NEW ACTIVISM II (11k, 3 typewritten pages)

THE NEW ACTIVISM OF ALT.RELIGION.SCIENTOLOGY

By a conservative estimate there are at least 26,000 people from all over the world contributing to or lurking on the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup. I (Lawrence Wollersheim) believe there are considerably more than this and that the number is growing geometrically. (In one 24 hour period a few weeks ago there were 972 new messages.)

Of the estimated 26,000 people who read a.r.s. it is estimated that 60% of them are ANTI Scientology and oppose or are critical of the Scientology organization. These numbers are important for more than just their size.

This newsgroup on the Internet has shown itself to be potentially the greatest force that has ever existed to counterbalance the wrongdoing, criminal activities, and human rights abuses of Scientology. It potentially transcends the FACTNet library and all the good that many individual activists have done before this newsgroup existed. The means may be at hand to finally make Scientology accountable for its actions. Here's why.

1. The Internet connects huge numbers of like minded people economically in ongoing dialog. 2. The Internet allows victims and critics to maintain anonymity and avoid Scientology retaliation through lurking or alias postings. 3. The Internet's synergy-promoting way of connecting people speeds information sharing to the people and places it is needed. 4. Scientology exists and grows ONLY because it has been able to crush dialog, criticism, and the healing and corrective synergy that its victims and critics would generate among themselves.

To achieve the potential of a.r.s. to expose Scientology and bring justice to its victims, something more is needed: a responsible, informed and courageous ACTIVISM. I hope to be able to say, someday, that the largest educational and dialog project ever done on Scientology and its front groups was done by the almost 16,000 Scientology critics and victims in this newsgroup.

There will be opposition. Scientology has worn down most of its leading adversaries and critics through years of harassment and depletion of their resources. It has targeted the few to put a head on a pike as an example to frighten the many. It has driven wedges between the different factions of its adversaries and critics with black PR campaigns and when new organizations like FACTNet were formed it declared a type of all out war against them. But now, there are a whole lot more than just three or four of Scientology's victims standing up and making their voices heard. Now we can find each other, talk to each other, support each other.

As a result of Scientology's strategies, the "old guard" of their adversaries and critics are burned out. I don't need to mention all the names here. I can tell you, from my own experience with Scientology over the last 15 years, that if there is not a major change of operating basis soon on how we deal with Scientology, the Scientology resistance movement will lose many of its key people not because of lack of will or right cause, but burnout.

This newsgroup offers a great opportunity to pass the torch to a new generation of activists, simply by using the newsgroup's full potential for public dialog. I invite you to participate in A NEW INTENSITY OF ACTIVISM ON THE INTERNET.

I invite the inactive among the 16,000 anti Scientology victims, critics, and lurkers to do more than just heal yourself and talk among yourselves about how bad Scientology is.

It is time for Scientology to learn that when they attack any one of us, they are attacking 16,000 anti Scientology victims, critics, and lurkers.

It is time for Scientology to learn that they will never stop religious dissent, freedom of opinion or open dialog. We can find ethical ways to use the awesome corrective and economic power of unstoppable information and dialog on the Internet. We can make sure that Scientology remains unable to hide, bury, seal, rewrite, or destroy their past history of abuse or their secret policies and intentions.

Scientology organizations run on compulsory policies designed to OVERWHELM their adversaries, but it only has the resources to do this to the few critics and adversaries it can isolate, weaken, and wear down... and then make examples of (like Enid Vien).

Now it's Scientology's turn to be overwhelmed, not by harassment and criminal activity, but by 16,000 concerned activists building a new level of education and dialog.

Hubbard himself tells us why this strategy will work. He said something like "whatever a person compulsively does to others (overwhelming adversaries) is the thing that they are least capable of having done to them." Remember Scientology's insane resistance to any change, and the fanaticism and zealotry created in its staff and members. They will do what they have always done, only this time the world will be watching.

There is useful, helpful work for the 16,000 anti Scientology victims, critics, and lurkers in this newsgroup (I know many are already doing this; it is the silent ones I am speaking to.) Contribute new information to a.r.s. Spread what you learn on a.r.s. to appropriate media, legal authorities, mental health professionals, etc. Spread the word with a new activism that reflects your understanding and concern for the new dangers to our civil liberties.

Become librarians and debaters (details below), and spread the information that FACTNet and many other organizations have preserved to every world group or individual that comes in contact with Scientology or any of its front groups. You can get information readily from many ftp sites around the world. Help make it available to the people who really need it, even if they don't have Internet access.

I'll bet somebody who reads this will find a way to make the data widely available in Russia. Be creative. Find ways to ensure that Scientology's victims in the former Soviet countries and elsewhere have access to the same information and dialog that is available in the U.S. and U.K.

Unless a new generation picks up the ball and runs with it, you could lose the whole educational and dialog confrontation with Scientology. After Scientology puts the heads of its remaining key adversaries on a pike (like Enid Vien and many before her), how many more people will have to endure what they endured? How many will have to survive what Armstrong, Atack, and Wollersheim survived? Scientology will continue to focus all its resources on crushing those who remain, one by one, as long as we let ourselves be isolated and attacked one by one.

Here are some thoughts about projects you could create or be a part of, anonymously if you prefer.

1) Every time you hear of Scientology or any of its front groups doing a promotional or PR program anywhere in the world, be a good librarian and get the word out. Supply the key people who will evaluate Scientology with an info pack that contains the secret documents on Scientology's history, practices and goals or any other information that will help them make INFORMED CHOICES.

(Scientology's attempt to penetrate the corporate world at Allstate was undone by just a few librarians part-time informing the board of directors about Scientology's secret history. Every corporation where Scientology shows up needs a librarian. Who will be the librarian for Amway?)

2) Every time Scientology does a smear campaign on a critic, accelerate the pace of your librarian work. Don't back off. The message we want to send is that if they keep attacking us personally instead of opening dialog on the information we are discussing or presenting, all they will get is more people getting more information faster.

3) Support your fellow librarians by sharing information about successful projects that counter Scientology's unethical actions, by volunteering time to help proof the million pages of new Scientology materials yet to come, and by helping to organize, display, and distribute information about Scientology to other librarians and library sites.

4) Support those people in litigation with Scientology in any way you can.

5) Break the fear grip of inaction in which so many former members or family members are paralyzed. Stop letting a few people take most of the heat that Scientology generates. I've been at the top of Scientology's enemy pile for 15 years and its not so bad. Mostly its just tiring and tedious.

Do your part. Most of you were gung ho to clear the planet and save the universe. Now how about just helping clean up your own mess so others have the information available to make better choices? How about putting up electronic information signs all over the world that say "Danger - Scientology could be hazardous to your well being?"

6) Stop fighting among the various factions. If Scientology eliminates any dissent faction they will just redirect the efforts to the next most effective dissent faction until only your faction is left, alone.

7) For those of you that are healing from your Scientology experiences I have found no better or faster healing medicine than standing up to my aggressor and fighting back though education and dialog. Its effective because it changes the flow and dynamics of the situation.

8) Post YOUR OWN ideas for ways we could work together to bring Scientology to justice. Post the victories in the actions people have done and are doing. Show the effectiveness and growth of the new activism that we see reflected in a.r.s.

Scientology has been the bully on the block long enough. It has abused and twisted the privileges and protections given to bona fide religions of charitable and humanitarian purpose. Scientology has 40+ years of back pressure from people it has abused coming to a boil. This pressure is beginning to be focused into ethical dialog, education, and a new activism on a.r.s.

The world must learn about Scientology. You 16,000 anti Scientology victims, critics, and lurkers on this newsgroup who are not yet activists are going to have to do it. Those of us who have been the activists for years or decades are so near to collapse from Scientology's attempts to overwhelm us that we can no longer do it.

Lawrence Wollersheim

IMHO

PS - When I say educate and dialog, I mean to focus on the Scientology organizational policy, ideology and practice -- not people. The people caught in Scientology now are no different than you or I when we wanted to crush all SPs. They are victims too.