An Update on Operation Chanology

It has now been two months since I last wrote an article about Scientology, a period of time during which much has transpired. During that time, two protests have been launched, two more news shows have acknowledged the war on Scientology, and the cult itself has made countless attempts to shut us up.

To be honest, I must admit that as far as numbers go, the protests have been growing weaker since March 15, which saw over nine-thousand masked demonstrators all over the world; indeed the last protest had only 25-30 attendees in Sacramento, a place that once hosted seventy Anonymous protesters. However, postings on enturblation.org show more people joining the Anonymous cause as new people offer to print fliers or attend miniraids. The strange phenomenon is probably based on the existence of an Anonymous backbone of determined protesters and a fringe made up of people who may not care quite as much. Anonymous, which has often been a cyber-bully in the past, was never meant to be a very serious group and within it many past actions have been "for the LULZ" (LULZ meaning laughs) as many anons have put it. For many anons Operation Chanology simply wasn't very fun after the first two demonstrations. In addition to this, the fourth protest took place near at about the same time as final exams and graduations, a difficult time for many of the protestors still in either college or highschool while the fifth protest was just plain hot.

The growth of Anonymous' core protesters has been accompanied by an increase in news coverage. This began in April, when ABC's Nightline interviewed Jenna Miscavige Hill and Astra Woodcraft, two of the three women who founded exscientologykids.com. During this show Nightline not only Jenna and Astra, but also Anonymous and the threat the internet poses to Scientology. Jenna, a neice of Scientology's current leader, described her childhood in the cult and theperiod of her life during which she became dissenchanted with Scientology. Astra, a former member of the Sea Org, explained why she left and answered questions about the nature of Scientology. The CoS refused to send a spokesman but did issue a statement which basically said everything Jenna told Nightline was a lie.

On the seventh of May, CNN ran an equally damaging story on Scientology. The story was only about ten minutes long and very little time was given to the demonstrators CNN interviewed but that changed little when Tommy Davis, a spokesman for the CoS was interviewed. John Roberts had spent whatever time he had to prepare familiarizing himself quite well with the basic criticisms of Scientology was well prepared for the interview. When Tommy started out by discussing the hate crimes of Anonymous against Scientology and other charges, Roberts stopped him to point out that the FBI has investigated the issues he mentioned and had not found any reason to convict anonymous of anything. Later, Roberts asked him about disconnection, the practice of evering all ties to a person critical of Scientology, and the origin story of Scientology. Tommy said that disconnection, the story of Xenu, and the secrecy surrounding Scientology's beliefs were all lies.

John Roberts did not challenge Tommy too much when it came to what he said about Scientology and its critics--all of which could have been refuted by just about any critic--but he kept the spokesman in an uncomfortable light. In fact, Roberts didn't even have to catch Tommy lying because his lies were so transparent anyway; in less than an hour of surfing the internet, one could find clips from vatious news shows and documentaries describing everything that Tommy said was a lie. In addition, Tommy's claim that most of these accusations came from people who "thought" they knew what Scientology is spreading rumors online falls apart completely when confronted by the reality that most earlier critics were ex-Scientologists.

In addition to this news, a British court dropped all charges against a teenaged protester who had referred to Scientology as a cult on his sign. The police issued a court summons to the boy based on the idea that he had perpetrated a hate crime but the court decided that the term was not offensive or hateful. This news was accompanied by another British legal issue when the director of the Plymouth Scientology division stole signs--some of which had been laminated--from a group of demonstrators out on a miniraid. The police told her she had to return the signs after being contacted by the demonstrators and she promptly complied.

The next protest will be on July 12 and has been dubbed Spy vs Sci. However, more important is what will follow; on July 19, Anonymous will hold a mass demonstration in front of the White House. This event will be the largest protest in a single area in the history of Anonymous and if anything is going to get the attention of the mass media, this certainly will. The event is advertised as the "Over 9000 Man March" but it is unlikely to reach those numbers. Nonetheless, I would assume there will be at least one-thousand considering the fact that most people in Anonymous are in college.

In closing, I leave you with these words of parting: hail Xenu!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpn9noAqfLU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTxfHz6kEMk