RPF Newsletter #11: Christmas on the RPF
Dave Touretzky
A Christmas greeting from the RPF.
Have you ever wondered what it is like celebrating Christmas in the
RPF? Well, it is not something that you would think could exist in
the US today, especially not in a "church." It's a total denial of
anything associated with Christmas. You are robbed of all of your
time and you aren't allowed to have anything to do with Christmas at
all!
In all the years I spent on the RPF, Christmas was always suppressed
and made nothing of, because there is NOTHING to enjoy. Every year we
all talked about it in a way of "well, next Christmas we will not be
here etc.", and tried to forget about it, just hoping that it would
soon be over. Then next Christmas comes and you are still here!! Year
after year, old pleasurable memories fade away and one becomes lost to
any of the traditional things that Christmas usually brings. The joy
of giving a present, writing Christmas cards to your friends and loved
ones, shopping, seeing a movie, eating some good treats, cookies,
cheese, nuts, eggnog etc. is denied. The dream is always pushed,
"graduate so you can enjoy Christmas"; meanwhile you are lower than a
rat. If you have any relatives or a spouse left who still care about
you and know where you are, they could drop off a bag of goodies for
you, which only accentuates your loneliness, and creates worse
feelings for those who never get anything anymore. The RPF I/C has to
read and approve every letter. Many times his lines are so overloaded
with extra traffic that he spends many hours a day just reading all
the mail, before he can allow it in or out. He's supposed to make
sure there is no "entheta" or any influences that would disturb
Scientology's image. This went to such an extreme one Christmas that
many letters were STOPPED because "they were too long" and then he
questioned the group about "how is it possible to write such long
letters on your RPF schedule?" I saw many letters sitting in the RPF
Ethics Office that were rejected and even if they were mailed out, it
often created real upsets among family and friends as they could not
understand why these letters were dated weeks or months earlier! A
couple of years ago, the RPF I/C PAC, Chris Meyers, spoke to the 200
or so RPFers and made it clear that he did not have time to spend all
day reading mail and checking out presents and disabused the group of
spending any time at all writing letters or bothering to try to send
anything to friends and family. Denial and disapproval of anything to
do with Christmas by this scrooge made us all even more miserable
knowing our families and especially children would not understand!
So what DID we get? 10 MINUTES EXTRA TO EAT OUR "CHRISTMAS DINNER!"
This "extra" time is spent opening presents that friends and family
sent in that made it past security. In a cheesy way the presents are
piled up by the leftover crew dining room Christmas tree and
officially handed out in front of everyone. If your family didn't
send anything, you sat and looked at everybody else opening theirs.
If you had a friend in the RPF or a good twin you might be able to get
a small treat, which was all you could hope for. After the "extra 10
minutes" it was back to the normal routines of a full schedule of
cleaning, hard work and study from 7.00 am to 11.00 pm. Not a minute
extra to do anything that is expected of one's social behavior towards
family and friends. The constant indoctrination by the RPF I/C is
"what better way is there to spend Christmas than in session getting
sec checked so you can graduate faster?" If you wanted to call your
family, you first had to have it pre-approved by the RPF I/C in
writing, which sometimes took days to get. Writing Christmas cards is
only approved to your closest family and on your own time, if you can
manage to pay for them yourself with your $5/week. Not to mention the
hurdle of actually finding a way to purchase them, since you are not
allowed off base. Just to manage to get the stamps was a challenge
itself, and if you missed the one organized purchase run, you lost the
chance and your cards didn't go out! If you were extremely lucky you
managed to find some other RPFer who was willing to sell some left
over stamps. You have 20 minutes for lunch and 20 minutes for dinner,
so after having to stand in a 200 man food line for your slop, you
essentially have only 10 minutes to EAT. That is the extent of your
"free time."
While the rest of the staff are having parties and splurging on extra
food and treats, the RPF get nothing of it and instead have to clean
up the mess after staff meals and the traditional "Bosun's party" and
"Beer and cheese party". The crew pigs out on all the Christmas
treats and many get drunk and just leave behind a mess for the RPF to
clean up. The only thought running through your head is "one day I
will be out of here and enjoy some of this, maybe!"
After Christmas, the real fun begins for the RPF. If you have ever
attended any of the Scientology New Years events, you have seen the
pompous, huge, rich looking, elaborate and enormous designs of the
stage and the backdrops. How do you think these elaborate, heavy and
intricate columns with gold paint, shadows and detailing are made?
You guessed it! THE RPF!! THOUSANDS of man hours!! The goal that
Golden Era Productions has is that "each year it has to be more and
more impressive and better looking". It's easy to sit at a computer
and dream it all up, but someone on the ground has to put it all
together! About 4-6 weeks before New Years, mid November, the work is
started to make these huge columns of Styrofoam and resin. The many
pieces are constructed and built separately and finally come together
as a huge puzzle which is later transported in big trucks to the
Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles. By the way, they are so huge and
are such an investment that most of the structure is used from year to
year and stored in the basement of the Shrine. Each year the big
pieces are pulled out of storage and back to the base to be fixed up
and redesigned. Scientology is paying tens of thousands of dollars
just to store these big pieces of PR fluff there every year. To host
an event it costs something like $150,000 - $200,000 and if you want
to start earlier on the set ups using the Union's work time, it's
about $50,000 a day. So the solution has been that the RPF is used for
the prep work and everything is prepared in advance, to minimize the
union costs. Usually, the day of the event EVERYTHING is set up in a
blitz fashion with the entire RPF starting early in the am. Could it
be that the RPF is kept full of people to keep the costs down and pull
off the big events? Without the thousands of man hours on the ground
making that stage - there simply would not be any event! The number of
staff at GOLD is declining and it would be an impossible task to have
the org staff in PAC do this kind of work on an all-hands basis in
addition to their normal posts. Who would be there to "get the stats
up" and make sure the public is confirmed to come to the event?
One thing that is always discussed and frowned upon when the final set
ups are done at the Shrine is the "team work" with the Union. In
order to be able to do the set ups the Union must be there to organize
and orchestrate the work. The huge thousand pound stage props are
pulled up in the ceiling with cranes and machines and they don't want
a bunch of RPFers running around, being at risk to get hurt. What
aggravates the working conditions every time is that the RPF is not
allowed to continue work while the Union guys are taking their breaks.
They do take coffee breaks and lunch breaks like human people, and
while they are getting their nourishment to continue the hard work,
THE RPF IS WAITING! We have to "look busy" while they are eating. We
don't get any food, but are put on cleanup jobs and "chicken pick" the
parking lot and other such activities. I wonder what the Union guys
really think about having 150 RPFers hanging around and waiting for
them to finish their lunch! The Union workers are always impressed
with the speed and the hard work the RPF is performing, but little do
they know about the real reason why we put up with the working
conditions!
The Shrine has been the New Years event place for Scientology of many
years in a row and the place is booked and reserved at the beginning
of each year. The execs at Int handling the reservations are
practically running a monopoly on the New Years week end. It would be
a real "disaster" if the Shrine couldn't be booked as no other hall in
the LA area can hold as many people as they hope will show up, except
the LA football stadium, although no 10,000 people ever actually show
up for this event! All the chairs must be full and give the illusion
of "expansion" when the cameras from GOLD sweep over the audience. If
it was a bigger hall and had empty seats it would "look bad". That is
one of the reasons for the call-in frenzy, to make sure all seats are
full. The Shrine seats about 5,000 - 6,000 with the balcony, and did
you know that ALL the staff from PAC and from the HGB are there in the
audience to fill it in? That is about 2,000 heads counted that are
staff! They are supposed to be there, nicely dressed up out of
uniform and if more public did come in unexpectedly, the staff would
have to give up their seats and go outside to the set up "overflow
spaces". So the crew is basically kept around to fill in the gaps if
not enough public shows up. The real live event is usually scheduled
a couple of days before the 31st, as few public want to show up on the
real New Years Eve and the difference in time is used by GOLD to
reproduce the events on DVD's and send them out express to every org
for their own events. This year New Years Eve falls on a Friday, so
we'll see how this is planned out!
By the way, did you know about the "ultimate plan for all the events"?
Right next to the Clearwater Super Power building a huge auditorium is
planned to be built. It's about 1/4th the size of the SP building and
is supposed to go diagonally, South-East, at the block between
Franklin Street and Court Street. This huge planned auditorium is the
solution for all international events. It's supposed to be "state of
the art" standard and in between the yearly scheduled events, it's
planned to rent it out to the City of Clearwater for music concerts or
similar engagements, to help cover the building expenses. Will we
ever see the start of this project? One of the many obstacles that
had to be overcome, in order to be allowed to build the SP building
was the city requirements for public parking. In some way the block
east of the SP building, between S. Garden Ave. and East Ave. South
would have to have been secured, where an enormous parking structure
is supposed to be constructed. Where else would the "thousands" of
parishioners and event-attendees be able to park? The SP building was
only approved to be built on the stipulation that enough parking
spaces were provided. So MORE DONATIONS ARE NEEDED FOR MORE CONCRETE!
And more RPFers to do the work!
Another major operation that you see in Hollywood is the "Winter
Wonderland". This set up usually starts the first or second week in
December and is run by the LRH PR Office in CMO PAC. There is a huge
48 foot trailer stored away somewhere that contains all the
decorations. The set up is next to the staff quarters by the old
Hollywood Inn. If you have walked by it looks quite impressive, with
the thousands of twinkle lights and the hundreds of Christmas trees
built up on ramps, with spotlights everywhere. There is "Santa's
house" where children can have their picture taken for a "minor $5.00
fee" with music playing in the background, performances by kids from
CC Int and all kinds of wonderful things children dream of, including
real snow brought down from the mountains sometimes. Have you ever
thought of how MUCH WORK it is to set that place up and WHO IS DOING
IT? Yes, you guessed it again! The RPF! Hundreds of long and cold
man hours, by RPF teams working every day to put up the huge backdrops
with the many logs and poles 60 feet up in the air, a massive wood
construction to hold it all up. The regular staff sometimes comes to
help out, but it's a fact that it would never be done without the RPF.
Is this another reason to keep the slave labor camps going? When
Christmas is over, the RPF is there again to do all the work of
tearing it all down and packing it all up. I wonder what Santa would
think about that? The plan was that the parking lot where the WW set
up is would be part of the new "Testing Center". However, the
building is not done yet. It has to be earthquake safe all the way
up, and that old building from the 1920's was rolling and about to
come down in the last big quake. The "temporary" testing center is
still there; on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard a couple of
blocks down and the RPF is not required to work on that project
anymore. Running out of funds? I guess Winter Wonderland will still
go on with RPF labor and if the testing center is ever completed with
the planned expansion, WW is history or will be relocated to somewhere
else.
That's Christmas in the RPF, but how does it look from the top of the
Org Board? Having been at and seen the spectrum from the top of Int
management to the bottom of the local orgs, it's quite a shocking
difference! The public has no idea of the difference and they
probably believe that Christmas is celebrated and enjoyed by all. The
Int Execs are definitely getting more than their share of the goodies.
It's usually in form of big overfull baskets of goodies and treats
that cost hundreds of dollars. "Baskets" are a "big thing" and every
entity like CMO PAC or any other CMO or RTC unit around the world show
their "respect and gratitude" towards DM in form of "baskets" and
incredibly expensive luxury items. Money collections are done by
staff in each org and each staff member is more or less obliged to pay
and donate for the purchase of some fancy gifts to DM. If one does
not donate, it's looked down on in scorn, as if you don't approve of
him! He gets hundreds of luxury items every year and sometimes it's
even paid by the org financial planning to cover it! DM isn't able to
enjoy all those goodies himself, so the Int staff around him gets
their share too, especially RTC and CMO. Baskets and presents are
flooding in from all over the world. Expensive, special and
artistically designed and embossed greeting cards are paid for by
"donations", in the competition to impress DM and Int Management. The
flashy, fake specially designed Christmas cards from DM, the Int exec
strata, Author Services and RTC are also sent out every year at
ridiculous expense. This is especially offensive when you consider
what LRH says about Jesus on the OT levels, and also when you know
they were paid for by deluded adherents struggling to pay for the
bridge to nowhere!
The Int execs really "work hard" just before Christmas. They must do
all they can to flood the orgs with telexes and orders and quotas that
have to be met so the stats don't crash over the holidays. Once all
the traffic is sent out, there is not much more that can be done from
the top, so they take off for a few days, expecting the rest of the
world "to get the stats up and make money". Arrangements are usually
made for groups of Int Executives to go off skiing, go to the movie
theatres, even go to Disneyland or Disneyworld to spend time with
their spouse and family or just relax with a good book. The times I
was included in these activities I felt really guilty, I knew from
years of working in orgs and in the SO how the luxury condos and food
and entertainment were paid for. I had a really hard time enjoying
myself knowing that staff was NOT having much fun, and knowing I had
trained, regged and recruited many Scientologists to disconnect from
their families, max out their credit cards, mortgage their homes and
go into deep debt they couldn't afford, and here we were blowing their
money to celebrate a holiday we didn't even believe in. I wonder if
DM feels guilty when he is gambling as a high roller in the casinos
with his Hollywood shills. The only time I ever got an LOA (Leave of
Absence) to visit family was through Int, most SO don't ever get one.
Another thing that always bothered me was that there were 600 to 800
staff at INT who produce exactly nothing in actual products, but get
the best food and accommodations and luxuries. They live at the top
secret Int base in Hemet, and make up plans and evaluations and
programs and targets, and sometimes send out missions, all to pound,
pressure and threaten lower orgs to MAKE MORE MONEY! When I was lower
org staff, I used to harbor suppressive thoughts about how I would
like to see some of those idiots run a class V org! Come to think of
it, one of the worst punishments for SO (next to the RPF) IS to be
sent to a class IV or V org. Reference the 1986 FO on Children in the
Sea Org.
Meanwhile, at the lower levels and in the local orgs where the "real
work" has to be done (like actually delivering training and auditing
and getting bodies in the shop for regging, etc.), the staff gets to
enjoy some small parties and a longer Christmas dinner break and
sometimes some time off. Usually a 1/2 day is given to go shopping
and the crew takes turns so not everyone leaves at the same time.
Only for the "upstats", of course, this is a real trick when the
public is busy with the holidays. The motto is always "get the stats
up for LRH for Christmas". You are not going to be down stat or in
lower conditions for Christmas are you? Well, if you are, you will
not get any time off etc.
You are not planning on spending any time with your parents of
relatives for Christmas are you? Any request for time off for such
activities is considered to be "off purpose" and one is considered to
be PTS and sent to ethics! Almost nobody gets approval to get time
off for Christmas, and if a staff member insists, he has to get an
approved CSW (Completed Staff Work). You have to have a solution
worked out as to who is going to replace you when you are gone. And
if it doesn't look like the stats will be up, it won't get approved.
Additionally you need to get a sec check to show that you are not
planning on blowing, or that you are not PTS and that there are no
other reasons why you would like to have a leave of absence. The
chances of finding an auditor who can complete this sec check for you
is practically nil, so 99% just give up at the thought and spend year
after year away from their families, to be more and more alienated
from their relatives and are then considered to be "kept hostage" and
secluded in a cult. THAT'S why you don't see staff members off with
their own families. Everybody would like to, but are afraid to speak
up and be a target for instigating an ethics investigation for being
"off purpose" and a "threat" to the "stats and the expansion". The
thinking is that, if the majority of staff would be given time off for
their families, there would be nobody around to run the orgs and get
the stats up. Who wants to spend their Christmas on course or getting
auditing anyway?? The public are off having Christmas! So the staff
are desperately working to "get their stats up", which is the reason
multiple phone calls are pressured and ordered, to get the public to
come in so they can be beaten over their heads to pay for more
services and make more student points or get in session for the hours
"to get the stats up for Christmas"!
I will spare you the details of the personal threats from executives
to juniors when things aren't pulled off as expected! These are the
usual routines that pull any holiday feelings down. Once Christmas
day is over, the real craziness and threats kick in! What happens
right after Christmas? The New Years event! Management is operating
on statistics and the only talk of the town is "event confirms".
There's incredible pressure and demand behind getting "the confirms"
for the event done, and there are "all-hands" activities in every org
to call in the public for this event. The total control mechanism is
really dramatized over this, and it gets so bad that staff are often
calling public on Christmas Day for the "New Years Event
Confirmation". When some public get their 4th or 5th call to "be
confirmed" they are usually quite pissed off! The biggest flaps
happen if the "confirms" are down. Then those heads are counted over
and over in a "stat scrape" to make sure that there are more than last
year. This is an important index of "expansion".
The demand for confirms and the constant demand for reports back on
what the current numbers are is the only important thing going on in
CMO meetings up until the event. If CMO doesn't effectively handle
it, the RTC reps step in to do an investigation and find out "WHO" is
stopping the expansion lines. It is thought of that any lack of
expansion or lack of production has some Suppressive Person or PTS
behind it. If the event confirms or attendance is down - heads are
rolling! Did you notice that the long term Event I/C PAC left the Sea
Org about 1 year ago? Forgot his name right now, but he used to be
married to the Captain of AOLA. He used to run the RPF on doing the
massive event set-ups, and one day he was gone! He never came to the
RPF, but I think he was smart to get the hell out of there. I'm sure
he got a big dose of degradation and invalidation on his post and
finally he couldn't put up with it anymore.
See anything wrong with this picture? If you feel like it, send a
report to RTC and let DM know what you think.
http://www.rtc.org/en_US/matters/intro.html
Sooner or later the real truth will come out and there will be no
staff left to make those "confirms" and no RPF there on the ground to
put on those fake, glorified, glamorous Miscavige events!
The greed at the top of the org board will catch up with them. The
painful truth is filtering down the echelons to every org. All staff
planet wide will realize they have wasted a large portion of their
lifetimes working for a criminal scam cult ripping people off of their
life savings and years of lost time, bankruptcies, ruined lives and
broken families. All criminals leave clues behind and DM is no
exception. No matter how hard he tries to blame others and cover his
own ass, too many people have been victimized and ripped off by him.
We will all be standing in line to testify against him and his
cronies. I suggest it is time for those still loyal to the cult to do
some soul searching and get out before you are the next "WHO" that
gets declared SP or RPFed or sent to jail by these "grinches".
Merry Christmas,
"The RPF "Insider"
Mike Gormez
<41ca4f1b$1...@news2.lightlink.com>:
>RPF Newsletter #11
>
>A Christmas greeting from the RPF.
What a depressing insight into the human psyche.
--
Mike Gormez
- Stop deceptive recruitment into scientology http://stop-wise.biz/
- www.whyaretheydead.net documents the deaths of scientologists
- "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way it
treats its children." -- Nelson Mandela. Scientologist often attach more
importance to scientology than children www.taxexemptchildabuse.net
chuckb...@aol.com
Dave Touretzky wrote:
> RPF Newsletter #11
>
> A Christmas greeting from the RPF.
>
Thankyou very much for posting this Dave. I often day-dreamed that one
day when I got off the RPF that I'd order about 75 pizzas for the PAC
RPF and have them delivered to the complex address, for the RPF, and
time the pizza delivery so the pizzas arrived for the RPFers on the
evening when the rest of the Sea Org base is gone off to the Shrine for
the New Years event.
That evening when the PAC Base is almost completely empty, when I was
on the PAC RPF, the RPFers themselves were allowed to cook their own
meals, and since when I was in the PAC RPF, Emilio Bertinato and Mateo
Galbiati, who are both excellent Italian cooks, and the many other
excellent RPF member cooks, they put together quite a meal for us.
But whatever night that is, can be figured out from the night of the
event, it is that same night. That is the night the RPFers will have
free reign normally of the kitchen to make their own meal.
Anyways, I am not rich, but I am sure if 75-100 pizzas from Dominos
showed up at the Security reception area of the complex (Horseshoe
entrance) addressed to the PAC RPF, I am sure they'd let them have
them.
They are not that mean-spirited that they'd reject the pizzas, and the
RPFers will be the only people there using the dining facilities around
7pm, but the timing needs to be down to the minute, just get the pizzas
there early enough. They have metal rolling carts to keep them hot.
Maybe with a politically correct Happy New Years note to the RPFers
from an anonymous well wisher. I'm sure they'd love the thought.
Best, Chuck Beatty
Lulu Belle
> RPF Newsletter #11
>
> A Christmas greeting from the RPF.
<snip>
> The Int execs really "work hard" just before Christmas. They must do
> all they can to flood the orgs with telexes and orders and quotas
that
> have to be met so the stats don't crash over the holidays. Once all
> the traffic is sent out, there is not much more that can be done from
> the top, so they take off for a few days, expecting the rest of the
> world "to get the stats up and make money". Arrangements are usually
> made for groups of Int Executives to go off skiing, go to the movie
> theatres, even go to Disneyland or Disneyworld to spend time with
> their spouse and family or just relax with a good book.
<snip>
I am very glad to see this post.
I have written a few posts in the past about what Christmas is now like
for the lower Sea Org orgs (mostly the "service orgs" who deliver to
the public). The fact that no one is allowed time off, and that staff
are under such enormous pressure to "confirm" people for the New Years
Eve event, even during Christmas day.
I have gotten responses from even ex-Sea Org staff who were staff a
long time ago or who have been staff at Int level orgs who were
skeptical that it really is this bad now. Many of them remember getting
leaves for Christmas or getting a couple of days off.
The RPF Insider has described exactly here what it's now like.
It's hard to describe how much these mega events have impacted the
lives of the staff, especially the staff in the orgs that deal directly
with public. These events are year round. After you just finish one,
the next one is right around the corner.
It has actually created a situation where the staff at lower levels
have "double posts": they are expected to do whatever their jobs are
and also do "call in" for event confirms at the same time.
Some of the "non-essential" ones like letter regges or central files
people just get ripped off post pretty much full time and sent over the
the "boiler room" at CLO for weeks at a time to do nothing but call
people and "confirm" them for the event. Which means that the actual
functions these people have actually are almost never really getting
done in the orgs.
> Did you notice that the long term Event I/C PAC left the Sea
> Org about 1 year ago? Forgot his name right now, but he used to be
> married to the Captain of AOLA.
William (Bill) Carey.
> He used to run the RPF on doing the
> massive event set-ups, and one day he was gone! He never came to the
> RPF, but I think he was smart to get the hell out of there. I'm sure
> he got a big dose of degradation and invalidation on his post and
> finally he couldn't put up with it anymore.
Unfortunately for him, besides whatever pressure he was given by
management about these events, he was also the target of hostility by
the staff. He was the one who had to go into the orgs and pressure them
to give tens of thousands of dollars to pay for these colossal things
and give bodies for call in.
Since he wasn't really very high on the org board (he was only CLO
staff), and also because he was basically a nice guy, org execs and
staff often directed their hostility about these things to him. Saying
the things to him they wouldn't dare say to an Int exec. Killing the
messenger, essentially.
So, he got it on both ends.
I'm not surprised he blew. That post had to have been a living hell.
>
> Merry Christmas,
>
> "The RPF "Insider"
Merry Christmas!
Mike Gormez
<1103978987.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>:
>Some of the "non-essential" ones like letter regges or central files
>people just get ripped off post pretty much full time and sent over the
>the "boiler room" at CLO for weeks at a time to do nothing but call
>people and "confirm" them for the event. Which means that the actual
>functions these people have actually are almost never really getting
>done in the orgs.
If central files is not staffed, will it not get an enormous mess in the
'in' basket (if that is used)?
Ed
Mike Gormez wrote:
>
> "On 25 Dec 2004 04:49:47 -0800, "Lulu Belle" <exes...@yahoo.com> wrote in
> <1103978987.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>:
>
> >Some of the "non-essential" ones like letter regges or central files
> >people just get ripped off post pretty much full time and sent over the
> >the "boiler room" at CLO for weeks at a time to do nothing but call
> >people and "confirm" them for the event. Which means that the actual
> >functions these people have actually are almost never really getting
> >done in the orgs.
>
> If central files is not staffed, will it not get an enormous mess in the
> 'in' basket (if that is used)?
>
No, Dir of Comm (in HCO (Div 1) distributes the mail and
dispatches. Central Files (in Div 2) maintains the files of all the
customers, any public people the org has ever had dealings with,
whether they just wrote a letter or bought a book or paid for
services. The registrars are supposed to use these files so as to have
the complete history of the person they are dealing with. In practice
the CF post gets neglected and backlogged in most orgs. They have so
few actual customers that the reges know them and their histories very
well, so they feel they can bypass keeping tidy files of the
paperwork. Eventually a huge backlog builds up and there is an urgent
need to find something in the mess, so they have an all hands project
to get everything filed and in order.
Ed