From: gorilla@elaine.drink.com (Alan Barclay)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: was fuck the word "clam"-now let's have a meaningful relationship with the word clam
Date: 2 Aug 1998 04:05:17 GMT
Message-ID: <902030710.823676@elaine.drink.com>
In article <35BE3CC9.7B52555@home.com>, claire swazey <swazey@home.com> wrote:
j-p.s wrote:> Initially, war was never declared by the critics. It was the unnecessarily
> over-the-top reaction to mere criticism, to quoting articles critically,
> that started Scientology trying to destroy its critics.I know that is your perspective, but it just isn't how it looks to me.
Claire, let me tell you how I got into this game.
I was administrating a news system, and as part of that, I read various groups in news.*, one day, I woke up and there was a lot of talk about this strange rmgroup that a crazy lawyer had posted. A rmgroup is a special message, which destroys an entire newsgroup. For existing groups, it's normally used only when renaming groups.
So I checked out the rmgroup and took a look at it. This crazy lawyer was claiming that 'scientology' was a trademark, and that it was used for trade secret violations.
That's funny, I thought, I'd barely heard of Scientology, but I thought it was some sort of weird religion. Why does a religion have trademarks and trade secrets. So I joined ars, and read some of the messages.
Within a few weeks, it became obvious that Scientology was not just a weird religion, they invaded Dennis's home, and started the Whyte legal cases, cancelled hundreds of messages, most of which contained only fair use of their sacred copyrighted scriptures, and from my reading both in the group and elsewhere, it was obvious that Scientology is a thoroughly unpleasant organization. It seemed, and seems, amazing that an organization claiming to be a modern western charitable and religious organization would forge bomb threats and try and get a woman to commit suicide for writing a book. It seemed, and seems, amazing that a church would put a sign in its window saying it takes credit cards, it seemed, and seems, amazing that someone who was basically an uneducated loudmouth could make so much money with so much rubbish.
It wasn't long before I became an active critic, and now apparently I'm such a threat to the church that they think that scientologists shouldn't even be able to read my name.
If Scientology hadn't reacted in such an over the top way, then I'm convinced that A.R.S would have remained the tiny little group that I joined, with a few ex-scientologists like Dennis & a few other interested parties like Rod Keller.
If you look at the media outside of the internet, much of the news stories in the last year or so have been attributable to A.R.S. in some way. The recent WSJ editorial, anything discussing Lisa McPherson, anything with Bob Minton as the subject, and of course any of the items discussing picketing, TROs, lawsuits & so on.
Now I've told you my story, I'll repeat it in as few words as possible:
I was not a critic until attracted to ARS by Helena Kobrin. I wouldn't have become a critic if I hadn't seen with my own eyes over the top reactions by scientology.
Now you have three options here Claire, you can either accept my story, you can call me a liar, or you can ignore me totally. Two will reflect on your credibility, and the respect I (currently) hold you in.