How’s your Operating Thetan Level Today?

The feature story within this month’s Radar Magazine is about the Church of Scientology and the underground internet group that is taking them down. It’s interesting to see Scientologist opponents taking this tactical course, since the cult religion has been so clever about diverting criticism and using its massive resources to silence critics.

Here’s how the attacks on Scientology began (from the article):

On January 21, a video titled “Message to Scientology” appeared on YouTube. A brilliant work of agitprop, the video (embedded below) features a monotone, computer-generated voice speaking in staccato against a mesmerizing backdrop of gathering clouds. The message, which bears quoting at length, is ominous:

“Hello, Scientology. We are Anonymous. Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation, suppression of dissent, your litigious nature: All of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who have come to trust you has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed. … We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

Within hours of the video’s posting, all hell broke loose. Almost immediately, the Church’s main website, scientology.org, went down under a distributed denial of service attack, a classic hacker technique that overwhelms a target’s website with phantom user traffic until it crashes. Scientology offices worldwide were flooded with prank phone calls and so-called black faxes—pages upon pages of blank black pages—tying up their phone lines and emptying ink cartridges. Dozens of proprietary Church documents—videos, lectures, and course materials worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in Scientology’s pay-to-pray scheme—beganshowing up on YouTube, BitTorrent, and countless websites.

Here is the video in its entirety:

You can also read the full article here.

What’s so Civil about War Anyway?

I’ve recently been watching Ken Burn’s epic documentary on the Civil War. As I’m nearing the end, I consider the following two impressions to be the biggest lessons that I have learned so far:

1. The Union’s leaders were not the visionary geniuses we sometimes consider them to have been. Lincoln was a great president, but at the time he was mired in a constant state of doubt and insecurity. The public received his Gettysburg Address with confusion and disinterest, and he was convinced that it had been a failed speech. The Emancipation Proclamation nearly backfired on him as well, when thousands of northern civilians rioted in response. He was unpopular towards the end of his first term, and he did not expect to return for a second. Union generals such as Ambrose Burnside and George McClellan made innumerable tactical blunders and provided despairingly poor leadership. Their cowardice and inept battle plans often resulted in thousands of deaths with no gain and no explanation save misjudgment. The Union’s eventual victory is quite astounding, and in some ways seems almost accidental. The people who lived through the conflict certainly did not anticipate or even expect the eventual outcome.

2. Aside from the whole “we-believe-black-people-are-property” component of their ethos, it’s pretty difficult not to fall in love with the Confederate cause. There is something incredibly romantic and compelling about the way in which secessionists spoke about their culture and their land. In a way, they sound almost like a band of Robin Hoods defending their Sherwood Forest against President Nottingham Lincoln. Colorful characters like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest seem almost as if they had sprung from the pages of an ancient Homeric epic poem. The common rebel soldier possessed a roguish wisecracking demeanor that made him considerably more likeable than his stoic but bland Union counterpart. Confederates also had an extensive spy network, which included Southern Belles who would ferry arms under their hoop skirts. There was even one woman, a debutante living in D.C., who regularly extracted secrets from the Union’s secretary of war via seductive methods!