Rodger Clark, one of the few Stand League contributors who may actually exist offers his take on “critics” and “religious discrimination”.
“I’m still looking for a movie critic who can make a blockbuster movie, a literary critic who can write a marketable book, a restaurant critic who can cook well and run a successful restaurant, an economics critic who can run a successful business, a music critic who can write and produce music, a religious critic who can create a community of happy, productive people with ideals and purpose in life. And I’m still looking for a Scientology critic who can show people how to become smarter, wiser, brighter, happier, better educated and more effective in life.”
Challenge accepted.
François Truffaut- Famous in France for his unforgiving film reviews for Cahiers du cinéma in the 1950s, he proved his mettle by winning Best Director Award at Cannes for 400 Blows. Truffaut went on to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1973 for Day for Night.
Jay Cocks- in the 1970s Cocks was the head film critic for Time Magazine. Although uncredited, he did the rewrite for Titanic which won a whooping 111 awards. Cocks also worked on 1993’s Age of Innocence which won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also wrote the screenplay for Gangs of New York which won Best Original Screenplay.
Frank S. Nugent- Critic for The New York Times, was nominated for an Oscar in 1953 for one of his screenplays as well as snagging the Best Written American Comedy from the Writer’s Guild of America.
There are many more were Clark to spend but a few moments to find them, however no list would be complete without mentioning Peter Bogdanovich.
Bogdanovich wrote movie reviews for Esquire working his way from there into directing and producing such Oscar nominated films as The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon.
Literary critics who wrote “marketable” books?
Three words; Edgar Allen Poe.
Rodger overlooked Chef Gordon Ramsay when he claimed there was no restaurant critic who could cook well.
Australian music critic, record producer and composer Molly Meldrum and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member John Henry Hammond can put Clark’s music comment to rest.
Rodger Clark may want to present himself to Ethics for his astonishing statement that he’d never found; “a religious critic who can create a community of happy, productive people with ideals and purpose in life.”
With the swipe of his keyboard Clark just completely annihilated L. Ron Hubbard’s entire schtick.
Oops.
“And I’m still looking for a Scientology critic who can show people how to become smarter, wiser, brighter, happier, better educated and more effective in life.”
First of all Clark’s difficulty here is due to a Scientological inability to even be able to hear a critic. Hubbard’s policy is that all critics are Suppressive and enemies to be attacked so it’s no wonder Clark has never actually found one.
Were he to defy the policy letters, bulletins and TRs he’d easily discover former members and critics like Leah Remini who speak out against Scientology’s abuse all while being a living, breathing example of “…smarter, wiser, brighter, happier, better educated and more effective in life.”
Mike Rinder has shaken off the stifling straight jacket that is Scientology and gone on to create a loving family, a successful career, an ambassadorship and Director of Child USA and more.
So too many other former member who have broken away and spoken out while rebuilding stable, happy, brighter lives.
Clark’s segue into the claim that “The antireligion crowd (small in actual number) has this cute trick of insidiously assigning an absolutely impossible standard: demanding that religions and religious people be absolutely perfect, making no mistakes anytime, anywhere” is disingenuous at best.
The only people who claim an impossible standard are Scientologists.
It is Scientology who refutes, denies and declaims any intimation of wrongdoing. Ever.
“So the other thing I’ve learned as a Scientologist is that those people who can actually do things, do them. It’s only the people who can’t do things who talk about it.”
So what has Scientology done for the world?
For a group of beings who pay serious cash for super powers there is a marked lack of “Doing-ness” to coin a phrase.
Tom Cruise insists that Scientologists can create whole new realities.
So why are we still in this one?
He stated that in the event of a car accident only Scientology could actually do something about it, effectively nullifying any need for paramedics, EMTs or the entire medical community.
So where are they?
All we’ve seen is a bunch of staged photo ops and a whole lot of talk.
In all this Stand League article is as wrong as it is useless. What was it trying to achieve?
The saying goes; “Those who can’t do, teach”.
With Scientology, those who can neither do nor teach…?
Well…
As Rodger Clark wrote.
“…those who are utterly incompetent become critics.”
Confront And Shatter 
Re: music critics who can compose; what about Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann and Claude Debussy?
LikeLiked by 2 people
“…those who are utterly incompetent become critics.” Really? Did this guy ever read any of elron’s horsesh!t? As early as his teens, ron the con traveled to the Orient (as it was called then) and proved himself a prolific critic of the people, their culture, ethnicity and religion. Even though this was later rebranded as elron soaking up Eastern wisdom, he was nothing but an “ugly American” tourist. A presumptuous critic.
From then on, he never stopped critiquing anything and everything he ever came across, including the military, photography, sound technology, music production, literature, politics, and religion. Or his favorite, psychiatry, which shows him reacting as rationally as a rat dog at the appearance of the mailman.
This ALWAYS went with unsubstantiated claims of how he could do better. And yet, he never did! Just try to get through one of his books, brace yourself and listen to the record he produced, check out his amateurish photography and film efforts. Or take a gander at his “contributions” to mental health and religion. Roger Clark’s claim that those who critique can’t do is most certainly true when it comes to elron.
Not to forget, the “impossible standard” Clark bemoans. Perversely, this standard was set up by hubbard himself and his endless self-mythologizing, NOT by elron’s critics. No wonder a mediocre pulp writer can’t live up to the claims he himself made and which the cult vainly and pointlessly tries to perpetuate.
Finally, it may be fair to a point to contrast those that speak vs those that do. What Clark conveniently “forgets” is that a substantial number of those who speak critically of the cult have indeed done the cult thing, often for decades. And it’s exactly because they have done that they now speak!
LikeLiked by 2 people
There are even musicians who write/critique music, art, and film and write blogs and books…AND teach. Pianist Ethan Iverson comes to mind…https://ethaniverson.com/
The problem with these potemkin spokesholes is that their script is written for them by El Wrong Blowhard, and they know that it is impossible to deviate from the script that the Great Satan, er…THETAN…has so generously and magnanimously provided for them, after decades of research and Whole Colonic Track Investigation…
Lie, Generalize, Oversimplify, and do the Homo Novus Ad Hominem Ass Wiggle. Who needs logic and evidence and actual discussion of the issues when you have the Dreck and OT(Oatmeal Twit) Power at your disposal?
LikeLiked by 1 person