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To Russia with love
SPDL Writings
From Gerry Armstrong:

I’m going to St. Petersburg, Russia to participate in a conference May 15 and 16 on “Destructive Cults and Human Rights” organized by FECRIS, the European Federation of Centers for Research and Information on Sectarianism. My paper, which will be published after the conference, is entitled “Scientology, the Dangerous Environment Racket.” The term “dangerous environment” comes from cult founder L. Ron Hubbard, appears many times in Scientology “scripture,” and is a key concept in the “Suppressive Person” doctrine. The conference is a great education and media opportunity, and will forge and strengthen North American-European-Russian alliances on the cult fronts.



Here’s a report from a 2002 trip to Ekaterinburg, Russia.

Here’s my paper from Novosibirsk in 2004:  Scientology Cult of Total Espionage.

 
St. Louis Today: On second thought...
Apologists and Collaborators

Rep. Hoskins to speak at Scientology anti-psychiatry exhibit

By Jake Wagman
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
22 Jan 2009

Rep. Ted Hoskins, a Democrat from Berkeley, will speak at an anti-psychiatry exhibit sponsored by a group affiliated with the Church of Scientology. Hoskins will introduce “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” at the Jamestown Mall in Florissant on Saturday afternoon.  [...]

Rep. Hoskins' new blog launches with this CCHR release ...

California Representative Hoskins to speak at Scientology anti-psychiatry exhibit

by traceytownsend31
23 Jan 2009

Rep. Ted Hoskins, a Democrat from Berkeley, will speak at an anti-psychiatry exhibit sponsored by a group affiliated with the Church of Scientology.

On second thought, Hoskins backs out of Scientologist exhibit

By Jake Wagman
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
26 Jan 2009

State Rep. Ted Hoskins backed out of an appearance this weekend at an anti-psychiatry exhibit linked to the Church of Scientology.

Hoskins, a Democrat from Berkeley, was scheduled to speak at “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” at the Jamestown Mall in Florissant on Saturday afternoon.

The exhibit was organized by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group founded by Scientologists that shares the same fervent opposition to psychiatry.

Hoskins agreed to speak at the exhibit last week, when he saw a portion of the display at the Capitol rotunda in Jefferson City.

Hoskins said he thought the group was crusading only against teachers giving students behavioral drugs like Ritalin without prescriptions.

“When they told me they were a human rights organization dealing with students,” Hoskins said, “they never told me that they came out of the Church of Scientology.”

After learning about the group’s ties — and that they believe psychiatry is responsible for the torture and deaths of numerous individuals — Hoskins called the organizer and canceled his plans to speak at the exhibit Saturday.

“They misled me,” Hoskins said.
 
Gawker: Scientologist Senator to be seated 7 Jan 2009
Supporters

Face-Slashing State Senator to be Seated Today

http://gawker.com/5125340/face+slashing-state-senator-to-be-seated-today

Cops are leaking details of their investigation into incoming State Senator Hiram Monserrate's little face-slashing incident.

Monserrate's girlfriend, Karla Giraldo, required 20 stitches for a gash over her left eye, and she initially told a doctor that Monserrate attacked her with a glass after discovering something in her purse (either drugs or "a card belonging to another man"), but then she came to her senses and declared it all an accident. Monserrate says he accidentally tripped while bringing her a glass of water, which you are free to try to work out the logistics of in your mind for a minute or two.

Cops seized the glass in question, and now they're summarizing Monserrate's apartment building security camera footage to the Daily News. It's all pretty gruesome.

Face-Slashing State Senator-To-Be Also Big-Time Scientologist!

http://gawker.com/5116094/face+slasher-supporters-galpals-drugs-made-him-do-it

(Image of Sen. Hiram Monserrate with John Travolta and Kelly Preston)
Sen. Hiram Monserrate endorses Purification Rundown
http://www.nypress.com/article-16488-the-rundown-on-scientologys-purification-rundown.html

Council Member Hiram Monserrate of Queens announced his support for the program in April, declaring that he had gone through the detox regimen himself. Monserrate even introduced a bill to declare April 19 “L. Ron Hubbard Day” in advance of a Manhattan fundraiser for the program hosted by Scientologist, actor and Downtown Medical co-founder Tom Cruise, which raised $1.3 million.
 
Freewinds Supporters and Collaborators
Supporters
Image
Freewinds Special Edition (c) 2008 CSFSSO
From Freewinds Special Edition (c) 2008 CSFSSO

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF FREEWINDS
TEAMWORK, TRUST AND COMPETENCE

VOYAGES ON THE FREEWINDS are calm because you're in the bands of a competent crew on a well-drilled ship. In fact, we've now guided our passengers through more than 329,000 miles of distraction-free sailing, which is tantamount to sailing to the moon and then some.

Our officers and crew far exceed the minimum certification requirements, with twenty-six Qualified Officers, four Masters (qualified to helm any ship of any tonnage on any ocean), five Chief Engineers, six Engine Room Officers, and eleven Deck Officers with Ratings.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has fully certified our professional seamen. IMO oversees a code of regulations that falls under the heading of the Standards of Training, Certification and Watch Keeping for Seafarers Convention (STCW). This code sets the international standards that all seafarers of every maritime nation must meet in order to be licensed and sail as a professional seaman.

Our professional seamen trained on a series of tough, rigorous courses that included:

Personal Survival Techniques
Crowd Management
Firefighting
Medical First Aid
Bridge Resource Management
Medical Care Management
Global Maritime Distress Signaling
System Operation

By the end of this training period, there were over 225 course completions with over 3,200 man-hours of training and practical exercises.

The trained Freewinds crew can perform all requisite first aid functions, including: checking vital signs, clearing respiratory tracts and expertly employing seven varieties of tourniquet and bandaging procedures—plus windburn, sunburn and seasickness remedies.

MARITIME TRAINING ON BOARD

Given that we of the Freewinds hold in our hands the greatest repository of nautical knowledge on all seven seas, there is at once a responsibility not only to apply it to our ship, but to also share it with others. In addition to training our own officers and crew, we take responsibility for training others—both Sea Org members and maritime training school and Coast Guard students. In cooperation with Panama Maritime Training Services, we train and certify seamen for all Basic Safety Training, Survival Craft Training, Watch Keeping for Deck Rating and Watch Keeping for Engine Rating per STCW requirements—right on board the ship.

What this means is the Freewinds is a franchise-training center for Panama Maritime Training Services, and the only ship in the Caribbean so authorized.

Freewinds instructors have trained, drilled and certified crews from more than a dozen maritime bodies between the Grand Bahama and Lesser Antilles. This includes those now manning Coast Guard and/or harbor patrol vessels off Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Dominica, St. Vincent, St. Kitts and St. Lucia.

Besides creating a safe, distraction-free atmosphere on board with our trained and drilled crew, we are creating a safer environment throughout the Caribbean.

[Images caption: AWARDS | The Freewinds has received over 120 plaques, awards and trophies in recognition of her stellar contributions. See the DVD on the back of this magazine for interviews with the Caribbean Officials who have benefited from her help.
Closeups of the displayed "plaques, awards and trophies" follow...
Read more...
 
Huffington Post: Undoing Bush Tax Cuts May Prove Harder than Closing Guantanamo
Latest News
by Pete Cenedella
Posted November 24, 2008 | 04:47 PM (EST)

One of the most pernicious symptoms of the kind of shock and awe that the Bush administration has perpetrated on the public for so long is that we become exhausted, beaten down. We say uncle. And we get a little amnesiac -- we forget the offenses done in our names precisely because they were so spectacularly, unspeakably huge.

Watching Barack Obama's address to the nation on Saturday, and his transition press conferences, is like watching the grown-ups come home to the post-party mess left behind by the pimply-faced, reckless, drunk and clueless teens. While Obama is a lot cooler than the average hapless parent, Bush is, in effect, Tom Cruise in Risky Business: an apt analogy, as both W and Cruise have that sociopathic glaze in their gaze; neither seems able to connect, really, with reality, and both act as if no one else were in the scene. Both Bush and Cruise wield power despite appearing absolutely silly to millions of observers. And Scientology and Bushism, in fact, are not so dissimilar: both ask you to pony up lots of cash, you're promised ill-defined rewards that never come, there's an obsessive secrecy that is at once ridiculous and scary, and if you raise too many questions you're gone.

But I digress.
 
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