Good one, Wolfie 🙂

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.

What are the whales?

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.

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.

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!

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.