This one goes in the “Hall of Shame.”
Now, this is what I call “Pretense PR”.
How can you have an entire building and staff devoted to “PRing” “Opinion Leaders” in Washington DC and they are afraid of identifying the people they have contacted?
Why even put out a promo piece with pictures of people if you are worried about anyone knowing who they are?
And the best you have to offer is a “Counselor for Health and Welfare from a Western European embassy,” “a staff member from a Congressman’s office,” and “the Ambassador from one of Africa’s most stable nations”?
One could be forgiven for believing this is a parody.
But its not. You can assume that the concern here is that if anyone knew who these people were (or even what COUNTRY they are from….) someone might clue them in to who they are dealing with. And all the “goodwill” they have created by giving them a free Ron Series book would go down the toilet. I suspect none of these people know they are being used as promotion for the church of Scientology.
What amazing PR the church has these days.
I wonder if Beth and Roger Akiyama have any of their inheritance left? I see them in the Impact mags as Patrons Stupidus or Ignoramus or whatever.
C/O Rod Keller: https://twitter.com/RodKeller8008/status/437020611966427136
Cheikh Niang, Ambassador to the US from Senegal, Peter Bootsma, Dutch embassy. Staffer still unidentified.
By the way, the production time was apparently twelve minutes.
*Head Shaking* is all I can say.
As I am frequently in DC, I found myself in front of that building about 2 weeks ago. I decided to pull into the parking lot. You used to be able to drive in and go out on the other side street. Now they have the gate locked, so you have to turn around and come back out the way you came in. I saw about 4 cars in the lot. Now that the Church has moved out of that building and over to 16th St., I never see anyone around outside, including body routers and anyone else in D6 when I go by and I do go by to see what’s up. Not a surprise when the form of the Org has crashed and burned.
Yes POT, another example of the church underestimating the intelligence of wogs, DBs, dilatants, SPs and the rest of mankind if not yet a scientologist walking the line. One does not need to know the checklists to see this but church members are so indoctrinated they may even see the outpoints but will not think about it or actually will stop themselves from questioning/thinking.
Truly its gone the wrong way and worsening every day like sand leaking from a sieve. Won’t be long.
Perhaps it’s the VIPS (“OL’s”) themselves who demanded not to be identified? Their bosses sent them to placate the church with a tour for some reason (perhaps nonstop calling and harassing the office demanding contact got too much?)…but told them “Under no circumstance should you offer your name or mention my office!”. At the end of the tour they got corralled into a ‘Ron Series’ and a photo op.
I would suggest making contact with the higher-ups of all the above anonymous VIP’s to let them know your displeasure at them giving implied support to an organization that engages in human rights violations on a daily basis, including human trafficking, stalking and harassing critics, fraud, misrepresentation, and other various crimes. Let them know their guys were busted – and that it really is impossible to form an alliance with CO$ and keep it secret these days. If they value their reputations, they should close the door on that relationship for good.
Hugin – Looks to be the same:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-bootsma/10/b7b/393
Someone with a linkedin acct wants to let him know.
All of this supposed PR is actually preaching to the choir. No else cares and only the loyal minion of Miscavige need the reassurance. Do they have their check books ready?
Mike, I believe the guy on the right in the photos is Jesse Morrow, Jim Morrow’s (OSA) kid.
Yes, that’s correct. Don’t know who the woman on the left is….
Beth Akiyama and Lee Holzinger, the only two names given, are conspicuously absent.
I am in shock. The guy in the first picture is Peter Bootsma, Counselor for Health, Welfare and Sports at the Dutch embassy in the US. Could someone let them know his picture is used this way? I’m off to work and don’t have the time.
Which means he’s probably working for the MIVD under diplomatic cover. I mean a posting like “Counselor for Health, Welfare and Sports” cries out spook.
I will do that! How did you know?
I used to work for a Scandinavian embassy, we met there once. Seemed like a regular guy (certainly not intelligence service, remoteviewed!), and I’m sure this Scientology connection is an embarrassment to him.
“certainly not intelligence service, remoteviewed!”
How do you know Hugginn?
Spooks usually don’t advertise their connections to Mother K or whoever else they’re working for. Ironically the only people who can confirm their connections is either the agency they are working for or the “opposition”.
Seems they like to keep officers or agents they know are in the “game” in play so they can keep ’em under surveillance.
As I wrote earlier any kind of cultural attache is a perfect place for a spy since it gives ’em the time they need to handle their agents.
You’re right I do not know about any intelligence connection. However, even if claiming that connection exists might be a plausible hypothesis it’s not falsifiable. So yes, my certainty was misplaced. Have a good day!
It’s “lots” of something allright, just “lots”
Mike,
Thanks for a great laugh about the ‘Patrons Stupidus or Ignoramus’!
Keep ’em coming…
Greta
Always disgusted me that under Miscavige’s different kind of “leadership” that the Church has felt compelled to suck up to power and get involved in influence peddling like the Moonies.
Obviously they have a mis-u on what an “opinion leader” actually is. Just like they have a mis-u on what an “Ideal Org” is. Either that or they are being willfully ignorant.
I remember back when I was still in they were falling all over themselves about making GW the American version of Pope Constantine as if he had the power Constitutionally to make Scientology a state religion.
Christ.
Not even the Moonies are that deluded.
At that point if I needed any further confirmation that the management of the Church of Scientology was totally out of touch with reality and suffering from ergotism, that was it.
Sheeesh
RM, that’s funny. As per Wikipedia, “Ergot poisoning is a proposed explanation of bewitchment”
Johnny T,
You get an ambassador to visit a church of scientology by doing so many inhumane actions that staff and public leave and speak and then you counter them all with non spiritual responses and the PR is so bad the ambassador (or any one else who sees this) does a google search and takes the church up on a tour to see for yourself.
I’m amazed that this church stays in business so long (as I wait).
If those are real people in those pictures, my first question to them would be how far did they make it from the org before tossing the dead weight shit-tome from the Ron Series into the trash.
This reminds me of the flap around the edition of “All About Radiation” that was written by a “nuclear physicist” and a “mecical doctor”. Those people later turned out to be L. Ron Hubbard and Gene Denk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_About_Radiation
Q: How can you tell when the “church” of Scientology Inc is lying about something?
A; It issues something with pictures and words.
Well, it’s a waste of a good building, on top of everything else. This grand old mansion on the corner of 20th and R St NW is just a few steps off a stretch of Connecticut Ave with heavy foot traffic, and only a block from the DuPont Circle Metro station. In fact it’s close to the old org location on S Street.
The present Washington Ideal Org, in contrast, is on a block of 16th St with very low foot traffic, nowhere near the Metro, limited street parking, and of course like all ideal orgs is ridiculously large and expensive to maintain.
On the plus side, the 20th St building is reasonably proximate to Embassy Row, so it’s not unreasonable that a small number of junior diplomats might be persuaded to stroll up for a look-see, especially if food and drink were on offer. These folks are paid (among other things) to establish friendly contacts in the host community, and wouldn’t likely suspect their brief visit would be seen as a PR coup by anybody. As for the congressional staffer, who knows? That could have been a modest intel-gathering mission, especially if the office had been getting complaints from constituents about nasty dealings with the church. I seriously doubt that any of these “opinion leaders” were motivated by a special interest in LRH, and I can only imagine the reaction back in their offices if these gift books were actually opened and perused.
Good night and good luck.
Aside from the fact that they omit names, etc. – the biggest omitted I see is the high ranking official themselves. That says it all.
So damn true!
Exactly! This “exciting game” of having quotas for every country of “opinion leaders” picked to be covertly approached and fed data about Ron from the new brilliant series which in turn will make them ferocious defendants and proponents of the Church… because “we did a thorough research and found out that people did not want scientology these days and these OLs would make them want it but it must be done covertly to avoid interference of the enemies of the CoS” – it is one of the most complex bullshit ever invented by DM. And it is hillarious and sad to see people of good will to follow this sort of manipulation and accept such perverted ideas. Total lack of actual results and total abundance of perverted “PR”. Somebody is making the staff busy without any chance of ever achieving something of value and the staff is not even able to confront and duplicate that it is so.
True, omitted data of names and also omitted time. When was this done? A year ago? Yesterday?
Also, why so few if the donations for the distribution of this material surpass thousands and thousands of dollars. Where is the rest of these donations?
It sure leaves you with lots of questions.
Every piece of “church” PR can be used as an example testcase for people doing the “investigations” checklist who needs to spot “outpoints”. Missing time, place, form, event, identities, stats. Everything’s omitted, all the time. It’s just that the “church” is getting so desperate the omissions are patently obvious.
Now hush Silvia,
Such questions are related to the DATA SERIES, the Data Series Evaluator’s Course, which of course
is no longer being delivered.
We would not want to have a logically thinking public, would we?
Greta
IT IS THE AMBASSADORS DUTY TO STAND UP FOR HIS FOREIGN POLICY IN ANY ERA AND UNDER ANY GOVERNMENT WHATSOEVER, AMBASSADORS ARE, IN FULL MEANING OF THE TERM, TITLED SPIES.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
The promo is so that they can hit up for “Ron mags in OL ‘s hands ” donations from the bled dry public
Yes, you are of course right…
What’s next? Paid actors pretending to be Chief Consulate to a Foreign Official?
Then they could include in the fine print:
DISCLAIMER: All scenes depicted in the publications, whether actual or recreated, may or may not contain factual information as represented or misrepresented unless otherwise stated.
I’m guessing OSA (or whoever) hired some actors to go there pretending to be from an embassy, and fooling the staff to beleive that they were VIP’s.
How in blazes do you get an ambassador to visit a “church” of Scientology, anyway?!?
One obvious answer is to have Gold photoshop the whole frickin thing. He probably never set foot in the WDC office which is why it is presented in similar fashion to He who will not be named!!!
I say we place our bets and then send a friendly memo to the Gambian ambassador to sort it out!
Yo Dave,
Whaddya say bout them apples?
🙂
Greta
This is a very good question. The Pretoria org (in South Africa) was bought strategically because of it’s close proximity foreign embassies in the area (Pretoria being the Capital city of South Africa). In its immediate surrounds are 5 embassies and in the same suburb probably about another 30 or so.
This fact was repeatedly touted in their PR Propoganda machine prior to the opening of the org. I don’t know if they though a myriad Ambassadors would be rushing through the doors during their lunch time to get on course or what…..
The joke is that since their opening in February 2013 there has not been ONE PR-puff piece forthcoming about any “Ambassadors” or foreign embassy staff visiting or taking services at the Church……..a while back there was some gumpf put out about some symposium or other held at the org – but as it turned out, the Org was just the venue, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual proceedings.
The other joke is that the same org happens to be located within walking distance of the most prolific Nigerian Drug Den in the area.
Go figure…………..
I can’t imagine who that ambassador is. He is not the ambassador from Botswana, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda or South Africa. Is there another stable country in Africa?
Most likely The Gambia.
God this incensed me. Firstly, the back-handed insult of Africa being unstable, and secondly referring to our “nations” – we don’t have nations, you bunch of idiots, they are COUNTRIES.
And its definitely not The Gambia : http://gainako.com/?p=1975
There are 54 members of the African Union without counting Morocco and Somalia. Contrary to popular belief, many of them stable and beautiful countries. Maybe not police states (like the US of A) all a-deck with nice little white picket fences and half its population on some kind of Psych meds, and maybe not where every single citizen is on camera 24 hours a day (UK) and maybe not a where people are taxed to death (DK and most European Countries) – we might be a bit “wild and out there” but we are definitely not unstable.
There’s the Church again – sullying the very subject of Public Relations.
Well BP, the church never let a little truth get in the way of their PR.
I am afraid it definitely IS The Gambia — clearly NOT one of the most stable countries in the continent.
Here is a photo of The Gambian Ambassador to the US: http://washingtonlife.smugmug.com/2012PHOTOS/87th-Annual-Georgetown/22476095_RCN8HJ/1797271550_vh5Zws9#!i=1797271550&k=vh5Zws9
This is Ambassador Alieu Momodou Ngum. I don’t think it’s the same person.
http://observer.gm/_library/2010/6/alieu_ngum-s.jpg
Rod — I do. See some of the other photos. These headshots are the photoshopped, professional posed ones. The one I saw where he is with his daughter and is wearing glasses, he looks like the same guy to me.
I stand corrected Mike – you seem to be right. And as you say, definitely NOT one of the “most stable nations”……….
BTW – has anyone had a look at the map of Africa and seen where this country is – more specifically how big it is (NOT)………. it’s so bloody small they cant even get the name of country written on the map…..
Bwahahahaha……………………
Well BP, turns out I was wrong and you were right. It’s the Ambassador from Senegal as one of our sharp eyed readers noted.
Mike,
This guy is Cheikh Niang, the Ambassador of Senegal. Here he is with Obama:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/protocol/205187.htm
(3rd picture)
Wow, good job. No doubt who it is. As you can see, my powers of observation leave a little to be desired 🙂 Didnt recognize myself in the mirror one time and its getting worse with old age….
But who even SEES this stuff? (and who even CARES?)
It’s the same thing they do in those Wins videos and grand opening films – vague descriptions – no real names or titles. I always assumed it was to make it harder to fact check.
When Beth and Roger become too old or sick to work the full Sea Org schedule they will get a Fitness Board turn down. As they get put out on the street with nothing, maybe they will be able to take with them their favorite Ron mag. Of course they will have to get videoed signing legal papers about how great their experience has been and how they will never return to Washington D.C. where they might be seen and embarrass the “church”. Ya, I hope they hid away some of their inheritance. They are going to need it.
I can just see them holding the cans and being asked “Do you have ANY money, valuables or credit you have not given us?” “Do you have any qualified children that we don’t know about?”
I suspect you are right about the reason for no name. The church does not want them contacted with “alternative” info, especially with respect to Mr. Miscavige.
Maybe they are just paid actors r street people dressed up in rented suits.
Yup.
“Street people” Lol.
Sheldon, I am sure you are correct about why they hide the names of these DC diplomats.. So, they can’t be tracked and informed of what is really going on…
But, my guess of why this “promo” was created in the first place is because of DM’s desperation for new young USA recruits… no one in the US is joining anymore except the children of Scientologists. (Too bad he outlawed sex and family!)
This recruitment letter is a classic bait and switch: A new recruit’s first job will be to what? Call Bill Clinton? Or, call some senator??? Mmmm… sure…well, maybe .. but more likely he/she is sent to the personnel grist mill in CA or FL to add to the stats of new recruits. They will NEVER work for the Scientology National Affairs Office!!
The Scientology National Affairs Office is a ghost town of “customers” except for some uninformed backwater diplomats… everyone else that is politically influential in DC, runs for the hills when they hear the word “Scientology”… it is THE nutty, “couch jumping” organization.
DM’s next desperate move for recruiting for staff in the Co$ will be a promo piece like: “Tom Cruise is looking for a some Scientology co-stars and extras… and anyone who applies will have lots and lots of fun and excitement in Hollywood.. ” Ha..