The Killing Joke

So the Scientology cult had their annual bookathon the other day, and something very interesting happened.

They sold 2,257 Scientology handbooks. Previous tallies include 33,944 in 2007 and 49,000 in 2005, according to Enturbulation.org. Dozens and dozens of orgs this year sold zero books, in what might just be the most epic fail yet.

Could this drop in cult sales possibly be the doing of a certain group of shiftless internet tough guys hanging around the Orgs with funny masks and fact sheets for the past four months? It's impossible to say for sure, but the smart money is on "hell yeah."

You know, I keep running into interwebs naysayers who think this movement is all just a big joke that has done no harm whatsoever to Scientology. Well, they're half right--it IS a joke. But a 94% drop in church book sales in one year is one doozy of a punchline, don't you think?

In conclusion, the lulz do good things for society. And it's not the only time this has happened:

Stetson Kennedy, a reporter for the short-lived lefty newspaper PM, went undercover into the Klan, learning the secret passwords and countersigns used by the Grand Dragon "Doc" Green's vicious Klavern No. 1 of Atlanta. For sport, Kennedy passed on the info to writers of the Superman radio show about that comic-book character whom Wade calls "the ultimate antifacist."

-From here.

That incident is generally blamed/thanked for dragging the Klan out of the shadows of respectability and turning it into a freakshow. Membership plunged and, some say, never recovered.

Scientology is nowhere near as bad as the Klan, of course. Yet. Any society, no matter how marginal, whose end goals for our planet include the forced elimination of the physically and mentally disabled, not to mention the eradication of several races it just plain doesn't like, needs to be squished and squished hard, on sheer principle, and as quickly as possible so it doesn't spread.

If all it takes to do that is a nice hard belly-laugh at Miscavige's expense, that's a good thing and I'm grateful for it.

“MANY MONTHS AGO THIS MAY
A MESSAGE WAS GIVEN TO THIS PLACE.

“THE INTERNET HATE MACHINE
STRUCK THE BLOW
THAT BLEW THE BULL
OF LRH AWAY.

“BUT ORGS
WHO WOULD OPPRESS
HAVE LABORED HARD BEHIND
THEIR WALL OF FAIL UNSOUND.

“FOR IF ALL PRECLEARS
COULD GO FREE
WHO THEN COULD DAVID SMACK AROUND?

“YOU HAVE SOME LULZ TO FORWARD ON
THE WORK THAT WAS BEGUN
AND LIKE THE BANNER OF LONGCAT
DRAW OUT THE PATH WE WON.

“EACH RAID THAT FLOWS BEHIND US FINDS
LESS FORCE IN OSA
THAT MET US WHINING "OH PLEASE STOP,
OH KINDLY GO AWAY."

“OH YES, WE’LL WIN FOR MANKIND YET
AND RESTORE THEIR MENTAL HEALTH
WHY LET DAVE WIN?
WHEN HE CAN LOSE
HIS CAKE AND ALL HIS WEALTH?"

“IT’S UP TO YOU
TO SEE THE MIDGET
STUMBLE ALL THE WAY.

“DO ALL YOU CAN
MY FRIENDS TO SEE
THAT XENU WINS THE DAY.”

LOVE, MARK