Here is the promised rundown on Tony Ortega’s report of this year’s annual L Ron Hubbard Birthday Celebration event from Clearwater Florida.
It is just about the thirtieth anniversary of my introduction to the strange case of Gerry Armstrong.
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/l-ron-hubbards-worst-enemy-part-ii/
And I’ve just passed my thirtieth anniversary as a real SP.
Seriously, Marty, is the Scientology v. Armstrong case conceivably strange? Is the elephant in the room ever really strange?
Or are there multiple elephants in the room, and my case is the strange one?
(Rathbun:) Armstrong was the LRH archivist who left the church in 1981. That year a tremendous amount of attention had gone onto how the church was promoting L Ron Hubbard to the public. That was because the church was confronting a) the top eleven officials of the Guardian’s Office (including Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue) were facing lengthy jail sentences, while b) a rash of lawsuits had been filed naming the church as well as L Ron Hubbard as defendants, and c) the central claim of each suit was fraud, more specifically alleging that the church lured them into Scientology based on false claims as to L Ron Hubbard’s super man biography.
There are at least three massive, what you call, “outpoints” here:
1. You are providing a false central claim. The central claim of fraud suits from that era against Scientology, et al. was that Scientology and Scientologists made claims of benefits to people in exchange for money, time and devotion. Those claims are false.
Hubbard was logically involved and named legally because in virtually every instance the false claims traced back to him, and because he benefited most royally from the money people spent to obtain what he said he was selling them. He also, of course, controlled the whole apparatus that defrauded all those claimants.
Your Sea Org post function until Hubbard died was to obstruct justice for him, in fact deny the control he had of the defrauding apparatus. What is so flaming important that you continue to obstruct justice even after his death and even after you know he lied and you lied and Scientology lied? You did the same for Miscavige, lying about his knowledge, responsibility and control, and his liability for crimes you knew were being committed. You made people’s real claims go away, and you did it for a pair of gargantuan liars.
Hubbard also made false claims about his personal history, of course. What is important, however, is that he made these false claims to get people to spend money and give their lives to him, and even get them to vilify and fair game his “enemies.” And his enemies were the people who indicated, or just questioned his lies.
2. You have an utterly omitted reason for why in 1981 any attention, tremendous or not, had gone onto how the church was promoting Hubbard to the public. It was very simply because he and his employees in the apparatus he controlled had been lying, and continuously for many years. Even by your own scriptures, there was a good chance that the lying would catch up with him, and us, and them, and it did. If all those other things had happened – the GO criminal prosecution, the suits naming Hubbard, and fraud claims – and Hubbard had not lied and Scientologists he controlled had not lied, there would be no attention on how Scientologists were promoting him.
Each of the reasons you state, moreover, evidence and relate to the lying. Hubbard called Scientologists the most ethical organization in the world and here was his wife and 10 other top Scientologists convicted of crimes and going to federal prison. And he himself was in hiding to escape accountability for his lies. The suits, and the fraud claims relate to his lying, and the lies he got others to tell, by order, policy, drills, threats, money, hypnotism.
The basic is Hubbard lying. His Scientologist employees would not have promoted him with his lies if he had not told those lies to begin with.
You and all your supporters right now are fully capable of confronting that basic action by Hubbard. In fact, I am convinced that you and virtually all your followers already know that Hubbard lied, and even know when he’s lying as you read or listen to his scriptures. Unfortunately, the false character that declaring yourself a Scientologist provides you (and I understand its benefits) is irreconcilable with doing the wise thing with the knowledge you now have from confronting Hubbard’s lying all these years. Plus you derive material benefit from the lying you are doing, about Hubbard, Scientology, Scientologists and about people who tell the truth about it all, just as you did when DM, or RTC or the Sea Org was paying you to lie about those things.
3. Inapplicable and pretended eval. The truth is that the problems you people with the special units that took over the GO had to handle in 1981, some of which you mention – the GO11, existing litigation, the ongoing fraud claims and the ongoing fraud – made it possible for me to put some attention onto how we were promoting Hubbard. The fact that he was in hiding, of course, helped considerably. If there had not been all those Hill 10’s, I would never have been allowed to put my attention on Hubbard’s lies, much less bring his lies to anyone else’s attention.
My attention and effort to get Scientologists to stop lying about Hubbard to sell Scientology, naturally, collided with the standard, ever-existent effort to stop people from telling the truth. I wrote a short article last year about this intention and effort to stop people from telling the truth, or even learning the truth, specifically referring to you and Mike Rinder, “Why won’t Marty and Mike tell the truth?” http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/archives/5059
Ironically enough, your actions to prevent people from learning the truth ultimately help the myriad people who have been defrauded with their fraud claims. The statute of limitations runs, as you know, from the moment the victim discovers the fraud or should have discovered the fraud. Scientologists who benefit from the fraud, such as yourself, have worked for years to prevent the victims from discovering the fraud. Part of your actions is to attack the credibility people who have discovered the fraud and can communicate about it to the people who have been defrauded, but have not yet discovered it. They should have discovered they’d been defrauded, except for the actions of DM and Scientologists like you who operated the fraud and kept the fraud working. The conspiracy to prevent people from learning they’d been lied to and defrauded tolls the statute of limitations. Every Scientologist and ex-Scientologist can discover today that they have been defrauded, and that you have been preventing them from discovering it.
Regarding me, your lies brought Scientologists to vilify and fair game a guy that you now admit was telling the truth. Isn’t it now time to debrief to me and my attorneys?
(Rathbun:) Essentially the claim was that if L Ron Hubbard was not an engineer, nuclear physicist, wounded and crippled war hero who was miraculously healed by his own brainchild Dianetics, and he was not the model of perfect virtue since then, why, then they were defrauded into spending money and devoting years to Scientology.
No, that’s a straw claim. The actual claim was and is that Dianetics and Scientology do not work as Hubbard and his underlings claimed. It does not raise IQ as claimed. It does not produce super-able beings as claimed. It does not produce superior character, or ethics, as claimed. It is not only not the most ethical organization in the world, it is easily one of the most unethical organizations in the world.
I for one got into Scientology as much for Hubbard and Scientologists’ claims of what they and their organization were doing in the world, and what the organizational character was, as for what they were going to do to me with Scientology. Not that making me OT, a clear genius, able beyond any Homo sap, and possessing an excellent character was not highly attractive.
There also were accusations in legal proceedings that his claims of being an engineer and a nuclear physicist, of being crippled and blinded and miraculously healing himself with his mental science, were lies. That is because these lies were told in the promotion of Dianetics and Scientology, which do not work as he claimed, and in the “handlings” to keep people in and paying or slaving for Hubbard, or his successors.
Hubbard cannot but be the self-evident truth that Scientology does not improve character. His lies are completely germane for identification and examination because he was selling character.
Scientologists’ characters are all germane, or fair game if you will, because you are promoting character. Scientologists claim to have superior characters to wogs. You certainly are not saying that your character is the same as or inferior to wogs’ characters. If that is the case, you acknowledge Scientology doesn’t work. Scientologists claim in fact to have the tech to improve character beyond wogs’ characters. You are selling character. Scientology doesn’t work, but Scientologists, because of their characters, do not acknowledge this fact.
I am not selling character, and my character in the Scientology v. Armstrong war is irrelevant. But the Scientologists, including you, try to make my character relevant, and at the same time try to destroy it publicly around the world. That evidences the state of the Scientologists’ character. You even did it, most dishonestly, in Scientology’s submissions to the IRS that you prepared. And you lied about me and had others lie about me to other government agencies around the world.
What Hubbard did was sell antisocial character, which he possessed in spades, as superior character. It isn’t. It’s actually regressive.
Victor Frankl tipped me off to this. Homo sapiens is actually wise man. Homo sucus is something else again. Wise man is as far as we have evolved, or might ever evolve, I suppose, but maybe not. Wise man does not mean that every man is as wise as a wise man can be. And importantly, being as wise as a wise man can be does not mean that such a wise man is as stupid as Hubbard and Scientologists claim he is.
To be above and beyond Homo sapiens, a Scientologist must be wiser than the wisest wog. If that is not true, then Scientology is fraud. Hubbard pretended he had done this, and, of course, he used his claims about himself and his personal history in promoting that pretense.
Hubbard significantly claimed to have risen above the bank. He fear-merchandised about the wog world’s stupidities. He attacked rather stellar wogs, or Homo sapiens, or wise men.
Hubbard was indeed selling a different state from the state of a wise man. But it was not a state above wise man, but a state below evolutionarily in reason and character, and wisdom. Imagine teaching unreasonability as a virtue!
Homo novis is actually Homo insapiens. You might think it’s Homo insoucians, but that just insapience talking. Sociopaths and Scientologists are willfully unwise.
(Rathbun:) Now, this is a very short-handed summary of a history that was not clear to me for many years after the facts – notwithstanding my personal involvement in some of it – , not even totally clear until very recently. The whole story will arrive soon enough.
Who, what or where is this whole story arriving from?
(Rathbun:) Armstrong pointed out to L Ron Hubbard’s messengers that something had better be done about the representations the church was making. He based that concern on having worked tirelessly to provide David Miscavige’s Special Project (of which I was then the files man for) with material to prove the claims about Hubbard to be true, and coming up empty handed on many counts.
Actually, it was another way around.
I suddenly came into possession of Hubbard’s personal archive, and started going through it and absorbing those materials. Because the biography project was in the LRH Personal PRO Bureau, I had access to, and collected up, the biographical sketches, about-the-author sections, “source briefings,” Hubbard autobiographical notes, and similar materials that his personal staff used to promote him, both to Scientologists and wogs. I’d been in the SO nine years by then, and had been legal, PR and intel on the ship, so I had already seen a lot of biographical materials containing a lot of claims about his history.
Hubbard’s personal documents proved claims in his promotional materials untrue. After my first shock, when some simple Hubbardian contradiction confronted me, I did entertain a belief, or maybe a hope, that something would show up in my research to prove that Hubbard had not contradicted himself, or lied. But pretty soon I think I stopped any effort to prove Hubbard’s false claims true, and after a while I even stopped trying to prove his true claims true. He lied so much that it really didn’t matter if it turned out that there was something he didn’t lie about.
My deal was that we had to stop lying. We had to let Scientology stand on its own, without telling lies about anything — the tech, the products, the source, our actions.
(Rathbun:) David Miscavige’s handling for Armstrong’s origination was to send Norman F Starkey down to the Commodores Messenger Org International to give Armstrong a Severe Reality Adjustment (SRA – loud verbal brow beating) for being “disaffected.” Armstrong then blew, with a few boxes of LRH archives with which to defend himself.
I did not know that Miscavige ordered Starkey to go after me.
I should say, of course, that I know you are very careless with facts, as well as being ill-intended toward me and people of my class. I am not accepting your facts regarding a number things, including Miscavige ordering Starkey to SRA me.
Starkey’s screaming at me occurred in the Hubbard Archives area on the ground floor of the LA Complex, not in any CMO Int space.
Here’s what I wrote about my last Starkey encounter:
If incidents are helpful, I think it began to dawn on me that I might be going to the wogs, when in November 1981 Norman Starkey came into my Hubbard Archive area and we had a very alarming conversation about Ron-the-Nuclear-Physicist. I’ve spoken or written about this encounter many times, for example, in a June 2004 picket report when Vancouver Scientologist Mel Hanlan reminded me of it. 27
We got onto Ron the Nuclear Physicist 28 and Mel said that it was other people calling Hubbard a nuclear physicist, not himself. This is funny because it is the universal Scientology response to the challenge to Hubbard’s lie. It was what Norman Starkey said to me back in November 1981 when I mentioned then that Hubbard’s claim of being a nuclear physicist is false. I grabbed a very beautiful volume of Hubbard’s handwritten Scientology 88 and showed Norman where Hubbard wrote, clearly about himself: “At first none thought a nuclear physicist had any business in the field of the mind.” Norman’s face BTs went niacinic, he blew up, blew my office, and ordered me sec checked, and the rest of that history is history. Again Mel demanded that I show him this document right there, and I said that obviously I couldn’t but that I would web the documentation for him to see.29
From his position then on “Special Project,” Starkey wrote to HCO at CMO Int to have me sec checked. I got called to Gilman and met with Cirrus Slevin, the then “CMO Int HCO Cope Officer.” On November 25, 1981, I wrote Slevin a report 30 which was entered into evidence at my 1984 trial, and Judge Breckenridge quoted in his judgment:
Less than three weeks before Defendant Armstrong left Scientology, he wrote a letter to Cirrus Slevin on November 25, 1981, in which it is clear that his intentions in airing the inaccuracies, falsehoods, and frauds regarding Hubbard were done in good faith. In his letter he stated as follows:
“If we present inaccuracies, hyperbole or downright lies as fact or truth, it doesn’t matter what slant we give them, if disproved the man will look, to outsiders at least, like a charlatan. This is what I’m trying to prevent and what I’ve been working on the past year and a half.
. . .
“and that is why I said to Norman that it is up to us to insure that everything which goes out about LRH is one hundred percent accurate. That is not to say that opinions can’t be voiced, they can. And they can contain all the hype you want. But they should not be construed as facts. And anything stated as a fact should be documentable.“we are in a period when ‘investigative reporting’ is popular, and when there is relatively easy access to documentation on a person. We can’t delude ourselves I believe, if we want to gain public acceptance and cause some betterment in society, that we can get away with statements, the validity of which we don’t know.
“The real disservice to LRH, and the ultimate make-wrong is to go on assuming that everything he’s ever written or said is one hundred percent accurate and publish it as such without verifying it. I’m talking here about biographical or non-technical writings. This only leads, should any of his statements turn out to be inaccurate, to a make-wrong of him, and consequently his technology.
“That’s what I’m trying to remedy and prevent. . . .
“To say that LRH is not capable of hype, errors or lies is certanly [sic] not granting him much of a beingness. To continue on with the line that he has never erred nor lied is counterproductive. It is an unreal attitude and too far removed from both the reality and people in general that it would widen public unacceptance. . . .
“. . . That is why I feel the falsities must be corrected, and why we must verify our facts and present them in a favorable light.”
The remainder of the letter contains examples of facts about Hubbard which Defendant Armstrong found to be wholly untrue or inaccurate and which were represented as true by the Hubbards and the Scientology Organization.
By the time I returned from Gilman to LA, to my wife, to the Garrisons, and to the Hubbard Archive, I knew that the Special Project executives – the newly forming Miscavige regime –were not going to change course for me and were not going to tolerate me on my course. I also knew that I could not tolerate the lying and hypocrisy and the omnipresent threat any longer. I had also by then had to confront the truth that Scientology did not work other than to produce liars and victims. Jocelyn and I talked it over and decided to leave and on December 12 walked out the door. As I’ve said before, by the time I left, I was sufficiently opposed to Scientolopathy and its practicing Scientolopaths that should they have tried to prevent me from leaving I would have fought them to the death. I say this because, given my clear opposition and my experiences and knowledge, if they had detained me and locked me up, they would have killed me as consciencelessly as they would kill Lisa McPherson.
http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/213
I did not blow with any documents, and you cannot but know this. I obtained documents to defend myself some months after blowing. Here’s what the Armstrong I court found:
From his extensive knowledge of the covert and intelligence operations carried out by the Church of Scientology of California against its enemies (suppressive persons), Defendant Armstrong became terrified and feared that his life and the life of his wife were in danger, and he also feared he would be the target of costly and harassing lawsuits.
In addition, Mr. Garrison became afraid for the security of the documents and believed that the intelligence network of the Church of Scientology would break and enter his home to retrieve them. Thus, Defendant Armstrong made copies of certain documents for Mr. Garrison and maintained them in a separate location.
It was thereafter, in the summer of 1982, that Defendant Armstrong asked Mr. Garrison for copies of documents to use in his defense and sent the documents to his attorneys, Michael Flynn and Contos & Bunch.After the within suit was filed on August 2, 1982, Defendant Armstrong was the subject of harassment, including being followed and surveilled by individuals who admitted employment by Plaintiff; being assaulted by one of these individuals; being struck bodily by a car driven by one of these individuals; having two attempts made by said individuals apparently to involve Defendant Armstrong in a freeway automobile accident; having said individuals come onto Defendant Armstrong’s property, spy in his windows, create disturbances, and upset his neighbors. During trial when it appeared that Howard Schomer (a former Scientologist) might be called as a defense witness, the Church engaged in a somewhat sophisticated effort to suppress his testimony. It is not clear how the Church became aware of defense intentions to call Mr. Schomer as a witness, but it is abundantly clear they sought to entice him back into the fold and prevent his testimony.
In response to being hounded by Miscavige directed PIs for several months, Armstrong reacted by devoting the rest of his life to proving that L Ron Hubbard was a fraud.
This is utter bull. Hubbard was proven a fraud decades ago. What continues is Scientologists’ reaction to that proof. They have a universal case of sore loserism. I mentioned this in an article last December:
If the Scientologists were not such overarching sore losers, they would simply have done the decent, social thing, and been gracious or good losers. They would have settled with me to dismiss my pending legal claims, and told the truth they knew about me where they had been lying. They would also have told the truth they knew about Hubbard and about themselves and their thoughts and actions. At a minimum, they would have stayed silent. But that’s not what for Scientologists keeps sore losing working. http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/767
I have not devoted my life to studying L. Ron Hubbard or proving what has been proven. I have devoted my life to God. My life is filled with many things, but proving that Hubbard was a fraud takes up none of my time.
My life, since you Scientologists started hounding, assaulting and threatening me and people close to me, has necessarily been devoted, as God would have it, to defense against this treatment. Your treatment of me only adds to the overwhelming proof that Hubbard, and Scientology, are frauds. Wise people of good character would not do that to protect a fraud.
(Rathbun:) As was Miscavige’s habit, he continued to pursue Armstrong as the devil incarnate while at the same time taking Armstrong’s advice, just ignoring the source of it communicating as if it were his own.
Yes, that is a common phenomenon among Scientologists. I can tell since you’ve been communicating publicly that you’ve been taking a number of my positions and thoughts and ignoring their source.
(Rathbun:) No more representations about LRH went out without my authorization – which was backed by an extensive fact-checking process.
I’ll just bet. And representations about SPs like me. I imagine we got your extensive fact checking treatment as well.
(Rathbun:) We sued Armstrong for theft of the archives documents.
And you lost because I did not steal them.
The court has found the facts essentially as set forth in defendant’s trial brief, which as modified, is attached as an appendix to this memorandum. In addition the court finds that while working for L.R. Hubbard (hereinafter referred to as LRH), the defendant also had an informal employer-employee relationship with plaintiff Church, but had permission and authority from plaintiffs and LRH to provide Omar Garrison with every document or object that was made available to Mr. Garrison, and further, had permission from Omar Garrison to take and deliver to his attorneys the documents and materials which were subsequently delivered to them and thenceforth into the custody of the County Clerk. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/283.php
(Rathbun:) The trial occurred in early 1984. We had two very competent trial lawyers doing a yeoman-like job putting on the plaintiff’s case for several weeks. By the time the plaintiff’s case rested I had the unenviable task of informing Miscavige that the attorneys wanted authority to enter settlement negotiations before the defendant’s case was presented. The attorneys demonstrated that while we could do significant damage to Armstrong’s credibility, at the end of the day we did not have answers for the far more important and relevant issues – that is, the truth or falsity of representations made by Hubbard and the church about the life of L Ron Hubbard. What’s more, they explained that by a number of comments by the judge (this was a non-jury trial) it was clear the judge was focusing on that lack of evidence . The attorneys reported that Armstrong’s attorney was amenable to settlement – and that this was a short window of opportunity to protect the image of Hubbard and the church; that once Armstrong’s side had the podium we were in for weeks upon weeks of medieval style Inquisition on L Ron Hubbard (all to be covered by the media).
Oh Marty, really! Everybody did it to Ron medieval style did they? They racked the man who wasn’t there.
Miscavige, in his inimitable style, called the attorneys “pussies” (his word) and worse and threatened to fire them if they so much as entertained the thought of “settlement”, let alone mentioned it, again.
The attorneys – and their back up staff – did everything in their power, short of being dragged out of court for defying court orders, to keep a lid on the evidence admitted. They also did an admirable job of attempting to discredit the witnesses and evidence they entered.
The attorneys, with all you Scientologists running all your ops and gathering up all your dirt for them, failed. The court stated about the witnesses for the defense:
As indicated by its factual findings, the court finds the Testimony of Gerald and Jocelyn Armstrong, Laurel Sullivan, Nancy Dincalcis, Edward Walters, Omar Garrison, Kima Douglas, and Howard Schomer to be credible, extremely persuasive, and the defense of privilege or justification established and corroborated by this evidence. Obviously, there are some discrepancies or variations in recollections, but these are the normal problems which arise from lapse of time, or from different people viewing matters or events from different perspectives. In all critical and important matters, their testimony was precise, accurate, and rang true. The picture painted by these former dedicated Scientologists, all of whom were intimately involved with LRH, or Mary Jane Hubbard, or of the Scientology Organization, is on the one hand pathetic, and on the other, outrageous. Each of these persons literally gave years of his or her respective life in support of a man, LRH, and his ideas. Each has manifested a waste and loss or frustration which is incapable of description. Each has broken with the movement for a variety of reasons, but at the same time, each is, still bound by the knowledge that the Church has in its possession his or her most inner thoughts and confessions, all recorded in “pre-clear (P.C.) folders” or other security files of the organization, and that the Church or its minions is fully capable of intimidation or other physical or psychological abuse if it suits their ends. The record is replete with evidence of such abuse.
(Rathbun:) But, in the end their prognosis turned out to be quite conservative. The judge issued a ruling about Hubbard who of course was not there, finding as a matter of fact that he was a “pathological liar” and “paranoid” and “schizophrenic.”
Not quite. The court stated:
The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. At the same time it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherents. He has been referred to during the trial as a “genius,” a “revered person,” a man who was “viewed by his followers in awe.” Obviously, he is and has been a very complex person, and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology. Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, this court is satisfied that LRH runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore’s Messengers.3 He has, of course, chosen to go into “seclusion,” but he maintains contact and control through the top messengers. Seclusion has its light and dark side too. It adds to his mystique, and yet shields him from accountability and subpoena or service of summons.
Also, Hubbard could have been there. He was aware of the proceedings and wrote to the court. In fact, I believe you are concealing his knowledge of and involvement in the Scientology v. Armstrong case and trial.
(Rathbun:) Not only did L Ron Hubbard’s life history get annihilated by the world wide media – it continued to be for thirty years, with only lame denials in response, as Gerry Armstrong was right all along in this respect: the church had little to no to counter documentation for the claims the church had loudly trumpeted about L Ron Hubbard’s life. Fact of the matter is, the church’s lack of ability to document many of the claims has been such a given fact that it has bred the type of disbelief expressed by Tony Ortega in his most recent article. He can’t believe that that church is not only focusing on the claims, but thirty years later they are exaggerating them even more.
Hubbard annihilated his own life history with his willful and pervasive lying. It is pathological to continue to blame me, or even blame Sherman or Miscavige, for Hubbard’s lying that has been so destructive to his own reputation and what his legacy could have been.
Isn’t it now time to debrief about what was done to black PR, silence and destroy me, while all the time knowing I was telling the truth?
(Rathbun:) Some of the representations covered in this year’s March 13th event – such as the alleged Oregon sub chasing incident was “regarded as among the most regionally famed encounters of the war” – are so easily discredited that those in the know have to wonder: are the people making such representations attempting to set up L Ron Hubbard for a fall?
No, Hubbard fell a lifetime ago, and it is too late for him to get up, or for anyone else to get him up. I can see, however, where these latest and greatest, and apparently most debunkable claims, are part of Operation Soft Landing. It stinks, and what you do in support of that operation also stinks, because it is all to the detriment of the Scientologists’ victims.
(Rathbun:) It gets worse. The “L Ron Hubbard Biographer” attempts to position LRH as saving the world from “evil” scientists bent on blowing it up. A five minute google research project (for the culturally or historically illiterate who don’t already know it) would show that those “evil” scientists allegedly plotting to destroy earth were engaged in precisely the opposite activity – they were the original movement to demand “conscience” be incorporated into science because of the destructive power of what they were discovering.
To position Richard Nixon with Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein is about as credible as trying to position Adolph Hitler with leading members of the German underground anti-Nazi movement.
It is pure insanity that is issuing from the lips of Dan Sherman and David Miscavige. It is madness. I would write it off as only such if I were not aware of the fact that David Miscavige is acutely aware of who ultimately takes the brunt of this.
What is more a travesty is the overall technique of Sherman and Miscavige. They are attempting to literalize L Ron Hubbard. As any intelligent student of Scientology knows, one of Hubbard’s virtues is his story telling ability. He can lecture for one hour on the subject of a simple principle; and he can tell a number of colorful stories and anecdotes to get the audience to view it from a number of angles to the point where they can understand the principle conceptually. Of course, we also know that Hubbard has done that literally thousands of times and it was all recorded for posterity. So, Sherman and Miscavige come along – take an anecdote out, alone, bereft of any context for what principle it is being used to illustrate, and tell the public:
a) Every word is literally true.
b) That “a” is of utmost importance, or why would they be conveying it with such ostentatious implant a/v technology; and thus
c) L Ron Hubbard ought to be viewed and treated like a God, and not as the thinking and living out of the box kind of guy he was, and thus
d) Scientology is really about belief, and not observation and workability, and thus
e) David Miscavige must be viewed as the Pope, infallibility and all.
While this madness is clearly intended to up the mushroom treatment (being kept in the dark and being fed manure) of captive cult member audiences – David Miscavige is well aware of what its long term effect will be, more years of dragging L Ron Hubbard through the mud publicly as allegedly making false claims as to his history, qualifications and competence.I keep asking, and I keep meaning it when I do, how can it get any darker than that?
Yes, you can continue to attack me and my class, and continue to avoid bringing the lies to the light of truth. That has been pretty dark.
And some of your statements about me in the comments:
SKM says:
Wow, Marty, I always wondered about Amstrongs “being right” on that whole cycle (until this day).
Thank you for putting this into the right perspective. Makes sense now.
DM, let the Church alone.
You reply:
Well, it is not quite that black and white as I noted in response to another comment – his subsequent propagandizing is as inaccurate as the churches in many respects.
You know the drill, Marty. You know what Hubbard said: “The exact time, place, form and event.” You know about sociopathic generalizations. Please identify what you are calling my “subsequent propagandizing.” Then please identify the Scientologists’ subsequent propagandizing, which you assert is as inaccurate in many respects as what you identify as my subsequent propagandizing. Then please identify the many respects you aver in which what you call my subsequent propagandizing is as inaccurate as what you assert is the Scientologists’ subsequent propagandizing.
Or save yourself a lot of time and just acknowledge that you’re black PRing me here without any basis in truth.
Mr. Fancy says:
I think two things drove Gerry Armstrong:
1) A desire for the truth to be told
2) a direct reaction to David Miscavige’s harassment
You reply:
I don’t think either is the case; both were far weaker than the assertion of self-importance button drive.
You Sisyphentologists have been pushing that boulder up that hill from the day I first spoke up.
I suppose it could make a good future legal offense fund raiser: Marty Rathbun’s self-importance button drive.
But I get it. You don’t have to tell the truth about what you’ve done to destroy somebody who asserts a self-importance button drive, because he’s asserting a self-importance button drive. Victimize a person to such an extent you create a cause célèbre, then further victimize him for having a self-importance drive so strong that he thinks he’s worthy of justice or self-defense.
x-RPFer says:
The Naval record that we were all told about and admired in the SO is blatantly false. Just lie after lie. Secondly, LRH was without a doubt the worlds greatest orator. And he was definitely the most well read person of his era. He took from all the greats and the obscure and put together his technology. It is held together by the thread of trust and the power of NOT looking into it further. If you don’t ever look into how he came to these conclusions or if anyone else ever thought of these concepts you can easily think that he thought this all up himself. That he is in tune with universe in a secretive and powerful way that only he could possibly understand, and if you obey enough and are good enough someday you may be able to understand it too.
Probably the best advice LRH ever gave was “Look, don’t listen.” So I beg all of you, actually LOOK. Look at his Naval record. Look into Ernest Holmes and read Science of Mind. You looked at the church and you finally saw the truth of what was going on there. I urge you all to really LOOK at L. Ron Hubbard and see the whole picture as it is and not as someone else has painted it for you.
You reply:
You have pendulum swung in the other direction. Armstrong, Atack, and many who followed are as inaccurate about LRH’s past as the church is.
You’re essentially saying that if Scientologists say Hubbard got two purple hearts, and Atack and I say he got no purple hearts, then he must have gotten one.
If Scientologists say that Hubbard was a nuclear physicist and Atack and I say he wasn’t, then he must have been half a nuclear physicist.
If Scientologists say that Hubbard was crippled and blinded in 1945, and Atack and I say he wasn’t, then he must have been half crippled and half blinded.
Obviously there is a problem with your logic, and possibly with your facts to which you have apparently applied your faulty logic. So please identify the inaccuracies you claim Atack and I originated or promulgated about Hubbard’s past. Then please identify the inaccuracies you claim Scientologists have promulgated about Hubbard’s past that you say are as inaccurate as the inaccuracies you claim Atack and I have promulgated.
Red wrote:
The point to this is that government records are not always what they are made out to be. They can always be changed and no one the wiser. After all it is the US Government and the US Government can do anything, change any record, make anyone seem stupid when they were smart. Have a failing career when it was in actual fact excellent.
Unless you were there, you really can’t say accurately anything about anyone.
You say (without being there, it could be added):
Thanks. Ignoring LRH’s training and service in US Naval Intelligence is the first huge step in launching into black propaganda pieces on him – e.g. Russell Miller. The church, by turning such events as the sub chasing incident into the battle of the Midway do essentially the same disservice.
This is what Hubbard really meant by the double curve, here, the double straw lie. Miscavige, Sherman, et al. did not turn whatever Hubbard did impulsively, chasing Japanese subs, postulated or otherwise, into the Battle of Midway. You did. That’s soft landing smell, and it stinks.
And what did Miller really say:
It was a contribution that marked the end of Ron’s career in public relations. On 24 November, after six weeks’ leave, he was posted to Headquarters, Third Naval District, in New York, for training as an Intelligence Officer.
[…]
If Ron was chafing to get into action he was to be disappointed. On 18 December, he was posted to the Philippines, but got no further than Brisbane, Australia, where while waiting for a ship to Manila, he so antagonised his senior officers that in February 1942 he was on his way home again on board the *USS Chaumont*. `This officer is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment,’ the US Naval Attaché in Melbourne reported on 14 February. `He is garrulous and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty.’
[…]
At Headquarters Twelfth Naval District in San Francisco, it was decided that Ron’s talents might be more profitably employed in censoring cables. In a despatch dated 22 April, the Chief Cable Censor in Washington recommended that no disciplinary action be taken following the report from Melbourne `as it is thought that the Subject’s qualifications may find a useful outlet in the Office of the Cable Censor, New York’.
As you see, Miller most definitely did not ignore Hubbard’s training and service in US Naval Intelligence.
Axiomatically, if Miller did not take that huge first huge step in launching into black propaganda pieces on Hubbard, which he clearly did not, then no such black PR piece was launched into. And if Miller told the truth, as well as he could, in the face of the threat you and your fellow Scientologists mounted and represented to him, then it’s time that you debrief to him too. And to Atack. And to all your wog victims over the past thirty plus years.