Mike Rinder was written up today by editor in chief at the Village Voice Tony Ortega:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/09/mike_rinder_top_25_crippling_scientology.php
Tony focuses largely on the critics of Mike.
Now, the rest of the story.
I’ve alluded it to it before. But, now I’ll make it crystal clear. Mike Rinder was beat on the order of fifty times by David Miscavige. The reason is simple. Mike Rinder was the shock absorber between David Miscavige’s psychotic intentions and the public at large. Pure and simple.
I witnessed many of the beatings. This is typically how they would play out.
Miscavige: Rinder, those protest signs are aimed at one person and one person alone, me! What the f*** is OSA doing about it?
Rinder: (calmly, cooly) Sir, we are re-routing the staff and public so that no one sees them. We are investigating the instigator to determine if some vested interest is behind this…
Miscavige: (turns to Marty) Did you hear that SP?! He couldn’t care less. Totally nonchalant. He is perfectly fine with ME getting smeared! (turns to Rinder) You f****** SP! I don’t want the sons of bitches “investigated”, I want them destroyed! Squashed like F****** cockroaches. Get that fat Nazi bitch Kurt Weiland up here Shelly. Get f****** OSA to make up signs now about the pig who started this – and get some real public who love me – unlike this SP Rinder – go picket his f****** house. (turns to me, points at Rinder) Look at him, he’s just sitting there…I have to handle everything, even my own defense…f****** pie face. (Miscavige cups his hand and whacks Rinder full force on the ear, storms out of room cursing up a storm).
(Rinder is his inimitable, diplomatic style quietly interjects himself back into the cycle, editing OSA’s signs so that they are not so blantantly unlawfully threatening. He also sustains another beating or two for reporting directly to Miscavige that the public in front of such-and-sos home are creating a terrible PR situation. Ultimately, after three vicious beatings Mike survives when a PR flap of magnitude intercedes and Mike has got to clean up, dress up and appear on national TV as the public face of Scientology. Mike somehow regains his equilibrium and comes across as the calm, rational guy he is. Only then does Miscavige stop obsessing on the protesters and Wieland wisely and quietly follows Mike’s advice and calls off the dogs)
No exaggeration. I’ll give examples in my book – but this is a distillation of a day in the life of Mike Rinder at the International Headquarters of Radical Corporate Scientology.
Yeah, I got choked up in Germany. And I’m choking up now because fact of the matter is every time (and they were multiple per week) that I served as a sounding board for Miscavige in this wise, I not only perpetuated the destruction of Scientology, I allowed a great man and a good friend to be tortured and denigrated.
But, Mike is the living proof of one truth Nietzsche offered:
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Mike Rinder is perhaps the strongest man I know.
Mike Rinder was and is a better man than I.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 