Warning: The following post contains profane words that some might find objectionable.

So what was DM/RTC/Dept 20 doing before and during the "60 Minutes" show? I wasn't there but I've been there for a lot of such "screenings" and so let me give you a possible scenario...

For those who do not know who I am, I spent nearly 21 years in the cult, most of it in Department 20 (the Guardian's Office, later renamed the Office of Special Affairs), the section that finds "Whos" and attacks them. My credentials can be found in an article I wrote for Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists, which is archived at http://www.scientology.no.net/archive/media/young-quill.html Other posts I have made about Scientology and its criminal Dept 20 can be found at http://www.entheta.net/entheta/1stpersn/rvy/ and http://www.islandnet.com/~martinh/rvy/rvy.htm

The most important element in the airing of such a show as "60 Minutes" is David Miscavige, DM, the "Chairman of the Board" of Religious Technology Center or RTC. His reaction determines if one keeps ones job or goes to the gulags and so preparations are not set up in terms of the show but in terms of DM.

If DM was located at the California base, that means the show would be airing three hours before he could see it. He can't handle that.

As a quick aside, let me interject something that I've come to appreciate. L. Ron Hubbard defined Scientology as "knowing how to know" yet you will never see a more compulsive, aberrated, deviant, psychotic group of people trying to "know" than you will find in RTC/Dept 20. They MUST know. They HAVE to know. They send out PIs, spies, plants. Dept 20 personnel have gone to jail for burglaries and wire taps. That is how much they "know how to know."

I used to wonder, if Scientology is making people with such incredible abilities that they can see through walls, travel around and read things, why do we hire private investigators and burglarize and steal trash and wiretap people to "know" something? Don't we have a better technology than break-ins, extortions, thefts and the like?

Nope. What Scientology's "knowing how to know" comes down to is nothing more than that because there is nothing more than stealing trash etc.

So what was DM/RTC/Dept 20 doing on the day of the "60 Minutes" show?

First, if they got a good spy/plant in the network, they want to find out what the show will contain. (It doesn't do them any good but remember, this is a serious compulsion.) Otherwise, they will berate the show and the network with calls to ask them and anyone they can with questions as to content. They will ask who is on the show. What did they say? (My name certainly came up many times, to show how "OT" this organization really is.)

There will have been many last minute demands from attorneys, with various threatening letters. Possibly some please from a few celebrities, if John Travolta doesn't mind showing himself as a fool a bit more. Since the show is about the Cult Awareness Network, the Intelligence Bureau would probably send in a plant with "new and devestating information" in the hopes that it would delay the show, if only for a week. (The whole idea is to delay it, delay it, delay it. That gives the attorneys more time to threaten.)

But when it comes to Showtime, it all happens on the East Coast. The NY OSA will have a few VCR's in place to make copies, just in case one of them don't work. Meanwhile, someone will have a feed from NY to LA OSA (HQ) via a Net connection. LA OSA will also have a satellite feed to get it directly and so will DM. After all, we can't wait for three hours, can we? (Hey, "knowing how to know" means satellite feed! That's why you pay $300,000 to "go OT", right?)

Who watches the show/feed with DM is always a variable. First, it depends on who is available or out on an assignment. Second, the people to blame are seldom there. In this case, it will be the PRs. It is unlikely Rinder (the head of OSA) would be there, unless DM is in LA. The last thing in the world that Rinder would want is to be in the same room as DM while watching this show.

There's usually 8-10 aides that will be there. There's no drinks or snacks. This is not "entertainment." This is a flap that got out of control. In DM's views, the attorneys screwed up, the PRs screwed up and his aides screwed up. Everyone is going to pay for this.

So no one wants to be there, really.

To get an idea how DM behaves, watch Al Pacino in "Scarface." He's a bit tall for DM but his demeanor is great. The character is able to lace his dialogue with more forms of "fuck" than one can imagine. Sometimes it seems as if every other word is "fuck" or some other sexual obscenity. That's DM's dialogue and watching "60 Minutes" will bring it out fully.

He watches such shows from behind his desk. The aides sit about in chairs. The smart ones stay out of physical range. When the show comes on, the comments start. The appearance of an "enemy" brings the obscenities: fucker, cocksucker, etc. They are thrown at the screen like the five-minute hates in "1984" and for the same reason. The others in the room pick it up. Yeah, they say, fucker, cocksucker. They throw little facts about the person. It is all done to brown-nose, showing that you too can hate these people just in the way that DM wants.

What becomes frightening is when one of your own is on the screen and DM doesn't like it. They say the wrong thing, possible because of editing. Doesn't matter in DM's eyes. There is no excuse. He goes livid. More explicatives. Maybe something thrown at the TV screen. (No one else throws anything. The screen is his to abuse.)

At the end, more explicatives and screamings and maybe he will want to immediately see the tape to catch parts again. Then there are the immeiate orders. The attorneys are called to find out what can be done. He won't call the PRs. After all, if they had done their job it wouldn't be showing.

And then comes the retribution. Someone might go to the RPF and there are certainly people "doing conditions." (Long story.)

Hubbard never took the blame for the flap and DM doesn't either. Every single person around him is to blame for failing to stop the show or making it into a pro-Scientology show. Not him. Everyone does conditions, but not him.

Everyone else is a suppressive, but not him!