Tag Archives: rathbun

What your fees buy VIII?

I got a call Wednesday from the Texas Bar Association. The attorney said he was investigating a tip they received that I might be practicing law without a license. The basis of the tip was a Craig’s List ad I put up last year sometime offering my paralegal services to lawyers. He asked if I did any paralegal work that was not done under the supervision of lawyers. I truthfully stated, “no”, to which he said that ends the inquiry. I then asked for the name of the informant. He said the bar was prohibited by policy from disclosing such. I said it was pretty odd that someone would lodge a complaint when I only ever worked for a single attorney, and never took a job based on the ad which probably expired sometime last year. He agreed that was odd, and informed me that while their policy prohibited them from investigating an informant he would note the oddities for the file.  Having come to know this relatively small community in South Texas, I consider it extremely unlikely the informant could be anyone local.

I am hoping Miscavige will order a similar complaint to the overseers of counselors in Texas concerning this very web blog.  We would have an absolute field day with that.

For those who accuse me of trying to paint myself as a victim through this series, you are missing the point. Miscavige does not possess the power to make me a victim. I am posting this series on What Your Fees Buy for two reasons. One, people should be informed about how their fees are being misused. Two, Miscavige’s lines of attack need to be exposed wherever they are discovered. Otherwise, unchecked, he might well throw enough jacks on the road to pop a tire or two.  Each blowout he causes prolongs his continuing abuses and his mission to drive Scientology in the direction of the People’s Temple.

Der Fuhrer’s Big Lies

Miscavige’s recent events and publications make evident that he has regressed to using the same big lies on the public that he used in the early eighties to bamboozle Hubbard in order to get himself into power in the first place.  The lies are woven into all of Miscavige’s recent utterances about the great “expansion” experienced with himself at the helm. He spends millions to spread the word about the increase in posh square feet added to Scientology premises. He butresses it with impressive claims of increasing numbers of books gotten into the hands of readers.

Square feet. For the moment, let’s put aside the fact Hubbard so abhored the idea of Scientology becoming all about real estate and MEST  to the point he advised rebellious Scientologists in the early days to bomb any ostentatious quarters some future manager might construct.  Recent observations inside a number of Miscavige’s Ideal orgs on four continents have found a derth of humanity. That’s right, very few people. Not much auditing and not much training.  Not much life around all that pretty MEST.

Books. Miscavige has claimed that in the past five years there has been greater Scientology expansion than in the previous five decades combined.  He relies solely on alleged book sales figures to support that invented figure he pulled out of the air. In fact, over the last five years the Church has engaged in the same massive fraud that thrust Miscavige into power in the first place. Orgs have been forced to purchase more books than they could ever sell. Public have been forced to buy more books than they know what to do with. I have been told by some on line public that they have numerous sets of books in their homes and storage spaces. These are book sets they have been pressured into buying in order to get a pass from Ethics. Many more public have reported being coerced into large donations to have sets of books shipped to unknown libraries.

Many have asked how Hubbard tolerated Miscavige’s initial early eighties reign of terror against veteran Mission holders. Miscavige false reported to Hubbard that book sales were so astronomical upon beheading the Mission holders that the suppress was then off Scientology. What he did not report is where all those sold books went.  Miscavige promoted notoriously dishonest and effective regges to Author Services in the early eighties. He gave them full power to order the Publications organizations in LA and Denmark to do as they said. He then ordered an obedient CO CMO INT (Marc Yager) and ED INT (Guillaume Lesevre) to order all orgs to buy insane amounts of books from the Publications organizations.  Millions of books were stored in attics, basements and outside storage spaces by every org and mission.

During a brief respite from legal and PR assignments in the early nineties, I went on an inspection tour with Miscavige to about a dozen class V orgs. Each and every one of them had huge spaces devoted to book storage, books that were received during Miscavige’s stat push that he false reported to Hubbard years earlier. In many orgs the books were unsellable having been subject to water damage and mold. Those who know the mechanics of the missed withhold phenomena can understand how this might have been another one of  those significant steps he took on the downward spriral toward his current violent insanity.

The financial stress caused on orgs by being coerced into buying books they could not sell for decades sent the majority of orgs into an insolvency that they never recovered from. Miscavige actively prevented the implementation of finance systems that would allow orgs to get back on their feet and pricing systems that would make services affordable to anyone who might express interest. The net result has been consistently dwindling numbers of new Scientologists and major delivery statistics.

Compare International Scientology promotional material from the eighties to Int promo now. Now lots of books and lots of new real estate are touted. Services? Forget about it. It’s like they said about Mussolini and Hitler: forget what they do to people, look at the shiny trains and aramements they so efficiently crank out; they must be good leaders.

Big Brother – Part One in a Series

JOHNSON, POPE, BOKOR, RUPPEL & BURNS, LLP
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELLORS AT LAW
911 Chestnut St, Clearwater, Florida 33756

June 22, 2009

Marty Rathbun
P.O. Box 269
Ingleside, TX 78362

Re: McPherson Confidential Settlement Agreement

Dear Marty:

Following the article published in the St. Petersburg Times yesterday in which you were extensively quoted regarding the McPherson matter, the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc. (the “Church”, “Flag”) has asked me to write to you regarding the ongoing obligations of confidentiality imposed upon on all present and former officers, employees and agents of the Church regarding the McPherson confidential settlement agreement.

As you know, on May 26, 2004, the Church entered into a confidential settlement agreement.  The Agreement binds the “Scientology Parties,” which includes the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc., Religious Technology Center, and the three individual defendants.  All officers, employees and agents of the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc. and Religious Technology Center are bound by the settlement agreement to say nothing about the McPherson matter except

“The case has been settled, the terms are confidential.”  This language binds you as a former agent of both Flag and RTC.

The purpose of this letter is simply to remind you of your ongoing obligation of complete confidentiality with respect to the McPherson case and its settlement.

Very truly yours,

F. Wallace Pope, Jr.