Upon reflection, I've decided to keep speaking as long as I feel I have something relevant to say.
Mark Baker, I don't want to excerpt your entire post. I'll quote the following (and it inspired my new user name). You said:
"I gather you, like woody allen, aspire to achieve immortality through not dying? Good luck with your hopes but as said the Dread Pirate Roberts: get used to disappointment."
I don't aspire to become immortal, because I don't believe it's possible. I choose instead to live the life in front of me.
Regarding cancellation of certs - shit happens. This occurs in the life of people every day, for right and wrong reasons. They get fired because company policy changes. It's unfortunate, frequently unjust and often well worth protesting - but it's not generally held to be on par with (for example) being confined to a penal colony (such as the RPF), or false imprisonment (storys of the hole) or creating an environment where there's an expectation of abortions, should one get pregnant.
To take this example further, if Bernie Madhoff was to kick the bucket, I would understand some people spitting in the general direction of his corpse. Let's say, however, that an engineer who studied quite some time to learn his profession gets fired for some arbitrary reason. I'd likely feel his railing against his boss after he dies to be quite petty. Because there are differences in things.
In the end, those people who had their certs cancelled - even unjustly - are responsible for the material end of their lives. I have NO doubt these cancellations were unjust, as that's just how it seems to go in 'the church.' But life isn't always fair, and as unfair as such was, it still doesn't justify kicking a dead man who wasn't really a Bernie Madhoff within your mind control system.
Hubbard is the one who set up certificate cancellation. He hung that particular Damascus sword above the heads of every auditor, and if you are the one who gave over the finances of your life as a hostage to such a system, then you are the one who built your house on a foundation of sand.
Does that mean I have the same heartless view of this that I'm accusing others of re: kicking corpses? No. It's a consistent point of anguish for me; the observation of lives destroyed simply because decent people were willing to try and help other people. It's just not helpful. I can't change that system within Scientology - I can only help in pointing out the right target to those who were victimized by it, in the hopes they won't make the same mistake again.
It's still black and white thinking - and this thinking is flawed BY DEFAULT. Let me posit this scenario for you, Mark. Richard cancels a field auditor's certs for cause - that is, based on 'per policy' criteria. Let's say the person whose certs were cancelled has six children, a wife, two cars and a mortgage, and that auditing is his sole source of income. As a result of this certificate cancellation, his field practice falls apart. He loses his home and two cars, and his family now lives in an apartment and takes the bus. Would this be acceptable to you? So long as the cancellations were based on 'actual' 'out tech', as opposed to the current explanation in vogue (GAT, etc)? In the GAT example, you and some others appear to think Richard deserves the same lack of forgiveness as, let's say, David M. But in the first, his actions are acceptable, yes?
You do understand, don't you, that there is no pragmatic difference between the two? It's the SAME action - punishing someone and affecting their life quite adversely based on opinion about whether or not you are 'changing people's thetans' in the correct way. You currently belong to the priesthood that's in vogue - the ones with the correct version of the scientology bible (metaphorically speaking), so you can denounce a dead man with righteousness. In reality, your actions lack compassion in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY as Miscavige's, or of any fanatic, for that matter.
Come to me (or the board) and say "Richard used to scream in my face every day, day after day, year after year, and I'm now a PTSD mess", and I'll get that. Failure to uphold the legacy of your supposed "tech" as a reason is the same, to my mind, as burning witches or burying suicides in unconsecrated ground. It's humans finding a reason to lord the delusion of superior knowledge over others, with nothing other than immaterialities to justify it.
I have no problem criticizing Hubbard post-mortem. I'm also fine with jumping up and down on Hitler's grave and memory. That's kind of the point.
There really are shades of gray and levels of differentiation, Mark, and there is a reality that hurts you when you get hit by a car.
Mick Wenlock, your posting is just silly. So... what? Are we now required to calculate the amount of blood on our hands, from back when we were true believers? What about you, Mick? I was aware of you peripherally, and you were far from always being the "huggy-bear" some people like to paint you as, sometimes. You, too, spent plenty of time as a steely-eyed hard charger. You relieved people of their bank balances, or directed such, with the best of intentions. You were not above using your size and appearance as tools of "ethics presence" to intimidate fellow staff or public. You helped plenty move on the "bridge to total freedom", and like all of us, you bent to the will of command intention on at least one occassion, though it violated your personal integrity. So what's your excuse? That you've left and spoken out? Fair enough. Can you know Richard wouldn't have done the same, had he not, you know - died? Of course you can't. I don't hold your time in scientology against you, but I guess we should hold Richard's against him. This is farcical (at best).
Frankly, I think you were just being a prick to be one, with your posting. We all committed that same crime, and many of us brought people we love into that madness. So? We thought it was THE WAY. If you (or anyone, for that matter) want to be lazy and trot out that golden oldie, that the 'just following orders' excuse didn't work for the Nazi's', please don't. It would be a visible demonstration of ignorance in this situation. Truly, 'just following orders' is not an excuse for murder, blackmail, assault, starvation, false imprisonment, etc. Sorry - but "making a whole lot of people get auditing" isn't on that level, and most particularly, neither are the circumstances of its causation. Many people now think Freud had it wrong, and that psychoanalysis- indeed, all talk therapy - was at best ineffectual; at worst, potentially destructive. So if I walk away from that profession and start to protest it, and my teacher then dies of cancer without ever having broken from the subject - am I justified in dancing on his grave because he "brought so many people into the destructive clutches of psychoanalysis?"
I don't think so. I think that would be stupid, petty and cruel. So is your stand, and your posting.
On a personal level, screw you for the hyperbole, Mick. "Wailing and gnashing of teeth", indeed. I didn't shed a tear for Richard, you silly git. He wasn't someone I'd call a friend. That's not and was never the point, and shame on you for your lazy display of "tough, and telling it like it is."
Neither was my point that you can never criticise someone's actions after they die. That would be a ridiculous stand to take.
The point is that it was the first action (on the part of Diana and some others) and under the circumstances - THAT'S inhuman. Given that he ran no concentration camps (or holes) it's just classless brutality, and a continuation of a mindset created by the subject most here protest. I knew Diana briefly when I was in, and she always had a huge button on her own status. I personally watched her trot out the "I'm a Class 8" once in quite an arrogant fashion, that had nothing to do with an intent to "help mankind" and everything to do with making herself someone to look up to. It didn't bother me at the time, because quite frankly, I agreed with her. And it was everywhere, in some way. I did the same simply by being a sea arrgh member. Scientologists love their status. I'm sad to see her become such a nasty bit of work. I think she honestly believes, had the church been given to HER to control, it would all have been rivers of milk and winning lottery tickets.
So, then, why didn't you fix things, Diana? You have all the answers, right? You're a Class 8. You KNOW the right things to do. You're an OT, and free from overwhelm. You know the "tech" to shatter suppression. According to you, you're one of those few gifted people who held to their integrity despite all reasons not to. From my (quite broad) understanding of Hubbard "technology", and per it, you actually had ALL the tools needed to reform the church from within.
But you didn't. Should I hold YOU responsible, then? Isn't such an "overt of omission" a violation of your integrity? Didn't you give up on the group you pledged to support, and thereby the people you called friends? Aren't many of them still trapped in what you regard as some form of hell, from an auditing "tech" perspective?
Mick, what about those you left behind? Those people you cared for or called friends who are still trapped there? Can you honestly say that no person remains in the clutches of the church who is there as a result of your actions, directly or otherwise? No. So, should I curl my lip at you for that reason?
The answers to the above questions are an obvious "NO". The questions themselves are, of course, ridiculous and injust.
The decent action (as regarded by most of the human race) would have been to hold your tongues for a time. If you had things to say about Richard relevant to your own experience, you could have spoken up later. Instead, some chose to go, in various ways, "He was a bad person," "He brought it on himself," "He had it coming", without even waiting or his corpse to cool. The excuse being the old, familiar ones - I'm just telling it like it is; I'm keeping my "integrity", blah blah and yes, blah.
To Diana and others of her ilk, I'm sorry he didn't respect the way you feel your religious rituals ought to be practiced. But defamation of him for that only, RIGHT after the guy dies, is frankly unbelievable. It's also exactly the same justification that drives such things as disconnection, crusades, and other forms of intolerance.
If Richard had died after posting on this board, and speaking out against DM, I imagine none of this would have happened. He'd have demonstrated his agreement with the current secret handshake adequately, and it would be "so sad he's dead, RIP, Richard", or whatever. That by itself demonstrates, more than anything, that such actions belong to the fanatic. And yes, in this case I mean the fanatic in either direction - as Mick isn't exactly what I'd call a 'true believer'.
Mick - and others - if you really want to educate people on this subject, you better examine yourself for the last vestiges of black and white thinking. Those us or them views with no room for a middle is straight up scn-type exclusion, and will do little (effective) to further your cause.
Not to mention they make you appear both foolish and cruel.
I'm still holding out hope that's not true.
Last note to Diana: if there's a language barrier here, I apologize. I'm not being sarcastic in the least. I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt. Your response(s) to my posts have been a kind of "wall of quotable 'zings'" and general ad-hominem, without any real address to the things I'm saying. Calling me an 'it' doesn't prove your point. They're quite honestly inane, and make you seem, on the surface, a bit stupid. I'm certain you're not stupid, as it's a long road through the briefing course and class 8, and while I personally feel that road is useless, it's a lot to read and comprehend. That's the only reason I bring it up, and again, no sarcasm or condescension intended. I speak a second language, but seeing a few pages of writing in that language is fairly daunting, and I need a pretty good reason to read it.
RIP Richard. Another headstone to pave that gravestone-highway.
