There are numerous stories from over the years in which Scientologists have stolen books from public libraries that were critical of Scientology. This was done so that you and I would be not able to read these books. And now this type of abhorrent Scientology censorship has happened again.
Lean Remini was on the cover of People magazine this week. A story making the rounds on social media tells us that marauding Scientologist Marilyn Berdon walked into her neighborhood Target store and saw Leah Remini on the cover of People in the magazine racks at the checkout stands.
Marilyn Berdon was deeply offended. Accordingly, Berdon engaged in an act of Scientology bigotry and censorship.
Scroll down to see the post Berdon made to her fellow Scientologists in which she bragged about what she did to trample on your rights to read whatever you wish to read.
Why did this Scientologist take it upon herself to destroy the rights of the public to read whatever we choose to read? Worse, Berdon encouraged her fellow Scientologists to engage in destroying your civil rights by imposing censorship and acting to destroy publications of which they do not approve. This is yet another reason why Scientology is correctly called a mind control Cult.
And what if the opposite action has occurred? What if a non-Scientologist removed all of the Scientology books from a public library, demanded that the library destroy the books, and then openly boasted about it? Scientologists would scream to high heaven. It is easy to see Scientology’s hypocrisy: A Scientologist feels she has the absolute right to censor what you may read, but you may not censor Scientology in any way whatsoever or you are a hater. Hypocritical Scientologists.
Categories: The Scientology Money Project
It is MY right to read ANYTHING that is published. I have paid my taxes my whole life to help ensure my rights. What gives you the right to stomp on my rights.if you don’t like something don’t look at it or buy it.You are so brainwashed by this cult you don’t even realize it.
Thank you Leah and Mike and to all of you who has faced their fear and spoken out against those who have put themselves above everything freedom represents. Liars and cheats. How sad.
Simply minded bigots. What else can you say, except Target is going to lose money on sells of the magazine. Find it odd that an employee would remove products they sell.
What happens if yellow things offend you? Go through the store an remove everything an talk to someone an IT’S okay? Seriously?
Peggy
Sorry misspelled sales……my bad.
i do not believe this bull dookie story
Even if parts of it were true (and having worked in retail, they could well be) the removal of said People magazines WOULD CERTAINLY NOT be a permanent proposal! Stores have protocols for when an “eccentric” customer goes ape in the place, especially if in a loud, public manner down near the registers/entrance – and they generally include placating the individual until they leave, hopefully quickly, of their own volition. Nobody wants to call security on someone who clearly suffers from some kind of persecution complex, as there are legal ramifications which can get quite, err, sticky.
If it isn’t all just this woman’s little attention grabbing “super powers” fantasy, those mags would’ve gone straight back on the shelves as soon as Security called to say that CCTV indicated she’d exited (let’s assume it was a Mall) in the direction of her car.
I don’t believe this happened the way this Marilyn woman said or if even at all. Besides the #MoneyCult and the #RealEstateCult, it seems almost daily that we hear about the abundant hypocrisy from them that we can add another hash tag…..#HypocrisyCult.
They probably figured: “Let’s wait until that angry cult woman leaves. She looks dangerous. We can always put it back up after she’s gone.”
She has a right to complain to the store and the store has a right to display or not display what they want on their premises.
On top of that, it is clear that no one here would approve of nazi revolutionaries weekly or the digesting human feces digest on a store shelf. Not implying a moral equivalency whatsoever, just demonstrating that “I can read what I want” is not the issue here.
The issue here is that an obnoxious and self-righteous Scientologist has no right to impose censorship upon the thousands of other people who shop at that store and read People magazine. The magazine People obviously sells or Target wouldn’t stock it.
The Scientologist has every right to complain. However, the Scientologist has no right to engage in tortious interference which is what she did. To wit: Target and People magazine have a contract in which Target agrees to distribute and sell People magazine for the mutual economic benefit of both parties. The contract has a placement provision which expressly states that Target will prominently display People magazine at checkout stands in order to maximize sales of the magazine.
The obnoxious Scientologist is not a party to this contract but nevertheless interfered in the contractual relationship in such a a way that caused Target to breach its contract with People magazine. The Scientologist did this by hectoring a Target employee to remove People magazine from sale thereby harming Target and People magazine economically.
The store manager clearly violated company policy by breaching the contract between her employer and People magazine. Further, Target, like all other retail stores, operates off a plan-a-gram which states what items are to be stocked and in what locations in the store they are to be shelved.
The store manager has no right to agree to the censorship demands of a Scientologist and thereby cause both a breach of contract and a violation of Target’s established plan-a-gram merchandising rules. Both actions harmed the earnings and profit of Target and People magazine. The store manager is an employee and disobeyed decisions on what inventory to stock that was made and approved by Target executives.
It was wrong for the Scientologist to endanger the job of a non-Scientologist by demanding that the non-Scientologist cause a breach of contract and thereby economically harm the non-Scientologist’s employer and one of its suppliers, i.e. People magazine. An employee has no right to violate company rules to accommodate the demands of a zealot. The correct action for the employee would be to have had the Scientologist removed form the store by security personnel for disorderly conduct on private property.
And look at the PR damage this Scientologist has now done. The public has now seen the fascist bent of a single Scientologist intent on imposing censorship upon a public that does not want censorship imposed upon it.
And to be clear, we are specifically narrow-focused and talking a particular issue of People magazine. People magazine is not offensive. People is a celebrity and beauty oriented magazine with an audience of 42.6 million according to its published 2017 rate card. |
This Scientologist has basically contributed to the heinous reputation of Scientology by engaging in a highly offensive act of censorship that deprived non-Scientologists of their right to purchase and read a magazine legally offered for sale at Target.
If this idiot wants all that edition off the shelves then she can purchase them at the retail price that everyone else does. Furthermore she can shop elsewhere.If scientologists have issues with what stores sell then maybe they should open up their own stores and shop there. Hell, they stole billions of dollars from unsuspecting followers so they can afford to.
The contract for Target would actually be with the magazine distribution company. They contract with Target for space in the store and along the checkstands. The distributor will control the placement of the titles and their prominence. They are the ones who have a contract with the publishers to give prominence to specific titles via rack placement or placement along the checkstands.
I’m not surprised the manager finished taking them down for the complaining customer while present in the store. After removing them, the manager would likely contact both a district manager and the distribution company and discuss the next step.
Sadly, it’s far from a given, as implied by other commenters above, that the magazines would be returned to the checkstands until a new issue was available. In instances I know, the distributor just comes by and removes the ‘offending’ issue and waits out the week.
They credit the store for what was removed and attempt to re-distribute the stock to other stores in the area who may have sold their supplies.
i still call: Phony baloney story
I’m sure the employees were appeasing her. They watched her drive off and put the magazines out once she cleared the parking lot. I’m actually impressed with how they handled it. She was so fooled with their performance that she posted her experience online.
But I am positive the magazines were returned for sale. The store’s contract with ‘People’ was worth more that one customer’s business, not to mention the US Constitution’s whole free speech thing.
This sounds like something that could have happened at the store where I worked; a clearly crazy customer complains something is offensive, employees take it down, wait for the customer to leave, then put it back. It would be part of the performance that is part of a retail employee’s work life.
That Target employee did not risk her job or Target’s contract with People for this nutters. She played the game to get her out of the store, and she played it well.