Transcript:
Mark Rathbun:
Denialism
Denialism is part and parcel with the whole ASC (Anti Scientology Cult) narrative. They have to any possible benefit and 55 million written and spoken words in lectures that constitute Scientology philosophy. They have to deny that it exists in its entirety. So their narrative can be summed real simply as, “Scientology is a group of people who have no substance; there is no substance that they are trying to protect. And yet they do two things. If somebody breaks ranks and vociferously disagrees with the group they are ostracized and are disconnected from. And if the person then escalates that disagreement and turns it into an attack, then Scientology ruthlessly dispenses with the attacker.” And that in essence is the narrative gone over and over. It is the basis of Going Clear (book and movie); it is the basis of their blogs (the troll farms). What I learned through 5 years of interacting with ASC – these people who are the authors of the bible of the ASC, and the center of the hierarchy (the Troika cluster, literally is that that narrative that they tell is precisely a description of themselves.
There is literally no philosophy, it is literally an anarchy of ideas. There is no solution. There is no interconnecting philosophy or way of looking at things. There is only ostracizing, marginalizing and attacking Scientologists. It is ‘use vs them’ and that is the only basis upon which the group exists.
The TROIKA of ASC
The Troika (Remini, Rinder and Ortega) of ASC considered that they had a well defined, hardbound hierarchy. The only problem with it is that all three members think that they are in charge. The three members, Tony Ortega who runs a daily blog serving as their PR meme guy, Mike Rinder who runs a daily blog and Leah Remini who runs reality TV and spin offs on Scientology. Every meme, every idea that emanates from the ASC emanates from those three. It may be that someone has an idea and brings it in, but clears one of those three before it gets put out there. And they continue to churn this stuff out and they only do it because it is profitable.
When I said they consider they have a hierarchy, I have had discussions with these people. Tony Ortega snickers about what fools Mike Rinder and Leah Remini are and how easy it is to sucker them into making Ortega the only “scoop guy” so he gets all the “scoops.” Mike Rinder says that Leah Remini is just a ditzy, hair brained, privileged person, who has a greatly bloated image of herself and that he has to guide her every step of the way and hold her hand. Leah Remini says Mike Rinder and Tony Ortega are hallucinating if they don’t realize that they are her bitches. And she is just using them. That’s why I say it is like a cluster; they think they have a hierarchy but each part of thinks their in charge.
It is all about money
It always comes back to money. And Leah Remini explained it to me one day. She asked me if I had been paid for participating in Going Clear. I told her, “no, I never got paid for participating in any media or documentary. And that I never would out of principle.” Remini said, “I don’t get that. I don’t understand your thinking. I didn’t participate because they wouldn’t pay me. I don’t do anything unless I’m paid. Nothing.”
Remini Scores Unlimited Funding to Attack Scientology
So at one point Leah Remini told me that after two years of careful work through her publicist, and Rinder and Ortega, had successfully come up unlimited financial backing to go after Scientology. And that she was going to create a production to do so. Leah told me that she was so well back that I could “write my own ticket” on this to participate as a producer. So, I asked her “what are you looking at producing?” And she told me essentially it was going to be a regurgitation of everything publicized about Scientology over the past seven years, about things that have happened over the past 40 years allegedly. And that she would resurrect the players who were saying things about Scientology for the past seven years as somehow new and current. My reaction was, “I have no interest whatsoever.” I’d had this conversation over two years, “if you want to do something that is educational, that is somewhat objective, that could lead to people getting on in life better, that gave some new perspective”, that was the only basis I told her I ever would participate in her stuff. And I said, “and still stands. But, what you are proposing is essentially a cheap, tabloidesque pile on that I’m not interested in.”
And I thought that would be the last I ever hear of her. Because, I mean that was the end of the conversation. I mean, she was like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It was like Ralph Kramden, “humada, humada, humada.” At the end of the conversation, she had nothing to say. So, I did think that would be the end of it after I told her what my position was. But, it wasn’t. But I’ll get back to that and for now stick to the subject of financial motivation.
Mike Rinder in it for the money
Remini’s partner, Mike Rinder, since he has left the church of Scientology (2007) never had a job, was never employed, never lifted a finger to do anything that wasn’t related to Scientology work that was paid for by people who were interested in seeing Scientology’s ox get gored. I know that because for his first three or four engagements he had specifically asked me to help him get into a position where he could have such backers and I put him in that position. So, since 2009 it has been a series of sugar daddies, one right after the others. A venture capitalist, former trader, actually there are a number of these people in that type of business. An old woman with a ton of money who is just obsessed on the subject. It has just been one after the other, and now Leah Remini. In essence, he has followed the same philosophy as Leah Remini who – when I rejected her offer – went straight to Mike Rinder who took her up happily.
Tony Ortega profits on misery of others
And then there is Tony Ortega, who is the third part of the troika. Tony Ortega at one point was really sucking up to me because I was getting a lot of media attention and he wanted to get his media cred. And he flew all the way down to South Texas to my home. He had just got fired from the Village Voice which he had converted into this anti-Scientology platform for two years. In rare moment when he had a moment to be somewhat candid, he told me circumstances under which he left the Village Voice. And the circumstances he said – “you know, this can’t go anywhere,” but what happened was that the Village Voice had been accused, and in fact had been investigated by law enforcement, of human trafficking, and supporting the child sex slave industry, by way of its Back Pages ads. And Ortega told me that Scientology had been exposing that and the problem is that Scientology was more accurate than anybody thought; and that, in fact, the Village Voice was almost exclusively by that human trafficking operation and that there were profits beyond that. And so the owners, now that Scientology was exposing it and now that law enforcement was investigating it, decided they had to get rid of Tony Ortega because he was just obsessed with Scientology and that was keeping them focused on him and their operation. So, they needed to get rid of him. So, in order to do that, and to extract his cooperation in keeping quiet about what he knew…which is interesting because Ortega is the first guy to accuse anyone who does go after Scientology of being bought off…Ortega literally agree to cover it up and obstruct justice for a payout of essentially a two-year buy-out deal. They paid him enough to where he could literally do nothing for two years but go out and write a book about Scientology so he could begin with some foundation of credibility upon which to continue his career which had had turned into trashing Scientology.
Sum up
So with all three of the troika I have had personal experience with which tells me the primary motivation is money.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 