Bruce Rector has assumed the position of mayor of Clearwater.
He is off to an inglorious start. As a prominent scientologist buys the building that houses the City of Clearwater’s government offices, Rector is “hopeful the city’s relationship with the church improves, so they can work together to revitalize downtown.”
I guess he hasn’t been watching what has been going on in Clearwater for the last 49 years? Or even in the last decade. As this article states: Since 2017, entities tied to the Church of Scientology have bought 200-some properties in and around downtown, broadening the church’s control over what comes into the area.
He REALLY hasn’t been paying attention. If scientology actually WANTED to revitalize downtown Clearwater, they could have done it without the participation of the city any time this century. Nobody from the city has ever stood in their way. In fact, they have been embarrassingly cowed — the only voice raised about them in the last 20 years was that of Mark Bunker in his one term on the city council.
David Miscavige is ready to eat Bruce Rector and the rest of the city for breakfast. He will pretend to talk nice — there have been DOZENS of meetings between city officials and Miscavige over the years where he is polite and apparently friendly and explains his grand plans. Each time they think they are the first ones to actually be getting anywhere. And then absolutely nothing happens. The promises and sweet-talking amounts to expired hot air that quickly dissipated.
I have nothing personal against Bruce Rector. It just saddens me to see the same pattern repeated over and over and over. When will Clearwater city officials ever learn their lesson?
There is only ONE THING SCIENTOLOGY WANTS IN CLEARWATER AND THAT IS WHAT IS GOOD FOR SCIENTOLOGY. Period.
The cult seems to have numbed the citizens of Clearwater into a type of dumb complacency. Politicians are neutral about evil exploitation if they can quietly push the burden on the taxpayers backs. Dealing with monstrous parasites is unpleasant, much nicer to be bribed to look the other way.
“David Miscavige is ready to eat Bruce Rector and the rest of the city for breakfast.”
Exactly my thought as I read this article. And we need to know this and of course its awful news but we need to know it anyway so that what’s really happening can be confronted. Its so sad – these people who totally support and enable Miscavige as he continues to covertly suppress and destroy an entire town.
I want to laugh at them right now. Tight now that’s what I want to do. Its not in the least funny and in fact its quite tragic what’s happening but so what. I have to laugh at these Still In UberRich, rich and not so rich cult fools right now.
Remember A Chorus Line? Where the whole cast together sing “What I Did For Love”? You’ve probably seen the play or the film. T’his would be after the character Morales sings it solo.
Anyway I got this mental picture of all of the Still Ins – the Whales, the Celebs, the Sea Org, all the Class V org staffs, the Mission Holders and the Publics – sometime in the future, when, at some point, there is no more doubt, absolutely NO MORE DOUBT WHATSOEVER that each and every one of them was absolutely lied to, scammed, cheated, you name it, and now they’re all broke, and their dreams of a cleared planet kaput and yet, and yet, they’re standing together, a la Chorus Line, singing THAT song, only with a few minor changes of my own: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you:
“WHAT I DID FOR DAVE”, with sincere apologies to the late Marvin Hamlisch.
Kiss today goodbye
The sweetness and the sorrow
Wish me luck the same to you
But I can’t regret
What I did for Dave, what I did for Dave.
Look, my eyes are dry
The grift was ours to borrow
Its as if we always knew
And I won’t forget what I did for Dave.
Gone
Though our money’s gone
As we travel on
Dave’s who we remember.
Kiss today goodbye
And point me toward the Poor House
We did what we had to do
Won’t forget! Can’t regret!
What I did for
DAVE!
What I did for…DAVE!
What I did for…DAVE!
What are the whales?
Very wealthy Scientologists who regularly donate major money to the cult – in the hundreds of thousands, millions, and even hundreds of millions. Our nickname for them.
A whale can be a celebrity as well but not necessarily. Most of Scientology’s whales are entrepreneurs, businessmen, etc. who are not famous or even known to the general public.
Years ago they “took over” a sleepy little town in Florida with the perfect name for Scientology. But Scientology. didn’t really take over the town. To do that, they would have had to generate the interest of the local populatiion the subject. No, all they have done is take over a bunch of buildings in a sleepy little town and further corrupt the local polititions. I do hope that this sleepy.Little town wakes up and exerts its own self-determinism begins creating its own destiny. That area that area of America is really quite beautiful. I hope that the local people figure it out.
Superb comment! You’re right! Scientology didn’t take over the TOWN. That would entail converting the townsPEOPLE to Scientology and CO$ did not DO that.
They took over a bunch of buildings in Clearwater and by doing so they drove many of the already there local townspeople AWAY.
Furthermore by giving them off-duty moonlighting security jobs they bought and paid for Clearwater’s police force, as well as bribing, safe-pointing and “building ARC” with Clearwater’s politicians.
But CW police and CW politicians are NOT Scientologists! They only support and protect Scientology because it has been made easy, comfortable and financially advantageous for them to do so. The loyalty and protection Scientology receives from politicians and police is purely return for financial benefits. Simple quid pro quo.
In fact, there are thousands of small, sleepy, struggling little towns all over the United States.
Scientology could, theoretically, go into any one of them and start buying up buildings rather easily. Buy up property, keep it vacant, drive whatever remaining local people there are away, and “own” that town, and call it a Scientology city. Anyone, or any entity, with enough money, could do this.
I’ve never looked at the Clearwater situation like this before. Thanks, Karl.
Criticize the Church if you must, but this is on the politicians. Like most bureaucrats, they will whore from whomever they get the most political capital, be it money, influence, or PR. In some ways Scn and the politicos are playing the same game. I don’t thinks it’s enough to just expose the church. Their allies must get the same sort of scrutiny and exposure.
Chris, it’s also the problem with term limits – corporate entities playing the long game have the advantage when there’s turnover, whether it’s due to that statutorily or just from garden variety political turnover, with their own bureaucracies like legal departments where a person can spend an entire career working on even just one issue. And then authoritarian regimes often have leadership that turns over even less than at companies.
Part of the problem is also relative outsiders elected to political office who then fail to listen to the seasoned bureaucrats who have dealt with problems and issues for their whole careers (who have much the same advantage as corporate staff), ignoring experience and even expertise (when corporate leaders tend to have learned to at last appreciate its value).
And yes the way money and influence work makes it that much worse.
Welcome to Cultwater, Fl.
Good one, Wolfie 🙂
My question is what the voters are seeing? Obviously they say “yes let’s see a revitalizing of the area!” Then no action. I realize that Clearwater is a stronghold of the church but I also know that there are a lot of other people who live and vote in the town. Why isn’t there an up roar amongst them? And if so how is the church quelling that?
Follow the money. One might just as well ask why for the past nearly 50 years, CW citizens have been selling their real estate to Co$. Simple answer; they need and want the money and Co$ is a rich cult and a voracious buyer of real estate paying top price for properties only because they happen to be in the right proximity to Flag.
The more real estate the cult buys, the more economically depressed economically Clearwater becomes as Scn pays no property taxes, and they keep their buildings vacant which means there are no businesses in them employing people…simple economics. The more Clearwater is owned by Scientology, the poorer the city gets, and the more the non-Scientologist property owners are tempted to sell, etc. etc.
Sad that no one seems to bat an eye at how Scientology is taking over Clearwater, besides a few people. And even when attention goes is on Scientology it the city council ignores it.
went to a car show in coachman park on saturday and ate at downtown pizza. anything besides that small strip is deserted and creepy. nothing like countless security cameras watching you as you walk around.
There’s one possible positive aspect that I see in this mess and that is that the more the cult will win in CW over the next few years the higher the probabiity for Mark Bunker to be re-elected in 4 years from now, assuming he will run again.
I said previously on another post that it’s unfortunate that Scientology is still taking over Clearwater bit by bit. It bothers me that not many people seem to be bothered by it. You mentioned Mark Bunker was the only one who had the guts to voice his opinion on Scientology on the city council when he was there. I hope someone else can do the same. As always Mike great post. And Happy Birthday!
The best thing they can do is to start a new economic center in another part of the city. Once they say “screw it” and move on the sciobots will be screwed…. until they buy up the new focus part of town. DM wants what he can not have… love and respect from non-sciobots.