Watched the video...
Earnest people.
Good intentions.
A question continually floated in the back of my mind while viewing it.
What went wrong? Or maybe, more correctly, what was wrong with this whole scene of good folks working in harmony to do good in the world?
Viewed from 2011, we have the eerie benefit of knowing not only what they were thinking & feeling, but what was just ahead if the film could have been fast-forwarded.
Giving them much credit for what they did know, what they did not know was rather staggering, to be honest.
They did not know that a train was coming down the track and headed directly for them in what would be a rather spectacular collision. That train was, remarkably, the same thing they were so fondly and ambitiously giving every ounce of their reasoned and unwavering support to...
The tech.
Ron's tech.
His tech that included willful and knowing attack, coercion, lies, fraud, terrorism, criminality and fair game.
They didn't see that coming.
A blind spot extraordinaire.
It was steaming down the track and zeroing in them, their precious tech, their ARC and their trusting belief that Ron and his tech were good and worked.
Although it is easy to joke about it, there is real pathos embedded in this time capsule.
Had but the vaunted tech actually worked, the world (and these fine people's lots in life) would have fared far better.
It felt, however, like a latter-day Woodstock where some of the glowy-eyed celebrants were, quiet uknowingly, soon to be shipped off to Vietnam to meet their own doomed immortality.
In my own military service to Scientology, I shared foxholes with these fine people. It is still bewildering to me, having seen the horrors of Scientology wars that we all witnessed up close, that so many of them volunteered for additional tour of duties and continue to this very day!