$cientology's "RPF" Slave Labor Camps
Roland
>
> The RPF: $cientology's Slave Labor Camp
>
> In 1974, the blatant breaking of another person's will -
> "break 'em down, build 'em back up" - was implemented by
> Hubbard as an official "Church" institution: The
> Rehabilitation Project Force.
>
> The RPF is essentially a punitive slave-labor prison for
> $cientology staff considered to be unproductive,
> disobedient, or security risks. Inmates eat leftover food
> scraps, without utensils, after non-RPF staff finish
> eating, and are not allowed to speak to them unless first
> spoken to. They are then only to answer briefly, always
> addressing their betters as "sir." RPFers are dressed in
> uniform overalls and have to run wherever they go. Their
> quarters are the worst - often filthy and roach-infested.
> The RPF continues to this day as one of several parts of
> the "Church" of $cientology hidden from "public PCs" and
> "wogs" (outsiders).
>
> According to $cientology dogma, confining someone in the
> RPF is a benevolent act. RPFers are considered insane,
> loaded with "evil purposes" causing them to commit "overts"
> (harmful acts), and therefore they have many "withholds"
> (undisclosed overts). The RPF is their last chance at
> redemption.
>
> Some that have left $cientology after being RPFed tell of
> having to fabricate overts, writing them up to appease the
> Ethics Officer, to prove they were being rehabiliated. A
> common reason for being RPFed is the decision to leave the
> cult. According to Hubbard: "People leave because of their
> own overts and withholds. The only reason anyone has ever
> left Scientology is because people failed to find out about
> them." By this reasoning, the Jews fled Nazi Germany
> because of their hidden offenses against Hitler.
>
> The degree of degradation experienced in the RPF is
> difficult to comprehend. Hubbard, GOD to a believing
> $cientologist, in effect is telling you that you are
> subhuman, evil, degraded. Long periods of confinement at
> hard labor, with poor nutrition, little sleep, and no
> toilet facilities are common practice. According to former
> Hubbard aide Gerald Armstrong: "There is no way to really
> describe the RPF experience, the hopelessness, the
> humiliation, the horror. It seemed to go on forever, the
> days all identical, no time to oneself, the same blue
> boiler suits like prison garb, day after day, the same
> questions in the same endless security checks [gruelling
> interrogation sessions on a lie-detecting e-meter].
> Hubbard's purpose in creating the RPF, running it as a
> prison with assignees considered criminals, was the
> breaking of peoples' wills, the total subjugation of anyone
> he considered exhibited 'counter intention' to his goals.
> He achieved his purpose with me so well that I thanked him
> for the opportunity of doing the RPF, much like prisoners
> of war, who are broken emotionally and spiritually through
> deprivation and mind control techniques, thank their
> captors."
>
> From THE CODE OF A SCIENTOLOGIST by L. Ron Hubbard:
>
> [This hypocritical "code" helps motivate $cientology's
> fanatical opposition to psychiatry. It is an excellent
> illustration of criminals diverting attention from themselves
> with idealistic bullshit and by exposing the crimes of
> others. We are supposed to think this crusading "church" is
> above the very conduct it condemns in others.]
>
> 4) "To decry and do all I can to abolish any and all
> abuses against life and mankind."
>
> 5) "To expose and help abolish any and all physically
> damaging practices in the field of mental health."
>
> 7) "To bring about an atmosphere of safety and security in
> the field of mental health by eradicating its abuses and
> brutality."
>
> 20) "To make this world a saner better place."
>
> And $cientology's brutal, abusive RPF serves these
> purposes??
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
Kymus
>The RPF: $cientology's Slave Labor Camp
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)
Roland
Na, he's just looking for a cut-price one so his son can do the
Transformer Vault Rundown on the cheap.
Kevin Brady
"Kymus" <kymu...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20010318040244...@ng-co1.aol.com...
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?
ptsc
>>From: lcs Mixmaster Remailer m...@anon.lcs.mit.edu
>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.
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
Kymus
>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.
>
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.
>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.
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.
>Almost enough to induce
>first circuit shock, sometimes actually passing that threshhold. Would you
>condone this?
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.
Kymus
I take it you are being on such good behavior in your posts because of all the
/. newcomers.
>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."
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.
>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.
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???
Kevin Brady
"Kymus" <kymu...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
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.
> >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.
>
> 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.
Consent given under fraudulent claims and misrepresentation of the actual
situation?
> 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.
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.
> >Almost enough to induce
> >first circuit shock, sometimes actually passing that threshhold. Would
you
> >condone this?
>
> 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?
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 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.
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.
> 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.
I think that the entire SO was a solution to a dangerous environment, that
it continued to be enacted after the danger had passed (an overt solution in
the first place), and that it should be disbanded. But since members of
this organization have created an inner cabal, and seized control of the
Church from the inside, perhaps with help from the IRS, I don't think the SO
will be letting go until the last PC dies in Introspection. See LRH's own
policy on Group Engram handling, I believe in the first or second Tech
Volume. After the dangerous situation has passed (all bypasses are to be
TEMPORARY), the exec is supposed to explain why it was necessary, how the
situation was handled, and resume NORMAL operation.
Ach. I need sleep.
I appreciate your genuine exchange, here. I am sorry if I seem impatient.
There is more to this story, for me (can you smell the bypassed charge?)
Starshadow
Hash: SHA1
Thanks for writing this, Kevin. You and I have our disagreements on
how to raise kids,
and I sitll think you are caught in the Hubbardian mindset, but
nonetheless your perspective is valuable, though I don't agree with
some of it.
VWD.
- --
Bright Blessings,
Starshadow, KoX, SP4, Official Wiccan Chaplain ARSCC(wdne)
"Kevin Brady" <rock...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:_K6t6.16538$PR.1...@news1.wwck1.ri.home.com...>
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Kymus
>> >are subjected to Sec Checking under duress. They CANNOT LEAVE.
>> >
>> Kymus-
>> What you describe might be true of some people's RPF experience,
(...)
>I believe the bulk of RPF staff have
>> remained due to moral constraints and not physical restraint
>Where would these people go?
The police, if necessary, who can assist them on a timely basis in reclaiming
any property they have in the custody of the church facility where they berth .
You know the police are always being called in to handle "domestic disputes"
where one of the parties is facing a "where do I go to live" problem, has to
retrieve some personal property from the residence, etc. THOSE people mostly
somehow make out, and there are tons and tons of domestic dispute cases like
this all the time. RPF leaving isn't harder than this at worst.
>They have no money, no clothes, no food, and
>all of their friends are organization members.
Modernly many Sea Org members are increasingly woven into a matrix of social
resources that might be dominated by other Scientologists, so some of them
might have only organization friends or friends loyal to the organization.
Many others have the traditional Scientologist's relationship with family and
friends which can be anti-Scientological or turn so in a heartbeat. Most SO
leavers I've talked to had resources for departure not only among antiScieno
friends or family but *within* the ranks of Scientologists in good standing,
including within fellow SO staff member ranks. The pravda that no SO staff
person would help another SO staff person depart hastily or fund/assist them
for this purpose
is just that: pravda. The image of the robot zombies over on the other side is
largely that: image. There are probably examples of both indifference or cruel
treatment by the remaining staff to the leaver as well as generosity in a
complete survey of the leaving process.
This lack of resources is a problem for departure, but not something that keeps
a person in "slave labor camp" conditions!!! Properly assessed, an RPF based
at a Sea Org facility might have some members who lack resources that would be
desirable to start fresh if they simply walk away, but that doesn't explain why
they continue to live in "slave labor camps", as the a.r.s. pravda repeatedly
puts it. The rest of the RPF members have the resources on the outside to
leave and resume a new life, if they are committed to that.
>The SO specializes in hard-selling the idealist which volunteer for service,
>totally unwitting about the deception and fraud they are subjecting
>themselves to.
Agree, except that what constitutes deception and fraud is partially a
subjective matter in many cases.
>I have never heard of gang-bang
>sec-checks on Class IV
Hells bells I was *gang banged* in a mere mission early on in my Scientology
affiliation.
Generally I see religious groups that are dogmatic and high-demand, and even
mere therapy groups in some instances, using multiple confronting parties and
demands for confession. The difference between some AA meetings and
Scientology gang bang sec checking is a matter of topic and degree. The Bible
says you go with several other Christians to confront the wayward one, e.g.
People who view matters as being religious, as of ultimate importance,
generally "gang up" on other members they consider wayward and put the fault
and choice to be made by the wayward member to them bluntly. It's a question
of whether you truly believe the religion or not that has to be decided, and if
so how belief must manifest.
Gang banging is a gift in disguise. You get to examine, by being put under
great pressure, just how valuable this belief structure and affiliation is to
you, something that an easy going demand for internal loyalty might omit. If
you decide to stay you do so with possible impediments removed from
participation and commitment as you have less to hide afterwards, but if you
decide to leave you have something to resent deeply and fuel that departure
planning.
Gang banging ain't fun to be subject to, but it isn't what made me eventually
leave and being subject to it surely didn't reduce my ability to assess where I
wanted to go, where the Church seemed to be going, and act rationally based on
the yawning gap between these when the time came.
I'm joining the <<yawn>> conspiracy, you see, here.
>>Consent eliminates violation.
>
>Consent given under fraudulent claims and misrepresentation of the actual
>situation?
It becomes rapidly apparent to the SO member when they enlist what the
situation they will live and work in is like. Unless we are confining
ourselves to people who route onto the RPF before finishing the EPF (do such
people even exist???) this isn't really an effective vitiation of consent.
>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.
I agree. As this description indicates there is no brainwashing going on, as
people retain their ability to assess this sort of thing and act independently
and rationally according to their own, indwelling values. Before they reach
that decision to leave they sort through a certain amount of deception and
false claims that may form part of the basis of their prior commitment, and
weigh just how important it is to them to compromise on some points to prevail
in a common struggle to win on others. Exactly what those deceptions and false
claims are may well be very very different for different people, subjectively
though, and exactly how much sleaziness by one's own side is going to be
tolerated is also idiosyncratic too often enough.
>I am sorry if I seem impatient.
>There is more to this story, for me (can you smell the bypassed charge?)
Been there, mostly. But for those I left behind, and they are not trivial in
number, I marvel that they still remain committed to what they are committed to
despite adversity. Is there more to their story? They have made hard choices,
and perhaps I feel they choose the wrong side of things, but it was their
choice to make. I believe nonsense about calling SO RPFs "slave labor camps"
is part of a campaign to deny these people their chosen way of life, which is
why I am in this thread. I personally do not think highly of that as a way of
life, but do not see it as my role to join in efforts to deprive them of it
through societal pressure born of smear campaigns.
We can never, any of us, completely walk in someone elses shoes. They have to
decide their own religious destiny, even if we think it is a stupid one, and
confine ourselves to protesting actual harms inflicted on others not choosing
that way of life. The a.r.s. set too often wishes to deny the power of choice
to others with its overblown rhetoric about "slave labor camps",
":brainwashing", and other such nonsense.
Catarina Pamnell
I'm not really going to join this otherwise interesting debate, only a
short comment on this particular point:
>RPFers have family time like other staff,
They used to (once a week), but not anymore. A Danish newspaper,
Jyllands-Posten, published an article on the RPF in Copenhagen on Jan
14, 2001. The journalist had actually been given by the CoS a copy of
the present RPF regulations. No contact with family members is now
allowed for the duration of the program. This was also confirmed in an
interview with the PRO for Europe, Gaetane Asselin:
"It was more upsetting for people when they were allowed to see each
other a couple of hours per week, as they then missed each other even
more. Better to give that up and get through the program faster."
(Average time to complete the program according to that same interview
is 1-2 years.)
Catarina
http://xenu.just.nu - Scientologi till vardags
Diane Richardson
Actually, it's even more absurd than that. The Wollersheim decision
was largely based on the testimony of Margaret Singer and Richard
Ofshe, citing Singer's "theory" regarding "cult mind control".
Not long afterwards, before the Fishman case, Singer's theory was
completely trashed, standards for expert testimony in court were
changed, and that was the end of that (except, of course, for Margaret
Singer's lawsuits, claiming she'd been deprived of her means of making
a living as an expert witness testifying about the existence of "cult
mind control").
Don't get me wrong. I admire Singer's clinical work with ex-cultists,
but as a scientific theorist she was full of nothing but unsupported
hot air.
>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.
It occurred at the very tail end of a misdirected societal effort to
decide what's best for those society decided were "misguided."
Fortunately for this country, with the help of the ACLU and others
concerned with civil rights, the courts abandoned that effort at being
Big Brother.
>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???
Nothing at all, from what I've read of the case.
Diane Richardson
ref...@bway.net