Hubbard designated the media “Chaos Merchants” who are to be harassed and attacked because they publish “lies” about scientology. Ever since he failed to persuade a Saturday Evening Post reporter to write a glowing piece about him in the early 60’s, the media have been enemies.
In Ron’s Journal 67 he specifically states: “Our enemies on this planet are less than twelve men. They are members of the Bank of England and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains, and they are, oddly enough, directors in all the mental health groups in the world.”
Of course, as time went on, more and more media were added to the scientology enemies list — from Time magazine to the BBC, the list was and is extensive. Hubbard’s opinion of the press was made very clear in his final book(s) Mission Earth. It is enshrined in basic scientology beliefs like the example at the top from the Scientology Handbook.
A special place on the scientology enemies list was reserved for the St. Petersburg Times and now defunct Clearwater Sun for having exposed the false pretenses under which Hubbard and scientology moved into Clearwater. Part of the seized documents from the FBI raid disclosed operations against St. Pete Times reporter Bette Orsini who was the subject of GO plan entitled “Operation Bunny Bust” designed to get her fired.
The hatred for the St Pete Times (now Tampa Bay Times) has never dissipated. After all, Hubbard dictates “People attack Scientology; I never forget it, always even the score.”
True to his word, the rage against the TBT continues.
Scientology reserves their most vitriolic hate speech for Tracey McManus, the Times reporter who most often covers any scientology story as she is located in Clearwater. Her extensive coverage of the real estate takeover of Clearwater has brought to light information not unlike that which resulted in Bette Orsini finding herself in the cult crosshairs.
They have a whole page dedicated to her on the “Stand League” site:
The bigot label is affixed to anyone in the media who dares write anything scientology doesn’t like.
And of course, the scientology social media flying monkeys routinely attack her — just one of the hundreds of childish name-calling and tabloid-style graphic posts:
Hundreds of bigoted articles? Really?
But with so many examples to choose from, this foolishness stood out:
What would happen if she showed up at Tampa org? She would be DENIED entry.
This is like saying reporters cannot report on conditions in prison if they haven’t been to prison?
How are these scientologists then offering opinions about the Tampa Bay Times when they have never been to the TBT?
You see they reference @Poynter — the Poynter Institute. The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization that owns the Tampa Bay Times newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Network. It is a big boogie-man in the view of scientology — a sort of chaos merchants central.
So now, scientology has rolled out their big gun to take aim at the Tampa Bay Times.
Marty Rathbun…
Yes, he still posts things to his blog, and recently published a new piece detailing his conspiracy theories about the media and how it is controlling society.
It’s a lengthy diatribe which seems to have as its purpose to discredit the Tampa Bay Times. Within the rambling are these three paragraphs:
I have twenty years of experience dealing face to face with Poynter and its own propaganda arm, the Tampa Bay Times. Why, because Poynter and its Times have been avowed enemies of the Church of Scientology for the past 50 years. As such, I have had occasion to deal directly with the Chairmen of the Board and Editors of both Poynter and its Times for the past forty years. That includes Andrew Barnes (1984-2007), Paul Tash (2008-2022) and Neil Brown (2022 to the present). I have communicated with each of them. I can confidently state that the Poynter/Times board and its three continuous rulers over the past 4 decades are some of the most elitist, virtue-signaling folks I have ever encountered. They wield their newspaper and Poynter’s influence like a battle axe and do so in an arrogant fashion. The halls of Poynter management ooze with sanctimony.
They were practiced at the arts of censorship, propaganda, shaming, and marginalizing many years before it became vogue as it is today. They treat opinion as fact when it suits their purposes, and they treat fact as opinion when it is inconvenient to their aims. They are pros at the techniques of identity politics and smear by association. That is, they condemn a class of people and continuously reinforce it with opinion dressed up like fact, label one as part of that class, then crush the person for carrying that label. In the case of Scientology they played it both ways. Many stories were written on the shortcomings of individual Scientologists. Not church staff members or members of the clergy; Just persons whom they identified as believers or practitioners of the religion. The only ‘newsworthy’ criterion was the fact of a Scientology affiliation. Each story was sure to smear the person for being involved with Scientology and smear Scientology for having impliedly created such a creature. A ‘heads we win, tails you lose’ set up. It was the ‘fake news’ phenomena in practice, decades before the term was even coined.
The Poynter/Times anti-Scientology contingent’s grip on the “fact checker” censorship industrial complex is significant. IFNC is the sanctioning entity for all ‘fact-checkers’. “Factchecker” is a newly created ‘profession’ that requires absolutely no expertise. The only requirement is a steadfast commitment to enforcing by any means necessary the approved narratives of the Neo Liberal Order. They train fact checkers to understand those narratives and in sophistry tactics which find any ‘facts’ not aligning with the narratives to be ‘false.’
It is quite incredible how he can flip-flop.
A few years ago Marty was on the other side of the coin, decrying how scientology and David Miscavige in particular, had attacked the Times and their reporters. This is just one of many examples, taken from the same website. These coexist on his own site:
As those closely involved were aware, Miscavige – as is his wont – declared war not only on the Times, but upon the witnesses they interviewed for the series. It was evident by his setting PI’s loose on Tom Tobin and Joe Childs, the Time’s writer and editor who investigated and wrote the series. Miscavige also hired failed tabloid reporters – including one Jim “don’t call me a Scientology shill” Lynch to “investigate” the Times and publish a “white paper” criticizing their reporting. Although it was intended to prevent Tobin and Childs and the Times from winning recognition, it did not stop them from earning awards for their reporting. There was also the infamous, million dollar minimally, Freedom Magazine attack on the Times and its sources. And last but not least, the continual THREATS and PROMISES to sue. By the by, the statute of limitations is long gone, and as has become his habit, the dog barked loud with no ensuing bite in sight.
Sadly, Marty serves a different master today.
His utterances are akin to the statements of those N. Korean POW back in the days of the Korean War.
The good news — after nearly 50 years of trying to intimidate the Tampa Bay Times into silence, scientology is no closer to that objective than it is to Clearing the planet.
Isn’t the CofS itself a “merchant of chaos”? They peddle the “dwindling spiral” fearmongering that the world is going to fall apart at any moment – unless you give all your time and money to them.
Hubbard both accused others of what he himself was guilty of, and also created an organization that turned out very much like the sort of traditional religions he liked to deride – using apocalyptic visions, and a claimed path to salvation and eternal life, plus all sorts of trappings like prosperity gospel style fundraising, and overly fancy buildings.
Scientology is in BIG trouble. All their ‘ideal’ orgs are empty. Their statistics pathetic. They’re dependent on their ‘whales’ for the big bucks. Once they had a goal of ‘clearing the planet’. Those of us who thought that an admirable goal joined their ranks. But when we did, we found out what working for LRH and his organization was REALLY about. As a result, hundreds and hundreds of us left.
Anyone who reads these posts needs to know that Scientology is a false religion. It does not permit self-determination or free speech although it is authorized that you inform on your fellow workers. Once you join, you are not permitted to leave. If you manage to escape, you are subjected to punishment, degradation and even stalking.
If you have personal problems, it would be best if you find a good therapist to resolve them. Scientology is a trap…a cult…and the only thing they will clear you of is all your savings, your home, and your sanity.
What a red flag Hubbard’s prejudice is against reporters.
I should have never continued in Scientology, after the Guardian’s Office staffer asked me “Are you a reporter” way back in May 1975 when I was a walk in, just checking out Scientology in person for the first time in my life.
My answer to the GO guy was: “Should I be?” My actual answer ought to have have been silence, and just walk out and not waste all the years I wasted in Scientology.
After finally leaving Scientology, thankfully others had put the OT Xenu body-thetans exorcism Hubbard writings on the internet so I could finally find out what the OT levels were about.
Hubbard will always be to blame, and all the Hubbard red flags which official Scientology put up, ought be taken seriously, and just quit immediately once something doesn’t smell right.
The anti reporters prejudice of Hubbard’s is enough to quit Scientology alone.
Also, for me, since I wasted 27 years in Scientology, and never learned about the Xenu body-thetans exorcism spiritual practices inside Scientology, all my fault for not getting “up the steps” to do the “confidential” Xenu body-thetans soul exorcism theory, that to me is still a massive reason NOT to learn about Scientology from them.
Best to learn all about Scientology from the internet and the critical books, to even learn what the Scientologists and Hubbard won’t tell you about Hubbard’s own writings and lectures on the Xenu body-thetans exorcism stuff, which now is thankfully in the public domain.
Hubbard’s reasons for disallowing telling the public about the Xenu body-thetans exorcism soul theory stuff, is reason enough NOT to suffer through years of Scientology to learn about that stuff.
Better to first study the internet and read the critical books and learn what the upper Scientology Xenu body-thetans exorcism/soul-freeing is all about.
Know before you go.
If past lives therapy sounds legit to you, and if exorcism/soul-freeing procedures to remove/free invisible souls which infest your human body sounds legit, then that’s in a nutshell what the soul practices are of Scientology.
You have several choices, the one main choice is go do the soul procedures in official Scientology. Know that the critical books on Scientology are mostly directed at official Scientology by ex official Scientologists.
The other choice is seek out splinter Scientologists and do the soul training and procedures with them.
The other choice is just read up on the Hubbard soul theory and procedures on your own, and “squirrel” (do it unorthodoxly on yourself).
All choices to me I’d never do. But the splinter Scientologists seem more benign and less likely to grind you up harmfully.
But the quackery soul procedures no matter how you do them, to me, in hindsight, don’t appear legit, and I for one wish I’d never wasted 27 years not even learning the full details of the Xenu body-thetans exorcism/soul-freeing “upper” part of Scientology which official Scientology will refuse for time immemorial to ever discuss it like outsiders/ex-members who at least will lay out those Hubbard soul procedures and soul theory so you at least have some idea what all the Hubbard steps lead to, supposedly.
Conclusion: Learn about Scientology from the outside, not from official Scientology.
Chuck Beatty
75 to 03 in the cult
The Poynter Institute is highly respected in the milieu of journalism. The haters can keep on hating.
Scientology just makes a lot of propaganda especially on Twitter it us a mess on their side. The amount of accounts and websites Scientology has is insane but you can always tell that they belong to Scientology.
I didn’t know that Rathbun posting in his blog such a shame he is in the other side.
Any opinion why Rathbun has not deleted his negative Scientology posts from hie site? He now appears to be defending Scientology.
Speaking of Marty, I wonder when we are all going to “rue the day” as he once warned us many years ago. I think that was on The Underground Bunker, maybe here. I’ll probably start “rueing the day” as soon as we all get beamed up in the rapture or when Jesus comes back for a second visit or Hubbard (or any other scientologist for that matter) returns to pick up the cans for a second go-round at The Bridge to Total Freedom. Meanwhile I’ll just continue enjoying my life and not hold my breath waiting for these dreaded predictions to come true.
Give Tobin and Childs and McManus the adulation they have earned. Tobin and Childs retired a while back, but McManus and the TBT continue to look at every doing in their area. They are what good journalism is about. Their coverage of the CO$ has been wonderful and the same can be said about how the TBT covers the community.
Tom To in is still an editor at the Times. Joe us trtired
better to stay in sea org and eat bread and onions, sleep in bunk beds with 15 of them in a room with a bathroom, be threatened, than sell lies out of personal hatred for 4 denarii… ha ha ha ha as you chose rinder.
O’ Vannucci, ma che ridere. Sembra hai il dono per l’humor di tipo fascista.
That’s a massive propaganda effort aimed at the same half-dozen re-tweeters. And the same half-dozen targets of their repugnant sewage.
It’s just pathetic. I wonder if the same folks walk across the hall and post as @VettedFacts after lunch, the two departments re-tweeting each other after dinner?
Naturally, they don’t even get weekends off. When does these Bozos ever have time for auditing?
April 26 –– 13 tweets
April 25 –– 12 tweets
April 24 –– 15 tweets
April 23 –– 10 tweets
April 22 –– 13 tweets
April 21 –– 13 tweets
April 20 –– 13 tweets
April 19 –– 15 tweets
April 18 –– 10 tweets
April 17 –– 13 tweets
April 16 –– 11 tweets
April 15 –– 15 tweets
April 14 –– 15 tweets
April 13 –– 7 tweets (Ruh roh … downstat)
The usual audience…
@evamahoney101
@LoryGuy
@LizzyJ1985
@Eric_Krackow
@fograt469
@raejahr
Scientology is known for its aggressive tactics toward critics, and these accounts are part of that effort. Their method is to employ a strategy of disparagement and distortion. Scientology attempts to undermine the credibility of these individuals and portray them as disgruntled or mentally unstable, effectively discrediting their testimonies and discouraging others from listening to their stories.
@StandMonitor and @VettedFacts, as Scientology-affiliated accounts, are only seen as authoritative within the few other accounts that interact with their posts. These manipulative tactics only serve to highlight the inherent flaws within Scientology and the desperate measures it takes to maintain its image.
My post on Scientology’s fake grass-roots organization that attacks former Scientologists and journalists in the church’s grand tradition is here:
https://tinyurl.com/bddn8rct
Great stuff, great articles you have, thanks much.
Chaos merchants? It would appear that Hubbard used them as a template for that gang of delinquent goons we’ve come to know and love: The Guardians Office, OSA, STAND, and his mindless minion of obedient followers.
There once was a shyster named Hubbard
Who spoke from the depths of his blubber
He pontificated with claims so inflated
His teachings were just so much rubbish