On Tue, 2 Feb 2010 18:32:10 -0800 (PST), seastew
wrote:
>On Feb 2, 11:29 am, Twitchell wrote:
>> http://gawker.com/5462117/scientologists-in-haiti-a-firsthand-account
>>
>> We've spoken to someone who traveled to Haiti on a Scientology plane — and
>> witnessed firsthand the ineptitude, quackery and irresponsibility of the
>> church's minions in a disaster zone. Here's his account.
>>
>> "I arrived at JFK last week, ready to go.
>>
>> I knew we were traveling with doctors and EMTs, but I didn't expect to see 50
>> scientologists, in their yellow shirts with Volunteer Minister on them. They
>> were completely unprepared for going to a third world country, let alone a
>> disaster zone. One girl was in designer cowboy boots. I asked her if she'd
>> brought any sturdier footwear.
>>
>> "Oh no, these'll be fine."
>>
>> I asked another guy what he'd packed and he said he hadn't bothered to bring
>> soap or toilet paper or food, but that he'd just "buy whatever I need at
>> Port-au-Prince airport." I couldn't break it to him.
>>
>> They had no place to stay, and no supplies — their idea was to use the ton of
>> money they had to buy food to distribute when they got there. But there was no
>> food and no water. That was the point.
>>
>> By the time we arrived in Haiti, after a stopover in Miami, we had missed three
>> landing slots at the airport. Aid agencies — genuine aid agencies — from other
>> countries were being turned away, refused permission to land. But we still got a
>> slot straight away. The guy who ran our charter seemed to think that the
>> Scientologists had some real influence with the US Government, who were
>>igning the slots.
>>
>> The doctors and EMTs in our party headed straight downtown to start working. The
>> Scientologists had nowhere to go, and nowhere to put up the big yellow tent
>> they'd brought for touch healing people in. They went to the UN, and managed to
>> get on to their list of approved NGOs somehow. That meant they could set up in
>> the UN grounds.
>>
>> But they had no-one who spoke Creole, and they brought the weirdness of touch
>> healing into a very superstitious society. They'd leave the tent and come into
>> the general hospital downtown, and try healing people. One of the doctors and
>> one of the nurses told me that the wounded started coming to them to tell them
>> they didn't want to be treated by the people in the yellow shirts.
>>
>> One nurse told me that the Scientologists actually caused harm — they gave food
>> to people who were scheduled to go into surgery. That then led to complications
>> in the operating theater.
>>
>> On the way back, the plane stopped in Miami and did not go on to New York,
>> stranding all the doctors and EMTs and journalists who expected to get back.
>> After much fighting, the Scientologist representative agreed to fly any of the
>> EMTs that "absolutely couldn't afford the ticket" on Jet Blue from Fort
>> Lauderdale. I heard there were complications but had bought my own ticket
>> because I was fed up with their weirdness.
>
>Ridiculous. Why would the UN allow them near their site?
See if you can find any information on "Sri Chinmoy" and
you'll know why; the UN is staffed and led by lunatics. |
