Rant/ Rave in bed with Scientology? Here’s the proof

Rant/ Rave is a relatively new group blog that offers (as the name suggests) an outlet for people to rant or rave on what ever subject tickles their fancy.

Although Rant/ Rave promotes an open door application policy, many if not most writers on the site have been approached before hand. Justin Gardner, the editor of political site Donklephant (a site I was involved in when it launched) was approached to write for the site, as I presume most others where. They offer a revenue split up front, but possibly more in private deals.

By its nature, the site does host a variety of opinion, but likewise it does promise to edit/ delete opinions that are out there, or just plain offensive. Which begs the question: how is it that the Scientology propaganda post “Put another shrink on the barbie, Cobber” is not only still published on the site, but as I write this, the most popular post on Rant/ Rave.

The post is an attack on Adam Ferrier, the founding partner of Australian PR firm Naked Communications, and a trained Psychologist. Ferrier wrote a post detailing his experiences with the Church of Scientology in Australia, noting that his results with a Scientology “personality test” showed unsurprisingly how badly off he allegedly was.

Ferrier’s post was transparent and detailed, which is far more than you can say for Jack H Remington at Rant/ Rave. Remington’s bizarre Scientology fueled attack starts from the beginning, where he writes:

A wacky Australian Psychologist has launched a bigoted and underhanded blog attack on religion and the nation of the USA. The Aussie ‘Psycho’, pseudonymously [sic] known as the Fiddler, normally exercises his penchant for insanity by such things as ‘testing’ an erectile dysfunction clinic, and writing about his experiences on his blog.

Where do you start there? There’s no pseudonym for starters, Adam is real and his name is on the post. He does however have a track record of investigating and writing about shams, and erectile dysfunction scams are big in Australia.

But it gets better, because its time to trash Australia due to an off the cuff remark Adam made about white toothed Americans. See if you can guess that this text is really about Scientology

Confirming Australia’s reputation as a nation of criminals, founded by criminals, for criminals, the Fiddler has now turned to trashing a Church and the people of the USA in his hilarious blog.

Not a church mind you, but the Church of Scientology. But wait, there’s more:

Fraudulently presented himself at the Australian Church of Scientology as a member of the public, when in fact he is a long-time Psych, the Fiddler infiltrated the Australian Church to take a free personality test.

How is turning up for a Scientology test fraudulent exactly? or is being a trained psychologist automatically disqualify you? But if it’s fanciful already, wait until you read the next bit:

Even though Mr L Ron Hubbard, as the Senior Naval Officer in Northern Australia, saved Australia from invasion in World War Two, many Australians like the Fiddler, with notable exceptions such as the great Ms Kate Ceberano, Ms Jodhi Meares, and Mr James Packer, remain resentful.

I’m sadly not making that last part up. Hubbard was never the Senior Naval Officer for Northern Australia. Wikipedia has his “naval” record here. His only time in Australia was on route to the Philippines, where he was held over for a month, and then sent back to the United States for “assuming unauthorized authority and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications.” Indeed, even Hubbard’s own account of his time in the Pacific says nothing of him single handedly saving Australia, when he said (and this is a direct quote) “I was flown in from the South Pacific as the first casualty to be shipped out of the South Pacific war back to the States.”

Notably the Australian’s he mentions are all Scientologists as well, and no one here remains resentful, after all, it was Australian troops that turned back the Japanese army in New Guinea, not American troops. But I digress.

The bigger question is why does this tripe remain on Rant/Rave? Even for Scientology propaganda, this is beyond the pale. It does say something about Scientology though: love them or hate them, you can fairly say that they are now seriously rattled, and are lashing out at the first opportunity, and it’s all about Anonymous as well. Don’t believe me? Here’s the last extract from the post:

You are obviously acting as an agent for the cyberterrorist group “Anonymous”. You should be honest about your true intentions for attacking Scientology in this article, which is that you do not want people to get better and want to impede the creation of a saner planet.

I wonder how Australian Scientologists feel about Scientology trashing Australia?

(links via Mumbrella)