Shooting Stars, Part Sixteen
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!” Sir Walter Scott
As I have read the plethora of personal stories and recent accounts of the staggering stupidity, goofiness and maliciousness of the Cof$ and, in particular, the SO constantly evidenced here on ESMB, I am continually surprised--amazed actually--that the whole Flotilla of Fools has gotten as “far” as it has. In a recent PM with a friend here on ESMB, they commented pretty much the same thing and a “light bulb” in my head lit up…it’s because of F’n Fools like me. This Chapterof Shooting Stars was inspired by my PM’s with my fellow Ex Flag Crew Member…Thanks a whole bunch.
Shooting Stars, Part Sixteen
"Epilogue" cont
Face's Scn: Theory and Design of the Organization.
I was Cl IV Org Staff before the SO took over management from World Wide and when the SO came stomping in to take “command”. I was SO Crew when the CommodeDoor's Staff Aides, Flag Bureaux and GO WW were running the show and when CMO came stomping in to take “command”. Orgs, WW, SO, Staff Aides, FB, GO and CMO were all entities created by El Ron with specific policies, operating procedures and authorities granted and, ultimately in all, directed by Hisself.
El Ron was superbly masterful at “Bait and Switch”, “Shell Game” and “Finding the Scapegoat” con artist. As I and others much smarter than me have written, El Ron set up the system so that Hisself was “safe” from detection and protected of being “found out”. He could bait and switch, move shells and find the scapegoat easily and continually so that whatever happened that “flapped” externally or “blew up” internally was never attributable to Hisself. The “High Road” was “designed in” for El Ron to continually “save the day”.
El Ron’s SO as “Senior Management” of Hisself’s Monolithic Command & Control Organization Model was a sufficiently complex and convoluted systems that rendered any effective management near impossible. A continuous stream of new and rehashed Senior Management personnel (SMPs) were posted, roasted and busted. Some were “recycled” numerous times and others wound up in other Units, both on and off the Apollo.
The “beauty” of El Ron’s system was in the hidden simplicity of the avenue Hisself designed that ensured the CommodeDoor would always right, would never be wrong and would forever be the Hero and never the Goat. Although I have not been in an Org, or had anything to do with the Cof$ in over 20 years, I have high confidence that El Ron’s Minnie Me knows how to, and is playing, the same piano Hisself crafted and performed on. By actual function, SMP’s were unsuspecting “Strawmen”, “Empty Suits” and “Fall Guys”…not Managers. El Ron’s management “Road to Total Freedom” was what I’ll call the PENT-UP AVE, which consisted of the following key structural parts:
Programs
Enforcement
Nullification
Targets
Using/Abusing Staff
Pressure, Pressure, Pressure
Autonomous Networks and Units
Multiple
Viewpoint Data System
Data Series
Evaluation
During my tenure on the Apollo SMPs were not allowed to issue any orders or advice and most communication to any Org under them unless it was in accordance with an approved program target. All communications from SMP’s had to be approved by AVU (Authorization and Verification Unit), which was autonomous to the Programs Bureau, Aides and nearly everyone on the ship save El Ron and Mary Sue’s personal Units. All programs had to be from an AVU approved evaluation and conform to the Target Series. Evaluations were primarily done by the Evaluation Unit, the CommodeDoor’s Staff Aides and the Emergency Section of the Orgs Flag Officer Bureau. The perfunctory Senior to the Service Org Executive Directors was the Flag Programs Chief for that Org. In functional fact, the SMP’s management authority was neutered by the Autonomous Network Reps present in the Org.
The Flag Rep Network was there to hound and pound the Orgs Executive Director enforcing and verifying compliance to the Flag Programs and Orders. The FR’s had the authority to communicate directly to and hound and pound every individual staff member in the Org whenever they pleased on a Program Target. None of the FR’s had ever run and org and were, for the most part, much less competent than most of the folks they were authorized to browbeat incessantly.
I had one FR in one the CL IV Orgs I ran for awhile that actually threatened to do everything within their power to get my expelled and debarred from the Advance Courses forever because I refused to comply with a Flag Program target to focus on Body Routing to feed the Indoc Line. The fact that I had already done my own “Eval” and found that folks that had come in off of body routing were 10 times less likely to make it through the HQS Course and 15 times less likely to make it through the HSDC was lost on them…and Flag.
The LRH Comm Network was there to hound and pound the Orgs Executive Director enforcing and verifying LRH general and specific to that Org El Ron Orders.
The LRH Comm’s had the authority to communicate directly to and hound and pound every individual staff member in the Org whenever they pleased. Likewise, none of them had ever run an org and were, for the most part, more competent than the FR’s but not as competent as most of the Org’s Execs they were authorized and pester incessantly.
The Flag/Finance Banking Officer Network were, functionally, the real “heavies” amongst these three Networks. Their primary purpose was to get money to Flag. All Orgs had a “debt” to Flag for “Management Services and Support” that the Org Ed had no control over. Flag “Management Services and Support” were not discretionary budget items. Flag decided what and how much “Service and Support” that Org got and what the fee was for it. Money to Flag came off the top of the Orgs GI, at the sole discretion of the FBO. If an Org had a big GI one week, the FBO would cut out as big a chunk as possible and send it to Flag. As I have already written about earlier on ESMB, the lions share of Money to Flag went either to El Ron (for the “Debt” owed Hisself by the SO) or to Sea Org Reserves, which were controlled by El Ron and Marry Sue.
FBO’s were chosen, trained and drilled to be ruthless on the subject of Money to Flag. Money to Flag was everything…that’s why Flag sent proven money makers like Bill Franks on Garrison Missions to Major Orgs like LA and DC. It is out of this group of internal home grown Shylocks that the Finance Police were formed.
In addition to and outside of these Networks was El Ron’s Secret Police, the Guardians Office which, as we all know, was “taken out” for El Ron by Hisself’s CMO Children of the Corn during Scn's Kristallnacht.
The three SO Networks reported to Flag and the GO to GOWW. GOWW also forwarded many of the reports it received on to Flag. Besides mundane and routine compliance and inspection reports, the Networks also carried out routine, detailed defacto voyeuristic “Espionage” on every Staff Member in the Org, Key Public and Mission Holders. Scathing reports about numerous people were sent to Flag and “Dirt” and “Innuendo” was shared liberally between the local Networks Personnel and with visiting Flag Missionaries.
I came to realize that the reason all the Orgs were rife with all the reportedly "incompetent" ED’s, Execs and Staff and the Field was filled with “Crazies" and "Off Policy” Mission Holders was because, built into this complex bureaucracy, were side alleys provided to PENT-UP AVE so as to not have anything “bad” be their fault. All the respective Network personnel had to do was keep laying out the smokescreen on the avenue, ensuring that there were plenty of scapegoats pre-labeled. All up and down PENT-UP AVE folks were playing a continual “blame game”, “cover your ass" and “dazzle ‘em with bullshit” just in case the Stats went sour, which is what always eventually happened.
The SMP’s operated within the same type of system. Lakey, one of our fellow ESMBers served a stint on the Apollo as an SMP and the beginning of the “Apollo” Thread is his detailed narrative about his experiences as Flag Crew and an SMP, and he aptly termed the Flag Programs Bureau as a “Viper Pit”. Although all of the Networks and Senior Org Management was supposedly under the purview of the Flag Management Bureaux, The Commodores Staff Aides, LRH Pers Office and El Ron Hisself all had their fingers in the pie in one way or another.
Every day, day in day out, all across the Scn Empire, Program Targets from local Org, Regional and International Evaluations and various Programs were pressured and enforced on Orgs and individual Staff by SMP’s and Networks. Staff were used and abused ruthlessly and intentionally to get “Dones” on the Targets. In my direct experience at both the Org and SMP ends of the spectrum, most of the Evaluations and programs were not only ill conceived and faulty, they rapidly became out of date and inadequate to properly address the extant current “Scene” in the Org. What was foisted off by El Ron as “Checks and Balances” was in actuality “Checking" (as in Hockey) and “Tilting” (to ones favor).
Thusly, PENT-UP AVE was like the continuous cycle of a Boulevard in Mexico City over a 24 hour period. Traffic jams, horns blaring, people cussing and shouting and driving on the sidewalk, innocent pedestrians scrambling, and sirens blaring as police cars and scarce ambulances charged hither and dither. And then, out of the blue El Ron, The Management Genius would ride up on Hisself’s white horse to save the day.
You see, folks, El Ron commanded a singular ability that no other SMP, nor anyone else in Scn, possessed. With the flash of Hisself’s silver pen El Ron could; Remove, Promote and Post anyone, anywhere at anytime and musical chair any Org, anywhere at anytime; supersede, cancel or re-issue any Evaluation, Program, Order by anyone, anywhere at anytime--including Hisself; Set Aside, Violate or Ignore any Policy in any form or fashion Hisself so chose; Command all involved with that Org to focus on Hisself’s immediate orders and edicts and nothing else. All without any approval or oversight nor "Check and Balance".
Of course the stats went up over the short term and, if they didn’t, heads rolled and/or Missions fired in until they did. And, for awhile, the "traffic cleared" and moved along PENT-UP AVE as the random wreckage and carnage was hauled off to the repair shop or the junk yard with a few folks winding up in ill-equipped and poorly staffed hospitals, a few in savage, rat infested jails and, all too often, there a few were goners.
From what I have read here and elsewhere, Scn is still on the road down PENT-UP AVE, with Hisself’s Minnie Me wearing the CommodeDoor’s soiled skivvies.
My Heart goes out to all my fellow F’n Fools that traveled that road or are on it now.
In a week or so,
Shooting Stars, Part Seventeen
"Epilogue" cont
Peace.
Face
