Immediately following the revelations in the recent Tampa Bay Times article by Tracey McManus, scientology launched their version of a campaign to convince the citizens of Clearwater they are in fact good for the city. They distributed Freedom magazines to people's doors in the dead of night to try to persuade them the reason downtown Clearwater looks like the set for the latest installment of the Night of The Living Dead movies is not because they bought it up and leave most of the properties empty or massively underutilized, it is because the big bad meanies at the Tampa Bay … [Read more...]
Sirius XM Radio Tuesday Morning
Michael Smerconish wants to continue the conversation we began on Saturday on his CNN show on his SiriusXM radio program. Hoping we will have a little longer to get into these issues in more depth. Scheduled to begin Tuesday morning at 11:04am on SiriusXM channel 124. For those who could not catch it live, here is a link. Unfortunately, the only place I know you can find it is on the SiruisXM site. … [Read more...]
CNN on Clearwater & More from the Tampa Bay Times
Earlier today I chatted briefly with Michael Smerconish on CNN. Unfortunately, there is no embed code for the video so you have to click HERE to watch it. It was a VERY short piece, not really enough time to explain such complex issues, but it is good to see national media paying some attention to this issue. Hopefully more media outlets than just the Tampa Bay Times will want to dig in to this. Tracey McManus also published a new story concerning community reaction to middle-of-the-night distribution of Freedom magazines. As usual, the glossy hype of scientology's PR effort does nothing … [Read more...]
Scientology Attempting to Revise Clearwater History
After Tracey McManus' bombshell article dropped on 20 October, scientology immediately began their efforts to revise history. The next day, Freedom magazines started popping up all over the city. I wrote an article addressing some of the falsehoods Scientology BS Grows Deeper Then they began trying to make a dent in the social media world to cast the article as a bigoted assault on scientology and highlight the wonderful contributions they make to Clearwater. Freedom magazine has a twitter account @Freedommag and on October 21 they began sending out tweets. This is the tweet that is pinned … [Read more...]
Clearwater Politicians Weigh In
An interesting follow up piece by Tracey McManus quoting reaction from members of the Clearwater City Government to her bombshell expose from yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the Clearwater politicos don't have much to offer in terms of how this happened to their city, what they think it means or more importantly, what they are going to do about it. They have been overwhelmed by a far more sophisticated and well-funded opponent that doesn’t care whether they hurt anyone’s feelings as long as they get their way. Politicians in Clearwater in the last couple of decades have been more concerned … [Read more...]
Scientology Has Bought Clearwater
Tracey McManus' meticulously researched article dominating the front page of this morning's Tampa Bay Times is a bombshell. I doubt many people in Clearwater realized just how complete scientology's takeover of the downtown is. This is why I have been supporting and promoting Mark Bunker for the city council. Scientology ALWAYS Comes First Why Elect Mark Bunker? And the urgency of this is further highlighted by a passage in the article. For the non-residents of Clearwater let me give you a little background that is explained in the article. It concerns the dispute … [Read more...]
Clearwater Jazz Festival
Generally, scientology does not proselytize for new members in downtown Clearwater. They don't try to recruit new members -- "Flag" is for existing scientologists who make the pilgrimage to hand over cash and participate in advanced scientology courses and auditing. In fact, scientology would prefer there were NO "wogs" (non-scientologists) in the downtown area at all. They want it to be 100% scientologists. But there is a local "mission" in Belleair that is for "new people" who may be introduced in some fashion by scientologists in the local area (it is also where those who don't … [Read more...]
Scientology ALWAYS Comes First
Here is a perfect example of why scientologists cannot be trusted in positions where they are supposed to act in the public interest. Paris Morfopolous is the poster child of a fundamentalist scientologist. He has been a scientology business owner that has relied on scientologists' patronage in downtown Clearwater for decades. He is the head of Clearwater's Downtown Development Board. Tony Ortega's article describing Morfopolous' rant against Mark Bunker at the most recent DDB meeting tells the most recent story of his dedication to following the dictates of L. Ron Hubbard. With the … [Read more...]
Scientology’s Clearwater “Interfaith” Pitch
Hubbard policy (HCOPL 3 Feb 1969 PUBLIC IMAGE) states: "...you have to go civic, go outside Scientology, get support, organize committees, plot out campaigns, work for outside finance, etc. "In handling the above public image policy, you don't announce the policy. "You can and must ally with real humanitarian and civil-rights groups (getting press coverage for every such contact." The question to be asked is, why would ANYONE wish to attend an event like this and be used by scientology in their attempt to gain credibility? Are the people who might participate in this … [Read more...]
A New Golden Age for Clearwater?
Our friend Mark Bunker is in the news again. But this time it isn’t about what scientology is doing to Fair Game him. Some of you may have seen the announcement that Wise Beard Man intends to run for a seat on the Clearwater City Commission. It was reported in the Tampa Bay Times yesterday. Clearwater, Bunker said, has “got a unique problem here in Scientology. And I think the city ought to balance it out with a unique council member who understands Scientology.” Mark has a long history in Clearwater and with scientology. We discussed some of this in 2 episodes of … [Read more...]