Scourge of Scientology dies in apparent suicide
He seemed to abandon the fight in the last year.
By Jonathan Abel and Robert Farley, Times Staff Writers
Published February 19, 2008
- Scientology's scourge (Sept. 7, 2006)
- Special report: Church of Scientology
CLEARWATER - Shawn Lonsdale, whose one-man crusade against Scientology made him a public enemy of the church, was found dead at his home over the weekend in an apparent suicide. He was 39.Police discovered Lonsdale's body at 12:20 p.m. Saturday after neighbors reported a foul odor. They found a garden hose stretched from the exhaust pipe of Lonsdale's car into a window of his home at 510 N Lincoln Ave., according to Clearwater police spokeswoman Elizabeth Daly-Watts.
Daly-Watts said there were no signs of foul play, and police found what appeared to be a suicide note. It was not immediately available.
The medical examiner's office said the official cause of death is pending toxicology reports.
It was a lonely end for a man who emerged out of nowhere in 2006 as a thorn in the side of the Church of Scientology.
For a few months in mid to late 2006, Lonsdale stood alone in downtown Clearwater beside a sandwich board that read "Cult Watch" in the heart of Scientology's religious headquarters.
Videocamera in hand, he taped hours and hours of footage: Scientology buildings, church staffers walking the streets, security guards watching his movements and verbal confrontations with Scientologists. He then edited them into a "pseudo-documentary" about Scientology that eventually aired on local cable television.
Lonsdale, who was never a Scientologist, was an odd nemesis. He had no connection to the church before arguing with a Scientologist over redevelopment issues at a Clearwater City Council meeting.
But the self-described loner stepped into his new role with enthusiasm. At night, he dropped fliers on the doorsteps of downtown businesses. On his lunch break, he parked his car across the street from the church's cafeteria with posters in his window that claimed people could find free versions of secret church texts on the Internet. He even picked church-related documents from piles of trash in front of a Scientology-owned business and posted some of the documents online.
The Church of Scientology and some its members fought back. They hired a private investigator to look into Lonsdale's background and found two misdemeanor convictions for lewd and lascivious conduct, both related to public sex with men, in 1999 and 2000.
They called Lonsdale's employer at a title company and his landlord and said that Lonsdale was a religious bigot, possibly dangerous.
In the fall of 2006, the church subpoenaed Lonsdale for a deposition, contending he was an agent of an anti-Scientology group that was legally barred from protesting in certain places downtown. Attorney Luke Lirot, who has battled Scientology in the past, came to Lonsdale's aid.
"I found him to be quite affable and truly a very intelligent man," Lirot said in an interview Monday. "I certainly hope that a very thorough investigation is conducted."
In the last year, though, the confrontation between Lonsdale and the Church of Scientology seemed to have run its course.
Lonsdale let his anti-Scientology Web site lapse. He posted less and less on anti-Scientology blogs. Church spokeswoman Pat Harney said it had been months since the church heard from Lonsdale.
Randy Payne, a former Scientologist, said Lonsdale found it impossible to be a full-time church critic and make a living.
Payne said that he last spoke to Lonsdale two months ago, and that Lonsdale had found steady work on the night shift at a local company, stocking shelves. He talked about going back to school and getting a private investigator's license.
"He was getting on with his life," Payne said. "He had every reason to live."
Landlord Joe Critchley said Lonsdale was an ideal tenant: He paid the $650 rent on time every month and he kept the place clean. The last time they talked, Feb. 1 or Feb. 2, Lonsdale seemed fine. "He would be one of the last people I would expect to commit suicide," Critchley said. "But you never know."
Researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report. Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4157.
[Last modified February 19, 2008, 11:33:16]
To quote a comment:
by Anon 02/23/08 07:47 PM Strange, if he was really trying to asphyxiate himself why didn't he just sit in his garage with the car running? Also, there are much faster and less strange ways of suicide than the hose from the exhaust to the window. RIP Shawn, never forget! Another:
by Bob Newhart 02/24/08 11:33 AM Alas he will not be forgotten! I and 8 others shall replace him. I have awoken!!! We are anonymous. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect US!>
RIP Shawn.
Monday, February 25, 2008
More "suicides" : Shawn Lonsdale
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Killtown?
Youtube user WhoisKilltown claims this is the homophobic bitch himself:
Normally wouldn't care. But Killtown, the screaming clowning hypocrite who cries "censorship", deleted this pic at his forum.
See cached thread here .
Too early in the morning for this crap. Funny as it is. More digging needed.
Normally wouldn't care. But Killtown, the screaming clowning hypocrite who cries "censorship", deleted this pic at his forum.
See cached thread here .
Too early in the morning for this crap. Funny as it is. More digging needed.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Frankie's Friends
Time to look at who Frank Morales pals around with. Found my work done for me two years ago:
Not saying I buy all of Tom's angles but he's not wrong. Strange to agree with queer basher Haupt about Jamieson.
Frank, Les, Webster, Lyndon ...where do you fit, Big Man?
Thursday, August 31, 2006
FILIBUSTERING FRANK MORALES,LES JAMIESON, AND THE LAROUCHE-ING OF THE “9/11 TRUTH” MOVEMENT
posted by Tom Weiss at 3:45 PMUP FRONT News August 28, 2006
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
“The paper that can’t be bought and can’t be sold.”
FILIBUSTERING FRANK MORALES,
LES JAMIESON, AND THE LAROUCHE-ING
OF THE “9/11 TRUTH” MOVEMENT
The notion that the 9/11 attacks were, at least in part, an “inside job”, despite increasing evidence to that effect, still remains an unacceptable idea to most Americans. Interestingly, however, the pro-Bush New York Post recently reported that a Scripps Howard Ohio University poll showed that more than one-third of Americans suspect federal officials of involvement. David Day Griffin, a California-based theologian very knowledgeable about structural engineering, has pretty much proved that the Twin Towers were brought down not by the hijacked planes but rather by “controlled demolition” of explosives previously placed in the buildings. Michael Ruppert, author of the chilling book “Crossing the Rubicon” tells us about Dick Cheney-authorized military exercizes involving numerous simulated hijackings over the northeast early on the morning of 9/11, which created radar confusion and delaying a military response. No wonder Cheney was reported to be in an “undisclosed location.”
Among the most disturbing aspects of the politics of 9/11 is the fact that a so-called “9/11 Truth” organization, holding regular meetings at St. Mark’s in the Bowery Church in Manhattan, has been every bit as hijacked as those planes. The meetings, which, in a manner of speaking, consider a variety of conspiracy theories, are run by a self-appointed leadership centering around Les Jamieson, St. Mark’s Assistant Pastor Frank Morales, and the very shiftly Nick Levis. These three fellows, aided and abetted by people directly and indirectly associated with the now “left” but very fascist megalomaniac Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., while purporting to seek the truth, are using every rhetorical and trick in the book to filibuster and fragmentize the very real 9/11 truth movement to death. They do so by dominating speaking time so that for example self-appointed “facilitator” Morales answers in 4,000 words questions that most people could handle in perhaps 100 words. They do so by making certain to avoid calling on people, such as myself, who ask questions that make them nervous. And they sometimes use threats – a LaRouche staple.
I knew that the neo-fascist LaRouche had moved in big-time when Jamieson and Co. invited so-called George Bush the First and 9/11 “expert” Webster Tarpley to speak at a meeting. Tarpley is an intellectual and major figure in LaRouche’s Germany-worshiping Schiller Institute. (LaRouche is a quite open believer in what he regards as the superiority of German culture and a less than open admirer of the Austrian German wannabe Adolf Hitler.) Although, as an advocate of free speech., I believe that Tarpley has the right to be heard, I felt strongly that “9/11 Truth” participants had a right to know that Tarpley is a disciple of the nazi LaRouche. Les Jamieson felt that such information should be with- held from the masses and, at the Tarpley-addressed meeting, tried with some force to shut me up when I raised the question.
Investigative journalist and historian Dennis King, author of “The New American Fas- cism”, an unauthorized biography of LaRouche, considers that Leesburg, Virginia-based racist and convicted felon “the most dangerous man in America.” I believe that Mr. King is correct. LaRouche is the most successful implementer of Machiavelli’s and Hitler’s principles of fascism in American history. Among the most important facts to remember is that Hitler developed political camouflage into an art from, often by campaigning and ranting as a leftist, as a “socialist.” He denounced the big business barons and the huge landowners in the name of workers and peasants rights. Using the Spanish Civil war as his laboratory in preparation for World War II, he developed the “fifth column” whereby fascists infiltrated the large and very complex Spanish left, causing major splits and, along with open air support (e.g. Guernica), helped the fascist Francisco Franco become dictator of Spain. (Very interestingly, this was one gamble that ultimately did not pay off for Hitler as the part-Jewish Franco refused Der Fuehrer’s demand in 1941 that Spain enter the War as a German ally. Franco also allowed thousands of Jewish refugees to enter Spain. Franco was a Spanish nationalist who detested Communists and atheists, but he also detested Hitler.)
And in the United States, the fascist LaRouche is doing much the same thing. For de- cades LaRouche has been seeking to gain power by gaining what he calls “hegemony over the left” by splitting the left, usually by outlefting it. Using local surrogates such as the racists “Dr.” Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani, LaRouche created such political para-sites as the New Alliance Party to split the left. When, in part because of exposure in UP FRONT News, the NAP died, Fulani and Newman parasited themselves onto various “third party” efforts such as the one generated in the 1990’s by Ross Perot. When Perot got wise to Fulani, she created the Independence Party in New York with her LaRouche-ite racist self as dictator. She and Newman, using the strategies and tactics of their spirit-godparents Hitler and LaRouche, created outwardly socially responsible front organizations such as the Castillo Cultural Center and the All Stars Project and got money from, among others, the Bloomberg Administration. Fulani, using the siren song of “independent” political action, moved in on the Green Party, successfully sucking in Ralph Nader and helping to “elect” Cheney/Bush.
And, all the while as the Cheney/Bush regime sunk into its Iraq War, the LaRouche bunch, led by such locals as Fulani, Greens Paul Zulkowitz and Gerald Kann, upstaters like Green Party New York State boss Howie Hawkins from Syracuse, thugs like George Tatevosyan and complete psychopaths like “9/11 Truth”guest speaker Geoffrey Blank, parasited themselves on the very 9/11 wounded and Iraq-weakened American psyche.
The goal, in classic fascist strategy is to immobilize the left by emulating it and dealing with dissent the way fascists do, with manipulations, threats and sometimes violence. “Left” neo-fascists know full well they make no headway by singing the praises of folks like Hitler or LaRouche. And so they move in on legitimate groups advocating, for example, Palestinian rights, or (generically speaking) 9/11 truth, and, placing themselves in usually non-elected leadership positions, take over.
And, as has become evident in the rhetoric in connection with the Middle East and in some of the more offensive demagoguery emanating from the Greens, anti-Jewish stuff rises, like scum in a swamp, to the surface.
The aforementioned Dennis King is probably the most knowledgeable source on the generally below the radar LaRouche/Fulani, et. al. threat. His disturbing but very en- lightening website is at dennisking.org. Other good sources include ex-iwp.org, publiceye.org and the writings of such investigative reporters as Chip Berlet and Doug Ireland.
The implications of a LaRouche infiltration into the 9/11 truth movement are scary. Lyndon LaRouche, despite his anti-Bush rhetoric, has high level contacts with Cheney/ Bush. How else would LaRouche have become an invited guest at the 2005 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner as reported in The New York Times? LaRouche is known to have over a lifetime of lies, deceit, violence and criminality, enjoyed associations with the KKK, mobsters, drug traffickers, rabid, Maoists and Nazis. And, considering his recurrent speaking up for terrorist regimes like the ones in charge in Iran (where they torture political dissidents, hang gay people, and call for the destruction of Israel) and China (where they commit Genocide in occupied Tibet), I would not be at all surprised if Lyndon LaRouche, like Dick Cheney, was part of the “inside job.”
Visit www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com and
www.tomweissdemocratforussenate.blogspot.com
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Not saying I buy all of Tom's angles but he's not wrong. Strange to agree with queer basher Haupt about Jamieson.
Frank, Les, Webster, Lyndon ...where do you fit, Big Man?
