess Scientology is an easy target. But the fact is, people in the United States don’t always take mental health seriously. And if a front group for Scientology, such as the CCHR, opens a museum in my neighborhood saying that Hitler was a psychiatrist–well, that’s intolerable. I’m sick of it. Mental health professionals deal with intense problems, and they have to face a society that at times denies their utility. I don’t much like the idea of a trendy for-profit religion comparing them to Nazis in addition to all that.
The ironic thing is that for all their objection to psychiatry, they certainly make good use of psychology to bring people into the fold, using fairly sophisticated brainwashing techniques that aim to hit you when you’re at your most vulnerable (remember how they set up shop in the aftermath of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina?). The measures they use to retain wayward members, via the Rehabilitation Project Force are much more extreme, almost comic-book-like.
This account from someone who claims to have grown up in Scientology and joined Sea Org (one of the Scientology ‘service’ branches) at age 13 is pretty interesting. The CoS should really take some pointers from the military in terms of how to maintain morale, because this type of treatment just seems to be shooting yourself in the foot.