On Sunday, while we were scrambling to keep up with dispatches coming from Mike Rinder and Mike Bennitt during their amazing strategem with a helicopter above Scientology’s Super Power Building grand opening in Clearwater, Florida, we got a surprising phone call.
It was Mark Bunker. We had plum forgot that he’d told us he was relocating to Clearwater and was on the scene.
Now that the dust has settled, we asked Bunker to send us his thoughts on Sunday’s big event as well as explain what he’s up to. He sent us this message.
For the past decade I have lived in sunny San Diego. For reasons I have a terrible time explaining, I have just moved back to muggy Clearwater, Florida. I only told a very few people about my move including Tory and your faithful underground host, but everyone I did tell scrunched up their face to say, “Clearwater? Really? Why?”
The truth is I always felt a connection to the town even before my first visit and the two years I spent here with the Lisa McPherson Trust were the most fascinating years of my life. I had a chance to meet heroes of mine like Gabe Cazares and Ray Emmons and when we at the LMT were chased out of town in late 2001, I felt I had let Gabe and Ray down.
AdvertisementWith the Super Power Building opening, I felt it was a good time to return. I drove across country trying hard to make it before last weekend’s events. I arrived on Friday night, charged the equipment and set off for the Super Power opening. I knew there was no chance I’d go unrecognized in Clearwater so I wouldn’t get a good view of the stage but I hoped to land somewhere close enough to at least record some decent sound with a better shotgun mic than what I had with me in Portland. I went to the rooftop of a nearby municipal parking lot, got out of my car and spotted a helicopter arriving overhead. I jokingly thought to myself that Scientology was onto me and had sent in a chopper but I gave a quick call to Tony and discovered it was the arrival of Mike Rinder and Mike Bennitt. Genius! This was so much better than when Sinar Parman and I buzzed Gold. This really got Slappy’s attention.
I continued to try to find a decent spot for the event but with the introduction of two more helicopters it was clear I would never get any sound at all. I did bump into a band of jolly Anons, however. They were making the most of the event and havng a swell time roaming the streets. I found myself back behind the barricades on Fort Harrison Ave and discovered that several members of the press were grouped at the same location, including Joe Childs. Almost by the time I arrived at the barricades, the rank and file Scientologists started flooding out of the area. It was clear the event was cut dramatically short and I think the two Mikes get full credit for that. I pity the people who were around Slappy that afternoon.
So after scrambling to get back to Clearwater, I ended up with no usable footage, but then Mike got those amazing photos from the sky, so what more could anyone hope for? I never got a good take on how many people were at the event from the ground but it was clear the people who were there seemed stoked. What really caught my attention was all the staff in these elegant black and white formal uniforms. I had never seen those before and they just flooded into the event. I heard Slappy had the outfits sent out from L.A. just for the opening.
I’ve driven around the SP building a few times this week and have always seen a handful of people walking in the front door or smoking a butt outside but with an overground walkway, probably an underground one as well and lots of other side and back entrances it is hard to tell how many people are really inside checking their oiliness levels or running around in a circle till they drop. My perceptics aren’t keen enough to give any actual numbers.
Right before the LMT opened, then-city manager Mike Roberto was making peace with Scientology. He made it clear to us at the LMT that we were only putting Scientology on the front page of the newspaper again and that was bad for business. The Tampa Tribune compared us to parrots squawking at the gorilla that was Scientology. I guess I’m back in town to do some squawking.
——————–
When President John F. Kennedy Was Warned About the “Snake Pit of Scientology”
On this 50th anniversary of a terrible date in this country’s history, we know that more than enough will be said about the events of November 22, 1963 and the endless arguments that it spawned.
As a nod to the date, we thought we’d reproduce an interesting letter that comes from an FBI file (and thanks to Operation Clambake for preserving it).
It was a letter written on February 7, 1963 and addressed to President John F. Kennedy from a man who also delivered a copy of the letter to the FBI office in Miami. Like so many other parents who found their families ripped apart, the man’s complaints sound very familiar…
Sir:
Enclosed herewith, I respectfully submit to you:
1. Data on Scientology and Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard, Science Fiction Writer, compiled by Oliver Field, Director of Legal and Socio-Economic Division of the American Medical Association, 525 North Dearborn St., Chicago 10, Illinois, Department of Investigation.
2. Copy of L. Ron Hubbard’s Alert Memo’ to his cell leaders throughout America and the world after our U.S. Pure Food and Drug Administration seized the tools of this quack practitioner in the evil premise of Scientology.
3. Copy of memorandum titled Scientology Seizure’ directed to me by [redacted] of the Miami Office of the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Administration under the heading: Scientology Devices Seized: Cure-All Claims Attacked.
4. A picture of [redacted] my children, who are the captives of Scientology. Their last known address was [redacted] and are as guinea pigs in this psychotic unscientific idiotology in the hands of [redacted] Scientology Auditor and their mother [redacted]
Mr. President, I respectfully address you as the recognized leader of the free world and petition you and your great office to:
Direct the Attorney General of the United States to examine the Scientology file of the Federal Bureau of Investigation which I initiated approximately three years ago, in a report to [redacted] Former Director of the Miami Division, and take appropriate action: Examine, affirm or deny this criminal investigator’s contention supported by fact that:
1. Scientology, like an evil genius who tries to play God, is a fraud and:
2. Furthermore, that L. Ron Hubbard has tried to hide the evil philosophy of Dianetics and Scientology under the protection of the First Amendment of the Constitution as a religious institution in order to:
A. Avoid Payment of many millions of dollars of Federal Income Tax.
B. Fraudulently practice medicine without a license.
C. Use the United States mails to distribute the fraudulent scheme.
D. Place before the public of the United States and other countries of the world, his sinister pronouncements more sinister than Karl Marx and Lenin in Communism and more dangerous to the morals and minds of man than the most lewd, lascivious and evil pornography ever composed by a sick mind.
Mr. President, I as you, took the oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America when I joined the Pennsylvania National Guard, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Coast Guard Reserve, the U.S. Army, the Coast Artillery and the U.S. Air Force, where I terminated my service as a Provost Sergeant with Criminal Investigative Duty.
This duty, Sir, along with a proper religious childhood prepared me as a private citizen to recognize a threat to our great country and our free way of life when the psychotic, evil and debilatising philosophy of L. Ron Hubbard destroyed my family. My wonderful children, Mr. President now languish in Hubbard’s snake pit of Scientology without direction in religion, manners and the morals of mankind.
The idiot-lunatic fringe of Scientology is a danger to man-kind as was Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and now Castro in Cuba. A knowledge of Scientology by this writer, made Khruschchev come through loud and clear as he pounded his shoe on a table at the United Nations.
I, in conclusion, respectfully petition you and you honorable high office, one father to another, to aid in the protection of the religious and moral standards of our great country and of our children, I am sir,
Respectfully,
[redacted]
——————–
Posted by Tony Ortega on November 22, 2013 at 07:00
E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.
