Moving On For Good

Stefani Hutchison posted on her blog, and then removed:

On March 5th I wrote a blog about Gerry Armstrong. Prior to that blog my only interaction with him was when I reached out, asking him why he was supporting the illegal, unethical and unkind actions of Corey J Andrews. Since my emails have now been published, all can clearly see that in that interaction I was not nasty or mean to Armstrong.

I was led to believe that what I wrote was accurate and acceptable by someone who reached out to me and told me he wanted to be my mentor. I admit I fell for flattery and trusted where apparently I shouldn’t have.

There is much more to this but I am not going to devolve into further infighting because it is not positive or productive. Suffice it to say I have severed all ties and am now trying to heal the damage done to my self esteem.

After being publicly humiliated by Tony Ortega and Chris Elston, call it payback for me if you will, I discovered that I had been manipulated into portraying Armstrong in a light better left alone. I immediately deleted the blog. Further I deleted the March 2nd blog as well.

This entire situation was devastating and a painful lesson for me and I spent days in tears over it. All I have wanted since then is to be allowed to move on from a terrible, humiliating and extremely painful situation. I have not engaged publicly with Corey or Alonzo. I have not responded to anyone about this on social media. I have not defended myself nor have I attempted to publicly gain any sympathy or forgiveness, having no desire to paint myself as a victim.

All I have wanted was to be allowed to move on.

Dear Ms. Hutchison:

Let’s just say that prior to publishing your March 5 article on me, “Down The Rabbit Hole With Gerry Armstrong” you were not mean and nasty to me in your emails to me, all of which were on January 12. Then I certainly was not mean and nasty to you in my emails to you, as anyone can see since I published all of mine as well as yours on March 18.

Yet you published your article, which, for meanness and nastiness, as anyone can see, is beyond the pale. You published your malignant PR piece on me twelve days before I published our correspondence.

Additionally, on March 2, you published an article “A Commentary on A True Tribal Mentality,” in which you also malignantly PRed me along with Allen Stanfield and Corey Andrews.

So if your email interaction with me was not nasty or mean, why did you write and publish such hateful, dishonest, Scientology-serving malignant PR material about me?

Oh wait, I see. Your mentor made you do it.

As a writer, as well as being factually dishonest, you are being semantically dishonest. As a writer, you cannot but understand this, and understand what I’m saying. I am sure I am not the first person to observe your semantic dishonesty.

The responsible response to semantic dishonesty is often, obviously, to parse or dissect what the semantically dishonest person communicates. This parsing is, necessarily, time-consuming. Consuming their parsers’ time is one of the semantically dishonest persons’ best defenses, as well as delights. It is just too much trouble dealing with semantic dishonesty and the semantically dishonest. Parsing semantically dishonest communications and publishing the result, however, creates a record, which can be valuable for others who might wish to make their way through this era’s morass of factual and semantic dishonesty.

The semantically dishonest, being already irresponsible in their communications, rarely ever take to heart the valuable parsing the parsers of their semantic dishonesty do. Instead, the semantically dishonest commonly just keep on being irresponsible and semantically dishonest, and factually dishonest, in their overt and covert communications.

It is not terribly difficult to be semantically honest, and factually honest. In fact, it is a lighter burden, when you think about it, than being dishonest. But the dishonest depend on their dishonesty, which is expedient for winning against their victims or targets. Winning, and being seen as winning, is what the dishonest want. I am one of your victims.

You write that someone reached out to you and told you he wanted to be your mentor, and flattered you to get the position. He could not have been flattering you and seeking to mentor you only after you published your piece on me and until Tony Ortega, a few hours later, called it a “ridiculous attack.” Your mentor had to have been flattering you for some time before you accepted him as your mentor and he started his mentoring. He had to have been mentoring you for some time before you drafted your ridiculous, and nasty and mean, attack.

After his flattery, which took time, however brief, and after he became your mentor, and after you drafted your malignant PR attack on me and submitted it to him, he then pronounced it accurate and acceptable. He flattered you to become your mentor for the purpose of attacking Gerry Armstrong, and he “took a win” on his mentoring when you published your nastiness and meanness and ridiculousness.

Wikipedia says about mentorship:

Mentorship is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger than the person being mentored, but he or she must have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn.

Your flatterer and mentor presented himself to you as a more experienced and more knowledgeable person in attacking me, and you were less experienced and less knowledgeable in attacking me. You even emphasize that you were not mean or nasty to me in your prior emails. The certain area of expertise your mentor had, and offered to mentor you in, is in malignantly PRing me. He had vast experience in smearing me, and you wanted to learn to smear me just as expertly.

It sounds like your flatterer and mentor here is Jeffrey Augustine. The approach and content of your malignant PR about me, and the deranged, Scientology-serving logic, is largely what he has been attacking me with for years. I suppose your flatterer and mentor could be some posted Scientologist or OSA agent, or a Mike Rinder, who might even mentor Augustine. In any case, as soon as I read your article, I recognized that you did not do much actual research yourself to come up with your diatribe. You are too inexperienced and too unknowledgeable to have yourself concocted the smear you published.

From what I’ve read of what you’ve written, it is clear to me that your issue is responsibility, or actually its absence, irresponsibility. So far you are not being responsible for what you communicate. Coupled with the fact that you have communicated dishonestly, both factually and semantically, and defamatorily, this is a matter of consequence. You have victimized people with your irresponsibility and dishonesty. You should identify your malignant PR mentor, not use this person as an excuse for your irresponsibility and dishonesty that harms people and serves the Scientologists’ malignant purposes. Shielding your flatterer and mentor from responsibility is irresponsible.

I know that Mike Rinder and Karen de la Carrierre took advantage of your malignant PR on me to validate it – “a terrific piece.” They are both also irresponsible and dishonest, however, and their validation simply adds to the harm you’ve done and wanted to do. Who or what directs their actions remains a question.

You write that you are not going to devolve into further infighting because it is not positive or productive, and you are now trying to heal the damage done to your self-esteem. This is more irresponsibility. You imply that your malignant PR attacks on me were positive and productive, and that you are so evolved that doing what is responsible about your attacks on me, and others, would be devolving, lowering your positiveness, your productiveness, your self-esteem.

Your attack on me is not infighting, as the term means in this context. Infighting is fighting between members of a group. I am not in a relevant group with you, and not in a relevant group with Rinder, de la Carriere or Augustine. You are in their group, but I am not, and you cannot plant me in their group and your group to call your interaction with me “infighting.” Stanfield and Andrews, to my knowledge, are not in your group. From what I understand, Andrews was in your group, but left it.

It is true that we are all in the group called humanity, and in tighter groups like “residents of North America.” I am in a smaller group called “Canadians” and an even smaller group composed of “citizens of Chilliwack.” I am in a religious group known as “Christians,” just as I was in a religious group known as “Scientologists.”

It is true that I am in groups called “ex-cultists,” “Exscientologists,” “ex-Sea Org members,” and “ex-Int Base staff,” “ex-Yacht Apollo crew,” “ex-RPF Bosuns,” and on and on.  It is also true that there is nothing I can do about being in those groups. Leaving is impossible. I will forever be in those groups. That does not, however, put me in these groups with their members morally or cooperatively, or tribally.

It is true that I am a long-time victim and opponent of Scientology, Scientologists and their collaborators’ lying, deception, fraud, abuses, even criminality, and, yes, war on wogs. It is also true that I represent other victims of these scientology doctrine-motivated and -excused evils. I am therefore in the nebulous group that could be called an “opposition.” I am not, however — God forbid — in the controlled opposition in which Rinder, de la Carriere and Augustine are leaders, and you are a member, and the leaders’ mentee. Your attacks on Stanfield, Andrews and me are not infighting. You have targeted us as the enemy. You have posited us enemies and deposited us in an enemy camp of your construction.

With that said, a form of infighting is exactly what your controlled opposition group needs; indeed what all sorts of the world’s groups need. It is what the Scientology group needs. There is an obvious need for courageous persons to stand up, speak up and blow the whistle on their groups’ corruption, the antisocial communications, practices, goals and persons of their own group, or tribe. Courageous persons have to do this while absorbing the group or tribe members’ hatred and attacks. Infighting, or intragroup conflict, is also a mechanism used by group leaders and members who prohibit and punish moral courage, speaking up and whistleblowing. So infighting is a neutral term. One form evidences moral courage, and one form moral cowardice. ¹

You attack Corey Andrews as a traitor – “He hurt and betrayed people;” “Everything Corey does is a betrayal of trust.” Yet there is considerable evidence that what he did, in daring to communicate to others his conversation with Karen de la Carriere, was morally courageous. She had been a group leader and one of his group handlers. Apparently this incident was instrumental in springing him out of your group, and for incurring your group members’ hatred and vengeance.

When Scientology members break rank and speak up about their group’s corruption, the Scientologists also accuse them of “betrayal of trust.” The Scientologists call members who tell such relevant truth “traitors” and “treasonous.” As a knowledgeable group member, I spoke up about L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists’ lying, abuses, criminality, etc. I left the organization, and continued to communicate my experiences and knowledge, despite the multi-million dollar world-wide campaign to silence or destroy me.

It seems to me that Andrews did what you claim you want Scientologists to do: tell the truth, expose their cult’s antisociality. Even record their leaders’ antisocial communications, or their leaders’ agents’ antisocial communications. What Andrews did is what you should also do. You should be morally courageous and tell the truth about your group and your group manipulators who got you to hate and attack people doing the right thing. And you should correct the malignant PR you say you were flattered, mentored and manipulated into publishing. So far, you have demonstrated only moral cowardice.

You write that you have severed all ties, but that is flapdoodle. You still have all kinds of ties. Your malignant PR still ties you to me, and to Stanfield and Andrews and John McGhee, and others. You are also still tied to Rinder and de la Carriere, and your mentor, and all the other people who applauded you, and all the people who read or will read your malignant PR. You are still tied to what with your mentor’s mentorship you concocted and disseminated, and will be tied to it until you take responsibility for it; that is acknowledge your tie to it. Such ties are not severed by saying you’ve severed them; and even saying you’ve severed them is irresponsible. This is a dishonest stratagem to escape responsibility.

Your assertion that you are now trying to heal the damage done to your self-esteem is the height of irresponsibility. It’s like a shooter or a bomber, who, to be esteemed by persons she wants to esteem her, shoots or bombs persons her mentors or handlers want silenced or destroyed. Then when her dastardly deed is not universally esteemed, but criticized by a couple of people, she says, “Oh woe is me, my self-esteem is damaged and I’m devoting my time to healing it.” And she does nothing to heal the real damage she did and sought to do, the real blood she spilled and wanted to spill of the persons she shot or blew up. Correcting the harm you caused to your victims would do wonders for your self-esteem; and not doing what you can to correct that harm will do nothing.

You wrote that at some point, after Tony Ortega publicly humiliated you when he called your attack on me “ridiculous,” you discovered that you had been manipulated into portraying me “in a light better left alone.” You say that you immediately deleted your article. This is more irresponsibility. You are essentially claiming that there was nothing wrong with what you wrote about me; that there no lies, no semantic or factual dishonesty, no malignant PR, nothing serving the Scientologists malign purposes. Your message is that although what you wrote about me is true, and everyone agrees I really am the evil bastard you portray me as, it is “better left alone.”

To be responsible, to be morally courageous, to save your esteem, you should say where and how you discovered that you had been manipulated to portray me as your latest evil bastard to be smeared. This is a public matter, made public in principal part by you. You should publish what was said and done to manipulate you, to flatter you, to get you to want your mentor’s mentorism to attack, silence and destroy me. And you should publish what you did to keep him flattering and mentoring you.

You say that you spent days in tears over this entire situation. You also say it was devastating and a painful lesson for you. You do not say what your painful lesson was, but I think I can explain: Be sure you’ve got the boss’s blessing, because your mere mentor might not. You also do not say what “this entire situation” is. It is clear to me, however, from the rest of your article I’m responding to, from the other writings of yours I’ve read, and from your actions over the time I’ve known of you, that what brought you to tears was being criticized for your ridiculous, nasty, mean article.

This is from an article “Regret, Sorrow and True Contrition: The Reason Some People Feel Badly But Just Keep On Doing Hurtful Things” by writer and psychologist George Simon, PhD.:

When it comes to turning one’s irresponsible life around, regret is undeniably insufficient. The word regret comes from the Old French and literally means to “bewail.” It is an intellectual and emotional response to an unpleasant or unfortunate circumstance (originally, the loss of someone through death). I know several seasoned criminals who have lots of regrets. They dislike their loss of freedom. They have an emotional distaste for the fact that a judge exercised power over them, etc. Mostly, they feel badly for themselves because of the unpleasant things they have to deal with as a result of being sanctioned for their actions. Though they might also regret some of their actions, there is no automatic connection between that regret and having the motivation to change themselves for the better. Some regret that they didn’t plan their crime carefully enough to avoid detection. Some “bewail” that the sentence they received was greater than they anticipated and longer perhaps than someone else’s who committed a similar crime. Regret alone is insufficient to prompt a person to change their ways.

I can’t count the number of times that victims of irresponsible characters make the assumption that things will be different because their abuser has shed a tear or two about something horrible they did. Sorrow is an emotional response usually connected to the loss of something. And while it is painful to lose, that pain in and of itself is not a reliable predictor of change. Individuals in abusive relationships who assign too much value to expressions of sorrow are most often doomed to an escalating level of personal pain and hardship.²

Dr. Simon’s whole article is on point here. I’ve cited to it previously in my Scientology-related writings, and I’ve found his articles on several topics insightful and supportive.

When you say all you have wanted is to move on, you mean to move on from the regret of being caught. You feel badly for yourself because of the unpleasant things you have to deal with as a result of being sanctioned for your actions. But you have not expressed any regret for harm you did to your human targets, nor any desire or intention to repair the actual harm done. You show no motivation to change yourself for the better, because you retain the idea that we, your targets, are terrible persons who deserve your opprobrium; no matter what the people in your tribe who caused you the humiliation say. You have not shown true contrition.

Your accusation against Stanfield, Andrews and me that we had not moved on, because, you say, we don’t deal with our pasts, can help elucidate what you mean by “move on.” You have me not moving on a single step since I physically left the cult property, which was in December 1981.

Alonzo, Armstrong and Andrews

[…]

I am beyond tired of the bullshit rhetoric, deflection and arrogance being flung in my direction and more importantly, at those who have done nothing to deserve it, by bitter, selfish people who have done absolutely nothing productive.

Alonzo, Armstrong and Andrews, a triumvirate of angry men each refusing to deal with their pasts, get help for their baggage and move on from the shit pile they are sitting in. Their constant attacks on others is not about finding the truth. It’s not about seeking justice.

[…]

Gerry Armstrong has never moved forward a single step from the day he physically left Scientology. He doesn’t want help, he doesn’t want to heal, he doesn’t want to live. He wants to wallow in the past.

The diagnosis you give for our behavior, our not moving on — that it’s because we don’t deal with our pasts — is actually your diagnosis for your own bemoaned inability to move on. Although I have observed that at different times when I thought the Scientology v. Armstrong war might end, the cultists and their collaborators seemed to have done something to draw me back into it, I have never complained of not being able to move on. I honestly do not consider that my moving on, whatever that means to you, is necessary or unidiotic.

Your past, Ms. Hutchison, includes your malignant PR attacks on us with language and lies like what I’ve quoted above. That is the past that is before you right now from which you cannot move on, and which, to move on from, you must deal with.  Malignant PR only starts when you express it. It goes on, in human terms, forever. All you can do is deal with it responsibly. In the kind of offense or sin malignant PR is, that means doing your best to correct it.

For years, the Scientologists and their collaborators have been accusing me of not moving on, and that my failure or refusal to move on makes me dense or nuts or vile. I’m sure your mentor gave you that handy old bit of malignant PR. Accusing me of not moving on brings up the question of what I am actually doing and have done since I left Scientology that you want me to move on from. I have done a lot of things and had a blessed life. This is obvious in what I have published and made freely available. You are trying to make me guilty for the blessed life I’ve been given to live. You are black PRing my life as unblessed, as evil or accursed – a “shit pile,” you say. Then you heap the guilt you invented on me for not moving on.  It is clear to anyone with a clue whose purpose you were serving.

Most relevantly, since I escaped Hubbard and Scientology’s control, I have spoken up about my experiences and knowledge. In doing so, I incurred Hubbard, Scientology, Scientologists and their collaborators wrath and a massive multi-channeled program, which is ongoing, to silence or destroy me. I have been their victim, actually, ever since they lured me into their cult in 1969. Despite the criminal and satanic things done to victimize me, I have continued to speak up and tell the truth about my experiences and knowledge. This now includes the experiences I’ve had and the knowledge I’ve gained after escaping. These now include, obviously, my recent experience and knowledge of the malignant PR you have added to my victimization.

I have testified in trials and depositions for over seventy days in some twenty legal cases. I have written dozens of declarations or affidavits concerning my Scientology-related experiences, and my testimony has been used in dozens of cases. I have amassed a wealth of documents and made them available on multiple sites. I have provided my experiences, knowledge and documents to media, governments, clergy, anyone interested. I have made an excellent record over many years. I have a very key, internationally important religious freedom and human rights case. I also know that in all that I have done I have of myself done nothing. These facts and this standing are what cult head David Miscavige wants me to move on from, what Scientologists and their collaborators want me to move on from, and what you want me to move on from.

You would have learned in your Christian education that the way to begin to move on from victimizing people, even very specifically using semantic and factual dishonesty on them to malignantly PR them, is repentance. You remember, I’m sure, how crucial Christ Jesus considered repentance; e.g., in Luke 13:1-5

[1] There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
[2] And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
[3] I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
[4] Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
[5] I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
King James Bible

Wikipedia’s introduction on its Repentance page is simple and instructive:

Repentance is the activity of reviewing one’s actions and feeling contrition or regret for past wrongs, which is accompanied by commitment to and actual actions that show and prove a change for the better. In Judaism and Christianity it is often defined as an action, turning away from self-serving activities and turning to God, to walk in His ways.

In modern times, it is generally seen as involving a commitment to personal change and the resolve to live a more responsible and humane life. In other words, being sorry for one’s misdeeds. It can also involve sorrow over a specific sin or series of sins that an individual feels guilt over, or conviction that he or she has committed. The practice of repentance plays an important role in the soteriological doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Analogous practices have been found in other world religions as well. In religious contexts, it often involves an act of confession to God or to a spiritual elder (such as a monk or priest). This confession might include an admission of guilt, a promise or intent not to repeat the offense, an attempt to make restitution for the wrong, or in some way reverse the harmful effects of the wrong where possible.

You are in much the same condition as Mike Rinder. He was trained and drilled — mentored even – to professionally malignantly PR persons that his mentors, Hubbard and Miscavige, wanted silenced or destroyed. He was mentored from above – above in experience and knowledge, responsibility and control  — about what an evil entity I am, and how to go about silencing and destroying me — just as you are mentored.

His mentors honored him from on high with secret meetings, secret communications, secret orders, secret duties and all kinds of secrets. As their willing and obedient mentee, they supplied him with money, space, personnel, lawyers, PIs, cops, robbers. In his malignant PR communications, ops or programs, his mentors supplied him with words, facts and slants, and determined for him what was accurate and acceptable. Day in, day out, in official and paid service of Hubbard and Miscavige, Rinder malignantly PRed truth-telling persons for more than twenty years. He malignantly PRed me to millions of people around the world in every stratum of society.

Malignant PR is vital for professionally and successfully silencing or destroying people. With professional malignant PR, you can have your victims destroyed or obliterated with virtual impunity, indeed with huzzahs, as Hubbard might have written. If your target is not successfully or sufficiently malignantly PRed, however, some people might not join in the huzzahing. And this, as you know, can be humiliating, and you could even spend days in tears over it.

Rinder has so far refused to correct the malignant PR about me he was mentored in, disseminated, mentored others in, and had them disseminate. It could be said he has not made not a single step forward. He has not attempted to reverse his malignant PR’s harmful effects. He has not repented of his years doing evil to silence of destroy me. Without repentance, his malignant PR continues, and he continues in service of the Scientologists’ malign, indeed satanic purposes. You also remain unrepentant, and want, like Rinder, to “move on” while escaping responsibility for the harm your malignant PR caused. I’ve written about the eternality of malignant PR in several articles over the past few years, including directly to him. ³

If you repented and honestly attempted to make restitution for the wrong you committed or reverse the harmful effects of the wrong, you could even silence or destroy your malignant propaganda. You cannot erase it. You cannot move on from it without repentance, without contrition, without telling the truth that corrects it. Your remaining unrepentant serves the Scientologists’ malign purposes, just as your original publications did.

The Bible contains many instances of malignant propagandists, revilers, who remain unrepentant throughout scripture, and whose malignant PR will last forever. There are many recorded times that Pharisees, scribes or the crowd malignantly PRed Jesus:

– Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners;
– he deceiveth the people;
– Thou hast a devil;
– out of Galilee ariseth no prophet;
– This man is not of God;
– he keepeth not the sabbath day;
– this man is a sinner;
– This man blasphemeth.

The Pharisees, scribes and tribe members who lied about Christ Jesus never took the opportunity to correct their lies, and so remain in scripture unrepentant malignant propagandists. His revilers remain unrepentant revilers. An unrepentant malignant propagandist is a bad model, and unrepentance is a bad way of life. Correct your malignant propaganda while you still can, Ms. Hutchison, lest this opportunity be taken from you.

Notes