The Adventures of Tobasco da Gama

My bike is in the shop at the moment with a broken crank, waiting for the replacement part (it’s a one-piece crankset, which evidently needs to be special ordered) to come in, so for now I’m T bound again. I moved recently, and my new T commute isn’t as bad as the old one, but I still want my damned bike back.

Anyway, the point of bringing it up is that I found myself on the T this morning, which means I was surrounded by people reading the free Boston Metro daily newspaper. “What”, you, gentle reader, may wonder, “was today’s cover story?” Good question! Was it Iran? Certainly, there must have been enough over the weekend to provide a solid cover story. Protests, people dying, oppressive totalitarian regimes. Front page stuff.

But no. The cover story was MOTHERFUCKING JON AND KATE AND I HATE THAT I EVEN KNOW WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE AND I WISH THEY AND EVERYONE WHO GIVES HALF A SHIT ABOUT THEIR LIVES WOULD DIE IN A FUCKING FIRE.

So there was that.

Worse still, it was one of those irritating navel-gazing stories where the paper chides them for airing their relationship disputes in the media. NEWS FLASH, DIPSHITS: you are the media. Don’t pretend you’re some objective third party when you’re reporting on yourselves. This has been one of the most irritating things about our Broderian era of journalism. The media orobouros feeds forever on itself while complaining about its bland, unvaried diet. Well, guess what, if you took your head out of your ass (the media orobouros feeds from the rear end) for a minute and actually reported one something other than yourselves, maybe you’d have other things to cover. If the whole fucking Jon and Kate media blitz inanity really upsets you, then starve them. Stop reporting on them. This is in your power. But, of course, you don’t actually want to stop, do you?

No, you don’t. You love that vapid bullshit because it’s easy. And that’s fine, because people obviously are willing to read it. Just strop pretending to hate it, stop pretending the coverage is beneath you, stop pretending you’re a legitimate news organisation.

But then they also carried, buried a few pages in, a genuinely quite good — if woefully short — article about Scientology’s President, David Miscavige, and his habit of beating the shit out of his employees.

So… Does that count for a stay of execution? Fuck no. Burn the worthless rag to the ground anyway. But save the guy who wrote that one article.

The Frame Problem has posted an extremely comprehensive overview of the Anonymous vs. Scientology conflict under the title CarnivUL of The fraudless: Exposing the Cult. It’s got full information on the origins of Anonymous up through the Operation Reconnect protest and legal threats from Scientology aimed at Anonymous protestors, including links to a lot of relevant videos on YouTube and elsewhere. If you want information on Anonymous, go there. I hope they continue the series as further protests occur and there are more developments in this important fight.

Speaking of which, this Saturday, May 10, will be Operation FairGameStop. Anonymous will once again be protesting, and this time the spotlight is turned on the Fair Game/SP policies of the cult. If you want to participate — and I strongly encourage you to do so — look up the local planning thread for your area on the Enturbulation forums. For Boston protestors, you can also check Non-Violent Uprising’s FairGameStop page.

In a final piece of Scientology-related news, Rebecca has announced the next speaker for Boston Skeptics in the Pub. The notice isn’t up on the site yet, but the speaker will be Patty Pieniadz, an ex-Scientologist formerly with the cult’s Narconon program for brainwashing drug addicts into the cult. The location has moved from Asgard, where the previous two lectures were held, to Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square. So, save May 26, because it should be a really interesting talk about what goes on inside the Church of Scientology.

The Boston Herald posted an article on Saturday’s Anonymous vs. Scientology protests. It was brief, but fairly balanced. (BostonNOW and Radar Online both have better coverage.) However, the Boston Herald article repeats a claim by the Church of Scientology that is refuted by their own slide show. The quote:

The site [Anonymous-Exposed] says “the church has not interacted with these ‘Anonymous’ individuals nor does it desire to,” which was evidenced yesterday by a police detail in front of the church.

Well, the police detail was there, but I have no idea what that’s supposed to prove. There were only one or two officers at the Beacon St. site for most of the duration of the protest. (A paddy wagon was also there early on, but left after about 30 minutes) However, as for not interacting with Anonymous, how do they explain this? Or the fact that other Scientologists were wandering through the crowd trying to get some of the Anonymous to take their masks off to receive a propaganda DVD? All of the Anonymous gave the actual Scientology office a wide berth, as required by Mass. law, but they left to walk among us.

For that matter, what about the lawsuit against Gregg?

Scientology seriously claims that they are not “interacting” with Anonymous? In what world does suing somebody not count as “interaction”?

I won’t even mention the allegations that Scientology is hiring private investigators to pose as some of the Anonymous in an attempt to gather information.

One could (and judging from my previous post about Gregg) conceivably come up with justifications for those actions. Certainly, if the Scientologists want to come out and talk to Anonymous, that’s fine. The lawsuit and the PIs are a bit low, but whatever. That’s what the protests are about, so nobody’s surprised that it happens. But to do those things and then claim that the Church is Scientology is not interacting with Anonymous is pure denial of reality. Pointless denial of reality, at that, because it isn’t as if ignoring ten thousand protesters with valid criticisms of an organisation gives one the moral high ground, as they no doubt imagine it does.

So I was cruising around Enturbulation and Non-Violent Uprising looking for more info on the local instance of Operation Reconnect, when I came across a case of Church of Scientology harassment of an Anonymous member.

Since Anonymous is set on doing everything within the bounds of the law, they have somebody at each site obtaining permits for the protests. That means at least once person has to reveal his identity and open himself to harassment by CoS. In the case of Boston, Gregg, the brave guy who sacrificed his Anonymity for the good of the cause has, in fact, been on the receiving end of legal harassment by CoS in the form of a stack of complaints filed against him. Most of them apparently aren’t sticking, but he did receive an actual summons for charges of trespass and harassment for flyering activities.

From everything I’ve read, this doesn’t actually mean anything yet. The summons is for a hearing to determine whether CoS has standing to actually take the case to court. It probably won’t get that far, but then that was never the point, was it? The point was to intimidate Gregg and through him anyone else who considers speaking out against CoS.

As with the hypocritical actions of the Expelled jokers, the attempts of the Church of Scientology to legally intimidate one of their critics goes a long way to prove the criticisms correct. You can bet the Church of England isn’t too happy about Richard Dawkins, but have they tried to sue him or press harassment charges against him? That’s simply not what legitimate organisations do. It is, however, exactly what charlatans and frauds do when people dare to expose their bullshit for what it is.

Even though I just got back from Hawaii, I couldn’t resist at least passing by Anonymous‘ protest of Scientology’s Boston office on L. Ron Hubbard’s birthday. Not being a member and not really following 4chan at all, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The main impression I had was that they were really well-organised and on-message for a bunch of random, anonymous internet people. There was a fair amount of meme-shouting, but the dominant chant was “TAX THE CULT”, and most of the signs reflected that theme and/or pointed people to xenu.net for more information.

The Anonymous were also being very mindful of non-protesters. Someone would always shout “Clear the sidewalk!” when pedestrians were coming, and they redirected some poor, lost drivers who tried to turn the wrong way onto Beacon Street. (Mainly by shouting “EPIC FAIL!” at them while waving them in the right direction.)

While I was there, I heard somebody doing a headcount, and he was up to 100 when he passed by me. The quick visual scan I did pretty much lined up with that.

While the protest was very much on-message for the most part, they used humour well to keep the energy going. E.g., “Anonymous Prime” showed up and there was naturally somebody there with a boombox to rickroll the protest. At one point, a FedEx van stopped at the light and somebody shouted, “Scientology uses UPS!”, prompting the FedEx driver to honk. Several people had signs asking people to honk in support of the protest; I hope somebody tried to count.

Anyway, I didn’t stay for long, and when I left there was no sign that the protest would be ending any time soon. So I hope one of The Anonymous will put up a more complete description of the events, as one did for the London event in February.

P.s.: Since I commented on police brutality at Florida protests last month, I should take a brief moment to commend the Boston PD for being fair and reasonable at the Anonymous protest. During the brief time I was there, the police only had about five or six officers on duty, and they were mostly just asking some of the overzealous Anonymous to stay out of the street. Nobody got arrested, beat up, or maced while I was there. I’ve been looking around for other news stories and blog posts and YouTube videos, but none of them I’ve seen so far mention any arrests. So thanks for not sucking, BPD.

P.p.s.: Apparently there were arrests in Atlanta. What I read is that they were arrested for protesting without a permit, after being told they didn’t need one. I wonder who told them that?