This rather remarkable press release was just sent out by Scientology Spokespuppet Pouw.
Amazing that the secular Way to Happiness now becomes a “Scientology Brochure.” Of course, it will be a Church activity until something blows up and then the church distances itself as far and as fast as it can (see Narconon generally, Applied Scholastics schools in Florida and Australia etc etc.)
I certainly do not object to distribution of The Way To Happiness, but this press release is laughable.
Scientology Brochure Tells What is Behind 50 Percent Drop in Colombia Crime
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) April 18, 2013
In 2004, the United Nations described the Colombian conflicts as, “the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere.” Less than a decade later, crime rates have dropped by 50 percent and Colombian tourism has increased to a level beyond any other Latin American nation. According to senior Colombian police officials, much of the credit for this change goes to The Way to Happiness, a nonreligious moral code based entirely on common sense, written by author, humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard.
The grassroots movement that brought The Way to Happiness into the hands and homes of people throughout Colombia began with a well-known Colombian actor and comedian. To reach his entire country with the message of this booklet, he not only handed out copies at performances, he also created a unique showcase for its 21 precepts—a presentation he has performed for more than 150,000 civilians and military personnel.
Next, a colonel in the Colombian National Police joined the endeavor. He and his officers distributed copies of the booklet to tens of thousands in the northern coastal city of Cartegena. With the subsequent 27 percent drop in crime, Cartagena was declared the safest city in Colombia.
The movement continued to build momentum with Colombian police conducting The Way to Happiness seminars for three million people and handing out booklets to 20 percent of the population, helping reverse the crime and violence of an entire nation.
The Church of Scientology and its members are proud to share the tools for happier living contained in The Way to Happiness with all who work to build a better world. For more information, visit http://www.Scientology.org/thewaytohappiness.
Scientology: How We Help—The Way to Happiness, Creating a World of Honesty, Trust & Self-Respect is one of a series of brochures presented by the Church of Scientology International to meet requests for more information about the Scientology religion and its support of global humanitarian initiatives and social betterment programs.
Press Contact: Karin Pouw
Tel: (323) 960-3500
eMail: MediaRelations(at)ChurchofScientology(dot)net
The Facts
First oddity – neither of the two people supposedly responsible for “turning around an entire nation” are NAMED? It cannot be only because their names are not David Miscavige, though it has become routine for him to be the ONLY name used in any church “PR” – he literally is the source of everything. When he does a ribbon cutting of an Idle Org his name is everywhere and there are numerous photos. When anyone else presides they are not given so much as a mention and of course no photos. So, typically the only people that get a mention are non-Scientologist officials and dignitaries…. So, why not mention the famous comedian (Andres Lopez) and army Colonel (Ricardo Prado)?
It must be because they are afraid of any media contacting them… But why?
Likely because they would not support the outrageous claims made in this release. I don’t doubt the WTH is a good influence on people, and it certainly helps. But surely, if the WTH was truly recognized as the source of halving the crime rate in an entire country and increasing its tourism to astonishing new heights there would be SOME media attention? Or a mention at the United Nations or Interpol or somewhere (and you know if there was even a hint of such a thing, Miscavige would have been shouting it from the rooftops).
Crime Rate
While this release claims to take credit for a remarkable 50% reduction in Colombian Crime, the only semi-specific that is given is that a program in Cartagena resulted in a 27% reduction in crime.
Hmmm, wonder what the FACTS are? Perhaps the change has something to do with the clamp down on the drug industry?
Following are just a few excerpts from Wikipedia [my emphasis added in bold]:
Since the establishment of the War on Drugs, the United States and European countries have provided financial, logistical, tactical and military aid to the government of Colombia in order to implement plans to combat the illegal drug trade. The most notable of these programs has been the Plan Colombia which also intended to combat organizations, such as the FARC guerrillas, who have controlled many coca-growing regions in Colombia over the past decades.
Despite Colombia having the dubious distinction of being the world leading producer of coca for many years those plans, slowly but surely, diminished the drug produced, to the extent that in 2010 the country reduced cocaine production by 60%, relative to the peak in 2000. The level of drug related violence was halved in the last 10 years…
How Much Change In Overall Violence?
Bogotá has gone to great lengths to change its crime rate and its image with increasing success after being considered in the mid-90s to be one of the most violent cities in the world. In 1993 there were 4,352 intentional homicides at a rate of 81 per 100,000 people; in 2007, Bogotá suffered 1,401 murders at a rate of 19 per 100,000 inhabitants. This success was the result of a participatory and integrated security policy, “Communidad Segura”, that was first adopted in 1995 and continues to be enforced.
According to a 2011 article in The New York Times ‘street muggings and thefts on public transportation have surged since 2007’, leading certain commentators to declare a crisis of security in the city.
Cali As of 2006, there were 1,540 intentional homicides in the city and 1,726 overall when including the metropolitan area. The rates for the city and metropolitan area were 62 and 63 per 100,000 respectively. By 2011 this has increased to 71 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, which has led certain commentators to declare a ‘crisis of security’ in Cali.
Between 1 January and 1 June 2011 there were 923 intentional homicides in the inner city of Cali, which is considered a 5% increase compared to 2010. According to Colombia’s most influential weekly magazine, Semana, there are over 1,700 assassins working for various groups in the city.
Medellín was once known as the most violent city in the world, a result of an urban war set off by the drug cartels at the end of the 1980s. As the home of the Medellín Cartel funded by Pablo Escobar, the city was victim of the terror caused by the war between the organization headed by Escobar, and competing organizations such as “El Cartel del Valle”. However, after the death of Escobar, crime rates in the city began to decrease.
There were 33% more murders in 2008 than 2007, with an increase from 654 to 871 violent deaths. This increased further by over 200% in 2009 to 2,899 violent deaths, or about 110 deaths per 100,000 people, 2.5 times the average homicide rate in Colombia and 20 times the average homicide rate in the United States for that same year.
Tourism
The release claims credit for “Colombian tourism has increased to a level beyond any other Latin American nation.”
Really? Come on Dave, this is ridiculous on its face!
According to a quick Google search, this claim is clearly a grand lie: Tourists visiting Colombia are less than 2 million per year. Peru is 2.7 million. Brazil is 5.4 million. And Mexico is 25 million. I suspect there are other countries that are also higher, but this is enough to prove the lie.
Does Anyone Read This Drivel?
I guess they are lucky nobody pays much attention to their PR releases. Maybe they think the recipients will buy this like the audiences at the Shermanspeak Miscavige events (likely this entire press release is based on some Miscavige hype event and of course, anything he utters is absolutely true no matter the facts).
Mexico is the country with the largest tourism industry in Latinamerica. So its clearly a lie from this PRO. What a shame!
Dear Mike,
I´ve just checked through your 2 articles about missions and the expansion numbers. You explained well, how by numbers missions could have had expanded, but anyhow, that this was just an expansion of 2% per year. Anyhow, I felt like: But are the today-missions comparable at all to those missions of those days?
Unfortunately I myself cannot compare, since I´ve not come to see any Scientology mission in the last century, but as I heard from old-timers, it seems that missions of earlier times were missions regarding to having some staff, some production and some publics winning. The scene today, what is called a mission already, might differ a lot. Wanna share some personal experiences and observations:
In 2008 I was an ex-staff of Berlin Ideal(ized) Org. I was not yet in good standing again, since the org refused to give me a leaving sec check even though I TR3ed it every other week. Still I was disseminating to friends and those whom I made friends with. So there was one guy who wanted to start a little field group to deliver 3x / week and tried to convince me to do this with him. When this was known by the HAS, she told him, he´d rather spot my tone level. He then didn´t dare to start any cooperation with me anymore – and there was no group.
A few months later another person came up to me trying to convince me that I should open a field group. I agreed – but we decided to open the group in secret, in order to not get black PR and stops from the org from the very beginning.
We established our field group activities for ~ 3 months, until we made it public to the org, doing a small opening party, which WE organized and where the only Org-staff, we invited, were the Dir. Clear and the PES. The PES even didn´t show up. Had more important things to do.
But the news of the opened field group turned my reputation in the Org immediately from a maybe-SP into a celebrity. The very next time I´ve been in the org I was asked from the F/R, if I was willing to open a mission. He told me he could make publics donate for the mission starter kit of ~10.000 $ and I should just take my group-mates, give them their hat and start a mission.
I told him, that we were just about to get a group out of non-existence. That I plan to get the group up through the conditions and – once a power change had to be made – we´d either split to to or more groups or could develop into a mission. But Lord knows when this would be, definitely not now. He tried to convince me over and over again, I didn´t accept the great honour to become an ED of a mission and he lost his interest in me again.
My tiny little field group stayed small, BUT it SURVIVED! (It even still exists – with more or less the same still winning public – even though I am SP-declared in the meantime. :-))
In December 2011, me still having the one and only field group in and around Berlin Org, CO SMI and a mission holder came up to me: If I´d agree to deliver the PE-course for the coming 6 week-ends in a city ~ 1,5 hrs by car away from my home, they were able to open a mission!
???
The point was: They had NO terminal who was trained to deliver ANYTHING. In order to have some production the next weeks they had to borrow some tech people in order to start delivering at all. So staff from another mission (~5-6 hrs. away by car, even though you may drive fast on German motor ways) had to come over to deliver Dianetic-Seminars every other week – IF there were confirmed publics.
The ED to be of that very Mission to be founded was trained to do some assists and has also done some B1-auditing (maybe ~ 30hrs altogether). They had to have 7 staff to open the mission I was told. 3 of them even have done 1 – 5 Div-6 courses. The rest NOTHING! So they recruited the OES to be – a relatively new public on HQS – the sister of the ED to be was made the PES – all she knew about Scientology was, that her sister was going someplace to study something. She hasn´t even had one single session in her life and practically had no data about Scientology.
So they “opened” the “mission” in the week of Christmas 2011 where I had to give some Intro-lecture about Scientology. But since in that very week there was no paid service delivered at all, the opening of the mission was not qualifying. So they did another Gold-filmed mission opening of the same location some time later. (The mission rooms were the working place of the ED who was kind of a chiropractic.)
Since, of course, they had no supervisor there, too, to deliver any courses, the ED took my contact, IN CASE there were some people interested in any courses. Weeks later I met her on an event. I asked if she found another one to deliver, or… No, no inflow so far. Some months later the same. I have never been needed to deliver anything there. BUT: Berlin Ideal(ized) Org HAD A MISSION!!!
Some time later I heard from the Dir. Clear, that Berlin Org was expanding, since it had 3 missions.
I went “what?” How come I am active in the field, showing up in the Org several times a week, attending each event and haven´t heard about it???? He explained to me that there was this Leipzig Mission (the one I helped to open), Dresden Mission (one or two raw publics who – after a Dian.Sem. tried to audit one other friend of them) and the activities in Czech Republic. (In Czech Republic there are no orgs, so the field acitivities have to be counted from another org in the vicinity. They are ~ 500 km away, have never been heard of nor supported by Berlin Org, but…)
So when I compare 200 and some missions of those days to 300 and some “missions” of the kind which I have experienced, then I guess, there had been NO expansion at all.
Or what do you, who know the missions of the old days, think about it?
ML, Chris
Wow. The truth is that the biggest class v orgs of today are as well manned and busy as the smaller missions of the 70s. The biggest missions of today are as busy and well manned as the smaller field groups of the 70s. The largest org of today, the FSO, has public Bodies in the shop at a very similar level to the old Milano org. DM has taken Scientology so far down the rabbit hole as to be unrecognizable. What he does have that did not exist in the 70’s is billions of dollars in cash reserves that he can use to produce totally amazing pr videos to defend his position world class easy elastic leader. Also totally missing in the 70s was a large body of wealthy supporters who have “purchased” a free pass from ethics and who would be immediately vilified and hated if Scientology was to clean up its act and get back on purpose. They know that their power comes from DM so they support him and help him crush opposition. Who was Craig Jensen before the donos started flowing. A sleazy crim whom was involved in the worst stuff the guardians office could dish up. He had no ok for Ot levels and was generally despised. Similar story BryanZwan (sleazy crim broadly despised). Same for Fehbachs. Everyone knew the sleazy stuff they did to make money, deliberately torpedoing start up companies that got over extended a and making millions while workers lost their jobs and companies folded. They were broadly despised too. Almost all the people who are now big mucky mucks were either considered self centered nobodies at best or sleazy crims at worst. The IAS was their savior. For a small percentage of their wealth they could go to being huge heros. They KNOW that everything they have in the Scientology world and a lot of the power they hold over employees comes directly from DM. But they are still the same sleazy crims they were in the past. Skilled and dedicated auditors just can’t make that kind of money. so they are trash and get no ethics protection at all. .So where you once had lots of big orgs and missions and auditors were the kings, now you have orgs that do not even qualify as missions, missions that barely qualify as groups and any sleaze ball with money is a prince. Thank god for Mike and Marty and Steve and all the others who stood up and said NO!
Thank you Roy. I second everything you said. Yes.
Thanks for the data! Flag Org today like Milano those days… wow… I thought so.
Why does Miscavige lie to the press and parishoners?
Because if he didn’t, he would have to tell the truth!
Very astute.
The Church has been churning out these “PRWEB” “RELEASES” and it is gross out PR. As these are PURCHASED advertising and written by the Church itself. The purpose of using PR WEB is to get new customers.
It’s the same as inventing news. There is nothing off limits and you can say anything you want in them. That they even have to go that low is telling to anyone who see the releases they generate.
Where are the people????
I was looking at the Scn Website today. I was looking at the pictures from the inside of the Idle org in Dallas. Something struck me as odd. It took me a min to figure what it was. In the Idle org there isn’t ONE SINGLE PERSON. Not a student, no supervisors, no staff, no people on the cans, no welcome friendly faces, no public sitting round studying, getting in session, drinking coffee NO ONE. The descriptions are all of rooms or areas. IE. Our Cafe welcomes people or Our Information Center or Our Reception Extends a welcome. Then I flipped to the DC video. Once again no people on the video.
In the video descriptions tell how the rooms are equipped to deliver services. No mention of trained auditors, trained supervisors, winning PC’s, happy students. Yes David Miscabbage has made sterile empty buildings. No services will ever dirty those floors.
Sometimes the images of the orgs are just too shiny and perfect for real life. Golden Era Products has some top of the line CAD software for generating those images even before the renovations have started, and that might explain the lack of people in the images. (Mind you, lack of people is a pretty good explanation for lack of people too.)
For the Cambridge org, they had a computer-generated outside image that had Dianetics and Scientology logos that weren’t in the real life pictures. Oops!
These speeches are written for the kool-aide drinking staff and public that won’t read newspapers or do their own investigation – they believe everything they are told. They, themselves, purchased $,$$$ of WTH booklets – but they never went out – they are sitting in basements collecting dust. I mean – come on – like a booklet does anything. How many of us spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on LRH’s stuff and it still did not CLEAR us – so to think a booklet could do anything is just plain hogwash – it is part of the brainwashing the cult does to its members.
I would like to know if someone can help verify what I observed at an Idle Morgue event. I saw the “opinion leader” Mayor speak – he was reading the teleprompter. I was really crushed to see this – I thought – the Co$ is writing their speeches – then found out that members will do special favors for the opinion leaders and then invite them to speak at the grand openings…of course, they write their speeches and tell them to make it easier – of course, they will agree to do it because they just got their back scratched.
This was the beginning of the end for me in the cult – it just did not sit well. I never said anything but I felt the cult was dishonest and caught them in so many lies.
Please verify if you know anything to confirm my suspicions.
BSP — yes, these speeches are written for these people. This started when Aron Mason wrote the speeches for the Buffalo Grand Opening in which the Mayor of Buffalo talked about having a St Hill Size org in his city (still hasnt come close) and has carried on from there. These people really dont know what they are saying, its jsut words given to them to spout…. It was a big flap with Miscavige when Charlie Rangel was persuaded to come to the opening of the NY Org by someone who had worked with him for a long time. He REFUSED to have a speech written for him or disclose what he was going to say. Miscavige wanted to boot him from the event because he was terrified he would say something he didnt like. He was persuaded that this was a really bad idea.
Raindog,
Hi. This is what the insiders lack. They don’t see the actual world outside and they still think that all these great things they caused with their hard work are still in effect. They can not get any news about anything so all they know is what they hear at the event showing. What’s weird though is that I was inside too but I was always wondering what happened to all these wondrous things over the course of 20 years each of which if even partially true would have probably resulted in a cleared planet or something pretty close. You never hear them again and it seems everyone is happy to forget about them and not think like “wait a minute, whatever happened to………” I was always wondering about these and finally I concluded that it was all bull and just PR. Someone should make a list of all these claims for the last 20 years and show that they were ALL nothing but empty hype. I don’t know that this man has ever uttered a true word in his entire lifetime.
Exactly Sets Guy. I was wondering about all this but the tipping point for me was being in my local library in So Cal and going to the Scientology section. It had long been promoted by the C of S that ALL libraries in California were covered. But there in my local library, not only were there not any NEW books but the anti-scn books outnumbered the Scn books. This led me to a search of the data bases in my area. No new books. This led to a search of libraries friends to which friends of mine had donated large amounts of money. No complete sets! No new books! This lead to further searches and you know the rest!
This is a great blog because it is very needed. I don’t think there is anywhere else you can go on the internet where you can get such intensive “debunking” of DM’s and the COS’s lies of all the “wonderful things they do for the world.”
When I was in the decision-making process of leaving the church, I could have used this blog. Sure, there were a lot of helpful blogs which told stories that I needed to know about, but I still could have used something more geared specifically to what this blog is geared to.
What this blog is geared to, more than anything else in my view, is the addressing of the specific things that DM and the church say about the great things they supposedly do, and it picks them apart piece by piece, showing the illogics behind every detail.
When I was in my condition of doubt, I read a lot of horror stories of abuses that went on behind the scenes but, because of my church indoctrination, I didn’t know whether to believe them or not. Part of my indoctrination had been that the church had been doing all these wonderful things, so how could it possibly be true that all these horrific things were happening? I’d ask what about all the Way to Happiness programs and Narconon, and the Volunteer Minister programs improving entire societies.
I didn’t feel at the time that I had a good source of information which proved the falsity of these things, but now with Mike’s new blog, such a thing exists. I would have had a much easier time if I would have had this blog at the time.
Mike, there is another thing I would like to see addressed on this blog sometime if you can. It is the videos on Int events where they give testimonials of supposed VIPs who state great things about the reforms that the church is making in whatever field. These videos would show one person after another, and these people would be very sincere in their communication. When you are on the Kool-Aid especially, and you so much want to hear such great things about what your church is doing, these videos really make you think that there is a great movement happening that the church is spearheading that is changing the world. It is very convincing.
In my opinion, this kind of thing at Int events is probably the main thing that influences people to continue to support DM in spite of all the craziness that goes on which they can see with their own eyes. I feel that when I was in doubt, having this addressed would have been extremely helpful, as it would have more easily removed the reasons to suspect that the horror stories of abuse in the Sea Org was just being made up by SPs to make the church look bad.
Thanks Dave. Appreciate your kind words. This is EXACTLY the reason I started this blog. I want it to be a source of FACTS about what is really going on, so I am glad you feel it is fulfilling this goal.
Good point on the “OL” videos. Most of the peopel that are featured in them are not named, and have made up titles. I will do a post on this sometime. I will exract one of these from one of the events and do a breakdown on it. It’s a bit of work, and I have a lot of backlogged material already, but I will get to it. 🙂
Remind me if you don’t see something over the next few weeks.
Fantastic Mike. I’ll remind you if necessary.
Mike
I too very much appreciate your blog.
For many years, I was involved with Youth For Human Rights in West Africa.
This started in 1996, when I met a young Liberian law student who was studying in the U.S.
His ruin was most obviously the constant state of war in West Africa. So I spent much time introducing him to Scientology.
As fate would have it, upon completion of law school, he returned to his home country and eventually became a very high ranking official in his country.
At one point he had a very strong purpose to bring LRH tech to his country. He introduced Tim Bowles to the vice president of his country. Tim was allowed to do events with the local high schools.
These events were sometimes attended by the vice president,minister of labor, minister of education.
This country had officials who endorsed YFHRI and also vm programs. So LRH vm tech was accepted and actually supported.
I can name schools in that country where they would have used TWTH to educate children. They liked it because it was “non religous”. It would not offend Moslems or Christians. I have personally spoken to teachers there.
I have a thank you letter from a Liberian public official commending the TWTH program. This letter was not solicited from him. It just arrived one day.
To my knowledge none of this reach for help was ever followed up on by the church other than for PR purposes and to raise money for the IAS. Where does all this IAS money go?
Tim Bowles and some vm’s from South Africa did do some very good work though. Maybe at their own exspense? I can send pictures, if you are interested.
I would love to give you a complete debrief of all of this because my observation is that there really is a need for LRH tech. That also is part of the truth.
Thanks very much for pointing out the total falsity of DM’s PR via Kpow, aka Scientology Spokespuppet Pouw.
Their paid PR releases stat has been on the rise to make up for the vacuum of good news emanating from Dave’s world.
What I find really questionable are the subjects of “good news” such as Scn Inc promoting Human Rights. Is this because “The Hole (Scientology)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hole_(Scientology) which is a Dave’s world creation is so out there and totally against any human rights? This topic is a total joke as those working on the videos/films at the Int base do know that human rights don’t exist there.
Hello Sinar
Yes they do know that it’s all false. Their human rights are abolished as well. I just don’t know why they are still there and doing their jobs. I pity the poor sods and I am extremely happy to be gone from that hellhole.
To distribute TWTH in 3rd world countries is a waste of money. How could they follow those precepts if they have no water, no money, no schooling and are hungry. I suggest DM goes himself into the jungle of columbia or to bogota and distributes TWTH ! He’ll see then what people will do with it !
Such a nonsense !
Only the people that are already doing well will have the time to read and love it !
That is so true, Roger From Switzerland.
Some years ago, when the IAS was promoting all this hype about Columbia and that the Army is distributing TWTH to the people, my daughter was traveling by bycicle through Columbia and she always slept by locals and was in communication with the people. she never saw or heard something about TWTH, Scientology or Dianetics ! It’s just non-existent there. If above is true you would have thousands of hits in Google of Columbia:
http://www.google.com.co
If you can’t google it, it’s not true !
Some years ago….my daughter was traveling by bycicle through Columbia…”
That’s one brave daughter you’ve got there. I’ll bet she’s got some hair raising stories to tell.
Hahaha. If you can’t google it it’s not true. How true!
I’ve been reading this drivel for years. I don’t see much change. “Officials” are almost never named, a massive number of TWTH copies are claimed, and a miraculous reduction in crime is also claimed. I’m not sure if the site is still up (Wayback remembers) but several years ago they were claiming that TWTH had brought peace to the middle east. (Seems to be working real well now, don’t it?)
Even if they really printed all those copies (at a massive markup), and had people on the ground to hand them all out, I suspect profit was always the motive.
Here’s the Association for Peace and Understanding in the Middle East site from 2003, with all the nameless enforcements:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030712052402/http://apume.org/results_and_endorsements.asp
Hmm, “Colombia, turbulence of late 1980’s—2,000,000 booklets”, in 2003, and yet a year later, Colombia is “the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere.”
Rick — thanks for this. That’s exaclty the type of research that is invaluable. Comparing their own statements cannot be brushed off with “Oh, its just the small handful of bitter, defrocked apostates being paid by the media/drug companies/psychiatrists to lie about us.”
Another example of using tragedy to hit the members for more donations:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070503055323/http://www.hollywoodinterrupted.com/archives/scientologys_emergency_bulletin_regarding_virginia_tech.phtml
Hmm. Only a dollar a booklet that time. The booklets for Boston have over a 50% price bump from 2007.
This is just a wild guess but could the Freewinds be recruiting new Sea Org personnel directly from or possibly via Colombia?
To a guy or gal from a poverty-stricken Central American country, earning $50 per week for 100 hours per week of labor can sound mighty good. And rice and beans every day would not be a problem either because that is the staple Central America fare. A roof over their head, even if shared with 8 other people in some tiny room, bathroom facilities shared with many others – these would still be an improvement over the conditions under which they live in these very poor countries.
Just a thought…
DM hypes these imagined stats that anyone can easily disprove while the real stats that matter, training and auditing are crashed out the bottom. What a joke!
What was the name of the prison in Mexico that they had supposedly turned into a Scientology safe house. I would love to see how that’s doing these days. The the ethics offices was the worst criminal or something.
I bet if we looked back at all announcements of that magnitude over the years there would be a different story now.
RLR – it was the State Prison at Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. Program established by Rick Pendery.
I believe that, and all other “Second Chance” programs have long since been abandoned and Rick Pendery is avoiding creditors….
Rick Pendery next went to Albuqueque, New Mexico and set up a Second Chance with great fanfare. A few months later they skeedaddled out of town leaving behind bad PR, broken agreements and debts. http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/politics/politics_krqe_albuquerque_second_chance_leaves_city_building_200901242134
My partner and I really disliked David Miscavige when he took over and held that opinion for many years. We would go to events and hear stories like Columbia, which came out first in 2007 or 2008, shake our heads and say well I guess we were wrong he is really doing some great things. Then we noticed that there were never in stories in the AP about crime dropping in Columbia, Provo Utahs success with the Purif, Literacy being obliterated in South Africa, etc. It was astonsihing to realize how many lies were being told and how blantanly false they were.
Yes. Not so nice reviews on Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chance_Program
Joy Westrum OT VIII and Rick Pendery started ‘Second Chance.’ They convinced the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, for support in opening inexpensive drug rehab to inmates of the local jail. The city leased an
old, unused facility to Second Chance, relying on Westrum’s sales pitch.
The Second Chance Program is licensed to use Criminon techniques Criminon is under ABLE.
ABLE is under Church of Scientiology International.
Percentages feed upwards to CSI $$$$
Second Chance is based on the Scientology program, Crimin
Rick Pendery and Joy Westrum were great promoters.
They ended up winning the Medal of Valor !!!!
They persuaded Women Legislators to influce those who prevailed over City Budgets to fork over $$$$$
Joy became a DM Pet !
Much rah rah was broadcast at an “INT” event of the stunning victories in the Second Chance’s promotional website previously claimed tremendous success in an
Ensenada, Baja Mexico prison. The fact is, the program was dropped
and no longer exists Second Chance program is no more.
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/politics/politics_krqe_albuquerque_city_pulls_plug_on_second_chance_200812262319
The Program left employees and the city unpaid to the tune of thousands of dollars.
Joy Westrum vanished, along with county property.
Amusingly, she reappeared a month after the brouhaha in New Mexico in,
of all places, Hawaii. Once again, she was seeking public money for her
new SCAM. Watchdogs from all over the country deluged Hawaiian
authorities with information on Westrum, Second Chance, and the fiasco
in Albuquerque.
Second Chance was rejected. Since then, Pendery and Westrum seem to be
laying low. And where is the Scientology Medal of Valor ? On their mantlepiece ?
Sounds like their main goal in doing this was setting it up so that it could be presented at an Int event, and once that happened, they didn’t follow up to see that it continued to fulfill its purpose. What did Pendery and Westrum do instead of see to it that this facility live up to its agreements, and continue to help people get off drugs. Violation of the Power Formula? I’m speculating but I’m very interested to know even more about what happened and why.
Again, the true intention to HELP was not there but PR seems to have
been the main purpose. Of course money was also stirred into the pot.
It takes willingness and your sleeves rolled up to continue to create.
Maybe their CCH’s were unflat…
Kinda makes one just want to go off and espouse the accuracy of the Tao, rather than confronting, shattering and as-ising the 800 pound midget in the room who blocks the usefull application of Scientology. Next to the overall social injustice movement which he has joined, the midget has got to be the second place roadblock to a better world. No one has claimed that dealing with evil would be easy.
Speaking of Columbia, does anyone remember the Maiden Voyage event where COB bragged about the Columbia Special Forces “carrying NATO weapons” dropping to the deck of the Freewinds and the frogmen checking for limpet mines on the hull? To me this was the first clue that COB might be planning to “go out with a bang.” Check out the coverage in the Scientology New issue that followed:
http://www.carolineletkeman.org/c/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/isn48-the-freewinds.pdf
Good grief! The ship being used for militia training by Columbia? The accomos reg must have had a great week on this sale!
“She’s not only the ultimate distraction-free environment, but she sails in a rare tradition of maritime
excellence and cuts a significant wake in terms of enhancing lives in her latitudes.”……………………………………………….This is their example of ‘distraction free’????????????????
Why don’t they just try to run the Israel blockade of Palestine with a leaked memo of nukes on board?
Mike, great job on the research to contradict this idiotic nonsense! From someone whose job is to do research to demolish bullshit ideas, you deserve high praise. My first thought when I read the press release is that the significant victories over the FARC guerillas would account for a lot of it. With captures of significant portions of the leadership and a dramatic reduction in the number of fighters, that alone could explain a huge chunk of the overall reduction in crime.
Beyond the craziness, there seems to be a lot of interest on the part of RCS towards Colombia. There was that lieutenant in some sort of national police force that won a Freedom Medal a couple years ago. The Freewinds spends a lot of time in Cartagena (part of that I think is for ship repairs as the support machinery in the engine room is probably breaking down all the time). Do you think they are actually having any real success in getting “fresh meat” in that country? Or is there some other purpose. Incidentally, I don’t think that Miscavige is trying to groom Colombia as his getaway destination to escape to when the roof caves in — I think he’s too racist; I think he doesn’t understand the local politics and will be persona non grata; and given the amount of US anti-drug money sent down there in the last 20 years, there are functioning extradition treaties and if Uncle Sam wants Miscavige back they will get him quickly. So I’m baffled and would welcome your thoughts on why they are trying so hard in that particular country.
John,
I believe the reason for this is that they have such an avalanche of “entheta” and such a dearth of good news that they will use ANYTHING.
Miscavige probably blew up when reading the daily press update (that contains clippings of every media story run in the previous 24 hours). He just couldnt take it any more and dictated a bunch of orders to OSA: “Get out a press release every day. I deliver brilliant speeches 6 times a year to the adoring crowds and they contain plenty of good news. I do all the work for you and gather all the information and deliver it with panache and style, and you can’t even promote it. I covered the news in Colombia with WTH — why hasnt that ever seen the light of day? You mean I have to do THAT too??”
And the cowed and ill associates in OSA, robotically transcribe what he said, even though they know its not true, but it would be a death wish to send out something different than that “COB said”, so out pops a moronic “press release.”
This is how things work in North Korea… er Miscavige’s Empire.
MR: Another great mimicking of the sociopathic drivel that erupts multiple times a day and rains down upon the unlucky, cowed and ill juniors he terrorizes daily. The sad part is how accurate your mocked up comms from him are.
I’ve suggested in the past that Miscavige not make any statistical claims (or any claims at all) that are easily disprovable with a quick internet search. In a past Int Event, he claimed that there were Narconon facilities along every major drug trafficking route into the US. That explains the Narconon in Minnesota, and why there are none in Arizona. Took me 15 seconds (used my smartphone while I was sitting in the Int Event!) to disprove that one!
And there’s a new Ideal Narconon slated for Ojai California. Jaime Sommers (The Bionic Woman) must be so proud to live in a town on one of the major drug trafficking routes into the US.
I am so happy that dm with TWTH. Is working tirelessly for us. I can now sleep calmly at night knowing that Columbia is as good as handled. I will now borrow more money, or maybe rob a bank to give money to dm.
LOL
😉
;;;;;;
I am so happy that dm with TWTH. Is working tirelessly for us.
Yeah — why doesn’t Miscavige just drop millions of copies of TWTH from helicopters all over the world? It’s freakin’ MAGIC, fer chrissakes!
The answer is simple. That will cost him money rather than bring him money.
Even simpler….DM knows good and goddamn well that dumping TWTH into a community does nothing whatsoever to drive down crime stats, as he claims, but it sure sounds good at events.
Even worse….the sheeples in the church lap up this drivel, then don’t put two and two together and ask why this isn’t being done planet-wide.
Miscavige/Church events have promoted their self-proclaimed successes with the WTH in Colombia repeatedly at International events over the last decade plus. Would be interesting to get all of their claims on this subject made over the years and compare them to one another. Would also be interesting to know if any official body in Colombia (or anywhere) has attributed any successes in reducing that country’s crime rate to the WTH.