30 Apr 2002 Whack-A-Mole isn't over in Bowdon, Georgia

From: FRice@SkepticTank.ORG (Rev. Fredric L. Rice)
Subject: Whack-A-Mole isn't over in Bowdon, Georgia
Date: 30 Apr 2002

The citizens of Bowdon turned out in large numbers at the meeting which resulted in voting against allowing Scientology to set up shop in town -- 5 to 2 in favor of throwing the crooks out. The remaining 2 votes have me wondering what two local government employees are thinking; certainly they're apparently not concerned for the health and welfare of the citizens.

A lot of more amazing information came out of what happened down there in Georgia and hopefully it'll all come out on a.r.s. The level of dishonesty and outright lies that Scientology told the citizens of Bowden and Carrollton was amazing. What's more amusing is that some of the citizens easily found out the truth for themselves and alerted their neighbors and the confirmation ball started to roll. A petition was circulated and signed and it had a large percentage of the Bowden population signatory to it. The local telephone exchange buzzed with background information about the cult and their Narconon scam.

The reason? Scientology's dishonesty, their fraudulent claims, and their inability to answer straight forward questions without trying to circumvent some embarrassing truths. Citizens were in uprising mode and come up to speed on Scientology's history quickly. If the cult had come in without lieing their asses off, they might have been able to sneak in to town unopposed by the citizens.

Here's a couple of things that Scientology did: They allegedly paper mailed everyone in Bowden with advertisements about the claimed benefits of having a "drug treatment" facility in their town. There was no mention of the increased hospital expenses townships suffer when Narconon comes in to town. I'll try to get a copy of that advertisement to see if it's the traditional Narconon set of lies. Apparently they've stopped trying to claim a 86% success rate and are now at 72% -- still a profound lie utterly not backed up by any testable, verifiable evidence.

Even worse: The crime syndicate went door-to-door and asked people questions in a mock "survey" -- in paraphrase:

o "Do you think your town has a drug problem?"

o "Do you think that drug treatment facilities are a good idea?"

Citizens who thought they were taking a real survey and who answered in the affirmative were allegedly later quoted by the Narconon crooks as having _endorsed_Narconon!_ I heard -- and this is alleged and I want to make sure the crime syndicate knows this was reported as opinion and not fact -- that the crooks actually named some people's names as having endorsed Narconon because they answered this "survey" in the affirmative.

Oh but it gets better. A number of human rights activists are checking out some names -- which may be "suitable guises" -- and some questions have been flying around the United States to and from various organizations checking in to some of the claims that Narconon made while down there in Bowden. I hope that one of the claims fails to pan out and that the bastards get their asses chewed. If it _does_ pan out, activists have some more work to do.

It isn't over in Bowden/Carrollton, though. A loop-hole opens up the possibility that they can conditionally get a rezoning which would allow the crooks to set up shop. Citizens in the area won't let that happen.