LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

In Clearwater, Fla., there’s been a quiet series of land purchases over the last three years, $103 million worth made by the Church of Scientology and its parishioners – a doubling of the church’s footprint near its international headquarters. That’s the findings of a story in the Tampa Bay Times that’s headlined clear takeover. Tracey McManus is a Scientology reporter for the paper, and she joins us now. Welcome.

TRACEY MCMANUS: Hi, Lulu. Thank you for having us.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Explain to me why the paper has a Scientology reporter. I mean, how big is the Church of Scientology where you are?

MCMANUS: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it’s comparable to say it’s kind of, like, if there were to be a Vatican reporter in Vatican City. We believe it’s important to shed light on a powerful institution that’s very controversial and plays a big role in our community.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So tell me about these land purchases. Can you give me a sense of the scale and how they have made this happen with the relatively little fanfare over the years?

MCMANUS: It kind of started in early 2017. We reported at that time that a handful of limited liability companies bought about six downtown properties, and Scientology leader David Miscavige had presented a retail plan to two city staff officials. And he was going to build an entertainment complex with Tom Cruise. And he was going to recruit high-end retail to some of the empty storefronts because downtown Clearwater’s pretty depressed. So we kept our eye on the downtown purchases. Once we dug into the data and pulled records, we found that LLCs tied to the Church of Scientology had bought about 100 properties. And the properties cover about 100 acres. And it’s all surrounding the city’s downtown waterfront.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Who are they buying from, and how much were they offering?

MCMANUS: Brokers representing these companies were approaching downtown property owners. Many of their properties weren’t listed for sale. And our analysis found that these church officials were offering two, three, four times what the property appraiser said the properties were valued.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So clearly they wanted these properties a great deal. Why does this matter?

MCMANUS: Well, our reporting shows that Scientology has a big interest in preserving its downtown campus. “Flag” is what they call it, and it’s the international spiritual headquarters of the church. And it’s also basically the financial nucleus of the entire organization. There’s parishioners that come here from all over the world to take courses in high level auditing that’s not offered anywhere else. The other side of that is Flag is run by the Sea Org, the Scientology’s full-time workforce. These workers sign billion year contracts, are paid very little, and work around the clock. And Scientology has an interest in keeping that insulated, according to former executives that we’ve interviewed.

Interior of the Flag building

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What do you mean “billion-year contracts”?

MCMANUS: The reason Scientology has such an outsized influence is because of the cash and assets it has, which is estimated to be $3 billion. Part of the reason for that is because they have this Sea Org that makes people work full time and pays them less than $50 a week. They keep their operations going.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It’s the type of servitude.

MCMANUS: Yes, exactly.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And I guess the larger concern is that this could really thwart the city’s plans for redevelopment if the Scientologist organizations are going to have all this property that they’re going to keep for their own purposes.

MCMANUS: Right – because the city officials have said that there’s only so many factors they control. One of the factors they do control is the waterfront land that’s protected by city charter, that they are in the middle of a $64 million plan right now to redesign and develop into a park with gardens and a concert venue. Businesses might see this city project and say, yeah, let me take a chance on downtown and open up a business. But now these LLCs tied to Scientology control the retail district. They have control over what businesses, if any, come in.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What is the view of the local community? I mean, do they view it as helpful for the community at large to have a major religious organization centered in their town or not?

MCMANUS: You know, Lulu, from my reporting, I’ve learned that there’s a lot of mistrust and suspicion still in the community when it comes to Scientology because a lot of the residents here were living in the city when Scientology arrived in the ’70s, and they remember the tactics Scientology used.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Just out of curiosity, when you say the tactics that they used in the ’70s, what were those?

MCMANUS: Scientology arrived in downtown Clearwater in 1975. They came in under a fake name to buy the Fort Harrison Hotel, a historic hotel right in the center of downtown. And the mayor at the time, Gabe Cazares, really raised the alarm. He demanded to see their financials, their board of directors. He publicly asked why there were security cards with billy clubs and mace on the roof.

And in 1977, the FBI raided Scientology’s headquarters in LA and D.C. And they uncovered hundreds of thousands of memos and documents. And inside those findings was a plan that Scientology operatives had created and written to establish area control. And the tactics they were using to establish area control included infiltration, spying, and smearing enemies. It was a very turbulent time.

*** The Scientoplogists smeared Margi as a call girl, which a jew did recently to me on this website. She was an actress and opera singer (promotional photo below), and she studied acting under John Bullock, the father of Sandra Bullock — and she met Sandra.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So the fact that the church is now buying up these properties through proxy organizations would maybe ring some alarm bells for the community because of what has happened in the past.

MCMANUS: Yeah, I think that the key here is the uncertainty. We don’t know what they’re planning to do with the properties. A lot of them are vacant lots, vacant buildings, empty storefronts. We don’t know if they’re just going to continue to squat on them – because they haven’t done anything yet. They haven’t submitted redevelopment plans. They haven’t started construction – or are they going to redevelop them and bring businesses in and contribute to a vibrant downtown?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s Tracey McManus, who reports on Scientology for the Tampa Bay Times, talking about the church’s increased real estate footprint in Clearwater, Fla. Thank you very much.

MCMANUS: Thanks, Lulu.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And we reached out to the Church of Scientology about the Tampa Bay Times report. They called it, quote, “little more than self-serving propaganda intended to give the appearance of objective reporting.” They also pointed to the latest edition of their Freedom magazine for what they called an accurate portrayal of the church and its members in Clearwater.

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……Donors in September

—  28 September 2023 $200 via Western Union from M in Texas

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— 27 September 2023 $208 (163 British pounds) via PayPal from M in France

 

— 27 September 2023 $75 via CashApp from K in Massachusetts

 

 

 

The Berlin, Massachusetts town hall was built in 1870 in wood but in the Greek Revival style. I was just telling a friend that when you look at the noble architecture of the older American cities along the East Coast, before the Bauhaus came along and these ugly, cold modern boxes of glass and steel, our public buildings and finer homes were all built in very Aryan styles — Greco-Roman, French or Italian Renaissance. We were a white nation; we were proud to be white, and we knew that we Americans were an offshoot of our mother continent of Europe!

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—  21 September 2023 $20 via GabPay from J

— 20 September 2023 $208 (163 British pounds) via PayPal from M in France

— 13 September 2023 $208 (163 British pounds) via PayPal from M in la douce France

Rennes in Brittany, France has half-timbered houses, a hallmark of northern Europe possibly going back to germanic runes

— 13 September 2023 $57 (400 Danish crowns) from B in Denmark

— 9 September 2023 Aus$40 (= US$30) and an INTERESTING LETTER from P in Australia

I would agree with this Australian comrade’s suggestion in this letter (he is very “up” on ET issues) that nordic aliens might indeed allow a nuclear war — an armageddon which would 100% be OUR fault through our own sins over many generations of both commission and omission, but then also help those who survive to rebuild the world.

The Nordics hate the idea of them having to fight our battles for us when we ourselves could oppose evil right now, yet generations of us in earlier lives have tolerated and enabled the jews to conquer us via a million selfish, individual decisions to cave in and say nothing, a million quiet surrenders that revealed the disgusting cowardice of earthlings and also the sickening infighting that is endemic even amongst the resistants.
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— 8 September 2023 $50 cash from K in California

I profoundly thank my major donors for years of serious financial sacrifices. One is a California writer and offspring of a top scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. These quiet financial heroes are the reason my mission goes forward to a dramatic launch despite two huge betrayals this summer by white men regarding my housing situation.

The serious donors also grasp that while they open their wallet, I open my chest to an assassin’s bullet every time I open my front door, or I face the blinding flash of a car bomb whenever I get into my 20-year-old Hyundai Sonata and turn the ignition…. the real possibility of assassination, either now, or soon.

— 7 September 2023 $100 cash from a local supporter

— 6 September 2023 $100 via CashApp from K in Massachusetts

— 5 September 2023 165 British pounds (US$208) via PayPal from M in France

 

— 2 September 2023 165 British pounds (US$208) via PayPal from M in France

French girl Joan of Arc, a 19-year-old peasant who listened to an angel and changed the world. Seven hundred years later she is still world-famous. Though a normal female who wanted to marry and have chihldren, she bravely challenged her king to fight the English invader, and faced death on the battlefield alongside rough male soldiers. Upon her capture, she endured the vilest slander (as a “witch”!) at her “trial” and chose being burned at the stake over renouncing her cause, while refusing to be locked up for life as a nun in a cloister. Tenacious England, in the Hundred Years War, had conquered two-thirds of France when this phenomenal girl appeared. What man could be a coward when this girl raised her sword?

 

— 2 September 2023 135 euros (= about the same in US$) from C in Germany and two wonderful books. (Well — in full disclosure — one of them I actually co-wrote with Dietrich Eckart in 1923. 😉 )

“The Ethnic Cleansing that Cost Millions of Germans Their Lives” and “Bolshevism from Its Beginnings to Lenin. Conversation between Adolf Hitler and Me” by Dietrich Eckart

 

— 1 September 2023 $500 cash from B, a local donor