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CoS Bigwig Likens Wikipedia Ban to Nazis' Yellow Star Decree
We mentioned on Thursday that Wikipedia has banned edits originating from certain IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology; reader newtley writes now that Scientology leader (CEO and Chairman of the Board of the linked, but legally separate, Religious Technology Center) David Miscavige calls the ban "a 'despicable hate crime,' and asks, 'What's next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?' During World War II, Hitler forced Jewish men, women and children to wear a a yellow cloth star bearing the word Jude to brand them in the streets of Europe, and in the Nazi death camps."
Wikipedia also regularly bans Congressmans' offices from editing because they try to use the site to create fictional accounts of either their own candidates or the opposition. This is actually a show of integrity by Wikipedia (equal treatment of all). They are preventing a certain behavior from occurring -- not certain group of people from behaving.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The scientologists don't have to wait until someone brings them to a camp, they have camps of their own: it's called rehabilitation project force.
What hoops do I have to jump through to see subject lines on Slashdot again?
Nice try to look impartial.
The reason they are banned is because they were trying to stop the openness, by deleting all that they didn't agree with. Your attempt at reversing who's actually doing somethin incorrect here is quite simply wrong. If they would have behaved they would have just allowed the criticism to exist, and simply adding their own stuff as a rebuttal. That is the point of wikipedia. And individual scientologists will still be able to do that, just not while they're working from any of the company's ip's.
Wikipedia is of course exempt from Godwin's Law, for one very good reason.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
SmallFurryCreature, I disagree with your statements about how (summarized) this IP ban is a step on a slippery slope toward arbitrary censorship. Your handwringing is emotional but not cleanly argued. Here are my responses:
Your statement that the CoS is being shut out of Wikipedia is false, and you have received a number of responses pointing this out. In effect, Wikipedia is merely making it more inconvenient for CoS to vandalize their content. Vandalize? Yes, see the next point:
Wikipedia has instituted a process for submitting information (including changes thereto) and for keeping content as factually correct as possible, given the circumstances. The CoS has knowingly broken the rules. Stopping CoS, at least in part, from subverting the proven effective process, is not just Wikipedia's right but their obligation. Most users operate on the assumption that Wikipedia's content is factual, provable and unbiased. Their process has been shown to be effective, on the whole, thus so as not to disappoint their user's expectations, they are applying said process.
Wikipedia represents "the knowledge of the world." Unless and until they manage to "clear the planet," the world is bigger than Scientology. What they're doing is interfering with the rest of mankind documenting the current state of their knowledge. If CoS wants documentation of their own view of things, then they're welcome to set it down in a less global venue.
The fact that CoS willingly, knowingly and repeatedly break the rules must make the rest of us question their ethics. In fact, Scientology ethics do perceive Scientology to be above the laws of the rest of the world, based on the notion that the CoS is more capable of making informed decisions on behalf of the rest of humanity. It is precisely because of this self-righteousness, which extends logically to demand the overthrowal and replacement of currently acting governments, that the CoS has been declared illegal/unconstitutional in a number of enlightened countries, of which the USA is unfortunately not one.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Yes, it is a fake. If you follow the "scientology" links at the left side of the article, you even will get rickrolled :-)
But I guess it's not too far from what a REAL article by Miscavige would be like...
And their members can, in fact, edit Wikipedia from other locations. But this wasn't "members" editing. This was the cult's own staff doing a planned campaign to distort and eliminate the postings of others.
Remember, few "members" are permitted to deal with skeptical outsiders. That's a task reserved for the "Office of Special Affairs", their group that took on dealing with reporters and former members, after the "Guardian's Office" had its leadership convicted of planting bomb threats to discredit the author Susan Meister and convicted of a large array of other crimes. Look it up: this is _precisely_ the material that these astro-turfing censors wanted to eliminate from Wikipedia. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Affairs, it's fascinating what this cult has done historically to harass writers and former members.
Because they are punishing those who abused it. They have done nothing to prevent anyone from editing while at home. They have simply blocked those IPs that are owned by the CoS as an organization. IPs that are used by the CoS in an organized internet whitewashing scheme. It's not possible to just get the IPs of the abusers, since they will simply grab a different IP owned by the CoS and go right back to 'work' making propaganda edits. (the CoS has people who are paid to do this sort of thing.)
GENERATION 667: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation
I am simply saying that if these people got off their lazy a$$e$ and worked, our economy/life would be better without these corner preachers.
It might be better right now, but it will be so much worse when Lord Xenu's starship comes out from behind Jupiter, and he finds his church has been subverted, messengers silenced, and his wrath rains down upon us.... :)
Actually, Xenu is the bad guy. ^_^
Catholicism has a fairly prominent one. You might have heard of him.
Just so you know i'm not trolling, the Institute for Works of Religion is run by a banking CEO.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
cross the CoS, you get reamed. amongst their successful takedown targets: the IRS. yes, the IRS. read all about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_snow_white
see the part where they break into IRS offices? i wonder how many times this section has been deleted by CoS griefers
this is a good article:
http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/487758
if these assholes have no bringing the god damn IRS to heal, what the hell do you think they are going to do about wikipedia? we all should worry, these CoS trolls are committed, and the splash damage could seriously bring wikipedia's integrity into question if the CoS wins any sort of battle with wikipedia
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hubbard apparently had close ties with members of the OTO in California and Hubbard was supposedly quite fond of one of Crowley's early publications which later became 'Magick in Theory and Practice'. Crowley believed in what he was doing in a time when the occult was quite popular. Hubbard was always a charlatan. There's tons of information on wikipedia now.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
LARSON (voice of): The old management was discharged, the new management was put in its place. And its motto was, "We make no deals with anybody. We're tough, we're ruthless, no deals".
LARSON (on camera): It was about 15 of us. We went out and rented three limos, drove up to an organization in San Francisco and did a practice (snaps fingers) beat-'em-up kind of meeting, you know. We took the CDB Org--the commanding officer of that org, organization. He got thrown into the filing cabinets, he was sec-checked on the meter and, um, you--that's where you, what, you have to tell the truth. And there's a whole row of people around the guy, right? And he's sitting there hanging onto the cans and--this is nothing to do with religion any more, right? This is, "Where's the money, Jack? I want the money! Where did you put the money?" And he said, "I, you--I don't know! I don't have the money." David Miscavige comes up, grabs him by the tie (makes punching motion with his right arm) and starts bashing him into the filing cabinet. And he's thrown out in the street; his tie is ripped off. Um, this is just a warm-up kind of bash.
It's from a BBC documentary made in 1987 called Scientology - The Road to Total Freedom. The part of the documentary containing the quote above can be seen here, if you don't want to watch the whole thing (which you should, if this interests you, as it's incredibly eye-opening).
The Church, which is located only meters from Ballo's dormitory, states that the results had shown Ballo was "depressed, irresponsible, hyper-critical and lacking in harmony."
Family blames Scientology for daughter's death
Apparently she suffered from periods of depressions; the critical and negative response she received from CoS pushed her a bit too far. She was twenty years old.
This particular case combined with other reports have caused the Norwegian Government to take a stern look at the practices of CoS; and try to evaluate if their practices comply with the law.
The Long Now Foundation
Please us smaller paragraphs. I honestly couldn't get past the first few lines as it all started to blur together. You wrote a lot so I hope I'm correct in assuming you'd like people to read it. Please, in the future, make such posts easier to read.
Maybe there's an L. Ron Hubbard cockroach... that's a fitting tribute.
Actually, it should be clams.
"Wouldn't being "depressed" probably be a legitimate diagnosis of someone who does *anything* and goes and kills themselves two hours later?"
Yes, and she had that diagnosis already. What the CoS told her was far more than "you're depressed". They use so-called "hard-sell" techniques, which they practice extensively. "I look at these stats, and I see death. Only death." Imagine how it feels to hear that if you're depressed, and think the person telling you is a legitimate scientific authority. They are pretty good at presenting that image, you know. In all likelihood, Kaja was told that she was a human wreck, a truly hopeless case, and the only thing that could have a slight chance of saving her was [the scientology intro course they were selling that week].
"If you leave this room after seeing this film and walk out and never mention scientology again you are perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid, but you can do it. You could also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out. That is your choice." If that's what they tell healthy people (and they do, it's the final punchline for a common intro video), what do you think they say to someone who is plainly having real troubles?
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.