Indeed, I did post to ESMB Steve's attempt to bring Ethics to the the Free Indie Dependent Zone. However, lets review . . .
. . . see that highlighted bit, with the underline? That's what needs DOX.
See, Terril, DOX serve an important function in that calling for them acts as a kind of guardian against mistaken beliefs spreading, lies being injected into the discourse, as well as potentially identifying those who spread mistaken beliefs and lies. Now, it may well be that Steve "has recanted" from the sentiments expressed in that Facebook Ethics Session. I would be pleased to learn so if that's the case, which is why I asked for DOX. Geddit?
Dox. Just want to save your panties from bunching.
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Steve Hall
Message to APIS and the Freezone
A contentious problem is an opportunity for a spectacular resolution.
There was an ARC break. Some people got very busy applying a Scientology basic: communication. Soon reality was established and the President of the APIS, Michael Moore said some very noble things that were noble not just because they sounded good, but because they restored understanding. It is clear to me that he is clearly fit to be the President of the Association of Professional Independent Scientologists. And he is flanked by some people, like Roy Selby, who make one remember what the word “Scientologist” is really all about.
Michael provided amazing documents here that demonstrate the exposition of Miscavige crimes on behalf of the Freezone even back into the '80s.
When I came out of the Church in 2004 I had no idea what was on the outside. All contact with the outside world had been cut off for many years.
After studying what to do about the problem for the whole of 2008 I realized I had to stand up as a Scientologist and speak out while also getting the tech back into use. I took my first pc in 18 years into session the next day, and I started building Scientology-cult.com that evening.
Quite independently, Marty Rathbun came to the same conclusion. He didn't build on anything I did. We were not even in comm. I’d heard he was dead. I had only spoken to him once in my life, in early Dec 2003 when Miscavige ordered Marty down to the Cine Conference room where Mike Rinder and I had been working day and night for several months scripting videos for events. When IG Ethics came down to "slam me on the meter" and "get my ethics in" as DM ordered, it was so evident that Marty was just as clueless as me, and actually he was nice. He didn't do any ethics handling. I was shocked that he would violate a direct order from COB, since he was expected to turn me inside out. Instead he just asked me what happened. I told him that Mike and I had made some edits that Miscavige ordered, but that Miscavige hated the result. Marty smiled his trademark half smile, letting me know he understood. This was no ethics handling. He asked me what I was going to do and I told him. And that was it. This was only about three weeks before Marty left and I think truth was dawning. Instead of inspiring me with fear and dread, I found in Marty a friend. The interview lasted all of 5 minutes. It was the first time I had ever spoken to him and the last time until February 2009. Most of the time Marty was not even at the Int base; he was off putting out legal fires lit up by David McPyro.
So it was a complete surprise after finally getting up the nerve to speak out against Miscavige and crossing that line by officially attacking him in writing in December 2008 as a Scientologist named "Thoughtful," when I bumped into none other but Marty Rathbun, walking down the very same trail.
He also had set out to expose DM's crimes as a Scientologist while also auditing!
And I, for one, had no idea anyone else had *ever* walked down that trail before us because I didn't personally know anything about the Freezone. I figured out what had to be done on my own... well, actually with my wife's help and also with the help of Dan Koon with whom I discussed matters nearly daily throughout 2008.
It is a shame that proper introductions were never done between Independent Scientology and the Freezone, not even when Karry started this group. We all could have learned much about each other's similarities at the outset and bypassed some of the noise.
A number of times we Indies have heard, "But you guys are not the original Indies, we are." Today I can see that statement has a basis in fact. But as the Freezone played no part in cementing my own direction or resolve, just as I played no part in cementing Marty's direction and resolve, it sounded like someone was just trying to nullify our accomplishments by attributing our ideas and successes to others, and invalidating the personal pain we had endured to get here.
I had a number of close friends who did not make it. The suppression was too much. The betrayal too grand. One took his own life — Greg Bashaw, leaving a beautiful wife and son. Greg was my mentor as a copywriter. Another died after staying up all night working on David Miscavige's new $35 million mansion where 10 people work. He left a widow and young daughter in LA. Joe Harrison. He was a carpenter imported temporarily from PAC, not even Int base staff; and the suppression killed him. Then there was a 16-year-old girl who was decapitated in a car wreck involving an all hands late one night on the highway. I think it was a Tuesday night. Staff were conducting emergency preparations of the grounds for Miscavige's arrival the next morning. The girl’s mother witnessed the accident and was the person who found her daughter's severed head in the back seat of her car. All this happened next to my office at the Cine castle and the mother's screams ripped existence and redefined for me the meaning of pain. Then there was Judy Ferguson, a lonely friend who worked in CMU. She got cancer. I was going to hold a funeral service for her since I am an ordained minister, but when Miscavige found out he forbid anyone to leave post. Mary Sue Hubbard also died. I was in Diana Hubbard’s office when I found out. I spent a lot of time working with Diana writing scripts for David McSickness. "Not a word was spoken, the Church bells all were broken." Not a single *word* for the woman who had done more for Scientology than any other living human. Then were numerous others some who died horribly, like the teenage girl who had only been at the Int base for 2 months when she apparently committed suicide by grasping a 20,000 volt power line in an underground bunker on a Sunday morning in 2001. Her carbonized fist was still holding onto the line after they cut off the power. Then there was my own wife, whom hoped to have a child with. There was a time I thought surely she was pregnant, but she denied it. Not only would a daughter be the answer to my prayer, but it would be a swift ticket to a new life out side that hell hole, the best possible outcome. On Miscavige orders, however his staff coerced my wife to abort our child without even consulting me. I didn't get confirmation she had even been pregnant until 2008, when another woman told me of my ex-wife's secret abortion. The knowledge that my own child was killed on orders of David Miscavige makes my soul cry in a way that never stops.
But it's not because of what happened to me that I decided to expose DM's crimes. It's to protect others from similar deprivation, degradation and devastation. In Scientology we have a question we have all heard and answered a thousand times:
"Would you want someone else to have similar gains to yours?"
And the answer is always yes. In fact, that was the very reason I joined staff in the first place in 1979. But there's another side to the same coin.
"Would you want someone else to have similar pain to yours?"
And if the one can be answered “Yes,” WHO could not but answer the second “No”?
So I advocate doing both. I don’t think the job can be done any other way. And frankly, we need everyone’s help to do both.
The job is certainly not grim because we are winning.
I do see that the Freezone HAS distinguished themselves in the trenches against David McSatan numerous times by exposing his crimes and I'm very proud of you for that. I wish the voices of the Freezone had been loud enough for me to hear when I was still entrapped at the Int base. If I had known the Bridge was available outside the Church of Scientology my path would certainly have been different for I was trying desperately to find a solution. People inside do not know OT is available outside the Church because they are carefully fed false information.
Surely too, while you guys were outside, I was inside on the wrong team. But when I joined the SO, LRH was still alive. I had never even heard of Kaboom McTinyfists.
As the Sea Org atmosphere became increasingly toxic, I tried everything to change it back including speaking out that “the problem with the Int base is that the top execs are intentionally misusing ethics to create an environment of fear and intimidation instead of ARC." Within hours I was in the RPF, with no money and not even a tooth brush or a bar of soap, 90 miles from my wife, with no idea why I was even there.
I tried every way to fix the problem from the inside. And 14 years later when I was finally taken off post, to be “off-loaded” from the Int base in December 2003, it was because DM found out I had secretly gotten 35 people to read a book that said, "The problem with the world is it's a planet of victims. Stop being a victim and take responsibility for yourself." I was still trying break DM's hold from the inside and it just wasn’t possible to do. So really while you guys were outside trying to solve the problem, many of us WERE trying to fix it from the inside. And getting slaughtered for our efforts and even having our children murdered.
I don’t want to see a truce. I want to see the APIS, the Freezone and Independent Scientology work in concert to bring the world similar wins and gains to our own, while also protecting them from the catastrophic pain that David Miscavige will inflict.
The Key Question of Scientology opens one lock and closes another.
Thoughtful