BBC reporter explodes at Scientologist

Link

This is just too funny for words

From the link:

Karl Marx’s opium, I reckon. That’s why there will never be peace. We dehumanize and taunt one another over opinions and beliefs.

I saw that documentary last night, and he did undermine his credibility just a tad with that crazy red-faced rant.

Slightly alarmed to learn from that and other reports that the Church of Scientology seems to have the City of London* police and administration in its pocket :eek: . Just how powerful are they, anyway? I got the impression they were on the wane, with seemingly more public ridicule from sources such as that most excellent episode of South Park, and other mocking coverage I have seen from MSNBC.

  • City of London = the financial district, basically, not the whole of Greater London

WTF? That was just bizarre. Does that reporter have a reputation for having a short fuse? I wonder what preceded the clip to make him blow up like that. I had the sense that maybe he’d tried being reasonable with whoever he was talking to over and over again, but was getting nowhere, and then just lost it in frustration.

Wow, you’d think if anybody could deal with a volcanic personality it would be a Scientologist.

My God, He’s full of Thetans.

The inside story here

That is a great article. They make me almost regret the 1st Amendment. I like this part:

I wish we could make that distinction. I would be very disappointed if I put out $100,000 to learn the big secret only to find out that I could have learned the same thing from South Park.

This part really pissed me off:

Why not cut and paste a few bits too, instead of just a link?

The first amendment doesn’t keep the US Internal Revenue Service from deciding whether something is or isn’t a religion for tax purposes. I don’t remember all of the things that a group must do to qualify, but Jesus and his Disciples wouldn’t have qualified.

It seems pretty clear to me that the reporter exploded after being pushed ridiculously hard to it by harrassment by the Scientologists on whom he was reporting. The release of this segment by the Scientologists who filmed it is pure defamation, nothing more.

I don’t know about that; it seems the other way around to me. Look at the reporter here, trying to get a rise out of the Scientologist. The guy doesn’t take the bait and peacefully walks away, so the reporter follows after him, with “I’m a British subject, not an American citizen, and in my country, we have freedom of speech.”

Hoo-kay, freedom of speech means the right to get up in unwilling listeners’ faces and harass and insult them, does it?

It’s an odd day when I end up feeling sympathy for Scientologists over the BBC, but that’s how it goes sometimes…

(Man, I just watched it again. God, that reporter comes off as smug and arrogant…)

Post deleted on account of mounting oddness. I’m going to have to sit down and figure out what’s what. Apparently, the YouTube link I posted before may or may not have been doctored footage from the Scientologists.

Actually, they would have. Or that is what my Bro, the “Enrolled to Practice before the IRS” tax expert, sez.

From the article:

No no no, that was just the sicko in Un Chien Andalou. Geez people, get it right. “Hollywood cult”, indeed :wink:

I’m as big a fan of the 1st Amendment as anyone else, but I draw the line at supporting an orginization as calculated and exploitative as the Scientologists. The horror stories from ex-members point to an outfit keen on attracting those who are most easily manipulated and lowest in self-esteem, and is none too fond of ANYONE - public or private - calling them out on their practices. People who deny the existence of such things as schizophrenia, post-partum depression, and even AIDS don’t deserve any more respect from me than Holocaust deniers.

More importantly, you missed what the BBC reporter was saying. He was saying that the people he had previously interviewed had a right to make the claims they made, and he had a right to report on them – hence, Tommy should respond to the claims, not shout at the reporter for asking them about it.

As a sidenote, BBC reporters are notable for grilling interviewees – it’s simply their technique.

Here is a link to the entire documentary. I don’t know if this will work outside the UK, but a UK proxy is easy to find. It’s all over the torrent sites too (probably seeded by the BBC themselves).

To be honest, this is a programme that is typical of the decline of Panorama. It is very flashy and now and relevant - the BBC learning from “The Day Today”, but not in a good way. At least they have picked a worthy target in that bunch of brainwashing cunts.

struan.idiotwind@googlemail.com , by the way, for the usual load of hostile spam that I won’t read and drearily seems to happen after every mention of the bunch of cocknockers that is the Church of Scientology.

I heard a soundbite of that guy screaming played completely out of context on Steve Wright’s show yesterday - I think he’s just using it as an amusing item in his cart wall - at least I know where it came from now.

Seriously? You get spammed for mentioning Scientology?

After watching the whole programme, I’d have found it hard not to explode, too. The whole thing was completely sinister.