Scientology Collaborator — Duplicitous or Just a Dupe?
A friend wrote to me and suggested that in my note about the speech that Professor
Gerhard Besier is supposed to have given at the opening of the Scientology cult’s
“human rights office” in Brussels on September 17, I might want to
change the word “scoundrel” to something that doesn’t imply
that he’s an “evil criminal.” http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/besier-speech-2003-09-17.html
It was recommended that I refer to Dr. Besier instead as a “Scientology
collaborator” or a “totalitarian group supporter,” which, of
course, he is.
My big Webster’s Dictionary has a single definition for “scoundrel:”
“a bold, selfish man that has very low ethical standards.” The word
doesn’t mean “evil criminal,” although certainly evil criminals
can be scoundrels, and scoundrels can be evil criminals. But all scoundrels are
not evil criminals. In fact, in modern usage, “scoundrel” can be a
playful term referring to a prankster or banterer. When I say that Dr. Besier,
if he delivered or wrote this speech, is a scoundrel, I am using the meaning provided
in my dictionary.
He may not be a scoundrel, because there’s still a chance that he may
not have given this speech in Brussels. Since I webbed the speech last week it
now is more certain that he did, because multiple reports have been received that
this text was handed out at a Scientology press conference following the “grand
opening.” http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/besier-speech-2003-09-17.pdf
The Scientology cult that Dr. Besier supports is famous, however, for forging
documents and for entrapping people and running covert intelligence operations,
so it is still remotely possible that this is a forgery created perhaps simply
to lure someone into erroneously criticizing him for a scoundrelly act he didn’t
commit.
Because I did not know when I webbed the speech if Dr. Besier had in fact
delivered it in Brussels, I included that all important qualifier “IF”
in my criticism. I have written to him and asked him IF he gave the speech, but
he has so far not responded. Therefore I still do not know with absolute certainty
that the speech is his.
IF it really is his speech, Dr. Besier is certainly bold, because it takes
astonishing boldness, indeed impudence, for someone who is not a Scientologist
to declare that Scientology is battling for “religious freedom,” and
that it “leads a fight for tolerance that will benefit everyone.”
As the Gerry Armstrong cases demonstrate, not only is Scientology not battling
for “religious freedom,” and most assiduously battling to destroy
religious freedom, but also virtually every Scientologist is contracted to destroy
religious freedom.
IF the speech is Dr. Besier’s, his boldness approaches shamelessness
because of his professional relationship to the Hannah Arendt Institute for the
Research of Totalitarianism at the Dresden Technical University. If a Director
of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, for example, gave a speech in which he portrayed
the Nazis as fighters for religious tolerance, that speech and that director would
not be that much more shameless.
Scientology’s intolerance and hatred for the class of citizens whom
the cult labels “SPs,” is just as opprobrious as the Nazis’
intolerance and hatred for the Jews. Scientology is just as totalitarian in philosophy,
policy and practice as the Nazi party. Thankfully, the Scientology cult has not
come into political power as the Nazis tragically did. It is extremely bold of
Dr. Besier to lend his support and academic position and reputation to the Scientologists
as they pursue that kind of power.
The following policy was issued by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in 1960,
and continues to be the organization’s policy, on which its personnel continue
to be trained and drilled:
“The goal of the department is to bring the government and hostile philosophies
or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology.
This is done by high level ability to control and in its absence by low level
ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies. Scientology
is the only game on Earth where everybody wins. There is no overt [crime] in bringing
good order." HCOPL 15 August 1960 “Department of Government Affairs.”
See, also Scientology’s intelligence officer checksheet. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/osa-int-ed-508r.html
The speech, IF it is Dr. Besier’s, manifests considerable selfishness
because of the omission of any mention of “suppressive persons,” or
“SPs,” the class of Homo sapiens or wogs®, against whom the Scientology
organization really does perpetrate the anti-human rights actions Dr. Besier erroneously
implies are being perpetrated against the Scientologists. How selfish to express
no words or empathy for the victims of the persecutors he praises as religious
freedom fighters. The opening of Scientology’s “human rights office”
was a perfect opportunity to say something on behalf of a truly suppressed minority,
the SPs, and he said, IF he said what it’s said he said, nothing!
Scientology, of course, is organized by policies that make the cult selfish
in the extreme. It is highly money-motivated, extorts labor and huge sums with
threats, scams massive amounts with demonstrably false promises, terrorizes its
perceived competitors, tries to crush anyone who distributes its “scriptures,”
and seeks an absolute monopoly for its brand of “religion.” Dr. Besier’s
speech, IF it is his, supports this consummately selfish cult by misidentifying
its selfishness as a fight for tolerance, and consequently mispaints his own motivation
for his support as philanthropic.
As an “academic,” and especially as a representative of the Hannah
Arendt Institute, Dr. Besier must hold to, and be held to, a higher ethical standard
than a non-academic who does not represent such an institution. IF he delivered
this speech, and if in his “research” he simply missed the fact that
Scientology is a notorious abuser of human rights, then Dr. Besier demonstrates
a very low level of academic ethics. IF he delivered the speech, and was aware
of the cult’s human rights abuse and intolerance of counter or other views,
then he displayed an abysmal level of ethics. IF Dr. Besier delivered the speech
that is being ascribed to him, and if he were paid for it, or for his presence
at the grand opening of the Scientology’s “human rights office,”
the ethics of his “research” and his overlooking of the cult’s
actual nature, intentions and practices make much more sense.
It may be that Dr. Besier, IF he wrote that speech, does not grasp what it
is like to be declared an “SP” by Scientology and made a target of
its infamous and widely condemned “fair game” policy. See, e.g., http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/sp/pl-penalties-for-lower-conds.html
Perhaps he has never heard from one of the cult’s victims, whose human
rights the Scientologists have tried to suppress and destroy using the courts
and through extra-judicial assaults, threats and other criminal acts. This then
is a wonderful opportunity for Dr. Besier to hear from one such Scientology target
and victim, and to undertake a study of the cult’s “suppressive person
doctrine” in his research. Scientology’s SPs are a suppressed minority
with a great need for a voice like his to speak in their defense, and for their
rights and freedoms.
Although Dr. Besier’s speech, IF he gave it in Brussels, puts him in
the unpleasant land of scoundreldom, it is extremely easy for him to escape that
state. He need only speak out against Scientology’s abuses and its SP doctrine,
and speak up for the SPs. It may very possibly happen that in doing so he would
himself be targeted as an SP and fair gamed by the totalitarian cult he had been
supporting, and his career, family, relationships and life threatened, or even
ruined. But being fair game is surely a better rap than being a scoundrel.
It might be helpful to Dr. Besier to read this college senior thesis entitled
"Scientology and Totalitarianism" that uses Hannah Arendt’s writings
for comparing Scientology to Nazism and Stalinism, which is webbed on Operation
Clambake. http://www.xenu.net/archive/thesis/index.html In fact, it might be helpful
for Dr. Besier to read everything at Operation Clambake. www.xenu.net Perhaps
it would help to read about my own almost twenty-two years of experiences as an
SP and fair game. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/introduction.html
It might also be helpful to Dr. Besier to consider Dr. Arendt’s messages
about movements like Scientology, their front organizations, like Scientology’s
“human rights office,” and their supporters, like himself. For example,
from her Origins of Totalitarianism:
The world at large, on the other side, usually gets its first glimpse of a
totalitarian movement through its front organizations. The sympathizers, who are
to all appearances still innocuous fellow-citizens in a nontotalitarian society,
can hardly be called single-minded fanatics; through them, the movements make
their fantastic lies more generally acceptable, can spread their propaganda in
milder, more respectable forms, until the whole atmosphere is poisoned with totalitarian
elements which are hardly recognizable as such but appear to be normal political
reactions or opinions.
The fellow-traveler organizations surround the totalitarian movements with
a mist of normality and respectability that fools the membership about the true
character of the outside world as much as it does the outside world about the
true character of the movement. The front organization functions both ways: as
the facade of the totalitarian movement to the nontotalitarian world, and as the
facade of this world to the inner hierarchy of the movement.
Gerry Armstrong
c/o Dialog Zentrum Berlin
Heimat 27
D-14165 Berlin-Zehlendorf
Germany
Tel: +49 (0) 30-8472-3958
Fax: +49 (0) 1212-5-205-27-015
gerry@gerryarmstrong.org