Jennings also doesn’t care. He just cares about his reputation of being a fixer for sale to the highest bidder, and the fix is in. Nice choice there, Clearwater leaders. Perhaps the biggest remaining impediment is that Miscavige will never appear before a public body. Any appearance would have to be tightly controlled and scripted. Maybe Jennings thinks he’s going to put the fix in on that too.

It’s right by the Fort Harrison. He can’t stand not to be in control of it.

Aqua, I think it’s that moving into the 21st century, has exposed the ugly underbelly that was always there.

In an odd way I would say that we are probably getting smarter overall, but that our collective behavior as a society is currently in decline, I think because retrograde zealots have found ways to dominate it disproportionately.

Real, Americans today are better educated than ever. In 1975 barely over half had completed college and now it’s around 80%:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

In the same period of time college completion rates have gone from around 10% to about 25%.

The main reason other countries have surpassed us, is state-level and ideological resistance to measures like national standards, that are being used successfully by those now outperforming us. State education authorities are wrapped up in things like arguments over evolution (still) while we’re being beaten by countries with a national focus on things like STEM.

Much of that undercutting of education is driven by religious interests that continue to hold an almost, well, cult-like sway. They would rather have kids taught in ways that harmonize with “old fashioned” religion than prepare them for the 21st century global economy.

No, at one point the USA had the highest average level of education of any country on the planet. Which is why it became the most productive, wealthiest and most inventive country in the world The dismantling of the edu system started in 1975. Via Fed law.

Yes, it would appear that we have become a remarkably dumb, semi-literate, and highly suggestible country in the past 15 years or so.

Or perhaps that the USA ever had a preponderance of literate, analytically inclined people is the apparancy.

Possibly the USA has always been collectively dumb, and until recent times our majority stupidity and backwardness was effectively hidden.

One fact is beyond dispute: We in the USA today are overall, demonstrably and embarrassingly dumb, and getting dumber.

Probably true Aqua. In the USA at least most people <50 have no higher than a 5th grade education and are incapable of comprehending most of what they read…

And the dumbass still believed that Hitler was a nice man who could be persuaded not to harm anyone.

evolving, your description of an old real estate professional roped into being part of the property buying, is fascinating. If people like that have really been left holding the bag owning those buildings sitting vacant, I don’t think they’re going to want to put up with it for too much longer, and I doubt DM really has a viable plan (witness all the buildings purchased long ago for “ideal” projects still sitting vacant and incurring expenses).

And your point about how Scientology is what I would call a parasite, is a good one. They claim to be the ones who should run the world, and yet do miserably at a lot of basic things (like construction project management), while relying on the “wog” world for all those sorts of things you mention and more, plus now they have to increasingly hire out professional services like legal work as their internal capabilities dwindle.

Glad to hear you got out.

I should point out that I can’t take credit for this. In reading about human predators and recovery I have run into these concepts from others.

I don’t know who came up with the idea of the sacred.

In reading about it I saw how Hubbard and other human predators describe life as a game with no rules and display willingness to lie, cheat, destroy, bend and manipulate rules while disregarding the rules in their own conduct.

I also saw how most people hold some things as sacred and often strive to be faithful to what their values are, even if they fail to some degree.

The combination of these ideas and the idea of the sacred being important to most people but just a front for human predators was the thing that tied all these things together.

Human predators are often aware that other people have values and hold things sacred, but feel they are superior for not having what they see as sentimental or foolish ties to others.

Sometimes they see their own selfish and abusive behavior as enlightened and the smart way to be.