Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology

eldavojohn writes "It's a lengthy read, but Lawrence Wright at The New Yorker has released a 26 page expose on Scientology. In a world where such innocuous sounding words as 'squirrels,' 'security-checked,' 'disconnection,' 'contra-survival,' 'suppressive persons,' 'clear' and 'open season' carry very serious and heavy baggage, director Paul Haggis has exited after thirty four years of membership and massive funding. Now he speaks at length of Scientology's controversies. From how celebrities were recruited with a 10% commission by a worker at Beverly Hills Playhouse to the current investigation by the FBI of physical abuse and human trafficking, Wright draws surrounding histories and accounts of the Church including Anonymous' crusade. The length of this article reflects the unusually large number of individuals (12 cases of physical abuse) cited as testimony of Scientology Leader David Miscavige's inurement and physical violence. The case remains open as the FBI collects data and testimony — especially in relation to Sea Org. Most disturbing are the disappearances of people that the New Yorker piece enumerates. The piece concludes with the author's interaction with the Church that results in several conflicting foundational statements from its stance on homosexuality (Haggis' original reason for publicly leaving it) to almost all details of L. Ron Hubbard's naval service and discharge. The article ends with Haggis' quote: 'I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don't know why I couldn't.' You can find summaries of the lengthy article and its suspected results along with corresponding reports listing politicians involved with the Church. Copyrighted work, leaked government documents, PS3 encryption keys and everything else has been posted on Slashdot but only the Church of Scientology has forced comments out of existence."

Comments

Re:Actually, the New Yorker article was quite tame

[Enderandrew]

It doesn't behoove you to link Haggis and Assange.

There are public records of mailing crypto mailing lists where you can see Assange act like an asshat. His former colleauge from Wikileaks wrote a book saying that Assange is an asshat and theatened to kill him at one point. And Sweden doesn't just make up fake warrants just because we ask.

Heck, Amnesty International ripped Assange for putting innocent civilians in harms way when he refused to redact names, and causing civilian volunteers to suffer death threats. He didn't apologize. He said if they wanted names protected, he wanted $200,000. If Assange were innocent, then it wouldn't hurt him to show up in Sweden and dispute the charges rather than run from multiple warrants. His lawyer says showing up in Sweden will get him sent to Gitmo, but Sweden would never do that in a million years.

In drawing a comparison that any attempt to discreit Haggis would be on par with Assange, you are in turn suggesting it might be valid.