We are not involved in a wrestling match

Shyam

I see that the perplexing 'TVI Express' critic, Kasey Chang, continues to post ego-defensive comments on Corporate Frauds Watch, so I took a peek at some of his own Blogs and discovered that he has again been publishing material which ascribes beliefs to us, and to Robert FitzPatrick, which are a misrepresentation of who we are and what we stand for. I have never just said that 'Amway' is the prototype for various copy-cat 'MLM' cults. On the contrary, after extensive research, I have endeavoured to explain (in great detail) why I have arrived at this logical conclusion. Having said that, Mr. Chang is apparently beginning to think more-deeply, but he's still got a long way to go. He fails to see that if you approach a totalitarian illusion with misplaced objectivity, you can actually become part of a totalitarian illusion without realizing. Many totalitarian groups have survived, because naïve persons, believing themselves to be fair-minded (and who insisted on judging fundamentally-immoral totalitarian groups by their own traditional moral standards), failed to challenge them and, unintentionally, gave them credibility.

As you, and your free-thinking readers, are aware, I have consistently made it a point not to descend into the puerile 'us versus them' fictions reflected as fact by cultic groups like 'Amway.' The transparent tactic of cult propagandist/agent provocateurs,like the unmasked 'Amway' Lord Haw Haw, Mr. David Steadson (a.k.a. 'IBOFB'), has been to try to draw free-thinking persons challenging the authenticity of their group's thought-stopping, totalitarian games of make-believe, down into their group's thought-stopping, totalitarian games of make-believe, where 'positive truth and enlightenment' appear to wrestle with 'negative lies and darkness.'  This coercive behaviour modification tactic is known as 'bull-baiting' in 'Scientology'. Mr. Steadson, in his various reality-inverting guises (all of whom steadfastly pretend to be independent of the 'Amway' bosses) has, in fact, run numerous pro-'Amway' propaganda Websites (available in multiple languages). Over recent years, he has also posted literally thousands of comments on hundreds of other Blogs and Websites, often trying to disrupt free-debate and provoke free-thinking critics of 'Amway' into a thoughtless verbal brawl. To casual observers, Mr. Steadson (if he really is just one individual) can appear to have the face of reason, but, once you know how divisive totalitarian groups like 'Amway' function, he is revealed as speaking with the voice of madness. As part of his extensive efforts to character assassinate me, Mr. Steadson has even pretended to have been debating with me for years and triumphing but this alleged extended one-sided Internet wrestling match has never actually taken place. Indeed, cults can be compared to professional 'wrestling' shows, where the age-old hypnotic story of good endlessly struggling with evil, is staged as total reality and where members of the audience who allow themselves to be seduced by the smiling good guy and hate the scowling villain (and who fail to understand that their emotions might be real, but what is producing their emotions is fake) unconsciously become part of the show themselves.

Thus, I am not (and never have been) anti-'Amway' , nor have I been so foolish as to allow myself to become involved in a pythonesque wrestling match over the legality and morality of the absurd economic pseudo-science known as 'Multi-Level Marketing,'because (I above all people) understand that 'MLM' cults, like 'Amway',are merely intellectually and emotionally overwhelming illusions which have the capacity to deceive and exploit the ill-informed, and spread like diseases. Whilst they remain under the malign influence of their group, unquestioning 'Amway' core-adherents are deluded individuals who unconsciously accept a dangerous controlling-fiction as fact, and they will fight to defend their economically-suicidal beliefs. My attitude to the suggestion that Corporate Frauds Watch is part of a faction fighting against an 'Amway/MLM' faction, is perfectly reflected in a typically-brilliant Monty Python sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBEP5c-SUEQ . Thus, what Mr. Chang has posted on his own Blog, 'Random Rants by KC,' demonstrates not only his fundamental misunderstanding of who we are and what we represent, but also his failure to comprehend the absurd, but nonetheless divisive, nature of the cult/totalitarian phenomenon. Up till now, Mr. Chang has been like a man who has looked at little bit of evidence, and logically concluded, that one pro-'wrestling' show is not an authentic sporting event, but he is not yet prepared to accept other people's wider-investigation which has uncovered a huge body of identical evidence leading them to the logical conclusion that all pro-'wrestling' is essentially the same scripted-melodrama presented as authentic sport. Furthermore, at no time, have I ever said that 'Amway' has been legalized. On the contrary, what I have said is that, time and again, the various corporate structures which comprise the criminogenic 'Amway' labyrinth have been discovered to have been fake 'direct selling' companies, fronting the same closed-market swindle and related advance fee frauds, but that, time and again, the courts have been obliged to examine these corporate structures in isolation and have judged them to have been acting unlawfully, but then naively accepted the same-old empty promises of these structures' attorneys that, it was not their intention to break the law and that henceforth, they will make greater efforts to act within the law.

Robert FitzPatrick's logical conclusions (not his beliefs or opinions) are clearly set out in a booklet entitled 'The Main Street Bubble. A whistle blower's guide to business opportunity fraud. How the FTC ignored and now protects it.' This booklet was published in 2009. Robert FitzParick has finally come to the conclusion that, since 1979, the so-called 'MLM industry' has been entirely composed of closed-market swindles dissimulated as 'direct selling business opportunities,' which have all been allowed to employ 'Amway's' effectively-unregulated, endless-chain pay plan in which few (if any) participants have earned lawful profits from regularly retailing products, and/or services, to the public.

David Brear (copyright 2011) 

The following is what Mr. Chang has said:

'It is almost as if I'm stuck between two factions while trying to maintain my neutrality: because I truly do NOT know which way to rule on Amway.

On one side, you have Mr. Brear, who is very obviously against Amway, repeating at various times that Amway is a cult and pyramid scheme that should have NEVER been legalized.

On the other hand, you have various Amway defenders (okay, actually, just one, who didn't even bother posting ON Shyam's blog) trying "debunk" the amount of hate directed against Amway.

And somehow I am caught in the middle. It is a very strange experience.

Mr. Brear and Shyam clearly wants me to join them, and when I stated I have not studied Amway to pass judgement, they turned hostile. To quote Mr. Brear:

"Thus, when someone like Mr. Chang confidently announces on this Blog that there is nothing inherently fraudulent in, or cultic about, 'Multi-Level Marketing' and then goes on to repeat 'Amway's' reality-inverting propaganda that the problem with the 'Amway' system has been a minority of rogue leaders acting against the organization's own code of ethics, and teaching some 'distributors' to recruit and consume and not to sell the products and, then selling 'tools', my reaction to his ignorance and naivety is hardly surprising."

To translate Mr. Brear:

a) Chang said: "Multi-level marketing is not inherently fraudulent or cultish"

b) Amway said the same thing thus

c) Chang must be a supporter of Amway

Is that a logical conclusion, leading from a) + b) to c)?

The answer is no: because 1) it could be a coincidence 2) experts said it too

One of MLM's most ardent critics, Robert L. Fitzpatrick, wrote on his website: "My own evaluation has led me to see that, with rare exceptions, the MLM industry is mostly composed of pyramid operations." 

Note the words "with rare exceptions", so the system itself is NOT inherently broken. It's the compensation package details that pushes the thing into 'scam'. However, it seem to be right on the edge, and needs very little tipping to send it over the abyss, and most MLMs, according to this critic, are pyramid schemes.

Is MLM inherently flawed? In my opinion, yes. It relies too much on "leadership" and "person to person" connections, resulting in almost cultish behavior (in fact, Mannatech, a MLM, is classified as a cult in New Zealand).

If MLM beyond salvation? No. Like Mr. Fitzpatrick, I believe there are some MLMs that are operating legally and ethically. And no, I don't know which ones. My specialty is on TVI Express, a scam that pretends to be a MLM, by borrowing all the WORST practices of a MLM, and making it a truly evil scam.

So, Mr. Brear, we really *are* on the same side. If only you will see that...

YouTube - Videos from this email