The Libs and the Scientologists — the film they’re happy for you to see
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New South Wales Liberal Party members are hosting Scientology propaganda screenings in Parliament House, but insist it’s the same invitation they would extend to any “community group” wishing to hold functions at Macquarie Street. Meanwhile, David Clarke, the hard-right heavy who survived a pre-selection challenge on Friday to retain his upper-house seat, is claiming he was unaware of the film’s link to the religious cult. But this is the second time he has promoted Scientology in parliament. On Thursday afternoon, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a global Scientology-backed organisation, will screen its film Making A Killing — “the untold story of psychotropic drugging” — at the parliamentary theatrette. Clarke made the booking.
The original booking form has Clarke — a member of the controversial Opus Dei group of Catholics — as sponsor of the event. Crikey understands on discovering the link to Scientology he withdrew his support. But that doesn’t trouble Liberal colleague Jonathan O’Dea, who is now listed as the sponsor of the screening. O’Dea told Crikey he was “happy to” make the booking in the same way he would host any other group. “We live in an open society where we have a freedom of speech and for a film which has been shown publicly in Queensland and Victoria to be shown in NSW I would have thought is…not an issue I have a lot of concern about,” he says. The film has been broadcast on community TV stations in both states. O’Dea has spoken of the dangers of prescribing ADHD drugs to children in parliament and was targeted by the CCHR once Clarke withdrew his support for the film screening. “I think that is an issue that deserves debate and attention in our community,” O’Dea says. O’Dea admits he has not seen the film. And he told Crikey, “I don’t endorse the organisation.” Clarke, at least, should know to do his research. In 2007, he spoke at a youth human rights forum at Parliament House sponsored by the Church of Scientology. Then, too, he pleaded ignorance, apparently unaware of the link. “I’m a practising Catholic,” he said. “There was no pushing as far as I could see of Scientology.” Clarke hasn’t responded to calls, though Greens MP Lee Rhiannon reckons it’s another example why the Liberals should have dumped him. As Crikey reported yesterday, Clarke comfortably saw off a challenge to unseat him. “One mistake maybe but doing this twice starts to look like a trend,” Rhiannon told Crikey. “David Clarke is either slapdash in vetting which organisations he hosts at Parliament House, or careless with the truth after being sprung sponsoring a Scientology event.” CCHR insists it is a separate organisation from the church, despite being founded by members and devoted to exposing the claimed evils of psychiatry. The NSW branch told Crikey the film deserves an audience and all parents should see it. |
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44 Comments
I eagerly await the libs sponsoring community groups wishing to extol the virtues of medicinal marijuana or joyously proclaim the freedom of atheism (or cat worship) on the basis that we live in an open society where we have a freedom of speech. Time to get busy you nutsy fringe-dwellers and ring your local lib MP.
Crikey! It is hard keeping up with you guys! How the heck do you explain your obsession with censoring any communication relating to Scientology, whether directly, remotely, or wildly tangentially?
Whatever you answer, it is blind prejudice, and in a society that purports to value freedom of expression, your column is as offensive as a call to book burning.
You criticize Mr. O’Dea for approving the airing of a film which he “admits” he hasn’t seen.
But have YOU seen the film? If not, why are you so opposed to it being shown?
Well done to Mr. Clarke for his original sponsorship, and congratulations to Mr. O’Dea for his integrity in supporting the issue.
Ms Rhiannon’s suggestion that it is a “mistake” to endorse freedom of speech is shocking (assuming you are not misrepresenting her position).
The dangers of prescription drug abuse are VERY real. This is a very important issue. And whether or not you agree, people have the right to hear all sides of an issue so they can make an informed decision. The Australian public does NOT need you as a censor to guide them as to what is appropriate information for them to hear.
Actually, I prefer Stephen Baxter writings, although I wasn’t too enamoured with his Time’s Tapestry series. And no, I’m not off-topic in this post.
By the way, over in the States another member of Anonymous just pleaded guilty in court!
http://www.prweb.com/releases/anonymous-member/pleads-guilty/prweb3639404.htm
god, imagine the horror of a Stephen Donaldson-based religion
Are you claiming, Maroubraman, that the public and health professionals aren’t aware of the dangers of drug abuse? How disingenuous.
As you well know, the purpose of this film is not to address drug abuse or the rampant corruption of the pharmaceutical industry, but to get people off effective psychiatric medication and into Scientology, where their lives and wallets can be sacrificed to e-meter shonkery and rich cult leaders.
However, as a Left-leaning Australian, I fully endorse the Liberal Party’s affiliation with Scientology. The only thing that could be better for the Left would be a Liberal health policy written by the Perth Group.
Let make a few quick changes and see how this reads:
“One mistake maybe but doing this twice starts to look like a trend,” Rhiannon told Crikey. “David Clarke is either slapdash in vetting which organisations he hosts at Parliament House, or careless with the truth after being sprung sponsoring an Islamic event.”
You’d expect to hear something like that from Pauline Hanson, maybe Bob Kater and at a stretch possibly Barnaby Joyce, but certainly not the leader of the NSW Greens. The question is why is the original version fine, but my hypothetical one not??
Scientologists are a bunch of very fruity nutcases, but freedom of religion means you can believe whatever stupid fairytale you want, not just the older more established fairytales, and certainly not just the ones that a government might choose to decide are legitimate.
If you want to restrict the dangerous and malicious activities of the Church of Scientology, then you’d have to do it within a framework that applied equally to any organisation, and that would no doubt start to restrict the the dangerous and malicious activities of other relgions. You can’t just go after Scientology, if we want to try and grow out of directing our lives via mythology, we’ve got to address all mythologies, not just the ones for whom we have video footage of the crazy founder.
god, imagine the horror of a Stephen Donaldson-based religion
The dermatologists and the mining industry would love it: a market religiously committed to white gold and leprosy.
So, Bogdanovist, are you aware of any pollies sponsoring Muslim events which are specifically intended to attack a cornerstone of modern civilisation?
Maroubraman, I can see there is why there may be a public outcry about this, as the CCHR is a Scientology front group that hides it’s Scientology affiliation (or puts it in the fine print) and poses as a secular organization whose sole purpose is to push an extremist anti-psychiatry/psychology agenda.
The CCHR literature exposes that 50% of psychiatrists rape their patients and regularly employ the use of ECT and lobotomy. They also claim psychiatrists were behind disasters and genocides such as 9/11 and the holocaust. When L Ron Hubbard first wrote ‘Dianetics’ and marketed it as form of psychotherapy, it was universally panned by the medical profession, so in retaliation Hubbard created the CCHR and personified psychiatry and psychology as the Scientology incarnation of the devil (Hubbard wrote that the “psychs” are responsible for implanting and imprisoning humans on earth millions of years ago). The CCHR’s goal as advocated by Hubbard is to “obliterate psychiatry” and replace it with Scientology practices.
What O’Dea is essentially doing is helping Scientology in its quest to eliminate the competition. I would think there would be a similar outcry if a racist extremist group espousing eugenics (posing as a legitimate community group) was allowed to have a conference in parliament house.
O’Dea has spoken of the dangers of prescribing ADHD drugs to children in parliament
This sounds most unethical.
Hang on a sec, people. I thought the whole issue was about this flick (dubious as its funders may be) being screened at Parliament House of all places. I couldn’t give less a shit if it were a propoganda device for Jews, Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists, or the Catholics themselves. But am I the only one to twig that the very presence of any religious material whatsoever in Parliament House runs contrary to our bedrock democratic principles for the division between church and state???
@Maroubraman
Time for you to climb back in the box you came in, the one marked ‘shill”
In response to Maroubraman:( Almahadin smeared himself with a mixture of petroleum jelly, nail clippings and pubic hairs donated by other members of the Anonymous hate group, ran into the New York Church just off Times Square and desecrated the Church, including causing damage to Scriptural materials)
I took the liberty of checking out exactly what these Anonymous guys do to get attention and I must say……weird. And some of you think the Scientologists are strange. My wife made a comment on the mental and personal integrity of these Anonymous morons. Cowards. They are not brave enough to show there faces. Pissweak cowards and scum. Man up you mindless dregs of society. Love to see some of you in The Cage with a MMA Pro, getting your head bitten off. Just, maybe not but it would be fun to see. I could apologise for this immature tirrade but………..naaaaaaaaaaa!
Typo in my last message. Should have been ‘their faces’, not ‘there faces’.
Hey Sancho and SBH…imagine a religion based on Harry Turtledove…actually it would fit very well with the conspiracy theorists!
That’s unfair, John. “Shill” implies that Maroubraman is cynically promoting Scientology for his own gain, while I have little doubt that he truly believes in the worth and legitimacy of Mohubbardism.
As The Onion’s satirical take - Fictionology - notes, “truly spiritual people don’t care about data, especially those seeking an escape from very real physical, mental, or emotional problems.”
Anyone with the insight and confidence to be a shill would be further up the Xenuist hierarchy than Maroubraman, who is reduced to pushing Scientology in the Crikey comments.
Hello Bogdanovist. I suspect we don’t have a lot in common, but I appreciate your recognition of my right to be a fruity nutcase.
For the record, my way-out beliefs essentially consist of the novel idea that life includes both a physical and a spiritual component.
Nevertheless, despite this fruity idea, as I have posted elsewhere I also have a background in the physical sciences, where I have many friends with much more acceptable, education-department-stamp-of-approval ideas.
Apparently, we live in an expanding universe where everything is accelerating away from everything else. And guess what? It all came from a Big Bang! Personally, I am really, really, happy that I was fortunate enough to “happen” on a planet where just the right chemicals bumped into each other so a DNA molecule could invent itself! Wow! How lucky is that?
By the way, I was wondering if anyone could explain gravity to me? I remember a little while ago, in High School actually, learing that the Earth and the Moon exert an invisible force upon each other. An invisible force! Can you imagine!
With everything being physical, and with a little Isaac Newton under your belt, inertia is not too difficult a concept to grasp. And billard balls bouncing off each other and transferring kinetic energy — pretty straight forward.
But how does one billard ball attract another?
Holy macaroni Batman, life can be so mystifying it almost makes you wish there was some medicine to cure all the things in life that are difficult to figure out or deal with!
Oh all this is just off topic. Just go watch the film.
By the way, speaking of what we do or don’t have in common: Do you have a sense of humor?
More importantly, do I?
Let the witch hunt begin. A scientologist behind every bush! Scientologists in the parliament! Scientologists all around.
Er… What exactly is this film about?
you’re right marubraman, that is nuty. And like global warming denialists you’ll continue to believe it despite the absence of one scintila of evidence. It’s called faith and its, by definition, irrational. No wonder you guys hate psychatrists. Still, no law against being a kook
Ooh, I had to google it but nice work Tomboy!
When Christians and Muslims argue against criticism of their religion, they actually discuss their beliefs, history and goals, but Scientologists, like Maroubraman above, only talk in vague generalities which reveal nothing. Why is that?
Hey, let’s get really controversial: Scientology, Landmark Forum, Hillsong…
Fundies say the darndest things you know. Thanks Marourbraman, I coudln’t have put it better myself:
“Life can be so mystifying it almost makes you wish there was some medicine to cure all the things in life that are difficult to figure out or deal with!”
My view on religion precisely. Help! Help! There are so many things in life I don’t understand or know how to answer. So if I wrap all of those things up into a single entity and call it ‘God’ (or Xenu, or whatever), then I can simply make this single thing I can’t understand answer all the other things. Then I only have one thing that I don’t understand, but fortunately there is this nice group of people who will tell me all about it (for a fee..).
My only complaint is the tax free status of all religious groups. They are businesses like any other and hould pay tax.
Hey Bogdanovist, no need to give in so easily. You were doing fine when you were presenting your own point of view. Now you have degenerated into the same technique used by the other three socks: If you can’t think of an honest response, misrepresent what I said and resort to ridicule.
It’s hard not to misrepresent someone who obfuscates and dodges reasonable questions. Why not tell us what you specifically believe as a Scientologist rather than hide behind weak statements of agnosticism?
You’re not doing your religion any favours here, because it looks like you’re either embarrassed about your beliefs or feel that there is very good reason to regard it as a dishonest and vindictive cult.
Any biting commentary from the other two socks?
Sancho the other thing Christians and Muslims don’t do as part of their mainstream practice is advise people that faith can heal their very real illness. No catholic dogmatician tells catholics that they should shun cancer treatment and rely on god’s infinite mercy. They certainly don’t say on a religious basis that western medicing is dangerous and bad for you. Scierntologists believe fundamentally and promote the idea that psychiatry is not just ineffective but dangerous, unprofessional and a scam.
Maroubraman, again with the insults. Doesn’t your religion teach tolerance and forgiveness?
Any biting commentary from the other two socks?
Stonewalling concedes the point. Maroubraman is unable to muster any argument in favour of his religion being trustworthy, honest or at all believable.
I’ll keep this thread bookmarked for future linkage. It’s a concise example of the way Scientologists approach debate and open discussion.
I have seen the light (or the dark, as the case may be) and the error in my wayz. Lead me to wisdom o enlightened socks.
Maroubraman is sane. his arguments are based on sound reasoning and logical progression. However, I would still like to see one of those Anonymous guys get his head bitten off in The Cage by a MMA Pro. Am I labouring the point?
Yes Lee, sanity presupposes some evidence upon which to base your beliefs and hubbards followers just have bad science fiction. Faith by its very defeinition rules out this approach. a more tautological and ironic name for a religion would be hard to come by than scientology. Also which anonymous group do you mean. the ones who attacked scientology or the ones who organised the ddos attack on parliament house sites? two different mobs.
and maroubraman again with the insults? tip top religion you have that lets you descend so easily
Lee, you clearly don’t understand how ridiculous you and Mabrouman (MM) appear to non-cultsists.
When you ask MM a plain and direct question, he responds with insults and judgements, but no answers. When you query his beliefs about Scientology, he offers meaningless, non-specific agnostic rubbish straight out of a generic self-help book. What use is that to anyone?
MM is a coward, Lee, so stand up for Scientology and tell us what you believe. What does Scientology stand for? What does it hope to achieve? Why should we take it seriously? What serious opposition can it offer to the vast array of evidence supporting the benefit of psychiatric drugs and treatment?
MM’s arguments are not “based on sound reasoning and logical progression”, and I challenge you to prove that they are.
The rest of your post is sadly juvenile. A Pride fighter ripping the heads off a dozen anonymous 4channers doesn’t make your religion any less fake, and what does it say about Scientology that you’d rather threaten violence than discuss your beliefs?
This thread has become an enduring example of the cowardly and intellectually feeble nature of Scientology. You are pathetic and weak.
Good troll Lee! I just drove past Sancho’s house and saw him kicking his longcat.
You’re dodging again Maroubraman.
If you want to give your cause any credibility you’ll have to answer some direct questions.
Hello Eponymonon: The little group of apprentice anarchists here already know everything, so there is little point in having an actual discussion is there?
Although this is the first post from you that I have read, you have done a pretty good job of encapsulating the essence of the posse: you the enlightened ones demand that I explain and justify my beliefs in pursuit of your seal of approval, which, of course, can only be attained by abandoning said beliefs and joining you at the altar of pointlessness.
However misguided, I do believe there are some intelligent people here. So perhaps someone can explain what point there might actually be in seeking some degree of credibility among you?
Ideas that challenge the status quo always face doubt and hostility. The ones that gain currency do so because the people who want them accepted engage, debate and explain, and never because their supporters lie, manipulate, avoid accountability or sue critics for defamation.
Scientology has a conspicuous history of underhanded, malign and abusive behaviour, a set of astoundingly silly core myths, and has now convinced a major Australian political party to endorse a film that attacks the entire basis of modern, successful, evidence based psychiatric care. The public is wary of Scientology for good reason.
You came to this thread to encourage people to watch the film, but attack, twist and evade when asked what your beliefs are relative to the religion that produced it. The reputation of Scientology is cause enough to boycott this film. What possible value could a movie have that serves the agenda of a brainwashing cult that believes mental illness is the product of ghosts created by an alien overlord and his fleet of DC-9s?
If there’s any reason to take Scientology seriously, you have the chance here to demonstrate it to a sceptical audience, but instead you avoid all discussion of the religion that supposedly underpins your life. What are we to make of that?
If you ask me about my beliefs or principles, I’ll explain to you why I hold them, why they’re good, and why you should adopt them. What I won’t do is dissemble, change topic, or troll people who are critical of my beliefs. If I did that, you’d be pretty sure that I secretly think my principles are ridiculous, harmful or both, which is precisely how you’re coming across, Maroubraman.
The point in gaining credibility with your critics is that you might change their minds, but so far your refusal to be honest or civil is doing the polar opposite.
I see nobody accepted my invitation for intelligent discussion.
Sancho, if I have succeeded in alienating you, the joke is that you think I lose.
Yeah, that’s the calibre of response I expected. For the sake of Australia I hope all Scientologists are as honest, sincere and engaging as Maroubraman. What a great ambassador for his religion.
Wow! Still no intelligent response after all this time!
Maroubraman - I’ve never quite understood what Scientologists believe, because I’ve never heard it from the horse’s mouth; only ever from those who are opposed to it. I would genuinely like someone who is a member to explain it to me, because of the secrecy surrounding it, I am unable to find out for myself. Well, not definitively, at least. Ex-members want to shout it from the rooftops, but the scientology organisation says they are liars.
So what is the truth? Every other religion has an “underpinning” text that is publicly available so people - both believers and non-believers - can can study it and enlighten themselves. Why is scientology different?
Here is your opportunity for you to set the record straight: ignore the abusive sceptics and just pitch it at agnostics like me.
Hello Chinda63. Can’t get past the wall of secrecy huh? That’s okay. I know what you mean. It can be a bit difficult to find a public library. Maybe you don’t have access to google?
What, me sarcastic?
Start by going to http://www.scientology.org/#/videos/
Find the “Beliefs and Practices” icon. Then follow that. “The Basic Principles of Scientology” may be a good place to start.
Look around the site a bit, and then let me know if you have any questions.