Mike Rinder's Blog

Something Can Be Done About It

Episode 12: Mark Bunker

By 41 Comments

This week, Leah and I have a conversation with Mark Bunker on the Fair Game podcast. Download at midnight tonight.

I will add a link to the show here when it becomes available.

We talk to Mark about his history with scientology, him becoming the newest Clearwater City Council member and what the future of the City of Clearwater holds.

We cover the land grab by scientology so ably reported by Tracey McManus in the Tampa Bay Times “How Scientology doubled its downtown Clearwater footprint in 3 years” :

Tracey updated her story a few days ago “Vacancies in Scientology-tied real estate linger” :

We also talk about the lies scientology tells about their numbers and political clout. I covered an analysis of scientology’s often cited “Economic Impact” study here earlier.

The ultimate proof of this came with his election to the City Council (Mark tested negative btw):

 

He was quoted in this article: “This clearly shows that Scientology does not have the power they think they do, Scientology has been leading by intimidation for decades, frightening politicians into being silent for fear they will be called a religious bigot. It’s not bigotry to talk about the actions and abuses of the organization.”

Bunker secured 27 percent of 22,745 votes cast. The stalking horse who had the full support of scientology, Eliseo Santana, only got 15 percent of the vote (A little over 3500).

The Fair Gaming of Bunker continues to this day. Scientology continues to harass him with endless demands for every document, email, contact. See this story by Tony Ortega on the recent harassment.

It’s a fascinating hour.

Comments

  2. Congratulations to Mr.Bunker upon winning the election for councilman in Clearwater.The people must take their beautiful city back.The interview was fantastic.Keep it up,Leah and Mike!

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  3. DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE BRAVE SOULS WHO HAVE HAD THE SENSE TO LEAVE/BLOW/ESCAPE

    I Can See Clearly Now
    Jimmy Cliff

    I can see clearly now the rain is gone
    I can see all obstacles in my way
    Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
    It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day
    It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day

    Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone
    All of the bad feelings have disappeared
    Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
    It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day

    Look all around, there’s nothing but blue skies
    Look straight ahead, there’s nothing but blue skies

    I can see clearly now the rain is gone
    I can see all obstacles in my way
    Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
    It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day
    It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day
    Bright (bright) bright (bright)
    Bright sunshiny day
    It’s going to be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day
    It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day
    It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
    Bright (bright) sunshiny day

    With ALL my LOVE & Affection!

    Reply

  4. Hi Mike, love your podcast w Leah! I am a transplant from NY and I love Clearwater, what can we do to help downtown open up? Would love to a see an ice cream or coffee shop opened by you and Leah. It could be called Fair Game sweets 😉 and a “suppressive” person like me would volunteer to work there, just because!
    You guys are awesome, keep doing great work informing the public of this cult.
    Also please keep mentioning who’s who in politics that way I know who NOT to support, had no idea about Eliseo Santana (no relation to me!) until the latest episode w Mark Bunker.
    They obviously don’t mention who they take $ from when they’re campaigning for your vote. Jerks.

    Reply

  5. Each time that Scientology buys a property in Clearwater it is immediately devalued as no-one else on the planet will ever want to buy it in the future.

    While Scientology continues to shrink but remain in business its property empire in Clearwater is effectively worthless.

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  6. I’ve been watching “Aftermath”, and I recall the discussion that many people in scientology know Miscavige is nuts, but they’re “Waiting for LRH to come back”. That gave me an interesting notion…

    What if an enterprising young sociopath, born after 1986, took an interest in the works of Hubbard. He studies all they can, listens to interviews, lectures and reads every scientology text. Maybe he acquires an E-Meter and learns its tricks… learns to effortlessly lie to it (as Christopher Reeve famously did). He studies the voice, the mannerisms, the posture of Hubbard.

    Then, when he feels he’s ready, he walks into the lobby of an org and reveals himself as the reincarnation of LRH. What would happen?

    Reply

    • OSA will fully background check and issue their Black PR booklet of ‘facts’.
      It’s nearly an impossibility it would occur past the first few days.
      IMO

      Reply

    • What would happen? Dwarfenfuhrer might well have him liquidated. Why? Two reasons:

      1) He believes his so-called “superpowers” give him the right to do that.
      2) There’s no sense in taking any chances he could lose control of all his empty buildings.

      Reply

      • Well there was a guy who said he was the returned LRH. He’s probably still out there in the Freezone peddling his wares. His name is Justin Craig I believe and he is an ex con. He started attacking some of the OL’s in the ex-Scn world and made a lot of enemies so I don’t even know if he has much of a following now.

        Reply

        • Cindy, “newron” is still out there – and I understand he is not the first to have claimed to be the reincarnated Hubbard (see my previous comments about the fundamental problems with supposed reincarnation stories, including that lots of people claim to be the same figures of popular imagination).

          He’s created more contoversy recently in part by claiming that “Scientology is dead” (presumably he has some new take to peddle) and has lost some followers, but it’s all a temptest in a teapot that I don’t think involves more than a few dozen diehard true believer indies at most anyway. Like the CofS they make a fuss far out of proportion with their actual tiny, diminishing size.

          Reply

  9. Another great episode. Every time I wait like if would be a school lesson. I always learn a lot.
    By the way, in their site here what they say about charitable works:

    “DOES SCIENTOLOGY BELIEVE IN CHARITY AND WELFARE?
    It does. However, Scientologists also believe in the principle that some form of exchange is necessary in any relationship. If a person only receives and never gives, he will lose his own self-respect and become an unhappy person. Therefore, Scientology-sponsored charity programs often encourage those receiving the charity to make their own contribution in exchange by personally helping others who are in need. Such contributions enable one to receive help and yet maintain their self-respect.”

    Believe?!? Yeah they ‘believe’ but do nothing in real facts. Does it means if they pass by and see a person that needs help but there is no exchange available they won’t stop?
    Money for ‘help’ isn’t help anymore. It is appropriate to call it exchange.
    Where is the needed help they are giving?

    Reply

    • Scientology does not know what unconditional means.
      In their universe nothing is free, only the tigers survive, we are the only ones saving the planet from self-destruction so we make our rules, few are chosen, LRH alone risked his life for the Planet.
      Can’t believe I fell for that crap. It’s still wearing off years later.

      Reply

      • Cece thanks. As you know most of the scnist are good people that joined wanting to help. We believed that crap in many. Good that we woke up.
        By the way I found that ksw 1 is not more at the beggining of the ckshts. But I don’t know why. Perhaps DM found that hubbard didn’t said it.
        Do well.

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  10. Scientology needs crowds of people so they can infiltrate and pic pockets so to speak. There plan for Clearwater may have been to build and elite city for the very wealthy to have there own playground.

    Off topic I have another question: 75 billion years ago xenu dropped off his prisoners in a volcano that exploded and let out the thetans to pick up a body. If the planet (earth) was radio active back then there would be no people (bodies) on the planet. In order for a baby to be born you need two people to create life. Were did these two people come from? There would also be only one baby. If good thetans were blown up on there planet ( somewhere between Jupiter and I don’t remember). The thetans on earth would be bad spirits, right? That would make scientology bad very bad.
    Just to make it clear I don’t by the alien theory I’m just trying to think logically.

    Reply

      • Xenu is the primary reason (not Trump) that life is so fu**ed up on this planet. Thank Ron I had the cognition, which helped me get rid of 135,267 BTs and 25,898 clusters. Honest, I’ve got it on my worksheets. Hope this helps.

        Reply

      • Enlighten me better speller. My brain wants to understand the believer. Sorry about the bad spelling. In a past life I had a bad teacher.

        Reply

        • Honestly Barbara, there isn’t much to understand. It doesn’t even make sense to those who know it best.

          There is evidence in rock layers that something happened 66 million years ago. I think in the 60s when Hubbard read about it in Scientific American or whatever they thought it was older, around 75 million years ago. It is a black layer in the rocks. Below it you can find the dinosaurs, above it only some birds, small reptiles and small mammals etc. Today the theory is that a comet or meteor hit the earth and caused it.

          My guess is Hubbard heard something about this and it set his science fiction imagination going. What plot line could be concocted to explain a dark layer, extinctions, and mysterious lumps on his forehead?

          So he came up with this fable about the DC-9s and the volcanoes, but it has more holes than the holiest swiss cheese. He names volcanoes that didn’t exist at that time. He said it had something to do with the Canary Islands but they didn’t exist back then.

          There wouldn’t be humans, not even “cave men” or Piltdown Man etc. for 10s of millions of years. Nowhere for the disembodied thetans to go. No explanation for why they didn’t just go home, supposedly interstellar space is no barrier to a thetan. Instead they floated around here for millions of years just so they could plague Hubbard by making a sebaceous cyst on him in the 60s.

          But possibly he was really trying to solve something that is a true mystery for any religion that believes souls are not created or destroyed. There are billions of humans alive today. Each supposedly has a soul. With billions of disembodied thetans floating around there is a pool of them for the population of today..

          Either you have to think that souls can be created in the sweaty tangle of a couple’s embrace, something distasteful to most religionists, or you have to think like the 4th century theologian Origen that all the souls are stacked up somewhere in a soul repository ready to join the new baby when it is born. Created at the beginning and waiting for their chance through the eons.

          A mystery inside an enigma etc. unless you go with brain development in the usual biological way. That doesn’t explain everything either, maybe we will never know all of it for sure, but we can profitably dismiss Hubbard’s sci-fi ramblings without sorrow.

          Reply

        • I’m a terrible speller and it’s not important that you may have missed a few. Good natured people just read past that imo.
          What I remember was part of the story was to solve over population the artists and criminals were selected to ship to Te… (Earth). Even though I did that leval, I don’t think I ever did understand it. I know I believed it because I wanted to go find Zenu on the mountain LOL 😂

          Reply

          • Think a few decades ago when the “Cuban Flotilla” hit the shores of Florida & exactly what was SENT to Florida….Cuban’s OWN undesirables……what better way to RID one’s self of “undesirables” but then to DUMP THEM on someone ELSE.

            What was once the mecca for many wealthy people, Miami, many of the Jewish faith….literally were replaced by the “new blood Cuban population, which still flood the area.

            Back in the day Clear Water was also a mecca for wonderful vacations…..now it’s mostly deserted other then those from “the religion” who meander aimlessly to their local “house(s) or worship & “training/school”…..

            No worries about spelling my friend…I’ve YET to understand “AUTO CORRECT” which is NOT correct in some instances!

            Have a wonderful day Cece!

            Reply

        • No need to waste time for a sci -fi story, but if you have read its description, you are talking about another movie.

          Reply

      • Theo, is that you?

        “… you’ve got the story very wrong.”

        Then I’m curious to hear the right story from you.

        Reply

  11. Looking very much forward to this upcoming podcast.Makes me wonder how much property Scientology owns where I live in New York.

    Reply

  12. David Miscavige reminds me of a scene from the Dark Knight where the Joker says: “This town deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m gonna give it to them.”

    Unfortunately Dave lacks the charisma and charm of the Clown Prince of Crime.

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  13. I’m wondering if the empty buildings owned by Scientology groups are being kept up? A building that just sits empty will deteriorate and/or become critter infested. Have those buildings been inspected?

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  14. That recent article by Tracy McManus was interesting, and another great piece of well-researched work. I agree with speculation that Miscavige may have had real estate investor whales buy properties with some sort of then-urgent grand plan in mind, which then went by the wayside leaving empty proprties just as so many of the ‘idle morgue’ buildings have ended up sitting vacant after high-pressure pushes to buy them.

    I’d like to see Mark Bunker push for the city to get an accurate, unbiased update to that bought-and-paid-for study by FSU that unsurprisingly came out favorable to Scientology. Especially with all those vacant properties now, I think an impartial analysis of the CofS’ impact on Clearwater would be telling.

    Reply

    • What a criminal waste. Warehousing property like that. Doing nothing with it. I suppose the pandemic is providing a legitimate excuse at present but once this is handled…

      Reply

      • As we all know…they have GOT to “rid themselves of some of those FINANCIAL DONATIONS by continuing to show how their religion is GROWING MEMERSHIP. Keep on buying, expanding, building & CLAIM RELIGION BASED TAX DISCOUNTS.

        PERFECT GAME TO PLAY. Personally I think someone should come out with a Monopoly Game….”Clear Water & COS”…..

        Reply

        • Yes, you’re right, Balletlady. Its all about perception now. PR is the only game left to them. Of course, its false PR but so long as the money flows in, etc…sad. The cult has certained “cleared” Clearwater of viable businesses and productive people. I was there once, visiting family friends back in the early 80s. This was before I got into Scientology. Our friends took us to Clearwater Beach – gorgeous. Clean, soft sand, sparkling clean blue-green water. The beach lived up to its name. But even then, downtown CW – we drove thru it. Kind of depressed looking, not much going on. And that was 37 years ago. Its a ghost town now from what I read. A pity, because the town has such potential to be a lovely West Coast Florida tourist spot.

          Reply

  15. Now might be the time to build a “History of Religion” museum in downtown Clearwater. Real Estate will now hit an all time low with the Scientology ownership.

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  16. Wise Beard Man is wiser and has more self discipline than his OSA trolls. That and his ability to ask pertinent questions in council meetings sets him apart from the pack. The problem will always be the city getting along with the CO$. The CO$ doesn’t get along with anyone. They don’t need on stinking badges.

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  17. Freewinds needs to be replaced, with all the cruise ships up for sale because of the pandemic many are now available. But it would cost money and that will make DM feel bad.

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    • The ship isn’t even the oldest one of its type still in the water (it’s hardly “sailing” these days). A more modern ship, even of a relatively similar size that wouldn’t be even more embarrassingly empty, might well be beyond the ability of the aging Sea Org crew to run and maintain. So I don’t know that it’s likely that anything is going to change in that regard.

      Reply

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