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Scientology Charged With Slavery, Human Trafficking
eldavojohn writes "A formal complaint was filed in California (caged PDF) last week by John Lindstein naming David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology International as defendants. Lindstein claims that for sixteen years (from age 8) he was forced to work as a slave at Gold Base, a secret CoS site run by Golden Era Productions with 'razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts, and three roll calls each day.' The pay was $50 a week. The allegations include 'Violations of wage and hour laws as well as unfair/illegal business practices actionable under California B&P 17200 Et. Seq.' and a complaint under the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, which abolished slavery. Members of the group Anonymous praised the summons."
Slavery actually connotes a position of involuntary servitude rather than one where payment is withheld. That is, it is the lack of freedom that is the main attribute of slavery, not the lack of compensation.
Scientology has become relevant to Slashdot and its readership ever since CoS removed content from Slashdot under DMCA. It's quote obviously News for Nerds now, and, noting the DMCA reference (and the fact that it's common CoS practice, not a single isolated case), definitely related to Your Rights Online. If it's still not clear, try posting OT-III materials in a /. comments and see how that goes.
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"If you want to control your child, simply break him into complete apathy and he'll be as obedient as any hypnotized half-wit. If you want to know how to control him, get a book on dog training, name the child Rex and teach him first to "fetch" and then to "sit up" and then to bark for his food. You can train a child that way. Sure you can. But it's your hard luck if he turns out to be a blood-letter. Only don't be half-hearted about it. Simply TRAIN him. "Speak, Roger!" "Lie down!" "Roll over!" Of course, you'll have a hard time of it. This - a slight oversight - is a human being. You'd better charge right in and do what you can to break him into apathy quickly. A club is best. Tying him in a closet without food for a few days is fairly successful. The best recommended tactic, however, is simply to use a straight jacket and muffs on him until he is docile and imbecilic. I'm warning you that it's going to be tough; it will be tough because Man became king of the beasts only because he couldn't as a species be licked. He doesn't easily go into an obedient apathy like dogs do. Men own dogs because men are self-determined and dogs aren't. --Official church documents
I got nothing better going on.
In the words of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 'THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE!!'
As quoted from L. Ron Hubbard:
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.
When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.
One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck.
And what are they even having them do in these camps, build the theta monitors?
From the Infinite Complacency Link:
At 12, he was “deemed finished with schooling” and Golden Era Productions, an unincorporated division of Church of Scientology International (CSI) hired him as a messenger and errand boy.
But in 1997, at the age of 15, he was demoted to the post of dishwasher. “He worked 16-hour days cleaning pots, pans and the dining facilities,” says the lawsuit.
And soon afterwards, he was assigned to do construction at the base near Hemet, California.
So the answer to your question is messenger, dish washer then construction worker. I mean, why use all the money you take from your followers to hire people to do this work when you can force the followers to do it for less or even free? L Ron Hubbard's Get Rich Quick Scam is yet another valid title for Scientology.
My work here is dung.
I live near this facility (map/image) and it looks more like a gated-resort community than anything. I haven't seen any razor wire, but there are high fences and access is controlled through a gate, and there are cameras on the road and on the fence. For the interested, there is a wiki page that strikes me as being pretty accurate and NPOV.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Was this a surprise to anyone?
As the submitter, yeah I have to admit it kind of was. This is a really unique opportunity for a case against CoS because normally the cases come from outsiders.
Lindstein was eight years old and says he was forced to work for 16 years. He was removed from school at age 12. Now, if you were removed from school at age 12, you probably aren't very well suited for a high paying job. So you have someone who's lost much of their youth to Scientology and has the motivation to see this suit through to the end.
You see, when you sue or slander Scientology, you might not realize what you're getting yourself into. People end up doing jail for posting verbal attacks on Scientology online. To quote the late L. Ron Hubbard on his policy:
This is the correct procedure: Spot who is attacking us. Start investigating them promptly for felonies or worse using our own professionals, not outside agencies. Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them. Start feeding lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press. Don't ever tamely submit to an investigation of us. Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way. * "Attacks on Scientology" (25 February 1966)
That's what you're dealing with. That's what Lindstein has in his future. He probably knows it, his lawyer probably knows it. But he will soon be subjected to character assassination, harassment of just barely legal amounts, indirect threats and the same for any family he may have.
So yeah, I'm a pleasantly surprised that such an opportune individual has stepped forward to speak and let us know what Scientology is. Because in so many other cases, the individual has been silenced one way or another. And scientology has refined it's processes to force its members quiet and they have the resources and legal representation to make magic happen in the courts.
I hope Lindstein is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I wish him the best of luck in the courtroom and for justice to be brought against those who forced him into labor and stripped him of his right to knowledge.
My work here is dung.
"I'm not fan of scientology, or any cult really - but a mainstream organization with illegal work camps? I just never expected that, at all. You'd think the lid would have come off something that extreme some time ago."
It has, if you were paying attention.
CoS's 'Rehabilitation Project Force' labour camps and other extreme 'Ethics' measures have been common knowledge since the 1990s - just check the extensive files on Operation Clambake - http://xenu.net/ .
However, CoS tends to sue massively and engage in lots of dirty tricks whenever the mainstream media cover them at all negatively, which is why you may not have heard about this stuff if you don't get your news from the Net.
They tried to censor Usenet back in the early 90s. It didn't work so well for them. Anonymous is just the latest round in a long battle of CoS Versus The Internet.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Its not like no-one knew about Scientology work camps - some german documentary team went out to go visit it and got stopped by a bunch of armed men (this was in the early 90's) - wish I could remember the title.
Missing in Happy Valley
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2742505831051424517