What's new

Debbie Cook is back on the internet.

Anonycat

Crusader
After I first got out of this toxic cult, I began to read the Spandau Prison diary of Albert Speer. That set the tone for my next few years as it made me see that this guy had been deluded like me into thinking that he was part of a great movement that was going to reform the world into something amazingly good.

Seeing how his point of view changed over the years he spent in prison was a huge eye-opener for me. It took him an age to really understand what he'd been part of and it was fascinating to read - I'm sure it accelerated my own decompression from Co$ enormously.

Because of that, I really only wish the best for anyone who comes out of the cult - hell, I'd love to chat to Deputy Malignant some day after the dust has settled. Not too sure I'd be able to chat to the Fat Fraud Hisself without wanting to inflict serious bodily harm, tho'.:coolwink:

And I'm sure some of the folk who've personally screwed me over big-time I doubt I could chat even socially to - I'm only human too, not trying to say I'm a saint.

I don't condone what Debbie did, but I am sick of folk second-guessing her. I knew her before she became the FSO Captain and apparently went into SO supa-bitch mode - she's a nice person and I'm sad that she turned into a typical SO exec.. I personally refused to "climb the Org Board" myself because, early on in my cult "career," I saw what sort of arseholes my friends turned into when they did that.

It never absolves responsibility for their subsequent evil actions - I don't buy the "Nuremberg defence" at all. But there's a hell of a lot of good folk who've been turned into total turds by this cult.

And the only way I see most of them ever able to face up to that is quietly decompressing and slowly realising the truth about their lives. Turning them into lightning rods for all of "our" upsets with the crap "we" lived IMO does nothing good for any of "us."

Just my own, very personal point of view. I still hate the cult and all others like it, but I can't hold a grudge against those who, like me, went into it thinking they were changing the world for the better.

I really enjoyed your post, thanks!

As I was reading it, I thought about how hard it is to express non-forgiveness and forgiveness while looking at the cult situation.

I understand that on some levels it feels wrong to forgive. Abusers want to be forgiven and then allowed to continue abuse. So letting them be okay, means doing that one thing we learn not to do, be an enabler or supporter of an abuser.

I want to set-up my ramble by saying: the grip is hard. Also, scientologists came into it originally for very diverse reasons and through any number of decisions, but the end game is to have a correctly processed person. That ends the diversity problem that any cult must overcome.

I do not agree with one poster who compared it to forgiving mass murderers.

The cult of scientology has a complex and rigid method for processing people. It can even exploit the worst a person is capable of becoming. To the un-processed mind, or the recovered one, the actions of some in the cult are clearly seen, and it's shocking. Murder, abortions, extreme-duress regging -- on and on. It's horrible, evil stuff. THIS is the unique legacy of scientology -- to make individuals who will carry out the deeds required of the cult. For those like you who never saw themselves becoming a nasty Sea Org person … well, there's a place on staff for the ones that cannot be made vicious.

The cult of scientology is in the business of doing business. And in the retention-of-client business. And they have to fill every position they have. This is the basic mission of scientology.

Those few who achieve the most evil levels, are no longer themselves. They were processed over a long period of time, and did become the bad person that they did not make. Yes … that they did not make. They were mentally manipulated and became the result.

So, they didn't exactly sign up for Hitler Youth, but could I forgive Debbie if she'd fleeced me in the cult? I don't know. Could I forgive myself for giving my credit card to Debbie? I'd have to do that to get peace.

I guess I'll stop there. After all, it is a ramble.
 

Free Being Me

Crusader
What is disappointing on this thread is the ranting and venting that lumps on Debbie ALL the crimes of the cult as though she personally had been guilty of the shit OSA pulls or the beatings meted out by Miscavage . . . .

Pretty stupid A=a=A, no?

Debbie did what she did . . . not what others in the cult did.

If you are going to be judgmental judge her for her actions, not some one else's or the cult's total crimes.

What is not being spoken here is that there are also many good people doing or who have done honest and decent service in the cult . . . deluded yes, but not committing crimes or abuses.

Time to differentiate and deal with truth: not deluded "they are all . . . " type think.

RogerB

Roger, what's wrong with how people feel and think about the cult and in particular the Debbie Cooks, Mike Rinders, Marty's and the draconian behavior outlined in the op on the Valetine's Day Massacre thread for example? ESMB isn't a culty tone 40 club where how a person feels/thinks is a mandatory straight jacket "theta" fest.

It's healthy to work through one's emotions, experiences, views and express them. That's called cult recovery and being self honest, it's not always candy canes and rainbows.
 
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Auditor's Toad

Clear as Mud
What is disappointing on this thread is the ranting and venting that lumps on Debbie ALL the crimes of the cult as though she personally had been guilty of the shit OSA pulls or the beatings meted out by Miscavage . . . .

Pretty stupid A=a=A, no?

Debbie did what she did . . . not what others in the cult did.

If you are going to be judgmental judge her for her actions, not some one else's or the cult's total crimes.

What is not being spoken here is that there are also many good people doing or who have done honest and decent service in the cult . . . deluded yes, but not committing crimes or abuses.

Time to differentiate and deal with truth: not deluded "they are all . . . " type think.

RogerB

Rog, I'm sure you know many of us look back at some of the shit we did & cringe...................now.
 

Auditor's Toad

Clear as Mud
Yeah, but....

If she doesn't have to make amends, that means that we don't get to give her a smug condescending look as she pathetically hands over her clipboard-attached Liability Formula, begging us to sign it. And we don't get to look at her "indicators" and grill her if she feels that she really handled her out-ethics and feels that she made up the damage, before we inform her if we deign to sign it.

And we don't get to see her grovel in guilty gratitude after we hand her sad little clipboard back to her with our precious approving signature and say something really hideously stupid like "Welcome back to the group of in-ethics Scientologists who working for the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics."

Jesus, someone please tell me that I wasn't really in that majorly fucked up, dorked out cult. LOLOLOLOL

Oh so reminds me of once walking around with that clipboard getting signatures, The one I felt I needed most - but didn't have to have - refused to sign. Would have been no problem to get enough siggys without that one, but, I asked that person what it requires to get their signature. They told me. I tore up my needing one more signature sheet & went and started all over - ended up with the signature I thought I should have - and PISSED AWAY ANOTHER WEEK OF MY LIFE DOING THAT.

There was a time - like then - I'd have had serious objections to some one calling me stupid. Not anymore. I was STUPID... and still can be - LOL !
 

lotus

stubborn rebel sheep!
I never have anything to say about Debbie Cook, who I never met.

I have very much mixed feelings.

Anyway, I found much misdom and truth in each of your posts and view.

Peope are trying to stand on a fine line between justice, forgiveness, mooving on, exposing, and their own suffering about the abuses of this cult made of good people turned into enforcers.

Not easy to figure out the right middle view and right emotion.
 

Gib

Crusader
I never have anything to say about Debbie Cook, who I never met.

I have very much mixed feelings.

Anyway, I found much misdom and truth in each of your posts and view.

Peope are trying to stand on a fine line between justice, forgiveness, mooving on, exposing, and their own suffering about the abuses of this cult made of good people turned into enforcers.

Not easy to figure out the right middle view and right emotion.

I never met her either, but I knew who she was. And when I got her New Years message, that was exactly what I needed to confirm that the COS was wacko with the constant donations and something was really wrong, and she having the status of Captain of FSO gave me confirmation that I was not alone in my thinking, in fact, I felt like a million bucks upon receipt. So I am grateful for what she did with her message. I didn't even know she had left the SO.

I only wish her message would have gotten thru to some still-in's I know. They got the message alright, but it didn't crack the bubble. I know for a fact Debbie created a lot of damage in terms of membership but she was DA'd by the COS. The DA pack disclosed all her bad deeds and crimes while she was in the Sea Org, perfect ad hom, attack the person instead of the message. So these people still-in that I know bought into the ad hom:

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
 

lotus

stubborn rebel sheep!
Leaving the cult is something
but getting the cult out of someone is something else :wink2:
:biggrin:
 

CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
I love the fiery post that CommunicatorIC just made but I'm trying to imagine someone new who may also have done some pretty shite things as a scientologist reading here.
Thank you for the kind words. Believe it or not, I actually share your concerns -- though I probably exercised better self-restraint a couple of years ago.

As I've said before, I don't think I've personally attacked anyone for what they did in while in the COS.

However, I think it is one thing to say one should, for tactical, strategic and reasons of kindness (e.g., it might difficult to convince people to leave the COS if they believe they will be savaged by wolves), consider voluntarily refraining from criticizing an Ex-Scientologist for what they did while they were in the COS.

I think it is quite another thing to say that anyone who wasn't in the COS doesn't have the RIGHT to judge someone who was. We don't apply that standard to members of any other group, and civil society can't function that way. ("You were never a member of the Crips, you don't know the pressure I was under, so you can't judge me for putting a cap in that Blood's ass.")

I have no problem with people leaving Debbie Cook alone online, and think it is better that they do so if only to encourage others to leave. I just had a real problem with the assertion that someone who was never in the COS had no right to be "judgmental."
 
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I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
Thank you for the kind words. Believe it or not, I actually share your concerns -- though I probably exercised better self-restraint a couple of years ago.

As I've said before, I don't think I've personally attacked anyone for what they did in while in the COS.

However, I think it is one thing to say one should, for tactical, strategic and reasons of kindness (e.g., it might difficult to convince people to leave the COS if they believe they will be savaged by wolves), consider voluntarily refraining from criticizing an Ex-Scientologist for for what they did while they were in the COS.

I think it is quite another thing to say that anyone who wasn't in the COS doesn't have the RIGHT to judge someone who was. We don't apply that standard to members of any other group, and civil society can't function that way. ("You were never a member of the Crips, you don't know the pressure I was under, so you can't judge me for putting a cap in that Blood's ass.")

I have no problem with people leaving Debbie Cook alone online, and think it is better that they do so if only to encourage others to leave. I just had a real problem with the assertion that someone who was never in the COS had no right to be "judgmental."


My main issue was the "feeling" that perhaps some people (not you) were wanting her to "come clean" before they would or could "forgive her" and that just makes me spit feathers. It's none of our business how someone handles themselves ... that kind of thinking is cultic in the extreme (that doesn't mean it wouldn't work but we have no right to demand it) ... and can take people who have also done things that were not "nice" back down the highway to hell, due to the tek being interlocked and ever expanding. It could confuse someone who is working to rid themselves of accumulated cult tat here.

My point seems to have been that ESMB isn't a cult and we're individuals now.

People who were never in have always been very important to me here because they often see things that I've missed and they have every right to be as "judgmental" as the rest of us (lol) ... that's often how we sort things out and they are appreciated.




:)
 

PTS

Elliott
There has been a lot of very good stuff said here. I particularly appreciate Cat's Squirrel who said that given a choice we would place our sympathies for those who were kicked around by the cult. That was profound for me.

I realized that in my plea for people not to go so hard on Debbie Cook that I have nonetheless fearlessly and viciously advocated drawing and quartering Mike and Marty at every available opportunity. So my bad for type three hypocrisy. For whatever reason, I see Debbie as a survivor and Mike and Marty as something else. Maybe it's just sexism, I really do not know.

At any rate I have learned a lot from this topic and been somewhat humbled too. That's really the best EP isn't it?
 

RogerB

Crusader
Nicely done, PTS . . .

This you wrote is why Emma set up ESMB, it was set up for folks to have honest, decent dialogue such that they could come to higher, new levels of understanding on this thing and to heal.

Your post above exemplifies this.

Nice!

Rog
 

This is NOT OK !!!!

Gold Meritorious Patron
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/debbie-baumgarten/95/167/472?_mSplash=1

Someone who knows her should contact her and suggest she clean up her Linked-in profile:

Here's her education bio:

Administrative College in Los Angeles
equivalent to a master's degree, Finance, Marketing, Organizational skills
1987 – 1990

:omg:

I can't put in words how lame that reads.

Despite everything she's been through, some of those onion layers are hanging on tight!
 

RogerB

Crusader
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/debbie-baumgarten/95/167/472?_mSplash=1

Someone who knows her should contact her and suggest she clean up her Linked-in profile:

Here's her education bio:


Administrative College in Los Angeles
equivalent to a master's degree, Finance, Marketing, Organizational skills
1987 – 1990

:omg:

I can't put in words how lame that reads.

Despite everything she's been through, some of those onion layers are hanging on tight!

And after all she's been through with that "equivalent of a master's degree" . . . doe she actually feel that's a workable tech?!?! :ohmy:

JEZZUZZ, one would have thought the disaster of her experience based on "standard tech" would have convinced her how bloody fatal it is to try to put it into practice! :duh:

R
 

Gib

Crusader
And after all she's been through with that "equivalent of a master's degree" . . . doe she actually feel that's a workable tech?!?! :ohmy:

JEZZUZZ, one would have thought the disaster of her experience based on "standard tech" would have convinced her how bloody fatal it is to try to put it into practice! :duh:

R

I know a scientologist that puts on his credentials and/or resume

that they "graduated from the Hubbard College of Administration" :yes:

because they was on staff and completed the staff status's, the Data Series Evaluator course, and some others.

me :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

This person is cut from the same tree as Hubbard, that is being able to tell tall stories from nothing really, and really punch up the stories and accomplishments like it's a new found discovery. :laugh:
 

Boomima

Patron with Honors
I don't think there is anything special about someone who did not join Scientology. If they had approached you on a different day, at a different time, you might have said no. Didn't John Duignan talk about being approached after he broke up with a woman? Sometimes even bad things can fill our immediate emotional or spiritual needs. I also don't think that there is anything shameful about having joined or believed.

If they had approached me when I was not on my way to lunch, maybe I would have stopped. (four times... lunch over stress test!)
 

Gib

Crusader
I don't think there is anything special about someone who did not join Scientology. If they had approached you on a different day, at a different time, you might have said no. Didn't John Duignan talk about being approached after he broke up with a woman? Sometimes even bad things can fill our immediate emotional or spiritual needs. I also don't think that there is anything shameful about having joined or believed.

If they had approached me when I was not on my way to lunch, maybe I would have stopped. (four times... lunch over stress test!)

Nobody approached me.

I read Dianetics and I approached them. I wanted to go clear.

25 years later somebody slapped me silly. LOL
 

BunnySkull

Silver Meritorious Patron
After I first got out of this toxic cult, I began to read the Spandau Prison diary of Albert Speer. That set the tone for my next few years as it made me see that this guy had been deluded like me into thinking that he was part of a great movement that was going to reform the world into something amazingly good.

Seeing how his point of view changed over the years he spent in prison was a huge eye-opener for me. It took him an age to really understand what he'd been part of and it was fascinating to read - I'm sure it accelerated my own decompression from Co$ enormously.

r.

I think you may have been conned by the Spandau Diaries and Speer in general. Those diaries are a case study in giving the public what they wanted - the ashamed and apologetic Nazi. A profile of a "good man" swept away by the forces and ideologies of his time, ignorant of the true evil. Sadly, very little of it is true when it comes to the accounting of his past and even some of the present (his snow job about his daughter's stay with an American Jewish family is a study in the art of emotional manipulation, and there was very little truth behind the tale he told about the visit, if it happened at all.)

In college I took a very specific interest in the mechanics of the Nazi bureaucracy & and of the leadership circle Speer was particularly fascinating to me. I've probably read every book by and about Speer.

Spandau Diaries are interesting reading, but were more of a PR job than any accurate history or insight into Speer. In fact his best friend who helped him smuggle out notes and his writings during his prison stay turned his back on him and refused to ever speak to him again he was so disgusted by some of the dishonesty and manipulation by Speer in the book and media dealings.

Spandau Diaries was a big best seller and ensured a good income for Speer and sales of his subsequent books. It's a fact that he has lied about what he knew about the operations of the regime and their abuses. He was a supervising architect that oversaw throwing Jews out of their apartments, and off to camps, so they could be requisitioned for nazis officers and to clear city space for Hitlers grand plans. It would have been even worse had his full scale plans of the remaking of Berlin come to fruition.

It's a fact he was in attendance during a speech where Himmler, in very stark terms, outlined the final solution and described how the nazis had to do the dirty work of genocide, but that it was necessary work they would be seen as the unsung heroes for doing in 100 years. As armaments minister he personally saw the conditions in the work camps, particularly at Peenemunde where the V rockets were produced and so many died due the inhuman conditions. Speer knew about the ongoing genocide, though he spent the rest of his life trying to convince the public he was ignorant. (Speer was far too smart and observant to miss much of anything, much less a resource and man power guzzling operation like the camp system.)

Speer dedicated himself to selling the image of the "good nazi" - both at Nuremburg and after his release from prison. Don't get me wrong, he was a brilliant man but extremely calculating and cunning when it came to saving his own skin after the war and rehabilitating his public image (he soon realized an apologia for the regime was a lost cause, but his own personal mea culpa and pleading ignorance could do much to polish his name in the history books.)

Truth be told, At Nuremberg the Americans helped him a bit since they had a vested interest in having a "decent Nazi" to point to for the American public, a way to show they weren all evil mosters - just some. Behind the scenes geopolitics were already realigning and we needed Germany as an ally against the (allies of last year) Soviets. It wasn't going to be easy to get the Americans to change their views of Germans in general, but Speer's"good Nazi" performance and the "we didn't know" defense of millions of Germans helped move it along.

Much of what he said and claimed was accepted in the 60's and 70's, with some asking questions or doubting him. After his death much has come to light that demonstrated the extent of his subterfuge and dishonesty in his personal PR campaign.

Gitta Sereny wrote a very in-depth bio of Speer, she spent a month at his home interviewing him before his sudden death (of a heart attack in a London hotel room, in bed with a 30 year old woman who was a bit of a Nazi groupie. He was in London for yet another PR media appearance/ interview on his latest book). Even Sereny (a victim of Nazi persecution) was charmed by Speer, but she also saw through much of his facade - at least more than most at that point in time.

The book by Serney "Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth" is well worth the read, but twenty years after its publication even it is looked upon as far to accepting of Speer's BS. I think if you dug deeper, and stepped away from Speer giving you "his history" (its much like LRH relaying a very different personal history than the others wittnessed) you might learn quite a bit more about the man and his true motivations and history, rather than the whitewashed version he tried so hard to sell to the public and the history books.
 

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
I have no doubt that Speer "gilded the turd" when it came to his own involvement - what I particularly liked was how he s-l-o-w-l-y actually took SOME responsibility as the years wore on.

Also he began to see the craziness in his fellow inmates more and more over time. It was a gradual process.

I did see that he bullshitted - no-one at that level wouldn't know what was happening, even if they didn't know the details. Speer even hinted as much as the years wore on.

But I do believe that he joined up for idealistic reasons, and that was how "we" all got roped in (or at least the majority of us, some of the more obvious psychopaths and sociopaths I've known in the cult certainly didn't do it for altruistic reasons.)

For me, it was a matter of what I COULD HAVE become. And that was scary.

Very scary.

Unlike Goebbels, Himmler, Goering et al, Speer SEEMED to have started out as a fairly decent human being. I might see if I can get hold of that autobiog you mentioned as I would like to see what were the warts he was hiding.

Thanks for the info.
 

cakemaker

Patron Meritorious
Oh really.......

Debbie Cook witnessed and allowed Sea Org children to be with COB during his visits for periods extending from 7AM to 2AM in the morning. She gladly "gave" sea org children over to COB in this respect. She approved the FLB budgets for rooms for COB and his staff in 4 apartments that cost more than the entire budget for 3 years for all staff food. the rooms consisted of imported rugs, marble form Italy and Spain and exercise equipment that was state-of-the-art at the time.

from
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=303485&sid=343001e0dd71d1f3180bf2e73bdc988a
 
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