Evie

Apparently, in his younger days, LRH actually wrote some decent stuff. He was recently given a posthumous award by the Blackfeet Tribe of Native Americans in Montana...

http://www.sunherald.com/447/story/450541.html

Is this some weird attempt at generating positive PR by the Scilons?

AnonNow

I wonder how much this co$t?

kiyiyi2

South Mississippi thought they were getting a syndicated news story, when it was really just PR. The Blackfeet have said, No, we never knew this Hubbard idiot you keep pushing on us; we don't have a "blood brother" ceremony.

I would be interested to hear from the supposed Blackfeet persons quoted, if they actually exist. They are probably Scilons.

This is just a PR lie from the Scilons and South Mississippi took the bait.

Galaxy Press is a trade name set up to publish and promote the fiction works of L. Ron Hubbard, and the anthologies of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest.

The company was separated from Bridge Publications in the early 2000s, and is a business name of Author Services Inc. which is, in turn, completely owned by the Church of Spiritual Technology. Bridge now focuses solely on Hubbard's Scientology works.

They published The Kingslayer as an audio-book in 2003 as well as L. Ron Hubbard Master Story-Teller, a coffee-table book by William J. Widder.

In 2004 they published a new edition of To The Stars as well as in audio-book form.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Press

DeathHamster

It's complete garbage!

Hubbard made up some claim of becoming a blood brother of the Blackfeet (who don't have any kind of "blood brother" ritual). Later on, some Scientologist, who was a fractional member of the Blackfeet, swiped some letterhead and forged up a letter "re-adopting" Hubbard.

Pay for view archive:
Staking a Claim to Blood Brotherhood June 24, 1990, The Scientology Story, Los Angeles Times
Text of article

kiyiyi2

Yep, it was blatantly just PR and they ran with it:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4779653&EDATE=

kiyiyi2

It was "a reuniting of old kindred spirits," said Patricia "Running Crane" Devereaux who accepted the war bonnet on Hubbard's behalf. She will see to its transfer to the L. Ron Hubbard's Museum located in Hollywood, CA.

Patricia Devereaux in Scientology's Published Service Completion Lists

The following 3 individual completions for Patricia Devereaux appear in official Scientology publications:
Patricia Devereaux PURIFICATION RUNDOWN Celebrity 355 2004-02-01
Patricia Devereaux OBJECTIVES Celebrity 367 2005-07-01
Patricia Running Crane Devereaux TRS & OBJECTIVES CO-AUDIT COURSE Celebrity 370 2005-12-01
http://www.truthaboutscientology.com...devereaux.html

DeathHamster

I'm going to check http://www.blackfeetnation.com/ to see if any of these people are listed as actual officials.

Now they're claiming that the Blackfeet awarded Hubbard a freaking war bonnet? (I wonder if the Blackfeet have those either?)

Evie

Am about to send this letter to the editor of the Sun Herald to inform them of their mistake. Any suggestions for rewording or additional sources?

Will wait a few hours for input before sending.

kiyiyi2

I'm not sure (actually far from sure), but in the cursory searching I did I got a sense that the Grounds brothers are actually of the Muscogee tribe (Oklahoma). Two brothers with their names graduated high school in '74 and '75. I could very well be wrong, though.

Plups

How about a qualifier: "If this isn't another April Fool's Day stunt..."

Anon9000+1

OLD TOM.
chief of sits on doorstep taking pictures with tourists

AKA.

"Damn Kids Leave me the Hell Alone"

AKA

"Sure rich white boy, give me fifteen dollars and Ill make you a Blood Brother"

I Am Mr. T

kiyiyi2

I wonder if there are any grounds (pardon the pun) for the Blackfeet Nation to sue Scientology.

Evie

Heh... I considered that when I first read it, but the article is dated March 25. :)

FreedomToThink

Not breaking news, moved and updated thread title for great truth.

please use their email system here to send accurate verified debunking sources, and your displeasure in their total lack of journalistic integrity. I did.

DeathHamster

There is an Al Potts, who is a Blackfeet elder, and chairman of the Senior Honorary Advisory Council:
http://www.glacierreporter.com/artic...news/news4.txt
http://prairiemary.blogspot.com/2006...-advisory.html
And served from 1990-1994 on the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/F...7/council.html

No mention of Larry Grounds and Rick Grounds as any kind of cultural advisor or medicine man. (Except in the many echoes of the press release.)

The Blackfeet do have war bonnets, at least. I couldn't find any mention of awarding them to outsiders, even "blood brothers", nor anything about who is qualified/allowed to hand them out.

subrosa

Also, unless you are a bona-fide indian, with a PERMIT, it is against federal law to possess any eagle/protected species feathers!

Kinda hard to believe they would violate federal law by giving them to outsiders.
(Unless they are turkey/blue jay feathers)

ethereal_ubiquity

Those bastards make up shit about native tribes, "war bonnets" and "blood brother" BS, and then call us bigots?

So by some crackheaded logic racial stereotypes are okay, speaking the truth about the Co$ is bigotry.

This is so stupid, I can't even think of anything else to say. The idiocy has drained my capacity for debate.

Hey-nony-nony

They've been pushing this tripe -- and trying to legitimize Hubbard's original absurd claim by occasionally performing these ludicrous ceremonies -- for years. You see, if he lied about this one thing, then the entire house of cards falls down. He therefore can't be proven to have lied about even the smallest thing.

In my opinion, this is one of the angles of attack we can use, because it's so absurd that even some of the pro-Scientology editors at Wikipedia once admitted it probably wasn't true. It's a wedge into their psyches.

Question: Do we have any actual Blackfeet tribal members here? If so, can someone find a real, official tribal response to this bullshit?

anomalousbosch

Hubbard's early documents and diaries show him not just to be a bigot, but staggeringly ignorant about the people he disparaged. (I guess the two go hand in hand.)

Among the real doozies, he suggested that the problem with China was that it had "too many chinks." I mean goddamn.

My last account dropped the body.

ut1

I used to live in Montana near both the Crow and Blackfeet reservations and I can tell you this from my own experience.

They don't like white people. The Blackfeet I knew called every white person they saw "Custer". With a few exceptions the understanding is: I stay out of your way; you stay out of mine.

I'm not saying this to be a racefag. Its just the way it is.