By having Mark Bunker’s account yanked off of YouTube, the word “Xenu” has been printed in the Times.

…[T]he suspension has angered YouTube users who have thrown their weight behind Mark Bunker, who uses the name XenuTV1 on the site.

By this morning, 45 YouTube members had used their sign-ons to re-post Bunker’s interview with the Cane and CSI actor.

I was one of the probably hundreds to pass the news onto Radar (who doesn’t afraid of anything), and they also reported on the fiasco. They highlighted the hypocrisy of Google-owned YouTube for caving in to Scientology’s corporate interests:

Bunker’s video contained no violence (unlike the scads of girlfight videos on YouTube), and he counters that “There was no copyrighted material on my channel at all. It was all my own produced material.”

Roger Friedman from FoxNews.com also weighs in, wisely covering his ass from cult retribution, but still comes through to pass on the goods:

Bunker thinks YouTube took down the video under pressure from Scientology. It’s possible, of course, but unlikely. The video is still up on YouTube in other forms, including here (warning: contains offensive language). It’s also easily found just by typing Beghe’s name into most search engines.

Friedman also uses the issue to discuss Beghe more, something the cult would not want at all:

And, yes, Beghe did confirm with me what he’s talked about on the videos: All Scientology sessions are taped. Every one of them, including those of Cruise, Travolta and all celebrities. Does Beghe care if his tapes ever get out?

“Hell, no,” he told me. “They won’t do that anyway because then the whole thing comes out and everyone knows there are tapes. They can’t do anything with them.”

Beghe makes the mistake of assuming the cult is smart, reasonable, and that it changes with the times. LRH used case folders to blackmail opponents, and Beghe is an opponent. While releasing the “confidential” videos will indeed backfire big time, that’s not what matters to the cult: releasing them to embarass is what matters.

If you need any evidence they don’t care about how anything will backfire, I refer you to everything that happened on the cult front since January.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Ex-Members, Footbullets, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.