We wish to personally thank all 5000 people who signed the petition to the White House to investigate the corruption and graft between the “church” of Scientology and the US Department of Justice.
I know there are dozens of people who went the extra mile by reaching out and educating other citizens prompting them to also sign the petition. Double thanks to you all.
There are also five people who I know personally who went even further beyond the call of duty to educate the public in big ways to assure the petition made its targeted total. If I omitted anyone who was involved on that level, please inform me. Do not take this as an invalidation if you were at that level of involvement and I failed to mention you by name. These are the folks I have been made aware of as deserving of special mention.
5. Theo Sismanides
4. Sandy “Data Dir” Richards
3. Steve “Thoughtful” Hall
2. Karry Campbell.
And the most effective connector and networker in the Independent field:
#1. Karen de la Carriere.
Again, thanks to everybody who signed. You all are special.
Catch some z’s. I’ve got some fireworks to share tomorrow.
Good Night.
UPDATE, Friday morning 21/10,by Steve Hall:
Marty — you and Karen de la Carierre especially deserves props, as does Graham Berry (signature #1) and our incredible ally, Ursula Caberta. I want to let everyone know that this entire accomplishment was a direct result of our trip to Germany (thanks to everyone who supported us on that project). After Marty and Mosey arranged to go there, Ursula quietly arranged for Graham to attend — to help heal some old wounds (the CoS went after him murderously and tried to destroy him in the late 1990s). As LRH said, “Problems end when communication begins” so we all got in comm. From communication came real friendships and the next thing you know, Graham came up with this bright idea for a petition. Karen (signature #4) helped phrase the wording of it — she and Graham spent two days working it over. The result was a magnificent petition that really listed out the Church’s crimes. But when Graham clicked “Submit” a dialog box opened saying that it was too long. Petitions were limited to 840 characters!
As everyone knows, the CoS is so loaded with crimes one could go on for tens of thousands of words and still only be scratching the surface. Alas, back to the drawing board went Graham and Karen, shortening and condensing it down to a pithy 840 characters.
Conferring with Karen on people who very much went the extra mile to push this along were the following names in addition to those already stated:
Emma of ESMB created a sticky to promote the petition on her forum for everyone to see.
The moderators of OCMB — Sponge and I’m Glib — also pushed it hard on their forum.
The decent activists in Anonymous who pitched right in and helped to push this along — they deserve acknowledgment.
Special acknowledgment to Greebly who brought enormous energy and attention to the petition.
Mark Bunker tweeted it and pushed the petition hard on all his lines and pushed it on his website Knowledge Report.
Old Auditor helped big time by really pushing it on his Possibly Helpful Advice website.
Terrill Parks promoted the petition on 100 different forums!
As the creator of Scientology-cult.com, I wanted to extend a heart-felt thank you to all. This cause brought together not only people who have been ruthlessly victimized by the “church” but also their friends and families. And more, it brought together thousands of people whom OSA and David Miscavige desperately want to divide and conquer: critics, Independents, ex-Scientologists, Freezoners, free thinkers, human rights activists, Anonymous, and all the hundreds of Scientologists under the radar who signed the petition anonymously.
Steve Hall
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Great job everyone and thank you too Marty for promoting this petition!
Now comes the part where Obama’s feet need to be held to the fire and get them to do something. If they don’t, we now have something concrete to take to the Media to show them the amount of support behind investigating.
I checked the number of signatures on some of the other petitions on the White House web site, and none of them were even close to 1,000 signatures, let alone 5,000.
Not a good day in Miscavige land. Hate to be the dogs that get kicked tonight by DM.
And, we still have a several days to ice this cake with more signatures before we present it to DM!
Wow! Wow! Wow! Well done to all of us and especially to Marty, Theo, Sandy, Steve, Carrie and Karen! This is history in the making and not just because somebody might actually grab DM by the lapels for the first time ever and say, “Not okay,” but also because it was all done by a few people, really, by communication alone in a non-violent manner. Hey, what do you know, this is a civilized and democratic society after all!
Marty thank you and thanks to all the wonderful people who made this a reality 2 days even before the deadline. Proves that a well organized and dedicated team with know how is unbeatable. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the big win of having DONE it in a SUPERB WAY.
I want to especially comment Karen de la Carriere who took this upon herself 4 days ago and after that the stats started reverting. She said it and she did it. It was my first big win… there was life again. After that things changed.
Also Steve Hall who has been instrumental with his letter… stats became steady and people had a stable datum to refer to and send out.
Also Samantha Domingo who went out in public one night and just made a big number there and helped me cheer up a lot and showed the way it should be done… friends and neighbors.
Pat Krenik who was next to me all the time in whatever I needed and no matter what kept signing people up and disseminating to many.
Max Hauri from the Freezone who after some talk we had saw the importance of this and sent emails to all of his mailing list alerting the Russians and Europe about the Petition.
And Karry Kampbell who assisted so much via the FB group Indie Scientologist… monitored the stat, kept a high level of ethics in regards to the Petition matters, focused on it and we all went ahead fine…
It was a test about
Speed of particle flow determines Power. We have Momentum now… ! Oh yes, we do!
No Marty, thank YOU!! You are the person who has born the brunt of an onslaught of the worst that corporate Scientology has to offer these days (which, granted, may not be as bad as what they used to dish out, but is no doubt up to the standard set by Mr. Lubow). You also heartily exhorted people to action. So give yourself some credit in all of this.
Karen certainly deserves the #1 spot, having tracked me down (despite me never having established a comm cycle with her). I say that not as a criticism but as a testament to her thoroughness and her persistence.
The importance of this accomplishment cannot be understated; it is a game-changer on the level of the first Anonymous protests. The shock waves of this will be felt for some time to come.
GREAT TEAM WORK!!!!!! 🙂
Marty just one more song:
That’s Not It! Here it is –
Much thanks to all who signed!
Much thanks to those who went the extra mile!
WOW! AMAZING! MAGICAL!
Much loving-kindness,
GMW
It has been interesting to see Independent Scientologists and many, many others work together to accomplish what Miscavige’s squirrel group, the IAS, publicly stated Purpose is:
“To unite, advance, support and protect the Scientology religion and Scientologists in all parts of the world, so as to achieve the aims of Scientology as originated by L. Ron Hubbard.”
Now let’s hope Miscavige and his cohorts are brought to justice for their crimes.
Has anyone noticed that aroud the time this petition started to gain traction the White House CHANGED the “Terms of Participation” on the petition website and the response limit was raised from 5,000 to 25,000? Their website (https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/terms-participation) now says:
———-
AS OF OCTOBER 3, 2011:
To cross the first threshold and be searchable within WhiteHouse.gov, a petition must reach 150 signatures within 30 days.
To cross the second threshold and require a response, a petition must reach 25,000 signatures within 30 days.
———-
Hope this only affects petitions started after the change (October 3), and not those that were already in progress when their response limit was 5,000. But based on this, it is not clear to me now if we can expect a response or not. Can this itself be some kind of a “response” from the White House?
Actually, the current top petitions have tens of thousands of signatures, e.g. the current number one “Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol” has 69,925 signatures. Here are the most popular ones: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petitions/popular/0/2/0/
Doesn’t lessen our accomplishment in any way, I’m just sayin’ we are not the only ones trying to get the White House’s attention. The subjects of most popular petitions actually gives one a good sense of what’s going on – it is kind of an American Zeitgeist. Exactly half of the top 10 are about legalizing marijuana and other drogs.
This is just great! I had sent a bunch of comms out about this to anyone I thought would participate and got some old time friends to sign (friends still, even though while I was in the SO my communication line was cut to them) …. one of them sent me an email that said, “YOU DID IT!” and that is how I initially found out that we made the quota….from a true friend who backed me up and signed the petition and then monitored how we did on this!
Well done to everyone!
Lisa
Just saw it a moment ago. Need I say, my congrats! 🙂
Very good news! I am thrilled!
Truth,
+1
Thank goodness huh? 🙂 You must have worn out your finger hitting the refresh button! OVER 5,000 signatures. It’s a win! 🙂
Oh, I see. Thanks Marty.
How ironic that DM gets his a$$ kicked on the same day another SP (Gaddafi) bites the dust…
My whole family was excited to help. The are sick of the obvious abuse.
Paul
+++1
Well done everybody!
And I get the feeling it is just starting to show all the hard work of the “movers and shakers”
I would very much like to thank Graham Berry for initiation this whole thing. You have helped open the door to a handling. Whatever happens next, this is an incredible achievement!
Eric S
What an amazing team effort… it was a thing of beauty to watch. Thank you Marty for creating this gathering place. Thank all of you and all of our friends and family who signed. Someday OSA and those left uplines will realize that this group will never back down. Someday they will “Look at things and life and others directly, not through any cloud of prejudice, curtain of fear or the interpretation of another* ” Here’s postulating that day comes a little sooner now.
*From “The Way to Happiness”–LRH
Update on petitions signed as of Thursday night, October 20th,
as of signature #5,077 Thank you!!! All of you!!!
The top ten states:
1. 771 California
2. 310 Florida
3. 249 Texas
4. 224 New York
5. 149 Washington
6. 126 Illinois
7. 98 Oregon
8. 96 Ohio
9. 93 Massachusetts
10. 85 Arizona
Next in line:
11. 84 Pennsylvania
12. 81 New Jersey
13. 76 Georgia, Virginia
14. 66 Michigan, North Carolina
15. 65 Minnesota
16. 59 Missouri
17. 57 Tennessee
18. 54 Colorado
19. 53 Maryland
20. 49 Indiana
Next in line:
21. 46 Nevada
22. 44 Louisiana
23. 41 Kansas
24. 40 Utah
25. 36 Connecticut
26. 35 Kentucky
27. 31 Wisconsin
28. 29 New Mexico
29. 28 Alabama, Iowa
30. 26 Hawaii
signing with no location indicated.
1,324 no location indicated (still takes the overall lead in numbers)
for those not in the U.S.
125 from outside the U.S. or didn’t recognize city, no state indicated
Wow – you guys pulled this off. I did sign, though I didn’t think it was going to work. I was wrong to doubt you. Congratulations!
It is just interesting we got the target of 5,000 on the day that Muammar Gaddafi the big dictator left this planet.
Also don’t forget to thank Tory,Tony Ortega and Anons
What a trip. Congrats to all the top producers, all the producers and everyone who had the courage to sign the petition. V W D.
It’s probably the most damning condemnation of miscavige’s cult and his degradation of the tech. To think that thousands of Scientologists have more faith in the ethics level of the FBI than they do in miscavige or his current execs.
The Sea Org is supposed to be putting ethics in on the planet so it will be a safe space to expand the tech. miscavige has failed miserably.
Mark
Actually had a look at the petitions that are showing and there are quite a few that have 5000 or better. One has over 10,000.
But, as you say… “Not a good day in Miscavige land.”
He will likely do at least some of these things…
On the one hand he will say it doesn’t mean anything and is totally insignificant.
Then he will send various and sundry people to the RPF,
then he will slap anyone within arms length and call them “suppressive morons”.
He will demand that his legal team and OSA see to it that the “Official Response” does in no way harm the “church”, or they and the US
Government will be sorry that they ever crossed him.
Then he will be so thoroughly twisted out of shape that he will make the mistake of drinking the coffee and giving himself a “scotch enema”, grab onto his Copper Rod, short out, and explode in a ball of flame.
(Well, maybe not, but I gotta say it was fun entertaining the idea.)
Eric S
Hooray and hallelujah!!!
Eventhough still under the radar, I got some non-Scientologists to sign. They were happy to do it.
You guys are the best. All of you – Steve, Karen, Sandy, Carrie, all of you.
ML Tom
Terril Park omitted. I am reckoning he is responsible for at least 500 sigs.
Sorry, also Patricia Krenik. Devoted her life to this!
Marty — you and Karen de la Carierre especially deserves props, as does Graham Berry (signature #1) and our incredible ally, Ursula Caberta. I want to let everyone know that this entire accomplishment was a direct result of our trip to Germany (thanks to everyone who supported us on that project). After Marty and Mosey arranged to go there, Ursula quietly arranged for Graham to attend — to help heal some old wounds (the CoS went after him murderously and tried to destroy him in the late 1990s). As LRH said, “Problems end when communication begins” so we all got in comm. From communication came real friendships and the next thing you know, Graham came up with this bright idea for a petition. Karen (signature #4) helped phrase the wording of it — she and Graham spent two days working it over. The result was a magnificent petition that really listed out the Church’s crimes. But when Graham clicked “Submit” a dialog box opened saying that it was too long. Petitions were limited to 840 characters!
As everyone knows, the CoS is so loaded with crimes one could go on for tens of thousands of words and still only be scratching the surface. Alas, back to the drawing board went Graham and Karen, shortening and condensing it down to a pithy 840 characters.
Conferring with Karen on people who very much went the extra mile to push this along were the following names in addition to those already stated:
Emma of ESMB created a sticky to promote the petition on her forum for everyone to see.
The moderators of OCMB — Sponge and I’m Glib — also pushed it hard on their forum.
The decent activists in Anonymous who pitched right in and helped to push this along — they deserve acknowledgment.
Special acknowledgment to Greebly who brought enormous energy and attention to the petition.
Mark Bunker tweeted it and pushed the petition hard on all his lines and pushed it on his website Knowledge Report.
Old Auditor helped big time by really pushing it on his Possibly Helpful Advice website.
Terrill Parks promoted the petition on 100 different forums!
As the creator of Scientology-cult.com, I wanted to extend a heart-felt thank you to all. This cause brought together not only people who have been ruthlessly victimized by the “church” but also their friends and families. And more, it brought together thousands of people whom OSA and David Miscavige desperately want to divide and conquer: critics, Independents, ex-Scientologists, Freezoners, free thinkers, human rights activists, Anonymous, and all the hundreds of Scientologists under the radar who signed the petition anonymously.
Steve Hall
This proves the power of what decent people can do when working together in the name of truth and betterment of conditions – the hallmark of Scientology. It is a pity that the target of this rallying call is the antithesis of truth and betterment of conditions, but in the name of Scientology.
DM and the CofS It is is the ultimate demonstration of juxtaposition between stated purpose and what they actually do.
This will be the first in several severe blows to come, thanks to all the hard working people who are part of this blog, none the least Marty, Mike and many others.
Thank you for being there!
Cancel this song moderator. Thanks. Saved for another day.
As announced on my website, there are important reasons to keep adding signatures and keep this going until we can no longer add more signatures (midnight Oct 23). Every signature that is added beyond the 5,000 mark is an exclamation point.
So already — in just about an hour after hitting 5,000 — we’ve added more than 200 exclamation points to the requirement of 5,000 signatures. That’s a lot of exclamation points.
Fantastic! This is a good day.
Woo Hoo! Awesome job! 5K is no small number – powerful!
Kudos. Bravos and Hoorays To All!
Brillant win…
I’ll just leave this here . . .
Marty ~~
In trying to give credit to others, you omitted to state how significantly “Moving on up a little Higher” and your good blogs helped the Petition drive.
This blog created the initial burst of signatures and revived the flow each time it sagged.
Steve Hall acknowledged the other Forums, and I will re-iterate,
Steve Hall was a mover and shaker and continues to promote it.
It has truly gone viral and is unstoppable.
High fives Emma of ESMB, the Moderators of OCMB especially Sponge and I’m Glib, also Tony Ortega of Village Voice who pumped it up more than once and gave his daily blog to the cause one full day.
Pat Krenik, worked really hard, bless her heart as did so many readers of this blog. Terrill Parks worked just as hard.
On these occasions all camps work towards a common goal and back channel communication between the different groups was a fever of activity.,
Nothing like a common cause !
On a strange closing note it was “Scientologists in “good standing” “Under the radar” that gave me the heads up that 5000 had been achieved !
They had signed the petition anonymously !
Ooooooooops. More sec checks needed ! OSA is slacking off ! 😎 😎 😎
we are the champions…we are the champions…fighting til the end…:) .) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Graham when I met you in Hamburg I instantly knew you’re a good guy !
Thanks !
It was a pleasure and a joy to watch this happening.
My congratulations, respect and best wishes.
HermanJ – Dutch – nonsci – #2166
Nice try. Read the petition rules on that site. It specifically states that required signatures for a petition in progress will not be raised retro-actively.
Michael A. Hobson
Independent Scientologist
Thanks Steve for outlining the history of this petition and all the incredible people involved. We are a force to be dealt with.
October 21, 08:28 am, European Central Time.
According to the official White House website :
Total signatures on this petition 5,261
Signatures needed by October 24 : 0
Do’nt worry. This thing is packed, sealed and delivered.
Awesome work. Cussing’ A! Good work all!
+++1 🙂
It has been exciting to watch the momentum on this petition build over the last few days. A week ago I didn’t think it was going to make it. Well done folks. I’m continuing to ask friends to sign just to move it on up a little higher. The despot should get the message that when dictators abuse their people and their power beyond a certain point they will have nowhere to turn and no friends/supporters left. That must have been one of the last thoughts in the Libyan leader’s day yesterday. Isn’t it amazing how crazed with power these people get that they are so stupidly blind to the obvious? Unfortunately in the meantime they commit a lot of evil and bring down those surrounding them.
Sweet!!!
Thank you all sooooooo much!!
Let’s see what the US Adminstration makes of it!
What is certain already now: It will make an indelible mark on DM!!
Times are changing! Tick tock tick tock…………….
Fidelio
Oracle great… I didn’t know about it. So this is great to know about Terril… 500? wow! So he is a powerful terminal here in Europe. Congrats Terril.
Great Steve! Thanks for the data on how it all started. Yes, Graham Berry and Indie attorney this is great and a big thank you to him.
Yay!!! Thank you to everybody who signed and worked so hard to get others to sign. This was a great team effort.
Fantastic effort by all, shows what pulling together and pulling out the stops can do!!!!
Interesting target was reached the same day gaddafi was einally forced to face his reality!
Dear Windwalker, 10.000 may be the Goliath. But even as. David we have the Goliath cause. And at the end of the day it is the tone 40 intention that gets the results. Human trafficking, greed, extortion, persecution ,,,, Co$ is ripe for a take down with news & political types ready to gain some personal attention for their involvement in seeing justice done. Tick tock ,,,,,,
P.S. my thanks to all.
VVWD to all!
I’ve got the feeling that POB has his high-priced tailors fitting him for a larger sized diaper to hold his scatological crap that is about to blow.
Ed
Steve, your post evoked the knowing & realization that we have now achieved a stronger grass roots footing for the ‘real’ Scientology’. And as Marty stated time to prepare to deliver. With this.petition we are taking a battering ram to the Fort Harrison. DM is now under seige.
This is great news!
Let’s hope the relevant authorities will now get off their collective backsides and do something about it!
Ax
Hi, congratulations to you all Indie from RIMINI, Italy. It’s a really beautiful moment about our goals and a bad’s one for DM.
Have a nice day!
ARC
DAVIDE SUCCI aka Spartacus
Well done all!!!!!
🙂
Yes, let’s not forget Graham for initiating this in the first place. Thank you! And to all the above mentioned, thank you all too. Lot of dial-wide F/Ns this morning I think!
I’m happy to see this petition was successful. My thanks go to the independents for touting this petition.
Finally, I hope this will not only be a symbolic win but will have actual consequences.
Have just learned we hit 5,000 last night. Thank you, everyone, for what you have done to reach this important goal.
Marty, one of the people who posts regularly on your blog (not me) hired workers to canvas students on a nearby college campus to publicize this petition and solicit signatures. (I will not blow his/her cover.)
JM
It really is a blow against the church suppression in which decades have been spent on cutting communication lines. It is stunning when you think of the millions of people who are not Scientologists that have been effected by its abuses.
I think the target stalling (and threatening to increase) had its benefits because it pushed us to increase our own necessity level and really open our communication lines. And open they went and the public showed they heard our communication by responding. The target has been met and still they sign, now over 5300 signatures. What impressed me the most was the steady flow. All evening long, I could look and then refresh and there would be more signatures.
I personally want to thank everyone who sent letters to their contacts, personal and private and for all of the creative ways to put the comm out to the general public.
For the first time the public at large has an answer to the question, “What can I do about the Scientology abuses?” I can sign the petition. I can communicate to others and get them to sign too.
I think this is going to be very therapeutic for the public at large. Like many of us when we first started to communicate, charge started blowing. It is blowing for the public now as well. There is hope that something could change, that old communication lines might be rehabilitated…an increase in theta in this universe which it is really in need of. Already we have shown that we will no longer accept the church status quo of cut all communication lines because we are FREE. We are INDEPENDENT. And NO ONE can take that away!
Happy days! It’s been a brilliant exercise. Looking forward to the next one.
Pulling together has been exhilarating. Love you all.
Rich
This is fantastic!
LOL!
Just amazing. Truly amazing.
Thanks Steve for filling us in. I’m adding your write up here to the post.
Hooray and Hallelujah, indeed! L, Rachel
We met the target that was set by the White House when it was initiated. The 25,000 threshold is NOT retroactive.
Marty, Mike, Karen, Theo, etc..
Lots of cheering from the UK. Jolly good job, old chaps and Ladies!
Muy Bonito y Viva la Revolucion!!
Alex
As well as posting to many forums on usenet and Yahoo I attended a talk given by Dr. David Barrett on Scientology. He in fact found out about the petition by my posting on a forum he runs, and has passed it on to others. I also told the audience, at a London University, about the petition.
David has written several books on new religious movements. He was really pleased to meet an FZer as he’d only dealt with church scientologists before,
and we spent several hours rapping in the pub after the talk.
He really wants to see DM go. He just sent me a review he wrote in the “Catholic Herald” of Jeff Hawkins book, he says the editors toned it down, so
the original must be explosive! In the article he talks about the “reformation”
and the Freezone.
I can post his review here if desired.
Well done Terril. You are a real UK trooper.
+100000000000000 we are a force to be dealt with alright!
Suddenly the room seems much brighter! Well Done!
Wonderful! Thank you to all who worked so hard on this.
The bad PR for POB extends way beyond the people who signed. This undertaking will be rattling the rafters for a long time, I think.
OT Group by any measure. The old man is smiling for many reasons.
Yes, dang, I forgot to mention and thank Tony Ortega who no less than twice promoted it on his widely read blog. And for the record, I think Marty posted about it about 5 times. There are hundreds of others, if not thousands, who also put in extra effort and every one deserves that thank you.
That’s cool! I can’t wait to find out what the response will be.
It seems the White House has a problem 🙂 They put up a site so that people can initiate communication to them and they promised to reply… now they might be sitting there in a panic thinking “Oh my god! People are actually USING it and expecting answers! What are we gonna do now…?!!! 🙂
I read up on it a little more and someone from the WH said that they raised the threshold because there were “too many” petitions that reached the magic number and they didn’t want to just give cookie cutter responses but wanted to reply in earnest to the problems important to people. The number of petitions that reached the threshold in the first week that made them panic and raise the limit was about THIRTY.
Folks, what they are saying is that with only 1.8 million government employees at their disposal, it is a huge problem to not deal with, not do anything about, but just to MAKE A STATEMENT about the TOP 30 ISSUES brought up by the people who elected them…
Makes me think: if they don’t already have as much as an easy to communicate statement, much less a proposed solution to any of the top issues that concern the people they are supposed to serve, then what have they been working on since they took office? By hiding behind the “workload issue” created by having to answer these petitions, they are essentially saying that these issues are news to them, and now they just have to scramble to figure out what to say about them…
And yes, it is a big win regardless of what the White House does next, because it sends a clear message on a goverment website that the church can’t get taken down or PR away. It is a public demonstration of 2 things:
1. It isn’t just “a handful of SPs” that want them investigated.
2. While the church fumbles around and makes a mess of every PR action they are trying to pull, Independents can just set a target and deliver a punch where it counts. That’s effective cause well demonstrated.
One more piece of the tech where the Independents demonstrate they understand and can apply it and the church demonstrates that even with their unlimited funds and “experts” they can only make a mess. Do yo think the church’s PR is improving these days? 🙂 They have the tech, so what can be it? Application, maybe…?
“When people can’t get results from what they think is standard practice, they can be counted upon to squirrel to some degree. The most trouble in the past two years came from orgs where an executive in each could not assimilate straight Scientology.”
Is there maybe such an executive somewhere in the current “church”…? 🙂
VWD to everyone involved in this cycle of action and to all who are continuing to fight “the good fight.”
Awesome Terril, you went above and beyond!
I’m sure there’s much more to the back story… for example, Theo took on the hat of official progress announcer on facebook feeding everyone the blow by blow. I don’t think he slept for several days…
Very Well Done !
This is the REAL Sea Org.
My LOL was here.
Update on petitions signed as of Friday AM, October 21st,
as of signature #5,324
The top ten states:
1. 820 California
2. 323 Florida
3. 265 Texas
4. 228 New York
5. 163 Washington
6. 136 Illinois
7. 105 Oregon
8. 100 Ohio
9. 98 Massachusetts
10. 91 Arizona
Next in line:
11. 89 Pennsylvania
12. 83 Georgia, Virginia
13. 82 New Jersey
14. 73 North Carolina
15. 72 Michigan
16. 69 Minnesota
17. 64 Missouri
18. 59 Tennessee
19. 56 Colorado
20. 54 Maryland
Next in line:
21. 52 Indiana
22. 48 Nevada
23. 45 Louisiana
24. 43 Kansas, Utah
25. 38 Connecticut
26. 37 Kentucky
27. 33 Wisconsin
28. 30 New Mexico
29. 29 Alabama
30. 28 Iowa
signing with no location indicated.
1,362 no location indicated (still takes the overall lead in numbers)
for those not in the U.S.
127 from outside the U.S. or didn’t recognize city, no state indicated
As Miscavige and his cult implodes and goes more and more silent, the strength and voice of those who speak truth and want justice expands.
There is no doubt that both sides will continue in the direction they are headed….. tick, tock, tick, tock…….
Terril, very well done! I would be very interested to read the article, if possible…
This is heartwarming for me. Shows how the “average Joe” will stand up against abuses and evil … just takes a bit of prodding 🙂 —
And so much thanks to Marty and the Top 5 named, including Tony Ortega who I almost feel is a friend by now … and everyone else.
I look forward to the day when SO friends, still trapped inside, are sharing meals with me and just chillin’ in the New England woods … watching the leaves turn color.
What a wonderful day!!
Love,
Windhorse
Great group effort, great result!
Same here, Lisa! Friends and relatives who were never in signed the petition, got their spouses to sign and also sent the petition to their friends on their email contact list.
I really want to say “Great Job to all”.
First, I would like to acknowledge Marty and all of the people who read his blog and signed the petition and got their friends and family to sign. Good job!!
Second, I would like to acknowledge the people who post on my FB group page (Indie Scientologist) who I know of that helped big time are:
1. Theo Sismanides, who kept posting helpful nudges, being the major product officer, posting which condition the stat is in, etc the whole time.
2. Karen De La Carriere, who promised big results on signatures and got HUGE results by getting over 500 signatures.
3. Steve Hal, who created and posted his very helpful form letter which helped many to get the sequence of actions down so that they were actually able to sign the petition without having to call me asking how to do it. LOL! That happened a few times until I sent out his letter.
4. Samantha Domingo, who got many signatures by going door to door in her neighborhood, computer in one hand and telephone in the other.
5. Pat Krenik, who was a big help to Theo Sismanides by being his Admin Tech.
Third, I need to mention all of the silent guys too. I know that not everyone who got this done was on my “Indie Scientology” Face Book page nor were they even speaking up. They just did it. Thank you ALL for working as a team to get this done. Makes my heart sing!!!
Keep getting signatures till the end.
Best Wishes to all.
W W
Well done everybody indeed !
This convergence of purpose cannot be ignored ! The very least it will accomplish is to re-kindle the sense of connectedness, not only to one another, but to our collective hopes and dreams, as conceived and postulated by LRH.Sadly, from the early 1980’s we have witnessed, LRH’s dire warning of, “NEVER LET SCIENTOLOGY FALL INTO THE HANDS OF A MONOPOLY” become a harsh reality. fait accompli.
However, 25 years later, The Scientology ” Revolution ” is
now becoming a reality Thanks to the ” no-holds-barred ”
approach to wrestling little Machiavellian Miscarriage to the mat ! The COB has met his match ! THE INTERNET is such an insidious tool in the hands of those who really know,are responsible and can control what they are doing {KRC} Brilliant work by Marty and the entire gang of Indies
much luv, Li’ll bit of stuff
Sandy,
Thanks for keeping such great records!
Good work my Friend.
Tory Christman/ Mr Magoo needs high acknowledgement
She did a video on the petition on her You Tube Chanel.
Tory, you really contributed
Many thanks to all you did
Terrill
Very Very Well Done !Good Man. Good products.
WONDERFUL!!! Thank you for keeping the truth alive.
To all those that helped and to those still in and need it…
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
Love and ARC,
Gary
Awesome post, Steve. This really was a communal effort, which is partly why it’s so beautiful. Thanks for the behind the scenes report from Germany. Reconciliation and healing are wonderful products.
Beautiful!
Review of ” Counterfeit Dreams” by Jefferson Hawkins. Written for the
” Catholic Herald ” by Dr David Barrett
======================
The Church of Scientology is poised for a Reformation
David V Barrett is unsettled by an insider’s account of the faith founded by L Ron Hubbard
In its half-century of existence the Church of Scientology has been one of the most controversial of all new religious movements, and the one most often in the news. It has a well-oiled publicity machine, with celebrity members such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta keeping it in the limelight. It claims that its personal development system of Dianetics, and other programmes, lead to mental health and to people in full control of themselves. And it claims some 10 million members worldwide.
But in recent years Scientology has been hit by huge amounts of negative publicity. The character
and life story of its founder, science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, have been attacked; the efficacy of its techniques and its offshoot organisations – including drug and criminal rehabilitation programmes Narconon and Criminon – has been challenged; there are numerous stories about abuse within the religion and even its membership figures have been questioned.
Many of these criticisms and attacks have come from external writers, journalists or anti-cultists,
or from relatively low-level ex-members. Counterfeit Dreams is by a former senior Scientologist, a member of its elite Sea Organisation (the church is run on a naval model), who masterminded many of Scientology’s publishing and marketing drives. A member for 35 years, Jefferson Hawkins was on the inside, at the heart of operations, working alongside the very top people in the religion. He knows what he’s talking about.
The picture he paints in this pain-filled book is of a rigidly hierarchical and deeply dysfunctional organisation, characterised by irrational decision-making and casual brutality. Sea Org members are the full-time ministers and administrators of the church; because Scientology believes in a form of reincarnation they sign billion-year contracts to the church. But they get no special favours for their commitment and their high-status position; many live in dormitories, they often work 16 hour days, their pay is a pittance,
and they are allegedly subjected to degrading punishment regimes. Hawkins details all of this.
Senior officers expect those under them to achieve often entirely unrealistic results; when, inevitably, they fail, they are allegedly shouted at and publicly demeaned. They can
be promoted, demoted and moved around almost on a whim, it is claimed; Hawkins describes several occasions when he had slowly managed to build up and train an expert team to work on books, magazines, CDs and films, only to have the entire structure demolished and his staff reassigned elsewhere – often at the same time as already difficult deadlines were brought forward. On other occasions his carefully crafted publishing programme would be handed over to someone without the first idea of how to run it.
As someone familiar with the workings of the Church of Scientology – I’ve been studying it from the outside and writing about it for some 15 years, and know a number of people who are or have been members – I always find it astonishing that anything productive ever gets done in the organisation. From Hawkins’s account it seems that the best qualification for a new job in the church is to have little or no experience or capability in it.
L Ron Hubbard set out detailed rules for how everything must be done, not just in the many expensive training courses but in the operational aspects of his organisation; as a result, the church is bureaucratic beyond belief.
Hubbard, who died in 1986, apparently had a volatile temper, and it’s often been said that his personality has imbued his organisation – but Hawkins still manages to shock the reader. He recounts several occasions when senior officers not only shout and scream at more junior officers but allegedly physically attack them. At one meeting, he claims, one of the most senior people in the church repeatedly hit him in the face then stormed out of the room. Hawkins says he fell to the floor, but no one helped him; instead, someone said: “Get up, get up… Don’t just lie there – don’t make him wrong for hitting you!” Hawkins says he complied, confessing to an offence he hadn’t committed, and accepting his punishment of several weeks of menial physical work. Finally he had had enough, and left the church in 2005.
The Church of Scientology claims 10 million members worldwide, a number that is usually repeated unquestioned in newspaper, radio and television news stories. For this religion, size matters; it is a very public indicator of its power and position.
In Britain, it claims 120,000 members, though the 2001 census returns revealed a very different picture. In England and Wales just 1,781 people said they were Scientologists, less than 1.5 per cent of the number the church claims. Similar figures worldwide led me, in an article five years ago in the Church Times, to suggest a worldwide membership of less than 100,000. But according to Hawkins even that is an over-estimate. At one point in his book, while still a member around 2002, he estimated “maybe 40,000 or 50,000 max”; now, on his blog, he puts worldwide membership somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000, and falling. That’s slightly different from 10 million.
In the last few years the Church of Scientology has suffered a spate of defections, some of them, like Jefferson Hawkins and Mike Rinder, the former head of PR, at a very high level. Some have dropped out of the religion altogether; others have grown disillusioned with the church and its alleged abuses but still believe in its teachings and practices, and so have set up alternative “Freezone” organisations – a sort of Reformation movement.
Of the many books I’ve read on the Church of Scientology this is simultaneously one of the best-informed, one of the calmest and most measured – and perhaps because of that, one of the hardest-hitting and most disturbing. Highly recommended for an account of how a religion should not be run.
reforming means reshaping. it is creative process. this will do a “thetan” well
Everything changes but change itself
For future petitions and awareness drives, I would definitely recommend you get the online atheist community involved. As a group they’re not thrilled with the Church of Scientology, there are a lot of them, and they’re active and well-connected.