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Clearwater Sandwriters (Mention of $cn)

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Feisty

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May 1, 2003, 2:25:50 AM5/1/03

Some local news and comments re: city gov't and officals.

http://www.clearwatersandwriters.com/id31.htm

(excerpt from site)

Another Clearwater group has come within the past few years to play a key role
in elections--Scientology. In 1975, Scientology made Clearwater's downtown its
world headquarters. For years city commissions and the Times treated
Scientology as if it were a latent al Qaida masquerading as a religion and
gobbling up downtown real estate into an untaxable black hole. And, apparently,
for good reason. In the early 1980s, "11 high-ranking Scientologists were
arrested and convicted for conspiring to steal documents from federal offices in
Washington." Closer to home, "the FBI seized documents that detailed
Scientology's elaborate plans to mute opposition in Clearwater by smearing its
local enemies and infiltrating the city's major institutions with undercover
operations" ("Aungst looks to mend city, Scientology relations," Mar. 21, 1999).

The "body snatchers" could already be in place. Imagine if Aungst were one.
How would we know? Out of uniform, Scientologists don't look any different from
anyone else. The prospect of a surreptitious invasion is so scary to some that
at one of the neighborhood meetings on the Master Plan, one woman, worried about
her children, called them "Silentologists." Her error, though accidental, was
appropriate, based on the FBI reports.

The city and the Times adamantly insisted that Scientology was not a religion.
We have read some of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's books. We understand
that Unitarians debate the existence of God. In his writings, Hubbard seems to
accept it. Any any rate, the IRS classified Scientology as a bonafide religion,
and it's ruling trumped the city's claim. The death of member Lisa McPherson in
1995 brought criminal charges of abuse and practicing medicine without a license
and a national media scandal. And so it went until the "Great Communicator"
Roberto "opened lines of communication with the church's Los Angeles-based
leader David Miscavige and included Scientology for the first time in talks
about downtown redevelopment." Roberto ushered in a "new era of cooperation"
("Scientologists lend support to Roberto," Times, Aug. 19, 1999).

We have no idea how many Scientologists reside in the area, since the U. S.,
unlike Germany, has made no effort to study (much less expel) this group, but
clearly the number is in the thousands. In 1999, the Times reported
Scientology's leader Miscavige as estimating that "there are 10,000
Scientologists in Clearwater and surrounding communities" ("Aungst looks to mend
city, Scientology relations," Mar. 21, 1999). Not wanting to alarm
non-Scientologists, he probably tendentiously underestimated the church's
presence. All told, Scientologists may constitute more than 10 percent of the
city's population today, and they likely are the fastest growing segment. We
don't know their income status, either, but from what we do know we would guess
that a very large percentage of their local population is in the upper income
bracket. From what we have read, the cost of their "treatment" is so expensive
that one has either to mortgage his home or be wealthy to become a "cleared"
member. Scientologists also own many thriving businesses in the area, although,
again, little is known about exact numbers and kinds of businesses.

Does Scientology need to infiltrate Clearwater's government to take over? No.
It appears to differ from other churches in its political cohesiveness. This
cohesiveness may be partly due to the fact that the church was virtually under
siege for 25 years, during which time its members must have acquired an
exaggerated sense of "us against them and them against us" mentality. Certainly
the uniforms tend to accentuate "we-they, us-them" thinking. As commander of
such a unified organization, Miscavige would obviously have considerable power
to direct the voting behavior of his followers, to send them goose-stepping to
the polls to vote as a bloc. About 60,000 of the about 100,000 people in
Clearwater are registered to vote, but even in a good year, only about 18
percent of registered voters, or about 11,000, go to the polls. If
Scientologists make up eight percent of the population, then there are 8,000 in
the city. If, as seems likely, just about all are registered and actually vote,
then they could already make up more than half the voters in any election. If as
is also likely, given their cohesiveness, they tend to vote as told by
Miscavige, then Scientology would even now be the most powerful force in
Clearwater elections. Certainly any candidate who wants to get elected must
curry the church's favor with promises.

In areas where Miscavige's wants match or overlap the wants of another powerful
interest, the two could form a coalition. Obviously, he would favor downtown
redevelopment, the more the merrier, the faster the better, and the costlier the
more like manna from heaven--after all, it needn't cost Scientology a dime. Yet
it will improve the infrastructure and commercial strips for the enjoyment of
its members, and it will provide hotels and condos for the hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of Scientologists who each year come to Clearwater from all over the
world, as if to a Mecca, to be "cleared." In other words, by redeveloping
downtown, the city might be doing nothing less than subsidizing Scientology,
providing far more services to it than it provides to all the other churches in
the city put together. Conceivably, Scientologists might work a deal with city
representatives: it won't take over Clearwater Beach if the city gives it a
free hand downtown. In any case, the developer crowd and the church of
Scientology have a common interest here.

Citizens should be aware that one day--and not in the too distant
future--Scientologists may constitute a majority on the commission, and from
that point on, we have absolute rule by a single faction--tyranny, as the
Founding Fathers called it. Once they do get absolute power, the best the rest
of the citizenry can hope for is that their "us-them" defensiveness and hence
their solidarity may weaken, and they may show all the differences of ordinary
citizens, albeit they might as a group be a little richer. This is America, of
course, and citizens who don't want to live under the rule of Scientology might
"vote with their feet" by moving to Tampa, Largo, or Dunedin.

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