Open Letter #2 to Mike Rinder re Cancer
from Robert Vaughn Young
Monday, February 21, 2000

Since remarking in that other open letter to you about the behavior of your volunteer in throwing those remarks at Stacy that she is killing me (an obvious reference to my cancer and blaming her), I decided that you need to be told something else.

If I ever hear of that being done again, if I ever learn that your drones have thrown that into her face (or mine), I will use every resource I can muster to tell the world how you (collectively Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard) feel about and treat cancer patients and those close to them.

I will ensure that every cancer support group - from newsgroups to mailing lists to web sites - which I can find, gets that message with the details of what occurred. Time, place, form and event along with this last incidence and the other times - such as your behavior in Tampa. I will make sure that it is in the subject line, key words and written in a way so that if a person reads only the opening paragraph (let alone the subject line) they will get the truth of how you people feel about cancer patients and those who support them.

Now let me tell you why I am doing this. I know your first reaction will be that it bothers me or her and I'm taking this personally. No, Rinder. It doesn't and you can quote me on that. I said I am moving off into a new enterprise to help people with cancer (specifically prostate cancer that kills 40-50K men a year) and I am not going to stand by while someone treats people with the disease with the disdain you are ordering to be done. (If that volunteer had know what her insult meant, would she have said it?)

To insult Stacy or me on the subject is to insult every person with the disease. Coming from anyone else, I could say it was done in jest (bad taste), momentary anger or ignorance and would remark more politely on it. Coming from your people, it is none of these. It is a deliberate attack of the condition and it shows exactly what the organization and Hubbard teaches and I will tell everyone who is fighting cancer exactly that. Then if you want to follow with your despicable "dead agent" tactics to those same groups and sites and lists, go for it and be sure to include this message. If you don't, I will.

I don't want you to think that just because I am "retiring" from speaking out about abuses of your organization to devote myself to cancer education that I am going to ignore you if you decide to intrude into that subject.

If you do, I will speak out but it will be from a different perspective. I will be speaking as a cancer patient, not as a former Scientology staff member. And believe me, bubba, in the world of cancer, we have a whole different criterion as to who is an "expert" about cancer. And think twice before you conjure up someone who "is suffering from cancer" to come after me. You'll be stepping into a territory so foreign that it will look more ridiculous than Kobrin's attempt to close ARS by telling ISPs to "rm" the group, having no idea what "rm" even means or does.

It is my intention to step away from this particular battle, but if you want to follow me by dragging in my condition as an attack on Stacy or me, I will be more than happy to respond.

Secondly - yeah, there's more - if your drones continue to throw our marriage (meaning Stacy and me) into our faces in righteous indignation as you have done in the past, I will treat it in the same way and choose my method of response. It is quite clear exactly what it is that you are doing. You can issue every denial or Weinberg can challenge it with "what evidence do you have" but you known damned well that I know exactly what you are doing. I was trained in the same tech so nothing more need be said.

I could care less about the rest of your rantings and posturings. You've taken every shot you can in the last 6-7 years or however long this has been going on, from picketing our home to anonymous leaflets to direct threats but you never had the good sense to recognize that nothing worked. So I don't expect you to stop. (Dept 20/RTC is in desperate need of Grades 0-IV.) But you've got a chance on these topics. I'm being a lot more magnanimous than you. I'm giving you a warning because I want the world to know that I did. I want the world to know that despite your lack of compassion and direct attack on me and my friends about my condition, I gave you a chance to change.

Another group that has gone through this is people with AIDS or are HIV positive. They underwent that sort of assault. (And we know how Hubbard feels about homosexuality.) It wasn't until those afflicted decided to stand up in defense not of themselves but of the condition that the bigots began to back off. It hasn't stopped, but progress has been made.

The fact that you would now open a similar assault on cancer patients and their supporters puts you and your organization into the same category and I will be more than delighted to tell the world in every way that I can. And there is a MUCH bigger world out there interested in cancer than Scientology or even cults. It is huge. And I will use them all to bring support to any cancer patient or their supporters who face the kind of disgusting behavior you have decided to launch on Stacy and me.

So get that message, Rinder. Attack a cancer patient for having cancer or their supporters for supporting them or blame anyone for that condition and you will hear from me on behalf of a very large and growing population. As to me and Scientology, have a ball. I could care less. That is no longer my arena or domain of interest. I have another struggle that requires my time. But you'll hear from me if you reach across into that domain in any way.

That is a promise.

Over to you.

Robert Vaughn Young
2/21/00