It’s a rare thing for me to stand up and applaud gossip sites and magazines. But I do so today. I do so with a feeling of pride. Pride in a part of popular culture which has, let’s be honest, primarily been involved with dumbing us down, not standing us up.
Well, the ‘Tom Cruise - Scientologist’ videos changed all that. And the rise of the Internet action group ‘Anonymous’, has been buoyed by none other than our secret shame, our social crack habit: gossip rags. Most prominent among them has been Gawker, The Defamer and GlossLip. All of these gossip sites normally tend towards celebrity gossip and public sensationalism and the like, but recently they’ve taken a real stand on something serious and stood at the forefront of a new movement.
The sensationalists become sensational
This movement, spawned by Gawker’s posting of and refusal to remove the Cruise videos* showing what cult members believe about their special place in the world**, is out to expose a vile and harmful cult which has operated for too long. I’m speaking of Scientology, of course.
To be fair, this all started as standard celebrity gawking, so to speak, but it has expanded beyond this superficial point and, with the rise of the group Anonymous which has stated it will directly take on Scientology on the ‘Net and on the street, the game has changed. It’s not longer about celebrity, it’s about exposing a dangerous cult which lives among us and about which very little has been done. Except for a very few brave, but short-lived, pieces, mainstream media has shied away from going after Scientology. The notoriously litigious cult has lots of money and lawyers. It’s not worth it to news outlets who are, after all, in the business of making money by selling news.
The cult’s tactics, of which lawyering up is the least worrisome, have scared away all but the most hardened crusaders. Operation Clambake is one of those who has been fighting for many years. But it took popular culture and celebrity gossip to really get things going in the mainstream. The average joe on the street, having heard literally nothing about Scientology’s sins against humanity, just shrugs and says “what’s the big deal, they haven’t done anythign to me”. But now the man and woman on the street are starting to hear things. Things like the death of Lisa McPherson. Or how much money people are paying out of their life’s savings into the cult and about the doctrine of disconnection whereby families are torn apart just because someone speaks ill of the cult (who claim to be proponents of free speech… except, that is, when they don’t like what you say about them. Then they call that religious intolerance).
L. Ron Hubbard — creator of this money-making cult, sci-fi writer and noted ‘died Howard-Hughes-like-crazy on drugs in hiding’ pseudo-celebrity — wrote a famous decree for Scientologists. It stated that anyone who opposed the CoS “May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed” and that was A-OK with him and the cult. And for a long time this sort of mind-set has served the CoS well. They’ve hired hundreds of private investigators and staged numerous legal moves to squelch their detractors. They’ve threatened and frightened and ruined people, just to keep them from talking. They’ve claimed copyright to keep their secret documents form the public eye (because, quite frankly, it’s ludicrous quackery with space opera drama). But, it seems, that the tide is turning against them now in an arena they cannot hope to control; the arena of public concern and outcry. And the gossip sites are leading the way.
Shakespeare said it prettily. “…truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son may, but at the length truth will out.”
Truth will out, scientologists. And the truth inside the mouldering walls of your Clearwater compound, the truth from the chain rooms of your Flag Org, the truth about death and deception and bankruptcy and broken families… it is an ugly truth and it hurts us all as a society. You claim you’re going to save the world, but all your cult does is infect its people like a cancer and make us sick. Truth will out.
Sample stories at each of the sites mentioned
The video at Gawker that kicked it all off: Click to open
A sample of GlossLip’s stories: Click to open
Some of The Defamer’s coverage: Click to open
Seek out truth. Question everything.
The truth belongs to everyone.
Keep fighting.
Best,
Ella Rache
* - The legal threats and dust kicked up by the CoS over the videos, in fact, played out of their hands. It turned the whole thing into a news story, which gave every outlet a valid reason to show or post the videos. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
** - You and I, we’re called ‘meat’. They’re the super beings (whose ‘Super Power’ building - I shit you not, that’s what it’s called - has been under construction since 1998), we’re the meat. One day they’ll manifest their super thetan powers and oh boy won’t we be sore, gee golly.
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