French and English voices decry Tom Cruise stunt planned for Olympics
Last week we reacted to the startling news that actor Tom Cruise would play a part in the Olympics Closing Ceremony on August 11 by bringing up the awkward spot it would put Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in.
Bass already has a complicated past with both promoting and denouncing Scientology, and if she participates in a stunt with Cruise involving the handover of the Olympic flag from Paris to LA, which will host the next games in 2028, how will that make her look?
And now others have been raising questions about why Cruise, the Scientology celebrity who may be the single biggest reason the embattled group remains in business, gets to play a starring role in the Olympic flag handover.
French press association AFP talked to several anti-cult groups who said they were appalled at the message it sends. This, for example, is a paragraph from an English-language version of the AFP article that appeared in Le Monde:
“The simple fact that we are talking about his presence is an insult to victims,” said Catherine Katz, a former French judge who heads UNADFI, a group dedicated to defending victims of cults. “It really is a bad message.” Charline Delporte, the president of victims’ association Caffes, called it “a disgrace.”
A disgrace! Sacre bleu.
Meanwhile, in England, our friend Alex Barnes-Ross has also tried to get officials to pay attention to how inappropriate it would be for Tom Cruise to be a part of the ceremony in an open letter he wrote to the Olympic Organizing Committee.
From his letter:
This decision is a profound betrayal of the principles the Olympics are supposed to uphold. It is a direct affront to every person who has suffered as a result of Scientology’s harmful and coercive practices, harassment tactics and toxic regime. By featuring Tom Cruise—a man who has openly and aggressively defended Scientology, and who has also disconnected from his own daughter as a result of ‘Church policy’, you are legitimising an organisation that has been widely condemned for its human rights abuses, including allegations of human and child trafficking currently being tried in U.S. courts.
We’ll be watching tomorrow night to see if the stunt actually happens. Meanwhile, it surprised us to learn that although American media organizations only discovered a little more than a week ago that Cruise would be a part of the Closing Ceremony, French media has apparently been on it for months.
A May 8 story at RMC Sport, for example, reported that Cruise had been spotted in Paris in April filming something in a motorbike trailing a white flag, and that they had learned that Cruise would be “one of the main characters of this closing ceremony.”
With so much planning going into this thing, we have our doubts that any criticisms could derail it. But we’re still glad to see some pushback going on.
We look forward to your thoughts on how the stunt actually comes off tomorrow night.
A Message from Scientology’s ‘Hogwarts’
A reader forwarded to us this message from Delphian, the expensive boarding school in Oregon where Scientologists send their kids…
Dear Friends,
I often get asked what the pay is like for Delphian staff. It's a hard question to answer. It really depends on what someone considers their "pay" is in life.
From a purely monetary standpoint, the pay isn't much. We're a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the educational standards in our society and truthfully, it's not a very lucrative business.
But I'd venture that most of our staff would say that the numbers on their paycheck are not the most accurate way to describe their pay.
This year one of our graduates gave an unsolicited description of "staff pay" in her graduation speech. Here is what she said:
"As I moved through the Delphi Program, I grew fonder and fonder of the school. I didn’t know I could have such affinity for a building and the people inside. I realized that the staff care, which was a lot different from the school I previously came from.
"In my old school, it seemed like they only cared about their paycheck. Here, it seemed like their paycheck certainly wasn’t about the money.
"I thought that Robin [academic supervisor] may have thought she was getting paid when she heard an 'Aha!' of understanding from one of her students. Or every time Eric [ceramic arts instructor] could see a student make something themselves in ceramics. Perhaps for Adam [choir director], it was hearing a song come together for the first time in choir.
"These were all forms of the staff getting paid--when students succeeded in something. This, at least, is what I felt here at Delphian." --A.P.
If that is how someone regards their "pay" in life, then I would say that Delphian staff are amongst the most highly paid.
We’re looking for more teammates to create the future of the school and carry its mission into the future. Who do you know that wants to join this worthwhile purpose?
Click here to find out more
Warm regards,
Linnea Silver
Head of Administration
Delphian School
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I wrote Karen Bass again. Here’s what I wrote.
“ Using Tom Cruise to represent Los Angeles demeans our city as he's a major representative of the cult of Scientology. It’s the equivalent of using Charles Manson to represent San Francisco. Please stop this from happening.”
Maybe the Delphian staff can explain that form of compensation to the IRS. Or count it as income with the Social Security Administration.
They are looking at a big surprise when they get too weary to work anymore. No savings, no Social Security, and their "friends" at Delphian School happy to put them out into the streets. Their statistics will be down, and no good Scientologist rewards down statistics!
It is hard to explain to non-Scientologists just how ruthless this form of age discrimination can be. You're never supposed to age or weaken or get ill. If you do, you're doing it wrong. Turns out you were a traitor all along and deserve whatever happens to you, despite all the thousands of hours spent trying to "make it go right" without proper resources or help.
The Scientologists typify the old Stones song, "My Generation". "Hope I die before I get old". Somehow, they all got old but are still on the road. The magic of big bucks. Some of us are not so lucky.