This is a bit old, but one of our Special Correspondents came across it recently.
It follows the Captain Harvey the Clown posting perfectly, illustrating how far the Command Intention Vulture Culture has trickled down. This guy is theoretically the Dir of PUBLIC BOOKSALES of Tampa Day Ideal/St Hill Size super org. And here he is begging for donations to create OTHER “Ideal Orgs” for an “Ideal Florida” Not even “donations” for books.
And they are doing it because they “are part of Flags total amount, but we get credit for the raising of what we bring in.” What sort of Admin Scale are these people operating on? “Others Stats”?
But let me reiterate the most important message from the person responsible for getting books into the hands of raw public. There are 2 things you can do: 1. Help raise money, and 2. Donate.
A little suggestion for the Dir Public Booksales — its a lot easier and more remunerative to sell books than it is to beg.
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013 08:06:01 -0800
From: tampadbooks@yahoo.com
Subject: IdealFlorida
To:
|
Mike, I want to apologize to you. Earlier I when I was posting my intended to be amusing stupid thing about babies and diapers and the Dwarf’s announcement of it all at an Int Event, it had completely slipped my mind that I had read, I believe on Marty’s blog, that long ago you lost a baby and were forbidden to take time off to grieve for it. I remembered this just now as I revisited this thread and I am now cringing at what I wrote and its possible affect on you. Please believe me when I say that this crass insensitivity to what was a tremendous loss for you was wholly unintentional. I wish I could take it back. I’s sure I sound like an idiot but I don’t care, because I’m applying, “When in doubt, communicate”. I’m sorry, Mike. Aqamarine.
Aqua — believe me, I am extremely difficult to offend. I took nothing personal from it. But appreciate your thoughtfulness. No offense taken, but I accept your apology without reservation, though it really was not needed. Mike
Mike,
I’m just getting back to my e-mails and your blog after a long weekend, and I’ve just read your response to my apology.
Thank you, for being who you are, and for having the uncommon ability to express yourself with both simple honesty and and exquisite tact. I
I appreciate this very much, and feel much better!
Sincerely,
Aquamarine.
… and next dono drive around the corner you’ll get to quit coffee altogether.
Maybe I’ll quit driving and take the 1-hour plus transit system to scrape another 3 ideal dollars together. Better yet, soup line-ups in skid row … and I could come up with another 200 monthly. $30 on a pair of running shoes … I ought to be shot when the Salvation Army is doing a $1 sale on 70’s era plastic-sandal clear-outs. I think I’ll just start bi-daily O/W write ups again before the MAA assigns me treason for wasting org funds.
And who says self-abnegation doesn’t work?
If this is a bit old then the recently sent out Zurich promotional piece is ancient. Watch out – the dinosaurs are out to get you!
Too bad our Swiss Correspondent didn’t translate the date.
As COB leads them on their “Arduous March” I’m sure it won’t be long until we hear the “Let’s eat two meals a day!” campaign so people can donate more to the straight up and vertical growth.
If it was only just a cup of coffee that one has to “sacrifice” for the cult…but it is homes, college funds, IRA’s, retirement accounts, savings accounts, “emergency funds” not to mention the endless endless encouragement to put donations on credit cards and refinancing of home mortgages and borrowing from others so the Church of Scientology can sit on their billions of dollars acting like they are broke.
Scientology is the only religion that I know that eats its members then hides behind their religious CLOAK and says…”What Member?”
The Church of Communist Scientology and it’s dictator- David Miscavige.
You got that right. Well put.
They’re coming for the coffee because they’ve already taken away the homes, college funds, IRA’s, retirement accounts, savings accounts, “emergency funds” and melting credit cards…
I was going to say that they’ll come for the kids’ piggy banks next, but they’ve already got those.
Thanks Plain Old Thetan, for that LRH article from 1954. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about SCN behaving like a business, ‘needing & wanting’ like a business, but claiming they are a religion for the people. Having been on staff for years, I was whipsawed on a daily basis, by demands to bring money in at all costs, while feeling committed to helping people by delivering the tech of Scientology. I was never in harmony on these points or ever felt a balance between the two. This GPM sucked in all my contemporaries and left us confused on the subject of exchange.
We worked very hard but couldn’t survive on our meager paychecks. Money came through the doors, but it wasn’t ours to control or use based on “sound business concepts” to grow our org locally. We couldn’t flow money to what worked because we were cross-ordered by ten kinds of management, so we couldn’t really behave as a business should, while being forced to act like one, nonetheless. There was stress inherent in every action taken, because there was ALWAYS an underlying sense that whatever we did, was against some policy or order, was contrary to someone’s intention and no matter how hard we tried or how well we did that week – it wasn’t enough.
So the fact that we’re now begging for donations, and telling parishioners to go without, makes perfect sense. It’s the evolution of the GPM that’s been raging for decades with no relief in sight.
When I was a child I used to walk past homes where people had turned bathtubs into small gardens and old rusted automobiles into works of art and wondered how these things could be both. There was a natural confusion when an object or entity, designed for one thing, is morphed into another. But with bathtubs and old cars, there was an aesthetic that made it work. There was theta, that made it was okay and natural to be both. But in SCN today there is no aesthetic, there is no balance. It has become neither church, nor business, nor charity, but instead has morphed into an ugly chimera. A multi-headed beast, confused and pulled in so many directions at once, that it is pulling itself apart. It is sad to see anything that even remotely resembles the goodness of what Scientology started out to be, dying slowly before one’s eyes. At times I need to look away, until the images fade. And then focus on what may still be, in the Indie field. The mythical Phoenix rises from the ashes. I believe it will.
This is just a ruse to get folks to agree to a revolving credit card charge to the IAS. Doesn’t matter if the charge is $30, 20 or even 10 bucks a month. Once they have the charge, it goes on an on of course, BUT …. once you are on record as agreeing to this, the pressure will start to increase it … a little at first … and then more and more (“are you telling me you can’t put even FIFTY dollars a month at the top of your priority list of outflow of energy? Even to salvage this entire sector of the universe? Have you read KSW recently? ……..) Then it will be $100 a month … and then ….
The giving never stops once it starts. That’s the scam here. Scientologists have almost no start, change, stop abilities regarding their finances. They have been driven to almost total effect in the area of financial discipline. I’m happy to say I was one of the few who kept my giving to a small amount of my net worth and so now have money in my post Scientology life.
In ANY other arena “customer service” is considered essential to survival. I mean, it is very IMPORTANT to have happy customers. Especially in the days of internet and ratings. David Miscavige is the only manager I know that sends OSA hit staff out to destroy unhappy customers. It is borderline comical. A “customer” in the Church now is sneered upon and labeled, “a consumer Scientologist”. Their idea that they should CONTRIBUTE TO someone else, is history. You are right about one thing Mike, L.R.H. would have declared Miscavige a LONG time ago. Floating the Church on begging units now.
Must be a cult. Ya think?
But it makes complete sense . . . the “church” has exsanguinated all the major arteries of its parishioners. It’s the time to put a bowl underneath the kill to catch the last few meager drops. It’s not enough that you took out a second mortgage and depleted your 401K. Now you can’t even have a coffee without the SO sitting on your shoulder demanding your change. They’re nothing if not thorough. Not a piece of meat falls to the ground when they’re the butchers.
I’m back on this thread after a few days, and I’m back with some fresh new marketing ideas for donations to Tampa’s Ideal Org, or to any Ideal Org:
Finally, Creation on the Second Dynamic will Align With Command Intention from the Very Moment of Birth Itself!!
THE FOUR POINT PLAN FOR POTENTIAL SEA ORG MEMBERS, TO INCLUDE ALL CHILDREN BORN TO MEMBERS OF THE RADICAL CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY, THEIR NIECES, NEPHEWS, GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN:
* IDEAL DIAPERS – A Special Unit will be set up at Int Base to Ideal Diapers to be sold to RCSers for the diapering of their babies. At a far greater cost than ordinary wog disposable diapers, their exclusive usage will be Command Intention for the diapering of all RCS babies from birth. . Each diaper will have the image of an Ideal Org depending on where the family lives. Every time the baby takes a crap and needs to be re-diapered the local Ideal Org will benefit
* IDEAL PULL-UPS – Also regulation, RCS-made, mandatory and part of Command Intention. Any accidents after baby is toilet trained help to build a new civilization.
* IDEAL TODDLER WEAR – Applicable as above. Active-Wear to include shoes and sneakers
* IDEAL CHILREN’S WEAR – Also as above, for RCS children 4-12 and/or until Sea Org Conscription.
“…and THIS is how your lustful pleasure -seeking on the 2nd Dynamic, resulting in selfish, irresponsible planned-for and unplanned -for pregnancies, which you sometimes refuse to abort., the cost of which has, to date, seriously impinged upon abilities to donate to your local Ideal Org – THIS is how thoseuseless brats of yours will now, from the moment of their birth, be HELPING TO BUILD A NEW CIVILIZATION! “
Sorry, Mike, I posted my little satire twice by mistake.
Deleted one of them…
New Sec Check Question: “Have you paid money for self-gratification instead of contributing that money towards an Ideal Florida?”
Sure to get a L/F for further elucidation in the Knowledge Report!
“Have you had an unecessaey latte or espresso?”
🙂
Laughter!!
Mike…GREAT post! I was a Tampa Day public before I got fed-up with the “nothingness” there. It’s no wonder they’re BEGGING. They have no public. It’s been about 3 yrs since I was a student there and there were days when I was the ONLY public in the course room. It took real effort just to enter the building. On the entry level there is a large plaque with donors names on it…but at least half of them had been scratched-off. Pathetic! They’ve burnt their good “payers” or the good “payers” got tired of being broke! Now they’re looking for pocket change! How truly sad!
9. Starbucks doesn’t come over to your house at three in the morning and demand you donate to the International Coffee Service Fund.
10. Starbucks doesn’t waste your coffee money by demanding you instead buy starbucks promo material to send to the nearest library.
LAUGHTER!
Reasons Starbucks is better then the Church of $cientology.
1) The former still believes in fair exchange.
2) Reasonable prices.
3) You can leave without being yelled at or held in the store against your will.
4) Money not kept on account.
5) Managers actually seem to like people.
6) Starbucks actually expands occasionally.
7) Stress reliever, not stress enhancer.
8) Public actually likes Starbucks
It is true that a cup of coffee has expanded faster than an auditing session. At least the customers there are set up for a win. Coffee is a picker upper. Hamburgers are selling faster than books on the mind. McDonalds has more Franchises than the Church of Scientology. How come people can sell hamburgers and coffee and David can’t push a self help course? AND, you do not have to pass through the M.A.A. to have an experience at Starbucks or get slapped around there and degraded for being a consumer! I’m not dismayed with Miscavige anymore. I am captivated by his ability to keep people in the game giving them nothing but air to breathe that he doesn’t even have to pay for.
Hell, if someone is having a hard time in life and walks into the F.S.O. and sees what others are living through, he suddenly realizes he doesn’t have a ruin in life. If he is lucky to escape he is happy to go home and get on with it. Long gone are the days when you walked into an Org and saw HAPPY HAPPY people having FUN at living and you realized you had some issues. You can be fucking suicidal and walk in an org and by the time you shuffle through desperate starving beaten up beggars, you realize you were over reacting.
Starbucks has WiFi access to the Internet without any filtering or monitoring.
Maybe that’s why they don’t want people going there?
🙂
Mike, Thank you for noticing these actions have no place on the admin scale. All of the promo and emails carry the same message, “We must be contributed to”.
I’ll share another story about “can’t have”. About 10 years ago, a public I knew told me that she and her husband had received an unexpected 20K, whether via his work as a bonus or in some fashion, I forget. This public made me swear not to tell ANYONE because they were not going to tell any org terminals about this money and were going to use it to pay off some debts. I promised, and told no-one. At the time I didn’t question this at all, I totally understood.
Today, I look back at this comm cycle in amazement. This amazement comes from my realization that she and I were behaving like criminals. Her not telling the Church about her windfall 20K was a crime, and my knowing about it and keeping silent was the aiding and abetting of a criminal! That’s right, 20K that was HER money, that she intended to use to pay off her debts, gave her an overt/withold on her church!! Incredible, no? But true. Needless to say, this was sooooooooo F**ked UP.
Pathetic. Sad. I was Tampa public. Free since 2007! Personal Integrity.
Gato Rojo,
You said, “Wow – the can’t have is really being driven in hard”.
I can relate. In recent years before putting my foot down, I experienced a continuous, low-level guilt even about paying my bills on time per LRH’s Finance tech. Every so often I would argue with myself, like, “What, are you nuts? Why are you feeling guilty about paying your bills on time? this is crazy!!” Yet the low-level guilt persisted, and instead of being proud of taking care of my financial responsiblities, something my own integrity to myself demanded, I felt somewhat ashamed, and trapped in a “maybe”.
This was not a healthy state of mind for me to be in as regards the disposition of my owned earned income. Here others were declaring bankruptcy and saying to hell with everything and giving everything they had to the Church, while I felt inner relief and outward embarrassment that I was instead taking care of my responsibilities. My help button was continually pressed, I was continually if mildly keyed in on failure to help. That’s how I let the RCS F**k with my head. I have since taken responsibility for allowing it. The Vulture Culture did what it did, and I allowed it up until the point where I stopped allowing it!! Making that distinction has been really good for me on every dynamic, I have to say..
That is truly pathetic.
And…no way am I giving up my Starbucks dude. That is about one of the best examples of low havingness I have ever seen.
There’s the sound of that death rattle again.
Wow–the can’t have is really being driven in hard. The public will soon get their chance at being in the Hole too! The squeeze will go on and on, being done to whoever lets it be done to them. When there is nothing left to squeeze it’ll be spiritual jail in the Hole.
This reminds me of a time at the wonderful int base where we weren’t allowed to make coffee anywhere near our offices. Working 18 or more hours a day, many all-nighters, and the only coffee we were allowed to drink on the job was anything we could put in a styrofoam cup and take back with us after a meal. If we had the time to go to the meal. Crappy coffee that’s cold is really wonderful. Of course no one could run to a coffee shop and get some fresh coffee either–you could never leave the place to go anywhere, especially for something nice like some coffee or a snack.
All the while Miscavige had organic coffee brewed whenever he wanted it and brought to wherever he was, and of course he’d drink it in front of anyone else who’s been up all night or several nights, who’s falling asleep and now gets to smell yummy fresh coffee but can’t have it.
A latte with all the fixin’s was the first thing I bought for myself after I ran the heck outta there and finally knew I was safe from anyone chasing me and I could calm down for a little while. Freedom to sit down and drink a cup of coffee without getting a KR written on me. I think the next thing I bought was ice cream…. 🙂
That fucker David Miscavige. “ME ME ME ME! The Scientology is all about ME! I NEED the coffee. Fuck them. They just PAY ME! ” !
Wasn’t there some policy about not caring about workers? I read that and though it was sick.
Dear Gato,
It got worse than that after you left. Now we couldn’t even bring a coffee back to our offices because it looked like a “retirement camp” per Dear Leader, so there went the coffee cups being carried around. I had a chance to make my own in the shop so I never cared but I know how horrible and suppressive it is. Really disgusting actually. I was caught on several occasion by the MAA and told that even the execs are not allowed to drink coffee as it is “a luxury we don’t have because we are such out ethics shit” well somehow I could never give a damn and never got in trouble with my seniors either over this so I carried on happily drinking and making others the best coffee you could get on the base. 🙂 🙂 🙂
During appalling shit policy like this at the Int Base, were you (I mean, the SO generally) aware of the coddling Miscavige was being given? I mean, was it general knowledge that he had 2 choices prepared daily for his meals, his personal tailoring, the tanning bed . . . just . . . was this common knowledge? How did you deal with that?
Delphine, I am still waiting for someone to start the “What they didn’t tell you when they recruited you into the Sea Org” blog!
I will give up my coffee when David Miscavige gives up his tanning bed.
I would love it if LRH was still around except when I read something like this. It would make him ill. LRH is an A to B guy. No Q & A. Train Auditors, Free Thetans. That’s what he wanted. That’s what we want. That’s what Thetans need happening.
Holy Shit! Unbelievable. What happened to delivery of Scientology services? I am stunned how low the spiral continues to go….
Mike, this outflow inflow concepy is true in theory according to karma, but who knows what life time it will inflow back in? I donated a hell of a lot of cash to scientology and I have yet to see the reverse flow. Being out exchange is one of the first things that made me backoff from the church. Mabe in my next life Il be pleasantly surprised….you think?
Gretchen. I also paused on the inflow outflow part of his story. At first I thought he meant if they inflow from you, bit by bit, they will experience a huge inflow. Like he had this all back to front.The I read it again after your comment.
If your outflow is greater than inflow AND you outflow to something that is ALSO outflowing more than it inflows, then you will get the good karma kick-back, in my view. If you outflow to something that has a very strong inflow but very little outflow, it will be like a black-hole phenomenon. It sucks harder.
🙂
Greenonwhite
Gretchen, I think you will have a Starbucks built on your front lawn. How’s that for a flow. 🙂
“One can’t really disagree with that. You agree.”
And I thought Scientology was suppose to help one think for one’s self. My bad.
My answer then and now would be an emphatic NO WAY!! The only thing I ever had to look forward to as a Flag Public was getting the heck off base and getting my Starbucks!! I would drive to Starbucks further away so I wouldn’t be harassed while drinking my coffee =) Oh but please give your last hopes of pleasure….
Chrissie. This is EXACTLY how I felt. Hit Gulf-to-Bay toward the international mall and experience a great relief and lightness of being just for simply LEAVING. Wild.
Then get a brew someplace further away. I laughed when I read your comment!
Greenonwhite.
This staff member really has the beggar tech down. Maybe that’s because Tampa is so close to the most successful beggar of them all – Flag.
After reading this email, I will not self gratify myself with anything as mundane as coffee, food, cloth, shoes, etc. All this money is going to the magnificent Tampa Org.
Thank you Kent Oliver for bringing the error of my ways to my attention.
All I can do is shake my head in disbelief. Truly – speechless.
Idle Florida is when one doesn’t have coffee in the morning?
These ideas from Scn Inc is so opposed to the rest of the real world. Consider this custom which many find admirable as regards to Coffee, instead of putting a “can’t have”: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/04/24/178829301/eu-embraces-suspended-coffee-pay-it-forward-with-a-cup-of-joe
Sinar, thanks for bringing this to our attention. It seems empathy is alive and well in the real world, after all.
Beautiful share Sinar. Thanks.
Thankyou sinar!
plainoldthetan,
Thank you for the 1954 LRH quote as re the wisdom of ensuring that the first dynamic be included in one’s life’s purposes, goals and activities. I had never seen this before, and just reading this plain common sense from the Ole Man has made my day.
So now they can’t even enjoy a cup of coffee without feeling feeling guilty. Nice positioning move, RCS. Those poor saps.
Next thing you know the RCS will have all areas of the American lifestyle linked with Ideal Org donations.
Treating the family to a Happy Meal at the local McD’s?
“Think how much happier you;d be if half of the cost of this inconsequential fast food meal were being used to really help build a new civilization!
I can’t think of anything even remotely clever right now but the possibilities for guilt trips have to be endless
“But there is the extreme of charity which neglects the first dynamic.” LRH quote. Really.
DIANETICS AND SCIENTOLOGY — A CRUSADE
HUBBARD PROFESSIONAL COLLEGE ANNOUNCEMENT
1954 [ca. October]
Official Publication of The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation Phoenix, Arizona
Dianetics and Scientology are more a crusade for sanity than they are a business. The Foundations and other organizations in Dianetics have suffered only when the insistence that they be run as “business” overpowered their will to help humanity. If all we wanted to do with Dianetics and Scientology was make money, we would all be rich, for it is an easy thing to sell those hitherto unpurchasable things health, long life, and happiness.
But there is the extreme of charity which neglects the first dynamic. An optimum solution would be that one which brought the greatest good to the greatest number of dynamics. Thus the auditor must not neglect the first dynamic—himself. Too many have. And their work has been impeded by lack of funds. The Foundation is not a business, the auditor is not a businessman. But both the Foundation and the auditor must live and work in a commercial and economic conscious world.
It is no disgrace for an auditor to earn several thousand dollars in a few weeks. It would only be a disgrace if he worked only to earn it. With money made from those who can afford auditing, an auditor can himself afford to undertake the assistance of those in hospitals and asylums or who have lost in life. It is a luxury to be so generous. It is not a luxury to earn, only—who was it said that he who is without charity is as empty as sounding brass and the tinkling of the temple bell.
But remember, there is a happy mean between an overburden of wealth and an overburden of charity. Either way loses.
And so, when we speak of an auditor’s income, we speak of his potential charity. And when we speak of an auditor’s charity, we hope he can have enough paying preclears to afford it.
An auditor is wasted on a routine job — his time is lost. He is also wasted processing nothing but movie stars and millionaires—if he forgets that these can only buy him the luxury of charity in the backwaters of the world.
L Ron Hubbard
$2/day spent on self gratification!?! What a fucking overt! That’s what they’re saying! It’s criminal how this cult has twisted your money into not being yours! You can spend your own money on ANYTHING you want, whether it’s candy, coffee, guns, ammo, cars, chicks, ANYTHING – and NONE of them are “overts”. Sick. Wish I’d gotten out of that mindfuck sooner than I did!
Great blog Mike!
Lol!!!
Starbuck’s may be in line for a declare order. Their crime? Cutting across Org income lines by taking money out of the hands of parishioners that rightly belongs to the Orgs.
Laughter!
Other-intentioness.
What a bunch of self-indulgent public Tampa has – squandering their money on a cup of coffee, just like their money is their own! They just don’t get it, do they.
Sec Check ’em all I say (at their own expense, of course.)
Laughter!
Well… I guess that ’bout sums it up…the only thing that Kent forgot to mention were the additional benefits in foregoing the daily Starbucks next to Flag…”You won’t run into the ever-growing number of SP’s who frequent the place!” and “Flag OSA won’t have to send their staff over to Starbucks to warn the public not to talk to the SP’s”
I think it’s coffee time 🙂
If they really wanted to get people to donate half the amount they’d otherwise pay for Starbucks, they ought to do what they have done with all the other programs: award IAS status levels for such magnificent generosity. That’s right, they should come up with a “Patronius Caffeinicus Microscopicus.” Nobody would expect a trophy with flames and rampaging horses for $5 per week, but RCS would have to give them something. Perhaps after a year in the Starbuck’s coffee fund program, they’d get a lapel pin with a picture of David Miscavige, sort of like the pin of Kim Il-Sung that you have to wear if you’re a North Korean.
JP — What a wonderful idea.
Donators could attain “Barista” levels.
Tall IAS Donator Barista then Grande, Venti and Trente, then onto the four levels of Frappuccino IAS Donator Barista, then Mocchachino, and finally achieving the ultimate status “Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher IAS Donator Barista”.
They could come up with all sorts of new status levels.
Cut back on toilet paper extravagance, buy only single-ply rolls, ration to 4 squares per sitting and donate the money you are wasting on TP to become an “2-ply, Super Soft IAS Patron of Waste Management.”
The possibilities are endless….
You are a marketing genius!
Another Possibility: When using the toilet paper either side the success is at hand.
Mike,
I am dying! LOL!
BTW, Starbucks does actually help me sometimes. 🙂
My thoughts about coffee-based IAS status levels were moderately amusing. Yours were freakin’ hysterical.
And that was a very suave observation about the toilet paper donation. It was way more than clever. In fact, it was Charmin’.
Mike, tLOL, hank you for giving me laughter at the end of my nite, and you too John P. I love this blog!!!
Mike, you just added a whole new category to the birthday game. Don’t give these vultures so many creative ideas; they are not as far-fetched as you think they may be. Just look at the existing craziness. In the not too distant future you WILL see honor statuses based on coffee consumption reduction, toilet paper reduction, condom usage reduction, etc.
I was going to suggest that perhaps they just give up all pretense of ‘religion’ and just sell coffee for profit… but your suggestions are much more amusing Mike and John P.
LOL…
Something happened in my brain one time when the OES from my Org-Phx called to ask me to buy a chair for the org. He just said (I’m calling everyone and asking to buy a chair). Now, I’m not saying it’s an unreasonable request. Just that something snapped in my brain. I think that’s when I became a full blown suppressive. There was just something about asking me for a chair. Maybe it’s a button in my whole track case or something.