Hasta La Ideas

The Church of Scientology’s counter-PR campaign against Going Clear, the documentary debuting Sunday night on HBO, has two main prongs: Twitter account @FreedomEthics and a dedicated section on the Freedom magazine website tagged, simply, “HBO.”

One of the people helping the Church lead the charge against the documentary is Kathy Haggis, younger sister of Paul Haggis. The writer-director has been front and center all along here, from the 2011 New Yorker article by Lawrence Wright, to the follow-on book, to this weekend’s Alex Gibney HBO adaptation.

If you think what Kathy says about Paul in the March video above is shocking, there’s plenty more where that came from. Here for example is an excerpt from Kathy’s January 25 personal blog post, “A Tale by Two Liars: Lawrence Wright and Paul Haggis:”

Paul Haggis was cheated out of a credit on Lawrence Wright’s recent book (now a “documentary”).  The credit should read “written by Lawrence Wright, fabricated by Paul Haggis.”  And it should be subtitled with their mutual motive for concocting such a story: “Never let the truth get in the way of a sale.”

Another more recent post is titled “Paul Haggis, Humanitarian? Really??” Her WordPress blog, read before or after watching the HBO doc, serves as a potent reminder of the turmoil that envelops families split by a defection from the Church.