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This is the 1st in what we hope to make a regular feature here at The BlaBla Blog – BWF/GWF is our Bad Week For / Good Week For feature that will highlight someone, something or somewhere that stands out as having had either a noticeably Good or Bad Week.
This weeks’ Bad Week For winner is the Church of Scientology.
In the space of just four days, the COS has had the expansion of a drug rehabilitation centre in Tampa challenged by the locals; seen its’ senior hierarchy in France facing fraud and other charges that could relegate the church to the annals of French history; and had the “open” online encyclopaedia Wikipedia decide to stop the church making any changes to COS related pages in its database.
In the first case, local residents of Brooksville in Florida, USA have lodged a formal objection with their local planning authorities in an effort to prevent the church from expanding an already controversial drug rehab centre in their neighbourhood.
Local resident says: What really put her off was the night earlier this year when she heard yelling coming from the property along her back lot line.
“It was some guy,” she said. “It was like someone being tortured.”
Fager prepared to call 911, but then she heard other voices — women and men laughing. It made her uneasy, and she doesn’t use her back yard anymore. She’s not alone in her fear.
In August, the 3-acre site behind Fager’s home was bought by Toucan Partners LLC, a firm with ties to the Church of Scientology. The elderly residents who previously had inhabited the small assisted living facility were moved out.
More damaging to the church by a long shot: the French arm of the COS has had six of its’ senior members in court in Paris this week facing charges of fraud and (in some cases) selling pharmaceuticals without a license.
The six are being sued by Aude-Claire Malton, whose lawyers are arguing that the Scientologists preyed upon her at a time when she was “very psychologically fragile”, pressuring her into spending €21,000 (around R250,000) – her life savings – on products including “purification packs” and vitamins. They argue that she was the victim of a “deliberately manipulative system that exploits vulnerable people in order to make money”.
France’s Church of Scientology today went on trial on charges of organised fraud in a case that could lead to the nationwide dissolution of the controversial organisation. The Church’s “celebrity centre” spiritual association and its Scientology Freedom Space bookshop in Paris stand accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain.
Finally, the Wikipedia open online encyclopaedia’s Arbitration Board has unanimously decided to place bans on any edits being made to COS related pages by people using computers known to belong to the church.
The user-edited online resource has over 400-odd pages dedicated to the Church of Scientology, and to Scientologists in general. These pages have been the subject of regular changes by both pro- and anti-COS groups, and it seems that no-one can really agree on what information to keep and what to change.
An array of editors believed to have taken sides in a Scientology public-image war at Wikipedia have also been barred from tinkering with topics related to the church.
“Each side wishes the articles within this topic to reflect their point of view and have resorted to battlefield editing tactics,” senior Wikipedia editors said in arbitration committee findings backing the decision.
Cult? Religion? Crack-pot fad? Serious, worthy life-choice? We don’t know. What we do know is that…
the Church of Scientology
is the worthy recipient of our first ever
BlaBla Blog Bad Week For Award!
10 Comments
It gets better. Yesterday, a young woman from Anonymous was assaulted by a Scientologist outside the Washington DC "church."
She was punched, he ripped her mask off and hurled it. He was an adult male, and DCPD were called. They're kind of tired of the Scientology shenanigans, this is the second assault in two months. Anonymous has identified the attacker and are cooperating with detectives. Beating up girls. Yeah, the "most ethical people on the planet" prove once again that they aren't.
Not to mention all the lawsuits that name the cult's leader, David Miscavige, for human trafficking, assault and coerced abortions:
http://whoisdavidmiscavige.com
Not to mention, a famous Scientologist married to a ranking Scientologist dying in a very public, kinky fashion!
Not to mention another high ranking Scientologist "dropping the body" by dropping himself off a 200 ft high bridge in CA! He had financial troubles.. Whodathunkit?
David Carradine?
How about Steve Brackett? He was engaged to Nancy "Bart Simpson" Cartwright, who donated more than her annual salary to Scientology's war chest last year.
Brackett jumped off a bridge last Thursday around the Monterey area and was found by hikers. He was reportedly despondent over money problems. He was listed as donating a million bucks to the nasty, money-grubbing Scientology organization, and Scientologists are lying about his death.
They're saying he died in a car crash. Be that as it may, Barrett paid the big bucks for OT Superpowers he apparently didn't possess. He was not Cause over Gravity and, like Tom Cruise, can't fly.
Wasn't expecting such a rush of comments – thanks to all who have so far. We'll happily publish any counter-comments to these, but haven't received any yet…
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/15-media/bad-week-…
Thanks to the folk over at Why We Protest for the mention. Seems that our post went just as a number of other CoS related news stories – all of the bad – that were breaking, especially in the US.
Oh, just wait. Tom Newton will probably be in here soon with, ahem, "counter-comments."
The scilons must be too busy with trying to repair their shattered reputation. Not that it was ever good….