He initially presented the Ideal Org program as a way to help the staff. Two of the largest overheads of an org are rent and would be pay if they cared about that. I think at first he thought that since he was doing the work with our public that of course we would retain ownership of the org locally, would no longer have to pay rent, and the money could be used to finally reward the staff some.

What actually happened is that once they purchased the building, DM took ownership of it and apparently forces the org to pay rent uplines on a building squeezed out of their public (at large cost to our public I can assure you. There was some internal warfare and declares over the high price of the building). I assume that the staff are still being victim blamed and told that they just aren’t worthy of being paid because they aren’t following DM’s orders well enough instead him just robbing them and completely ignoring their needs.

Apparently Mark got a 5 or 10% commission of the fundraising, which was a pretty large amount, so while the rest of the staff continue to get shafted as far as I have heard, it is like Mark Arnold took a nice payment to allow it to happen.

PeaceMaker – Miscommunication. The mission did NOT provide a viable income but IMO it could have if it didn’t send so much money uplines. In the mid 1970’s in Salt lake City there were some Scn businesses which allowed people to moonlight on a flexible schedule to supplement staff income. Also, before the Arab oil embargo and double digit inflation gasoline was 25 cents a gallon and McDonalds had a 25 cent Cheeseburger Deluxe! We got by. Working as a staff member was not always an insufferable hardship and while I was on staff I took all the courses they offered for free.

Richard, if the CofS was a legitimate business, it would have had reasonable expenses and paid staff properly – plus it was supposed to be a “church,” and even they typically pay people decently. But obviously Scientology got away with what they did, by convincing or misleading a fair number of people to think otherwise, or not to think about it at all.

Was or wasn’t pay at least minimum wage? And did some people where you were have to moonlight, rely on spouses or whatever to live decently?

Bright idea – “Levels of Status” should be added to the Scientology “Classification and Gradation Chart”.

Great comment, Mary. Yes, shame on you for looking and not listening. You committed the cardinal sin of observing.

Yes, its very sad, Kat, the tremendous waste of resources, all the money and property that could help so many people, that could do good in myriad ways.

Mostly, that’s what bothers me about the money I gave. Besides being stressed about how to “make it go right” after having given (by the way, I never gave THAT much so that my bills weren’t paid – I was too selfish for that) I also FELT good because I believed the money I gave was DOING good.

What I gave was nowhere near what others were scammed out of, but still, it was a substantial sum which could have fed a lot of people or clothed people, or them for some jobs or possibly, in the 3rd world anyway, housed people.

But, no, it was all for nothing.

That’s what bothers me. The only thing, really. It was wasted. I could just as well have lit a match to it.

I suspect that precisely what bothers me is what’s going to bother the Still Ins when they wake up. Not THAT they gave, or WHAT they gave, but that, what they gave meant NOTHING, DID NOTHING good, for anyone, anywhere, who needed a helping hand.

For tax purposes and as “proof” to the Whales, Celebs and Ordinary Sheeple of the “necessity” for new and more and bigger buildings, so that they keep donating more money, so that Miscavige can keep buying and renovating more, so that more “proof” of “unprecedented expansion” is provided, and so on, and so on…

Quite the scam, and I can’t wait for them to each have their “Aha” moments. Talk about “weeping and gnashing of teeth” – LOL!

Boo hoo.

Each of US, woke up and saw this, acknowledged we’d been lied to and scammed and defrauded.

What we did, these still ins can do.
Frankly, with all the information and truth a click away, I’m not feeling too sorry for these purposefully stupidly blind jerks no matter how rich or poor they are.

Whatever socioeconomic group the fall into, if they’re so lacking in self esteem and desperate for approval that they decide its oK to stiff their creditors, or to beggar themselves for some praise and a plaque, or to encourage other people to do all this, then they’re suckers anyway, and, if they were not in Scientology it would be someone else or some other group shaking them down.

I’m tired of feeling sorry for these idiots.

It’s a shame

Peacemaker – I didn’t hold any administrative positions so I don’t know how the finances worked. To me it seemed that an unreasonably small percentage of the gross income was distributed among the staff.

Back then I assumed Scn was a legitimate business organization. By 1975 Hubbard had spent 25 years developing his business which was selling auditing and training and he had the right to protect his intellectual property rights through legal means. The law rightfully protects intellectual property rights.

If I had spent 25 years developing a self improvement methodology I would have no problem suing the crap out of someone stealing it. Obviously in hindsight he did a lot more than suing.

Richard, was pay minimum wage or above? Was it really “viable” for everyone, or did some people have to moonlight to meet their needs, such as if they had a family?

I know it’s a bitter pill to swallow, to consider the wasteful or even evil things that Hubbard and Scientology were doing with all the money that rightly should have gone to staff, or or provide services at fair prices that didn’t put people into debt. Some of the mission holders exploited the situation including keeping large amounts of money for themselves, while others at smaller missions, while others were more frugal or fair, so that’s not certain – like many things, it seems to have depended on where you were, when and who you were working under.

And it’s not “capitalism and the free market economy” because they created a monopoly by shutting down competition – that could have offered similar services for less money while paying people like you better – through coercion and even violence, human trafficking tactics and exploitation of the “religious angle.”