Wonder what happened to this scheme?
Funny how there is so much promotion to collect the money for the “what will happen” and then NO REPORT whatsoever after the fact.
Of course, that is because there is NO RESULT.
But it won’t stop them for the next campaign to lighten people’s wallets….
If they REALLY believed the WTH was going to be beneficial, why not at least just arrange to print them in Brazil for 5 cents a piece rather than trying to collect $1.50 per booklet from people in the US?
Let alone the fact that the IAS could have printed a MILLION COPIES from the proceeds of signing up ONE PATRON.
ONE PATRON = 1 MILLION COPIES for distribution.
Instead, for the same amount of money, Bridge would provide 41,000 booklets (at the BEST DISCOUNTED RATE below).
For the uninitiated — the difference is PROFIT.
Date: Fri, 2 May 2014
From: Patrick Howson <patrickh@bridgepub.com>
Subject: PHOTOS: Police distribute TWTH in Brazil
Hi Xxxxx,
Last week was the deadline for our final shipment by ocean freight. However, due to recent developments on the ground in Sao Paulo, we are being asked for over 90,000 more booklets.
The Bridge representative in Brazil has organized a TWTH training program with the Sao Paulo police department. And as a first action they intend to saturate neighborhoods, shops, markets, schools and streets with TWTH booklets!
Here are the recommended donation amounts, EVERY bundle counts:
2 bundles: $36 USD (24 people helped)
6 bundles: $108 USD (72 people helped)
12 bundles: $189 USD (144 people helped)
24 bundles: $367 USD (288 people helped)
48 bundles: $691 USD (576 people helped)
To give a different amount or by phone, call me directly at (323) 899-1034.
Thanks again in advance for your help on this campaign!
Best,
Patrick
P.S. See the original email and photos below…
________________________________________________________________________
From: Bridge Office, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2014 5:48 AM
To: Patrick Howson
Subject: Good news TWTH in Brazil
Importance: High
Dear Patrick,
Yesterday, I met a Colonel who is going to do a pilot TWTH project. We trained about 50 policemen Friday! See the photos!
Sao Paulo police being briefed on The Way to Happiness
Police assemble to learn about TWTH
Sao Paulo Police with TWTH
Police load up their cars to distribute
Loading up for the first distribution!
The plan is to start distributing the booklets in two different areas of the center of Sao Paulo next Saturday, the 3rd of May. One area has 17,000 people and the other area has 77,000 people.
We would like to saturate these two areas with the purpose to get results in lowering the crime rate.
After that, we want to distribute much more broadly in the World Cup.
In Sao Paulo, there will be 6 games. This stadium will receive 50,000 people per game.
Is is possible to raise donations for us to be able to saturate those two areas described above and the stadiums in Sao Paulo?
Ml, Lucia
Bridge Office
Sao Paulo, Brazil
________________________________________________________________________
As an acknowledgement to you, if you make a donation by the end of this week, we will mail you a limited-edition, foil stamped commendation! Check the links above to make a contribution to this campaign and receive your electronic commendation instantly!
Sincerely,
Patrick Howson
Bridge Publications, Inc.
(323) 899-1034
Love that commemorative edition, foil-stamped commendation. That and $5 will get you a Starbucks coffee, but won’t do anything for you when you are next seated in front of an Ethics Officer for failing to give enough money.
But, it’s a cutthroat world of bloodsuckers. They are like sharks circling in the waters over a drop of blood that has been missed.
While Patrick at Bridge was doing his pitch, here is how the Way To Happiness Foundation promoted THEIR campaign to collect money for Brazil the day before.
HALF THE PRICE of Bridge!
And still a markup of about 15X.
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But give WTH Fdn some credit — they not only undercut Bridge, they made a tougher pitch.
They seem much more practiced at the unique skills required to profit from disaster capitalism.
Here is how they pitched Brazil:
Growing concerns about violence at the World Cup in Brazil
In the Brazilian league this year, police and fans clashed in and outside stadiums at least once a month. In most Brazilian games, anyone with a ticket can sit anywhere in the stadium. Rival fans take up separate sections, and taunting and physical confrontations often erupt where the two groups meet.
On Sunday, hundreds of supporters from first-division clubs Atletico Paranaense and Vasco da Gama charged against each other in the southern city of Joinville on Sunday, exchanging punches, kicks and using homemade weapons in the fight that stopped the match for more than an hour. A police helicopter had to land on the field to airlift a man with a serious head injury.
We need your help!
We want to make the 2014 World Cup in Brazil the safest EVER! We did this at the 2010 Winter Olympics.The Way to Happiness distributed 100,000 books in Vancouver Canada. Officials in Vancouver were stunned as to why the crime rate took a huge plummet during the 2010 Winter Games. The figures showed huge drops in vehicle theft, violent crime, assaults, and property crime compared to February 2009.
We did this at the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. The Way to Happiness distributed 50,000 books in Cape Town. Crime was down 90 percent in central Cape Town during and after the World Cup. Only 172 cases were heard by the specially created World Cup courts, most of them trivial. Many of them involved petty crimes committed by foreign visitors, not South Africans.
With your help we can do the
same at the World Cup in Brazil!
But, as we look back today (fringe internet people may be the only ones that can use a calculator, we are likely also the only ones that look back to see if what was earlier promised came true), the miracles brought about by the WTH at the World Cup in Brazil, even anything about distribution of any booklets seems to have escaped the notice Google. The urgency of getting the Silicon iDeal Org done cannot be overstressed as clearly Google needs desperate help to get their act together as the other two “ideal” orgs in the area have been unable to provide.
If anyone can find anything about this massive distribution spreading calm and happiness across the length and breadth of Brazil — post it in the comments. I did not go beyond the first page of Google search results.
Well stated, insightful comment Kemist!
You know what else goes down during things like the Olympics ?
The number of people in the emergency room.
Does that means Olympics cure people ? Of course not.
This is just the very well known “Bread and Games” effect which has been exploited ever since politics exist.
When people are well fed and have something entertaining to watch they forget the very serious problems around them for a while and are quite calm. It also quite often fills up a huge portion of the news, so that even if you are not amongst the entertained / anesthetized, there is not much you can do to rouse anybody during those times.
The belief in TWTH (or the 10 commendments or any other moral code) as a way to “reduce crime” or “calm people” shows a spectacular misundertanding of human nature and psychology. Every single human has their own internal moral code, independantly and often despite their religion. They have to if they are to live in a minimally cohesive society.
What makes some “criminals” is in most cases justified by circumstances, and whatever moral system you have to sell them doesn’t change anything in those circumstances. Fight inequality and disparity and you’ll have less crime overall. Make the poor poorer to enrich the rich, and you’ll have more crime. If there is no legit way to climb out of crippling poverty, people will take the criminal route. Well fed people sitting in comfortable homes are extremely condescending when they think such things happen because of a lack of moral code, religious or not. Hand-outs of food and such, while necessary to adress basic necessities, don’t do anything against the feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness that accompany abject poverty, feelings which are actually made more accute by a society which shames them for needing that help in the first place. Neither do moral codes, which don’t even feed you.
The difference between my home town, where I have no fear to go out at night anywhere, and Detroit, where I’d be nervous to go in daytime, is that people of my home town have the opportunity to get jobs and an education which allow them to climb up socially no matter who their parents were, the color of their skin, or how rich they are. This perspective is not open to the people living in Detroit. Or Flint.
But facing these things, which show the complete failure of a system, is hard, so that’s why you see those idiotic solutions instead.
Kemist, I don’t wholly disagree that people go out-ethics and become criminal to solve the problem of poverty. That said, how would you account for the many, many desperately poor immigrants who came to America and faced tremendous hardship, no welfare, no job security, only given the dirtiest jobs and lucky to get even those, no getting anything free from the government, severe discrimination (“No Irish Need Apply”), not to mention the children and grandchildren of those blacks born into slavery and all they faced merely because of the color of their skin – sure, some of the Irish went criminal, and some of the Italians aligned with the Mafia, and a portion of the American blacks became violent and dangerous, but the truth is, the vast majority of these people did NOT become criminals, but worked their way out of poverty into the midde class and even beyond. Of course, the drugs proliferating today were not available to them, and, laugh or sneer if you will, there was something called a “work ethic”, and, laugh or sneer if you will even more, they really did believe in something called “The American Dream”, plus they pulled together and helped each other. That’s how they got out of poverty. That’s the only way anyone gets out of poverty,barring going criminal.
You can see the same thing happening today – its been happening since the 70s I think, with the Asians. They loan each other money, they start businesses, they work like crazy, in continual shifts, and one day, you’re writing your rent check to Mrs. Chang or Mr. Ting or some Asian name – Chinese, Korean, etc. People whose parents were up to their knees in rice fields. As for the Japanese, they certainly rallied after we dropped an atom bomb on them. They recovered somehow, took a good look at what we were producing in the USA, copied it, put up with the world’s jeers as re “Made in Japan” while they were still learning, and now they make most things better than we do. Nobody gave them a break either.
I could go on but you get my point.
If anyone has read the Author Services Inc advices from Hubbard, one learns that no income source to get exchange back for some LRH property or product can ever be overlooked!
LRH’s final years urgings to ASI are that they come up with the big ideas to sells his properties and get for ASI and for the pot they were accumulating, the money for the eventual CST/Archives non profit corporation that preserves LRH’s tech for eternity (in the ground, on those stainless steel plates in the titanium capsules in those mult million dollar underground vaults around the US today).
The income source channels to be developed by the churches individually, is the whole Flag Banking Officer ‘bean theory” in the churches.
“Bean theory” : ” ..buy more money made with allocations for expense (bean theory). A small sack of beans will produce a whole field of beans. Allocate only with that in mind and demand money be made.” (Admin dictionary page 46)
I guess that is why IAS regs hand out baskets of food items and so forth, to the Scientologists who donate way more money to the IAS.
IAS bean theory, to their regs, and regs to the donating Scientologists, buys that war chest!
the money making rationale goes all back to LRH.
And the LRH tech in the form of the stainless steel plates, well, we’ll see if those beans in the ground are anything other than Hubbard’s science fiction fantasy that they will someday help some future space people who come back to earth to dig it up!
Obviously Miscavige seems to be leeching too much of the bean return to himself, and that is NOT okay per even Hubbard’s bean theory! (The money wasted so far on the stainless steel plates containing badly edited Hubbard’s writings which have been correct, meaning tons of plates need to be scraped, all wasted.)
Hubbard was just a megalomaniac modern pulp fiction writer turned religion starting con artist, and with his writing skills and people (members) handling skills, he’s pulled the wool over the IRS’ eyes!
I so wish that Mark Fisher and Terri Gamboa and the other ex to Scientology managers who all were living in Las Vegas in the early 1990s had been interviewed by the IRS before the IRS gave Scientology the non profit pass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6ip9X2XwVc
Right Chuck. If it is connected to SCN or Hubbard it is nothing but a money making racket 90% of the time. A safe stable datum to operate from.
You’re WAY to generous, SL4S! I’d say it’s 99% of the time.
“LRH’s final years urgings to ASI are that they come up with the big ideas to sells his properties and get for ASI and for the pot they were accumulating, the money for the eventual CST/Archives non profit corporation that preserves LRH’s tech for eternity (in the ground, on those stainless steel plates in the titanium capsules in those mult million dollar underground vaults around the US today).”
Probably the altered version that is being preserved, David Miscavige’s interpretation of the tech .
Everything they do is an overt product so I would not be too surprised if the stainless steel plates were blank .
If future Space people do DIG UP David Miscaviges
Titanium /stainless steel plates , they will laugh their asses off.
They will will be sold off as weird caveman art for really hip
space guys to impress space chicks , hanging on the bedroom wall of
a space crib. That’s where your Bridge money goes besides PI’s,lawyers,
fancy cars, $5,000. shoes, expensive food around the clock.
“…Officials in Vancouver were stunned as to why the crime rate took a huge plummet during the 2010 Winter Games. The figures showed huge drops in vehicle theft, violent crime, assaults, and property crime compared to February 2009…”
No, they weren’t.
Crime went down because there was a huge influx of tourists (who usually are not criminals) and there was a huge increase in police presence. The same thing happened in Los Angeles in 1984. Even LA’s notorious traffic went away. It was a beautiful two weeks! And Scientology had absolutely nothing to do with it.
You’re absolutely right, Gus! If anything, they just bother people who came to the games. Everything they put out PR wise is make believe.
Would love to hear what FIFA would have to say about CoS using the World Cup to sell their product… They usually get quite snarky about this sort of thing.
I wish they would! BTW, did you want the elevenity billion in cash or is a check ok? I swear it’ll be be good, Draco.
A limited-edition, foil stamped commendation? Seriously? Wow that changes everything, you had me at limited edition – I’m remortgaging the house right now Patrick!
Similar to the story of the staff at AOLA receiving a slice of Pizza. The foil stamped I can appreciate, means the MAA can’t tear it up so easily and is more readily discernible in the Ethics file when one is trying to deflect the MAA away from one’s “real crimes” – like having a Cayman Islands bank account without telling the Regges, but “limited edition”? Is there a quota system or “policy” now for commendations? “Don’t commend them too much – they might feel they can answer back when you accuse them of (non-existent) crimes”.
I recruited Lucia about 10 years ago and set up the Bridge office In Sao Paulo.
The only pluspoint is that Lucia is one of the few actively trying to get some improvement and not off full time regging. I attribute this only to the fact that they are too far away to be messed with by management and can basically get on doing their Dianetic auditing and selling books.
Bridge and COB leave her to this as they can use her efforts to get donations. I was there when the “Calvalcade” with the volunteer minister tents/trucks were being touted at the Int events. The truck broke down shortly after arrival and sit in disrepair for months, as beyond sending video crews from Gold, anything outside of a photo op never got funded.
I sincerely doubt that Bridge is going to ship TWTH to Brazil.
As a comparison.. about six of us from the local Rotary club stood outside a Longs drugstore last Saturday to collect donations for school supplies for kids in the area that don’t have the cash to buy pens, notebooks or a backpack. We raised $4,000 in 5 hours. Everyone had a win.. the people who donated a notebook or cash, the volunteers, and the kids who got to start school with the same gear that everyone else has. So simple. So direct. No video crew. This kind of thing happens every day.
Scientology plays on this same urge to help, but corrupts it in a way that is beyond belief. They are so out of communication with the real world that they believe they are the only ones having any effect, when in fact they have none, outside of trumped up video presentations.
Mark
tHE BIBLE AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR A THOUSAND YEARS AND THE WORLD IS STILL SCREWED UP. i NEVER DID SEE HOW THE WTH WOULD HAVE ANY EFECT EVEN WHEN I WAS ON LINES.
That’s because they’ve NEVER, EVER had an effect handing them out. It’s just something else that people who get have to throw away.
Excited to make my first comment after reading your blog for a long time.
Not to be Captain Obvious but why are we printing anything? Why isn’t this an app or electronic download? In a matter of seconds they could send it to everyone.
on a side note: I hate the C of S because they destroyed my family, my childhood BUT NOT MY FUTURE.
Welcome, Sarita 🙂
Great attitude!
Some churches give away bibles for free. This one charges an arm and a leg. There is no other reason than profit why the “only technology to save mankind” is not officially made freely accessible on the Internet. Profit and domination.
TRUE. I’ve seen it from the bottom of the chain to Int.
I started at Flag recruited at age 14 by Mark Kimura Flag Crew (is that his name?) with my little sister (age 12), worked on the Ballroom when SIPRO was a big deal, traded to CMO, was CO CMO CW’s comm (after Janet Light left for Cheryl Decheff), sent to CMO Int and blew from there sneaking out on “The Run” to Santa Monica for a few days then on a train to Naperville Ill bus to home only to arrive at my house in Columbus Ohio where a Sea Org Member was sitting at our dining room table…ugh.
Put on a plane back to LA so I could route out (I was 16). Tried to route out – no one would do my routing form. I was on the DPF for months forgotten about. Jenny Ramsaur got me into Gold (I love Jenny – she was my most favorite SO Member). I think she had a kid…
What I experienced as a kid – no parent around to have “Family Time” – was unbelievable (and unacceptable).
But I didn’t know any better and really believed living in the wog world would be filled with people on drugs, crime, suppressive people…
If you are reading this and you know me from the past (and you are still in Scientology or the Sea Org) please know: life outside is amazing! There are amazing people everywhere! You should get out and experience this amazing planet and the people on it. Don’t waste another moment believing anything you’ve been “taught”. It’s not true!!
Welcome Sarita! So glad you’re out and enjoying life. Is your mother Mary May of Mary May’s day care that used to be across the street from ASHO? Is she deceased now? I got that from your post title. If so, I’m sorry to hear that. But so glad you got out!
Welcome to the group, Sarita! We’re glad you’re here. You’re a great example of a survivor. Carry on…
Wecome, Sarita, and thank you so much for sharing your story with us!
A Scientology Ap for smart phones
Great Idea,I went to Radio Sh##k and regular phones are almost no more, everything is smart phone.
Sorry, “thou” not though.
I can imagine the investigations one would end up the target of if he were to ask “Hey guys…whatever happened to that whole WTH campaign? Did they get the books? Someofmy family out there said they didn’t see any books….” You can’t question it–you have to believe it.
And when you’re anywhere on the lines of getting that false word out to the sheeple you can’t question the stat “interpretations” you get told to promote. After getting screamed at a few times for allowing the truth to be shown rather than pumped up more impressive info, it was one of the big reasons I escaped. Dishonesty was the name of the game, starting many years ago.
When criminals read TWTH they snicker. They don’t turn around and repent. They think, “The ones who go for this stuff are easy marks”. It’s a cute little book. The important precepts have been around for hundreds of years. And things like “though shalt not go to bed without brushing thine teeth” are not going to stop crime on earth. The effect of handing these things out in droves results in only litter. (Though shalt not litter, Isn’t that a precept)? Time (and $) would be much better spent doing something else!! Unless you want to make a quick buck selling piles and piles of these pamphlets to gullible, well intentioned folks..
Overrun, I respectfully disagree. I like the Way To Happiness. I think its precepts are sound. Of course its not original, so what? They are provenly workable and written in an easy to read, non-judgemental and non-threatening, “do this or else” way.
My objection to the WTH pertains not at all to its messages per or even to its inflated cost, but in its being distributed to wrong publics.
In my opinion, WTH could have a positive effect if it were distributed neither in emergencies to victims of floods, fires, earthquakes, nor to townspeoples in fear, grief and anger over mass shootings or some other tragedy, nor to people in recreation and game mode attending major sports events, etc., but instead, distributed to well fed, well rested, reasonably literate school teens of all nationalities between the ages of 10 and 16, who are NOT PTPd with any major losses or sits, NOT sitting in the middle of any crisis, but rather in a receptive enough state wherein READING something that does not sound religious (“Thou shalt not…”), exacts no penalties for non-compliance (“If thou dost not obey, the wrath of the Lord shall be upon you, etc. etc.”) but rather, something that can appeal to a chlld’s innate common sense and self-determined desire to survive with NO threats of punishment, hell or damnation for not “obeying”, something that is offered (never forced) to the child to read or not read, to use or not use, yes, it is my opinion that the Way To Happiness could and would, do some good, and, yes, possibly even change some lives for the better, if offered in this way and under these conditions. And not only to children, but to well fed/rested/housed/clothed and otherwise unrestimulated and non-hugely PTP’s adults as well.
I believe that the WTH contains basic wisdom that can help a person to help himself, but that person has to be ready, willing and able to read it and understand it, and even then the person will not necessarily cognite right then and there! Such things can take time! That doesn’t mean that what is being communicated doesn’t make sense, or isn’t very good advice.
For example, as an adult, new into Scientology, I read WTH, and skimmed over “Learn to live with the truth” with an inward, bored, “Oh, for sure…” Many years later, experiencing plenty of cognitive dissonance as regards my “religion” I GOT it, I really did. “Learn to live with the truth”, was why I got INTO Scientology, and what I had been striving for all my life, and was why, at that point, I had to leave the Church of Scientology.
Essentially, my point is that WTH is being falsely PRd and distributed to the wrong people.
I LOVE the soccer ball on the cover. Especially since soccer balls don’t even look like that anymore and haven’t since about 1989. Way to keep it current TWTH.
Wow, they really have made progress to only be 25 years out of date (as is their outlook on everything)
I always thought they were stuck back in the 50s. Like the ‘Personality Test.’
It is always about the money. The WTH ‘distributors’ and ‘sellers’ make commission and get ethics protection. The printing plant gets their cut, everybody in the chain gets something, even the ‘donator’ gets the satisfaction ‘helping’ out the less fortunate.
All I see are grifters practicing on each other. Buy my WTH for Brazil, buy my WTH for Ferguson MO, buy my WTH for anywhere…..It all boils down to WTF……
1. TWTH has a limited lifespan in helping (it works only for a week or so, and then the criminals goes back to their usual crazy, murdering, thieving selves) ..
This one seems right .. they may read it once, but then never again ..
They may read it, but I will guarantee TWTH has NO IMPACT whatsoever. LRH’s 21 “steps” are nothing more than watered down versions of the 10 Commandments. I would be willing to bet most people have heard of the 10 Commandments. If they don’t listen to the 10
( brought down by Charlton Heston from the mount in a very dramatic fashion!), they won’t pay any attention to a red headed overweight American wearing an ascot.
The crime in the Olympic Games in 2010 dropped because people had their attention on something positive, fun and free- the games themselves and definitely NOT because TWTH Booklets were scattered around. Wrong source and, again, not a single specific. or facts.
And for 5.00 I prefer to have my Starbuck’s Coffee rather than a meaningless piece of paper called ‘commendation’.
By the way, which other Church commends its parishioner for being duped and ripped off? None in history for sure.
Yes – I almost vomited when I read that line about receiving a commendation. This infatuation with getting commendations is of course simply a usually vain hope that having such in one’s Ethics file will keep the Registrar wolves from the door when one is in deep shit with the MAA. I believe some naive public do think this way – until they get to see the MAA and realize that nobody gives a hoot when they can smell money in lieu of amends – for some Ethics situation that has usually been invented or exaggerated by the MAA or by “new” Church “policy” in the first place!
Hi FP…..you state that you know of no other organization that has produced a more simple moral code……please tell me you see that LRH’s 21 precepts are watered down versions of the 10 Commandments. One could argue the Commandments are ‘more simple’ as there are only 10. LRH took the 10 and convoluted them, as he seemed to do with everything (developing new spellings and his own definitions, or even new words, etc.). Do a side by side comparison and you will see. For some, LRH never bothered to renumber! (#5 Honor your Mother and Father)
Though I do agree with Mike, at face value the pamphlet itself does no harm, it’s just the people collecting money and making outrageous claims (“buy 10mm books and the world will be crime free!”) that creates the real harm.
Who has actually read the 10 commandments or understood them, is more the question. I have never read them and only have a vague idea of what they contain. Unless as a child you went to Sunday School I think most will have never read them and even the probably not. But I don’t get your reason for raising the point – is it just to try and trash something that Hubbard did? No one is contending that the 10 Commandments exist or that some of them will be contained in the WTH. I see no “convolutions” in the WTH either. THE WTH is a straightforward little booklet. It seems you are just looking for any angle to criticize Hubbard and in this as in most other cases the argument is baseless and opinionated.
The payment factor etc was already covered by me in my comments and by others.
Mike, With all this craziness you have to read everyday, how do you keep your sanity? Do you ever feel like you have more than done your part and want to just take your family to The Bahamas, lay on the beach and pretend this entire nightmare never happened? 🙂 You are doing a great service. As a never-in, these reports make my head spin like the girl in The Exorcist!!!
Ann — thanks. Yes, I think about it often….
Yea. Me too, Mike. Why do we care anymore? I’m glad you’re still hangin in there, however. Every little bit helps and I want my son back.
You said it Wendy! And I want to know if the booklets were even distributed? Maybe they sat in a warehouse instead.
They may never have been printed.
I can imagine the scenario whereby the money that WAS collected was urgently needed to pay the rent/utilities/commissions or something. So, it had to wait until it could make it through FP for disbursement. By the time they got that worked out, the World Cup was over so “why bother sending them the money now?”
ANd if they DID print any, they were handed out and the VAST majority ended up either in the nearest trash receptacle or on the ground. Giving someone somthing to read when they are going to watch a game is about as useful is handing a bicyclist a crossword puzzle.
Money Funnel Theory>
You Funnel as money into your pocket for no other purpose
than personal wealth. Claim that it helps everybody, saves the Wold, cures diseases
anything but never do that as the game would end. Perpetuate the ruse with lies
on top of lies,find new venues, exploit new public, never let on there was no original intent do do anything but get rich.
couple of typos, not bad for first cup of coffee today.
as much money, to do anything but get rich.
After four cups of coffee before noon and trying to convince a close client to increase her bottom line I’m ready for a vacation in the mountains.
Agree Jose. Perhaps the “harm” that passing out the booklet does is that it misrepresents the cherch as benevolent, and if the receipt of the booklet causes one to get involved with it (which is the intended purpose of the booklet, after all) and become a Scientologist. Then the deeper they go, the higher probability that they will lose all their money and feed the money-gobbling, human-rights-abusing monster whose present purpose appears only to preserve and perpetuate itself.
I did a quick Google search on the crime stats in South Africa when the Soccer world cup was here in 2010. Indeed the crime rates dropped dramatically during the World Cup in many areas of the country, and then promptly rose again when the final whistle blew. I have two theories:
1. TWTH has a limited lifespan in helping (it works only for a week or so, and then the criminals goes back to their usual crazy, murdering, thieving selves).
or
2. When a country has a huge international event the local authorities pump up the volume of police on the beat, AND secondly, a lot of criminals probably enjoy the soccer and are too busy watching TV to go out and commit crimes. I was working in Cape Town during the Rugby World Cup final in Cape Town in 1996. I drove home from work that afternoon and the streets of downtown Cape Town were EMPTY. Most people were glued to the TV. (If you watch the movie “Invictus” you will get an idea of the level of sport enthusiasm in SA).
Of my two theories above, I think it the second one that is more likely to be the cause of reduced crime stats. Its FIFA who deserves the credit for reduced crime stats, not TWTH.
That is not to say that I don’t appreciate the value of the principles of TWTH, but the CoS is using A=A logic to dupe and guilt the members into buying bundles of books so they can make a tidy profit and show good stats for the week. Hmm… maybe it would help if they would read TWTH and take the principles to heart.
Back in April this year the Back-in-Comm blog did an extensive article on this very subject (using Cape Town and South Africa hosting the world cup as an example of the good works done by TWTH). The stats reported by the Church were lies.
Firstly, the booklets handed out were not Way to Happiness, they were Anti-Drug booklets, and the city they were handed out in was Durban – a result of an IAS grant for 140,000 booklets to be handed out.
None of the South African Scientologists were aware of this “amazing feat” in Cape Town – because it didn’t happen!
The statistics claimed were also false – there were “special courts” set up during the World Cup time, and although these stats were “good” by South African crime rate standards, the overall crime rate actually WENT UP in 2010.
All the facts, figures and sources were cited in the article:
http://backincomm.wordpress.com/?s=another+game+another+lie
Sorry to interject the obvious…but, all this brouhaha about the WTH producing a “calming effect” on the population was an idea propagated by LRH. As always, he was never asked to produce ANY evidence supporting this claim; it was simply taken as “truth”.
The cherch ALWAYS will capitalize on any good effect that may coincide with the distribution of WTH booklets, and claim responsibility for it. In short, the whole idea is preposterous. The price of petrol also went down during this time; is it because of the WTH? How about the weather? Unusually pleasant weather during the World Cup = WTH booklet. Nonsense.
The cherch and many Scnists (indy or otherwise) BELIEVE in the WTH delusion. These people BELIEVE in unproven, unverified, unvalidated cause and effect. Its all magical flows in the theta universe or postulates…blah, blah, blah. The cherch knows this and capitalizes on it at every opportunity. Scnists have been trained to believe in things contrary to reality.
Why do we even consider this a subject for discussion or serious consideration?
The same phenomena, in fact it was circulated that the crime rate in Portland went down to zero
during our protest marches in Portland in 1985. Of course one never saw any actual statistics.
It sure made one FEEL GOOD to create such an effect, especially as we were on the RPF.
Now in view of the current data even that has to be dumped to being gullible!
Greta
Good point. The critical thinking skills you describe should be taught in all schools to combat the tendency towards magical-thinking which permeates this society. If people studied real science they would find that it has looked at correlations of all kinds and has not found anything “magical” yet. And obviously correlations say nothing about causation. If they did then drinking milk as a child causes heroin addiction.
If any Scnists with “OT powers” want to win a million dollars, then be tested by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Nothing magical or supernatural has ever been empirically demonstrated yet by anybody. Chris Shelton has some good articles over on his site on the subject and how it relates to Scnists.
Because as far as I am aware no other organization has produced such a simple straightforward moral code which at least gives some of the people who read it pause for thinking about things. The main point here was the Church’s profiting from it and perhaps making claims for its effectiveness which cannot be readily established. There is nothing wrong with the book or distributing it.
Agreed Foolproof. There is nothing wrong with the booklet itself. It may be simplistic. It may not be original. It may not be the greatest work of philosophy in history. But it is certainly not harmful to anyone or anything.
Because the cherch does, statpush. But I’m with you. This booklet is so juvenile. Like wogs don’t know they should brush their teeth or not murder someone.
I mean in the right hands it’s a nice gesture to remind people of things they already know. But TWTH is BS in my mind. A rouse to say to anyone that has’t heard any shit about Scientology that maybe Scientology is a group of people that give a shit.
At this point anyone still in is busy withholding what money they have left and their “WTF?!” thoughts about the c of s.
They were still watching the RWC final in 1996? Now that shows dedication.
Bill – no, the date I gave was wrong – it was 1995. I am not a rugby fan, which is probably why I got the date wrong – but I do remember driving down Long Street in Cape Town while the final was on, and seeing not another car nor human being. It was surreal!
Statpush – for me the debate is worth it for the benefit of those who are still under the influence, but looking and wondering. And oh yes, its also for OSA who monitors this site. Wouldn’t it be great if they eventually saw the truth and stopped obeying insane orders /stopped listening to him? I wonder if they know how much power they have as a group, and just stood up to it before it all collapses beneath them. Well, I can dream….
Regarding the use of TWTH in society. I think the principles will not move the way society thinks in Europe, US and Britain. I live in a country that has produced highly successful businessmen, doctors lawyers, human rights activists, etc and yet at the opposite side of the spectrum there are those who kill without remorse or second thoughts, those who consider lying to be OK as long as you don’t get caught, those who would not know what to do with a toothbrush, and so on. Religion (mostly Christianity) has been a key factor in educating and “civilising” southern Africa along the lines of the morals contained in WTH. Some consider this to be colonialism, and hate it yet, even worse, was apartheid (which is a form of disconnection) and was the key factor in suppressing the natural evolution of a cohesive society with a defined set of values. Morals and socially acceptable behaviour is something that needs to be taught at primary schools – not at sports functions with people who have money to buy a ticket to a game. They are not the ones who need it. The CoS sales pitch is a means of making money. The only “help” that is on this scene is the ability to press the members “help” button to pay up.
Mike, 1.50 doesn’t seem so awfully much to me for a little booklet. That’s what one pays at the shops for a blank notebook that size. You, on the other hand, are saying it could be produced for a lot less. What is that based on?
Cost of paper.
Remember that the paper manufacturer who make the paper you buy at the store has to actually pay their workers a WAGE as well as HEALTHCARE, TAXES etc. As does the store you buy the paper from. The $1.50 the store charges you is the maximum they can charge while still allowing everyone in the chain to make a small profit. CoS has it’s own manufacturing and distribution chain and NONE of the overhead built into the cost of their final product that the regular manufacturer/distributor has. The cost of raw material is a negligible amount in the whole scheme, probably less than 5% of the final cost. It has to be or no one would be able to make a profit bc the final product would be too expensive for the consumer. That equals huge profits for CoS vs razor thin profits for the grocery store and manufacturer.
Meja, all the printing machinery and materials are done in-house at Bridge Publication’s manufacturing division by Sea Org members who are paid (at most) $50 a week. There is a crew of about 30-40 of them who work 24/7 (literally there are two shifts to keep the presses running all day and night). All of the materials (ink, paper, staples) are purchased in huge bulk quantities by the cheapest vendors to keep costs at an absolute minimum for the Church. Printing is done easily by just a few of these personnel with most of the processes being totally automated. This removes the biggest cost for expenditures of this kind, which is paying for the labor of trained professionals. The Church pays peanuts for this whereas anyone else has to pay quite a bit.
I know all of this because I worked on that line for 8 months. We were told all of it was put there because they were sick of “wasting money” paying professional printers to print what they considered sub-standard products with ink smears, bad binding, etc. But the real truth is that now that it’s all in-house, any errors can be blamed on Sea Org members who can be severely punished for any mistakes in the process. Money is not really any object for the Church. They can afford to pay millions out for printing anything they want in whatever quantities they want. It merely feeds Miscavige’s ego and the Church’s internal PR machine to tell its parishioners how awesome their printing facilities are and how dedicated he is to producing only the very best for all Scientologists everywhere.
Thanks Chris.
A ream of BOND paper bought at Office Depot will cost you $3 — it would be enough to print 20 WTH booklets. And they are printed on much less expensive paper, some form of newsprint usually (“to keep costs down”). And when bought in bulk, it is FAR less expensive than bond paper. These days it is probably purchased from China.
Well Chris, that answered that question very well. Well done. The truth always “dead agents” supposed discrepancies or attempts at derailing a thread (or simply causing Dev.-T). If Meja is an IAS member I suggest he should donate vast sums of his money as he is so concerned about all this. All Registrars please feel free to contact him.
If $1.50 seems to be in good exchange then I
would ask how many have you purchased?
Folks like you are what keep this merry go
round alive and well.
With a bit of research and inquiry you can
get answers to your simple question as opposed
throwing them at Mike.
Unless of course that was your intention.
Meja, you realize shops sell things to make a profit. Profit for the store, profit for the manufacturer of paper, ink, etc
Everyone involved in the chain (from the pulp to the final product) produces in order to make profit. Is the Co$ a for-profit enterprise? Not to mention what everyone else mdntioned, the Co$ can make these for much less than $1.50 each