Trillions to the Cult, or Merely Irrepressible Samizdat?
gerry armstrong
Further to the discussion regarding my liquidated damages
"debt" to Scierntology.
I wrote this letter, which came to be known as my "Christmas
Manifesto," and sent it to David Miscavige, various scientology
entities, and 19 non-scientology people. What happened after my
sending it is described following the letter.
[Quote]
December 22, 1992
David Miscavige and all other individuals who participate in the
control of Scientology
C/O Laurie J. Bartilson, Esquire
Bowles & Moxon
6255 Sunset Blvd., Suite 2000
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Re: Nothling v. Scientology
Dear David and all others involved:
I am writing this to you, and the various copy recipients
listed below, because there are certain things it is fair that
you know. Although it is the trial in the Nothling case, which,
I understand, is set for early February, that has moved me to
write at this time, the idea of writing has made addressing a
number of other subjects also timely.
You will recall that in June of 1991 when Malcolm Nothling
called me and asked me to testify in his case in Johannesburg I
wrote to the organization via Eric Lieberman to see if by
initiating communication on the subject you might see that there
was an answer to your litigation problems different from the one
you and your erstwhile leader had been believing in and pursuing
as long as any of us can remember.
Mr. Lieberman wrote back, essentially advising me you said
stick it in my ear, and that more, not less litigation was going
to be the same old solution; and to not expect communication
other than the solidest of sorts. Copies of Mr. Lieberman's and
my letters are enclosed herewith.
I did travel to South Africa in 1991 to testify, as you
know, but the trial was postponed on the organization's motion.
Now it's set to happen again. Again Mr. Nothling has asked me to
testify, again I have agreed, and again I am writing you to see
if there is any sense in attempting to unfoment this litigation.
Your public attack line that Gerald Armstrong foments
litigation against you is particularly hurtful because of what I
have done and continue to do to unfoment litigation. Even my
signing of your settlement agreement was, in the face of your
intent to hurt me, which fact is settled by the agreement itself,
an act only of unfomentation.
You all should take a good hard look at the hurt your
practices, certainly your litigation practices, cause in the
world. And you don't have to desist in them because of anything
I've said. You can knock off those bad practices for any reason
you want, including because they don't work and make no sense.
All the decent people, believe me, in your organization want
you to get out of the stupid attack-the-attacker business, and
they'd salute you for getting the organization out of that
silliness, but they're too frightened. You shouldn't frighten
good people that way. It's cruel. And any thinking soul knows
that you guys are only acting out of fear, so you really are not
fooling anyone with your blindness and bluster.
I realize you've put your faith in really bad things, like
lies and PR, threats and bullying, and really mean people, like
Gene Ingram. And I'm aware that having put your faith in badness
for so long, and spent so many millions of dollars to have so
many bad lawyers make so many bad decisions and add so much to
their brethren's bad name, it can seem impossible to quit. But
you must. All it will take is the willingness to unfoment your
litigation.
Eugene M. Ingram has done such nasty things to so many
people in the service of your organization, you and he should be
spanked. His terrible charge at the CAN convention that I have
AIDS is heartbreaking, not because I have AIDS, which I don't,
but because your pet pit viper personalizes and focuses your
organization's institutionalized hatred.
By accusing me of having AIDS, you and Ingram attack not
just me, you attack the many people whose lives have been touched
by this disease, or for that matter touched by your organization,
and you attack yourself. Your similar-veined attacks on other
people of good will at the CAN conference, like Father Kent
Burtner, has brought your organization to ignomy.
But the target of faith can be rechosen. And that is where
I urge sense and unfomentation. Put your faith in what is real,
what is true, what can always be depended on. Put your faith in
what in people is true, unchanging and ceaselessly loving.
Putting your faith in lies, PR, threats, bullying and bullies you
will always betray yourself because you put your faith in
nothing; and you and every being everywhere have a right to
everything that nothing isn't.
Likewise don't put your faith in litigation or your use of
the courts to harass. It is possible to be faithful to a higher
ideal than wins in court. If you have put your faith in lies,
leverage, advantage and bullying to secure a win, you have gained
nothing. If you put your faith in truth, hope, charity, love, no
matter the courtroom outcome you have everything; that's
religion.
Since the 1991 almost trial in the Nothling case the
California Court of Appeal issued its opinion in the appeal you
took from the Breckenridge decision in Armstrong I, the
California Supreme Court denied review, and the Court of Appeal
denied your motion to seal the appellate record. You brought and
lost the motion to enforce the settlement agreement before Judge
Geernaert in Armstrong I, and then you sued me to enforce it in
Armstrong II.
In May Judge Sohigian issued his ruling refusing to enforce
the agreement, although enjoining me from testifying unless
pursuant to a subpoena. He also ruled that I did not have to not
make myself amenable to service of process. I will supply a copy
of the Breckenridge decision, the Armstrong opinion and the
Sohigian injunction to any of the recipients of this letter upon
request.
Because you didn't appeal from the Sohigian injunction, you
have accepted it. I believe as well that for a valueless desire
for a valueless win at any cost you also accepted his dicta; e.g.
"involves abusing people who are weak," "involves techniques of
coercion," "a very, very substantial deviation between [your]
conduct and standards of ordinary, courteous conduct and
standards of ordinary, honest behavior," "be sure you cut the
deck," "make sure to count all the chips."
As a result, I consider myself free to do anything anyone
can, except testify absent a subpoena. Much of what I am
permitted do I am going to do. I am going to write freely, speak
freely, publish, talk to the media, associate freely, and
continue, until you put your faith in something more religious
than what is bad in jurisprudence, to confront the injustice you
bring to court.
In the next month or so I expect to initiate speaking or
media events to help pay the enormous costs of this litigation.
And I expect to promote my legal position within the publishing
industry, because my story and my writings on the subject are
literarily and commercially worthy.
I will continue to associate with and befriend all those
people I consider you attack unjustly and senselessly. I will
make my knowledge and support available to the Cult Awareness
Network, a group of people of good will you vilify, in all the
litigation you have fomented against them. I will make my
knowledge and support available to any Scientologist who is
afraid to go anywhere else for understanding, and to the families
of Scientologists your organization has estranged. I will even
make my knowledge and support available to entities like Time and
people like Rich Behar in their defenses from your attacks.
I will, nevertheless, remain available to do whatever I can
to unfoment your litigation. I will meet with you, talk with
you, help you to find a better solution to your problems.
Because of your decision to not have anyone communicate with me,
no one from your organization has. I get a little lawyer
contact, lots of PI BS, an OSA hearing or deposition attender,
enough psychic skirmishes for an army, but, for the life of me,
no real people.
In 1991, fantastically, I was the only person in the world,
other than Malcolm Nothling himself, who was willing to testify
at his trial. And that was enough reason to go. In February
1993, although at this trial I probably won't be the only person
willing to testify, there will still be ample reasons to go,
unless the case can be resolved.
I really would rather there was no trial and I really would
rather not go. Lord knows this last period has been overwhelming
and the litigation behemoth terrifying; and Lord knows I have my
own calling, which has nothing to do with your legal problems.
So I'm willing to do a lot to unfoment the Nothling litigation,
and all the tangled legal webs you've woven. But I sure can't do
much if you continue to see legal warfare as the solution to your
problems and continue to pay the millions your legal mercenaries
say the warfare costs.
I am aware that with enough money to enough lawyers you, the
leaders of your organization, can hide yourselves and make your
roles in your trumped-up war seem very important. There is no
doubt this is desirable, it just isn't fair. The real purpose of
your little war is to facilitate your doing something different
from Scientology, while all those whom you control must go
through the daily grind you say you're above.
I don't fault you for doing something different from
Scientology, but I do not find acceptable your holding
Scientologists in bondage to your catastrophic cause, enforcing
your lie that you have their best interests in mind, robbing
their years of youth and vigor, and putting them at risk while
you show up at the occasional ribbon cutting ceremony, lunch with
lawyers and the like, sucker celebs, run PIs and intel ops,
conspire, cheat, lie, steal, bully and destroy. I urge something
more creative as a better idea.
Your hardworking staff members and people of good will
around the world who have supported you financially and
spiritually will not for much longer be fooled by your
foolishness and will stop believing your lies. They will speak
to each other, they will speak out against your suppression, and
they will act to free themselves and their friends. You cannot
much longer, as we move societally into the age of wisdom,
cynically and sillily intimidate good people with threat and
suppress good people with lies.
There is the matter of mitigation of damages which, because
you insist your lawyers tell you what you pay them to say, you
may not have heard or yet understood. In that by the Sohigian
ruling I am permitted to speak freely, write freely, publish
freely, associate freely, when, it could be argued, and you have,
that prior to the ruling and pursuant to the settlement agreement
I was not so permitted, I have, in your attempt to enforce the
agreement, prevailed.
By not appealing the Sohigian ruling you have acquiesced
thereto. I am therefore due costs and fees in Armstrong II plus
the costs and fees you already owe in your earlier losing and
unappealed effort in Armstrong I. But in addition to the fees
and costs now owing, and increasing as you protract this already
lost litigation, there is the cumulative effect of your legal
onslaught which, continuing after the case was lost, if not
before, is in every minute malicious.
Gerald Armstrong and The Gerald Armstrong Corporation (TGAC)
must also mitigate their damages. I have a duty, therefore, to
end this litigation as quickly as possible. Thus I write to so
many organizational recipients; thus I canvass to see if within
the organization's many parts, all put at risk by their leaders'
asininity and mean-spiritedness, there are people of good will
who will see sense in what is in their best interest.
That after the Sohigian ruling you sued TGAC (pronounce that
Tee-Gee-Ack) is silly and self-destructive. The only thing in
the world Gerald Armstrong, individual, is prohibited from doing
by the "injunction," is testifying about his Scientology history
and knowledge without first accepting the perfunctory subpoena.
TGAC only came into existence in 1987, six years after Gerald
Armstrong's organization experiences ended, and a year after the
Armstrong I litigation "settled."
TGAC cannot testify, with or without subpoena, about any
Scientology experiences, because it has had, aside from those
which have flowed from your lawsuit, none. Since no one,
including TGAC, is prohibited by Sohigian from doing any of the
things TGAC actually is capable of doing, it is free to do
everything anyone or any other corporation can; and by not
appealing the injunction you have so agreed. Thus, having no
conceivably legitimate claim against TGAC, you depend on one
manufactured from madness, and you must therefore dismiss the
mess you've made.
There is also, as mentioned above, the fact that in order to
defend myself from your attacks and to fund the defense of the
litigation you have fomented I must speak and must publish. I'm
sure you understand that I remain completely confident that no
court, other than the odd one your mercenaries are able to
compromise with bucks, babes or bull, will order me to not defend
myself.
I realize you will probably claim to be offended by
everything I've written in this letter. I can't do much about
that because you seem to take offense no matter what I say or
write, or don't. For, inter alia, that reason I haven't said or
written it differently. I really don't blame you for being
offended and I don't expect you not to be offended; nor will I be
offended if you are. I think my position is obvious and I think
peace is worth doing something about, even if the fomenters of
war are offended. I've used the words I've used because to me
they make sense and they're a facet of my craft.
This letter is not really, however you may take it, a
complaint nor an attack. It is an effort to unfoment your
litigation, into which I have been, albeit for some God-given
purpose, drawn. So, neither forgetting nor ignoring Judge
Sohigian's admonition not to settle Armstrong II, but still
hoping, with my heart crossed, here is my proposal:
1. Settle the Nothling case;
2. Settle with Ed Roberts;
3. Dismiss your complaint against TGAC and Gerald
Armstrong;
4. Remove all your bar complaints against Ford
Greene;
5. Pay my attorney fees and costs;
6. We will dismiss the cross-complaint and appeal;
7. Cancel the agreement;
8. Return all materials you've stolen from me at any
time;
9. Pay me whatever you want, including, but not
limited to, nothing.
1. Malcolm Nothling has a claim and he has survived a lot
to get to trial. His costs, not much by US litigation standards,
must be recognized, and he must be made whole financially,
ethically and publicly. I am convinced that his daughter, but
for your control of her mother and her life, would enjoy a
healthy, loving relationship with her father. Therefore you must
do whatever is within your power to reunite them.
2. You know about the Ed Roberts case because Ms.
Bartilson interrogated me about my providing assistance to Mr.
Roberts in my last series of depositions in Armstrong II, and one
of your lawyers, Marcello Di Mauro, in earlier times communicated
about him with Ford Greene. Ed Roberts is a friend of mine who
was sucked dry and flat out robbed by your registrars on the way
to an up- or downstat week of no consequence to anyone as it
turns out, and always does, but Ed.
I have found myself in the silly position of being the only
person in the world willing to help Mr. Roberts against your
organization. Again, I have no desire to have Mr. Roberts engage
you in litigation. In fact his situation can be resolved without
your fomenting not only more litigation, but more ill will and
silliness. For you it is merely an accounting matter. You
ripped Mr. Roberts off; now pay him what is needed to make him
whole again.
Mr. Roberts' case of Scientology lies, threats, treachery
and thievery, his own money then used to pay your pittiless
pettifoggers to prevent him from anything resembling redress, is
being played and replayed every day of the year in your orgs. I
would think that the three or so million you wasted on your inane
USA Today ads to counter Richard Behar's few good pages could
have taken care of three hundred Mr. Roberts and done a heap of
good.
All your ads did was a heap of bad: more lies, more hate,
more embarrassment for Scientologists everywhere, another dead
forest, and an uncharitable little delay to your victims before
they are made whole. The Ed Roberts case is, in my opinion, the
proof of Time's theme: that you are - all of you at the top of
your organization - a cult of greed. But worse, you squander
your plunder, as witness Toronto, starve the good and fatten your
PIs and proctors and their proctologists. And all with the
fatuous excuse of a right to defend wrongness and attack
rightness because your "religion's" stupidity is, in our courts
of law, beyond question.
Anyway I want to have Ed's needs taken care of toot sweet.
He probably wouldn't think less of you if you didn't apologize,
but I think it's a good idea and sure couldn't hurt.
3. I don't care what order everything is done in. I think
whatever is most practical, sensible and ergonomically sound is
the way to approach this particular program, which, I'm sure can
be wrapped up in a couple of days.
4. This is easy. These Ingram-generated efforts have only
served to shine a light on your invidiously scheming enterprise.
All your similarly baseless bar complaints against my other
lawyer, Michael Flynn, came to nothing. You should learn from
the earthworms. Filing no spurious bar complaints whatsoever
they demonstrate their superior philosophy.
5. Although they're in the range of, I don't think fees
and costs are over $500,000. Clearly nothing is going to happen
unless you cover my attorneys' fees and costs. To leave me with
that indebtedness is unfair and unworkable. You will recall that
I made a proposal in 1984, being then scared and weak: pay my
lawyers' fees and costs of, I guessed, $150,000, and I'll quit.
You, and in those days, Hubbard, said no way. I, less scared and
much stronger, urge you to choose again.
6. Dismissal of the cross-complaint is easy. I'll take
care of it.
8. I'm aware this may for a long time remain a pettiness
you'd rather not confront. But I can guarantee that if you
return my materials - the Hubbard letters manuscript, the Cones,
all the other materials you and your PIs have stolen from me over
the years, I will not bring criminal charges, and I won't even
bring the subject up again.
9. You have to cancel the settlement agreement in order to
demonstrate to yourselves that it was the wrong thing in which to
put your faith. You will notice that when you cancel the
agreement nothing will happen. Yet you will have freed me. And
that is what you should make Scientology's only business: freeing
people. You will also observe that when you free me you free
yourselves; in fact you cannot yourselves be free unless you free
me.
Regarding my relationship with you after you cancel the
agreement, that is where you must reassert your faith. Have the
faith that I will neither say nor write worse things about you if
you free me to do so. As you know I can say some pretty pointed
things about you now just because you won't cancel that degrading
document. Put faith in what occurs in silence. Put faith in the
inevitable.
7. You decide. If you think I did a lousy job unfomenting
your litigation, pay me zippo. Even if it all works for
everyone, timing inspired and ideas a Godsend, you don't have to
pay me anything. I generally don't refuse what's offered. You
know how much I'm worth.
I haven't forgotten Wollersheim, Yanny I & II, the Aznarans,
the CAN litigation, claimants all over the place, your government
lawsuits, the rest of the settlement signatories, your taxes, nor
your image and media distress, and I think it's appropriate to
say that I can help you unfoment those problems as well. I
would, of course, need half a chance.
If you look deep in your hearts I believe you'll find you
really do not want Scientology's legacy to be one of suppression;
suppression of the Constitution, human dignity, truth, religion,
justice, even suppression of your own good selves. Wouldn't it
be better to be known as the people who ended the madness in
peace and style; a radical recognition of the transcendence of
quantum scientology. LRH was Newtonian in his physics and
relativistic epistemologically. I like to call one aspect of my
philosophy, inter alia non-mutual exclusivity.
I believe that everyone will become a person of good will,
that everyone already is, has been and will forever be, that
there is progress and perfection, hope and reason, that to know
who we are we must accept the truth of our relationship to our
Creator, that all about us that we made is illusion, that we have
reason to be grateful that is so, that our Creator, God, our
Father Loves us in the same Love by which He created us and holds
us always safe and always loved in that Love, that we, His
children, are one and One with Him, that the means by which He is
remembered, and hence our relationship, and hence who we are,
and hence what we know, is forgiveness, that forgiveness is the
recognizing of illusion for what it is, that creation is our
nature, and that everything is all there is.
With a wish for peace in 1993, I remain hopeful and,
yours sincerely,
Gerald Armstrong
715 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
San Anselmo, CA 949650
(415)456-8450
ga
cc: Malcolm Nothling
Ed Roberts
Lawrence Wollersheim
Richard & Vicki Aznaran
Richard Behar
Ford Greene, Esquire
Paul Morantz, Esquire
Joseph A. Yanny, Esquire
Toby L. Plevin, Esquire
Graham E. Berry, Esquire
Stuart Cutler, Esquire
Anthony Laing, Esquire
John C. Elstead, Esquire
Michael J. Flynn, Esquire
Fr. Kent Burtner
Margaret Singer, PhD.
Cult Awareness Network
Daniel A. Leipold, Esquire
Church of Scientology International
Church of Scientology of California
Religious Technology Center
Church of Spiritual Technology
Church of Scientology ASHO
Church of Scientology AOLA
Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C.
Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization
Church of Scientology of Arizona
Church of Scientology of Los Angeles
Church of Scientology of Stevens Creek
Church of Scientology of Sacramento
Church of Scientology of San Francisco
Church of Scientology of Washington State
Church of Scientology of Boston
Church of Scientology of Portland
Church of Scientology of New York
[End Quote]
Well, on December 31, 1992 Scientology filed an application
for an Order to Show Cause re Contempt, based in part on this
letter. Attorney Laurie Bartilson of Bowles & Moxon wrote:
"Armstrong's intention to ignore the May 28 Order was
reiterated in a letter sent by Armstrong to plaintiff's
counsel, dated December 22, 1992. In that letter, which
is copied to his own attorneys but not sent by them,
Armstrong threatens that, if he is not paid $500,000
and this lawsuit dismissed, he intends to travel
voluntarily to South Africa to testify against a church
of Scientology, give interviews to the media and
voluntarily assist anyone and everyone opposing
Churches that he can locate."
"(n5) In what can only be described as deliberate
harassment, Armstrong also sent copies of the letter to
35 individuals or groups, including anti-Church
litigants, such as...."
"In his December 22 letter, Armstrong asserted that he
"is the only person in the world willing to help Mr.
Roberts against your organization." In that letter,
Armstrong includes the payment of an unspecified amount
to Mr. Roberts as a "condition" to ending of
Armstrong's campaign of harassment against the Church."
The Court should exercise all of its available powers
to impress upon Armstrong that its orders mean what
they say and will be enforced, despite the
intransigence of an enjoined party. Indeed,
incarceration is an unusually viable vehicle for
impressing upon Armstrong the import of his
obligations, inasmuch as Armstrong has publicly
disavowed money as a meaningful or valuable commodity."
On April 5, 1994 Scientology filed its second amended
complaint in _Armstrong II_ (LASC No. 052395). Its Fourteenth
Cause of Action stated:
"On or about December 22, 1992, Armstrong sent a letter
to, inter alia, Malcolm Nothling, Ed Roberts, Lawrence
Wollersheim, Richard Aznaran, Vicki Aznaran, Richard
Behar, Ford Greene, Paul Morantz, Joseph A. Yanny, Toby
L. Plevin, Graham E. Berry, Stuart Cutler, Anthony
Laing, John C. Elstead, Fr. Kent Burtner, Margaret
Singer, Cult Awareness Network and Daniel A. Leipold.
Each of these individuals or organizations is (a)
engaged in litigation against plaintiff and/or other
Beneficiaries; (b)an avowed adversary of plaintiff
and/or other Beneficiaries; and/or (c) an attorney who
represents or has represeted litigants and/or
adversaries of plaintiff and/or other Beneficiaries. []
Said letter violates the Agreement in that it contains
purported disclosures by Armstrong of his claimed
experiences with Scientology as prohibited by paragraph
7(D).
In addition, the letter devotes an entire section to a
description of the earlies action resulting from the
breaches of the Settlement Agreement and to a
description of the Settlement Agreement itself. The
sending of the letter to plaintiff's adversaries
violated the provision of paragraph 7(D) of the
Agreement.
By reason of the foregoing breach of the Agreement,
plaintiff is entitled to $950,000 in liquidated
damages."
On July 29, 1994 LASC Judge Diane Wayne ruled on
Scientology's OSC re contempt, which included some ten separate
charges. She stated regarding my letter:
"And finally, when read in its totality, the letter of
December 22, 1992 does not amount to activity which
"assists" in litigation on behanlf of Roberts.
The OSC and the Citee, Gerald Armstrong, are
discharged."
In my separate statement of disputed and undisputed facts in
opposition to one of Scientology's summary adjudication motions
in Marin SC, I cited to the subject letter to support an argument
that Scientology's calculation of the liquidated damages is
unfathomable.
"In its first amended complaint, Scientology claims
that for a single letter Armstrong wrote on December
22, 1992, in which he attempted to bring peace to
Scientology's conflict, it is due $950,000.00 in
liquidated damages.
In Scientology's motion it claims that Armstrong "spoke
multiple times with Geertz' counsel, Graham Berry,
concerning his claimed Scientology knowledge and
experiences;" "met with a cadre of other anti-
Scientology litigants and would-be witnesses, at
Berry's office, wherein all discussed Scientology,
their claimed knowledge and experiences;" and
"furnished Berry with not one, but two declarations
describing his claimed Scientology knowledge and
experiences." For all these "breaches" involving all
these people Scientology seeks a "mere" $50,000.00.
To Armstrong, there appears to be no rhyme nor reason
to Scientology's calculation of its "damages;" only
whim. To Armstrong these unfathomable, whimsical
calculations simply demonstrate the ridiculous nature
of the "contract," rendered, in Scientology's
untrustworthy hands, horribly cruel.
Marin SC Judge Gary W. Thomas, stated in response, in his
grant of summary adjudication to Scientology:
" Defendant's evidence does not raise an inference that
plaintiff's calculation is "unfathomable" (fourteenth
cause of action seeks $50,000 for each of 18 letters;
nineteenth cause of action is based only on
declarations, not on other contacts between defendant
and attorney/other clients)."
Pardon me?
So I reckon that if I post this thing to a thousand
newsgroups, each with say a thousand readers, that's fifty billion
simoleons. Or for my European compadres, fifty milliard. And if
someone were to put it somewhere for the world to see...
It shows to Scientology that it cannot possibly be damaged by the
truth.
But really it's just my humble part in the prayer for laughter
everywhere that is samizdat.
Gerry
Xenu Mania
Gerry Armstrong wrote:
> So I reckon that if I post this thing to a thousand
> newsgroups, each with say a thousand readers, that's
> fifty billion simoleons. Or for my European compadres,
> fifty milliard. And if someone were to put it somewhere
> for the world to see...
That's do-able.
> It shows to Scientology that it cannot possibly be
> damaged by the truth.
Ah, truth that cleanses the soul.
Joe Cisar
reply to: iy...@cleveland.freenet.edu Xenu Mania
http://www.innernet.net/joecisar/conmenu.htm
The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the
smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
Tilman Hausherr
In <34640a6b...@news.dowco.com>, arms...@ntonline.com (gerry
armstrong) wrote:
>about him with Ford Greene. Ed Roberts is a friend of mine who
>was sucked dry and flat out robbed by your registrars on the way
>to an up- or downstat week of no consequence to anyone as it
>turns out, and always does, but Ed.
Can you tell more about this? It seems this case never made it to any
newspapers.
Tilman