It's been quite a while since I posted here, so I suppose I should start by introducing myself. I am a retired merchant marine officer and I have lived in Clearwater off and on all my life. I became interested in Scientology when they slithered into town in the seventies. The more I read about and watched the CosS the more I realized what a truly evil organization it is. Before my retirement I observed their operations in a number of countries and got to know a few of them personally.
I have always said that I am not against scientology, but rather their human rights abuses and their unconstitutional tax status. If they were to stop these abuses and pay their taxes they would have as much right as any other religion to bullshit people out of their money. I have been following the work of anoymous with great interest and thought it was about time I added my observations, for whatever they are worth.
First, my hats off to the group for taking the high road in their opposition. The refusal to use violence, even when provoked is one of the reasons they are achieving the success they are. The obvious difference between their behaviour and the slanderous allegations of the CofS is becoming more obvious to the public in general and the media in particular. This is very important because most people, although they have a negative opinion of the CofS, actually know very little about it, or anoymous for that matter.
I think the concentration on making fun of the Xenu story is a mistake. The majority of scientologists have no idea what it's about and those that do have gone beyond the point of being reasoned with. It also weakens the message that human rights and taxes should be the main issues. People have the right to believe anything they want to as long as they don't hurt others. When you ridicule their belief system rather than their criminal actions you wast time on issues that have no solution under the law. The law, whether civil or criminal is the only weapon that can really effect change. Also, most Americans have a live and let live attitude and unless you show them there are
real criminal activities going on they feel people can believe
whatever they want to.
The greatest weakness of the CofS is their tax status and I don't believe that has been explained clearly. I have seen a number of tax the cult signs at protests but they miss the point. The basic non- profit status that is used by the CofS is not the point. There are hundreds of tax exempt scams in this country and to go after them would make a lot of main stream religions very nervous. The real point is the the CofS enjoys special breaks not given to other "religions", and obtained these breaks through fraud and black mail.
Most importantly, and I have yet to see this effectively displayed, the rest of us tax payers are supporting the CofS whether we want to or not. The CofS has a special deduction of 80% for their courses and this comes out of our pockets. Assume that OT-VIII costs $350,000.00
to complete and the OT in question is in the 30% bracket. That means that the OT has a deduction of $280,000.00. Given a 30% bracket that means that $84,000.00 of the cost comes out of the U.S. taxpayers pocket. This, along with the fact that whatever church the non-Scientology's belongs to does not get this break is the kind of thing that can really piss people off.
Tax law, labor law and human rights abuses are the best hope of getting the government involved and they are the only ones likely to prevail in court. Most civil law suites are payed off and swept under the rug.
I remember back in the seventies when the Clearwater City Commission held public hearings about the CofS and all their underhanded and illegal activities were coming to light most of us thought they were done. When operation snow white came to light and the leadership of the CofS were indicted by the government it seemed the end was near.
Hubbard merely threw his wife and the rest under the bus and things went on. This brings me to my final point, while some of the worst offenders like Miss Cabbage may end up going to jail and the cult may be forced to pay taxes and stop it's human rights abuses the chance
that scientology itself will cease to exist are about zero.
Well, I guess that's all for now. My dog Matrix and I have been spending quit a bit of time hanging out down town and I'll have some info and pictures to put up soon. My main interest of late is bringing out the fact that the cult is running a slave labor camp in downtown Clearwater and getting away with it. More on that later.
Uncle Bruce
