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Super Power pushed back indefinitely!

Infinite

Troublesome Internet Fringe Dweller
Re: Super Power - Scientology Building Dedication Postponed - Indefinitely!!

. . . <snip> . . . Here is a tasty bit about super-elite OT Matt Feshback, who donated millions to the SuperPower building so that he could do the rundown well over a decade before anyone else. He is out there at the orgs giving financial seminars these days, even though his companies (plural) went bust, he owes millions in taxes and he recently declared personal bankruptcy.

Tampa Bay Times said:
. . . Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people. He appreciates beauty more deeply than he used to. He says he outperforms his peers in the money management industry . . .

Scientology: The full hat of dupes, buffoons and clowns! . . . <snip> . . .

A tempting thought but . . .

Did you happen to note the name of the other Scientologist in that 2006 Tampa Bay Times article who, along with Matt Feshbach, was full of praise for the Supah Powerz Mecca Flag bizzo? It was good ole Ron Pollack who, it is claimed, handed over $5 million to bring the wonders of the oiliness table to the planet.

Dunno when Ron Pollack became a Scilon, his completions record goes back to a life repair in 1978. With his connections and ability as an earner for the mob, I reckon, he would have been well on the way to whale status from the get go. He was certainly high profile by 2002 when he became Chairman of the Fundraising Committee for the New York Rescue Workers [STRIKE]Purple Towel Caper[/STRIKE] Detoxification Project.

Ron Pollack is a Harvard and Yale educated bankster who cut his teeth in the [STRIKE]criminal[/STRIKE] real estate financial derivatives world, first working in New York under Daniel Neidich at Goldman Sachs and then Richard Frary at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Next stop on his career path, according to his own CV, was the Feshbach Brothers, and we all know how that turned out. A month after slinking out the Feshbachs' back door in 1992, Ron Pollack formed Bulldog Capital Management, an equity hedge fund based in Clearwater clipping the ticket of his clients. Clients like Ben Kugler.

In 2004, Ron Pollack and Ben Kugler got together and formed a property development company promoting itself under the banner Triangle Development. Now, why would two men with exacly zero experience in the property development field get together and do this, I ask myself. One of the first things they did was borrow $18 million dollars from the Mercantile Bank and commence parcelling up 5 acres of land right next door to Scientology in Clearwater. There were a couple of other deals going on around the town while this was taking place, not the least of them being a land swap deal. It couldn't possibly be that Triangle Development was actually working for the cult, could it?

9813328595_a2c111e41a.jpg

^^^ . . . here's the Triangle Crew, Ben Kugler is three in from the left in the front row, Ron Pollack next to him.

Anyhow, as befits Scientology's parade of dupes, buffoons and clowns, the property development on the five acres previously parcelled up fell through - spectacularly. After pleading with the Mercantile Bank for just one more chance to make things work, alas, the plug was finally pulled in 2008. According to their own statements, Ben Kugler and Ron Pollack lost millions while who knows how much their investors, most likely fellow Scientologists, also lost. The Mercantile Bank probably came out about even when the five acres were sold for just $10 million. Guess who bought the land . . . yep, you're right, Scientology!! Then again, it was 2008, the funny money rubber numbers financial derivatives tsunami was rolling in; perhaps cutting its losses and grabbing whatever cold hard cash it could seemed like a good deal to the bank. Certainly was a good deal for the cult.

Of course, Scientologists were clobbered by the 2008 GFC Banksters just as badly as us hapless wogs, probably more so actually. It was a bit odd to see at the time, though, an outright admission from Scientology that the tech does nothing to relieve a person from the vicissitudes of wog reality. In a staff recruitment poster the hapless copywriter said the only way to devoting 100 percent of your life to avoiding whole-track MEST games, financial problems, and the treadmill of being PTS to the middle class was to join staff . . .

9814075774_37223975be.jpg

Not sure what Ben Kluger is up to these days. He's worth a few bob, that's for sure. Ron Pollack appears to still have his sleeves rolled up in the capitalist casino where he's still playing the odds with some outfit going under the name Mascot Capital Management. Another of the principals from Triangle Development, Thomas Coates, has turned up in an interesting role: he's just been apppointed Chairman of the Clearwater Community Development Board. Oh, and guess who's running an outfit called Bulldog Capital Management in Clearwater these days . . . Kurt Feshbach.

TL/DR: Sure, Scientology manufactures an abundance of dupes, buffoons and clowns, but it also attracts some sharp operators who are more than pleased to find such a ready-made market place ripe for the plucking.

9814454035_4550618645.jpg
 
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AnonKat

Crusader
This New Era SP Tech has the cult operating somewhere between -30 (Can't Hide) and -40 (Total Failure) on the Tone Scale, it's just too powerful for Hubbard's silly role playing tech to combat.

SP's are Scientology's Body Thetans

We have Sign Tech

T shirt Tech

Youtube Tech

Protest Tech

They actually don't use Hubbard Tech anymore , it's been replaced by COB selfdestruct Tech and Curtain Tech

DMstraINED.jpg
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
I see lots of mention of the (possibly) imminent release of the Mark VIII Phuctum meter. I know there have been lots of mentions of this meter in the, er, alternative Scientology media. But have there been any official mentions of the Phuctum (probably not with that name :)) in CofS promo or e-mails?

Paul
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
An important aspect of this embarrassing postponement is that a lot of average Scientologists are bound to hear about it.

Disconnection is an inherently fragile tactic. It only works as long as there's enough ordinary Scientologists willing to disconnect when told. And that's actually a pretty high standard of indoctrination and discipline to maintain. People must have to really believe in the church, to drop a close friend or family member just on someone's say-so. There must be a pretty large range of levels of belief in which people are really quite keen on Scientology, but wouldn't go so far as to cut ties with a parent or spouse just because a church official said.

Isolated individual Scientologists becoming violently alienated, because of particularly bad things that have happened to them, is one thing. Disconnection and gag orders can work on them, I guess. But even a slight drop in commitment over the broad mass of regular Scientologists could be quite a different problem for the church. As soon as a bunch of people drop down from extreme fanaticism, then there start to be significant numbers of people getting declared without losing their families.

Does the church then declare all those otherwise still loyal Scientologist families?

If it does, then it risks alienating a lot more of its people, who have also come to feel that disconnection is just asking too much. Many of these might stay happy if they could go on ignoring disconnection as something that only happens to bad people, but hearing of a mass declaration over the issue could trigger an avalanche.

If it doesn't, then word will get around that disconnection is dead, and the trickle of departures will accelerate. At least this won't be an outright explosion, however. So I'd bet that this would be how the church would react, once the broad average doubt level rises this little bit. But an accelerating stream of departures would probably further lower the broad average level of commitment to the church, as it became more and more commonplace to quit. So the more people left, the more people would leave. It could end up as just a slower avalanche.

The best bet would just be to let them all go. Abandon the exorbitant promises and the extortionate regging, let everyone who wanted to leave go. Scientology would shrink to a very small group indeed, but it would have quite a lot of money. The few old guard who stayed could have a peaceful sunset. And some retro-remnants of Hubbardism may survive as a trace ingredient in New Agery for generations to come. In this sense I think there would be some remnant of Scientology for a long time. But the bulk of the current church might dissipate quickly, not through the spectacular instances of failure and rebellion that we celebrate here, but through an invisible slight decline in the commitment level of average Scientologists.

That doesn't mean that the individual episodes aren't important, but that what's mostly important about them is their impact on average Scientologists. Even if the average Scientologist is so insulated and committed that the impact from all these outrages is slight, what I'm saying is that a slight impact may be all it takes. We don't need to get the average Scientologist to decide to quit the church and demand a refund; all we need to do is get the average Scientologist to decide they're not going to disconnect.

How close are we to that invisible line? Maybe closer than we think.
 

TG1

Angelic Poster
What do you all think the odds are that Miscavige will use one of his few remaining bullets ... a general amnesty?
 
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Infinite

Troublesome Internet Fringe Dweller
. . . <snip> . . . [Scientologists] actually don't use Hubbard Tech anymore , it's been replaced by COB selfdestruct Tech and Curtain Tech.

Au contraire . . . the fact that Scientologists and David Miscavige still do use KSW Standard L Ron Hubbard Scientology Tech is apparent in that nothing they have done has improved either their own or this planet's conditions. The impulse to self-destruct is written into the tech by the fact that it cannot evolve to better suit (and, oddly enough, "survive") changing conditions while, at a personal level, there was no better practitioner of curtain tech than L Ron Hubbard, hisssownfatself.
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
What do you all think the odds are that Miscavige will use one of his few remaining bullets ... A general amnesty?

Traditionally amnesties were to celebrate some advance or big expansion, (or that was the PR).

He certainly doesn't have much to celebrate. Even if the stats from NOI made a big difference by now they must be crashed or at least as stagnant as they were before. Maybe he needs more expansion, he needs to join forces with Al Qaeda.

I can't imagine there would be many takers if an amnesty was offered, I certainly wouldn't have any interest.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
What do you all think the odds are that Miscavige will use one of his few remaining bullets ... A general amnesty?

Given what we've seen of the man and his psychology, somewhere between slim and none, I'd say.
 

Bea Kiddo

Crusader
Traditionally amnesties were to celebrate some advance or big expansion, (or that was the PR).

He certainly doesn't have much to celebrate. Even if the stats from NOI made a big difference by now they must be crashed or at least as stagnant as they were before. Maybe he needs more expansion, he needs to join forces with Al Qaeda.

I can't imagine there would be many takers if an amnesty was offered, I certainly wouldn't have any interest.

The last amnesty that actually would allow SP Declares to be lifted was in 1991. That amnesty allowed everyone off the RPF and whoever wanted to get their SP declare lifted could as well. I later found out that the church was very close to folding at the time, from the information I had, from that Time article. And this, and subsequent actions were the acts of COB that saved the religion and put him up on the pedestal that he is still at.

Maybe someone else has more information, or more accurate information about it. But my point was that the amnesty was nothing to do with any church win.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
The last amnesty that actually would allow SP Declares to be lifted was in 1991. That amnesty allowed everyone off the RPF and whoever wanted to get their SP declare lifted could as well. I later found out that the church was very close to folding at the time, from the information I had, from that Time article. And this, and subsequent actions were the acts of COB that saved the religion and put him up on the pedestal that he is still at.

Maybe someone else has more information, or more accurate information about it. But my point was that the amnesty was nothing to do with any church win.

In 1991, I think DM was at a make-or-break moment vis-a-vis his ability to remain in power. I always saw that amnesty as a bribe. Stalin did the smae thing several times during his career when he felt vulnerable.
 

Alle G

Patron with Honors
In 1991, I think DM was at a make-or-break moment vis-a-vis his ability to remain in power. I always saw that amnesty as a bribe. Stalin did the smae thing several times during his career when he felt vulnerable.


They don’t need Stalin, they need Gorbachev with a bit of ‘glasnost’. Even a tiny bit of entheta will act like garlic on a vampire, the cult identity will start to collapse.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
They don’t need Stalin, they need Gorbachev with a bit of ‘glasnost’. Even a tiny bit of entheta will act like garlic on a vampire, the cult identity will start to collapse.

Agree 100%. Gorby couldn't keep that shit together because fear was a major ingredient of the glue.

I mean, I was more than a bit scared when the KGB pulled me in for questioning in 2 different incidents at 2 different borders in 1990 and 1991, but I wasn't piss-your-pants scared like I would have been in the 60s or 70s.

But remember, DM really IS Stalin in this scenario. Ron was Lenin, DM is Stalin. Will they have to go through a Brezhnev first?

Though I doubt their Brezhnev would hold on to power long enough to degenerate into senility and drug abuse - Hubbard already accomplished that. (I love the joke about Brezhnev and the Olympic rings.) :hysterical:
 

RogerB

Crusader
An important aspect of this embarrassing postponement is that a lot of average Scientologists are bound to hear about it.

Disconnection is an inherently fragile tactic. It only works as long as there's enough ordinary Scientologists willing to disconnect when told. And that's actually a pretty high standard of indoctrination and discipline to maintain. People must have to really believe in the church, to drop a close friend or family member just on someone's say-so. There must be a pretty large range of levels of belief in which people are really quite keen on Scientology, but wouldn't go so far as to cut ties with a parent or spouse just because a church official said.

Isolated individual Scientologists becoming violently alienated, because of particularly bad things that have happened to them, is one thing. Disconnection and gag orders can work on them, I guess. But even a slight drop in commitment over the broad mass of regular Scientologists could be quite a different problem for the church. As soon as a bunch of people drop down from extreme fanaticism, then there start to be significant numbers of people getting declared without losing their families.

Does the church then declare all those otherwise still loyal Scientologist families?

If it does, then it risks alienating a lot more of its people, who have also come to feel that disconnection is just asking too much. Many of these might stay happy if they could go on ignoring disconnection as something that only happens to bad people, but hearing of a mass declaration over the issue could trigger an avalanche.

If it doesn't, then word will get around that disconnection is dead, and the trickle of departures will accelerate. At least this won't be an outright explosion, however. So I'd bet that this would be how the church would react, once the broad average doubt level rises this little bit. But an accelerating stream of departures would probably further lower the broad average level of commitment to the church, as it became more and more commonplace to quit. So the more people left, the more people would leave. It could end up as just a slower avalanche.

The best bet would just be to let them all go. Abandon the exorbitant promises and the extortionate regging, let everyone who wanted to leave go. Scientology would shrink to a very small group indeed, but it would have quite a lot of money. The few old guard who stayed could have a peaceful sunset. And some retro-remnants of Hubbardism may survive as a trace ingredient in New Agery for generations to come. In this sense I think there would be some remnant of Scientology for a long time. But the bulk of the current church might dissipate quickly, not through the spectacular instances of failure and rebellion that we celebrate here, but through an invisible slight decline in the commitment level of average Scientologists.

That doesn't mean that the individual episodes aren't important, but that what's mostly important about them is their impact on average Scientologists. Even if the average Scientologist is so insulated and committed that the impact from all these outrages is slight, what I'm saying is that a slight impact may be all it takes. We don't need to get the average Scientologist to decide to quit the church and demand a refund; all we need to do is get the average Scientologist to decide they're not going to disconnect.

How close are we to that invisible line? Maybe closer than we think.

Nice post, SOT . . .

In actuality, the practice of "disconnection" is the ultimate self destructive process, this because the game of life is one of relationships . . . all that we as spiritual Beings are involved in began with the intent to relate to another, others and "things."

So, in this context, one can see just how stupid and destructive this "wonder tech" of Hubbard's is. Indeed, it is one of the main reasons the Cof$ is in decline and being ripped apart.

It is the ultimate self-destructive action they are practicing . . .

RogerB
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
The best bet would just be to let them all go. Abandon the exorbitant promises and the extortionate regging, let everyone who wanted to leave go. Scientology would shrink to a very small group indeed, but it would have quite a lot of money.

It's the teeth that protect the CofS: the threat of disconnection from family and friends and business connections (often most of one's current life), and the threat of the Scientological equivalent of eternal damnation (denial of Scientology services for this and future lifetimes).

Pull the teeth and thousands of people will turn on the cult and sue it into oblivion.

Paul
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
Nice post, SOT . . .

In actuality, the practice of "disconnection" is the ultimate self destructive process, this because the game of life is one of relationships . . . all that we as spiritual Beings are involved in began with the intent to relate to another, others and "things."

So, in this context, one can see just how stupid and destructive this "wonder tech" of Hubbard's is. Indeed, it is one of the main reasons the Cof$ is in decline and being ripped apart.

It is the ultimate self-destructive action they are practicing . . .

RogerB

Exactly. They told me to disconnect or I wouldn't be allowed up the Bridge. So I told them to fuck off and from that moment on they had no hold on me.

It was their loss.:yes:
 
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