More Interesting Times.

I suppose some of you have read the Sunday Saint Petersburg Times feature on David Miscavige. He’s the head mucketymuck of the Scientologyt  organization. Chairman of the Board is what they call him or the acronym “COB.” COB is more than apt because, according to the Times piece, he beats his staff members. This according to the Times is based on several high level defectors from Scientology , apparently, according to the Times, he’s got a nasty temper and uses a management style right out of Joe Stalin’s playbook.

That’s not really news to anyone following this little teapot tempest, Miscavige’s comical rages and predilection to violence have been a persistent rumor for years now.  I don’t remember when I first hear about this, five years ago? Ten? Seeing this story sitting on my driveway was…different! I’ve been hearing that something like this has been brewing for a few weeks now. They certainly didn’t disappoint!

Scientology responded in their usual ham-handed way. Their pet spokesperson Tommy Davis tried to say that it was all lies, that they never had a chance to respond (other than the three months the Times reporters gave them, other than the eight hour rebuttal sessions where reporters were blocked from leaving the room by a hoard of people trying to tell them that Miscavige would never –ever –ever hit any one.

“After eight hours, when reporters readied to leave, church spokesman Tommy Davis brought in nine senior members of the management team. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the exit and insisted they be heard. Marc Yager, Guillaume Lesevre, Ray Mithoff, Mark Ingber, all said Miscavige never struck them.”

Actually Tommy Davis rebuttal makes him sound like a complete lunatic!

Do you really think I’m making this up?

Then…THEN  he informed the Times reporters that it was the DEFECTORS who beat up people and it was Miscavige who, when he wasn’t saving little birdies had to go in  and DISCIPLINE this nest of vipers abusing his staff. (Marty Rathbun) “he’s a bastard and a coward, and he’s psychotic… psycotic!” exclaimed Tommy Davis during a calmer part of his rebuttal.

Sheeze! A simple “f%& you  no – comment” would have been 1000 times more effective. They might as well have signs around their necks which say “I CANNOT tell the truth!”

One really interesting thing about the Times piece is they publish excerpts from the Defector’s PC folders. Now a PC folder is a record of a Scientologist’s confessions. They get hooked up to their lie detector thing (which just measures electrical resistance like an electrician’s volt-ohm meter,)  Then they are asked all sorts of leading questions. like “do you have any bad feelings about our glorious leader?”  Supposedly a skilled operator can tell if a person is lying, I think you could fool such a device in any number of ways. But people are forced to confess their “crimes” and make up some if they can’t think of any.

Those PC folders are supposed to be confidential, so how did the Times get them?  Tommy Davis the Scientology spokesperson provided them to discredit the defectors! “Now they say the defectors are trying to stage a coup, inventing allegations so they can topple Miscavige and seize control of the church.”

One really funny thing is, there is a rumor going around that Scientology was so alarmed by this feature that they’ve had people going all around Tampa Bay buying up every issue of the Times they could get their hands on. I’ve looked around a bit and yes, all the Sunday edition of the Times are sold out. Having some experience in the newspaper business I can tell you that some circulation manager is rubbing his hands together in glee right now.  I can say that I did find one box with papers in Largo -  just one!. I drove by around 25 empty ones to find it.

I went to the World Protest Scientology day on Saturday, it was rather small, only about a dozen people showed including a couple of gents from Sarasota who didn’t seem to fit the “anon” type, they were both very overweight, did not protest and were going on and on about PIs and Scientology members with cameras. I told them that after the first couple of protest the Flag people were more or less leaving the protesters alone. They seemed disappointed.

However this small group made one sortie in the blazing Florida heat. They marched over to Ft Harrison and Gulf to Bay, then waved at the beach traffic and listened to the love in the form of blaring car horns. Flag hired a couple of Clearwater’s finest to make sure the Anons didn’t rob a bank or something.  We spoke with one of them who was pretty concerned that we had enough water (there were several cases.) He told me that Clearwater has several thousand Bosnians living here now and they were a bigger problem than Scientology.

One lady made a point to chew the group out saying they didn’t understand the word “cult” and they should look it up. “All religions are cults” she said.

That’s a pretty typical response here in Clearwater; most of the Scientology folk are angry about the protests but can’t seem to come up with an effective retort. Sure all religions are cults if you are not a member. If you are a member of a cult, you don’t think you are in a cult. So what?

***

Downtown Clearwater is quiet tonight; the usual people are hanging around Starbuck’s. Some Bosnian ex-patriots, some fellow pretending to read the paper. There are a few Sea Org and Flag staff marching by, I’m seeing a few dozen, never the groups of two hundred or more like I used to see.
I’m starting to get an end-game feeling. I can’t predict what the future is going to hold for this town. I’m sure it’s going to be interesting.

It usually is.

Popularity: 2% [?]