Webbed at: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/besier-speech-comments.html

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

© Gerry Armstrong http://www.gerryarmstrong.org