Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alex Gibney, Going Clear, Lawrence Wright, Leah Remini, mike rinder, The Scientology Aftermath, tony Ortega
Going Clear Movie Part 10, Tony ‘Back Page’ Ortega – three time loser
Transcript
Mark Rathbun:
Gibney rips off film student’s techniques with Ortega
Tony Ortega got his foot in the door with me during a previous documentary that mainly involved me, Scientologists at War which came out in 2013. They way they used Ortega was, they interspersed him. They would show interviews with me on a subject and then occasionally they would have Ortega come in to interpret what I was saying; and thereby, come to conclusions that they could not get me to come to. And that is how he was used throughout that. He was taking what I was saying and turning it into something that it wasn’t. That is what they pretty skillfully did. And that was their technique. So, then Going Clear comes along. What blows me away is that Alex Gibney gets all these accolades. It is just this cult of celebrity culture we live in. It is like, once you are recognized by somebody you are somebody go be lionized. Gibney wasn’t original in the slightest. He used the exactly same thing in Going Clear that those fellows had done in Scientologists at War. And those guys, by the way, were novice filmmakers. The guys from the UK, they worked for a guy who was a producer who had won Oscars. But this was part of a program where he was taking promising young directors and saying ‘here, here’s all this stuff; go make a documentary.” So Gibney actually ripped off from these cinematography students this technique and basically used the same thing. I mean, if you get the book Going Clear, and go to the index and look for “Tony Ortega”. He’s not there. Zero pages. He is not even in it. Now, we go to the movie which is, according to Gibney, a recreation of the book, and now Tony Ortega is suddenly the critical link to everything. The reason I say, he’s the critical link to everything, is not because he has more air time, but it is more critical, crucial air time, because Gibney uses Ortega exactly the same way the folks did in Scientologists at War. And that is, he bridges. He’ll be putting together this salacious segment and it just doesn’t quite add up. And then, all the sudden there is Tony Ortega with a convenient soundbite that sort of leads you to this conclusion. And it is interspersed throughout the film. I told Gibney, it may even be in writing, I told him “in posterity, that is dumbest thing you ever did. This guy (Ortega) is a troll, he’s an avowed anti Scientologist, he has no personal experience, and you putting into this movie cheapens it and turns it into a propaganda piece. And it does. He has no personal experience.
Tony Ortega and the Village Voice
The CEO and one of the directors of the Village Voice (where Ortega ran a lot of his earlier anti Scientology campaigning) ultimately got indicted and arrested for running prostitution, human trafficking of minors. That was the main source of income for the Village Voice publication at the time. And so, they got to get rid of Ortega because – according to Ortega – Ortega told me, “it turns out the church’s accusations and investigations into the Voice were more true than anyone believed.” Essentially the Village Voice was bought and paid for through the human trafficking Back Page ads. As a solution they wanted to get out from under the scrutiny of the church; and of course Tony Ortega was doing nothing at the Village Voice other than by becoming what he became, a full time Anti Scientologist. And so, he wasn’t helping general circulation with his editing work. He was harming it. And all he was doing was bringing the scrutiny of the church upon them. So, what they decided to do was to give Ortega a sweet honey package to go off and do what he wanted to do, which was to write a book about Scientology. And it was a pretty sweet package because he was at it for two years. He got to go shopping it for the next two years, doing nothing else but shopping.
Ortega Channels Miserable Old Lady
So, Ortega gets his package and what does he do? He goes and get this woman who settled all her differences with the church 35 years ago and gets her to unsettle. Paulette Cooper. Because she’s got this story of going after the church, and the church going after her, that’s a very salacious story that had been told in the seventies. And then she had subsequent litigation and then she settled in 1981. 35 years later he is going resurrect her in the hopes that maybe he can become her. I think the guy is unbelievable disappointed that Scientology didn’t take the bait and come after him. I mean, he’s been trolling so hard. Here’s this guy and talks with all this air of authority and he’s done “this, this, this, this, this, and this” and all he can talk about in terms of harassment is what happened to the woman who he wrote a book about, that happened forty years ago, not to him, but the woman he wrote a book about.
Ortega and the ASC (Anti Scientology Cult) sum up
This is this whole ASC (Anti Scientology Cult) culture of “your narrative is my narrative”. “we’re all one great big narrative”, just this big cluster. “You suffered that and therefore I suffered that and therefore everybody ought to be in fear of suffering that.” And, that is Tony Ortega.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alex Gibney, Going Clear Movie, Lawrence Wright, Paulette Cooper, tony Ortega
Going Clear Movie Part 9, Paul Haggis Phony Narrative
Transcript
Mark Rathbun:
Paul Haggis, Wright and Gibney lied about Scientology’s position Homosexuality
They have Alex Gibney saying that “Paul Haggis’ daughters were openly harassed by church members for being gay.” I’ve been through the book three times now – there is no evidence of that and I never even heard any evidence of that from Paul Haggis. They suffered a couple of slights from peers is what the accusation was. But now they are being “openly harassed.” Because, now this is a movie, “and we’re going to make this more dramatic,’ I guess. And Gibney says “Investigating further, Haggis discovered church doctrine which characterized homosexuality as “a disease” that only Hubbard’s teachings can cure.” It is never categorized as a disease. Unlike the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the APA (American Psychiatric Association) who until the mid seventies had homosexuality listed as a mental disorder. It was not a disease. I’ve been through this before. It is a single characteristic to take into consideration in a series of 48 characteristics – in that you must have a majority of those characteristics, in ordered to be considered to at a particular emotional tone. And that is written in 1951. And there is a subsequent body of written statements by L. Ron Hubbard that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about somebody’s sexuality. And it was firm church policy that one wouldn’t be concerned with one’s sexual preference. That now is branded “a disease” according to Alex Gibney. And by the way, again it is “all in present time”, taking a statement from 1950, twenty five years before the APA and mental health in general decided it wasn’t a disease.
Paul Haggis lies about timing of his resignation
At 143:30, Paul Haggis says “I can’t support an organization that supports human rights for everyone, so I wrote a letter resigning.” No, he did not. He wrote a letter resigning a year and half after this dispute he had regarding a particular stance one church of scientology took on an issue. He had aired all his disagreements on that and a year and half later for intervening reasons we have discuss – which had to do with embarrassment about things that were said in the press – he only then wrote a letter.
Paul Haggis acts out a fiction on how he left the church
At 144:00 Haggis said, “his friends in Scientology said ‘we need you to resign quietly’,” and Haggis said, “I don’t do that. I don’t do quiet.” Like he is John Wayne again, right? Mr. Macho. Except, it is exactly what he did. And he went through a lot of different machinations to make it appear that he was doing it quietly. In fact, he included me in it, plotted with Jason Beghe about ways he could use my media contacts to leak to them so that Haggis would appear to have no causative involvement. In other words, he was taking extreme measures over several months to try to snipe from the weeds. He wanted to make it look like he wasn’t involved whatsoever (in loud publication of his resignation), and cause damage through the ‘leaking’ of his letter. So, first of all Paul Haggis never told his scientology friends “I don’t do that, I don’t do quiet.” He gave them the impression that he would do it quietly. So, that is a lie. And then his subsequent behavior, which is documented, that he did it as quietly as he could while creating the maximum possible media impact against the church.
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Tagged Alex Gibney, Going Clear Movie, Lawrence Wright, Paul Haggis
Going Clear Movie Part 8, Advocating for Headleys and IRS revocation
Transcript
Wright and Gibney Advocate (not report) on Headley case and IRS
Headley Lawsuit
Mark Rathbun: So, then at 1:14:30 they have Wright segue way back to the FBI his accusations of human trafficking and the Headley case. And again, it is advocacy. The Headleys (Marc and Clare) brought a lawsuit for human trafficking against Scientology. And the FBI was flanking it with an investigation. So, Wright says ‘well, the courts found that what the Headley’s alleged was constitutionally protected, and therefore the FBI had dropped what they were doing.’
Wright and Gibney Advocate for tax exemption revocation
Therefore, if you are listening to this narrative you are thinking, (see Going Clear Movie, Part 7) “oh my God! All the more reason to revoke Scientology’s tax exemption; because obviously all the First Amendment protection is hinged on the IRS granting exemption. You see? The whole thing is advocacy. But problem with the advocacy is – the fact that people miss – if you read the Court of Appeals decision in the Headley case – year, there were First Amendment problems but they didn’t even need to get to the First Amendment problem because there were factual problems. There was no evidence of human trafficking or anything resembling human trafficking. They found there was no evidence of imprisonment or anything resembling imprisonment. They found the Headleys on their free will had every opportunity to leave if they didn’t like what they were doing; they had fifteen years. So, even though there were First Amendment elements in the decision, there were no facts. So he makes it look like the facts were all there and they proved false imprisonment and human trafficking. “But, the thorny First Amendment got in the way,” which he has already told us is only there because the IRS ‘made the decision that Scientology is a religion’, which they never made (see Going Clear Movie, Part 7).
See, we’ve got a real big fiction being created here. But, that is why I call it propaganda because it is al geared towards communicating that ‘we need to get the IRS to put these guys into a big world of hurt financially by revoking their exemption.
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Tagged Alex Gibney, FBI, Going Clear Movie, IRS, Lawrence Wright, marc headley
Going Clear Movie Part 7, Propaganda re IRS and Scientology
transcript
Mark Rathbun:
Tony Ortega Propaganda on IRS and Scientology
At 1:05 they hit the IRS and they kick it off with Tony Ortega who says “there were 2,400 lawsuits, no only against the IRS but against individual IRS employees.” And so, the impression you get is that this was for harassment purposes because we’re doing this to hit the pocket books of individuals. Wrong. Federal law dictates the way you have to plead your lawsuit in the types of lawsuits dealt with. Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, etc. Under certain statutes you must name the agents individually. That doesn’t mean the guy has to go off and defend the lawsuit. He is defended by the government lawyers. But, he makes it sound in his tonality, like it is some important distinction (suing agents by name). No, it isn’t. It is a distinction with no difference. It is dictated by statute and it is meaningless. It doesn’t create any further inconvenience or expense for the individual who gets named.
Tax Exemption and Question of Religion
Lawrence Wright says at 1:09:20 says “this all leads to the question, how do you define religion?” It is a total non-sequitur because it is not even a question to be resolved in the tax exemption proceedings. That issue had already been dealt with for twenty years by the courts. Lawrence Wright says this, “the only organization entitled to make those distinctions is the IRS.” Lie. Any agency anywhere, state, federal, local has to make that distinction all the time. It is not just taxation. There are labor laws, there are ordinances in cities. It is common throughout the woof and warp of government from the lowest level to the highest federal level. The IRS does not have some special mandate from Congress that says, ‘you are the determiner of religion.’ And that is what Larry said here, and it is just an invention. It is a lie. He goes on, “its an agency very poorly equipped to do that. I mean, they are mainly accountants and lawyers. They are not theologians.” I just note an irony, nor is Larry Wright a theologian, right? But, he can riff all he wants to and he can set the anti Scientology narrative and the accepted narrative in the public’s mind as to religion in America. But, according to Wright, the IRS can’t and they are not equipped to make that determination. But, he goes on, “but, it’s the only opinion that matters.” He’s talking about the IRS. Untrue, the IRS’ opinion has not mattered since 1967 when they lost in Federal Court in the Hawaii Church of Scientology tax case and there has been an accumulating number of court precedents from Federal District Courts to Federal Appellate Courts to the United States Supreme Court to Supreme Courts in many lands that have made that question moot. It has been decided. They are like the regressives they want to roll this back to 1950. That’s what he is trying to do here. It is done. You can’t undo it. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. The IRS’ opinion is meaningless now (as in 1992/3) on whether Scientology is a religion or not. It is meaningless. It is res judicata. It has already been decided. And then Wright goes on, “Once the IRS has decided that you are a religion, then you are protected by the vast protections of the First Amendment.” False! And he’s sitting there like he’s taking the audience to school, because he is the expert and he knows it; yet everything he is saying here is just absolutely false. And he knows it is false, because I spent hours going through this with him and showing him and citing to him the decisions that I am talking about here.
Alex Gibney piles on like a three stooges skit
So, with that profundity, Alex Gibney piles on with, at 1:10:30 “the war ended (between the IRS and Scientology) because the IRS surrendered.” Like they literally got in their bunkered and waved a white flag. I went through this for days and gave Wright tomes of material, and specific facts, and the whole timeline to show that this was utter and complete horse shit.
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Tagged Alex Gibney, Going Clear Movie, Lawrence Wright, tony Ortega
Going Clear Movie Part 6, Vicki Aznaran and other Inventors
transcript
Mark Rathbun: They pile on heavily at 52:30. I don’t know how this has survived all these years, since 1991 or 92. Vicki Aznaran says (in a clip still being played 25 years late) “They had their houses broken into, people beaten up, slashed their tires, break their car windows.” There are a lot of things that are said and there are a lot of things that are exaggerated. And there are a lot of things that are sensationalized. These things she talks about – they even said it in the film – I cut my teeth taking over that entire operation (Church external facing Department) and reforming it – this is invented. None of these things ever happened. This was in the book. He know that I was there. He never brought this up to me. But, he put it in the book and put it in the movie. It is garbage.
Now, we’re on film with Alex Gibney, and they add on some other guy, “I was locked in a chicken wire cage.” (an invention of another defector). It sounds like something out of some nightmare or something. But, this is just fabricated and invented stuff. Performance. And they say this all had to do with what Scientology allegedly does to critics. It had nothing to with this individual being a critic. This was when the individual was in the church. And it had nothing to do with chicken wire or cages. So, you get the impression that ‘hey, watch what you say, because if you say something critical they could kidnap you and lock you in a chicken wire cage. It is invented.
Going Clear Movie Part 5, Inventions of Joel Sappel (LA Times)
transcript
Mark Rathbun: At 52:20 they have this Kim Masters, who I do not know from Adam. She says that a guy from the LA Times his dog was poisoned while working a story about Scientology. And I wouldn’t know what she was talking about except that year earlier I had been visited by a reporter from the LA Times who no longer works for the Times, named Joel Sappel. And I did not even know this, but Joel Sappel was telling me in 2012 that in 1990 or 89 allegedly his dog was poisoned while working on a Scientology story. I spent an hour with this guy as a personal favor because I was blown away that this guy for twenty years would be fixated on this false idea. Obviously, if anyone would have poisoned his dog would have had to been at my direction or I would have known about it, right? But, Scientology doesn’t poison dogs. It has been accused of it many times. Never done it and not even ever done anything like it. Never done anything to anybody critical of Scientology physically ever. Even in the darkest hours of the Guardian’s office long before our time. I spent an hour with Joel Sappel – the reporter she’s making reference to – I was very sincere, because it didn’t mean anything to me being in opposition to the church at the time, so I as not trying to defend the church. I am trying to give Sappel a reality check because it is blowing my, thinking what it must be like either perpetuating the lie for twenty years or actually believing so, being so tainted by the type of propaganda Gibney and Wright produced.
Why this incident is instructive
But, that is an interesting and instructive moment right there. Because if Joel Sappel really did believe that and hung onto it for twenty years; I can tell you, it just did not happen. If something happened to his dog it had nothing to do with Scientology. I was on that story (Sappel’s) from the day we heard it was happening, and they worked on it for years. I know exactly what happened. I know everything that happened investigation-wise, PR-wise, etc., from the day the situation arose. It arose two years earlier. They started on it in 87 I think, and they never came out with it until 89 or 90. Nothing like that (what Sappel alleged) ever happened. It is instructive for this reason: If Joel Sappel truly believed that, and hung onto that all that time, that means he was poisoned by some kind of propaganda that he had gotten as far back as the eighties. I am telling you, this film (Going Clear) is far more misleading, vicious, and downright scary than anything that had been produced up to the time that Joel Sappel got the false and paranoid idea that someone (in Scientology) had messed with his dog.
PS: Perhaps Gibney and Wright did not have Sappel in the movie was because Sappel’s visit with me settled his mind and they had to bring in a talking head to spread unattributed hearsay.
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Tagged Alex Gibney, Going Clear, Joel Sappel, Kim McMasters, LA Times, Lawrence Wright
Going Clear Movie Part 4, Hana Eltringham.
transcript
Mark Rathbun: Hana Eltringham is brought in at 27:30 into the movie. Hana Eltringham has been a known drama queen on the subject of Scientology for many, many years. The omissions are amazing. She is very dramatic. But there is no balance whatsoever. Number one, a lot of what she says is discredited by the fact of what she said in the book. What was she trying to get out of Scientology? After all, that is what Lawrence Wright said this was all about. The movie, the book the whole thing, “what allures you?” What allures her was, she had some involvement with a crazy aunt who was a Rosicrucian that told her that Rosicrucian mythology said “later in the century there is going to be a redhead guru that appears, and he is going to be a vessel of God.” And, that is why she joined. Because L. Ron Hubbard had red hair; and she wanted to be at the feet of the Lord. No wonder she didn’t understand anything she studied in Scientology. She wasn’t there for that. She wanted to be a supplicant to the chosen one. Number two, she condemns the whole subject and says it’s a fraud. Just like Haggis, “I knew it was a fraud when I saw this stuff”, and yet, she is in it for another twenty years after she has “already determined it’s a fraud.” Even after she left the church of Scientology, she was still trying to monopolize the technology of Scientology. She brought suit for a billions dollars to try to destroy the church. It was booted out of court. It was only then that she picked up this whole schtick of the dramatic damsel. Just context. They use her and Paul Haggis, who were people who just either didn’t get the subject or didn’t want to get it, to talk about the core of Scientology. So, the bizarre that we’ve come to now (through twenty minutes of Gibney’s film) is just compounded through that. Look, Larry Wright had me devote all manner of time to go through it with him so that he would understand Scientology…watch the film and see how much explaining of Scientology I’m doing. Zero. They’ve literally taken some bites of where I had some criticism of the organization personally, and nothing about the substance of Scientology. It is based on the invention of Gibney and Wright, and then exacerbated by Eltringham and Haggis.
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Tagged Alex Gibney, Going Clear Movie, Hana Eltringham, Lawrence Wright, Paul Haggis
Moving On Up a Little Higher 