Scientology critics
affirm that the Church of Scientology is behind the
sporgery attack against Usenet. However, when challenged, it
appears that they can't sustain these accusations with any
substantial proof. The URL referred to by critics to enlighten
newbies about the sporgeries doesn't bring forth anything else than
guilt by association, as well as indulges in the usual
mad distortions that sadly pass off as "criticism" in ARS.
Guilt by Association
If you want to have a look at what kind arguments is presented by
critics to support their assertions, take a look at the page critics
most often refer to when newbies enquire about the sporgeries : http://holysmoke.org/forgeries/forged.htm
This page, which is also used on Operation Clambake as an
illustration for the "attacks upon ARS" offers
no
proof whatsoever other than critics' litany of accusations
against the CoS (five items: remove group, rogue cancels, spamming,
dead agenting, and raids). The author then makes a huge leap and
accuses the CoS for the present sporgeries attack on the basis of
guilt
by association. Even worst, he introduces it as the 6th
example, as if it was a proven fact, which it isn't.
Thereafter, the author offers no facts to sustain his assertion
whatsoever,
even if he appears to do so by listing all the ISP
used by the sporgers. Such a list of course proves nothing in terms
of correlation.
The author has added a disclaimer at the top of the page, saying
that this page is nothing but his opinion, which is
a rather weak attempt at trying to escape the responsibility that
goes with the unsubstantiated accusations that he presents as
established facts. The six points are further quoted by other pages
without even that context.
Demonization
Apart from that, the page naturally engages in the usual
twisted
presentation of facts that is so typical of so-called
critics, but this isn't the subject of the present page, so I won't
comment on that. Except, though, for one particularly bit of
nastiness. For the rest, check the legal
precedent of the CoS vs the net and you may start to
view things a bit differently.
What I want to address here is this
particular statement taken
from the said page:
"Scientologers in ARS have been posting articles by
the tens of thousands that support neo-Nazi hatred; the supremacy
of "white, Aryan" people; denial that the Holocaust
occured; and messages that denounce "The Jew" as
perfidious and evil and the source of all the world's ills."
This is an outright lie. I have
never seen
Scientologists engage in any of this either in the newsgroup or in
real life. The author probably refers to the content of the
sporgeries that at the beginning used texts taken
from the white supremacists newsgroups. If this is the case, then
keep in mind that 1) the author has
still not proved that
Scientologists were behind it and 2) even if they were, it still
doesn't mean they support these ideas, but more that they would try
to attribute them to critics whose posts they are
forging. While this by itself is highly reprehensible, whoever did
it, there is nevertheless no basis for the above
statement whatsoever. It simply represents a further example on how
far so-called "critics" are ready to try and
demonize Scientologists without concern for what is actually true.
This web site is
NOT created by a Scientologist. It is created by a Scientology EX-MEMBER
who is critical of Scientology. However, this ex-member is ALSO critical
of the anti-Scientology movement. This does not make him a
Scientologist, nor a defender of Scientology.
