Freaks vs. Geeks

"Hello, leaders of Scientology. We are Anonymous. Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation, your suppression of dissent, your litigious nature: all these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who have come to trust you as leaders has been made clear to us. anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed. We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us." A Message to Scientology January 21, 2008.

And thus war was declared.

Usually I would steer clear of a religion blog, but folks, if you haven't heard this story, open your ears and listen to the tales, as I have heard it so far. I come to this sordid opus of hatred and deviance courtesy of two sources. First, my old roommate, a card carrying Atheist, informed me of this months ago, but I was blind to the relevance, certainly to the magnitude. Second, Maxim magazine, which I hope will not mind that I have used their intriguing title. What this is about is a cult and a group of people that have come together without ever knowing each other.

According to the Maxim article, Anonymous was started on a website message board. It was in regards to a video of Tom Cruise ranting and raving like a mad man about the virtues of his so-called religion, some would call it a cult, though some would call Judism a cult. Since I adore Judi I can't see why she shouldn't have a cult, but that's a different blog. In this video, which was taken off of You Tube by the litigation team of the Scientologists, Cruise, a vocal spokesman, made statements like this: "Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it's not like anyone else. As you drive past, you know you have to do something about it because you know you're the only one that can really help." Yeah, not those police or paramedics. They don't know shit. Please, someone get me an overpaid actor. But the little thespian didn't stop there. No, he added: "We are the authorities on the mind... We are the way to happiness." Um, these people are the authorities of the mind? The folks that don't believe in doctors or therapy or pills. No pills! For the love of Jeebus, they must be stopped. Who, who will stop this hideously ignorant mob from taking over the world.

The Cyber junkies.

On 4chan.org the keyboard clickers went crazy. These people have actually done some good work in identifying pedophiles in chat rooms or when they en mass attacked the website of a white supremacist leader. That's all well intended group mentality, the problem is that the mob has no Capo di tutti Capi, no boss of bosses, no leadership. That has in turn had them bomb MySpace with gay porn spam and call in real bomb threats to the Super Bowl. That's not so good. And the Scientologists now have a leg to stand on by calling them "terrorists". It started out with a web site attack, flooding the Scientology website with phantom users and slowing it to a crawl. Black faxes, solid black sheets of paper, were faxed in large numbers to Scientology fax machines, draining them of ink. Pizzas were send by the hundreds. Pranks mostly, certainly nothing worthy of mention in the "legitimate" news.

On March 15th over 600 protesters donning black suits and Guy Fawkes, V for Vendetta style masks closed in on the Celebrity Center in Los Angeles. They held signs that read "Tax The Cult" and "Honk if you think Scientology is a Cult". Peaceful, though a gun was allegedly sighted in the hands of a Scientologist who when asked why he would brandish a gun at a peaceful demonstration, said, "I'm not here for a peaceful protest, friend". Tensions were sky rocketing. And it's not over yet, not by a long shot. Anonymous is gearing up for more demonstrations in it's bid to destroy the Scientologists. More to come...

But I have this to say. Scientology, whether I believe it to be complete crap or not, is a religion protected by the Constitution of the United States of America. We all have the right to choose which God we worship, be is Jesus, God, Allah, Ganesha, Xenu or Jeebus. The last group that got any press for trying to destroy another religion were the Nazis. I can make that comparison, because whether Scientology is a cult or not, it's labeled a religion, if people are so desperate for answers that they believe the nonsense on which Scientology was predicated, then so be it. It's their right to be suckered in. And as much as I would exhaust every breath in my lungs to call them sheep headed for the slaughter, I respect their right to be slaughtered. Anonymous doesn't. Anonymous is cowardly. Anonymous has no agenda except to destroy a group of people with different ideals. That is a hate organization.

Thoughts? Comments?

Dixie Cup of Love: Hard to think about love when dealing with this, so I give it to The Human Race.