Caroline: You have failed to demonstrate that the Indies practice Fair Game.

Your move.

Your duplicity is not appreciated. Fair game is the theory and application of the Suppressive Person doctrine against SPs. SPs are, essentially, Homo sapiens who tell the truth about Scientology and its source.

You have failed to demonstrate that the Indies have repudiated the SP doctrine. You have failed to produce even one Scientologist, either Indie or Innie, who has repudiated that doctrine.

I really like Karen, Marty, and so many of the other Indies. They're good people. They are also courageous and doing a great thing by speaking out about the abuses at Int. But I also know that most of the people still inside COS are equally motivated by good. COS loyalists and the Indies have a common denominator: They all think that Hubbard is pretty terrific. They just disagree about Hubbard's successor Miscavige.

I, on the other hand, am puzzled by the Indie faith in Hubbard. To me, the reports about Miscavige would suggest that major swaths of Hubbard's Scientology are an abject failure.

Witnesses say that Miscavige was already displaying his personality problems in adolescence, and yet Hubbard picked the adolescent Miscavige to be on Hubbard's personal film crew. Hubbard allowed Miscavige into the CMO, and Hubbard placed Miscavige in a position so close to Hubbard that Miscavige was able to take over the Scientology network when Hubbard died. I ask myself: why didn't Hubbard ever use his own "Tone Scale" and "PTS/SP" tech to identify Miscavige's true personality and offload him from the Sea Org? Hubbard had a long time to observe and analyze Miscavige. Because of this one fact alone, I would NEVER consider using Hubbard's "Tone Scale" or "PTS/SP tech" to evaluate other people. That tech comes across as being a complete failure even in the hands of the man who invented it. This feeling is reinforced by the many people who were close to Hubbard who were later declared suppressive persons...David Mayo, Hana Whitfield, Otto Roos, etc. It seems to me that applying the Tone Scale and PTS/SP tech to an organization turns it into an insane asylum. I wouldn't let a WISE representative even so much as poke a toe through my office door.

And Hubbard's organizational skills? He created an organization that cannot even remove a person like Miscavige from power. In a wog corporation, if a CEO slapped an employee just once, the Board would be on that CEO like flies on sh*t, the CEO would be out the door in a heartbeat, and the slapped employee would be suing the pants off the corporation before you could blink. Wog mechanisms, as imperfect as they are, are a thousand times more effective in preventing the kind of abuses that the Indies are describing at Int. But in Scientology, the equivalent of the CEO can mercilessly beat, punch, and psychologically abuse employees FOR DECADES. Just the fact that a person described like Miscavige cannot be removed by the organization's internal mechanisms tells me that Hubbard's "admin" and organizational "tech" is a major fail. Do you think even for a second that I would want any of it incorporated into my business, or into the politics of any place that I lived?

OK, even many ex-Scientologist critics have said that Hubbard's auditing techniques "work." They got "gains" from auditing. I'm willing to accept that. (Although I'm not so sure about its 100% "case-cracking" boast. Why wasn't Miscavige's case "cracked" when he worked all those years so close to Hubbard?) Still assuming that many people do have gains from auditing, it seems to me that Hubbard made the same mistake that many "gurus" make: they do something right, and immediately they think that they are experts on everything. If we grant the premise that Hubbard got some things right with his "auditing" tech, DO NOT assume that it translates to him getting everything right with this "admin," "ethics" and organizational "tech." He was TERRIBLE at those other things. I mean absolutely horrible. MOST of what he created in Scientology is just god-awful by any objective standard.

This is why I can sympathize with Caroline's position. While it is indeed great that the Indies are not practicing Fair Game, until they openly REPUDIATE the bad in Hubbard's system, that bad will creep back in. It will creep back in like this:

"Uh-oh, you're rollercoastering during our Indie auditing sessions. Hubbard says that's because there's an SP affecting you. Let's pull out the Tone Scale and Hubbard's writings about SPs. OK, these are the characteristics of SPs. One of them is being hostile to Scientology. Oh, someone doesn't like you coming to me for auditing? That must be the SP. Hubbard says that you need to handle or disconnect."

The basic problem is that Hubbard's idea of a successful powerful person is the tin-pot dictator. He has said why democracy "doesn't work." His "power" or "power change" formula is something that only a mafia boss or tin-pot dictator would follow (gather blackmail, bribe police, move to "Bulgravia," etc.). His "Responsibility of Leaders" (aka "Simon Boliver") policy mentions how you don't let the leader think the dead bodies outside of the door are his/her responsibility. Science of Survival clearly states that you permanently quarantine and take away the civil rights of undesirable people based on their personalities. So, now Scientology has a leader that many people describe as a tin-pot dictator. Why is this a surprise?

I agree with Graham Berry that any person should be allowed to read Hubbard's writings and practice the "auditing" techniques. I believe that this applies to people both inside and outside of COS. But at the same time, they all need to accept that there will continue to be strong criticisms as long as they keep telling us how glorious Hubbard was without repudiating the truly bad stuff that Hubbard wrote that has led to this present sorry state of affairs.

I'd like to point out that this thread came out of this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=41348
and it also related to this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=42022

Curiosity, all religious systems/ideologies are inherently flawed. Can you name one that isn't?

The deeply flawed man and system behind scientology are not a concern of the people who want to stick to and support the good they see in it and support the positive aspects they believe come from it. While the deeply flawed man and system at the bottom of scientology might be the cause of why scientology will never be more popular than Rastafarian-ism, to say it is the source and cause of why abuse occurs in scientology is fine as a personal opinion, but to try and make it a fact is an even better confidence trick than the one LRon played on his friends.

Why people commit acts of abuse is not fully known. To say that people in scientology commit acts of abuse because LRon created a system that trained them to, is a grossly flawed statement. The scientology movement thinks it knows the cause and source of why people do bad things: evil purposes, reactive mind, etc. The Gerry/Caroline movement thinks it knows why scientologists do bad things. I see both of these claims as equally fraudulent.

Curiosity, I don't think you have a problem with this. This debate however, is this: the Gerry/Caroline movement claims to know the source of the abuse that occurs in scientology. They put forth an ideology that insists the abuse is a direct result of the doctrine. The doctrine orders the abuse, and the innocent follower/victim simply carries it out. In their world, there is no individual responsibility, there is no other reason, there is only the evil doctrine as the source of any and all abuse.

Advocating personal responsibility for the abusive acts one commits in scientology is not a scientological perspective. It is a human perspective.

Caroline has made the claim (here at OCMB, I will dig it up if you like) that Marty is still Fair Gaming Gerry, in present time. I asked her to substantiate this claim, and it was ignored and I was called a liar for it. Now Swift asks her the same question, and he is given no answer and told he is duplicitous for having asked it.

J. Swift's and Dorothy's posts reminded me that Gerry spoke on these matters recently. I know of no better response:

Youtube: Gerry Armstrong, Berlin 17. Sept. 2011

Thanks, DxxAnonymous.

Caroline, that you open with an attack on me does not surprise me for the Armstrong Agenda is built upon attacking its enemies while perpetuating a series of truths and lies that form an intellectually bereft myth called the Armstrong Contract.

After I saw how Gerry was in fact attacking the Indies -- indeed he is crucifying them in a way that would make OSA proud -- I began to dig deeper into the Armstrong archives in search of what would motivate such an utter lack of compassion on Armstrong's part. What I discovered was simple: What we have in the Armstrong Agenda is an ideology that, while exposing Scientology's lies, simultaneously perpetuates the lie that Gerry is somehow a victim for having signed a gag agreement for which Scientology paid him $800,000.

Gerry has piggybacked his legal case onto Scientology criticism for decades. Gerry has consistently sought to place his legal case at or near the center of Scientology criticism in order to morally obligate Scientology critics to fight his personal battle. Of course, no other Scientology critics were paid $800,000 but we are somehow nevertheless obliged to take up Gerry's cause as our own.

The shadowy Brian Ambry plays into the Armstrong Agenda, but that is for a later thread.

******
Gerry Armstrong on SP's:


ref: http://www.suppressiveperson.org/sp/archives/1111

Under Armstrong's own definition, then, the Indies qualify as SP's. However, the Armstrong Agenda must attack and vilify the Indies for one simple reason:

Gerry Armstrong wants to hold the entire Indie Movement hostage to his demand that he be freed from the legal requirements of the gag agreement he signed with the Cult.

Rather than accepting responsibility for his actions in having signed a gag agreement for which he was paid $800,000, Gerry chose to violate his contract with the Cult. The courts have ruled that the gag agreement Gerry signed is valid and that Armstrong violated it.

As Dorothy brilliantly described in her response to Caroline, Gerry has created an ideology. I call this ideology the Armstrong Agenda.

In this agenda, Gerry has craftily attempted to equate his personal legal case with the much larger, higher visibility Scientology Criticism Movement, a movement that even the mighty Anonymous famously joined in 2008 with its powerful Original Video.

In order to be a valid Scientology critic in the eyes of Gerry Armstrong one must hold their nose and drink down the nasty ideological Kool Aid that is the Armstrong Agenda.

One must agree with Gerry's contention that he got a raw deal from the Cult when he took $800,000 in blood money and signed a gag agreement. Never mind that the courts have ruled the agreement valid and enforceable. Gerry takes care of this inconvenient legal matter by waving his hand and dismissing the legal system.

Gerry inveighs against the legal system for having enforced an "illegal contract" that makes all Scientologists beneficiaries of the contract Gerry signed. Well, yes, this is exactly what Scientology had in mind when it paid Gerry $800,000 for his silence. The Cult paid Gerry to not talk about Scientology. Gerry agreed and signed the contract.

Never mind that Gerry signed the $800,000 Cult contract on video with his attorney and the Cult's attorney present. Gerry dismisses this as having had a bad lawyer who what? Tricked and lied to Gerry?

*****
The Armstrong Agenda demands that Scientology critics must agree that the Indies are Evil because they will not help Gerry -- this even as Gerry repeatedly curses the Indies as liars. Gerry does not have the common sense to understand the damage he is doing to his own legal case when he attacks the Indies as liars. Ironically, if any Indies were to write affidavits as Gerry demands, the Cult's lawyers could easily refute those affidavits by arguing that Gerry himself has repeatedly called the Indies liars.

*****
Gerry's proxy "Veda" took a swipe at me on ESMB as "No longer being one of us." This was due to my pro-Indie position. My response is this: I am an Old Guard critic, and, I reject the Armstrong Agenda.

I do not have to drink the Armstrong Kool Aid in order to be a Scientology critic. In my case, I am specifically decoupling the Armstrong Agenda from Scientology criticism.

It is that simple.

/////

The whole god damned 'Indie' debate stems from one person ' ball of fluff' whom ever that might be?
Do I buy it? NO!

Delusions of grandeur come to mind.

It's a cop out! Pure and simple!

I watched this video after the link was restored. There is absolutely no evidence showing that Gerry was coerced or tricked into signing. In fact he appears jovial and looks quite happy about the whole thing.

J Swift, you don't happen to be a Terril Park valence do you?

I have always greatly appreciated your posts, but right now, I have my doubts.

tamasin-sp, quite aside from Gerry wanting to make his personal legal case part of the larger Scientology Criticism Movement, there is of course the major divide in the movement itself:

1. The "Root and Branch" critics want to yank Scientology off the face of the Earth by its branches and roots so that no traces of it remain. This Root and Branch approach includes the Indies, the FZ, and all similar groups whose roots are Scientological.

2. Critics like me support the Independent Practice of Scientology while wanting to see the Church of Scientology dismantled in its present form. This includes being stripped of its false religious status and tax exemption.

I argue for the impossibility and undesirability of attempting to destroy knowledge in a "Root and Branch" approach. I understand the "Root and Branch" critics but do not agree with them.

Tamasin-sp, we disagree on this one fundamental issue. I am certain we would agree on many other things as fellow critics.

/////

Could you please expand on what you mean by this "pro-indie position"? Is not supporting the independent scientologist ideologically giving credibility to the source? How can you justify this? I ask this not to defame or demean. I only seek clarification.

If I may Gumby (and JS), a resounding "No" to the above. Supporting a religious group does not automatically mean you give credibility to their ideology. Think about that.

I see Indies as individual victims of scientology. I am no longer a scientologist. Supporting them as victims of scientology has nothing to do with their beliefs. It has to do with their personal experiences in scientology, which is not necessarily every scientologist's experience.

Denial is a wondrous thing, just as is double-think



Nice, according to you the cause of abuse is "personal opinion" and has nothing to do with applying hubbard's words as he directed. KSW?
Want to ever leave?
YOU ARE LABELED PSYCHOTIC AND TREATED AS SUCH.
That aint a "personal opinion", that is a documented fact. As is the case for the myriad of doctrine that outlines scientology as a subject is actually a tool to achieve compliance


Voltaire had an idea about this
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"




To say "it is the source and cause of why abuse occurs in scientology is fine as a personal opinion" is well beyond a "grossly flawed statement".

Hubbard's own words are his own words. Interpreting them seems to be the issue. Apologists, indies et al seem to want the only interpretation to be what they say and not what hubbard said/meant.
Look at R2-45 for instance. It was a joke according to apologists, indies et al. Yet, it was still an order issued to run the process on perceived enemies.





Scientology is a disgusting ideology that deserves no place in a rational society.Scientology aint alone in that either.

In fact, by scientology's actions from day one, it has forfeited it's right to be considered anything other than a criminal enterprise seeking to take over the world.

Alert:
I don’t see what good comes from labeling an entire group of people as “in denial”, other than for your own personal satisfaction of feeling good for having blown long and hard.


Then please point out where I have stated or claimed to know the “cause of abuse”. If that’s what you think you grossly misunderstand me, because I am actually stating the opposite of that: it's not about anyone's opinion. According to your logic, if I read something that (according to you) instructs me to go on and abuse someone, am I under no obligation to question it? In your world, apparently I am under no such obligation.


You’re right, scientology is a system that seeks to achieve compliance. So is every piece of indoctrination a soldier receives in the military designed to achieve compliance. Demanding compliance does not necessarily equal demanding that one abuse others. The majority of scientologists, though compliant, are not abusive towards others.


What a great quote- thank you. But all belief in absurdity does not = the commission of atrocities. A very small percent of scientologists who are connected to OSA or at the higher levels are asked to commit atrocities. An even smaller percent outside that sphere might be placed in such a situation. It is highly important to expose the fact that abuse does occur within scientology, and it is why we’re here, I think. The abuse needs to be stopped. But you want to go much farther than that, right? You want to insist that the entire practice be labeled as evil, and wiped out. Correct?


Deserves no place = what? Outlawed? Are you afraid to write what you really want? Or do you prefer to continue to be ambiguous so that you may continue to deny that your views are extreme, when pressed for honesty. Do your extreme views actually embarrass you? Or scare you?

What is it you want?

ALERT: Anyone who disagrees with you gets slapped with a label: “apologist”.

Disagreeing with scientology gets one slapped with a label, too. In that respect, I don’t really see any difference between you, and them.

With respect to my Indie friends, an ex-Scilon who is very active on Facebook graciously invited me to her Thanksgiving potluck.

When some Marty Fan Club members saw me on her invite list, they raised hell. The hostess quickly un-invited me which proves that for some Scilons, you can leave the cult, but the cult doesn't leave you.