November 21, 2011

The Music Video The Church of Scientology Doesn’t Want You To See

After much searching, this turned out to be really the only suitable metaphor for any of this.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996588780@N01/4764875037/">John Manoogian III</a>/Flickr

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Nothing is off limits in rap music these days. The violence of American gangsta rap? American mainstream. Pervasive misogyny? Sure, why not? Cheerleading for ironfisted Islamist rule in Tunisia? Ain’t no thing.

But a rap song praising the transcendent, pharma-bashing power of Scientology?

That may be a new one.

Behold: the music video that officially makes all concept of satire irrelevant: 

This song—which sounds like a cross between “Empire State of Mind” and Vanilla Ice’s Wisdom, Tenacity and Focus, with a melodic dash of the seminal “Smell Yo Dick—stands as the single most gangsta thing the Church of Scientology has ever accomplished (not counting their, you know, deep infiltration of the US federal government in the 1970s aimed at eliminating reports critical of the Church). The music video, originally circulated exclusively within church membership, was uncovered by Tony Ortega of the Village Voice, who writes:

We believe that the track is by “Chill EB,” a hip hop artist who credits Scientology with extending his career, such as it is. The name of the song is “Dauntless, Defiant, and Resolute,” the title track of Chill’s latest CD. (Chill himself doesn’t actually appear in the video.) The IAS [an acronym repeated five times in the song] is the International Association of Scientologists, a happenin’ organization for which Scientologists are constantly hit up for expensive memberships.

Baffling lyrical gems include (click here for the complete lyrics):

Giving solutions to the world and the whole human race/We ain’t never gonna back down, leave town, play the clown/Psychiatry and SPs you know we take ’em down!

Brings the calm and the peace/Helping all reduce crime – even the police/Psychotropic drugs – we’ll make a thing of the past/Expose the fraud of the psychs and watch them dwindle real fast.

And my personal favorite:

Yo, it’s truly fantastic/Cuz there ain’t no limit to what we can do/So I wanna see you up your status/Yeah, you and you and you and you too!

By all means, [insert cheap Tom Cruise joke here].

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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