First of a three part series on scientology in the St. Petersburg Times

[ThePepsiSyndrome]

http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1012148.ece


Scientology: The Truth Rundown, Part 1 of 3 in a special report on the Church of Scientology

By Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, Times Staff Writers
Posted: Jun 21, 2009 01:06 AM

Part ONE of THREE

The leader of the Church of Scientology strode into the room with a boom box and an announcement: Time for a game of musical chairs.

David Miscavige had kept more than 30 members of his church's executive staff cooped up for weeks in a small office building outside Los Angeles, not letting them leave except to grab a shower. They slept on the floor, their food carted in.

Their assignment was to develop strategic plans for the church. But the leader trashed their every idea and berated them as incompetents and enemies, of him and the church.

Prove your devotion, Miscavige told them, by winning at musical chairs. Everyone else — losers, all of you — will be banished to Scientology outposts around the world. If families are split up, too bad.

To the music of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody they played through the night, parading around a conference room in their Navy-style uniforms, grown men and women wrestling over chairs.

The next evening, early in 2004, Miscavige gathered the group and out of nowhere slapped a manager named Tom De Vocht, threw him to the ground and delivered more blows. De Vocht took the beating and the humiliation in silence — the way other executives always took the leader's attacks.

This account comes from executives who for decades were key figures in Scientology's powerful inner circle. Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder, the highest-ranking executives to leave the church, are speaking out for the first time.

Two other former executives who defected also agreed to interviews with the St. Petersburg Times: De Vocht, who for years oversaw the church's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, and Amy Scobee, who helped create Scientology's celebrity network, which caters to the likes of John Travolta and Tom Cruise.

One by one, the four defectors walked away from the only life they knew. That Rathbun and Rinder are speaking out is a stunning reversal because they were among Miscavige's closest associates, Haldeman and Ehrlichman to his Nixon.




Much more at link.

Reporters are getting less and less scared now to look into the dark heart of scientology. I wonder what has changed.

[Duck]

As much as 4chan is annoying, I think the Anonymous battle and their protests have really boosted attention to the evils of Scientology.

[ThePepsiSyndrome]

Here's part two> http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1012234.ece
Part three> http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1012575.ece

And moar here > http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1012324.ece

Even moar here > http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1012520.ece#comments

The best > http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1012832.ece

A Times Editorial
The abuse behind Scientology's facade

In Print: Wednesday, June 24, 2009

n recent years the Church of Scientology worked hard to present a kinder, gentler image to the public, claiming it had cast aside the criminal activities, dirty tricks and abusive behavior of the past that brought it widespread condemnation and sent some of its former leaders to prison. But a St. Petersburg Times special report this week revealed the reality behind the new facade: At its core, the Church of Scientology has not changed. It is an organization that uses intimidation and brutality to control its employees, places financial ambition above spiritual service to its members and stops at nothing to undermine its critics.

Times staff writers Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin interviewed former high-ranking officials of the Church of Scientology who have defected from the church. Their independent accounts, told for the first time, provide an unprecedented view of the secretive top tier of Scientology management and the bullying leadership style of David Miscavige, a high school dropout who muscled his way to the top of the international organization after the death of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in 1986. Among the disturbing accounts told by Miscavige's former top aides:

• Miscavige beat and incessantly criticized top executives to subjugate them. Those executives in turn used that style of intimidation on other church employees, creating a management culture of physical violence and humiliation.

• Church officials lied and covered up their mistreatment of Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist who was detained in a guarded room at church facilities in Clearwater after suffering a mental breakdown. She died after 17 days in the "care" of church staffers, including secretaries, security guards and an unlicensed doctor. One of the defectors, Marty Rathbun, now acknowledges that as police investigators moved in, he destroyed incriminating documents containing details of McPherson's last days.

• Scientologists are punished for infractions and forced to write detailed confessions, sometimes about trumped-up allegations, which are held by the church in so-called "ethics files." They expect these written confessionals to remain confidential, but the church released the defectors' files to the Times, apparently caring less about maintaining confidentiality than about undermining the credibility of their detractors.

• The church, which needs vast sums of money to finance its worldwide growth, charges parishioners hundreds of dollars an hour for counseling sessions called "auditing," more than $13,000 for auditing training, and has repackaged old Scientology texts for resale to members.

The Times articles also provided new details about some church history — for example, the church's all-out effort to win a tax exemption granted to religious organizations from the Internal Revenue Service. The church overwhelmed the federal agency with thousands of lawsuits, raising suspicions that the exemption finally was granted in 1993 because of relentless intimidation and pressure rather than an interpretation of the tax code. The exemption has cost government at all levels untold millions in lost tax revenue. The IRS isn't likely to reconsider the tax exemption, but it should.

The church denies much of the information provided to the Times by the defectors. To respond by calling these longtime top officials liars, opening their confidential files and producing their former spouses to denounce them reflects Scientology's long-standing strategy to deny and attack when its actions are questioned.

For years, church leaders have claimed that modern Scientology is law-abiding, open to everyone and eager to build bridges in the community. International celebrities and local politicians have bought into the story of change, joining church officials for their galas and community events at Scientology's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater as if all were well. The Times series, many other media reports and criminal investigations of Scientology that are under way in several foreign countries tell a different story. There is a cancer at the core of Scientology, and that has not changed.

[Skip]

As much as 4chan is annoying, I think the Anonymous battle and their protests have really boosted attention to the evils of Scientology.I was happy to see Anonymous put up a board for Iran, http://iran.whyweprotest.org, Anonymous Iran. Good luck with that peeps!

[BlackBillBlake]

To the music of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody


The only thing more dismal and sad I can imagine is if it had been a queen tribute band.......