When things are looking grim, the go-to “handling” is to re-show this event from 30 YEARS ago. I wonder if we are going to see this showing up in other orgs too, as in the past it has been a blanket order to get all orgs to re-air this old video of Dear Leader’s finest hour (the tag line on the poster is “contact your org for more information.”). Orders to show this video yet again are a sign that Miscavige is feeling attacked and in his mind nobody is defending him and he has to do it all himself.
In the intervening 30 year of his reign, virtually nothing of significance has been accomplished โ other than property purchases and renovations. He likes to remind people routinely that he forced IRS to cave in and grant tax exempt status to scientology organizations. It was a significant accomplishment — and he has relied on it to consolidate his position as unassailable, even though objectively, under his leadership scientology has been in a continuous decline since that time.
One of the great cons is that Miscavige convinced the scientology world that he was the anointed successor to L. Ron Hubbard and then that he is THE person who has carried out Hubbard’s wishes and been “on-Sourciest” โ when he has committed a constant stream of acts which Hubbard deemed to be suppressive. The sheeple just accept them.
You have to give him credit as one of the great con men. He has turned shit into shinola and continues to have the suckers he has fooled hand over money for the promise that more shinola is just over the horizon.
typical narcissist behavior ๐
Ok, everyone has seen “Sunset Boulevard”, right? Familiar with the plot? Aging silent screen star Norma Desmond forcing her much younger lover Joe Gillis to sit next to her every nite after dinner to watch her old films?
Ok, so here’s my picture:
Miscavige and Lou – maybe not every nite but at least once a month, sitting together in a private screening room watching “The War Is Over”. This is a non-negotiable stipulation in their relationship!
Lou to Dave ,smiling at him tenderly while watching the video, “You were BIG”.
Dave, furiously: “I’m STILL big! Its the ORGS that got small!!”
OMG, Miscavige is such one-trick pony! He’s like of of those clicheed aging Borscht Belt entertainers telling the same old jokes, singing the same old songs…
A little anecdote:
Years ago I lived in Hawaii for 2 years. Waikiki. My friends and I were all servers (called “waitresses” back then). There was no other way to make a living in Hawaii back then other than doing something in the tourist industry. Even college professors were waiting on tables. Crazy scene, anyway… We were all from the mainland, running away from something, at least i know I was. we all worked in restaurants or clubs of some sort that catered to tourists, who were for the most part thrilled to be in Hawaii and generous tippers.
After work, circa 11PM or so we would visit each other at our various places of work. One of my friends was a cocktail waitress at Duke Kahanamoku’s, a popular restaurantant and night club in the International Market place on the main drag of Waikiki. A total tourist trap, included in every itinerary, the place was always packed…anyway, my friend worked there and made a fortune in tips…we would visit her and usually catch the tail end of the last show of the night. Dukes featured entertainer for ages was Don Ho. A big, mellow voiced Chinese/Hawaiian. His songs never varied in sequence and he always said the same things to the audience at the same times. The tail end of his act had 3 songs: “Little Brown Girl”, “Aloha” and lastly, his final song, “Tiny Bubbles”. The tourists loved him. They ate this up. Of course they were to be there once. It was part of their tourist itinerary. But the staff, ..OMG…as Mr. Ho wound down his act… Discreet eyerolls. He always, always, always pretended to hold back from singing “Tiny Bubbles”. Very coy, the same “schtick”,…”Oh, you don’t want to hear THAT”…and then the audience, thundering “YES WE DO!!” Holding back in his folksy way, having whipped them into a frenzy of hooting and hollering and stamping and shouting, “Tiny Bubbles!, Tiny Bubbles! “…he would sing,…”Tiny Bubbles”.
But the staff! The bartenders, servers, busboys…stone faced. You could tell they were enduring it, willing themselves to get thru another act, that was, had always been and would always be the exact same act. I would call it a kind of torture for them, listening to this never varying routine, 3 times a night, 15 to 18 times a week. (But we don’t have to feel sorry for them because they were making very good money working there.)
That said, speaking of feeling sorry for people:
If you’ve managed to get thru this hopefully not too boring story, here’s my point:
The War Is Over video is Miscavige’s “Tiny Bubbles”.
I believe it gives him great comfort and emotional support at the times he needs it most.
For those in MU corner and not familiar with Shinola, Wikipedia has the story about the shoe polish brand’s resurrection:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinola_(retail_company)
It strikes me occasionally that the CofS has shrunk to the point that gatherings like this can no longer be pulled off. I don’t think they have enough people or even the level of energetic fanaticism to pull off anything like the campaign of a torrent of individual lawsuits that helped cause the IRS to cave in, either.
Perhaps Dave should get together with Donald and figure out a workable strategy. ๐
Both 1 trick ponies, both of them.
Maybe Miscavige should go in for nicknames and slogans against his enemies.
MARA (Make America Read Again) might work for Applied Scholastics.
Some goofy nicknames for psychotropic drugs might garner some attention for their war on psychiatry; Zany Zoloft, Crummy Clozanil, Rancid Ritalin…don’t worry I’m not giving up my day job ๐
Miscavige’s attempt at being a static. Fun isn’t it?
It’s the one single thing that Demento can hold onto and stroke and obsess about as his mind, and $camatology, slowly but surely crumbles.
On the other hand, Sinjian maybe it is just that it is starting to dawn on Misccavage that he does not have the same degree of blind loyalty within the bubble as he did in years past. The obvious 40 years of declining numbers & statistics and one failed program after another may be registering with more and more people within the bubble.
Perhaps more people than he suspected are concerned about the disappearance of the Key To Life Course, the red volumes, and the green volumes, etc.
Perhaps there is a widespread suppressed and unvoiced awareness of these things. How could there not be?
Perhaps DM has slowly become a little bit aware of this and is reaching back thirty years to find some semblance of a win he had something to do with in order to puff himself up with the sheeple.
Perhaps d m is just a little bit afraid.
On the other hand, Sinjian, maybe it is just that it is starting to dawn on Misccavage that he does not have the same degree of blind loyalty within the bubble as he did in years past. The obvious 40 years of declining statistics and one failed program after another may be registering with more and more people within the bubble. Perhaps there is a widespread suppressed and unvoiced awareness of these things. How could there not be?
And perhaps it is beginning to dawn on DM gradually that many people are onto him.
It’s very telling that the one standout achievement that the COS celebrates is that historical moment when they became tax exempt. Even saving mankind can’t hold a candle to that.
death throes
Imo we’re down to the last few twitches, my friend. ๐
Fortunately, the ability of scn to lure new people and retrieve those who are offline has been reduced to a minimum. The few that remain no longer have all those events that were once there to keep believing that the planet was being cleared.
Any “great scn feat” now can be dismantled in seconds by verifying it on the web.
Scn is no longer on the ropes, it’s already in the locker room.
Showing the IAS event from 1993 once again is just sheer torture.
His level of Hubris is quite impressive, and also quite astounding. This might be an unpopular opinion, but part of the reason why he has been able to “get away with” the things he’s doing, and has done (especially within the last 5 – 6 years now), is that within that time frame, more and more “general” things in the USA have been occurring (not good things) that have caused the country itself, to become even more divided between so many different (and some new) things, and cultures, and race.
For me, all these “new” things are to me, in of themselves “cults” (to me anyway). I say that because each one of the “new ideologies” or “new movements” (even some very old ones that should have already disappeared), are all imposing verbal psychological warfare (gaslighting, basically).
There are (to name a few – at least what I noticed, and see), the destruction of families (it isn’t just SCN doing this anymore, its happening in even more general capacity across the USA). Then we have the Feminist movement (this one shoulda ended decades ago – for the reason for this movement, really no longer applies for many years now) where their main theme is “we don’t need men”, etc. And lastly, the “gender” ideologies.
These are all creating a divided nation, and it has actually become even more so within the last 4 or 5 years.
This division, and all these additional things (i’m not even going to go into the whole “politics” issues, pretty sure many here are fully aware of that fiasco), is allowing the SCN “movement” and it’s radical “new policies” and “procedures” and “fundraising” and “gaslighting” to be able to continue, practically “under the radar”. Much of the “decent” in the population are already battling these other tenets (mentioned above), and/or being so massively bombarded by these tenets, that the least of their worries is the SCN movement (since this is less preached and pushed, in the general public, and (to me at least) seems to focus more on bleeding active SCN’s of their finances, etc).
Imagine for a minute, if Scn were to join these other movements as rigorously on the general populace. I dunno, I’d prob start pulling my hair out at that point.
I mentioned above “verbal psychological wafare”, this is also precisely what SCN does as well, to it’s own practitioners, and patrons.
Basically, the population at present is receiving this warfare from so many different fronts, that sometimes, the SCN “movement” seems to be the least impactful to the general populace (since SCN mostly smacks their own). It seems for now, until things change in the “general” populace, and they too fight back on their own fronts, I think the battle we have with SCN is up to those that have / or are still associated and “in”.
Sometimes I dream of a day, when every single person in the SO (Sea Organization), and Orgs, and upper “management” just all stood up, and simply walked out of the door, and didn’t return. Such a lovely dream.
Sorry for the long post.
sinjian, I wouldn’t put down movements based on their extremes – remember that when feminism began, a woman couldn’t open a bank account or get credit without a male relative’s permission, and there are still significant and unjustifiable gender inequalities even when it comes to essentials like medical treatment (and research). One of the tactics of extremist movements — or the extremes of movements, or cults — is to paint the other as extreme, making faulty generalizations and misrepresentations.
Yes, when Feminism began, it was for values and virtues that were not attained, i’m not disputing that fact, however in 2024, that movement is no longer necessary, or even required (as far as I can tell).
“…there are still significant and unjustifiable gender inequalities even when it comes to essentials like medical treatment…” like what? As far as I know, women have the exact same access to things, as men do. The same rights (actually they have more if you think about it a bit). (If we’re talking about the USA anyway). In the USA this movement shoulda ended a while ago. I know some other countries *still* have this inequality – granted.
The other community I mentioned is being extreme, and I am calling it out (both are actually), educating kids between 4 – 11, on (both) of them, is to me, extreme. Kids should be kids. It is to the degree that “adult” childrens’ books are in school libraries (there are videos of parents meeting school board to detest and advocate against all these). I call that pretty extreme.
I know, that as SCN we’re taught to “grant the others’ beingness” which isn’t a “bad” idea or thing – its just a paraphrase really of treat others how you want to be treated. But, no one on earth is “entitled” to anything (and this is what I see all too often).
I did have a certain respect, and such for the LGB+++ group, up until June 2023, when they basically killed all that I had for that group. I DO still hold some for the LBG (only), as they are too, not too happy with a lot of the “other” letters. People can be who and identify as they want, just don’t try to force me to “accept” this, or respect it – both are earned (universally pretty much). I do have one Trans that I do respect and honor, this is due to their behaviour, and also their demeanor (and also the fact that their wavelength, and emotions are indeed of what they identify). Many do not exhibit the characteristics of their “identity” which makes it very difficult for me to accept that “state”. Maybe I’m too strict, or “rigid” on that, I do have a bit of stubborness, so I myself, might have “extreme” outlooks or viewpoints, but I don’t expect anyone to see this “my way”. One can only express their views, nothing more.
“…One of the tactics of extremist movements โ or the extremes of movements, or cults โ is to paint the other as extreme, making faulty generalizations and misrepresentations.”
yes, and both I mentioned do exactly that (from what I have seen anyway – I know it isn’t ALL in those groups, but it is a quite a fair few (lot), that do).
I do see a bit of difference there, where SCN it’s EVERYONE (practically) doing the extreme movement ideologies, and us/them thing, the other two, it’s just a lot, but not ALL of them. However, it’s still both effective enough to have new rules, and laws, and grammar, and verbiage instituted officially into schools, and law. So, I’d still say these are both still pretty ‘extreme’.