In article <OauxjkVb#GA....@nih2naaf.prod2.compuserve.com>, Ethan says...

Some background on Enzo, from one of his first posts to a.r.s. almost
one year ago:  
===
 
Vaughn and I -- Part 1 of 2 
Author: Enzo Piccone <e...@ermes.it>
Date: 1998/03/22
Forum: alt.religion.scientology

Yo, Vaughn.

Who'd have thought, twenty-some years ago by the back door of the Manor, that
the next time we'd be chatting would be by computer and in public?

As an aside, sometimes I consider evolution is moving this tired planet so
slowly that I could drop off without getting bruised.  I remind myself that
"need of change" or "demand for improvement" are relative quantities from one
person to the next, and that no one's obliged to change his own considerations
about these just to make things more interesting for me.

Nevertheless, there are, of course, continuing changes in mechanics, which
make at least some things more interesting.  And here we are.

I've only one thing I'm debating after reading yours, and that's how much to
write here.  Volume.  You've likely had experience similar to mine: the
electronic conversation starts with a few paragraphs, takes little or no time
to get interesting, and within days you're spending hours at the keyboard
doing what you used to accomplish in minutes of live communication.

Volume and time, then.

And priorities.  Life outside of a.r.s. goes on.

Not to mention Netiquette, which may have I know not exactly what to do with
what we're doing here, but which I'm satisfied to ignore at the moment.

Tell you what, then.  What say we continue to splurge for the moment?  Bit of
free for all which may put a good number of our readers to sleep -- then
again, we're not obliging them to bear with us, are we?  Then, as our
discussion develops, perhaps we can narrow things down to a few main issues
we're both more interested in, and see if it's in either of our interests to
close some gap on these.  And if not, uncross paths.

So, this one's going to be long, as I'll be making few attempts at brevity.

Great.  And I know what you mean both about feeds -- as I wrote someone else
a few days ago, mine's a tad faster than the snails in my back garden, which
are still hibernating -- and about credibility.

Also, I don't know about you, but I have no trouble finding stuff on DejaNews
sometimes -- and particularly when I remember to look for it, which is what I
did last night to find yours -- and other times it just takes more time than
I consider is worth the bother.  So, I'm sending you a copy of this via e-
mail, as you suggested, and I'll look for your reply in mine.

A last thing I've just of before I go on: I'm going to take hours writing
this.  I like writing and I can spend as long as I like on it.  I prefer just
looking at things: one thing or another, whatever strikes my fancy.  Writing,
then, becomes as well one of my favourite "excuses" for looking -- imagining,
speculating, whatever.  All of this to say that I'm not in a hurry and will
not be setting or trying to meet deadlines during our discussion.  As I don't
imagine you're in any hurry either, shall we both feel free to take our time?
I expect this will go in tomorrow's mail.  After that, my responses may or
may not be so quick.

Compliment appreciated.  Did get the joke.  Did laugh.

No, I don't.  Hope she and Kevin (her husband) are both doing fine.  Aside
from some irreconcilable differences, I liked them both.

Indeed.  Summer of 1977, I think it was.  Unless it was the summer of 1976.
Exact dates is not one of my fortes, and here it matters not at all.

We ran into each other on the day I was routing out; seconds actually, before
I walked out of the Manor.  You'll enjoy hearing what she said, which I'll get
to in a moment.  Before I do, I'd like to explain something.  It's along the
line of something I wrote in my last.

I've never been interested in emphasising my differences of opinion with
others.  These differences are what they are, and I don't consider they need
be emphasised or otherwise exaggerated.  The difference, itself, will do.

Similarly, in a group situation, which is more complicated (more people), I've
made zero time for the dubious purpose of making myself right and others
wrong.  As I've never had particular difficulty making my differences of
opinion obvious, I've not thought it necessary to get into this sort of thing.

Back to Jane [Kember, convicted felon] and me.

A week or so prior to my departure from WW, I'd sent up an eval(uation) to do
with recruitment of staff.  It couldn't have been more simple, and I'd
actually considered it unnecessary.  All it called for was the implementation
of some policy which was not being applied, so I'd seen no need to do a
full-blown eval in the first place.  Just apply the policy.

Anyway, I did the eval, and it went up lines for approval.  No problem until
it got to Jane.  She didn't like it.  Too simple.  No "Who" preventing
recruitment from happening, which was more along the lines of her own guess.
Perfectly valid guess -- there's no shortage of people preventing things from
happening -- but that's not what I'd seen.

Apparently she was quite annoyed and decided to bypass me and do another eval
herself.  So, the next order I received from her was to compile various data
she wanted for it.  As I've mentioned, I'd already spent more time on all of
this than I'd thought necessary.  And I don't like wasting my time.  I sent up
something I could put together quickly and got on with other work.  It wasn't
what she wanted and she got a tad more annoyed.

Kevin, her husband and my senior in Services Bureau, tried good-naturedly, if
under some apparent strain, to cajole me to back down from my own position and
provide Jane something more along the lines of what she wanted.  I let him
understand that I just wasn't interested.

Didn't make myself right.  Didn't make him wrong.  Didn't make Jane wrong.
Didn't make anyone wrong.  I just let him understand I wasn't interested.  As
I say, I don't like wasting my time.  And more so if I consider I'm being
ordered to do so.  Within the hour I was informed that I'd been taken off
post.

After that it was just the routine admin procedures until I was out of WW.  No
fuss, no strain, no problems.  I was asked to look over the ethics conditions,
of course, but at this point I was looking forward to doing so myself, as I
wanted the opportunity to wrap up some loose ends in my own thoughts.  Here,
too, there was no fuss, no strain, no problem.

Overall I was quite disappointed, because once again -- this was the second
time I'd gotten myself routed out -- I considered that I'd not been allowed to
work in a manner which I thought was simply saner and more productive than
what had been asked of me.

What I didn't get hung up on, though, was what I considered to be the
inadequacies of others.  Others' inadequacies are something with which we're
all quite familiar, and I wasn't interested in hanging up merely because I'd
just experienced another disappointing dose of them.  I was interested in what
I might do to make myself more useful than I'd found it possible to be at WW.

Time to finish the story.

Jane had come down to Services Bureau to pick up Kevin for dinner and saw me
ready to leave.  Our gazes met, we smiled, and then she walked over.  It was
evident that she didn't feel entirely comfortable, but Jane wasn't someone to
back down either, and her manners, with myself certainly, had always been
impeccable.

As an aside, bad manners are something I've never had a lot of time for
either.  Inside or outside of Scientology, one encounters these with one or
another degree of frequency.  Isn't it interesting that when some of us do,
simply maintaining our own manners, and without in the least backing down, is
sufficient to effect the rapid, if not immediate, return of another's manners?

As I was about to relate, then, I don't remember her exact words -- it's now
better than twenty years ago -- but the following is a faithful rendition.

"Hello, Enzo.  Everything all right?"

"Yes, fine, thanks."

"I'd like to say something to you before you leave.  Do you know the story of
'The (something or other) Boy'?"

"No, I don't think so."

"'When he was good, he was very, very good.  But when he was naughty, ...'"

I grinned, which may not have been the most appropriate response, but it was
sincere, and Jane couldn't help at least the beginnings of a smile from
spreading across her face.

She'd made an effort she could easily have spared herself to attenuate any
discomfort I may have been feeling over my departure.  I was feeling no
discomfort at that point and simply accepted her gesture.

And that was that.

I've described none of the above to aggrandise myself, as I don't consider any
of it to have been grand.  You and some others, however, being familiar with
how such events might otherwise have transpired, will have enjoyed this story
more than others.

I've mentioned it, apart from doing so to answer your question, merely to give
my own, simple account of how it may be possible to maintain one's integrity
without at the same time making an entirely unproductive fuss about there
having been any need to do so in the first place.

I've been reading lately the accounts of a number of Scientologists who've
left staffs over the years, and whose departures turned out to be quite
dramatic apparently.  As in my own experience above, I've no interest in
justifying (making excuses for) the inadequacies of organisational personnel,
then or now.  I take the same view where I might otherwise justify (make
excuses for) any trauma experienced by departing staff.

I'll go out of my way to understand people, including those who've allowed
themselves, and perhaps more actively contributed as well, to becoming
victims.  If I'm asked by these for help -- and sometimes even if I'm not
asked -- I'll do what I can.  I've just not had a lot of time to justify (find
excuses for) them.

This is Planet Earth, and even the dimmest amongst us knows that shit happens.

Conditions in groups are whatever they may be.  One needn't be a Scientology
staff member to know something about this, as we are all members of any number
of groups.

Like everyone else, I, too, have ended up a victim of one thing and another,
and at one time or another.  Undoubtedly I'll become a victim of someone or of
events again.  In such circumstance, what I've become very interested in very
quickly is how to unbecome a victim very fast.

But a more pertinent observation I'd like to make here is that I've never also
considered that I would need make someone else a victim to accomplish this.

Instead I've considered this kind of thinking to be rather sickeningly weak
and entirely inexcusable.  And when I've witnessed it in action, I've found
the consequences to be at the same time nasty and pathetic.

Attempting to make oneself right and another wrong; attempting to dominate
another and avoid being dominated in turn; attempting somehow to further one's
own survival at the expense of another's -- these are also attempts to make
someone else a victim in order to resolve having become a victim oneself.

Anyone but a fool can see that this kind of thing doesn't work.  Unfortunately
we all play the fool now and then, do we not?

My error.  SFO it was.

:)

After WW, right into tech training.  As public, obviously.  Had a blast.

Then into various things which we can catch up on privately, if you like.

Fascinating.  I've only your word for it, and I've no reason to expect the
other side of the argument is going to give me any more of theirs than I've
already read on a.r.s..  No matter, as this isn't something to hold up our
discussion.  For our purposes here, I'm happy to give you any benefits of
doubt.  While remaining cognisant, of course, of some of the simpler facts of
life; such as, that it takes two to tango.

Who's spinning, Vaughn?

Whatever was the scene on the 50K and the rest -- I merely described what I'd
read and not seen denied, and stated this clearly -- what you then went on to
do for money isn't something that can be papered over by giving it another
name; that of "expert witness."  Let alone by describing your competence in
same.

Again, I'll just take your word for it.

That said, doesn't look like you needed much convincing.  But this is just my
conjecture.  Did you need any convincing at all?  Or had you already convinced
yourself?

Someone ask me?  Now that would be interesting!  But we rather doubt it, don't
we?

You've now got me curious as to why you were curious.

I've read fifty or sixty or more of your posts to a.r.s. and some stuff from
legal cases: affidavits, depositions, whatever -- IANAL.  [What's more,
because it took me weeks to figure out that IANAL means, "I am not a lawyer"
--  I'm still looking forward to coming across a text which defines such
abbreviations -- I've decided not to resist the impulse to save at least some
people the same puzzlement by spelling it out here.]

All of this stuff, except your posts to a.r.s. of the past month or two, which
I've been getting directly from a.r.s., came from my examination of various
critics' sites.

I mention all of this merely as a courtesy.  I simply assumed you'd "left"
Scientology at some point after leaving ASI, as it looked an awfully safe
assumption to make, wouldn't you say?

Or am *I* missing something?

Did I say you couldn't have irreconcilable differences?

No problem with your use of "fled" to describe your having fled.

Nor would I have had a problem if you'd chosen to route out instead of
fleeing.

Yes, yes, I'm prepared to grant you however much more drama there may have
been connected to your own circumstances -- and due to whomever's
inadequacies.  As explained above: been to the sites; read the many,
fascinating accounts; just couldn't find these people's T-shirts -- they were
all trying to sell someone else's.

I don't recall writing in reply to your having asked, but merely to further
clarify for the sight-impaired what I'd already written myself.  Indeed, I see
that you quoted it conveniently toward the end of yours.  (I say
"conveniently" because looking for something I've written and finished with is
something I'll seldom bother to do.)

Your difficulty appears merely to have been an incapacity to accept what I
wrote.

Would you mind clarifying something for me?  Who does "a lot of people left"
refer to?  I know a lot of GO staff were routed off; I wasn't aware of a lot
of them leaving on their own initiative, let alone because of any
"paramilitary shtick" that came down.  I'm not arguing with you, and the
question is not of the dim-witted a.r.s. variety which makes reference to
"generalisations".  [I wonder whether more than a handful of our readers know
the difference between a generalisation which is perfectly valid as such, and
a generalisation which seeks merely to disguise a lie?]  I just don't follow
what you've written.

Interesting interpretation about the separation of the GO and the SO, but it
doesn't get onto its feet, let alone fly.  The separation, then and now, was
implemented to allow staff in all organisations (not only SO) to get on with
their work without having their attention pulled onto such as legal, pr, and
invest.  And it's very workable.  You've commented yourself elsewhere on just
how workable it is: the staff and/or public who don't even hear about a good
deal of what goes on in these areas, let alone being called upon to handle.

I like the idea, though, of tension/balance, which is a more accurate
description than if you'd written the better known "checks/balances."  We
could probably get even more accurate, but I don't imagine that either of us
is interested in getting further into organisational theory right here and
now.  Do correct me if I'm mistaken.

As for David, I don't see the point here either.  Separated or unseparated,
and to whatever degree, RTC's position remains the same.  Instead this looks
rather like some of the conspiracy stuff you were buying in the old days.
(And no, I wasn't buying that either.)  Only real difference is that now
you're on the selling side.  Along with working colleague Graham Berry.  Whose
competence I continued to speculate about until I began seeing/hearing some of
his "work."  And yes, always material from the web or a.r.s..

<five-minute hate speech snipped>

Sorry, Vaughn, I just couldn't resist.

Thanks for your clarifications regarding _1984_.  And just so you know, I did
read the piece in *Quill*.  A couple of months or so ago.

[Go on to Part Two]

===

Vaughn and I -- Part 2 of 2 
Author: Enzo Piccone <e...@ermes.it>
Date: 1998/03/22
Forum: alt.religion.scientology

[Part 2 of 2]

It wouldn't be a fascinating spin even if it had been intended it as such.
Here, as in the prior occasion above, I'll just ask you back, "Who's spinning,
Vaughn?"

I'm not sure what I'd call someone who gave up drugs, but like you, I'd
applaud him for doing so.

While we're on the subject of addicts, a non-Scientologist friend of mine
dropped by for a visit the other day to say hello, but she thought I'd also be
pleased to know that her cousin, a heroin addict, had started the Narconon
programme a week earlier.

Indeed, I was pleased, but I was also surprised.  Last I'd heard, a month and
more ago, the young man's mother had asked her psychologist about Narconon,
and he'd promptly talked her out of even bringing it up with her son.

I'd suggested Narconon myself when another non-Scientologist friend of mine,
also related to the young man's family, had asked me for advice.  I gave him
the name and told him to find a number to call, as I didn't have one.  I'd
forgotten that this is Italy: he wasn't interested in calling Narconon.  What
he wanted precisely was that I speak with someone there myself, as he was
convinced I'd have an in, and he wanted me to see if someone there would take
a special interest in his relative.  Sigh.

So, a couple of calls to find someone who might know anyone in Narconon.  Then
a pleasant conversation with someone who's name and number I've since lost.
Then describing what had been discussed with my friend.  And then forgetting
about it.

It was a week or so later that this second friend dropped by again and
mentioned the psychologist.  "Too bad," I'd replied.  It was just the other
day when my other friend dropped by and mentioned that the young man had begun
the programme.  "Great," I'd replied.  This afternoon it was the fellow I'd
called to get a number for Narconon: he phoned and asked if I remembered the
young man whose mother had originally expressed interest in Narconon?
"Certainly," I replied.  "In fact I just found out the other day that he's
started it."  "Yes, but did you know that his mother's psychologist had ..."
"Yes, I was told the story."  "Oh, good.  Well, do you also know that in the
end it was the same psychologist who helped get him on the programme?"

I'd not have brought up this story if I'd not got the telephone call this
afternoon, as I've many, many stories like this, and any one of them would
have done as well.  I hope the young man takes advantage of the opportunity
he's taken to get off drugs for keeps -- just like very many others have
already done and are doing.

Vaughn, that this kind of thing is going on every day, all over the world, is
just one of the many reasons too few people are ever going to take seriously,
or even for long, your caricatures of Scientology or its "front groups" or the
SO or anything else.

You mentioned -- in a section I snipped above -- that the reply to your
*Quill* article included promotion of Scientology.  That this wasn't sequitur
to anything you'd written is a perfectly valid observation.  As was your
mention of what little was offered and which could in fact have been
considered sequitur.  But why not also make the next observation as well,
which is that the promo was a perfectly valid response to your having had
anything critical to write in the first place?

Whether it's palatable or something to make you gag, as in the fork mentioned
in yours, whatever criticism you or anyone else may direct toward Scientology,
and whatever its validity may or may not be, none of it is ever going to stop
Scientology from getting the results it does; which results are what allow it
to grow.  Criticism never has.  Neither have courts or government bodies.
Neither have any number of other things.

No one and no thing has ever stopped Scientology from getting results.  And
you've more familiarity than most with what's been thrown in its way to stop
or even to slow it down -- the real stuff, not whatever may have been merely
speculated.  Likewise, you know far better than most that even the slowdowns
have been scattered, temporary, and inevitably followed, sooner or later, by
greater acceptance.

Sorry, Vaughn, but just like some of our own PR either doesn't fly, or as we
say here, "has short legs" (doesn't travel too far), you've got the same
problem with your own, bad PR.  It gets worse when you exaggerate it --
something you rarely fail to do.

Critics are stuck with nothing better than whatever they can dig up that's
gone/going/may go wrong.  Because even the lump sum of this is not near enough
material to work with, their only options are to peddle and/or exaggerate it
as best they can.  That and waiting, hoping, and keeping out a watchful eye
for new "material."

A.R.S's resident ghoul, Ron Newman, returns to mind.

Of course he's not the only one.  Often your writing reminds me as well of
Tilman Hausherr.  If Tilman were to be so unfortunate as to be run over by a
truck, and if a Scientologist were to be so unlucky as to be walking by, the
latter -- given that the circumstances were appropriate and allowed for it --
might give the former an emergency assist of some kind.  If -- perish the
thought! -- this hypothetical assist hypothetically helped to uncrumple Tilman
somewhat, Tilman, upon finding out that he'd just received an assist from a
Scientologist, would most likely scramble back into a crumpled position and
hope to Christ that he'd start feeling worse again.

I know what you're getting at, but this is just more spin of your own.

I've seen some, not much of the material you've mentioned.  What I saw which
looked at all interesting was yours.

Mind if I put it this way?  I wouldn't call you a failed abused wife.

Levity aside, I've no problem with your looking at whatever strikes your
fancy, if you consider it's going to help make some sense out of anything you
experienced or caused others to experience.

Otherwise, and as I've already presented some of my own thoughts on this
above, I'll move on.

No clever blend.  No need for "regardless."  If it works, it's because it
makes some sense.  Or as you go on to write, it's "plausible."  I see,
however, from what you went on to write, that I may have overestimated you.

A quaint little rant, Vaughn.  I've left it intact because I'll be taking a
shovel to the later, repeat performances.

We can take up whatever else you commented on -- do bring it all up again --
later.  Here I'll just respond to what you wrote was lost and regained.

Take your own pick of the two following, as I don't know which you might
prefer.

The extent to which you appear to have been deaf, dumb, blind, generally
clueless, and entirely lacking in balls when it came to maintaining your own
integrity?

The corresponding and comparable degree of exaggeration in which you now gush
-- and to which you're equally oblivious -- in attempts to convince others
that they, too, must have their heads as firmly screwed up the same place as
you claim to have had yours?

It's always fascinating to watch people trying to describe one thing or
another in Scientology as hypnosis and/or brainwashing and/or mind control
and/or what have you.  But I suggest better mileage would be achieved by
claiming that Scientology's *really* secret weapon is an unusual mechanical
device that first clasps the head and then ...

<shovelling>

I'd welcome you to 1998, Vaughn, but it appears that you're not quite ready to
arrive.

At this point I don't see another option than to acknowledge that all you
appear to have gained as a "Scientologist" for twenty years was the kind of
all-body flexibility to which I referred in one of my two picks above.

What a waste.

All the more so if I ask myself how far your head would have travelled if
you'd been doing yoga during all of that time?  Would we now know how many
other dimensions there may be in this universe?

Or, perhaps, like a Mothers of Invention (Frank Zappa) concert way back?  All
during the performance Frank kept kicking a sack around the stage.  Went on
for hours.  Every now and then he'd walk over to it and give it a swift kick,
and it would go scudding here and there about the stage.  At the end of the
show, he walked over to it, undid the lace, and a small, smiling man crawled
out.

And with that, I trust you won't mind my getting out the shovel again.

<shovel>

<bit more shovel>

The fact that this didn't keep you from assuming you did and then going on yet
another rant is what accounts for yet more

<shovelling>

Yes, I believe I do.  But perhaps you'll get over this in time.  We shall see.

Fine on the no harassment.  Stacy can always e-mail me.

My line of work?  Like your friend Robert Minton, I'm retired from lines of
work.

Enzo Piccone
written 21 March; mailed 22 March

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