Written evidence submitted by David Brear
Email to the Committee, 22 March
For the urgent attention of the members of the Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee.
This link below explains the latest disturbing news about the 'Amway/MLM' fake, from the USA
http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2018/03/austin-bomber-mark-anthony-conditt.html
Yesterday, Mark Athony Conditt (a 23 year old Texan), blew himself up in the city of Austin.
The parents of Mark Anthony Conditt are fanatical 'MLM' adherents. They have kept their 4 children out of school and educated them at home.
It is my considered opinion that 'MLM' fanatics are so dissociated from external reality, that they should be considered psychotic.
Mountains of witness evidence proves that chronic 'Amway/MLM' adherents are programmed not to believe the mainstream media or listen to anyone challenging the authenticity of their group's fictious controlling scenario.
eg. In the 1990s, a chronic Polish 'Amway' adherent was filmed smashing his 'negative' television with a baseball bat.
The most deluded 'Amway' adherents have been brainwashed with an extreme 'religious' scenario in which the 'Amway' movement is God's creation and is engaged in an ongoing war with evil. see below
Groups like 'Amway' represent the ultimate results of 'fake news' (when it goes unchallenged).
Regards
David Brear
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Part transcript of a brainwashing tape entitled: ‘How to Handle Negative Websites’, produced and distributed by the ‘InterNet Services Corporation,’ an organization which was registered in the USA as a ‘privately-controlled limited-liability commercial company’ (apparently independent of ‘Amway’), but owned by ‘Amway Diamond Distributor’, Dexter Yager.
‘I'm convinced more and more each day that this (‘Amway’) business was God's idea. What I'm saying is God created this (‘Amway’) business so that we could pull families together and help people — and the Devil does not like that ! If you don't believe there's a Devil, go on the Internet ! Man I'm telling you, there's a Devil ! The Devil does not like this (‘Amway’) business ! - He does not like the unity in this (Amway’) business ! All I want to say to you is: guys, if I were the Devil and I saw a business that was keeping marriages together, where that men learned how to love their wife … they're taught from stage in Leadership sessions how to love their wife … where women are taught how to really integrate the marriage … the husband and wife relationship … where parents are taught how to bring up their children and encourage them to speak life and positive things into them so that those children have good healthy self-images and believe that they can really do anything that they put their minds to do . If I saw a business that was responsible for holding those marriages and families together, and getting people out of debt, and learning how to treat people with dignity, respect and kindness … a business that gave people hope for freedom, hope for their financial future … that a person could not even succeed in this (‘Amway’) business without helping somebody else, and that the more people you help the more money you make… a business that teaches the principles of morals and ethics and integrity, that gives dignity to human life, that validates marriages an institution that should be reverenced that should not be put down or criticised or belittled .… If I saw a business that did all those things and so much more for humanity .… If I were the Devil, I'd hate it with a passion! And I am convinced that not only does Satan hate the Church, I'm convinced with all my heart that Satan has good reason for hating this (‘Amway’) business. He has good reason for hating Dexter and Birdie and every Leader in their organisation. Satan hates this (‘Amway’) business with a passion, because this (‘Amway’) business stands for everything he hates! And if you want to know whose behind those Websites, all I ask you is, who could it be… huh? … Could it be Satan?’ Pastor Mark Gorman 2001
Email to the Committee, 20 March
To whom it may concern
It is highly interesting to me that your committee is looking at 'Fake News'.
I'm wondering if the same line of enquiry might eventually lead the committee to look closely at a parallel fake phenomenon which lately has been allowed to infest social media and which has been designed to spread like a virus.
This phenomenon can be broadly described as:'Multi Level Marketing/ Income Opportunity' racketeering.
Below you will find a statutory warning in the form of deconstructed analysis.
People like myself who have openly challenged the authenticity of the outrageous 'MLM income opportunity' fake have not been sued, but as you might expect, we have been attacked as peddling fake news.
Yet, in 2016, the US Federal Trade Commission fined a so-called 'MLM' company, 'Herbalife,' $200 millions for operating a fake 'business opportunity' of an almost unimaginable scale.
www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/01/ftc-sends-checks-nearly-350000-victims-herbalifes-multi-level
The same 'Herbalife' racket has been operating the UK since 1989, without the slightest interest from law enforcement or regulators, but it's only one of many.
The number of victims who have been cheated in the UK by this extraordinary self-perpetuating criminogenic phenomenon runs into millions.
'MLM' rackets have been particularly prevalent in the UK police service, where they have preyed on the many stressed officers who are desperate to find alternative employment.
Worldwide, the total number of 'MLM' victims is absolutely staggering.
I know that lately some UK Members of Parliament have finally begun to look at 'MLM' rackets operating in the UK; particularly those tailored to ensnare and exploit women.
I look forward to hearing from the committee, because the 'MLM' phenomeon is highly relevant to the investigation, and understanding, of the 'fake news' phenomeon and is directly linked to current tragicomic political situation in the USA
Sincerely
David Brear
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The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching 'Multi-Level Marketing' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is.
Statutory Warning
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.
** 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/services' 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.
David Brear
March 2018