Scientology, the Internet, and You

I guess I've been quiet on this topic for too long now though I feel like a slowpoke for commenting on it now. If you've been reading the blog out there in cyberspace somewhere you probably already know I'm a pretty outspoken person when it comes to scams and religious nonsense and general foolishness like conspiracies and "holier-than-thou" attitudes. As such, I feel I need to write something about the current events spawned by the Internet.

Scientology has been getting a lot of press lately, especially because people love to watch Tom Cruise do stupid things. Scientology has also given us some laughs in the past like the absolutely attrocious John Travolta movie Battlefield Earth. Not everything about it is a laughing matter however. Scientology has been blamed for luring people into their group and slowly indoctrinating them, forcing them to pay more and more money to learn the secrets of the "religion" which gets more and more absurd and involves space aliens and I'll stop now because it's all been said before. In any case if you try to leave or criticize Scientology you usually find yourself on the receiving end of legal action and harassment. Their policies which include not wanting their followers to medicate themselves and their absolute hatred of psychology (they base most of these beliefs off of L.Ron Hubbard's Dianetics) has at the very least caused one death, a woman by the name of Lisa McPherson. In any case you can do your own research and make your own conclusions on what some call a religion, others call a cult, and I call a corporate enterprise.

A few weeks ago a Scientology recruitment video staring Tom Cruise was leaked onto the Internet where it was promptly made fun of. Scientology sprung into action to have this video removed and in most cases they succeeded though Gawker.com saw the video as newsworthy and decided not to remove it even after threats of legal action. This didn't really matter anyway because the video had already made its rounds and everyone saw it and parodies even made it to late night television shows. The attempt to suppress/censor the Internet however caught the attention of some people. These people are known as "Anonymous."

If you know who Anonymous is, then you have one of a few reactions to them. You're one of them, you're apathetic towards their acts, or you absolutely hate them. If you don't know who Anonymous is let me just simplify it by saying they're a loose group of people (thousands of people) from various websites who troll/grief the internet looking for amusement from it. Sometimes this comes in the form of hacking, sometimes they're more creative and prankster-like. A few of Anonymous's acts have spilled over into the real world and they've even pranked a few celebrity's like Tom Green and bankrupted the former internet radio show host and white supremacist, Hal Turner. Sometimes they have a good reason for attacking people, but most of the time that reason is because doing so will be funny. They can get away with whatever the hell they want on the Internet because they have their anonymity and there's so many of them and they know it. This makes the best way of fighting them not to fight them. Of course Anonymous is mostly comprised of college age computer geeks but they've got people all over the world of just about every race, gender, and age.

And so began Anonymous's grudge against Scientology. The opening shot was a DDOS (denial of service) attack against Scientology's website which managed to take it off line. That wasn't enough for Anonymous however and something really interesting happened. On February 10th Anonymous took to the streets in the real world, protesting the church of Scientology world-wide, donning V for Vendetta style Guy Fawkes masks in most locations to protect their anonymity while speaking out against Scientology. The crazy group of Internet griefers had manifested themselves in the real world. In only two weeks the power of Internet communication and organization had launched a worldwide campaign. This has now become a real war. Anonymous peacefully attacked every corrupt facet of the Church of Scientology all because Scientology couldn't keep Tom Cruise's giant mouth shut. The protests were peaceful and a complete success. The old-school protesters were amazed at this new army's formation over night. I have to admit, it was nice to see people in my generation stand up for something even if there are better things to protest than Scientology.

Unfortunately Anonymous is known to get bored, that is unless Scientology continues to provoke them and thus continues to make Anonymous laugh. For the first time in Scientology's history they had nothing to litigate, nothing they could counter-attack. I don't know what repercussions all of this will have, as Internet culture is a strange thing to outsiders and seeing it appear outside the Internet is nothing short of a coming cultural revolution. The Internet is changing society in the same way that television changed it before that, and radio before that. All I know is that I'll be eagerly watching.

Fight Anonymous, for everlasting peace!

Obama vs. Clinton: We're All Screwed

"Super Tuesday" is tomorrow, that means over twenty states will be voting in their primaries, making me feel a little helpless in Pennsylvania since ours isn't until April. You see PA actually decided to follow the rules of the Democratic convention and not move their primary up, thus keeping its delegates, while states like Florida thought they could get away with it and that their delegates will be counted anyway. Let's just say there's going to be a lot of drama at the convention this year when that issue comes into play.

In any case while McCain picks up steam surprisingly, (though a McCain win in November would mean at least four more years in Iraq) Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton are duking it out over every issue including the incredibly stupid issue of race that Mr. President Clinton decided to bring up. I wonder if he was trying to sabotage Hillary or something with that one.

The election is months away but with the election coverage and the primaries every other day it feels like it's already here. The only problem is it's more like Democrats vs. Democrats than Republican's vs. Democrats. There's one serious problem that the Democratic party has always had that causes Republicans to win elections. They just can't get along. There's so many different sects of liberalism and not all of them look favorably at one another. We've got Hillary representing white elitism and the promise of returning to the Clinton years and Obama representing change in government and overcoming racial prejudice and stereotypes.

Then we have the Republicans, all of which the same kind of old white men who've run this country forever and I don't know if the United States is ready or willing to change that any time soon. Sure the Republicans have taken a lot of serious pot-shots at each other but the war between Obama and Clinton is ridiculous. They're going to tear each other limb from limb until the Republicans don't even need to dig dirt because the Democratic party did all the digging for them.

Obama is popular. Clinton is not popular but people trust in her experience. I've met a lot of people who vehemently hate Clinton though they can never give me a rationale explanation as to why. It's always some crack about her being a woman or that "Something about her just bothers them." Obama haters are usually on the Republican side, with comments as stupid as "because he's black" or "his name sounds Muslim." What infuriates me is I truly believe that Americans will place their votes based on reasons like these no matter what happens between now and November.

Though the Democratic National Convention isn't until the end of August we'll at least be closer to seeing who the candidates will be for president, and I sincerely hope that the race isn't even close. One of them needs to be knocked out, and considering both Obama and Hillary are fine candidates who would be serving their party better by complimenting one another instead of flaming each other on camera, I don't give a damn who wins and who loses. All that matters is the Democrats stop shooting spitballs at one another if they want to win an election for a change. The abysmal track record of the new Democratic majority congress certainly isn't going to help them out.