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The great David & Marty transfer of Scientology Power (show)?

Sindy

Crusader
Jesse Prince was referring to around ten years ago.

27 years ago was 1985. I'm sure you've seen the Mike Wallace CBS TV '60 Minutes' videos from 1980 and 1985. That was a widely viewed USA national television program. And there were newspapers and magazines, and Scientology was a topic addressed, especially after the 1977 FBI raids, and the conviction of Hubbard's wife for the commission of federal felonies and her being sent to federal prison. Shortly thereafter, came Armstrong vs Church of Scientology, and then two books that presented numerous interviews with those who had worked directly with Hubbard. There was no Internet but, for those interested, there was plenty of information floating around.

Was all information available? No. Is it now? No. And I think it's a mistake to assume that because of the Internet that all, or virtually all, information, regarding Scientology, is available. Scientology still has plenty of dark seedy shadows, and there are still people unable to speak freely because they were litigated into debt and coerced into signing gag agreements.

The Internet has been a wonderful development, and a nightmare for Scientology, but I don't think that some guys in squirrel buster t-shirts are distracting Marty Rathbun from pulling out the big guns. Rathbun is refraining from broaching certain areas, by choice. Rathbun's on a "mission" to rescue the reputation of Hubbard and Hubbard's Scientology from ridicule and infamy and, when ya' think about it, that "mission" and telling the whole truth about Hubbard and Scientology are mutually exclusive. :)

Still, I remember when I first got in, if anyone had heard about it, it was sketchy at best. I don't think we're having the same argument.

There is a different, more transparent environment now vs then. I think Miscavige has to watch it way more and tread lighter than Ron did.

There is now notoriety via the celebs, Cruise especially, and Anonymous watching their every move and able to outsmart the once "Fabian" slicksters.

I wasn't assuming, nor commenting, that because of the Internet that all information about Scientology is known but simply that the Internet is an instantaneous magnifying glass that Miscavige cannot escape.

Even if some info escapes disclosure, DM can never be sure of that and has to live in constant awareness that others are watching his every move, with the technology and wherewithal to spread the information across the entire globe almost as it occurs.

Certainly we can all acknowledge that difference.

I also wasn't saying that Squirrel Buster goons were distracting Marty in reality but possibly that ineffective ploy is all Miscavige can muster up under such scrutiny. I didn't say it was effective. It's obviously not.

That's all I was saying.
 

Veda

Sponsor
Still, I remember when I first got in, if anyone had heard about it, it was sketchy at best. I don't think we're having the same argument.

There is a different, more transparent environment now vs then. I think Miscavige has to watch it way more and tread lighter than Ron did.

There is now notoriety via the celebs, Cruise especially, and Anonymous watching their every move and able to outsmart the once "Fabian" slicksters.

I wasn't assuming, nor commenting, that because of the Internet that all information about Scientology is known but simply that the Internet is an instantaneous magnifying glass that Miscavige cannot escape.

Even if some info escapes disclosure, DM can never be sure of that and has to live in constant awareness that others are watching his every move, with the technology and wherewithal to spread the information across the entire globe almost as it occurs.

Certainly we can all acknowledge that difference.

I also wasn't saying that Squirrel Buster goons were distracting Marty in reality but possibly that ineffective ploy is all Miscavige can muster up under such scrutiny. I didn't say it was effective. It's obviously not.

That's all I was saying.

Thanks for the additional info.

My response was to both you and TGI, which I should have noted. :)

Yes, the Information age has made a difference, and one wonders why, in the age of YouTube, Miscavige chose >>>

SquirrelBustersTrio.JPG


to be the face of Scientology.


Maybe he's losing his mind.
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation


Those Indie resignations are incredible, they're just carefully (but excessively) worded rants, everything is justified, sanitised of 'he&r' and neatly packaged with hubbard references but in the end they are just looooooong rants ... what they seem to be trying to say is "the tek doesn't work and I want someone to blame for making a twat of myself for the entire time I've been a scientologist. DM will do nicely because that way I can continue to be right and wont have to admit I've been royally conned like all those natterers and haters on ESMB".





:dieslaughing:
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron


Those Indie resignations are incredible, they're just carefully (but excessively) worded rants, everything is justified, sanitised of 'he&r' and neatly packaged with hubbard references but in the end they are just looooooong rants ... what they seem to be trying to say is "the tek doesn't work and I want someone to blame for making a twat of myself for the entire time I've been a scientologist. DM will do nicely because that way I can continue to be right and wont have to admit I've been royally conned like all those natterers and haters on ESMB".


:dieslaughing:

That's brilliant! Wish I'd said it, it's so brilliant, lol:biggrin:
 

AussieCase

Patron


Those Indie resignations are incredible, they're just carefully (but excessively) worded rants, everything is justified, sanitised of 'he&r' and neatly packaged with hubbard references but in the end they are just looooooong rants ... what they seem to be trying to say is "the tek doesn't work and I want someone to blame for making a twat of myself for the entire time I've been a scientologist. DM will do nicely because that way I can continue to be right and wont have to admit I've been royally conned like all those natterers and haters on ESMB".

It's a bitter pill to swallow. It is much easier to bury your head in the Hubbard's pseudo Tech (the sand) and thank Marty locating the whole track SP. That (former?) Rondroid David Miscavige.
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
Whether they join Martyism or other indie or FZ venue or ditch it completely or do the former for a whle then leave- it's all the same. It's what I've said many times. It's about people's choices and rights to choose- rights they do not have (to choose) in CofS.

It's all the same to me. And it should be to anyone else. Follow your hearts and don't let some cult or ex member or your dry cleaner or your neighbor's dog tell you what ideology to profess or what to believe or not believe.
 

Type4_PTS

Diamond Invictus SP
Follow your hearts and don't let some cult or ex member or your dry cleaner or your neighbor's dog tell you what ideology to profess or what to believe or not believe.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't at least listen to your dry cleaner or your neighbor's dog and understand what they're saying, as they might be telling you something that you really need to know and is in your own best interests.

If I said to you "Claire, it's really not a good idea to eat fried chicken from KFC for every meal as you are, 7 days a week", and attempt to explain why that is, it would serve you to at least get a better understanding of why I'm saying what I'm saying. And then you can choose to act on the suggestion. Or not.

But someone with the cult mentality might think "Ron told me that one cannot eat too much fried chicken" and they cannot even begin to look at the possibility that you are telling them something that can help them. You're saying something that disagree's with Ron so you must be an SP or PTS or have false data, etc., etc.

I guarantee you that there are some people within the CoS today who smoke more cigarettes than they otherwise would be, because of the advice from Hubbard, and believe that their chance of getting cancer is decreased if they smoke more of them.

We of course shouldn't let anyone impose their own beliefs on us, no matter who they are. On the other hand, we shouldn't hold on to our own beliefs so tightly that we can't even look at and understand what another person is saying, and apply some critical thinking skills in order to evaluate their information.
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't at least listen to your dry cleaner or your neighbor's dog and understand what they're saying, as they might be telling you something that you really need to know and is in your own best interests.

If I said to you "Claire, it's really not a good idea to eat fried chicken from KFC for every meal as you are, 7 days a week", and attempt to explain why that is, it would serve you to at least get a better understanding of why I'm saying what I'm saying. And then you can choose to act on the suggestion. Or not.

But someone with the cult mentality might think "Ron told me that one cannot eat too much fried chicken" and they cannot even begin to look at the possibility that you are telling them something that can help them. You're saying something that disagree's with Ron so you must be an SP or PTS or have false data, etc., etc.

I guarantee you that there are some people within the CoS today who smoke more cigarettes than they otherwise would be, because of the advice from Hubbard, and believe that their chance of getting cancer is decreased if they smoke more of them.

We of course shouldn't let anyone impose their own beliefs on us, no matter who they are. On the other hand, we shouldn't hold on to our own beliefs so tightly that we can't even look at and understand what another person is saying, and apply some critical thinking skills in order to evaluate their information.

It's a slippery slope, IMO.

For one thing: I do not equate living on lardy goodies with studying something outside the confines of a cult.

For another: People who tell others what to believe- and, I'm not talking about people who try to clue others in about being a member of a group that RPFs people and is headed by a gambling loon who beats his staff and lies to everyone- are generally douchebags.

For another: You can't be other people's guardians. It's like-- I'm married to a smoker. I can't tell you how many times that man has quit smoking. Sometimes for two or more years. But he likes it. A lot. And he goes back to it. He went to nursing school a while, his mom was a nurse, he has an IQ of 135- he knows the deleterious effects. So if I nag him, what's it gonna get me? Nuttin'. What's it gonna get him? A nagging wife. And honey, he's already got one. :coolwink:

I would not say "follow your heart" about living on grease or smoking or shooting heroin (I just know that any second someone's gonna make that analogy for the ten thousandth time)- though I probably would not interfere- at least not the with first two. (the last one? Well, again, you can lead a horse to water...I think you'd end up "disconnecting") But when it comes to being an indie or not being an indie- it's the same thing. Either way, it's just ideology. And it's up to them.
 

Free Being Me

Crusader
man-with-fingers-in-ears.jpg

I'm not listening to you!
My cult leader has my best interests at heart

He has never:

Decieved anyone
Lied about his past
Had a secret swiss bank account
Tried to ruin anyones reputation
Put children in harms way
Stolen other peoples ideas
Blackmailed for personal gain
Hid from governments
Infiltrated a government
Thrown anyone under the bus to avoid prosecution
Fabricated an ideology that hasn't harmed anyone
Tried to drive anyone insane
Humiliated for pleasure
Wanted all my money

But he does have all the answers to existence
and you're a piss poor human being for caring
enough to question me about it.
 

Smilla

Ordinary Human
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't at least listen to your dry cleaner or your neighbor's dog and understand what they're saying, as they might be telling you something that you really need to know and is in your own best interests.

If I said to you "Claire, it's really not a good idea to eat fried chicken from KFC for every meal as you are, 7 days a week", and attempt to explain why that is, it would serve you to at least get a better understanding of why I'm saying what I'm saying. And then you can choose to act on the suggestion. Or not.

But someone with the cult mentality might think "Ron told me that one cannot eat too much fried chicken" and they cannot even begin to look at the possibility that you are telling them something that can help them. You're saying something that disagree's with Ron so you must be an SP or PTS or have false data, etc., etc.

I guarantee you that there are some people within the CoS today who smoke more cigarettes than they otherwise would be, because of the advice from Hubbard, and believe that their chance of getting cancer is decreased if they smoke more of them.

We of course shouldn't let anyone impose their own beliefs on us, no matter who they are. On the other hand, we shouldn't hold on to our own beliefs so tightly that we can't even look at and understand what another person is saying, and apply some critical thinking skills in order to evaluate their information.

Anyone who looks will see it, but not everyone will look.

adbusters_mc_grease.jpg


adbusters_marlboro_missmylung.jpg

 

Type4_PTS

Diamond Invictus SP
Either way, it's just ideology. And it's up to them.



So you're OK than with others teaching ANY ideology they wish?

Nazism is an ideology. Do people have the right to recruit new members and indoctrinate them with that ideology?

My own personal philosophy is pretty libertarian in nature, so I'm pretty big on freedom and liberty, and letting people believe in whatever they choose, and live their lives however they choose. As long as they are not harming other.

If someone wants to practice scientology outside of the criminal CoS I really don't give a rats ass, as long as it is not being fraudulently marketed. But if they begin teaching others the insane fanatical crap that Hubbard wrote which justifies the Fair Game policy, the destruction of other human beings, than that I'm going to have a serious problem with.
 

Smilla

Ordinary Human
So you're OK than with others teaching ANY ideology they wish?

Nazism is an ideology. Do people have the right to recruit new members and indoctrinate them with that ideology?

My own personal philosophy is pretty libertarian in nature, so I'm pretty big on freedom and liberty, and letting people believe in whatever they choose, and live their lives however they choose. As long as they are not harming other.

If someone wants to practice scientology outside of the criminal CoS I really don't give a rats ass, as long as it is not being fraudulently marketed. But if they begin teaching others the insane fanatical crap that Hubbard wrote which justifies the Fair Game policy, the destruction of other human beings, than that I'm going to have a serious problem with.

You are conversing with someone who is a hardcore Moral Relativist, Lol.

"Moral relativism may be any of several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different people and cultures. Descriptive moral relativism holds only that some people do in fact disagree about what is moral; meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements, nobody is objectively right or wrong; and normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when we disagree about the morality of it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
So you're OK than with others teaching ANY ideology they wish?

Nazism is an ideology. Do people have the right to recruit new members and indoctrinate them with that ideology?

My own personal philosophy is pretty libertarian in nature, so I'm pretty big on freedom and liberty, and letting people believe in whatever they choose, and live their lives however they choose. As long as they are not harming other.

If someone wants to practice scientology outside of the criminal CoS I really don't give a rats ass, as long as it is not being fraudulently marketed. But if they begin teaching others the insane fanatical crap that Hubbard wrote which justifies the Fair Game policy, the destruction of other human beings, than that I'm going to have a serious problem with.

When I say ideology, I am talking about spiritual stuff. Period.
 
So you're OK than with others teaching ANY ideology they wish?

Nazism is an ideology. Do people have the right to recruit new members and indoctrinate them with that ideology? ...

Or conversely, you are opposed to free speech and consider it appropriate to suppress the free discussion of ideas of which you or some other 'moral authority' does not approve?


Mark A. Baker
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
Even the KKK and the Nazi party are not illegal organizations. But that being said, I was more referring to people professing such personal beliefs (usually spiritual, though I will say that people have the rights to be white supremacists or anything else like that. Unless and until you or I were to catch them doing or planning something illegal.) as resonate with them.

There's a religion that annoys the crap out of me - a very established one. I see people professing belief in it and particularly when those people are female, I want to say "Jeez. WTF are you thinking?" but it's not for me to say. If they aren't doing illegal things, then it's their lookout. Not mine. I might candidly discuss that religion- and sometimes I do- but I would not tell someone they shouldn't believe in it.

If I knew someone was not only an adherent of, say, the Thuggee cult but was encouraging it and was lining up victims for the next garrotting, that would be different.

Even then, I wouldn't expect the members to actually listen to me or consider me to be anything other than a stupid unbeliever and a nag. But yeah, if I knew of a crime either committed or being planned, of course I'd speak out and notify the authorities, too.

But if someone wants to believe in theta, so wut.
 

Type4_PTS

Diamond Invictus SP
Or conversely, you are opposed to free speech and consider it appropriate to suppress the free discussion of ideas of which you or some other 'moral authority' does not approve?

No, I am opposed to others calling for the destruction of other human beings who disagree with ones ideas, and indoctrinating others into a false worldview so that they will believe this to be an ethical activity.

You think that THAT's opposing free speech?
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
No, I am opposed to others calling for the destruction of other human beings who disagree with ones ideas, and indoctrinating others into a false worldview so that they will believe this to be an ethical activity.

You think that THAT's opposing free speech?

Haven't really met any indies who wanted to destroy others, though I'm betting there are some. And I haven't seen them hurting anyone, other than some silly internecine squabbling which you can get anywhere.

But that being said- Islam, Judaism and Xtianity have some rather pithy things to say about what to do to/with unbelievers.

I personally think that with adherence to any such religions or to a political venue that has (or the person considers that it does) toxic ideas, then one has the recourse to candidly discuss and debate those things.

I personally loathe certain religious ideas out there. And some political ones, too. But if I meet a Democrat/Republic/Socialist/Christian/Jew/Moslem/Jainist/whatever, I'm not gonna tell them what to do. But if they ask me what I think about belief X, I just might tell them!
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
My husband's taking early retirement. He told me he always wanted to do his OT levels and wants to do them in the FZ. (after he sleeps in for several months in a row. More power to him!)

I told him I will help him make this happen.

The one thing I don't want is that he doesn't do the OT levels but not out of a choice like, "hey, I don't wanna anymore". But like if he were to continue to say it would be neat and someday maybe but then doesn't do it. Just plays video games.

I want him to do his stuff in the FZ if that's what he wants. If he wanted to and didn't do it, I'd feel really bad about that. But if he changed his mind and said, nah, that's not for me, that would be fine with me because it's what he would want.

(Fluffy mentally walking through living room hearing loud thuds and RPG battle noises coming from the corner wherein our mini mancave and J's computer is set up.)
 

Type4_PTS

Diamond Invictus SP
But if someone wants to believe in theta, so wut.

I don't have any problem with that as I said, and I don't have any problem with people auditing others inside or outside the CoS.....again, as long as it isn't being done fraudulently, which has been standard operating procedure for decades now.

But there have been some horrific things done by the CoS and scientologists in the name of the "greatest good", and I know very well that not all scientologists who have exited the CoS have taken the fanaticism with them, but some have imo, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility for a new cult to emerge outside of the CoS in the years to come who seek to destroy others in the name of scientology.
 
No, I am opposed to others calling for the destruction of other human beings who disagree with ones ideas, and indoctrinating others into a false worldview so that they will believe this to be an ethical activity.

You think that THAT's opposing free speech?

Actually it is. However, the behavior you describe taken to an extreme is also incitement to riot/sedition/public disorder/rebellion. The right of free speech is not legally recognized as absolute.

Personally I draw the line at actual incitement to violence. Anything less can be reasonably discussed.

I'm far more concerned about the potential for exclusion of ideas from open discussion than I am the fact of stupid people saying stupid things or even as is much more common, saying clever though unwise things to mislead the ignorant, stupid, or unwise. After all these latter constitute business as usual among humans: regrettable, but unwise to direct legislation against.


Mark A. Baker
 
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