Letter to President Putin

His Excellency
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
President of the Russian Federation
The Kremlin
23, Ilyinka Street,
Moscow 103132
Russia

Dear Mr. President:

Greetings from Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada.

I am writing you at this time for five uncomplicated reasons.

There are other matters I will write to you or your representatives about later that are more directly related to my particular area of experience and knowledge, which is Scientology, the Scientologists, and their collaborators. I know that these people and their organizations have been put on your plate, and my experiences and knowledge can be valuable.

I am writing publicly because I have virtually no privacy in my communications to you, nor any expectation of privacy. Also, making this patently public will obviate any accusation of collusion.

I wrote you once before and read that letter at a conference in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in 2014.¹

My friend Alexander L. Dvorkin made a translation that a wonderful Russian Orthodox site published.²

First of all, congratulations on your election and inauguration again as President of Russia. I wish you and all Russians years of peace, prosperity and brotherhood. I did not wish you success or good luck before the election, because for sure someone would have accused me of interference or meddling, or even helping to get you elected.

Secondly, congratulations on the opening of the Crimean Bridge for vehicle traffic. I read an article on rt.com quoting you saying that in fact the entire country worked on the bridge; so I congratulate the entire country on this amazing achievement. It is a blessing for Crimea, and all the rest of Russia. It will also benefit Ukraine, and all the rest of the world. And thank you too, and also everyone involved, for keeping RT working.

Third, but foremost, I have been bombarded, and I imagine all the other average, common persons with everyday media access here in the West have been bombarded, with your vilification, and the vilification of Russians as a people. This is an organized campaign that you, and a whole nation of Russians, experience far more deeply than I can. I see it as dangerous, cruel, hypocritical, unwise and agenda-driven, and I am speaking up against it.

It is impossible to be unaware in this period of human knowledge that aggression, skirmishes, and even wars are routinely preceded and prolonged by publicly vilifying someone, some group, or some people, as you are being vilified now. “The West” and “the Free World” as geopolitical constructs require deconstruction, but that is not necessary now for this letter. Regardless of the boundaries and content or natures of these constructs, I must acknowledge that I am in the West. I also want my world, the whole world, to be free for everyone – in the way Holy Scripture says the world is to be made free.

Doubtlessly you know that there are people in Canada and the rest of the West, who do not go along with your vilification, who know it is wrong, and see it as threatening, even recognize it as an excuse or trigger for nuclear war. It is also not hard to see that there is a multitude of persons, groups of them, who want this threat, and other similar threats, to succeed and grow, and who conspire, speak, act, pay and are paid to make threat effective. These are the people here who operate the campaign to vilify you.

When he was alive, Scientology inventor L. Ron Hubbard issued a key directive, or “scripture,” that he titled “Battle Tactics,” in which he commanded Scientologists:

You preserve the image or increase it of your own troops and degrade the image of the enemy to beast level.

The “enemy” that Hubbard ordered beastified is the class the Scientologists call “Suppressive Persons,” or “SPs.” These are persons who tell some unspun truth about Hubbard, Scientology, the Scientologists and their collaborators. The truth threatens Scientology’s US-based operators, because they have for decades been running a criminal enterprise. There are decades of lies, fraud, extortion, aggression, theft, human rights violations, frame-ups, false witnessing, and other antisocial actions involving millions of victims; so there is a monstrous amount of truth to be told about it all. The truth threatens the Scientology operators’ money supply, their power to manipulate and control people, and their ability to get away with everything they have so far gotten away with.

One of the people who had been in the Scientology operators cabal has reported that he viewed multiple document storage boxes full of orders from Hubbard “spewing hate filled vitriol” beastifying me. On his orders, which in Scientology are “scripture,” his scientologist juniors, successors and collaborators have beastified me for over thirty-six years, even in Russia.

The Scientologists and their collaborators rarely if ever answer or directly deal with legitimate challenges to their lies, claims, abuses or crimes. Their policy and practice is not to reason or debate with challengers, but to vilify or beastify us. The operators of the US Federal power structure and the Scientologists share the same playbook for dealing with legitimate challenges and perceived challengers, of whom, probably, Mr. President, you are chief.

In part because of the constant and pervasive demonizing you are subjected to in the West, I have watched videos of you in many settings communicating on many topics with many friendly and unfriendly people. In my observation, you have shown exemplary equanimity in public, you have not reviled your revilers, and you have defended and promoted Russia and your fellow Russians admirably.

Perhaps the gravest concern of those who orchestrate your beastification is that people in the West would not fear but love the Russians as ourselves, that we would love you of all people, Mr. President, as our self. For the sake of peace and the lives of everyone everywhere, that is what we should do, and we know it. Yet we do not, I believe, because of cowardice.

A gentleman I had the good fortune to meet last year in Moscow suggested to me The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, which I have since read, and in which a central theme, and repeated pronouncement, is that cowardice is the greatest sin. The corollary might be that courage is the greatest virtue. This is moral courage, which Chris Hedges, whose insightful interview show “On Contact” airs on RT America, distinguishes from physical courage:

The person with moral courage defies the crowd, stands up as a solitary individual, shuns the intoxicating embrace of comradeship, and is disobedient to authority, even at the risk of his or her life, for a higher principle. And with moral courage comes persecution.³

When I was inside Scientology, Hubbard and his top lieutenants were the authority, and we servile Scientologists were the crowd. When I defied them, I risked my life and they have persecuted me ever since. The authorities in the West who dictate that you be smeared and treated as a villain or beast are the people who control the military-industrial complex, the Five Eyes, the monetary system, the mass media, our Deep State. You certainly know who they are. The crowd in the West goes along with their dictates. We, the marginalized citizens who disobey the super-powerful beastifiers and defy the crowd “might as well be (again quoting Hedges) mice squeaking against an avalanche. But squeak we must.” We cannot afford cowardice.

Fourthly, immense and sincere kudos from one squeaky Canuck to you and all Russia for your successful bid for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, for the creation of the massive, necessary infrastructure, for the tremendously complex organization, and for the brilliant production and presentation of this sensational tournament and celebration. May it be exciting until the final second of the final match, and safe for everyone — players, officials, spectators, security, organizers, work force, volunteers, match mascots – until they arrive back safely to their homes. What a joy for television-bound people around the world like me to be able to move from match to match, city to city, and stadium to stadium in your marvelous country. And what a fabulous start for the home team!

Finally, I am enclosing with the airmailed copy of my letter a crochet maple leaf pin created by my wife Caroline, who is a gifted crocheter. I took some to organizers and participants at the conference in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Last September, I did the same at a conference in Salekhard.⁴ I gave one to your representatives at these conferences, and it is high time I gave one to you. A Caroline maple leaf even appeared on a program that aired recently on Russia-1.⁵

I am also mailing maple leaf pins at this time to four of your fellow countrymen:

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church has been largely responsible for bringing me to Russia, and bringing me to love your country, your people and the Church. I have given maple leaves and other Canadian doodads to quite a number of Orthodox clergy, and it is high time I gave one to His Holiness.

His Excellency Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. Although we in the West do not see your Prime Minister in the media nearly as often as we see you, I know he has supported you for many years and has been good for Russia. I have a particular affinity for him because he is reported to have worked his way through university as a street cleaner in Leningrad. I find myself in what are probably my twilight years cleaning streets in Chilliwack.

His Excellency Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. I have watched videos of him in action in all sorts of meetings and discussions all over the world. He has represented you and Russia professionally and successfully throughout his long career. He communicates and comports himself publicly in a friendly and disarming way that seems perfect for a foreign minister. And, of course, his ministry is ultimately responsible for granting Russian visas to people like me. 🙂

His Excellency Alexander Nikitich Darchiev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Canada. In a period of considerable, but unnecessary, tension between the two great nuclear powers, my country is in a position geographically and culturally to be important diplomatically. Ambassador Darchiev is in an important position for tension easing. I hope his maple leaf pin arrives before Canada Day.

Being fair, as well as Canadian, I will mail Caroline’s maple leaves to Canada’s dashing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to our high-flying Governor General Julie Payette, and to British Columbia’s Premier and, like me, former mill worker, John Horgan. I will also mail them each one of Caroline’s lovely crocheted chamomile boutonnieres. The humble chamomile being Russia’s national flower, our Canadian leaders can sport them on appropriate occasions such as your National Day or the next G8 Summit.

With respect, best wishes and a prayer for peace,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gerry Armstrong

Notes