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APOV: The Drug-Free Marshals, Scientology and deception - The Daily News Online
11 December 2010, 6:08 am

By Dan Courtney

If your 16-year-old child brought home literature about a new driver’s education course and you saw that it was sponsored by Budweiser, it might raise a few questions. How about the Ku Klux Klan sponsoring diversity training? We have an immediate emotional reaction to these associations, and it’s not a good one. But how about when a program that asks children to lead a drug-free life comes to our community courtesy of Scientology? This program has been used in area schools and in our community for the last three years. Is this appropriate? It depends upon what Scientology is, and what motivates them to promote such a program.

Scientology was founded in the 1950s by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Having floundered after a less-than-stellar Naval career in World War II, Hubbard published “Dianetics,” a pseudo scientific theory loosely based on treatments originally used on shell-shocked troops in the war. Although it was a popular success, the “science” was almost immediately debunked as nonsense. Scientology soon followed as a “religion” associated with the treatments outlined in “Dianetics.” L. Ron Hubbard died in 1986, and since then David Miscavige has run Scientology from their base in California.

It is often referred to as the “Church” of Scientology, but the U.S. is only one of a few countries where this group enjoys religious status. And through much of its history the U.S. government argued forcefully that it was not in fact a religion, but a business wrapped in religious trappings. In a bizarre sequence of events that could make for a book in itself, Scientology employed private investigators, dozens of lawsuits, and funded other groups against the IRS in an effort to force government officials into granting tax-exempt religious status. In 1993 it paid off in a secret deal with the IRS, and Scientology officially became a religion in the U.S. But in England, home of Scientology’s original headquarters, Scientology does not enjoy religious or charitable status. In a review of Scientology, the British Government wrote:

“The government is satisfied that Scientology is socially harmful. It alienates members of families from each other and attributes squalid and disgraceful motives to all who oppose it; its authoritarian principles and practice are a potential menace to the personality and well being of those so deluded as to become followers; above all, its methods can be a serious danger to the health of those who submit to them ... the government has concluded that it is so objectionable that it would be right to take all steps within its power to curb its growth.”  (Kenneth Robinson, British Minister of Health)

So what did Mr. Robinson find “so objectionable”? We can start with alienating families from one another. The Scientology term is disconnection, and although Scientology has alternately denied and confirmed the policy, it is very actively used as a method to control the behavior of members. Most often used on members who leave Scientology, the family and friends remaining are coerced into a total ban on communicating or associating with the member that has left. This policy has had the heartbreaking effect of separating children from their parents, husbands from their wives and brothers and sisters from each other. The famous Hollywood director Paul Haggis reported that his children were banned from visiting their grandparents for what he describes as trivial reasons. The revelation came in the form of a letter Paul wrote to renounce his membership in Scientology in 2009. He also details lies, deception and outright criminal activity within Scientology that only came to light when he researched the real story behind the group that he had previously called his own.

Criminality has been a part of Scientology from the beginning. L. Ron Hubbard fled the U.S. and England before the law could catch him, and spent years at sea with his most loyal followers moving from port to port. In 1975 he returned to the U.S. and soon was engaged in the largest criminal infiltration of the U.S. government in history. Eleven top Scientology officials were convicted and sent to prison for what was called operation Snow White, and Hubbard went into hiding as an un-indicted co-conspirator. More recently Scientology was convicted of fraud in France, and is under investigation in England, Australia and the U.S. for various criminal conduct from false imprisonment to tax evasion.

In the ruling from a lawsuit in which a former Scientologist was awarded millions of dollars in damages, a California judge perhaps summed up Scientology the best:

“(The court record is) replete with evidence (that Scientology) is nothing in reality but a vast enterprise to extract the maximum amount of money from its adepts by pseudo scientific theories ... and to exercise a kind of blackmail against persons who do not wish to continue with their sect ... The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.” (Judge Paul G. Breckenridge Jr., Superior Court, State of California)

more at http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_28a23266-0493-11e0-9378-001cc4c03286.html