HBO Doc Going Clear and Tom Cruise

For the benefit of everyone here, this is the SNL clip along with full analysis and commentary posted on Tony Ortega's "Underground Bunker" website:

http://tonyortega.org/2015/04/05/sa...-of-scientology-last-night-lyrics-and-images/

 

Many thanks for mentioned that! Haven't watch SNL in a couple of decades. Here's the clip:

 

I actually met a Science Fiction writer, by the name of Wilson Tucker (this would have been in 1986), and we were talking about the old days of SF and Hubbard's name came up. We were talking about Scientology, and Mr. Tucker said he remembered that Hubbard had made a comment to a group at a convention in the early 50s that he was going to invent a religion and get a million dollars so he didn't have to pay taxes...

 

Yeah, that was pretty much a running theme in the documentary. Sailing from port to port to avoid them? But if true, the way the IRS caved because they were getting "too many letters and lawsuits" was pretty amazing. A victory after his death, but an incredible "victory". I see no religious aspects to Scientology BTW. What is their faith? If they can't explain it, then they can fill out their IRS paperwork at least.

Jeff

 

It's one of those things that has been around forever. Harlan Ellison claims to have been in the room when he said it.

 

The fact that he eventually succeeded points to other and bigger issues that we can't discuss here. The emperor does indeed wear no clothes.

 

I think that the lawsuits are how they deal with things. I'm waiting for them to file a giant suit against HBO and the shows producers. It'll be interesting, to say the least. But the cat's out of the bag now (if it was ever in). I tried to read Dianetics, but I found it to be utter BS, and quit halfway through. Knowing what I know, I just can't take it seriously.

 

Yes, and Keith Laumer, too, who relayed the same story to my wife. He also claimed to be there at the time.

 

HBO apparently had 160 lawyers vetting the documentary. I think it's safe to see, Time Warner is not going to allow it's self to be pushed around like the IRS did.

It's the SF equivilant of Woodstock - if you weren't there, you wished you had been there.

 

I was a little surprised there was no mention of Lisa McPherson in Going Clear.

 

IIRC Carl Sagan relayed this same claim in Dragons of Eden or Broca's Brain.

 

There is so much evil, so many stories both appalling and heartbreaking, that a 2 hour documentary just can't cover it all. One could easily create a TV series with each episode devoted to one ruined life, and it could run for years.

 

Yeah, you get the impression that either some people are either lying or Hubbard (who was constantly grumbling about being paid "a penny a word") said it a lot of times in a lot of places, like that one lazy lush of a friend you have from college constantly talking about his plans to make a fortune. Except, in this case, the lazy lush actually managed to get a bunch of people to buy into his BS.

 

I've heard Harlan tell that story several times. I also heard the same story from the side of Forry Ackerman, who was L. Ron Hubbard's agent for many years.

The book on which the documentary is based tells a wrenching, difficult, awful tale of woe. Far worse than the movie.

 

So, for those who've done serious reading on the subject: would Going Clear the book be the best general read on Scientology, its history, and its nefarious activities?

 

I seem to recall Harlan sounding nearly heartbroken that his old friend had pretty much disappeared and he missed him.

Absolutely, but Going Clear didn't even begin to tell all the stories. For instance, my wife and I have been on the Internet since 1988, which was basically e-mail, ftp and Usenet in those days. We were around for both the birth of spam, and the CoS war on alt.religion.scientology. And one of the costs of that war was the shutting down of the anonymous remailer anon.penet.fi, which was the heart of a support group for survivors of sexual abuse on alt.sexual-abuse.recovery. Just one of hundreds of bits of collateral damage in their attempt to silence critics. Going Clear barely mentioned Lawrence Wollersheim and his 2 decade fight to get a refund. If that sounds ridiculous, it will give you some idea just how vindictive and litigious this group is.

Until the CoS is no more, it will serve as an excellent introductory text. I hope someone will eventually do the definitive work on the subject.

My wife and I have been opponents of the cult for decades and have a pretty good-sized library of books on the subject - most of which the CoS forced out of publication. But as they bleed members, some of them are coming back into publication. Russell Miller's Bare Faced Messiah is a good one, as is John Atack's A Piece of Blue Sky.

 

Gibney said on Twitter that he originally had a 4-hour cut, so you can expect much of that to be on the DVD. He also said that the movie will be playing in some Canadian theaters in May, followed by a run on HBO Canada. It will, I believe, also be playing in some UK theaters in June. No word about an HBO showing.

One massive thing they had to leave out, because it would have made a movie in itself, is Operation Freakout, Paulette Cooper's nightmare story. I can't even summarize it. Just please read the Wikipedia page I linked. Paulette's story is now a book by Tony Ortega, to be released in May. It's called The Unbreakable Miss Lovely ("Miss Lovely" was OSA's code name for Cooper). I hope it will be made into a high-quality major motion PICT-CHAA. I'm hoping for David Fincher and Jennifer Lawrence, myself.

Btw, since Going Clear played in theaters (for a short time, anyway), it is eligible for next year's Academy Awards. HBO specifically positioned it to be eligible. The Academy rules state that a film must play commercially for at least 7 days in Los Angeles County. HBO made sure to do that, and went even further by having it also play theaters in New York and San Francisco. HBO will throw a bunch of money into ads to make sure it's not forgotten come awards season. It's sure to get lots of nominations and wins among critics' groups, but I also hope the AMPAS voters aren't timid or intimidated. Voting is private, and if scn throws its weight around to try and influence/affect voters it would be big, bad publicity news.

 

Any and all "exposures" to the truth will, of course, go a long way in taking the cult down. However, as we all know, the wheels of change turn extraordinarily slowly in our great nation. To make them turn faster, Miscavige and others will have to be taken down definitively and loudly. I really hate to say this, but the buck stops at the top. Even if all members defect and everyone else is discouraged to join, the cult is still left with a ton of holdings "free and clear (ha ha)". And there's no way around it -- money is power.

 

I'm looking forward to the launch of HBO Go this week so I can see this documentary (and Games of Thrones).

I did pick up the book, which sounds fascinating.

 

Interestingly, I had the same conservation with Frank Herbert in 1976 or so about Hubbard and he related the story (second hand as I recall) as well.

 

It's amazing the number of the old Grand Masters of SF who knew Hubbard, say the same things. He must have said it to anyone who would listen.

 

Or it was just too good a story to not constantly repeat. SF is a small community, but if everyone who claimed to have heard Hubbard say that were actually in the room, the room would have had to have been Madison Square Garden.

I've been a science fiction fan since I was an adolescent but I never got into Hubbard's SF. My pulp needs were amply filled by "Doc" Smith.

 

I liked Janet Reitman's book Inside Scientology. Seemed to cover it all.

 

I imagine so. At any rate, I always figured that given what we now know, it's likely to be true. As an aside, years ago, my stepfather loaned me "Battlefield Earth" to read. Now, I've never liked Hubbard's SF writing (or any other thing he wrote, for that matter), so I set the book aside not really wanting to read it. But, I eventually did pick it up so that I could at least tell my stepfather that I'd given it a try. Well, I loved the book, and upon finishing it I thought I'd perhaps mis-judged Hubbard as a writer. So I tried one of the older books, which reinforced my original opinion. I came to the conclusion that Hubbard didn't write it, but was probably ghost-written by someone in the CoS, that likely got paid 40 cents an hour for their efforts.

 

I read the entire 10 volume Mission Earth series in the early 90s (3992 pages!). Even then I was convinced that there was no way Hubbard could have written the entire thing. It's certainly not written above a junior high reading level.

I had a friend that worked in the bookstore and could get me 50% discounts on everything - except books published by Hubbard's company. No discounts were allowed.