Report on the 2002 New Years Event
My husband and I attended the New Years Event. I will confess
that I had to harangue him for at least 3 days before he agreed to
go with me. Finally, after much debate, he managed to extort a
weeks worth of back rubs with no complaining on my part in
exchange for going with me. He's shrewd.
We both got all dress up for the event which is the correct thing to do for a C of S New Year's event. My husband wore one of his business suits, very stylish, and I opted for the sequin thing.
Half the women there were wearing some sort of sequin thing so this won't tip anyone off.
I really did want to wear those 5 inch "come fuck me" high heels with the "slut red" fingernail polish and lipstick and douse myself in my daughters cheap perfume, but my husband put the ix-nay on all of that as he felt we shouldn't bring attend to ourselves.
We arrived a few minutes early and did the standard schmoozing with old friends and acquaintances and then found our seats. It was the usual size crowd with not too many new faces.
The event There were several noticeable differences about this event. For one thing Jeff Pomeratz was not sitting in the front row with his white scarf hamming it up for the cameras. I would like to report that this is a definite improvement.
Instead the camera's panned the crowd of the LA event and a few celebs in the front row. The camera particularly like to focus on Priscilla Presley who was seated in the front row with the other celeb and Freedom Medal Winners.
Another difference was that the graphics that were used to show the stats actually had numbers. They didn't show stats like total number of people onlines or number of OT's made, but each and every graph they did show had numbers. All graphs went from Dec 2000 to this past Thursday at 2:00. The showing of the numbers on the stats is something the C of S has not done in many years. Maybe they read my last report on the IAS event and took the hint. ;->
Whether the numbers on the graphs are accurate or not is an other issue.
Another few noticeable differences were that ED Int's tux fit much better and the event was noticeably shorter.
The New Year's Event is usually the time when they announce all the Power FSM's and bring all these super dooper FSM's up on stage to receive their awards. This was completely omitted from this event.
Other than that is was business as usual
Highlights.
It should be noted for those of you who are not familiar with the
New Years Event that these events are always just a continuous
report of wins, wins, wins and expansion news for the prior year.
Scientologists who may not be on service start the New Year with a new dose of indoctrination and receive a full year's worth of PR.
It should also be noted that it is not possible for me to take out a pen and note pad from my purse and start madly scribbling notes on what is being said and what stats are being claimed.
If I was found doing that, I'd be hauled out of the room and questioned by security.
DM as always was the first speaker. Nice tux with a black bow tie. DM looks as if he may have been lifting weights. He wasn't jacked or anything, but his face looked more muscular.
DM covered the recent "major victories" in the legal arena.
Germany DM went into detail about the recent legal "victory" in Germany.
He told a story of how Germany has always been a very suppressive place toward religion and nothing much has changed about that. He talked about a branch of the German Government called OPC. Per DM, OPC is the German organization responsible for handling terrorism. He then went on to explain that if OPC had been doing their job, and handling terrorists, instead of harassing the C o S then the criminal terrorists involved in the Sept 11 tragedy could have been stopped and the tragedy averted. . Per DM Germany is a training ground for these terrorists and OPC was too busy infiltrating Scn to go after real criminals.
DM spent some time going over the policy on the criminal mind and how OPC was a criminal organization because they accused the C of S of being criminal.
He then told a tale of how OPC attempted to infiltrate the C of S and came up with absolutely nothing. An OPC agent was then caught on video tape trying to bribe a C of S staff member ( 5000 deutschmarks) and this led to the C of S bringing suit against OPC.
DM then quoted the judge's findings in the case and unfortunately I am unable to recall exactly what he quoted but I remember thinking that this German judge sounded totally PRO Scientology. At least that is how DM made it sound.
Just a side note on what happens to me at these events. In the past, when listening to DM and the other speakers giving up these legal wins, etc. I automatically assumed he/they were telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. After all DM is the leader of the Church and a Scientologists and he wouldn't lie, right?
Now I listen and wonder what part, if any is the truth and what part are lies.
Just like I would hear "entheta" in the past and go into Scn mind mush mode and assume that everything bad said about Scn was twisted and false. I now find myself doing the opposite and assume that DM et al, are twisting the facts to suit them.
Neither is a particularly good place to view data from. I would like to be able to listen to DM with a critical eye just like I listen to critics. The problem is that I have little data or HARD FACTS (Librarian I do read your posts) to compare them to.
I think I will invite PTS C to attend the next event with me. I'll explain that he is my nephew and is interested in starting services ;-> ( Note to OSA: That was a joke) All right, back to the event. The final outcome per DM is TOTAL VICTORY for the C of S and OPC can not infiltrate the C of S ever again. Graphics of newspaper articles in German where put up for 5 seconds and DM claimed that this was front page news all over Germany.
Spain.
I'm not positive, but I think this was supposed to be the really big win of the night.
DM told the tale of the recent C of S victory in Spain. DM said that Spain has been a very suppressive place for religion for a very long time, and said something like " Does the term Spanish Inquisition ring a bell?" This got a hardy chuckle from the audience.
DM explains that in Spain's recent history there was a suppressive dictatorship under Franco and even though Franco is dead much of the fascistic government is still in place.
I'm not sure If I'm going to give DM's story justice as it was so fantastic that I was in awe of the lunacy of it.
Since I am officially at least SP 1 per the ARSCC (wdne) I will probably alter is this story somewhat but I will give my best effort to keep it straight.
Per DM, a nameless SP's went nuts in 1984 which is when the
RTC came into being and got a hold of all the copyrights for LRH
materials. DM reported that this nameless, Suppressive Spanish
Squirrel (SSS) attempted to steal all the copyrights by being the
first to register them in Spain. The Suppressive Spanish Squirrel
was stopped in his tracks by RTC.
They then showed a picture of the nameless SSS but I have no
idea who this is.
Why DM spoke about this or how this was connected to the Spanish case is way beyond me. I completely missed the connection and was wondering why they showed a picture of the SSS but didn't give us his name.
DM then started talking about a Spanish judge/prosecutor named Enrico (?? not sure of spelling) Per DM this Enrico was completely insane and was on a mission to destroy Scn. DM quoted some Spanish judge's comments claiming Enrico was a fool and idiot. DM was really carrying on about this Enrico fellow and doing a bang up job of DA'ing him to the crowd.
Finally DM said that Enrico told a reporter that "Scientologists are from Venus and the rest of us are from Mars.
It is well know that Venusians have superior powers and blah blah blah" sorry I can't remember the exact quote but the intention was to prove that this Enrico fellow was completely nuts. DM had the crowd laughing about how crazy this Enrico fellow really was.
I'm sure Virginia and her gang will find some deep hidden meaning in all of this, but honestly it just seemed that DM's lunatic version of events was crazier than Enrico's.
DM dropped the subject of Enrico and what happened to him and said that the case was then picked up by a prosecutor named LaDrone ( ??Spelling) which in Spanish translates to thief.
Then DM jumped to 1988(???) sorry he was throwing dates and names around like mad and being unfamiliar with this data, I was having trouble keeping track of it all. You can only imagine that if I was having trouble keeping the story straight, what the indoc'd one's were doing. They were soaking all this stuff in as gospel.
Anyway. Back in 1988 or so there was this big IAS conference held in a hotel in Spain and over 100 of the Suppressive Spanish Special Forces (SSSF) ( heh, try saying that 3 times fast) stormed the hotel with submachine guns and arrested all the Scientologists there. They actually showed news footage of he Suppressive Spanish Special Forces hauling off Heber in handcuffs. Btw, Heber did not make an appearance at this event.
There was no audio in the footage but you could see Heber's lips flapping.
There were 72 Scientologists jailed in some old Spanish prison that was more like a dungeon. The facilities were very bad and the "lavatory facilities" consisted of a hole in the floor. DM said that of the 72 Scientologists jailed, some of them were pregnant women.
DM said to make things worse, the Prison was populated by Islamic Fundamentalists and rumors were being spread throughout the prison that the Scientologists were really Israel Mossad agents.
It was at this point that I almost LOL'd. DM is totally carrying on
about the evil Suppressive Spanish Squirrel and Suppressive
Spanish Special Forces and insane prosecutors and then he comes
up with crap like the above. He never really gave us any legal
details, just lots of DA on the people prosecuting Scn.
OK back to the report.
At the end of the three weeks, the Scientologist were released from the prison only to be put under house arrest for months. But in leaving the prison, the Scientologists were cheered by the prison population with Liberte! Liberte! Freedom.
LOL!!!
DM reports that the Spanish government had seized the accounts of the Church and Narconon in Spain and was manufacturing evidence that Scn was evil.
DM said that the charges against the Church included:
--Trying to overthrow the government of Morocco --Causing Franco to become ill and ultimately his death and the evidence of this was that the Apollo was in one of the ports of Spain during Franco's illness --Trying to take over the governments of Spain and possibly Portugal.
DM then quoted some nameless fellow but I believe DM said he was a "scholar". The "scholar said that if Scn was involved in doing all these crazy things then they should be applauded because all of these governments at the time were being run by suppressive dictatorships and now they are democracies.
Therefore Scientology was actually helpful not harmful or some
such bullshit.
Listen, don't blame me for what DM says.
DM told a few stories about the trial. The one that sticks out was that supposedly this LaDrone fellow was not a good litigator as he violated the first rule in litigation which is "don't ask a question that you do not know the answer to"
La Drone put a bunch of people on the stand and even the people that were witnesses for the prosecution ended up being pro Scientology ( this I don't believe at all) and then LaDrone put Scientologists on the stand and asked one Scientologist, "Do you know anyone who acts like a suppressive person?" and the Scientologists answered, " Yes, that someone would be you".
[Not an exact quote here but it was similar] This caused the Audience to roar with laughter.
Basically DM was saying that the charges against the C of S were
ludicrous and the Spanish courts agreed that they were ludicrous
and dropped at the charges.
Next up was Mike Rinder.
Rinder never seems to change much. Still that snotty condescending attitude and the man hardly ever smiles. One minor fashion statement that has always annoyed me is that the bow tie on DM's tux is always different than the other guys. DM had on a solid black bow tie and Rinder, ED, Int and Mark Yaeger all had on the same olive green and black bow tie. I know it's a minor, nitpicky issue, but it really annoys me. DM has to set himself apart as senior to the other guys with this little bow tie statement.
Anywayz..... Back to Rinder I think it was Rinder that announced that in the past week ( or past few days) over 200,000 copies of The Way To Happiness (TWTH) were distributed as inserts in the New York editions of USA today.
And something like 4.5 million copies of TWTH were issued either this past year or in total. Honestly I didn't catch what he said on that point.
Rinder talked about the expansion of Applied Scholastics (ASI) and listed a bunch of new countries ( third world) that ASI is now delivering the study tech to.
It should be noted that most of Scientology's "Expansion" is in third world countries with very low literacy levels and/or very little access to the internet.
But what I found most interesting about Rinder's talk was all the damn properties the C of S was buying up.
Not only did they purchase Narconon Arrowhead, touted as the world's largest drug rehab center but they also bought:
The Spanish Lake Monastery in St. Louis Mo., for ASI Int headquarters.
A huge building ( looks also like a monastery) in Battle Creek, Michigan for the New Narconon Center there. The "biggest one in the State of Michigan"
A huge building in Montreal, Canada, ( 54 acres and also looks like a monastery) for the New Narconon Canada, the "largest drug rehab facilities in all of Canada"
And they have new or expanded buildings for Narconon in Austria, South Africa, Brazil and I think Hungary.
Anyway, it looks like they may be buying up old monasteries that are in secluded areas for Narconon's and other ABLE groups.
Mark Yaeger spoke:
Mark is an on and off speaker at these Int events. He looked pretty much the same, but a bit thinner. It may have just been the lighting used but both Yaeger and Karen Hollander looked gray and gaunt.
Yaeger's talk was about the expansion of WISE. Most of his talk seemed to be about the new Hubbard College in Los Angeles.
A video was shown on the New Hubbard College and one thing of interest is the video stated that the college could accommodate up to 14,000 students each year. The article below, circa Oct 2001 states it could accommodate 20,000 students. Below I have pasted some data about this new college. Some of this data was presented at the event start paste.
PROSPERITY MAGAZINE
The Source Line for Business: Issue 52 ( Oct 2001)
SECTION: WISE NEWS
TITLE: The Dream of an L. Ron Hubbard University
WISE members make it a concrete reality
“ The new Hubbard College of Administration International
[HCAI] headquarters nears completion due to the dedication and
teamwork of the WISE membership
“College Row is a stretch of Vermont Avenue in Hollywood that
houses educational institute after institute. Here you’ll find the
American Career College, the Los Angeles City College,
Cleveland Chiropractic College and the national headquarters of
the Braille Institute. It’s on this street that UCLA before
relocating, first opened its doors many years ago.”
The article continues to explain how the new HCAI will open in a few months with the most workable technology of all time.
“With the new Hubbard College headquarters, its state licensing and official accreditation, LRH admin tech is moving into society’s mainstream along the thoroughfare of the existing university/-college system.
“The new 4 story Hubbard College headquarters, with its eight course rooms, three seminar/workshop spaces, state of the art Information Center and numerous other facilities moves the dissemination of LRH’s third dynamic tech to a whole new plateau with a delivery capacity of over 20,000 students a year.
20,000 standard administrators moving into society is however but one aspect of the new HC headquarters.
.
“ It is this purpose which has inspired WISE members to contribute their time and funds to this, our most important strategic progress. WISE members are assisting directly in renovations, they are contributing financially and upgrading their membership.
“In fact, a select number of WISE members have been appointed to the HCAI Advisory Board. Composed of opinion leaders and VIP’s, the HC Advisory Board combines and channels the forces and power of its individual members into strategic actions which support and forward the purposes and goals of the HCAI. Each member is specially selected and each brings his/her own unique skills, lines and resources.”
End Paste Anyway, the video showed the open house of this new Hubbard College with interviews of the people who attended it. There was also a clip of the New Hubbard College in NYC. This per Mark Yaeger was opened to assist the business community in NYC especially the ones affected by the 911 tragedy.
Before I forget, let me include that in one segment they showed a letter from a woman who is the CO- President ( ??) of Cantor Fitzgerald in NYC, thanking the VM's for all their help Cantor Fitzgerald is a company that was hit very hard by the 911 incident. I believe a vast majority of their staff was wiped out and it appears the VM's are actively involved in counseling the families of Cantor Fitzgerald.
The also showed a letter from the Police Chief of NYC ( I didn't
get his name but I think he first name was Joseph) and a letter
from NY Congressman Charles B. Rangel, thanking the C of S for
all their work during 911.
Karen Hollander
Karen was wearing a black dress with shear black sleeves. She
continues to look haggard. Karen Hollander talked about IHELP
and the VM's. I missed most of what she said as my husband
started complaining about something. I may be confusing which
speaker said what, but I believe it was Karen Hollander that talked
about what the VM's from CCInt in LA were doing with the LA
fire department. I am not sure exactly what they are doing but it
seems that the VM's are taking special courses offered by the
LAFD so that the VM's can actually work directly with the LAFD
when disasters occur.
Stats
I don't remember which speaker gave the following data but there
were a few stats that really stuck out.
New Staff. I think it was DM that said that since Sept 11th, there have been 1695 new staff members.
482 of these joined the Sea Org at Flag. Of those 482, 80 or so were OT's and 18 were new OT 7's.
I spoke to a friend about these numbers and my friend agreed that Flag has a lot of new staff but that they were mostly 14 and 15 year olds.
80+ joined New York Org staff.
Tokyo also had a large number of new staff and they now have over 200 staff in total.
A Video was shown of some rather well known Mission Holders including Jenna Elfman, Lisa Marie Presley, Isaac Hayes, Mitch and Dori Talevi and Joe and Cindy Feshbach.
Also included in this video but listed as "Forming Mission Holders" meaning they were starting a mission but it hadn't yet opened, was Nancy Cartwright, (the voice of Bart Simpson) Mark Isham, and David Pomeratz. These are all Scn celebs and each spent a minute in the video promoting how important it is to do your job as a Scientologist and start a mission or join staff.
There was a big push at this event for Scientologists to either become very involved or join staff.
The other stat that I found completely unbelievable was a stat that I think Karen Hollander gave when she was promoting IHELP.
She said that currently there were 2000 Dianetic groups in Africa and over 400,000 PC's receiving auditing.
I'm not making this shit up either. I specifically remember these
numbers as they were so outrageous.
ED Int's speech.
As stated earlier, ED Int finally got a tux that fix him properly.
ED Int. talked about the New Volunteer Minister campaign. It appears that it will be a massive PR campaign to get people to contact the VM's. Billboards, magazine ads, and ads in the NYC subway system are already appearing. A preview of the new VM TV commercial was also shown.
The C of S is apparently going full tilt on this one and spending
millions to promote this VM program.
I will not pretend that I understand what has recently gone on with
google and the fact that critical web sites have been moved further
back in the listing but it makes sense that Scn has done something
to prepare for this. They are about to do a massive campaign to
bring people to the VM website. I am quite certain they don't
want people to see the critical sites. It appears they probably did
make some major efforts to get all their web sites listed on the
first page so that people doing a search only see their stuff.
Ptsc was right when he made a comment to someone's post about Scn applying the emergency formula. The are not only Promoting which is the first step in the formula but they are " Preparing to deliver" which is also part of the Emergency formula.
The Hubbard College, all these new Narconon's, the new SP building, the new ASI building are all geared to getting ready for some massive delivery. They are putting a lot of time and money into promoting this VM website. The critical web sites are the only thing that stands in their way and they have very effectively pushed them back. Those of you with websites need to do whatever is necessary to get your sites linked or whatever so that they show up on searches for Scn.
Cerridwen