As we know, gay Republican Mark Foley -- a man of youthful enthusiasms -- has ties to the Church of Scientology. He has gone for rehab somewhere in Clearwater, Florida, a town which the Scientologists have pretty much taken over. Read all about it here and here and here. Scientology's emphasis on drug rehabilitation is ironic, given the eyewitness accounts which portray "Elron" as a pill-popper. Of course, the preferred mode of Scientology treatment -- auditing -- is pseudoscience.
Apparently, web pages linking Foley to the Hubbardians have been disappearing. We still have the Google caches...
My questions:
How did the Church gain control of an entire city at a time when overall membership is falling?
Why did Foley ally himself to the Hubbardians when most people consider the cult disturbing, inane, and perhaps even dangerous?
Why would a closeted gay man establish ties to an anti-gay sect?
Side notes:
You may want to check out this page, which tells the story of a fellow who wore a silly "Scientology is gay" t-shirt in the presence of cultist Jenna Elfman. According to writer Dawn Olsen, an enraged Elfman screamed inanities at the offender in public: "What crimes have you committed...? Have you raped a baby?"
Uh...Jenna? In light of the Foley/Scientology connection, you may want to reword your nutball accusations.
(Who would've thought that Dharma would hook up with a group founded by a man who thought homosexuals should be removed from society?)
My old buddy Xenu has asked me to bring up a tangentially-related matter. Was there ever anything to the Tom-Cruise-is-gay rumor? Everyone I know believes the rumor, yet no-one has ever pointed to a specific incident or statement substantiating the notion. Is this simply the old equation "good looking + male + fame = gay" at work?
9 comments:
I notice that one of your persistent questions is the source of the old IMs that implicate Foley and the larger question of how the story broke at this moment in time.
You might take a look later today at the DemocracyNow website (Amy Goodman's Pacifica news show). She interviewed the ABC producer/researcher who gotcha'd Foley, including pretty extensive discussion of where the emails and IMs came from. The rush transcript should be up later today.
It seems that after they broke the story of the first merely inappropriate emails, pages just came out of the woodwork and contacted ABC. Interestingly, the producer said the reason no one talked earlier is because most of these pages want political jobs and in the words of the producer, no one wants to start their political career at the center of a sex scandal.
One of the most interesting aspects of the interview was how ABC authenticated the first IMs. According to this ABC producer, because Foley used a screen name, there was no way to verify it was Foley. They called Foley's press person and read the text. The press person said something to the effect of I'll get back to you shortly. Later in the day Foley just resigned. That's how they authenticated the electronic messages.
HamdenRice of DU
Thanks for this. But I'm still wondering.
"Came out of the woodwork..."? I dunno. I can't understand why those pages would even keep those IM logs int he first place.
Especially since those boys seem a bit confused about their sexuality, and probably do not want their peers to know about such things. Especially since the pages lived at home with parents and siblings who could access the computer. Especially since, as you note, they wanted political careers.
Also keep in mind my earlier point that you need special software to keep logs of AIM messages.
Bottom line: I just don't think those kids would keep stuff like that on their 'puters.
Here's a possibility. Let's say that Ross received an anonymous package (either snail mail or, more likely, electronic) containing the IMs. Ross THINKS that he has received info directly from the pages, who refuse to identify themselves for understandable reasons. ("Dear Mr. Ross: I must keep my name out of this right now. But I can no longer remain silent about...")
But Ross cannot really know for sure tht he is dealing with the actual pages, so he verifies the IMs by confronting Foley. When Foley reacts by resigning, Ross goes on the air.
Ross may thus legitimately think that the IMs came from the pages. But that doesn't mean that they really did communicate with the newsman. I suspect that some OTHER party kept those logs and sent them to Ross, probably with the kids' names excised.
Incidentally, at least one right-wing blog has noted the the formatting of the messages presents some anamolies.
yeah, hamden, i saw that DN! show this AM, and was impressed by that producer. this story sticks harder than flypaper.
also, if you visit this site
http://stopsexpredators.blogspot.com/2006/09/shocking-emails.html
a sex predator site, you'll find a few more that incriminate foley, and one that also lists barney frank and jim kolpe (r-az) as similarly friendly. that same page, though, said that at least with frank and kolbe, they admitted they were gay. evidently foley, in stark contrast, has quite the reputation for lurking and groping.
i'll be very interested in what further stuff abc unveils in the coming days.
meanwhile, posting a thought piece on the psychology of all this in the morning; stay tuned.
"...you need special software to keep logs of AIM messages."
I dunno. I use GAIM, and that logs messages, I think by default. If not, all it takes is a single checkmark in the preferences to set it to do so. Previously I used Miranda, and I've also tried out Trillian, and those are the same.
Perhaps AOL Instant Messager is incable of logging messages, but I'd expect any third party client would do it easily.
Trillian, too, is trivial to configure to log any and all IM traffic... I don't think it's that rare a feature. Still, the timing of all this is curious.
RigInt forum had a thread up about the original blog source on this story being four or five weeks old.
Modified limited hangout?
joe, watch/listen to the DN! interview with the ABC producer. they received the first email, ran that story, and the rest came out of the woodwork. she said they have actually spoken with these pages, who are now ex-pages. and yes, they verified by reading the transcript of one of the IMs to foley's COS, who said he'd get back to them shortly, and the next thing they knew, foley had resigned. they then ran with the IM story.
as for the software and computer issue, i think quite frankly that you're being naive. i can't recall if i read this reference in those IMs or in the sex predator link i included in my previous comment, but one guy is laughing about how computer ignorant his mom is. trust me; kids have disturbingly anonymous freedoms on the net, and the fears of parents parallel those parents first suffered with kids driving. parents these days are unbelievably respectful of their kids' privacy (trust me, i know this from professional experience), to the point that many have abdicated a large portion of their responsibilities of oversight in my opinion, but that's another matter.
as for downloading the software, i have to say you really are naive about this one. kids these days are unbelievably computer savvy. really, unbelievably so. that is just a trivial matter, and everybody IMs. trust me on this one, too.
and as for keeping these messages, well, i don't think they would have ever feared they'd get busted; there are ways to protect such things, if only burning to a cd and hiding it in a safe place. that's trivial.
but in addition to the shame involved, there is also the thrill, and the fact that this guy was a member of the US congress is not a trivial matter here. this is precisely why the issue of relative power is always a pivotal point in these cases. power does hold sway, and part of that dynamic is the thrill, the feeling of importance by association, the ego trip.
i think this addresses most of your questions about the IMs, but the one that continues to nag my mind is the timing of that initial email. something triggered this now, and because of the elections, that does not seem insignificant. the ABC producer stated that it was sent to ross, i believe by the page himself. one can imagine all manner of scenarios to explain the timing, only one of them being coincidence.
I will consider my questions answered. And I long ago knew that under-twenties can generally figure out software about ten times faster than I can. I have to compete in the marketplace with young people who know Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and everything else you can imagine...these same young people still live with Mom and Dad and can quote prices for gigs that make me cringe...
Enough of that. So really, does anyone know how the Tom Cruise thing started?
I have lived in florida off and on , both coasts, different seasons( which is important in some places- snowbirds) and can tell you that most all true Floridians are new age. I say most, I really mean a whole lot, ok. They are not always labeled scientologists but they pretty much all subscribe to that type "religion" or thought processes etc. So when Foley is mixed up with all of that, it figures. Everything goes with the lot of people down there.
"Also keep in mind my earlier point that you need special software to keep logs of AIM messages."
Not true, at least on a Mac.
Mine automatically go to a log with the click of a preference button.
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