Andy Nolch, an Independent Scientologist from Australia made a video making fun of Chris Shelton. In it, he said that Chris was “in the valence of a woman” and he acted in parody of Chris making one of his videos.
Marauding Anti-Scientologists shouted HOMOPHOBIA! From Youtube to the Underground Bunker to ESMB, they called it “fair game” against Chris Shelton. They decried it up and down. And they saw no humor in any of it.
It took me less than three minutes on Youtube to search on “David Miscavige and Tom Cruise are gay” to come up with these two videos. In 2 more minutes I could have found 5 more – but just didn’t want to waste the time.
Any picture that Tony Ortega posts of David Miscavige or Tom Cruise routinely gets WAY more mean than anything Andy Nolch said about Chris Shelton in his one video.
My question to anti-Scientologists: How can you stand to be this hypocritical?
How do you sleep at night?
I’ll tell you how – you reduce the cognitive dissonance of your own hypocrisy by blinding yourselves to your own thoughts and emotions and behavior – just like a Scientologist does to reduce theirs. You look away from what you do to “the enemy” of your tribe and focus on only what they do to you.
This disappoints me because when I left Scientology, I thought I was becoming part of a group of people who were less robotic and less unthinking than Scientologists. I thought I’d found a group of people who understood what cognitive dissonance was and who did not allow it to keep themselves tunnel-visioned like Scientologists do.
Blind tribal thinking is the same whether you are a Scientologist or an Anti-Scientologist. And the lock-step, uniform Anti-Scientologist offended reaction to Andy Nolch’s video poking fun at Chris Shelton proves it.
Anti-Scientologists have no standing to criticize Scientologists for their robotic group-think, their hypocrisy, their conditioned responses, or for their unthinking cruelty.
This behavior is hilarious to me.
The fact that they are wrong doesn’t make this video right.
I can’t defend myself here. I have no justifications. It’s the lead paint chips still stuck in my brain.
Yes. I noticed after the Debbie Cook email one of my exhusbands got out and visited and/or did service with Marty and that whole bunch. But he was only out a few weeks and he used the term “Kool Aid Drinker” referring to church members. It seemed harsh and immature. But what I thought I found in the critic scene was based on my connection to a small few and such a very small part of what I want to accomplish with the rest of my life. It was another thing to outgrow.
Well you need to lay down a bread crumb trail of pearls for us here on how you are doing on your trail.
You don’t have to REJOIN and become a MISSION HOLDER or anything.
Just drop a few pearls – like you do.
Alanzo
But I don’t mean to slam anyone here about it. We just don’t all agree. And that’s ok!
Actually, AlanzosBlog is all about Conformity of Thought, and Uniformity of Belief!
C o r n f o r m…
You will agree Claire or you will be dog piled, shamed, ridiculed and possibly boiled in oil!
Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!
Well, I found Nolch’s video distasteful. That being said, Alanzo’s right about some people on ESMB being hypocritical. How many times have some of them publicly singled someone out for posting style, personal interests-all kinds of things?
I can’t help that I think it is funny. And that I still laugh at it when I watch it – even today.
Obviously, there is something wrong with me. I was either born this way, or it’s all the lead paint chips I ate as a child.
Do you know if the people that made the videos above are also the same people who lost their shit in moral indignation about Andy’s video?
Yes, that would be hypocritical in the extreme.
Or might there be people over at ESMB and Tony Ortega’s who are all over the spectrum as regards to their opinions about homosexuality or effeminate mannerisms?
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Note: I rarely read the comments section at The Bunker and have never commented there because you have to “register”, and to me, those people are in a clique. Probably even more so at ESMB. I really only go to ESMB if I think of some name from my scn past and a google search takes me there.
Scientology Criticism blogs ebb and flow. I read and participate in discussions on those blogs that are putting out good ideas and provoking thoughtful exchanges.
From 2009 for a few years, that was Marty’s Blog. Then it was Jeff Hawkin’s Leaving Scientology. That was fantastic, and remains one of my favorites. Ask The Scientilogist was also quite good. These blogs helped me deconstruct my Scientology experience in a helpful way. They’ve all gone quiet now.
Mike Rinder’s blog has become somewhat formulaic recently. I still check in almost every day, and always on Friday for the Regraded Being cartoon strip. The commenters are less in lockstep there IMO, and range from the wise-cracking Old Surfer Dude to the more vitriolic Mike Wysinski. And thankfully, that Ann woman has finally discovered putting a space after a period or a comma. (She’s an ex-letter reg!)
But now Alonzo’s blog has become the place to go! We’ve not always agreed on everything over the years, but our dialog has always been respectful.
But mostly, I’m here because you and your commenters make me think.
So thank you, Alanzo, and thank you to all your smart and dumb commenters as well!
Thanks, John. Awesome you say that.
One which was also really good a few years ago was Geir Isene’s blog: Isene.me
He has moved on in the last few years. Sometimes he comes ROARING BACK though, like I do, or like a bad rash that won’t fully go away. His blog was where I really was challenged to think in new and constructive ways after being in those anti-scio cliques as you described.
Yes, Geir Isene! It was his doubt formula that hit my email inbox several years ago that pushed me toward The Light.
Your blog does the same thing, (challenging people to think in new ways).
I saw all that on ESMB. I too found it sickening. I didn’t particularly like pretty much all of what Andy Nolche SAID, but, his physical parody of Chris’s manner in his video, the distinct pauses overdone, the canned smiles, were actually quite humorous because Chris does do that.
Andy’s sort of grizzled portrayal dress-wise and such was, I think, his way of making fun of Chris trying to look professional and not like a friendly overgrown troll. Not that I mind that particularly because hey. Who am I to talk, I’m just a fat menopausal old grandma.
Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating just a *little* there, but any women out there who are mid 50’s know what I mean. Really, could there be MORE weird stuff that goes on with the body? I tell ya…
Yes the physical parody was to me the funniest. That’s what made me laugh. The words not so much. He could’ve read from a restaurant menu and I still would’ve laughed. But yeah the 1.1 reference made me cringe. I thought, “Oh damn why did you go there.” But many folks in the ex and critic world have gone much farther with the “homosexual inferences”. You’re right about that Al.
Well, I think it’s cyber bullying. We all have foibles. Notch has been bragging about doing it because Chris attacks Scn. Seriously??? Lame.
I would agree with that as to most of what he SAID. There were far too many personal attacks, some of which were downright strange, starting with the “let out of jail” thing. Wtf was that about no one even knows, he never tied it in once during the video, so its just this kind of total left field thing. But I still thought his parody of Chris’s pregnant pauses and such were funny. Little bit Dana Carvey Church Lady-ish. But the rest? Pah.
I think that there are people who do not accord others the same rights and freedoms they themselves want.