Welcome to Alanzo’s ESMB Thread on AlanzosBlog!
Our pilot program worked out so well the other day, we are going to make this a permanent feature of AlanzosBlog!
This post will be where the discussion on ESMB spills out over on to AlanzosBlog – where the REAL issues can be discussed without having to wade through all the comments from all the assholes and old men in crappy pants!
So look to the comments section below to take the discussion on ESMB to a higher level.
Alanzo
You poor bastard.
Is it really you?
I also recently saw a super fun post (by Emma) in which the intelligence of several people who post here-including me- was being impugned. She also said The Sneakster posted here (he’s included in the list of awful dumb people) but I never saw any posts here from him.
Well, judging by the feedback I just got from an SVP at my company, I seem to be doing just fine. But hey- stupid or not- I’m bearing up ok under the disgrace.
(My solution would be, hey talk this stuff out and recognize each other as human beings. I’m not difficult to find. )
So, Lone Star is back on ESMB apologizing to them. Well, he’s done that before, bless his heart. I wish him the best.
I’ve been stopping in at ESMB every now and again, and kept sort of almost noticing something. Finally, I realized what it was. Less traffic, less posts.
I know OCMB, which followed a similar m.o. and trajectory (mellow and informative and dialogue driven at first, then devolving into anger and flames) , is still up but only has a few frequent contributors.
ESMB got a huge amount of traffic and new members for a very long time, even as Facebook groups re Scn rose in popularity.
It’s less now.
Good luck and warm regards to all ESMB and OCMB participants-past, present and future. You’re all doing the same and *only* thing I’ve done and ever wanted to do. Namely, reach out to others in fellowship and camaraderie, try to figure out what really happened to us in CofS and why, decompress, try to address all that stuff we were taught and told, and then go from there forward into life. That is what matters. Other exes are just that- other ex members of the Church of Scientology.
I tag along with Claire here in also giving warm regards to all ESMBers past, present and future. I’ve now gone one solid year without posting over there! Wow….It used to be hard to go a few days. I was that addicted.
I also agree with Al in recognizing Veda’s valuable contributions over the years. He and I had some major knock down drag out fights though. Set the place on fire! One time it was so bad we BOTH got temporarily banned. Lol…
Humor aside, I do believe that the fact those fights got so heated was my fault. Sure, he knows how to “work a knife” when he wants to, but I didn’t have to overreact. And again, fact is Veda has helped a lot of people. A lot. He’s very gifted in gathering and encapsulating massive amounts of information that helps people recover, or even just learn about Hubbard and Scientology.
Nice acknowledgement LS. A good ack goes further than criticism most of the time.
P.S. I take the viewpoint that sometime, somewhere, at least one person will look at my comments on back topics and an audience of one is still an audience. If not, then they still enter the Internet Akashic Record – lol
I’m glad that Veda finally got some recognition on ESMB.
Dude’s been through some hard times there.
It’s nice to see things improving for him.
WildKat has a cognition about Marty Rathbun!
In this post from a thread about Marty Rathbun from 2014, WildKat begins to see that there was a point where Marty was no longer a Scientologist. And she says:
Yes, this is what I was seeing in Marty, WildKat. I was watching, probably more closely than most of the people on ESMB who have been trashing him and still calling him an “indie” for years there. They just weren’t watching closely enough to have a valid view. But that did not stop them from weighing-in. Did it?
And Tony Ortega has never understood any of this. As a never-in atheist who hates all religious and spiritual pursuits, this is all way over his head.
This understanding of Marty’s evolution is why the possibility that Marty and Mosey just got sick of it all and dropped the suit for the exact reasons which they explained to the court are a much more likely scenario than Marty taking an under-the-table pay-off from DM and becoming a turncoat spy.
You’re right – this is noteworthy, as you said. Without understanding this in the evolution of Marty Rathbun’s views, you would not be able to understand anything he wrote about Scientology or Ex-Scientology after this.
I believe that most of the assholes on ESMB have been extremely unfair to this fellow Ex-Scientologist, Marty Rathbun. This is a guy who has done more to expose the abuses in Scientology than almost any other Ex. And he did not have to do any of it.
I hope that peoples’ mindsets continue to evolve on ESMB and the assholes who continued to hammer Marty unfairly come to a point where they make an apology about how they have treated this guy on that board.
Yep. I said that.
Alanzo
Somewhere during his “Deconstructing Scientology” series of posts, Marty concluded that a person had at best a 50-50 chance of getting better or worse from scn. If he’s making a living repairing failed CoS “cases”, I say good for him.
George M. White, “Path of Buddha”, a respected and longtime contributor to the blogs. once said he’d helped over 50 people recover from mental damage incurred from doing the upper OT levels. I didn’t do the OT levels so I asked him if he thought there might be a “graduation point” from scn. He suggested after OTII. Off to work.
– gasp – You said it. The A word. Now you’ve done it.
Actually, I doubt that Mark would even want an apology. I could be totally wrong about that, it’s not like I’m some kind of Mark expert or something, but judging from some of his writings and his stances he took towards what he called the “ASC”? I would think if he wanted anything it would be along the lines of what you have suggested Mike Rinder do concerning his knowledge of black ops. Because…isn’t that kind of what has been done to Mark by his former supposed “friends”?
Well there is another thread about you over there. A new one.
Maybe everyone should just b-r-e-a-t-h-e
Marie –
I know you were talking to Virginia. But I think this isn’t a time to just b r e a t h e.
There is a narrative here that is being forced down everyone’s throat. And that narrative is – too often – not true.
I understand “going along to get along”. Believe it or not, I’ve actually done that before in my life.
But there are good people, like Virginia and her husband Mike, and Gerry Armstrong, and even Marty Rathbun (as just the latest example) as well as many other important critics who have been put down, marginalized and dead-agented by this weird, hysterical antiScientology narrative that is filled with alliances and ideas and assumptions that should be questioned.
So no. It is my opinion that now is not a time for b r e a t h i n g.
Now is a time for Q U E S T I O N I N G.
Thank you. This was a message from The Management.
You can now return to your regularly scheduled conversation.
Alanzo
This one’s for all the ESMBers who weighed in on Veda’s completely humorless thread “A Disturbing Video.”
Totally hypocritical.
And totally hilarious.
http://alanzosblog.com/the-blind-hypocrisy-of-offended-anti-scientologists/
It took me a long time to realize that I will never convince anyone that I am not whatever I am being accused of. I missed all of my avatars too, Alanzo. But I have come to the conclusion that moving on was necessary for me to continue my recovery.
GT
I’d love to talk with you, Al. Do you know how to reach me?
Here’s what I wrote on ESMB:
“yes, he did state it was tongue in cheek on his blog in my reply to him and I apologized for misinterpreting.
I wish I never started this tread, my bad. I have no intention of getting ex’s to fight but only discuss idea’s that helps one out of the scientology BS clear/OT trap..”
I happen to agree with statpush. And Alanzo your statement above “where the REAL issues can be discussed without having to wade through all the comments from all the assholes and old men in crappy pants!”, I think this statement quoted is not OK.
You are hereby banned from your own blog!
I don’t really keep up with all the never-ending soap opera at ESMB, but I do note there is a very disturbing extremist anti-Muslim hysteria being promoted there by users like WildKat (who seems to believe a global Muslim conspiracy to behead all the infidels), Churchill, Stradivarius, a couple others. I used to think that Ortega’s anti-Muslim bias was over-the-top (which apparently got him in hot water during his short tenure at Raw Story, which tends to be very progressive) but he’s got nothing on WildKat, who appears to believe Islam should be banned and all Muslims deported, basically parroting Pamela Gellar’s hardcore bigotry.
That might help explain why ESMB’s popularity among exes and fence-sitters has been waning. Most people I know (and have known) in Scientology find such bigotry disgusting, and I believe most people in general in the US and Europe do as well, so WildKat and the other anti-Muslim users are really helping the church PR machine because it confirms the claims made by OSA PR that the anti-Scientology crowd are “anti-religious bigots”. Same with the Bunker.
I would expect an alternative forum to pop up at some point in the near future which can keep such “noise” down and focus on issues facing exes and those on the fence who are thinking of walking away from the church. But as it stands right now, both ESMB and the Bunker are the absolute worst places for anyone who is about to dump Scientology. Too much hate and fanaticism. Scientologists put up with that crap enough already in the church, they don’t need to tolerate it after they leave, nor should they be expected to.
I saw that.
Personally, I am ambivalent towards Islam. I lived in a Muslim country and I’ve read the Koran twice.
Ortega’s hatred of Islam stems from the same source as his hatred for scientology and scientologists – atheism.
His atheist beliefs make him approach any religious or spiritual pursuit with a prejudiced and ignorant ridicule. His atheism teaches him to actively and loudly disrespect anyone’s religious or spiritual beliefs, as he believes that religion is the “reactive mind” of the human race and once religion is cleared away we will finally have that race of ubermenschen everyone is always going on about.
@Alanzo
I don’t actually understand the whole Muslim scene, in the sense that it’s not something that I’ve really looked into – yet.
That said, I’ll be damned if I get pushed into HATING a whole class of people simply because some internet pundit or rhetoric junkie wants me to.
I have never been that kind of person and I hope I never am. If I hate something, it isn’t some knee-jerk reaction.
I haven’t read the comments on ESMB and don’t want to so I can’t comment on that.
This is my own opinion. Few Muslims speak out publicly against Jihad and Jihadists, or at least it doesn’t show up in the mainstream media. I don’t know if it’s part of the religion that they’re not allowed to criticize anything in the Koran. I read somewhere that there is a supposedly “softer” interpretation of Jihad, just a desire to spread Islam around the world, just like Christianity or Scientology. Criticize Christianity and you’re an agnostic or an atheist and that’s okay. Criticize Scientology and you’re an anti-cultist and that’s okay. Criticize Islam and you’re a bigot. Political correctness.
I’ve read some of the Koran, as much of it as I could stand until I took it back to the library. The version I read was in simple understandable English. It’s dogmatic with rules and regulations about almost everything. God loves those who love God, and God destroys those who don’t love God. Granted, it was written in a time and place on earth which was quite barbaric, and no doubt praying five times a day might lead someone to a more righteous life.
I agree here with what you say about the Koran. It’s the least enlightened religious text I’ve ever read. The reason I read it a second time was because I was sure that I must have missed something the first time.
Nope. It’s all fire and brimstone, threats if you don’t do what gods (We) say. As in Allah the one and the many.
Usually I can find some kind of wisdom or enlightened thinking in any religious text. Not this one.
Maybe I had an MU.
I actually had high hopes for Sufism. But I know that many religions have mystical schools/sub ideologies. I find that fascinating. I feel like some of those things end up being radically different from the original practice from which it sprang. I guess this is a segue, but what do you think?
Hi Claire – Just some back conversation on a blog and you may not even look back here. Funny thing, I had an MU on segue (seg-wey)
segue – noun 5. any smooth, uninterrupted transition from one thing to another – dictionary.com
I’ve seen a few comments on the blogs about people going back into a religion they were brought up in. Several people chose a Buddhist path after scn and their comments make the most sense to me.
A poster named “marildi” brought up nondualism on Marty’s blog and got me interested. Much of it resonates with me. Some of the teachers which can be searched on youtube are Mooji, Adyashanti, Gangaji (female) and Alan Watts, all of whom I’ve enjoyed.
Very cool! I’d heard of some but not all of them.
As everyone knows, I think many aspects of ESMB are problematic but this one? Well, meh. It’s not that I’m in favor of jingoism and bigotry, but I think the reason some there talk about Islam is that they’ve already seen what fundamentalism can do and it’s not pretty. So although I don’t really get along with Strats or Churchill, I think that on this one maybe I see where they’re coming from.
There is something that happens to most people when they become scientologists:
They become juvenilized to a great degree, vis a vis Scientology and the church. As a scientologist, you have to constantly ask for permission to do things like take time off of course to go to a fish fry, or you’re constantly worried about “getting into trouble” like you were an 11 year old. Miscavige’s obsession with criminalizing masturbation reminds me of how all the boys in 7th and 8th grade were sanctimoniously accusing each other of choking their chickens, yet each were guilty of that which they accused.
This middle school environment was rife with ad hominem attacks. And evidently, so are a lot of the comments on these blogs and message boards.
This behavior was learned in middle school. And to be a good scientologist, one had to assign others (particularly LRH) to be smarter, more powerful, and more good than oneself. Just like how you felt in middle school.
This pattern of thinking and behavior has been in place since adolescence, so it’s “earlier on the chain” than scn for many and then one was held at that level of development for decades by the church for their own interests of controlling their parishioners.
These guys are going to have to learn how to be grown ups. But for many, it might be too late for them to learn.
Lotus posted!
Lotus is one of our all-time favorite ESMB posters but we do have a hard time understanding wtf he/she is talking about there sometimes.
In this post, our hearts SOARED when we read “What I read was not all a waste of time..” but then we were disappointed when we could not understand a word he/she wrote after that.
We can always hope that he/she will somehow/someday clarify wtf he/she is going on about. Or write in his own tongue and we can just fucking put it through Google Translate so we can understand him/her.
I of course am joking with Lotus. He/she speaks at LEAST one more language than I do – but that does not mean he/she is smarter!! (At least that’s what most all Americans hope)
We’re just grateful that such a free-thinking and intelligent guy/girl reads here and hope that we can continue to entertain/enlighten/seduce/convert him/her in the years to come here at AlanzosBlog.
Alanzo
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?43711-I-ve-made-several-posts-or-comments-to-Alanzo-s-blog&p=1137601&viewfull=1#post1137601
I found her to be less than compassionate. She really seemed quite pleased to see Terril, me and a couple others treated rather harshly. I’ve seen her responses on those threads. Lots of jumping up onto various bandwagons. She talks about what she went through and family and I really respect those comments. But there’s only so much snark I can read before I dismiss everything the person says.
Let there be a day when Scientology-style character assassination is not condoned by anyone on the post-Scientology Internet, and when those who deal in such ad-hom idiocies are themselves the ones who get banned.
Alanzo
2 April 2017
Yeah, they definitely do not like you over there! I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, though.
I did for a while.
Losing all of your Internet Avatars who you think are your friends is hard.
But I eventually woke up and felt better over that.
I still miss all my Internet Avatar friends though.
Alanzo
I can relate. I have been in forum wars before. Aquarium/fish forms. It was a really bad time.
I woke up. It’s just the Internet. Not real life. I can’t go there again. Its an easy rabbit hole to fall into.
I have only been over there twice.
I don’t think it’s a matter of liking, but what one says
Obviously not true. I got screamed at on a thread where Going Clear was the subject- for referring to it as “the documentary “. About as vanilla as you can get. Then the dude goes to some thread I’d never posted on and screams and all these people start in complaining. I then realized that it wasn’t what I said but who was saying it. I’ve observed people writing things similar to things I’ve occasionally said and were treated differently. It’s been proven, mos’ def.
Or the time this other woman -on seeing me in chat- tells everyone I stopped another woman from reuniting with her daughter. I believe what I’d posted in chat was hello or something.
Or the time Terril congratulated someone- NOT a Freezoner-on making a good point and Sharone on seeing this just starts screaming at Terrill. Why? Wasn’t what he said, since that was as inoffensive as can be. No, it’s because she saw HIM posting and she has a grudge.
Basically, there are people who, on seeing certain people at all, could be they’re saying, hey, I like coffee, my boss wears suits, the sky is blue-whatever it is, just their presence prompts a spate of tantrums and freakouts.
I had an innocuous little website. Dude goes there and whines about it on ESMB. Not deep or introspective enough for him. Well, he already had a grudge.
Another person wrote a post singling me out and begging me to take college classes-ok, that was about my posts. But a second thing then happened. Another person responded to him complaining that I’d written a post formatted in an “eye wateringly difficult” way. Why? Cuz I double spaced it and this struck this bully as awful. And guess WHY I’d double spaced it. It was a list of some things. A list. A double spaced list. So proof positive that it was a grudge cuz who on earth makes heavy weather about double spacing on a list? Lame!
Once an aggressive bully dislikes someone then just seeing that person anywhere on the net will prompt an episode of vitriol.
Forums tend to trade in personalities. People get very into judging the person rather than that person’s commentary. That leads to bullying.
Then those people make excuses like oh noes the double spacing, oh noes we were talking about Going Clear but she didn’t use quote thingies and didn’t name the show we were all talking about. Yep. Obviously terrible horrible posts. Enough to getcha fired or killed or whatever.
Um…pull the other one- it’s got bells on it.
Claire – I’m a newbie so I never got caught up in the Scio-Wars. I feel left out of the conversation! (joke)
Well, I ended up in a war that spanned a few places. Two reasons: As I said the other day, I was getting targeted and accused of many things. I fought back too much. Way too much. It causes flame wars and it perpetuates the crap. I shouldn’t have, though I had the right to do so. But what good is having rights if publicly exercising some of them causes and perpetuates problems?
The other is scapegoating. There actually is a psychological mechanism. It’s a real thing. Lots of stuff attributed to me and I was a piñata. So I stopped it. I’ve not been in much of any flame wars in 2 years. I had a couple ppl start stuff on Facebook-they found themselves blocked.,I can’t see their posts and they can’t see mine. It’s great.
lotus speaks latin, a different language. Or yoda talk. It’s a matter of SOV.
They keep saying your behavior is Scientological. I believe that’s the questionable analogy fallacy. I mean, you could say that every time some other ex does something you disagree with.
It’s like the time I said I loved Atlas Shrugged. As I was then into FZ stuff at the time, and getting a lot of flak for it, this guy goes yeah, because that kind of mindset blah blah you like Scientology something something appeals to you. Well, no. I was intro’d to the book by someone who never was in Scientology, thinks it’s ridiculous, and who mentored me at three different jobs. One day I had her copy, had nothing to do, opened it up and found it to be a cracking good read.
Point is, instead of just disagreeing with you, they want to pigeonhole you. So they make stuff up. Anyone who doesn’t share their opinions is not only wrong but must be just like DM or Hubbard. As I said, it’s a logical fallacy.
What’s funny is that I see the same kind of behavior with Atheists, too.
If you criticize atheism then they think you must be a Christian. Their first response is to assume that you are one of the staunchest of Christians who takes the Bible literally and believes that the world is 6,000 years old.
They have no idea who they are talking to and the fect that they are being criticized is all they need to know who you really are. They DO NOT listen to the criticism, just like a Scientologist!
This is tribalist thinking.
Ex Scientology Message Board. What a great idea at face value. However the site does not live up to it’s name. Too many atheist/materialist/nihilists & never-ins. I was disappointed in myself for ever joining. And very happy when I got banned from the site.
You should tell the story of your banning from ESMB.
Maybe Anonymous will take up the cause and create worldwide protests!
No really – I’d like to know how you got banned from ESMB. It’s good for people to hear.
Alanzo
Alanzo, why did they ban you? There is this one member over there, it name is on the tip of my tongue but I can’t remember it.
He has such mean and hateful things to say about you. It was not nice! Everyone seems to jump on his/her bandwagon.
Why did they ban me?
I would rather that they answer that. Any objective reader could see the truth for themselves.
But as they say, over and over, I have been BANNED from there – TWICE!
As if that means anything at all.
Alanzo
no Alanzo, tell the the truth
I don’t remember all the details(my bad), but I basically called out some racist bigots on being racist bigots. I was shocked when the moderator sent me a warning for my behavior. Having realized my prior mistake in joining the site I pressed the action.
In full disclosure my name on esmb was ‘Bad Sign’. I was not there for long. But it was too long in my estimation LOL.
“BAD SIGN” is a very different beingness than “Good People”.
I can understand the phase of Ex-Scientology you were going through at the time.
NO GROUP was better than SOME GROUP – Am I right?? 🙂
No matter. ESMB should be able to recognize the states of people they receive onto their message board, and to be able to handle them like anyone who has been through the ringer in Scientology should know.
But for some reason, they have never been able to do that.
Funny for a message board that calls itself the “Ex-Scientologist Message Board.”
Don’t you think?
Alanzo
Yes absolutely.
the way Alanzo communicates, one could think that.
Well, some of their regulars are discussing you, that’s for sure. They’ve said they don’t like it that you criticize ESMB. I get how they feel, but it’s hypocritical. They don’t object to criticizing various people in the critical $cn scene-it just depends on whom. Apart from conflicts between you and anyone on ESMB, one can still find lots and lots of gossipy comments of various exes, critics and others.
So write about whom you wish-they do it all the time.
I can remember being told by the proprietor of ESMB when I came back there in 2013 and survived for one month as a member, that I could not criticize ESMB.
I had to laugh.
ESMB is rooted in criticism of the Church of Scientology. And some of the most productive and most profound critics in the history of Scientology criticism regularly get splayed out almost every week there. So for me to be told that I could not, as a member, criticize ESMB – well that was just too rich.
For me.
And so I, like a kamikaze pilot, made it very clear that I was not in agreement with ESMB’s hypocritical policy, and continued my Bon-ZAI! posting until the inevitable happened.
It was very satisfying.
Posted by “Operating DB”
This is a buying signal!
You can tell ODB is just ITCHING to post here, but is probably shy.
That’s allright. Old people like their established patterns within their comfort zones, so I’ll just answer him here!
Well, ODB, there are a lot of reasons why someone would want to come post to Alanzo’s Blog!
The benefits of coming to AlanzosBlog go on and on. We can understand if you feel shy or reticent posting here on your own. That’s why we’ll post here and discuss it for you!
So thanks for your comment, ODB. And welcome to AlanzosBlog!
Alanzo
Alanzo, how about a link?
Sorry! I should always provide the link so you can see the original. It’s just more intellectually honest that way.
Here it is: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?43711-I-ve-made-several-posts-or-comments-to-Alanzo-s-blog&p=1137555&viewfull=1#post1137555
that’s actually a put down and not inviting.