For me it wasn't any of the crazy stuff he said--I've heard people in other religions make similarly grandiose claims. It was the joyless hypomanic ranting. I'd never seen that before. It made me curious. So, I guess TC IS a good representative of CoS. Sure caught my attention.
Thanks for the write-up Pooks. You delivered. Knowing the story of this leak brings a certain satisfaction. It had me googling til the wee hours of the morning and launched another scilon critic.
You could say the same thing about the whole Anon Orange Gold Base debacle. We were packing up. I'd already stashed my signs in the car. We were getting ready to leave, but the cult just couldn't help stepping on their own dick. Again.
This was big. Almost immediately, January 16, Sky News in the UK had multiple segments of reporting on the Tom Cruise Crazy video throughout that day. Tom Cruise had clearly jumped the whole moonful of bats, the news media was on a roll and the momentum of this onslaught had to be kept up. Anonymous was brewing. Work took a back seat that day as I sat in front of the TV with my finger on the DVD recorder pause-record button, collected all the sky News report segments and we spent the rest of the night trying to extract them from the wrong record format and upload to youtube ASAFP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfAjK1EJHYY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhP7K1UVrG4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs26_QAoW2o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmnxkR9QmQE It felt fucking good to join in the party and do even just that little bit. Yeah, Good times. One wonders if there are many other hidden Crazy Cruise-like gems in scientology internal media that have gone by relatively unnoticed because some exes and critics who see it are sorta just used to it (especially those who actually lived through such craziness) and sometimes don't appreciate just how fucking batshit mental this is when thrust upon a fresh general audience. Of course timing is everything too and it was awesome the way this all worked out. The recent leak and uptake by the media of the original "We Stand Tall" video with cocksucker Miscavige is proof that there's probably a lot of potentially embarassing shit yet to be fully realised. Also note, the Tom Cruise Crazy video is almost hitting the 7 millions views mark (6,967,902) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0 So, props to all those who got the epic ball rolling and to those who keep on kicking the fucker.
Thank you Pooks, Barb and all others who started all of this, no matter how inadvertantly. It's been an epic three years and the goal is in sight. Cheers and many thanks and hugs.
When I saw the We Stand Tall vid recently I thought "So What?" I'd been in so all it was to me was bad memories. Then I looked at it from outside my own perspective and Yikes, that's Batshit Insane. Same with Tom Cruise. Let's hope there are more lurking in the wings, waiting for the spotlight to shine on them...
Knowing most of the people involved via ARS, it seems to have gone down pretty much as I would have guessed before hearing the actual story. Good job all! For my part, I didn't know of any of it at the time, but I had predicted that sooner or later CoS (being CoS) would piss off the Internet again. In that case, the pivotal points would be neutral information sites like Wikipedia as new people came up to speed on the complicated subject of Scientology. (CoS had made a couple of lame attempts to establish fake neutral sites.) Previously the articles had used a lot of critical sites and Scientology's stuff, and that wasn't going to fly as Wikipedia evolved. Fortunately newspapers had been putting more and more of their archives of old CoS articles online, although they weren't very visible yet through Google. So I (and other editors) spent a lot of time digging up these articles, organizing the references, and adding them to the Wikipedia articles. (Scientology editors hated that because they couldn't argue with solid sources.) I suspect that's why CoS probably made sure, through meat proxies, that I was one of the critic editors blocked from editing Scientology articles. (Someone has been leaking private ARBCOM discussions, but has stayed well away from that one, so far.) Heh, I predicted something would eventually happen, but I did not expect Anonymous!
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for reviving this topic. I was there at the beginning as well. I remember being solely on the Xenu.net forums at the time and the information quickly spread there. I got onto Enturb/WWP and haven't looked back since. I love my anons with all my heart and know they will finish what they started. Being pretty near 71 years of age now, I just pray that I'm still on this old earth when that happens. Bless you all!
Thanks Pooks! I remember this very well. It was the first time I met Barb; she and I ate chicken soup while Ebner transcribed--I was kinda groggy from a medical procedure earlier in the day. Before Barb arrived, Ebner had been excitedly talking about a video that had gotten yanked and how it was coming up by motorcycle and this was major. Little did I know when I went to the first Anon protest and ones afterwards that my living room had been central to the events. Barb also rode in San Diego Pride that summer with an Anonymous flag on her bike while over 2 dozen Anons marched. The long term result: San Diego CoS supported Prop 8 and caught flak from CoS for getting involved with politics and from LGBT and allies for being jerks.
And that resulted in Paul Haggis blowing, which is still resulting in secondary explosions (like the recent Freedum footbullet). Long chain of events is loooooooong.
Which then of course resulted in Haggis leaving. Hey you wanted the full video? Here it is: Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMvAXpq7Xj4&feature=related Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWgUPHVEcl0&feature=related (at 7:29 a guest of note. 8:56 Tom wants psychiatry outlawed and all shrinks jailed). Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmsOtoXwGS0&feature=watch_response (Oh my, "the color purple" oozing from their pores"; US Government grant for a Purif program?) so who wants to try to argue that the front groups are not connected? sure sound connected to me! Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIl0VYQjaNY&feature=watch_response (omg, the exchange of emotion as Miscavige greets him on the stage! "We may or may not be superbeings"(lol) "We would be longer on patience if we weren't so short...on time".(hehe) "We're shooting people up..." "We are releasing people wholesale"
In his case it's called acting, when he does it for Scientology he cons himself and thinks he's not acting.
What a great story. The video peaked my interest, too. After it came out I used to google Scientology for late night lulz until I read enough to be sickened. You guys are amazing!
I have actually often wondered why the cult didn't pursue a lawsuit about this. There is one obvious reason, which is that when you disseminate something widely to as big an audience as you can force to watch it, you clearly don't have much "market value" in it. However, normal reasons like that have rarely stopped the cult from pursuing idiotic lawsuits. I think there's another reason, though. I think their lawyer looked at it and realized the cult completely ripped off that "Mission Impossible" theme that repeats incessantly throughout the Tom Cruise portion of the video. How much do you want to bet against my speculation that the cult did not get permission for that theme song "to use for internal cult propaganda." Unlike cult propaganda, that theme song is a valuable property. I'm not sure, but that may be one reason other than that they just generally don't sue over people leaking their propaganda.
Excellent points. I always figured that they didn't bother because Anonymous showed up and completely overwhelmed them. I thought, and I could be wrong, that going after those that put the video up became less important than finding out who Anonymous was and stopping them. It's been 3.5 + years and Scn has shrunk, many Scios are leaving quietly, some others more loudly as it becomes safer and safer to fight back.
Thanks, pooks! I noticed that Hugh Urban got the date wrong for the posting of the Cruise interview on YouTube - it was Monday, January 14, and not Tueday, January, 15. So I did some research and an grateful you provided the backstory. Here is the early chronolgy. Corrections welcome! Sunday, January 13, 2008: On Sunday, January 13, 2008, some time before 8:30 pm EST journalist Mark Ebner uploads to Google Video a package of eight “Scientology indoctrination” videos, one of which is the Cruise interview video. (Google Video eventually ceased accepting uploads in 2010. In 2011 they ceased hosting videos that had already been posted.) Gawker also posts the video. The package only remains up for about two hours before Ebner takes them down. Sources are Huffington Post, and Gawker.Mark Ebner has the details on the eight videos posted on Google Video. Monday, January 14, 2008: On Monday, January 14, someone posts the Cruise interview to YouTube and CoS forces YouTube to take it down the same day as per John Cook at Radar. Gawker manages to get its own copy and posts it at Gawker. Tuesday, January 15, 2008: On Tuesday, January 15, at 10:18 am Nick Denton posts The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress at Gawker that refers to the previous day’s YouTube take down and says that Gawker has no intention of taking down their own copy. At this point Gawker appears not to have yet received a take down request from CoS since he makes no mention of it. . At 19:37:37 pm on Tuesday January 15, a poster at the /b/ channel of the 4chan image board starts the thread “I think it’s time for /b/ to do something big “ rallying /b/ to DDoS Church of Scientology websites. This is the historic beginning of the Anonymous anti-Scientology movement known as Project Chanology Wednesday, January 16, 2008: 2:27 pm EST: Nick Denton publishes an article at Gawker, Church of Scientology Copyright Infringement, stating that the Church of Scientology has requested Gawker and its sister blog Defamer to remove the video. Denton refuses. The article features images of the take down request that don’t show any date. Gawker must have received it after Nick’s 10:18 am article of the previous day since he doesn’t mention it in the article. 5:47:44 pm EST: “On 15/1/08 war was beginning.” thread posted on /b/. Calls on the rest of 4chan to join the fight. Monday, January 21, 2008: Anonymous’ Message to Scientology is posted on YouTube. Subsequently Project Chanology is established as the Anonymous anti-Scientology movement, making its headquarters at the /i/nsurgency W/i/ki, which becomes the site for planning for Chanology projects along with Encyclopedia Dramatica. Friday, January 25, 2008, 21:04:03 GMT: Enturbulation.org is established as the central planning forum for Project Chanology world-wide. Eventually it becomes Why We Protest. Saturday, January 26, 2008: Mark Bunker posts a video, XENU TV Speaks to Anonymous on YouTube thanking Anonymous for its efforts against Scientology but says that doing anything illegal is counter-productive. DDoS attacks cease immediately. Anonymous bestows the name “Wise Beard Man” upon Bunker. Sunday, February 10, 2008: Anonymous carries out the first in a continuing series of monthly world-wide protests bringing around 7,000 protesters into the streets in over 100 cities. For chronology see also Chanology Timeline and Gregg Housh’s post that lists 28 events between Friday, January 11, 2008, and Tuesday, January 24, 2008. For background on how the video came into the hands of Mark Ebner from ex-Scientologyists see the account of pooks (Patty Pieniadz) at Why We Protest, The Story Behind the Tom Cruise Video Leak.
The 4chan threads on /b/ “I think it’s time for /b/ to do something big “ of Tuesday, January 15, 2008, and “On 15/1/08 war was beginning." of January 16 are so epic I am quoting the OPs here: Tuesday, January 15: File :1200443857152.jpg-(22 KB, 251x328, intro_scn.jpg) Anonymous 01/15/08(Tue)19:37:37 No.51051816 [ExpImg] I think it's time for /b/ to do something big. People need to understand not to fuck with /b/, and talk about nothing for ten minutes, and expect people to give their money to an organization that makes absolutely no fucking sense. I'm talking about "hacking" or "taking down" the official Scientology website. It's time to use our resources to do something we believe is right. It's time to do something big again, /b/. Talk amongst one another, find a better place to plan it, and then carry out what can and must be done. It's time, /b/. Wednesday, January 16: File :1200523664764.jpg-(22 KB, 251x328, 120046751294.jpg) Anonymous 01/16/08(Wed)17:47:44 No.51134054 [ExpImg] On 15/1/08 war was beginning. Scientology's site is already under heavy bombardment, it's loading quite slowly. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, the first assault in many to follow. We're winning a minor victory, but without the united support of the chans, Scientology will brush off this attack - and it will be doomed to nothing more than an entry in ED. 4chan, answer the call! Join the legion against Scientology, help in its demise, in its long awaited doom! For decades this tyrrany has existed, corrupting the minds of the weak - although hilarious, it's rather pathetic. We must destroy this evil, and replace it with a greater one - CHANOLOGY. For when we are victorious, the chans will stand united in a new chapter of anonymous existence and batshit insanity; we will have begun our world take over. If we can destroy Scientology, we can destroy whatever we like! The world will be but our play thing. Do the right thing, 4chan, become not just a part of this war, become an epic part of it. The largest of the chans, you hold the key of manpower, what the legion is in desperate need of. FORWARD ANONYMOUS! UNITED, WE, THE LEGION ARE UNSTOPPABLE! tl;dr we're taking down Scientology, join up or gtfo. No Scifags allowed in this thread.
Thanks-I don't know many of the actual details of who did what to get it up on the net. Thanks for putting this chronology together. I love stuff like that.
There were actually some preparatory raids in January in NY and then some more formal protests the weekend before February 10 (such as in Orlando).
Cool story pooksie, although I do sense that the posting of this story has some drama associated with it. As to chanology and it's birth, ED has it down pretty well. The parts that it misses will be left missed. http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/Chanology In after WWP has anything to do with chanology
The LULZ were, and still are MIGHTY. LOL at Miscavige saying "Anonymous has been handled". I don't think so you fucking dwarf asshole, seen your dead orgs lately??
One of my favorite posts from /b/: i think scientology is cool and the guy who had this awesome idea to create a fake religion just so he can collect money from idiots is brilliant!
