Scientology: The Truth Rundown

[charlie]

Looks like Tampa/St Pete have had their fill of Hubbard's miscreants. A special 3-day report from the Times begins today:

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.

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project

[katanalori]

1. Send to Greta Van Suck Up and John Coale -

Oh, nevermind - they are "clear" and will not suffer. And they think they can recruit Palin into their cult?
Dominionist Christianity and Scientology - strange bedfellows.
http://nailinpalinnow.blogspot.com/2009/04/palins-coale-keeps-scientologys.html

[XemaSab]

2. Every time I think I have heard it all with regards to Scientology

something even more bizarre comes along.

Musical chairs? :wtf:

[Why Syzygy]

3. I hope they have body guards,

food tasters and drivers.

[sakabatou]

4. I sense lawsuits comming soon

[EvolveOrConvolve]

5. Seriously, do the Scientologists do any good in the world?

I'm an atheist, and I tend to bitch about most religions, but in most I can see something positive coming from their work even if I think their beliefs are crazy. But, I haven't seen anything positive from this group. Where are the soup kitchens, homeless shelters or other acts of good deed from the scientologists? I don't see any, and even a Google search of "Scientology philanthropy" returns nothing to show that they do damn bit of good in the world.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=scientology+philanthropy&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=itFkAGfC3t0

I'm all for freedom of religion, but when a religion is defrauding members of their dollars and is virtually indistinguishable from a ponzi scheme, it ceases to be a religion and becomes organized crime. And as the story in the OP illustrates, the violence that permeates organized crime is also a part of scientology. Why aren't they prosecuted?