If not for members of Buttersquash this newbie in year 2000 would have spent a year trying to understand the issues.

I would not have had the ability to source and harvest critical evidence and rulings etc and so on in the McPherson
and Slatkin cases.

They posted critical and well thought out analysis based on fact minus their personal bias much of the time.

I would have been at the mercy of cranks,kooks,liars/trolls-radical athiests etc. along with well meaning but misinformed albeit well intentioned
posters for daily news, as it emerged.

The Buttersquashers realized early on the trap so easy to fall into in all this discussion about SCN.
The trap is becoming an ugly hater of religions and organized philosophies. Real religious Bigots.

When that occurs-scientology becomes right as they accuse us. They become right. They win.

One veteran critic told me along time ago "They all Lie.
Well, that's tongue in cheek. Not everyone "Lies"
None the less you must assume it is true here and elsewhere.

Many people here repeat fiction passed down from years back and innocently I might add.

You must do your own research. You cannot rely on any website for accuracy minus personal bias. I don't know that one exists.
Reading posts by "buttersquashers" on ars is a very very good place to start.

I know some people that actually believed it when they were told there was a time when pets of critics
were in danger of being killed by scientologists. true.

You better get your story straight before accusing anyone of molestation-or rape etc. It's reprehensible to do anything less.

People get affected by group Hysteria and rumors--sometimes they repeat them. I see it here weekly.

Michael

Here is a write-up on the history of the Buttersquashers from Zinj today. Notice that his characterization of the Buttersquash members is amply demonstrated in their posts above.

Why buttersquash?

From: Zinj - view profile
Date: Thurs, Aug 17 2006 4:52 pm
Email: Zinj <zinji...@yahoo.com>
Groups: alt.religion.scientology



People new to alt.religion.scientology may be a bit
discombobulated at the use of the term 'Buttersquash', as if it
were a real live 'conspiracy' behind the scenes like the
Rosicrucians or the Illuminati etc.

Very good Grasshopper!

From: kady - view profile
Date: Sat, Aug 19 2006 2:22 am
Email: kady <k...@removetheobviouswwwaif.net>
Groups: alt.religion.scientology


Very probably for the last time, although who knows, really? I'm not one
for dramatic exits, really. I've not posted in a while because I've either
a) had nothing to say, or b) have had no desire to kick off the inevitable
frey that would result, thanks to the few, the proud, the unhealthily
obsessed: Zinj, Padgett and now, apparently, Michie.

First and foremost, the claim that the old Efnet #scientology was
controlled by ruthless, power-mad cabalists who spent their days plotting
who to silence next is complete hogwash, and it surprises me that anyone
but Zinj is willing to give it a moment's credence. Those of you were there
know the truth. Those of you who simply take Zinj's hallucinatory and self-
serving recollections as fact have been grossly misled. It would take too
long to detail the whole sordid tale, but basically, Zinj was trying to set
up a meeting with a fucked up 15 year old wanna-be Scientologist who hung
out on the channel, and when she told one of the ops about it, he freaked
out and brought it to the attention of several fellow ops -- not all, at
the time, and ironically, given my starring role in the bizarro world Zinj
version of this whole debacle, not me.


Maybe if he had instead brought it to the channel as a whole, it wouldn't
have inspired this whole mythos of the nefarious ops cabal, but he was
trying to protect the privacy of the girl in question as much as possible,
so I can't fault him for taking the approach that he did. Anyway, these ops
decided to take action to prevent the meeting from going down - honestly, I
forget the specifics, although I believe her parents may have been
contacted, and possibly federal authorities - I really don't know how it
went down; as previously mentioned, I was not brought into the discussions
until later.


So anyway, jailbait crisis averted; now what? Should Zinj be banned from
the channel for his predatory activities, or was that outside the realm of
chanop jurisdiction? This sparked a lively debate on the mailing list that
was, indeed, used by the ops to discuss administrative matters. I'm not
sure why that is seen as so very sinister; since there were people in
different timezones, with conflicting schedules etc.., it was the most
convenient way to communicate with everyone at the same time.
I actually argued against banning him, for the record. I think I even
posted a fairly extensive explanation of my reasoning, but since this was
over a decade ago, it has been lost in the ether, or I would post it here,
for posterity. Basically, I felt that it was a slippery slope to start
policing the channel based on off-IRC behaviour, although there were others
who were concerned that failing to act could result in legal liability down
the line.


Eventually, we decided to hold off on a ban, but someone - I believe it was
Ralph Hilton - took it upon himself to fill Zinj in on all this backroom
chatter, and inadvertantly sent him into what has been the longest IRC-
related tantrum in history. Zinj was already smarting over being caught
with his hand in the jailbait cookie jar, and pretty much convinced that it
was due to all those nasty ops conspiring against him, so this was just
what he needed to transform the whole sorry affair into one in which he was
the victim of those dastardly ops. Which he did, and for the next while, he
would join the channel and spend the entire time ranting about the
aforementioned conspiracy, the ops in question, as well as his amateur pop-
psychological analysis of what he termed 'high school politics' (of course,
in high school, it's okay to hit on fifteen year olds). For some reason, he
always had a particular obsession for me; I think because I made the
mistake of trying to discuss the matter with him until it became painfully
obvious that he had absolutely no interest in understanding why events had
unfolded as they did, but just wanted to somehow expunge his own bad acts
from the record in order to present himself as a blameless martyr to the
forces of cliqueishness.


As time passed, his nightly performance made the channel virtually
unusable, since it was literally nothing but line after line of Zinj
rambling on about liars, cowards and ops, so he was banned.
The end.


Hah! I wish. No, since then, he's done nothing but obsess creepily about an
IRC channel that hasn't existed in nearly a decade, and try to derail every
thread on a.r.s. into an attack on the shadowy conspiracy that exists only
in his fevered mind. Really, search his history on Google Groups using my
name a keyword, or PTS, or Mirele, or Tikk, or anyone else who he has
drafted into the non-existent Buttersquash conspiracy. I don't respond to
him because it doesn't do any good; he's way beyond the point of reason,
and it's a waste of time. If anyone else has any questions, though, I'd be
happy to discuss the matter on a.r.s. or IRC - but I can't imagine why
anyone other than creepy obsessive Zinj would care. Oh, and Michie. And
Padgett. Such enviable company!


But for the record, I have never, ever tried to control any IRC channel,
beyond kicking warbots, setting /topics when necessary, or -- actually, I
think that's about it. At the moment, most administrative issues - when and
why to ban, etc - are discussed on channel, with the goal of reaching some
sort of consensus, and as yet, there haven't been any MAJOR disagreements;
me, I always lean towards erring on the side of *not* banning someone, but
occasionally I'm outvoted. (Stupid majority!)


That was a joke, for the humour-impaired, and no, it isn't formally a
democracy, but a channel should always be for its users, and ops are more
like janitors than dictators. Sure, you're free to impose draconian rules,
and dictate what people can say, or think, or do, but if you do, you're
likely to end up the only person on your channel, which kind of defeats the
purpose. Anyone and everyone is welcome on #altreligionscientology, except
Zinjifar, for reasons that should be clear to anyone who has waded through
this voluminous post. Even Michie, who, despite his melodramatic kvetching
about being banned, BA-A-A-A-N-N-E-D, oh the pain of it all, from #ars, is
also free to join. Of course, if he tries to pull any more of his crap on
me, I'll tear him a new orifice, but I promise that he'll never be banned
by me.

Not to fret Arnie, epiphanies are a regular occurance here! Most of us do indeed recognize that ...

$CIENTOLOGY IS MUCH WORSE THEN WE THINK (or thought at one time.)

The learning curv comes when we see
posters like U-Mike, Fluff, SuzanneNarie, Pitbull, and others
trying to spin the cult back into a benign religion of sorts.

On the Buttersquash Ranch home page, one can scroll down near the bottom and find a topic titled "Tom Padgett, deadbeat dad, liar, felon." Why they choose to do OSA's RFW style ops on people, remains beyond suspicious.

Fighting the cult on the front lines takes very thick skin one learns eventually. If you speak out and expose Hub's farce, they will come after ya with every trick in their bag of D.A., Black PR, and FairGame(c) goodies. That's a fact, not an epiphany. Shame on Rob
and his BS blog groupies for futhering the goals of Admiral Davie and greazy Mikey Rinder.


Tom
----------------
www.fairgamed.org

On the Buttersquash Ranch home page, one can scroll down near the bottom and find a topic titled "Tom Padgett, deadbeat dad, liar, felon." Why they choose to do OSA's RFW style ops on people, remains beyond suspicious.

Tom
----------------

HI tom,

Yah know Ive been at this for 12 years
and what Im learning lately, once again is reaching to a new epiphany...
once again I am learning the same lesson, .. maybe I'll get right it right THIS time. You see Tom, *I* again am learning that:

Scientology is even worse than you (i) think!

www.buttersquash.net/
Nothing suspicious about it at all. Many people were concerned that his story was based on unproved allegations about cult harassment.
Every conclusion reached about Tom Padgett and his case are based on copies of Legal court documents,letters written by him,recorded statements by him,interviews and sworn statements of people that know him and affadavits.

Let the reader be the judge about the credibility regarding his tales of cult harassment.

Link here: www.buttersquash.net/

Thanks so much for the Buttersquash link Mike. After spending some time checking out the site, I realized $cientology and Buttersquash have something in common: They're both worse than you think!

Why? Please explain. Post actual evidence if you can.

Or are you just talking trash because you think others will like you.

It's difficult for some people to stand up and say Bullshit! Thank god, I have that still in me and Scn didn't destroy it in me, because I was able to see through the Scn Bullshit, and I've gotten real good at seeing through critic bullshit. And I'm not afraid to stand up to either and say so.