Robert FitzPatrick explains 'MLM' cults to Jim Jefferies and others.

 

'Multi-Level Marketing' Warning.

The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business/industry, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is.
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More than half a century of quantifiable evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:

• the widely-misunderstood phenomenon that has become popularly-known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' (a.k.a. 'Network Marketing') is nothing more than an absurd, non-rational,  cultic, economic pseudo-science maliciously-designed to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, dissociate them from external reality and not only steal their money, but also deceive them into unconsciously acting the role of bait to lure other unwary persons (particularly their friends and family members) into the same trap. 

• the impressive-sounding made-up jargon term, 'MLM,' is therefore, the misleading title for an enticing structured-scenario of control which has been developed, and constantly acted out as  reality, by the instigators, and associates, of various copy-cat, major and minor, ongoing organised crime groups (hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures) to shut-down the critical, and evaluative, faculties of victims, and of casual observers, in order to perpetrate, and dissimulate, a series of blame-the-victim 'Long Cons*'  - comprising self-perpetuating rigged-market swindles**, a.k.a. pyramid scams (dressed up as 'legitimate direct selling income opportunites') and related advance-fee frauds (dressed up as 'legitimate: training and motivation, self-betterment, programs, recruitment leads, lead generation systems,' etc.).

• Apart from an insignificant minority of shills (whose leading-role in the 'Long Con' has been to pretend that anyone can achieve financial freedom simply by following their unquestioning example and exactly-duplicating a step-by-step-plan of recruitment and self-consumption), the hidden overall net-loss/churn rate for participation in so-called 'MLM income opportunities,' has always been effectively 100%.

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*A 'Long Con' is a form of fraud maliciously designed to exploit victims' existing beliefs and instinctual desires and make them falsely-believe that they are exercising a completely free-choice. 'Long Cons' comprise an enticing structured-scenario of control acted out as reality over an extended period. Like theatrical plays, 'Long Cons' are written, directed and produced. They involve leading players and supporting players as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, script, etc. The hidden objective of 'Long Cons' is to convince unwary persons that fiction is fact and fact is fiction, progressively cutting them off from external reality. In this way, victims begin unconsciously to play along with the controlling-scenario and (in the false-expectation of future reward) large sums of money or valuables can be stolen from them. Classically, the victims of 'Long Cons' can become deluded to such an extent that they will abandon their education, jobs, careers, etc., empty their bank accounts, and/or beg, steal, borrow from friends, family members, etc.

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** The enticing structured-scenario of control fundamental to all 'rigged-market swindles' is that people can earn income by first contributing their own money to participate in a profitable commercial opportunity, but which is secretly an economically-unviable fake due to the fact that the (alleged) opportunity has been rigged so that it generates no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from its own ill-informed participants. For more than 50 years, 'Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers have been allowed to dissimulate rigged-market swindles by offering endless-chains of victims various banal, but over-priced, products, and/or services, in exchange for unlawful losing-investment payments, on the pretext that 'MLM' products/services can then be regularly re-sold for a profit in significant quantities via expanding networks of distributors. However, since 'MLM' products/services cannot be regularly re-sold to the general public for a profit in significant quantities (based on value and demand), 'MLM' participants have, in fact, been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money (in the false expectation of future reward). 

Thus, in 'MLM' rackets, the innocent looking products/sevices' function has been to hide what is really occurring - i.e The operation of an unlawful, intrinsically fraudulent, rigged-market where effectively no non-salaried (transient) participant can generate an overall net-profit, because, unknown to the non-salaried (transient) participants, the market is in a permanent state of collapse and requires its non-salaried (transient) participants to keep finding further (temporary) de facto slaves to sustain the enticing illusion of stability and viability.

Meanwhile an insignificant (permanent) minority direct the 'Long Con' - raking in vast profits by selling into the rigged-market and by controlling/withholding all key-information concerning the rigged-market's actual catastrophic, ever-shifting results from its never-ending chain of (temporary) de facto slaves.

Although cure-all pills potions and vitamin/dietary supplements, household and beauty, products have been most-prevalent, it is possible to use any product, and/or service, to dissimulate a rigged-market swindle. There are even some 'MLM' rackets that have been hidden behind well-known traditional brands (albeit offered at fixed high prices). Some 'MLM' rackets have included 'cash-back/discount shopping cards, travel products, insurance, energy/communications services' and 'crypto-currencies' in their controlling scenarios.

No matter what bedazzling product/service has been dangled as bait, in 'MLM' rackets, there has been no significant or sustainable source of revenue other than never-ending chains of contractees of the 'MLM' front companies. These front-companies always pretend that their products/services are high quality and reasonably-priced and that for anyone prepared to put in some effort, the products/services can be sold on for a profit via expanding networks of distributors based on value and demand. In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been (transient) 'MLM' contractees who have bought the various products /services (and not the general public) is because they have been tricked into unconsciously playing along with the controlling scenario which constantly says that via regular self-consumption and the recruitment of others to do the same, etc. ad infinitum, anyone can receive a future (unlimited) reward.

I've been examining the 'MLM' phenomenon for around 20 years. During this time, I've yet to find one so-called 'MLM' company that has voluntarily made key-information available to the public concerning the quantifiable results of its so-called 'income opportunity'.

Part of the key-information that all 'MLM' bosses seek to hide concerns the overall number of persons who have signed contracts since the front companies were instigated and the retention rates of these contractees. 

When rigorously investigated, the overall hidden net-loss churn rates for so-called 'MLM income opportunites' has turned out to have been effectively 100%. Thus, anyone claiming (or implying) that it is possible for anyone to make a penny of net-profit, let alone a living, in an 'MLM,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide quantifiable evidence to back up his/her anecdotal claims.

Although a significant number of 'MLM' front-companies (like 'Vemma', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing', 'Wake Up Now') have been shut-down by commercial regulators, some of the biggest 'MLM' rackets (like 'Amway' ,'Herbalife', Forever Living Products' ) have continued to hide in plain sight whilst secretly churning tens of millions of losing participants over decades

The quantifiable results of the self-perpetuating global 'Long Con' known as 'Multi Level Marketing,' have been fiendishly hidden by convincing victims that they are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred, must have been entirely their own fault for not working hard enough. 

Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script - illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors.' 

Chronic victims of blame-the-victim cultic rackets who have managed to escape and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For years afterwards, recovering cult victims can suffer from psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):

depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness, fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc


David Brear (copyright 2020)

'MLM'- Promoting President Trump: When Big Lies are peddled as the 'truth.'

• Currently, a reality-inverting comic-book fiction entitled, 'Stop The Steal,' is again being peddled as fact. Although there is no evidence to support this pernicious lie, belief in it has spread like a virus, because it has been tailored to fit the existing beliefs and instinctual desires of the unquestioning adherents of the cult of Donald Trump. 

• The leaders of cults seek to control all information entering not only their adherents’ minds, but also that entering the minds of casual observers. This is achieved by constantly denigrating all external sources of information whilst constantly repeating the group’s reality-inverting key words and images, and/or by the physical isolation of adherents. Cults leaders systematically categorise, condemn and exclude as unenlightened, negative, impure, absolutely evil, etc. all free-thinking individuals and any quantifiable evidence challenging the authenticity of their imaginary scenarios of control. In this way, the minds of cult adherents can become converted to accept only what their leadership arbitrarily sanctions as enlightened, positive, pure, absolutely righteous, etc. Consequently, adherents habitually communicate amongst themselves using their group’s thought-stopping ritual jargon, and they find it difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with negative persons outside of their group whom they falsely believe to be not only doomed, but also to be a suppressive threat to redemption.

• In cults, a core-group of adherents can be gradually dissociated from external reality and reformed into deployable agents, and/or de facto slaves, and/or expendable combatants, etc., furthering the hidden criminal objectives of their leaders, completely dependent on a collective paranoid delusion of absolute moral and intellectual supremacy fundamental to the maintenance of their individual self-esteem/identity and related psychological function. It becomes impossible for such fanatics to see humour in their situation or to feel pity for, or to empathise with, non-adherents. Their minds are programmed to interpret the manipulation, and/or cheating, and/or dispossession, and/or destruction, of inferior outsiders (particularly, those who challenge their group’s controlling scenario) as perfectly justifiable.

• The leaders of the most-destructive cults are megalomaniacal psychopaths (i.e. suffering from a chronic mental disorder, especially when resulting in paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness, and the compulsion to pursue grandiose objectives). The unconditional deference of their deluded adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ own paranoid delusions. This type of cult leader maintains an absolute monopoly of information whilst perpetrating, and/or directing, evermore heinous crimes. They sustain their activities by the imposition of arbitrary contracts and codes (secrecy, denunciation, confession, justice, punishment, etc.) within their groups, and by the use of humiliation, and/or intimidation, and/or calumny, and/or malicious prosecution (where they pose as victims), and/or sophism, and/or the infiltration of traditional culture, and/or corruption, and/or intelligence gathering and blackmail, and/or extortion, and/or physical isolation, and/or violence, and/or assassination, etc., to repress any internal or external dissent.

To observers with fully-functioning critical and evaluative faculties, it has been obvious that the greatest enemy of Donald Trump has always been (and always will be) the truth; for throughout his life, he has been constructing, and repeating, a catalogue of lies about himself and his 'achievements.' Sadly (to date), Trump has always found willing propagandists, and useful idiots, to aid him. That said, an increasing number of these witting, and not-so-witting, enablers are lately finding the courage to face the truth. The truth being that the 45th US president is not only a producer of puerile lies, but also he's the product of puerile lies. 

Despite his incessant claims to be a very stable genius and self-made billionaire, it is now a matter of public record that, secretly, from infancy (via various lawful, and/or unlawful, dodges), Donald Trump was gradually handed control of hundreds of millions of dollars of capital assets by his father, Fred Christ Trump (1905-1999).   

Between 1964 and 1972 (aged 18-24), Donald Trump (who sailed through his initial Draft Board medical examination and who excelled at various strenuous athletic sports during his college years) successfully dodged the Vietnam war - first via 4 genuine student (temporary) deferments and then (definitely) on the (evidently-fake) grounds that 'he was medically unfit for military service due to bone spurs in both feet.' Yet it is now known that the qualified doctor who  furnished this convenient diagnosis was far from being independent. A reliable witness has recently stated that, subsequently, the doctor (who is now dead) confessed to having invented Trump's physical problem as a favour to his mob-connected landlord (who was none other than Fred Trump). Obviously, the one person who was party to these events is president Trump himself, but when a journalist asked him about his 'bone spurs,' predictably, he couldn't recall which of his feet was affected, and he blocked further questions by limply referring the enquirer to the 1972 paperwork. It has to be said that most young American men of Donald Trump's generation were trying to avoid combat in Vietnam, but that's not the point, because the president is now pretending moral and intellectual authority in all matters military.

 

 

During the 1980s and 1990s, whilst his ageing father secretly continued to support him, Donald Trump borrowed in excess of 4 billion dollars from more than 70 banks. He then recklessly ploughed this mountain of other people's money into a series of grandiose, but catastrophic, business ventures which, by all accounts, he didn't have the beginnings of a clue how to run and which eventually filed for bankruptcy. As a direct result, although Donald Trump dodged personal bankruptcy, the name Trump was blacklisted by virtually every major source of credit except for Deutsche Bank (a financial institution that historically worked hand-in-glove with the 'Nazi' mob and has more recently been caught laundering money for persons linked to the Putin regime).

At the start of the 21st century, Donald Trump was widely-recognised as a twice-divorced, brash and sleazy, middle-aged NY con-artist on the verge of bankruptcy, who previously (with the assistance of morally-relative mainstream journalists and an echelon of attorneys) had been operating in plain sight as 'a celebrity: self-made tycoon, best-selling author, actor, former television wrestling-show host, political pundit, ladies man, financial guru, etc.'

It was at this point in his life, that Donald Trump found his vocation and began to make serious money as a 'reality TV' star, pitchman for 'MLM' cultic rackets and co-author of 'self-improvement' books. However, he then took his new-found wealth and began ploughing it into various ill-conceived scams, vanity-businesses and construction projects. With the truth and humiliation again looming, Trump launched himself into the world of US politics; first using what remained of his celebrity as a platform to amplify the existing 'Big Lie' that president Obama was not born in the USA. 

Knowing his personal history, there can be little doubt that Trump entered the 2016 presidential race as a continuation of this self-promoting tactic. Unfortunately, the further he progressed in the campaign and the more that his followers fell for his Messianic act, the more he seems to have fallen for it himself. Trump's mental state has only got worse in the 4 years since he won his first presidential election and then lost number two. The unconditional deference of his most-deluded followers has only served to confirm, and magnify, his own increasingly-paranoid, and self-righteous, delusions of grandeur.

Today, in the adult world of quantifiable reality, president, Donald Trump has been recognised as an absurd outsider - a strutting charlatan and vindictive bully who has endlessly sought to portray himself as a 'glamourous, fabulously-wealthy and well-educated scientific/ business/ political genius and selfless patriot,' but who is actually a greedy, debt-ridden, tasteless ignoramus, notorious for chasing/molesting women, cheating on his trophy wives, threatening lawsuits, welshing on his debts, hiding behind corporate structures, exploiting bankruptcy regulations, promoting 'MLM income opportunity' cultic rackets and magic thinking, etc. Indeed, for almost his entire adult life, Donald Trump has been living in a comic-book fantasy world (in which he is the infallible handsome super-hero), and all this was originally enabled by his daddy's dubious associations and resulting wealth.   

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46895634

Last year, I was not at all surprised when I opened a link to an article ('How will history judge president Trump?')  by the BBC's USA correspondent, Nick Bryant, and read that: 

'He (Donald Trump) is not a modern day Adolf Hitler, nor an American Mussolini.' 

Although Mr. Bryant reminded his readers that president Trump has rightly been ridiculed for comparing himself to history's greatest heroes, he then implied that it is equally ridiculous to liken president Trump to history's worst villains.

In the light of subsequent events, I wonder what Mr. Bryant now thinks of Donald Trump?

Turning Mr Bryant's old opinion on its head, there is, of course, a strong evidence-based argument that Mussolini and Hitler were the Donald Trumps of their own era. Indeed, it is deeply-ironic that Mr. Bryant's previously comforting view of president Trump as not being especially dangerous, mirrors some stunningly-naive opinions of Hitler and Mussolini that were offered by wishful-thinking intellectuals prior to WWII.

In truth, President Trump has exhibited, and continues to exhibit, similar personality-traits to those exhibited by Hitler and Mussolini during their rise power. He has been supported by a flock of unquestioning adherents who have been fed their Trumpian model of reality from a form of propaganda ministry. Donald Trump has also been protected by a faction of amoral, spineless, and/or corrupt, US politicians who evidently still believe that he will profit them and their paymasters. 

Today, this once-unthinkable analysis is being proposed by many objective observers who have also been forced to accept that the current US president remains potentially even more dangerous to civilisation than the strutting charlatans who were allowed to lie, and bully, their way into absolute power in vulnerable pre-war European democracies; for, unlike them, until January 2021, president Trump commands an arsenal of thousands of nuclear warheads with access to his own safe bunker. Even if the world manages to get beyond this point, and Trump reluctantly leaves the White House, he will remain a massive security risk for the foreseeable future.

Thus, the list of specific reasons why it is entirely appropriate to compare 20th century dictators to Donald Trump, is a long one; whilst history proves that, at times of mass-alienation (following: wars, plagues/natural disasters, economic crises, etc.), would-be demagogues steadfastly pretending absolute moral and intellectual authority whilst pursuing hidden criminal objectives, who (at other times) might have been almost-universally-recognised as dangerous clowns, have found it much easier to become widely-accepted as authentic Messiahs. However, history also proves that the great weakness of all such totalitarian dictators is that, once you know how they operate  (by ritualizing enticing-lies as 'the truth:' whilst systematically excluding the truth as 'lies'), the inflexible reactions of these devious Pied-Pipers to any challenge to the authenticity to their essentially-identical, two-dimensional controlling-narratives, can be predicted with almost 100% accuracy.

 

'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.'

Given its content, it is supremely ironic that there is no evidence for Joseph Goebbels ever having made the above statement (so often ascribed to him). That said, it is a pretty accurate summary of Goebbels' infexible approach as Adolf Hitler's propaganda chief. Indeed, before murdering his own children and shooting himself (rather than facing reality), Goebbels spent the last years of his life writing, producing, directing and performing endless ritual performances of the reality-inverting, closed-logic 'Nazi' controlling-narrative that the heroic and honest superhuman leader of the 'Noble Aryan Master Race,' was telling the truth, whilst the degenerate corrupt leaders of Britain and the USA (controlled by the forces of evil - Freemasons, subhuman Jews, etc.) were repeating big lies.

The origin of the first part of the above quote would appear to have been a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler, compiled in the USA during WWII by the 'Office of Strategic Services' (later to become the 'CIA'). 

This document concluded that:

 'Hitler's primary rules were - 

• never allow the public to cool off; 

• never admit a fault or wrong; 

• never concede that there may be some good in your enemy;

• never leave room for alternatives;

• never accept blame; 

• concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; 

• people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.'

Prior to the full-extent of his crimes being uncovered, Hitler's psychological profile was drafted by a team of medically-qualified academics who had apparently been studying 'Mein Kampf,' Chapter 10:


 '... in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad mass of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly outrageous lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.' 

For more than a decade, the infallible 'Führer' was a 'Big Lie' - a long-con beyond the reach of the law in Germany; for the 'Nazi' controlling-narrative, gave Hitler a false-justification to exile, and/or imprison, and/or have assassinated, any ordinary mortal challenging his authority. It is now generally accepted that Hitler transformed into a megalomaniacal psychopath. The unconditional deference of his deluded followers only served to confirm, and magnify, his own increasingly-paranoid, and self-righteous, delusions of grandeur.

David Brear (copyright 2020)