The war between ex Scientologists and critics - is OSA involved?

[Veda]

"Narcissist Aaron Smith-Levin and the Mania of his flying monkeys."

 

[I M Dex]

The content of this video is how Aaron is a bad actor. I don't see a "war" between ex's and critics in this, or elsewhere, just a cult of personality thing going on around Aaron, and the divisiveness he generates.
I see Aaron as a Johnny Carson wanna-be, he presents, at least to me, as a "charming and entertaining" talk show host, heavy on schmoozing, light on the specific content and facts falsely hyped by the teasers that are the titles of his videos. There's a whole lot of "don't you just love me" in his attitude. Johnny Carson was a highly popular, wealthy and powerful man in Hollywood, and a mean drunk with a huge underside of coldness and cruelty to women and anyone he felt had crossed him in any way, having been been raised by a cold and distant mother, and was anything but warm to his own children, so there are interesting parallels with Scientology-raised Aaron and how he seems to be.
Veda, I've been wondering where you've been and if you are ok, I hope all is well.

 

[ILove2Lurk]

Funny . . . I wrote this a few days ago in a PM.

Aaron, for one, entertains me much of the time on many subjects. He's like a Johnny Carson-type, who shows up every night and entertains. Johnny was not the best person off screen. I had read a tell-all biography written by his former attorney Henry Bushkin. He did some pretty bad things off stage and in his personal life, but he entertained every night. That's what I expected of Johnny. That's all I expect of Aaron.​

I'm shallow and tired out by the state of the world. I just want light entertainment anymore, LOL.

 

[Veda]

The content of this video is how Aaron is a bad actor. I don't see a "war" between ex's and critics in this, or elsewhere, just a cult of personality thing going on around Aaron, and the divisiveness he generates.
I see Aaron as a Johnny Carson wanna-be, he presents, at least to me, as a "charming and entertaining" talk show host, heavy on schmoozing, light on the specific content and facts falsely hyped by the teasers that are the titles of his videos. There's a whole lot of "don't you just love me" in his attitude. Johnny Carson was a highly popular, wealthy and powerful man in Hollywood, and a mean drunk with a huge underside of coldness and cruelty to women and anyone he felt had crossed him in any way, having been been raised by a cold and distant mother, and was anything but warm to his own children, so there are interesting parallels with Scientology-raised Aaron and how he seems to be.
Veda, I've been wondering where you've been and if you are ok, I hope all is well.

Thanks. None of us know where we came from and none of us know where we're going. We are part of a great adventure.


There is a campaign that is promoting the labeling of Aaron as a "narcissist" and his group of supporter are being labelled as "flying monkeys."

I notice that Mark Bunker, who is a friend, of Aaron, is involved with SPTV.

Hopefully, he exercises caution with all camps (tribes?) in this dispute.

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

Funny . . . I wrote this a few days ago in a PM.

Aaron, for one, entertains me much of the time on many subjects. He's like a Johnny Carson-type, who shows up every night and entertains. Johnny was not the best person off screen. I had read a tell-all biography written by his former attorney Henry Bushkin. He did some pretty bad things off stage and in his personal life, but he entertained every night. That's what I expected of Johnny. That's all I expect of Aaron.​

I'm shallow and tired out by the state of the world. I just want light entertainment anymore, LOL.

.
I like your "light entertainment" concept.

It fits in with my own take that:

There appears to be only two (2) things in life. . .

FUN & UNFUN

The only choice seems to be. . .

PICK THE ONE YOU LIKE
AND WORK TOWARDS THAT ​

It's a spectrum. Having fun? Keep going in that direction. Having unfun? Go the other direction.

A lot of the time you get to pick. But sometimes the UNFUN picks you. It's like having a bank account, sometimes something unexpected happens and your account is overdrawn and you have to make a deposit. Could be due to an oversight. Or, maybe your account is being hacked. Or, perhaps it was carelessness. Or the $50K you banked when you sold your old Rolex turned out to be counterfeit c-notes that the slick buyer paid you with and the bank just debited your account (and there are Secret Service agents demanding that you immediately meet them at the bank because they are investigating you, lol). It doesn't really matter what unfun happened, you still have a make a fun deposit in your fun account.

As far as the protesters that are protesting Aaron, that gets into a weird area. Thus I asked a philosopher and occasional contributor to this website for any advice he might offer.

"As far as Scientology and all its various personalities (e.g. Scientologists, Ex Scientologists,
OT Gurus, Indie Scientologists, Ron Scientologists, SPTV content creators, Authors like Jon Atack,
Former SO execs, Journalists like Tony Ortega, TikTok Squirrels, et al) there is one eternal truth.
If you cut to the third and final act in any of these dramas, everyone ultimately is
"worse than Hitler" in someone's infallible opinion." —Don Hubbard​

Maybe this newly discovered phenomena deserves a clinical name.

This might work.

WTHDS
("Worse Than Hitler Derangement Syndrome")
​

PRO TIP:
If left undiagnosed & untreated, WTHDS can metastasize and become exponentially worse--LWTHDS.
("Literally Worse Than Hitler Derangement Syndrome").

..​

..

 

[I M Dex]

Funny . . . I wrote this a few days ago in a PM.

Aaron, for one, entertains me much of the time on many subjects. He's like a Johnny Carson-type, who shows up every night and entertains. Johnny was not the best person off screen. I had read a tell-all biography written by his former attorney Henry Bushkin. He did some pretty bad things off stage and in his personal life, but he entertained every night. That's what I expected of Johnny. That's all I expect of Aaron.​

I'm shallow and tired out by the state of the world. I just want light entertainment anymore, LOL.

I read that biography also. Now that we examine it, he was rather schizophrenic, Jeckyl and Hyde. Viewers felt like they were part of his circle, and for others, he could be a vicious, vindictive bastard; also, again, like Aaron.

 

[TheSneakster]

Do please allow me to point out that "Ex-Scientologists" and "Critics" is not a dichotomy, in fact, the overlap of those two categories is major.

 

[I M Dex]

Do please allow me to point out that "Ex-Scientologists" and "Critics" is not a dichotomy, in fact, the overlap of those two categories is major.

Now I'm wondering if Veda misspoke, and that he's referring to the conflicts between some critics and ex's, and other critics and exes, i.e., the Aaron camp and the Rinder camp, that would reflect the current scene.

 

[Veda]

Now I'm wondering if Veda misspoke, and that he's referring to the conflicts between some critics and ex's, and other critics and exes, i.e., the Aaron camp and the Rinder camp, that would reflect the current scene.

There are exes and never ins in both camps.

The use of Hubbard's Black Propaganda and Battle Tactics tech is obvious. Is it being used consciously or unconsciously? Or is it just a coincidence that the commentary, from some, resembles something from Scientology Inc.'s. dirty tricks department? or from an issue of Freedom Magazine?

I'll leave to others to speculate.

Average people are seldom one dimensional old time movie villains, but it's common in Hubbard's system, with its SPs and DBs, etc., only now we have Narcissists and Flying Monkeys,

But that's enough of that. Let's get back to normalcy.

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

..

I read that biography also. Now that we examine it, he was rather schizophrenic, Jeckyl and Hyde. Viewers felt like they were part of his circle, and for others, he could be a vicious, vindictive bastard; also, again, like Aaron.

et tu, Dexe?

​

..
..

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

..

.

.
Average people are seldom one dimensional old time movie villains, but it's common in Hubbard's system, with its SPs and DBs, etc., only now we have Narcissists and Flying Monkeys,
.

.

I like it!

But you seem to have missed a third category. . .

​

Narcissists​

Flying Monkeys​

People literally worse than Johnny Carson LOL​

...

 

[KKS]

This man is right

Do please allow me to point out that "Ex-Scientologists" and "Critics" is not a dichotomy, in fact, the overlap of those two categories is major.

 

[KKS]

I read that biography also. Now that we examine it, he was rather schizophrenic, Jeckyl and Hyde. Viewers felt like they were part of his circle, and for others, he could be a vicious, vindictive bastard; also, again, like Aaron.

 

[KKS]

It’s Never a Bad Day for a Good Smear
February 8, 2024 By Mike Rinder 258 Comments

And of course he does the thing he accuses others of. Typical

"Narcissist Aaron Smith-Levin and the Mania of his flying monkeys."

 

[I M Dex]

..

et tu, Dexe?

​

..
..

I feel so Shakespearean

 

[I M Dex]

Funny . . . I wrote this a few days ago in a PM.

Aaron, for one, entertains me much of the time on many subjects. He's like a Johnny Carson-type, who shows up every night and entertains. Johnny was not the best person off screen. I had read a tell-all biography written by his former attorney Henry Bushkin. He did some pretty bad things off stage and in his personal life, but he entertained every night. That's what I expected of Johnny. That's all I expect of Aaron.​

I'm shallow and tired out by the state of the world. I just want light entertainment anymore, LOL.

Interestingly, being a baseball fan, I can say that the same applies to one of the greatest ever, Ted Williams. He had a cold, distant mother, and driven to excel and be recognized, having stated that his goal was to be recognized as the greatest hitter ever. He himself was bitter and cold personally and professionally for the most part, and had a Tom-Suri-esque (non)relationship with his son.

 

[I M Dex]

I read that biography also. Now that we examine it, he was rather schizophrenic, Jeckyl and Hyde. Viewers felt like they were part of his circle, and for others, he could be a vicious, vindictive bastard; also, again, like Aaron.

I should add, "but never when in front of a camera".

 

[I M Dex]

Interestingly, being a baseball fan, I can say that the same applies to one of the greatest ever, Ted Williams. He had a cold, distant mother, and driven to excel and be recognized, having stated that his goal was to be recognized as the greatest hitter ever. He himself was bitter and cold personally and professionally for the most part, and had a Tom-Suri-esque (non)relationship with his son.

And isn't that interesting how that played out for Hubbard, who also had a cold and distant mother, vowed to "smash his name into the history books" and did so with a vengeance, disavowed his first child, and complained what his son had "done to him" in taking his own life.

 

[Karakorum]

I see Aaron as a Johnny Carson wanna-be, he presents, at least to me, as a "charming and entertaining" talk show host, heavy on schmoozing, light on the specific content and facts falsely hyped by the teasers that are the titles of his videos. There's a whole lot of "don't you just love me" in his attitude. Johnny Carson was a highly popular, wealthy and powerful man in Hollywood, and a mean drunk with a huge underside of coldness and cruelty to women and anyone he felt had crossed him in any way, having been been raised by a cold and distant mother, and was anything but warm to his own children, so there are interesting parallels with Scientology-raised Aaron and how he seems to be.

There is a campaign that is promoting the labeling of Aaron as a "narcissist" and his group of supporter are being labelled as "flying monkeys."

To me that's a red flag. Putting everyone who disagrees into some sort of label like: "cucks" or "brainwashed zombie atheists", "bitter and defrocked apostates" and now "flying monkeys".

I'm not saying Aaron is always right and I'm not saying people have to like him. But this sort of sweeping generalization does feel like something OSA-inspired.

The use of Hubbard's Black Propaganda and Battle Tactics tech is obvious. Is it being used consciously or unconsciously? Or is it just a coincidence that the commentary, from some, resembles something from Scientology Inc.'s. dirty tricks department? or from an issue of Freedom Magazine?

I'll leave to others to speculate.

You are not alone in that speculation.

I feel like the conflict within the AF started out as a genuine clash of personalities with the usual drama... the sort of stuff that happens on school boards, in corporate management and in every such group where pople get to make decisions.

But while it started out as a simple personal conflict, OSA has been trying to throw every pice of combustible material they have to fan the flames.

 

[Lee #28]

I haven't kept up.....

But interested in who called whom....."Flying Monkeys..."

I suppose....off the top of my head, that is reference to "The Wizard of OZ" ????

But I've forgotten exact what the flying monkeys were all about.....except that they were bad....

Anyway.....sounds like a nasty comment.... Any sort of Scientological meaning?