Nothing could match the revulsion we felt yesterday at the mass murder of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut.
But there was something else that made the bile rise in our throat yesterday.
Marty Rathbun, at his blog, pointed out that one of the anonymous attack web sites operated by the Church of Scientology has begun putting up slimy allegations about his mother’s mental health.
It turns out that it’s regurgitated material from a larger article that appeared in the church’s propaganda magazine, Freedom. (We won’t link to it. You can find it easily enough if you want to, or you can just assume that it’s the usual juvenile smear that Freedom specializes in.)
In a previous article, we showed the connections between the anonymous attack sites and the church. And now, Scientology leader David Miscavige appears to be dropping all pretense of holding the attack sites at arm’s length.
In fact, he appears to be outright panicking.
“It’s bizarre. It really shows a level of desperation,” Rathbun said to us in a telephone call last night.
We’ve noticed it not only at the attack site Rathbun referred to, but elsewhere — at the WhyWeProtest.net forum and at other sites — a rise in hamfisted activity from church operatives, most likely working for Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs, that has ramped up in recent weeks.
Marc Headley and Tiziano Lugli have both been dragged through the mud in recent days as a result. (Headley smartly made public a 2005 photo of himself passed out on Hollywood Boulevard before the church could. It was sent to him in an intimidation attempt. But Headley reasoned, correctly, that there was nothing shameful about getting shit-faced in Hollywood after finally extricating himself from the monastic life at Int Base.)
For a few weeks now, we’ve noticed evidence of frenetic activity by church operatives on the Internet. And now this new set of attacks on Rathbun at the “Vince Foster” site shows a level of recklessness that is palpable.
We can think of many reasons for why Miscavige is worried.
Just this morning, for example, we have a document to share with you that should be sending alarm bells at the RTC building.
It shows that Western World Insurance Company wants out of the Narconon Georgia lawsuit.
We’ve written several times about the Narconon Georgia mess. The 2008 death of a man named Patrick Desmond who had been a patient at the Scientology drug rehab center in the Atlanta area has given rise to a wrongful death lawsuit.
As a result of that lawsuit, the Desmond family attorney, Jeff Harris, has uncovered shocking examples of deceit and wrongdoing by the people who operate the Narconon facility.
Narconon Georgia’s executive director, Mary Rieser, has been caught telling so many lies and holding back so much information, the judge in the case sanctioned the defense so harshly, its answer to the original complaint won’t even be considered in court. It’s a kind of death penalty for the defense that should make things very difficult for Narconon to proceed.
And it turns out Narconon’s insurance company wants no part of the case, leaving Narconon vulnerable to having to pay the full amount if it loses millions in the case.
And that’s just one example of how things are beginning to crumble.
When disaster strikes, as it did in Connecticut yesterday, some churches react by throwing open their doors and offering sanctuary to people in need.
Scientology has another way of reacting to adversity.
It goes on the attack.
Expect to see the smears only increase in coming days.
UPDATE: Rathbun has now posted a new story at his blog, saying that the information about his mother going through shock treatment the church could only have learned through his confidential confessional auditing sessions when he was a church member. He said as much to us last night. That there is some truth to the allegations the church is spreading does not lessen the reprehensible way the church is using that material (in leering, slimy attacks), or that they are divulging that private information in the first place.
