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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which was available to all those who subscribed to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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He's a real nowhere man
by Phil Spickler
3 July 99

Hello all and none!
      Greetings from the land of the free and the home of the brave: the U$
of A, America the beautiful, where tomorrow, the Fourth of July in these-here
parts, will be celebrated as Independence Day, namely, that day when a group
of our forefathers got together and signed the declaration which they called
the Declaration of Independence, in which these less-than-loyal British
colonists determined, for better or for worse, to free themselves from the
"yoke" of their King and mother country, then and still located across the
Atlantic Ocean, in a former Roman colony now called Britain or Merrie Olde
England.

     This insult by the American colonists against the Crown and the mother
country was deemed to be a rebellion, which England was determined to put
down.  The colonists, in an effort to lend more weight to their rebellion,
termed it a revolution, which sounds bigger and has more class than just a
mere rebellion.  Well, enough of this -- anyone finding it interesting can
read about it in one of the many books called "U.S. history," or one can read
about it as a fairly recent eveni in English history, and find the
perspectives on said event to differ greatly depending on which side of the
Atlantic your reading history is taking place.

       Anyhow and howsomever, whenever I hear the word "independence" I
quite automatically start thinking about Dianetics and its baby sister
Scientology, since both of these fine subjects have (at one time or another)
aimed at liberation, and of course this eventually became slavery to
liberation.  L. Ron Hubbard, or Ron as a few of us got to call him straight
to his face before he became Source, the Commodore, the Boss, etc. etc., had
written a little book early in the '50's, the 1950's that is, called _Child
Dianetics_, and we think it has some pretty good ideas in it that could
really be useful to people of any age.

        As the years went by, Scientology as an organization aimed most of
its proselytizing and recruiting efforts at the young and still-idealistic
people, so that for the most part, at least in this country, it was mainly a
youth movement.  However, from 1950 to 1999 is getting pretty close to fifty
years, and a lot of us former kids, and many in between, might now be called
"old-timers."  And it seems to someone as though the time may have arrived
for the necessity of a book or books that could come under the heading of
"Dianetics and Scientology and their Geriatric Applications."  In other
words, one book might be called _Old Folks Dianetics_, or another could be
called _Scientology, the Science of Aging_, or possibly _A New Slant on
Getting Old_, etc. etc. etc.

     Us old-timers, with the exception of Ron, have never had much attention
paid to us, since in a movement like Scientology in particular, people who
have been around since the beginning can be very embarrassing if their
faculty of memory is still good, and this makes (and always has, in any
dictatorship, whether it be religious or military) a real problem that's
usually handled by such groups by getting rid of older folks or cleaning them
up in such a way that they will espouse the latest party line.  Both Stalin's
Russia and Ron's Church of Scientology, not to speak of the Vatican,
essentially have to re-write history in order to get away with what they're
getting away with for those who come along later on.  The Church of
Scientology has no patent on this Orwellian 1984-type strategy, but it has
certainly made obvious and foolish efforts worldwide to make the new and
approved history of the subject and its founder appear to be the truth.  But
heck, with the advent of the Internet, and the horribly big mouths of people
like myself and a few others, and with time on our side, the silly
stupidities of totalitarian organizations are waning visibly before us even
as these few pitiful words are written.

       Today's epic had been intended to be about applications of Dianetics
and Scientology to the aging and aged, but as though to live up to that
appellation, you can see that my doddering thimbleful of theta has been
wandering all over the place, and now that I'm ready to quit writing this and
eat a bowl of mush before I take my afternoon nap, I must apologize for this
behavior and promise to those who may be interested that when my aging body
next permits, to take as full a look as possible into the aforementioned
subject.

      Until then, all the best, and may high be the hopes of you for
independence and liberation -- Phil (AKA  Citizen Tom Paine)