#scientology exposed

[gemstarb]

Watch "Scientology EXPOSED" on YouTube

[msclaritea]

It's Scientology: Life After A Cult morning recap. The gang had a hugely positive get together down in Clearwater, Pasadena Scientology is in hot water with the local Fire department, and more drama at the Chicago Scientology org.

Good Natalie Webster talks about and confirms that the Cult of #Scientology has engaged in widespread abuse of men, women and most especially children. They have kidnapped children away from their families through forced separation, using them for Labor. This evil crap has been going on for decades in our supposedly Democratic country; not one finger lifted by the government to stop this. EVIL.

[goldkirk]

As soon as my order is ready, I’m about to try a non-McDonald’s mocha for the first time. I really hope i like it enough to drink it even though I hate coffee’s bitterness

[planetofsnarfs]

Leah and Mike break down the emotional terrorism that is inherent in scientology based on a recent article in Psychology Today.

↕️ podcast above or video version below

[wanderestless]

i've been watching the leah remini scientology docuseries with my partner and it's actually been really helpful for illustrating what it was like dealing with my own experiences in the church and in my family. i didn't go through systemic cult stuff but i can 100% relate to the pressure to constantly look/be perfect on pain of punishment (the severity of which was unpredictable) and the strangeness of getting out and slowly realizing how insane your belief system was

[hexagon-club]

The more I think about it, the more I think the best parallel ideology to transgenderism is scientology. One of them is a wacky and wildly individualist spiritual belief system about how all your problems have to do with how your soul was forcibly placed in the wrong body. And you can only solve those problems by forking over money to a weird priesthood masquerading as intellectuals and health experts, who will help align your body with the vaguely defined and unfalsifiable spirit at its core. All justified with a mid 20th century coat of psuedoscientific paint. The main architect of which was a pedophile. Which later went on to infiltrate the government, academia, and the entertainment industry (especially Hollywood) where it morphed into a weird cross between a sex cult and a pyramid scheme. And even though most people know it is bullshit, its followers are so tenacious, and it's church so well funded, and their abuse of the legal system so well refined that people are simply too intimidated to stand up to them. And people who do dare to defect are mercilessly hounded and intimidated into silence for daring to expose the cults inner workings to the general public.

And the other one is a group of weirdos who worship an alien called Xenu or something.

[dnp-dreams]

I just dreamt that a video exposed them as scientologists :(, I remember being like "oh.." D:

But I didn't have that much of a reaction

no but seriously imagine it. you're at the church of scientology and dan and phil are standing in front of it and kiss, holding the gay flag.

[gemstarb]

Watch "SCIENTOLOGY EXPOSED: LAPD ARRESTS PROTESTERS - Multiple Assault Victims in Handcuffs" on YouTube

[copperbadge]

So I guess the Scientologists are moving in next door? 

A friend of mine and I have a mutual morbid fascination with Scientology, and she sent me an article recently about them opening a new “Ideal Org” -- a fancy recruitment center -- in Chicago. I was reading along, mostly intrigued by the real estate scam they’re possibly running, when I saw the address: 650 S. Clark.

650 S. Clark is essentially in my front yard. It’s twenty feet from my favorite bodega. I left my building and didn’t even have to go out of my way to walk past it en route to the bus I was catching. Hilariously, it’s between a pizza-themed sports bar and a Dunkin Donuts. 

Actually, less hilariously, it’s between the sports bar and a college dormitory next to a Dunkin. Do not love that; this area is full of college students (traditionally an easy target for cults) and young professionals -- a less easy target but obviously a more lucrative one. 

When I took this picture I thought, it doesn’t look very ready to open. But then I realized that the plywood is only covering the ground floor windows, and the plastic bags aren’t covering up exposed brickwork that needs tuckpointing -- they’re covering up the signs saying what it is. Which makes sense, the org has been keeping very hush-hush about getting the center set up. 

Possibly because they know assholes like me also live in this area and are willing to call the city on them the absolute second they step out of line. 

Anyway the building was derelict so at least they probably raised my property values some. And maybe if I go down to the rumored grand opening on Saturday I can get a free e-meter reading. I bet I’m full to the brim with engrams. 

[wwemcumuscleslover]

Well since the polemic around Emily Armstrong and her link with scientology...

And one of my topic is Jason Beghe, I was a Surprise when I founded that he is a Former Scientologist and how much he fought to expose the darkside of the cult...

I saw one documentary on YouTube with him

[dreamweaversfavsandthoughs]

Rick and Morty S7 Ep. 3: Air Force Wong

(We’ve come a long way since Pickle Rick)

Spoiler Alert. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

My Favs

Unity!

Really wasn’t expecting to ever see them again so it was a pleasant surprise! Bringing back Unity could have crossed the line into being too fan service-y but I think they were incorporated into the ongoing story of the Rick/Rick Prime saga nicely.

“Don’t be a Space Mormon!”:

But immediately being apologetic about making fun of the SS agent’s religion.

“I volunteer to do acid to prove I’m not a cop!”:

Me too. Me too

President’s cellphone wallpaper:

Rick and the President posing with a recently caught Nessie cracked me up more than it should have.

“Call in a chopper. I’m being cockblocked!”

Rick almost died trying to defeat Rick Prime?!:

I need the details! I NEED THEM!

Summer and Rick’s interaction:

We haven’t gotten a lot of Summer this season so it’s nice to see her trying to reach out to her grandfather. Summer is probably the second smartest member of the Smith/Sanchez and made the connection pretty quickly that Unity was back and that Rick would be deep in his feels. I love seeing Summer’s empathetic side but it was also sad to see Rick shut her out in the guise of creating “boundaries.” He still has a long way to go.

The President becoming a hive mind in order to achieve an 100% approval rating:

Honestly, a politician enslaving the minds of his constituents in order to get unanimous approval is something that would happen in real life if they could. Absolutely realistic.

*traumatic flashback of the last 7-8 years*

David Miscavage voicemail:

Unless you are familiar with the history of Scientology, you’re probably not going to get that joke. That was written for nerds like me. (Real talk though, I believe Scientology is a dangerous cult. The actress, Leah Remini has done some great work exposing this cult for what it is and some of their abusive practices.)

My Not Favs

Has anyone seen Morty? He’s gone missing and we’re so worried about him:

I have it on good authority that he’s going to be more prominent in the season going forward. Hope my sources are correct…

Mr. Stabby:

The bit didn’t really do it for me.

The romantic arc between the President and Dr. Wong:

Fortunately it was ditched as quickly as it started.

My Thoughts:

A couple of things come to mind:

First, I want to discuss my biggest problem with Auto Erotic Assimilation as an episode. The episode ends with a pretty moving scene of Rick attempting suicide after Unity breaks up with him. Iconic scene no doubt, but a scene I felt had poor justification. The reasoning being is that the only thing we ever really learn during that episode is that Rick and Unity like to fuck…a lot. And abuse substance…a lot. Frankly, the relationship struck me as being awfully shallow. This most recent episode, however, added some much needed substance that was previously lacking. We find out that Rick has confided in them about Rick Prime and possibly Diane and Beth. They were around for the disastrous aftermath of his previous attempt to hunt Rick Prime and when they find out Rick is going to attempt to go after him again goes to extreme lengths to get Rick’s attention and dissuade him from going through with it.

Now, I don’t really want to see Unity and Rick get back together and I do see this episode as a sort of resolution to this relationship. Two people may not be able to make a romantic relationship work but sometimes that can pave the way to something better. Maybe a friendship can form from this that is much more meaningful than a romance, when they’re ready. They both still care about each other that’s for sure, but Rick still has some work.

Secondly, I’ve seen some conversation that Dr. Wong was in the wrong to side with Unity and tell Rick he was squarely in the wrong. Rewatching the episode, in the scene before Dr. Wong and Rick confront Unity the two of them discuss how they are going to convince Unity to take over the President’s hivemind in order to restore everyone. In this discussion they say,

Rick: “So you need to convince [Unity] I’m worth it.”

Dr. Wong: “You aren’t”.

Rick: “So lie”.

A possible interpretation is that Dr. Wong took his advice and said what she thought would be necessary to bring order back to earth which meant placing the blame on Rick. It’s a thought. I don’t know if if clears anything up but that’s kinda how I see it.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode. It wasn’t nearly the fun romp we had with the second episode, but I appreciate a fresh insight into Rick and Unity’s relationship and I like to see Rick gradually warming up to therapy to the point that he values his relationship with Dr. Wong. She’s one of the few people not intimidated by him or afraid to call him out on his BS. Sometimes, finding a therapist that really clicks with you can be a monumental task so Rick got pretty lucky finding the perfect therapist on the first try.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/730245265731223553/people-spend-shittons-of-money-on-this-hobby-so

I used to read a lot of detransition blogs including some of the ones by people who are commonly cited in the popular articles about them and tbh — and a popular one of those bloggers who later left the movement, came out again as trans and is now exposing the movement, has basically backed this up — a lot of them clearly are in fact trans people who are still suffering from a lot of dysphoria, but who had some bad experiences with trans communities and people (often an abusive trans ex) and this movement came along that gave them a convenient, simple excuse for why that happened to them and also everything else wrong in their lives, and they just glommed on to it. TERFs often target vulnerable people especially sexual assault survivors and that includes the trans people they target to encourage them to detransition and see their transition as a mistake. They’re also frequently people who have histories of uncritically jumping between extreme ideologies: like they’ll talk about the “trans ideology” they experienced that made them think that just being gnc meant they had to transition or whatever and it’s like… the kind of nonsense you will see sometimes in the kinds of college queer groups we’ve been talking about, or bad tumblr discourse, but like, you don’t need a lot of critical thinking skills to recognize that that’s a problem with “college activism/Tumblr discourse” and not “trans people,” who mostly don’t believe those things. But yeah if you thought some weirdo like monetizeyourcat who thinks trans people are inherently superior to cis people is the voice of all trans people then I guess I could see why you’d think it was a “cult”… but why did you think she was the voice of all trans people, there’s abundant evidence that she isn’t.

A lot of it also seems to be about being mad that transition didn’t solve all of their mental health problems, and then, ofc, using that as an excuse to jump into a community that makes them even more depressed.

It would be really sad if the ideology they’re using as self-harm didn’t also hurt so many others when they disseminate it.

--

In ye olden days, a lot of it was people joining Scientology and the like too. Kate Bornstein has an anecdote about that in one of her books where someone came in fretting because they'd transitioned and now their new cult had issues with medical procedures or whatever. It made Bornstein feel weird and was part of her finally catching a clue about her own identity, as I recall.

And yes, it's both sad and dangerous.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

So regarding A-Town, how do the people working on it feel about it? Everyone has to make a living, but are any of them uncomfortable making a low budget show that somewhat trivializes the people who save the human race?

I think they would say that the history of comedy has always been the history of mocking the unacceptable and exposing the taboo. All in the Family responded to the Civil Rights era by creating the world's most bigoted bigot and then inviting everyone to laugh at him, even knowing a nonzero percent of viewers were going to agree with him. The Chair and Abbott Elementary are 2020s efforts to point and laugh and cry at terrible current events. There's specifically a tradition of "war is absurd" as a comedy premise: Catch-22 for World War II, Blackadder Goes Forth for World War I, Dr. Strangelove for the Cold War, so on.

So part of why Marco appears on A-Town, why Tom doesn't mind the show, why some Santa Barbara residents watch it, is that it's letting you laugh at something that would otherwise make you scream in horror. Blackadder Goes Forth has a scene where a WWI general sets a 12"x12" square of sod on a table and says "took a lot of turf today"; the conversation reveals that the square foot of grass on the table is the entirety of the ground taken that day. It's mocking a horrific reality — that the British regularly sacrificed 1000s of lives for a few yards of battlefield, and that "winners" of WWI battles often had to be determined with a yardstick — but it's making a sharp critique of the powerful, and it's a solid bit of shock comedy.

Most people watching A-Town know that Daisy A. fixing her manicure in line to be reinfested, only to be sent home due to a paperwork error, is not an accurate depiction of being a controller. But its point, about the yeerks' kidnappings being arbitrary and their leadership being incompetent, would land well with a lot of ex-hosts. And the fact that the show takes the time to distinguish that Daisy and Zeptron 420 are two completely different people — something that I suspect some other postwar movies would neglect — is at least part of the reason for Tom's tolerance for the show. It's not great that the show chooses to convey that point with the Girly = Evil; Goth = Good trope, but at least the dramatic costume changes convey that Daisy's personality is not Zeptron's.

That said, Jean and Jake and everyone else who hates the show also has a point. Jean especially finds it so upsetting because half the jokes rest on an enthymeme of "Obviously Jake Berenson's parents are the most clueless idiots ever to breathe air." A-Town aspires to, like The Americans, show the hollowness of the suburban American ideal — that's why its sets look straight out of Leave It to Beaver — but that leaves Dr. and Mr. A mostly being the butt of the joke for their negligent and incompetent parenting. For Jean, that hits a little too close to home, in a way it wouldn't for Marco watching his fake-self fight taxxon puppets by holding up a stuffed skunk, or Tom watching his fake-self swap lipstick colors every time someone new controls her body.

So if A-Town aspires to be Blackadder Goes Forth, it lands closer to being South Park: sometimes funny and pointed, sometimes lending support to the bigoted views it tries to critique. Like South Park, the conversation about it will probably acknowledge its real social contributions (exposing Scientology, excoriating nationalism) while also showing the real harms to vulnerable people from the show's brand of comedy (turning "gay" into a catchall insult, resurrecting antisemetic myths). Like South Park, A-Town tries to mock things that need mocking, but it also spends almost as much time punching down as it does punching up.

[gemstarb]

Watch "Shocking Scientology SCANDALS Exposed: RHONY Rebecca Minkoff Family Ties to Cupcake Mom" on YouTube