You're missing out on something. Now the Scientology public will be
queueing up to pay $10,000 for this RPF "ethics" rundown as part of the
SuperPower Rundown.

Roland
--
"I notice that we all believe that Venus has a methane atmosphere and
is unlivable. I almost got run down by a freight locomotive the other
day -- didn't look very uncivilized to me." - L. Ron Hubbard,
"Between Lives Implants" lecture, SHSBC #317. 23 July 1963.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~xemu/rams/Venusloc.ram

Isn't it a little funny that your concept of slave labor covers something where

the people involved spend 1/2 of their day doing study and counseling that
other staff members only get to spend a little bit of each day on, but this
activity is the most popular activity for all staff to do, one of the main
benefits of being a staff member of the church

and

the other half of the day involves manual labor such as gardening, repair work,
sweeping up, etc, all activities which are permitted, and even sought out, in
society generally by teenage job seekers and others such as immigrants without
any objection by regulatory agencies of the state.

Perhaps you also think having to wait in line for a meal consists of starvation
torture, offering someone an unpadded chair to sit on is buttock torture, and
so on.

Your general recitation of horrors indicates that at various times substandard
conditions have been the case for RPF staff members.  As to the credibility of
the rest, one should simply consider the source, which appears to want to boil
down to a few tales of substandard conditions and rude treatment what makes up
several decades of various experiences under various management done by
thousands of people who all have DIFFERENT experiences of the RPF.

=  The a.r.s. prime directive: Make Jokes About Scientologist's Deaths=

Example, regarding Attorney Moxon and his UNFORTUNATE loss:   "Maybe he
believes there are no underground transformer vaults in Europe."  (JB
Lingerman)

Na, he's just looking for a cut-price one so his son can do the
Transformer Vault Rundown on the cheap.

Roland
--
"I notice that we all believe that Venus has a methane atmosphere and
is unlivable. I almost got run down by a freight locomotive the other
day -- didn't look very uncivilized to me." - L. Ron Hubbard,
"Between Lives Implants" lecture, SHSBC #317. 23 July 1963.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~xemu/rams/Venusloc.ram

news:20010318040244.19101.00001923@ng-co1.aol.com...

Kymus-

please.  The above working conditions you describe were SOUGHT OUT by the
people you describe.  Not forced upon them as punitive justice.  The course
work you describe is not typically the material a scientologist wants to
study, but KSW materials, Command Chain materials, and Ethics issues.  They
are subjected to Sec Checking under duress.  They CANNOT LEAVE.

Surely you can see that this is a human rights violation?  If not slavery,
it is imprisonment and psychological torture, accompanied by total
disconnection from their families and friends.  Almost enough to induce
first circuit shock, sometimes actually passing that threshhold.  Would you
condone this?

kgb
rocks...@hotmail.com

On 18 Mar 2001 09:02:44 GMT, kymus2...@aol.comnospam (Kymus) wrote:

Yes, one of which resulted in a multi-million dollar judgment against
them.  The treatment doled out in the RPF was found to be more than
"rude."  It was found, frankly and unequivocally, to be illegal and to
justify a large financial penalty on the perpetrators of these illegal
actions.

"  Nonetheless, setting these problems aside, the fundamental problem with
Scientology's argument is that we already have applied this "heightened
scrutiny" to the activities for which Scientology claims constitutional
protection.  We found those activities did not qualify as "voluntary
religious expression" or in some instances did not qualify as "religious
expression" at all.  (See Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology, supra, 212
Cal.App.3d at pp. 891-899, 260 Cal.Rptr. 331.)  We already subjected
these activities to "heightened scrutiny" and found them to lack
constitutional protection under the free exercise of religion clause.
Consequently, there is no reason to subject them to another round of
"heightened scrutiny" in order to determine whether they are immune from
punitive damages.  The reason for "heightened scrutiny" of the punitive
damage award evaporated with the finding the acts themselves were not
constitutionally protected.
  Alternatively, even if we follow Scientology's request and subject the
punitive damage award in this case to "heightened scrutiny" we arrive at
the same conclusion as when we subjected the acts themselves to
"heightened scrutiny."  There is a compelling state interest in punishing
and deterring this constitutionally unprotected, harmful conduct just as
there is a compelling state interest in compensating the victims."

Brainwashing in the RPF is simply illegal, not constitutionally protected,
does not constitute "voluntary religious expression" and in many cases
does not constitute "religious expression" AT ALL.

ptsc

What you describe might be true of some people's RPF experience, and I have
heard a few credible stories of people being actively physically detained in
the RPF - Stacy Brooks for instance.  I believe the bulk of RPF staff have
remained due to moral constraints and not physical restraint.  They are in the
first place Sea Org members, a status they sought out with an understanding
that it would become central to who they are and how they spend all their
available time, indicating a preexisting high level of commitment to their
faith and to enduring harsh conditions and meager rewards to promote it.  They
are in the second place able to avoid the RPF by leaving the Sea Org, and at
least grudgingly acquiesce to RPF membership. You forget that few Scientology
facilities are located outside urban areas, the RPF is working on grounds of
major Sea Org facilities and can easily leave the grounds if that is what they
choose, though they would face punitive treatment if they left and tried to
come back.  There appears to be some exception regarding the Gold base, though
even there it is hardly a prison camp, just slightly more rural and subject to
temptations to commit acts of detention or intimidation.

No, I don't see that.  Staff membership in the Sea Organization is founded on
consensual relationships that terminate when the person wishing to terminate it
decides.  Consent eliminates violation.

RPFers have family time like other staff, are not imprisoned, and are not
psycholoigcally tortured by RPF activities to any greater extent than they are
psychologically tortured by the fact of existing in an apparently pointless
universe filled with suffering, i.e. suffer the common human condition, or by
undergoing counseling which exposes one's flaws and penetrates and defeats
one's illadaptive defenses, in the manner some psychotherapy does.  If reality
therapy, gestalt, psychoanalysis, etc. are all torture then I'd accept that the
RPF is too.  Since their Sea Org membership, a necessary precondition to  RPF
membership, is their own chosen response to the uncomfortable fact of being
alive, in an effort to make living in it not hopeless and needlessly painful, I
don't see how it should be described as torture.

Why are you trying to argue to deprive some people's capacity to choose their
religion and manner of affiliation with it based on a psychobabble accusation
that lacks good evidence, being based on a biased take on a nonrepresentative
sample of a subculture?  That's a Scientology tactic to take an instance
without questioning if it is representative and fashion a specious theory about
it and call all that proof of something.  Why are you coming up with your own
variation on it?

There are distinctly specific instances where RPF members have been abused.  I
have seen or been subject to the same abuses or worse in public schools, health
care institutions, workplaces, etc.  In each case the remedy is particular to
the case rather than being in a campaign to simply label the entire institution
with Nazi-laden imagery.

Granted, I have never been on the RPF but I've known those who have and seen it
up close.  There is no representative depiction of the RPF as "slave labor
camps" that is founded on anything but hysteria and venom.  I agree that it is
tragic that some people have had wrongful acts committed against them in the
RPF and believe these specific instances merit legal redress.

=  The a.r.s. prime directive: Make Jokes About Scientologist's Deaths=

Example, regarding Attorney Moxon and his UNFORTUNATE loss:   "Maybe he
believes there are no underground transformer vaults in Europe."  (JB
Lingerman)

I take it you are being on such good behavior in your posts because of all the
/. newcomers.

If you are trying to get me to credit the testimony of the case you cited to
evidence the activities complained of, you may have an uphill battle.  Most of
the punitive damages in that case can be probably be attributed to nonRPF
events to the extent they were legitimate punitive damages.  The plaintiff was
no angel, either.

Only expression constitutes expression, of course, but the amount of slack you
get on that has a lot to do with how favorably society regards your religion.

If you are claiming there was a finding of "brainwashing" in the case you cite,
I wish you'd to point it out.

And anyway, I just *love* the way people around here cite judges as if judges
are fantastic experts on matters psychological.  Apparently they get some kind
of condensed course in psychological diagnosis in judge school that allows them
to toss around loaded language of diagnosis and intuit which are true
psychological theories, etc. Hey, here's an idea: shitcan all the psychology
departments of universities because judges have it figured out which of the
psychobabble theories are true.

The way I see it, when a judge foams at the mouth using loaded psychobabble
language to condemn some activity or person it indicates bias on the part of
the judge and lack of a solid case that can be put in plain language.  These
are deficits in flaming bigots of the bench a.r.s. critics love to cite, not
virtues.

What did that case you cite have to do with brainwashing?  Brainwashing, being
a specious psychobabble theory method of labelling education of people that you
disapprove of the contents or results of, may or may not exist, but what did
that case have to do with it???

=  The a.r.s. prime directive: Make Jokes About Scientologist's Deaths=

Example, regarding Attorney Moxon and his UNFORTUNATE loss:   "Maybe he
believes there are no underground transformer vaults in Europe."  (JB
Lingerman)

news:20010318111733.07138.00001524@ng-cp1.aol.com...

Where would these people go?  They have no money, no clothes, no food, and
all of their friends are organization members.  Where is the support base to
escape Flag?  Hitch-hike?  Where?  Lose your bridge for eternity?  After so
much hard work already under the bridge?

You are probably right that there is little physical restraint used,
although I practically had to knock my E/O out to get past her when I was
taking flight.  Now she acts like I was expelled, but really they were
pleading with me up until my last day to figure out some solution other than
dropping my hat.  However, I was near my parents houses, and could easily
hitch-hike home, or they would have come and gotten me.

The SO specializes in hard-selling the idealist which volunteer for service,
totally unwitting about the deception and fraud they are subjecting
themselves to.  Yes, they know there will be long hours, and that they will
be called upon to give their life in a good cause, if necessary.  But they
are told they will be the elite of scientology.  Only SO can be Class XII.
There are many SO only training actions, and I assume the same is true on
the processing side of the bridge (I have never heard of gang-bang
sec-checks on Class IV [V now?] org staff or public).  You get the snappy
naval uniform, the chance to work on the Ship, or the Mecca of Technical
perfection.  You could get trained up to be part of the Universe Corps esto
team when the org you came from goes Saint Hill (I'm still holding my breath
on Boston).  You are trained that there is no more important or ethical
activity that you could engage in, for the next billion years.  And when you
arrive?  Rice and beans.  Bad teeth.  No medical attention.  Exhaustion.
Tone 40 Control techniques.  Almost as if the SO were specifically designed
to dishearten idealistic scientologists.  Ruin self-esteem.  The job you did
is NEVER good enough, unless stats are 5.4x, while OSA keeps foot-bulleting,
prices keep rising, staff and public keep leaving.  It is so bleak that you
think, with all this tech, I must be the problem.  And you might search
yourself, introverting for years, and never find the awful thing you must be
hiding, even from yourself.  I JUST COGGED.  HOLY SHIT  :)     They were
deliberately creating the missed withhold of nothing phenomena.  Alienating
me from myself!  All that time, I bought it.  Anyway, I am sure this same
bit happens to lots of staff, which is why they are always so downtone about
what's going on with their own pursuits.  They are failures!  Just look at
the orgs!  Look at the fucking 35 dollars that is your paycheck.  It almost
makes me want to cry, thinking about it.  I make that much in two hours,
these days, and have plans to make it in one.  In a society that measures
success by how well you stack up against the Jones', how do you think these
people feel.  And they work so bleeding hard...   Too bad really.   If they
weren't adults, the things done to them, wittingly or not would be
considered neglect, mental abuse and cruelty, and they would become wards of
the state.

Consent given under fraudulent claims and misrepresentation of the actual
situation?

Life is not hopeless and needlessly painful.  Its a pissing good time when
you get the people away from you that drag you down, discover something
valuable about yourself and begin exchanging it with the wider MORE ETHICAL
world outside the Church.  In fact, just having to point that out to you
gets me kind of depressed.  I might have to go have a beer, some good food
at 30 dollars a plate, and contemplate how narrowly I avoided serfdom to the
Church.

I am not arguing to deprive people of their religion, or anything else.  You
are representing as if the SO were forthcoming about the actual stats on
scientology to their applicants, that they are told the truth about actual
conditions, that they are aware of the actions of their organization-  in
short, as if it were bound by workplace laws, subject to any kind of
oversight from unbiased parties (and Ron ensured that Scientology would
never consider ANY outside party unbiased or able).  They are deceiving
people, which is why they need the hard sell, and why staff members are
afraid of SO missions, why public disappear when the SO arrives.  I never
got it, because I was an idealist, and thought that maybe the other people
around me had compromised their own integrity so severely that they could
not see the opportunity working for the SO was.  Backwards.  They all saw,
clearer than myself, that the SO destroys orgs with their "helpful"
missions, that cost the org about ten thousand dollars per day, that there
were things being done that average scientologists didn't agree with but
certainly did not want to confront management over, due to concerns about
loss of bridge, disconnection, etc.

There is not a global policy covering the institution of this abuse in the
other cases you are thinking of.  The Church doesn't have isolated
incidents, where this happens as an accident, it is all there in red/green
on white.  Or in SO mission orders, as the case may be, although these are
probably destroyed after a sensitive, possible out-pr outcome.  The
"isolated incidents" don't happen by some dude getting up and acting on his
own- NO.  It happens because some dude applies POLICY, because he is a
fanatic who has lost sight of his own decency due to exhaustion,
malnutrition, Tone 40, "ethics", sec checking.  The real reason an SO member
doesn't leave isn't because he is necessarily afraid of reprisal, but
because he is afraid he would have to admit that he had slid down a slippery
slope of increasingly betraying his own internal compass, and mortgaged his
awareness to the "greater good" of scientology INTERNATIONAL, which he is
continually lied to about.  GIGO, buddy.

...

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