RHONDA GASKEW

Help Find Missing Persons.

Missing Person: RHONDA GASKEW

Rhonda Gaskew:
Your mother Nevermore, left you a home worth $999,000.

Its all yours. The home you were born in. A free, beautiful place to live in San Francisco.

Rhonda, or anyone who finds Rhonda, Please call

Paul Kangas, 415-368-8581.

Rhonda graduated from Balboa High School in San Francisco, in 1974.
( DOB July 27, 1956 )She has lived in Michigan, Argentina, Oregon and California. She was last seen in Nevada. She may be hitch hiking around Canada or Nevada. She loves to camp out in the woods.
Both pictures are of her.


She is a loner, but friendly, so do not be affraid to talk to her. Buy her a coffee and lunch, then call me. She loves to talk. She goes by Rhonda. Please take a minute to ask each Black woman, with a back pack & sleeping bag, age 50, you see, if she is Rhonda. She is forever hiking & camping out.
If you have seen a Black woman, about age 50, who may seem mentally retarded, and homeless, sleeping in a sleeping bag, in a National Forest, talk to her, then please call me.

Take her photo. Buy her lunch. E-mail me at paul7kangas@cs.com

Yes, there is a very nice monatary reward to the one person who provides information that leads to the location of Rhonda Gaskew. We can afford to be generous.

Missing Person: GORDAN THOMAS PAGE, JR.

is a missing autistic man from Ohio. He is quiet and shy. He was normal, until he received his first vaccination. Then he lost contact with reality. Vaccinations seem to cause autism.




If you are a parent, who is missing a teenager, whom

you suspect may be living in San Francisco, give us a call & we may be able to locate them.





Now for some entertaining news.

Behind every terrorist there is a Bush?

The Bush crime family Connection To World War II, The Kennedy Assassination & 9/11.

by Paul Kangas

Did Bush assassinate President John Kennedy? Was the 1964 Election Stolen? Was the 2004 Election Stolen? Robert F. Kennedy jr.s blockbuster new report, in the June 2004 Rolling Stone, on how the Bush team stole the 2004 election in Ohio shows a few Democrats are slowing waking up. About time!

The Bush Klan stole the 1964 election by killing President Kennedy, as he ran for re-election. In the past 40 years not one single word has been written by any journalist exposing that felony crime. How long will it take for anyone to ask Tony Snow that blood soaked question? Could John Kerry have won the election? The answer is still No! If Kerry had won, and tried to stop the war, the CIA would have assassinated Kerry too. The Seattle-Post Intelligencer would never dare to say that. I am still waiting for Rep. Jan Schakowsky to apologize for not having said anything about the stolen election of 1964. Or was that before she was born?

Al Gore has something to say about all this. His movie, An Inconvenient Truth reveals that journalist Al Gore has more power than an elected official to change the minds of elected officials. Robert F. Kennedy jr. should now begin making a movie about Ohio 2004 and Dallas 1964 if he wants to have any real chance of running for President. If elected, he too will be shot by the CIA. The Kennedy lawsuit against Diebolt is probably dead before it is filed. Hey, this is not a democracy. This is a bloody dictatorship. Is journalist Tim Dickerson aware of the history his article is based around?

Prescott Bush, father of Geo. HW Bush, was the person who actually hired & funded, German politician, Adolph Hitler, in 1936, to attack and seize control of Russia. Bush paid Hitler to run for election. To insure Hitler was elected, the Bush team assassinated the main candidate, thus insuring minor candidate Hitler would win. The Bush team has been stealing elections by assassination since 1930. Sound familar? In the US it is easier to steal an election, because the people are so asleep. Why did Bush want Hitler to attack Russia? The Bush Crime family wanted all the gold and factories in Russia.

Bush also gave Hitler the first jet plane built in the world, built by GE in the U.S. Check this out fact in any book on aviation history. The Nazi flew the first jet planes, built by GM & GE, about 1939.



Geo. H.W. Bush hired his puppet Osama, to attack Afganistan, to regain control of Afganistan, from the Russians. Bush wanted to restore the Opium production in Afganistan, which the Russians had stopped. Gary Webb was the San Jose Mercury reporter who broke the news that the Bush crime family was a major importer of heroin into the U.S. Is it time to impeach Bush yet? Now the Afganistan opium is flowing back into the veins of young people in the American suberbia. Anyone who sells drugs is an agent of the CIA. Even if they do not yet know it. White sugar is the real white devil. White drugs are the real white devil. When will Black people wake up and stop selling that white devil to Black teens. Malcolm X was right. When will white people wake up and stop buying that white devil from the CIA agents who sell it to them.

Bush and the CIA trained Osama on how to make bombs to fight the Russians. Osama just moved it up one notch, & made a plane bomb, to attack American businesses who control much of the world business, to create 9/11. Bush & the CIA are directly tied to 9/11. As is the Democratic Party, because of their silence on all this.





Did George HW Bush assassinate President John F. Kennedy?

Note: All references to "George Bush" refer to George Herbert Walker Bush, former director of the CIA, Commanding officer of the Bay of Pigs and father of George "Dubya" Bush (who was appointed Rresident by a 5 to 4 vote of the Supreme Court). The US is now nothing but another banana republic controled by GM, GE, AT&T, etc. Soon, they plan to take over the internet, so they can silence our only alternative voices. Fight back. Write back. Join the march, better, help organize the against war in October, in your town. Email me for free buttons, posters, leaflets and such.

Did Bush assassinate President John Kennedy? Was the 1964 Election Stolen? Was the 2004 Election Stolen? Robert F. Kennedy jr.s blockbuster new report, in the June 2004 Rolling Stone, on how the Bush team stole the 2004 election in Ohio shows a few Democrats are slowing waking up. About time! The Bush Klan stole the 1964 election by killing President Kennedy, as he ran for re-election. In the past 40 years not one single word has been written by any journalist exposing that felony crime. How long will it take for anyone to ask Tony Snow that blood soaked question?

Could John Kerry have won the election? The answer is still No! If Kerry had won, and tried to stop the war, the CIA would have assassinated Kerry too. The Seattle-Post Intelligencer would never dare to say that. I am still waiting for Rep. Jan Schakowsky to apologize for not having said anything about the stolen election of 1964. Or was that before she was born? Al Gore has something to say about all this. His movie, An Inconvenient Truth reveals that journalist Al Gore has more power than an elected official to change the minds of elected officials. Robert F. Kennedy jr. should now begin making a movie about Ohio 2004 and Dallas 1964 if he wants to have any real chance of running for President. If elected, he too will be shot by the CIA. The Kennedy lawsuit against Diebolt is probably dead before it is filed. Hey, this is not a democracy. This is a bloody dictatorship. Is journalist Tim Dickerson aware of the history his article is based around?

Dallas. 2006. A newly discovered FBI document reveals that George HW Bush was directly involved in the 1963 murder of President John Kennedy.

The document places Bush working with the now-famous CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez, recruiting right-wing Cuban exiles for the invasion of Cuba. It was Bush's CIA job to organize the Cuban community in Miami, like Frank Sturgis, for the invasion of Cuba, the Bay of Pigs. ( Unfortunetly, I too was part of the Bay of Pigs.--PK)

Actually, the CIA had already slipped Frank Sturgis into Cuba, where Sturgis, an excellent spy, had worked his way up the grape vine and was now a spy working inside the army of Fidel Castro. Sturgis worked for the CIA flying guns to Castro, to try & win Castro over to be a puppet of the US. Sturgis was such an excellent pilot, he even rose to the head of the Cuban Air Force. He had direct access to Fidel. The Miami Cubans were trained as marksmen by CIA agents Bush and E. Howard Hunt.

Bush at that time lived in Houston, Texas, hopping from Houston to New Orleans, to Miami, weekly, Bush spent 1960 and 1961 recruiting Cubans in Miami for the invasion. That is how he met Felix Rodriguez. This story was just published in the Cuban newspaper, Granma, on 1-13-06. I, was Paul Kangas, too was unfortunetly part of the invasion of Cuba. I was in the US Navy, Operation Vertical Envelopment, based in XXXX, Md. We were the Second Wave, suppose to follow the Bay of Pigs "private" invasion, led by George Bush. But the invasion failed. Due to really dumb decisions by Bush to land during a low tide, when the mud would be the deepest. Bush forget to check the tide tables before he chose the landing hour. What a war. What a hero. I wonder why Bush does not mention this famous battle in his war stories? Here Bush was, the head of the Bay of Pigs invasion, but he does not mention it in his resume? Interesting.

George Bush, was the CIA agent in charge of the invasion of Cuba. He was the top banana. As such, he was my commanding officer. Bush was stationed in Guatamala, where he had 2 US Navy ships delivered to him, by Air Force officer, L. Fletcher Prouty in 1961. Prouty told me in a one hour 1998 taped interview, played on FM radio station KPOO, in 1998.

You may remember Felix Rodriguez as the Iran-contra CIA agent who received the first phone call, from Gene Hasenfus, telling the world the CIA plane flown by Gene Hasenfus had crashed in Nicaragua.

As soon as Rodriguez heard that the plane crashed, he called his long-time CIA supervisor and personal friend, George HW Bush. Bush denied being in the contra loop, but investigators recently obtained copies of Oliver North's diary, which documents Bush's role as a CIA supervisor of the contra supply network.

In 1988 Bush told Congress he knew nothing about the illegal supply flights until 1987, yet North's diary shows Bush at the first planning meeting Aug. 6, 1985. Bush's "official" log placed him somewhere else. Such double sets of logs are intended to hide Bush's real role in the CIA; to provide him with "plausible deniability."

The problem is, it fell apart because too many people, like North and Rodriguez, have kept records that show Bush's CIA role back to the 1961 invasion of Cuba. (Source: The Washington Post, 7/10/90).

Bush lied to Congress to cover up his role in the Bay of Pigs. Why is Bush shy about his role in the Bay of Pigs? What could still be embarrasing about his hero role in that war?

That is exactly how evidence was uncovered placing George Bush working with Felix Rodriguez when JFK was killed. A memo from FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was found, stating that, "Mr. George HW Bush of the CIA had been briefed on November 23rd, 1963 about the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the assassination of President Kennedy. (Source: The Nation, 8/13/88). Bush denies he was in the CIA then. Denial, denial.

On the day of the assassination Bush was in Dallas, Texas, but he denies knowing exactly where he was. Does the Grassy Knoll sound familar? Since he had been the supervisor for the secret Cuban teams, headed by former Cuban police commander Felix Rodriguez, since 1960, it is likely Bush was also in Dallas in 1963.

Several of the Cubans he was supervising as dirty-tricks teams for Nixon, were photographed in Dallas, behind the grassy knoll, by Dallas News photographer, John Beers.

The now famous tramp photos of E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis arrest in Dallas for the CIA assassination of President John Kennedy.

In 1959 Rodriguez was a top cop in the Cuban government under Batista. When Batista was overthrown and fled to Miami, Rodriguez went with him, along with Frank Sturgis and Rafael Quintero. Officially, Rodriguez didn't join the CIA until 1967, after the CIA invasion of Cuba, in which he participated, and the assassination of JFK.

But records recently uncovered show he actually joined the CIA in 1961 for the invasion of Cuba when he was recruited by George Bush. That is how Rodriguez claims he became a "close personal friend of Bush."

Then "officially" Rodriguez claims he quit the CIA in 1976, just after he was sent to prison for his role in the Watergate burglary. However, according to Rolling Stone reporters Kohn & Monks (11/3/88), Rodriguez still goes to CIA headquarters monthly to receive assignments and have his blue 1987 bulletproof Cadillac serviced. Rodriguez was asked by a Rolling Stone reporter where he was the day JFK was shot, and claims he can't remember.

George Bush claims he never worked for the CIA until he was appointed director by former Warren Commission director and then President Jerry Ford, in 1976. Logic suggests that is highly unlikely. Of course, Bush has a company duty to deny being in the CIA. The CIA is a secret organization. No one ever admits to being a member.

The truth is that Bush has been a top CIA official since before the 1961 invasion of Cuba, working with Felix Rodriguez. Bush may deny his actual role in the CIA in 1959, but there are records in the files of Rodriguez and others involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that expose Bush's role.

The corporations would not put somebody in charge of all the state secrets held by the CIA unless he was experienced and well trained in the CIA. (Source: Project Censored Report, Feb 1989, Dr Carl Jensen, Sonoma State College).

Recently I interviewed former CIA liaison officer L. Fletcher Prouty. He is a consultant for the excellent new movie on how the CIA killed JFK, being made by Oliver Stone. He told me that one of the projects he did for the CIA was in 1961 to deliver US Navy ships from a Navy ship yard to the CIA agents in Guatemala planning the invasion of Cuba. He said he delivered two ships to a CIA agent named George HW Bush, who had the 2 ships painted to look like they were civilian fishing ships. That CIA agent then named the 2 ships after: his wife, and his adopted home, town, and the whole operation after his oil company, Zapata.

He named the ships: the Barbara and the Houston. Any book on the history of the Bay of Pigs will prove the names of those 3 ships. Again, this is more finger prints of George Bush's involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Yet Bush denies his role in this great adventure. Why would Bush be so shy about his role in this war? What is the secret? Is there something dirty about this war that Bush & Nixon don't want the public to know about?

Answer: Yes there is. The same people involved in the Bay of Pigs were the people involved in the Watergate burglary. Most Americans still do not understand this, because the media, even liberals like KPFA, Berkely, continues to cover-up the role of Bush and the CIA in the assassination of JFK. I was in the US Navy at the time, and was part of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. George Bush was my commanding officer. In 2006, the Cuban newspaper, Granma, published this story on the front page on 1-13-06! Why does the US Left cover-up for the CIA? Mainly because they are just products of the CBS, ABC, CNN, NBC brain washing designed to keep US a nation of sheep.

What other evidence do we have that George HW Bush & the CIA killed President John Kennedy?

Were there any American leaders, who suspected the CIA had killed JFK on Nov. 22, 1963? Who was the most famous leader in America, who on 11-23-63, said that, ??the CIA killed JFK...!? And was then too was also assassinated by agents of the CIA, on 2-21-65?

We know that in 1965 the CIA assassinated anyone who dared to point a finger at the CIA, like: Dorothy Kilgallen, assassinated by Bush & the CIA 11-8-65, in NYC, ten months after Malcolm X, in NYC. Jack Rudy, reporter John Beers, ( Dallas, 11-22-65), and hundreds of other Dallas eyewitnesses. Bush launched a blood bath in America after stealing the election of 1964, and few in the press have dared to point that out.

Hey, 2 weeks before the assassination, George HW Bush met with Jack Ruby at his Carousal Club, on Nov. 8, 63, along with Bernard Weisman and slain officer J.D. Tippet, to plan the ambush of JFK. This meeting was reported to Chief Justice Earl Warren, during the investigation. Kilgallen reported these facts in her last column. But, I digress, back to our main topic X.

It took the CIA 451 days to plan, and carry out this careful, specific assassination, of Malcolm X, and anyone else who dared to point a finger at the CIA & Bush, and tell the truth. So the CIA had to be careful to make it look like it was done by a group of Black men, so as to blame it on Blacks, and so cover-up the hand of Bush & the CIA. Much as the assassination of RFK was blamed on a Palestinian. Most white people have a real hard time with this RFK fact, because they have been so carefully brain washed by the TV.

The assassination of X was designed to destroy the ideas and words of X, and if you read any history of Malcolm X today, you will not find any reference to his statements to the press on 11-23-63.

Go read the official site of X, or Wikipedia. Notice there is no mention of X?s ?The CIA chickens have come home to roost, and have killed their own chief rooster.?

Malcolm X basically said, ?Bush and the CIA was out trying to kill Castro, JFK stopped them, so Bush & the CIA turned their guns on JFK.?

So Bush and the CIA has succeed in that respect in silencing the words of X. Except one, the film about Malcolm X by Spike Lee. That is one of the few accurate documentaries about X.

That film is as much about the CIA assassination of JFK, as is Oliver Stone?s film ?JFK?. Watch those 2 videos together and you get a fairly full story. The files on the role of Bush in the JFK assassination are sealed until 2039, as a birthday gift to Bush. By then Bush could be 113, as he was born in 1924.

Why was the Watergate burgalarized? This is the key question we must answer today in 2006. The CIA was trying to plug up a possible news leak. They were trying to stop the Democrats from publishing the photos of Hunt & Sturgis under arrest for the murder of JFK (May 7, 1977, SF Chronicle.) This is an interview of Frank Sturgis, published in the SF newspaper!

Presently, there is a law suit attempting to force the government to release the records about the Bay of Pigs invasion. Why are those documents still secret? Why are they locked in the National Archives along with all the photos from [the] Dallas assassination of JFK until 2039?

Why are the 4000 hours of Watergate tapes in which Nixon is babbling endlessly about the mysterious connections between the Bay of Pigs, Dallas and Watergate, also being sealed in the National Archives? Is it because all three incidents are connected? Worse, the CIA lawyers just got a court to order that the tapes are actually Nixon's property, so can now be hidden in the Nixon Library, so no researchers can listen to the relevant parts. Did you know that is how the Watergate tapes were disappeared?!

Yes. We must demand the secret files on these 4 cases be released now. For a copy of the petition to release the files, please write to: Paul Kangas, private investigator, 15 Boardman, SF, CA 94103. Thanks to Oliver Stone's blockbuster new movie on JFK, and Spike Lees movie on Malcolm X, there is now sufficient national movement to reopen all these cases. The White House feared Stone's new movie, JFK, so much that they hired 50 CIA journalists, like Posner, to slander the movie before it even came out! KPFA & Larry Bensky trot out Posner to attack critics of the CIA, anytime they get too much press. Do not fall for it. Bensky is probably one of the few assets of the CIA who does not even get a check from the CIA. He does it just because he was well brain washed by his college.

Every serious investigator now agrees that Oswald did not shoot JFK. That James Earl Ray did not shoot Dr. Martin Luther King, and that Sirhan Sirhan did not shoot Robert Kennedy. Do you find any of that shocking? These cases must be reopened so that Sirhan can be set free. The only bar that keeps Sirhan in prison is the tremendous anti-arab racism in Americans: in both blacks & whites.

According to a biography of Richard Nixon, his close personal and political ties with the Bush family go back to 1941 when Nixon claims he read an ad in an L.A. newspaper, placed by a wealthy group of businessmen, led by Prescot Bush, the father of George Bush. They wanted a young, malleable candidate to run for Congress. Nixon applied for the position and won the job. Nixon became a mouthpiece for the Bush group. (Source: Freedom Magazine, 1986, L.F. Prouty).

In fact, Prescot Bush is credited with creating the winning ticket of Eisenhower-Nixon in 1952.(Source: George Bush, F. Green, Hipocrene, 1988).

Newly discovered FBI documents prove that Jack Ruby has been an employee of Richard Nixon since 1947. That FBI document Ruby is listed as working as a spy & hit man for Nixon. On Nov. 22, 63 Ruby was seen by a women who knew him well, Julian Ann Mercer, approximately an hour before the arrival of JFK's motorcade, unloading a man carrying a rifle in a case at the Grassy Knoll from his car. Ruby later was seen on national TV killing a witness who could link Nixon & Bush to the killing of JFK: Oswald. On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison, p xiii.

Richard Nixon was Vice President from 1952 until 1960. In fact, Nixon was given credit for planning Operation 40, the secret 1961 invasion of Cuba, during his 1959 campaign for President After Batista was kicked out by the starving people of Cuba, and Fidel Castro came to power, Castro began telling American corporations they would have to pay Cuban employees decent wages. Even worse, Pepsi Cola was told it would now have to pay world market prices for Cuban sugar.

Pepsi, Ford Motor Co., Standard Oil and the Mafia drug dealers decided Fidel had to be removed since his policies of requiring corporations to pay market wages was hurting their profits. So the corporations asked then Vice-President Nixon to remove Fidel. Nixon promised he would, just as soon as he'd won the 1960 elections against some underdog, an unknown Democrat named John Kennedy. It would be an easy victory for Nixon. The polls had Nixon winning by a landslide. Besides, Kennedy was a Catholic, and Americans would no more elect a Catholic President than they would elect a woman, a black or a Jew. This was 1959.

Nixon told Pepsi, Standard Oil and other corporations who lost property given back to the farmers of Cuba, that if they would help him win, he would authorize an invasion to remove Castro. To further impress contributors to his campaign, then Vice-President Nixon asked the CIA to create Operation 40, a secret plan to invade Cuba, just as soon as he won.

The CIA put Texas millionaire and CIA agent George Bush in charge of recruiting Cuban exiles into the CIA's invasion army. Bush was working with another Texas oilman, Jack Crichton, to help him with the invasion. A fellow Texan, Air Force General Charles Cabel, was asked to coordinate the air cover for the invasion.

Most of the CIA leadership around the invasion of Cuba seems to have been people from Texas. A whole Texan branch of the CIA is based in the oil business. If we trace Bush's background in the Texas oil business we discover his two partners in the oil-barge leasing business: Texan Robert Mosbacher and Texan James Baker. Mosbacher is now Secretary of Commerce and Baker is Secretary of State, the same job Dulles held when JFK was killed. (Source: Common Cause magazine, 3-4/90).

 

Full Moon Calendar is used by Investigators to predict crime waves. 

 

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
January	9	28	18	7	25	14	3	22	10	30
February	8	27	16	6	23	12	2	20	9	28
March	9	28	18	6	25	14	3	21	10	29
April	7	26	16	5	24	13	2	20	9	28
May	7	26	15	4	23	13	2/31	19	9	27
June	5	24	14	3	22	11	30	18	7	26
July	5	24	13	2/31	21	10	29	18	7	25
August	4	22	12	29	19	9	28	16	5	24
September	2	21	10	28	17	7	26	15	4	23
October	2	21	10	27	17	6	26	14	4	22
November	1/30	19	8	26	15	5	24	13	2	21
December	30	19	8	26	15	4	23	12	2/31	21

On the Watergate tapes, June 23, 1972, referred to in the media as the "smoking gun" conversation, Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, discussed how to stop the FBI investigation into the CIA Watergate burglary. They were worried that the investigation would expose their conection to "the Bay of Pigs thing." Haldeman, in his book The Ends of Power, reveals that Nixon always used code words when talking about the 1963 murder of JFK. Haldeman said Nixon would always refer to the assassination as "the Bay of Pigs."

On that transcript we find Nixon discussing the role of George Bush's partner, Robert Mosbacher, as one of the Texas fundraisers for Nixon. On the tapes Nixon keeps refering to the "Cubans" and the "Texans." The "Texans" were Bush, Mosbacher and Baker. This is another direct link between Bush and evidence linking Nixon and Bush to the Kennedy assassination.

In the same discussion Nixon links "the Cubans," "the Texans," "Helms," "Hunt," "Bernard Barker," Robert "Mosbacher" and "the Bay of Pigs." Over and over on the Watergate tapes, these names come up around the discussion of the photos from Dallas that Nixon was trying to obtain when he ordered the CIA to burglarize the Watergate. (Source: Three Men and a Barge", Teresa Riordan, Common Cause magazine, March/April 1990, and San Francisco Chronicle, May 7,1977, interview with Frank Sturgis in which he stated that "the reason we burglarized the Watergate was because Nixon was interested in stopping news leaking related to the photos of our role in the assassination of President John Kennedy.")

After Nixon's landslide victory in 1972, he knew he had to centralize all power into the White House to keep his faction in power, not only to hold power, but to prevent the media from digging into how he secretly shot his way into the White House, just like Hitler shot his way into control of Germany. The first thing Nixon did was to demand signed resignations of his entire government. "Eliminate everyone," he told John Ehrlichman about reappointment, "except George Bush. Bush will do anything for our cause." (Source: Pledging Allegiance, Sidney Blumenthal.)

The reason why Bush will 'do anything" is because his hands have as much of Kennedy's blood on them as do Nixon's, Hunt's, Sturgis's, Felix Rodriguez's and Gerald Ford's. This White House gang fears that if the public ever realizes how they shot their way into power in Dallas, it could set off a spark that would destroy their fragile fraud and land them in jail. Or worse.

Other famous Watergate members of the CIA invasion that Bush recruited were Frank Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker and Rafael Quintero. Quintero has said publicly that if he ever told what he knew about Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, "It would be the biggest scandal ever to rock the nation."

Meanwhile, in 1960, Prescot Bush was running Nixon's campaign. Nixon was sent to South Vietnam to assure the French-connection government there that if France pulled out, the U.S. would step in to protect the drug trade from the GoIden Triangle. (Source: Frontline, 1988, "Guns. Drugs and the CIA"; Alexander Cockburn; "Cocaine, the CIA and Air America," S.F. Examiner, Feb. 2, '91; The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Alfred McCoy, 1972.)

In 1959, Vice President Nixon was flying all over the world, acting just like presidential material. It was an easy race for Nixon. Congressman Jerry Ford was doing a great job fundraising for Nixon, as was George Bush. The rich loved Nixon. The media picked up every bone Nixon tossed out to them. The biggest problem was that Nixon was afraid to speak openly of his plan to invade Cuba. The plan was a secret. No sense in alerting Cuba to the coming invasion. But Kennedy was taking a harder line on Cuba than Nixon, because Kennedy was not aware of the corporate/CIA planned invasion.

Nixon lost the 1960 race by the smallest margin in history. At first Bush, Nixon, Cabel and Hunt decided to just go ahead with the invasion, without informing President Kennedy. Then, at the last second, at 1 a.m., just two hours before the invasion was set to go, US Air Force General Cabel called President Kennedy, at 1am, and asked for permission to provide U.S. Air Force air cover for the CIA invasion. Kennedy woke up his whole cabinet and discussed the situation for an hour. When General Cabel called back for the final go ahead, at 3a.m., Kennedy said, "No!" He told them, "You can call it a black bag operation, a private operation, but you can not involve the U.S. government is such a dirt bag operation."

The CIA was furious with JFK, but Bush decided to go ahead with their "private" invasion anyway. Due to poor intelligence, the CIA landed at the worst possible beach. I remember that day well. I was on duty monitoring the invasion from our secret Navy base in Maryland. They landed before dawn, in a huge swamp. At the worst possible hour, during low tide. You would think someone in the CIA would be smart enough to at least check the tide tables. So there was miles of mud before the shore. So the CIA ships could not get in close to the beach. The CIA soldiers were sitting ducks for the women soldiers of Cuba who happen to be defending that beach that morning. Yes, most of the Cuban militia who stopped the CIA that day, were armed women! The invasion failed. The CIA lost 1500 of its best men, killed, with another 1100, captured and now in Cuban prisons. It was the worst single blow to the CIA, in the history of the CIA, that the CIA ever suffered. (Source: E. Howard Hunt, Give Us This Day.)

Bush, Nixon, Sturgis and Hunt blamed Cabel for even asking Kennedy, and blamed Kennedy for saying "No". They were livid with anger. Nixons corporate sponsors, Pepsi, Ford, GE & AT&T, ordered JFK to make any deal necessary to recover the 1100 CIA agents imprisoned in Cuba. JFK did. Once the CIA had its well-trained Cubans back, ( Alpha 66 ) they decided to continue the invasion of Cuba, just as soon as they could get rid of that S.O.B. Kennedy.

The 1964 election was fast approaching. Nixon was running against Kennedy again. Bush, Ford and Nixon knew that they had to get rid of JFK now, or else the Kennedy clan, with Robert and Ted in the wings, could control the White House until 1984. They decided not to wait until '84 to get back into the White House. The Cuban teams of "shooters", supervised by Bush, began following Kennedy from city to city looking for a window of opportunity to shoot from. They came close in Miami, but JFK had the bullet proof bubble on his Limo. They tried in Chicago, but couldn't get the cooperation of Mayor Daley.

But in Dallas, they had an ace. The mayor was the brother of General Cabel, whom the CIA blamed for the failure of the invasion. Pay back time. The general prevailed on his brother, Earl, and the motorcade was changed to pass the grassy knoll at 7 m.p.h. The Sheriff and the Mayor insisted that the bullet proof bubble had to be removed from JFK's Limo, "...so the people of Dallas could get a better look at JFK".

The Secret Service was in on the Bush ambush. I was also part of an armed marching Navy guard unit for Presient John F. Kennedy at the time and our whole unit was ordered to "stand down", so there were no marching armed military guards with JFK when he rode his motorcade in the deadly hostile streets of Dallas. It was a turkey shoot.

I had marched, armed, beside President Kennedy's car several times in Washington, DC, when I was stationed there in 1960-61. That was the first, and last time, in history, when a President rode in a motorcade without the armed marching units of the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines surronding him, as he rode in public, and without his bullet proof bubble.

Hunt and Sturgis shot JFK from the grassy knoll. They were arrested, photographed and seen by 15 witnesses. But the media turned a blind eye to the photos, and for 25 years the world has been searching for the truth. Pepsi Cola was having a board meeting in Dallas that week. Joan Crawford, wife of Mr. Kendel, Pres. of Pepsi, Richard Nixon, and others from Pepsi, Ford, GM & GE were all at the Pepsi Corp. Board meeting in Dallas, from November 17th, until November 23. As was Joan Crawford, wife of the president of Pepsi. The "meeting" was actually the CIA planning meeting for the ambush of JFK. As soon as JFK was dead, they all fled Dallas, in their private planes. Read the Dallas Morning News, which reported all this on Novmember 21, 1963.

On the day JFK was murdered, Nixon, Hunt, Sturgis, Bush and some of the Watergate crew were photographed in Dallas, as were a group of Cubans, one holding an umbrella up, like a signal, next to the President's limo just as Kennedy was shot. The Cubans can be seen holding up the signal umbrella in the Zapruder film and dozens of stills taken during the assassination. After the murder they can be seen calmly walking away.

We have just now reconstructed the Zapruder film, restoring the missing 6 frames, plus added a sound track to the new Zapruder Film, from the audio tape made by the motorcycle police officer who accidentaly recorded the gun fire coming from the grassy knoll. The audio tape is the best time line we have of the number of shots fired by Hunt and Sturgis.

Hey, I can not say they things unless they are true. I could be sued by Bush if what I say is not true. I have said this, in public, over 3,000 times, at most college along the West Coast, since 1975, when I first discovered that Bush was behind the JFK ambush. I have never been sued, because everything you read here is the best evidence I have been able to develop during this investigation.

Nixon denied he was in Dallas that day, but new photos and stories prove he was there. Nixon claimed, to the FBI investigators, who suspected Nixon was behind the ambush, because Nixon had the most to gain from the assassination, that, "he couldn't remember where he was when JFK was killed." (Source: FBI memo, Feb. 23, 1964, published in Coup d'etat in America, Michael Canfield). ( I have 9 copies of this book left, if you want a copy. One of the best books on the subject. Send me $30.)

Bush, too, claims he can't remember where he was. Numerous FBI files, eye witness statements, even Bushs own personal records show he was in Dallas, from Nov. 17, until Nov. 23, 1963! Why does Bush feel he has a need to lie, if he has none of JFKs blood on his hands? Why are Bushs records from the Bay of Pigs still secret? Why are Bushs records from the Watergate period still held secret?

Jack Anderson did a TV special in 1988 proving beyond any shadow of doubt that two of the tramps arrested in Dallas behind the grassy knoll were Hunt and Sturgis.

After the assassination, Citizens groups, like Mark Lane, and even sleepy members of Congress set up committees to investigate the assassination. NY attorney Mark Lane, to his credit, has still continued to investigate, even now in 2006. After the murder, Bush and former Vice President Nixon, to block all this citizens activity, asked President Lyndon Johnson to appoint Nixon's friend, former FBI agent Jerry Ford, to run the Warren Commission.

Nixon also asked LBJ to appoint Nixon's long-time supporter, Judge Earl Warren, to head the Commission. LBJ agreed. Ford interviewed all the witnesses and decided which ones would be heard and which ones eliminated. It is no coincidence that Nixon selected Ford as his Vice President after Spiro Agnew was ousted. When Nixon himself got busted, in the Watergate scandal, Earl Warren offered to set up another special commission if it would help get him out of trouble again. Ford, of course, pardoned Nixon for the assassination of JFK and the Watergate burglary. But, even tho Nixon is dead, Nixons historical records is still not out of the woods. By putting Bush and Nixon on trail now, during the impeachment of Bush jr., we can end this national nightmare that has gone on since 1963.

There are 4000 hours of Watergate tape. On the June 23, 1972, discussions with John Ehrlichman and Haldeman there is clear evidence that Nixon is openly "confessing" to hiring Hunt to kill JFK. That is why the Watergate "investigation" went into secret session after Congress heard some of the tapes. This is why only 12 hours of 4000 hours have been released to the public.

Did Congress realize that Nixon and Bush had openly discussed killing JFK for stopping the air cover for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba?

Remember, Nixon taped virtually every discussion he had with anyone in his inner circle, including Bush and Johnson, in order to blackmail people later. There is a photo of Bush reporting to Nixon in the White House in 1968. It will be interesting to see what they were talking about on that day, when the full 4000 hours are finally released. The key to unlocking the secrets behind the 1963 murder of JFK is hidden in the 3988 hours of unreleased White House tapes. Bush was in Dallas again, on the day Reagan was shot. (Source: George Bush, F. Green, 1988.) That must have given Bush a flashback to November 22,1963.

Is this story credible? On Jan 13, 2006, the full story was published on the front page of the Cuban national newspaper, Granma! Thirty million copies were distributed world wide. You can read the story on their web site. www.granmainternational.com To most people in the world, that says loads about the facts, analysis, logic and credibility of this article. Someone will write a better investigation, hopefully someday. Probably when the Watergate tapes are finally released in 2069. Hey, do not wait. Organize or join the march against the war, in your town, October 2006. If you want to help, email me, paul7kangas@cs.com

Or go www.veteransforpeace.org

or to www.codepink4peace.org for more info.

or www.answercoalition.org

In 2005, this story won the top TV documentary prize on Japanese television. To order the video, send only $29. to Paul Kangas, PI, 15 Boardman, SF, Ca 94103

 

 

 

 

Mel Gibson's appology is great and straight from his heart.   As most private investigators can tell you, the last line a person says, in a confession, is often a huge clue to the truthfulness of the statement.   

 

Mel Gibson got it right when he said he spoke from the pain of a world seemingly gone mad.    Here we have many Jew$ in the world calling for a blood bath in Lebanon.   Murdering innocent babies, just for the money they make from helping the big US oil companie$  try to capture the oil of the mid east.   A foolish course.     The US government was founded on the idea of seperation of church and state.     I$rael, by definition is a church state.   The 51st state of the United States.   

 

Our  US  Constitution forbids US from funding such a raci$t state as I$real.  Now let us see how many of my Jewi$h friends  shun  me for saying this.   My wife is Jewist.   ?What will her family say?   
 

Is it no wonder when people see this  $laughter of babie$, mostly along religiou$  lines,   by $oldiers who claim to be Jew$, that one could become confu$ed about the religion of the Jew$.     ?What is the Jewi$h religion really ba$ed on?   ?It it based on love or money?     We shall see how they respond to this  criticism of their murder of babies for oil.    But the war is just for the oil $$$   money.   

 

It has nothing to do with the legal right of I$rael to exist.   I$rael has no legal right to exist.      It only exists as long as  Big Oil,  Congre$$  and the Pentagon give the  garrison  Israeli government the $$ Billions of US tax dollar$ Congre$$  does,  to fight our war$ for us.    When the money goe$ bad, most Jew$ in the world will move back to New York and pretend I$rael  never existed.  

 

Any Jewish person   who does not condem this war for oil,   is a fascist dog,  a  Nazi.      Yes,  That is sort of counter intuitive.     ?How could a Jew be a Nazi?  Easy.    Most people can be bought,   if the money is right.   

 

Think about the diamond business.    What the Jew$ did in $outh Africa was no mistake.      And that was racist and fa$ci$t.     Well, for one, Henry Kissinger was an actually real  member of the Nazi Party.   And during WWII there were thousands of Jewism members of the Nazi Party.     

 

Please do not pretend to be shocked.   That would only reveal your  lack of knowledge about  who was really behind the Nazi Party.   
 

Because the money was good.    Prescott Bush hired Hitler and paid him well.  

 

    Mel Gibson is not a racist, when compared to the Parliment of Israel.   Now there is a gang of  real racist$,   who are making good money slaughtering innocent Arab babies with machine gun$ and napalm.    Just for the oil companies.  Are you opposed to this war for oil?   If  not, you are probably in the racist camp, even if you are just asleep.    

?Is Mel Gibson a racist?    Yes.   To some degree.    Most  Jews are, to the same degree.    Most  Blacks are, if you look at the way they discriminate against other races.   Black are more likely to rob and kill an Asian in America, than any other group.   Are Black racist?   Look at who they attack, rob and kill.       

 

Mel Gibson went on to state:   There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God's child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.

I'm not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license.

This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. 

It's about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.

 

 

Now for an Investigation into the MLM business opportunity.

 

Is is a  good idea?   Can you learn how to share a good product and make money?  

 

Or is it a scam?

 

Let us look at two articles. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Friend,

It's all just a matter of common sense, really. If you look at the thousands of network marketing companies out there and the millions of people who are signed up in one or more network marketing opportunities, you only see about 5% of the people involved making "real" money.

If network marketing worked as well as so many people advertised there would be a far higher percentage of people making great incomes.

What is the reason that so many people fail?

• Network marketing is honestly too easy to get into. What I mean by that is that a person who spent $20K to start up a pressure washing business is going to put far more time and energy into it than somebody who just bought a $500 kit from an MLM company.
• Usually, network marketing is a case of the blind leading the blind. In every industry there are a few right ways and many wrong ways to build your business. Sadly, there are a ton of amateurs in network marketing who claim to teach you how to be successful, when they are really just crossing their fingers hoping that you are going to figure it out and make them rich.
• MLM products are generally not something you would buy if you were not involved in the opportunity. This makes it hard for you to attract and retain regular customers who will provide you with ongoing income. You constantly have to recruit to make income off of selling startup kits. Within a short time, the majority of your new people will drop out and stop ordering - after all they were only ordering with the expectation that they would be making money. The product itself wasn't good enough to keep them as a customer.
• Due to the lack of proper training mentioned before, you don't know how to attract customers or business partners and when you do talk to someone you say the wrong things. To make matters worse, you alienate your friends and relatives because your upline told you that they are your prime target for potential partners.

So is this where I tell you how I can improve the 5% vs. 95% statistics?

NO

The truth is that there is no way I can improve those numbers. The industry as a whole is just too large and like I said there are too many people in it who just jumped in because it was so easy and who will jump back out just as easily.

What I can do is show you a way to become part of the 5% who do make it!

Let me explain a little bit about who I am and why I am qualified to show you how to really make money in a home business.

I am a presidential director with a large network marketing company. This is the top leadership level with our company. Because of this business, I am able to be a stay at home dad and have increased my income by 500% in five years. I only say this to let you know that (as opposed to many other "experts") I have done what I am teaching people to do.

Due to legal reasons, I can't mention the name of the company I work with here but all you need to know for now is that they are a wellness company and have consumable products that many of my customers buy (directly from the company) because they are getting results with them. In other words, my organization consists of a group of business partners who help me grow the business and then a bunch of customers who just like the products and use them.

Why is this such a big deal? Because my customers are going to continue using the products regardless of whether they get a check or not (some of my customers do). Because of the way we train our business partners, we know that they will not have any problem finding a handful of customers. Hint: They do not talk about a business opportunity with their customers unless they are asked about it.

Pay attention, here comes the good part:

The trick is in finding the business partners without joining the NFL. That's the No Friends Left club, which is what you are in if you try to hit everybody you know up to join your business. I learned a very simple three step process for identifying and enrolling business partners from my friend, Tim.

Tim and his wife, Poni have been full-time network marketers longer than I have and they currently do in excess of $1 million in business every month. I was able to learn the simple process they use because I learned directly from Tim. Hint: If you want to learn how to be successful at anything, learn directly from people who already are!

Even though I had success with the method that Tim taught me - the same method he and his wife Poni used to build up an organization that does millions of dollars in volume - I was frustrated.

Why?

• I wanted to be able to attract more business partners faster,
• I wanted more of my team members to be successful faster, and...
• I wanted my new team members to be able to experience massive success early in their business!

That last point is particularly difficult because I found that it could be difficult for new team members to attract enough business partners early on to get the fast accelerated growth we were looking for. We don't have trouble with new people getting customers, but I prefer that my business partners only get a handful of customers to start with.

While discussing this issue with Tim, he told me that he was really able to leverage his time because he had a personal assistant who took calls for him and did a lot of the "busy" work. I remember thinking:

"That's nice, but there is no way my new partners can afford their own assistant..."

A short while later, an idea hit me over the head like a ton of bricks!

What if my team members COULD afford an assistant?

I realized that many other industries had call centers, which enabled the business owners to handle a much larger volume of calls than they ever could by themselves. This was especially true for direct response advertising like you see on the Home Shopping Network™ and many of the infomercials on TV.

So I contacted Tim and told him that I had an idea that could very well tenfold the amount of growth that his already large organization was experiencing. That idea was of course for the Networker's Assistant call center. Within a few weeks, we founded Networker's Assistant, Inc. and we are now making history!

So what does the Networker's Assistant call center do?

More importantly...

...how will it benefit you?

The fastest way to find out is by calling the toll free number below and talking to one of our friendly assistants!

As a member of Networker's Assistant, Inc., you have an army of personal assistants working for you! Exactly what will they do for you? They will do all the heavy lifting for you and help you build a successful home business far faster than you could ever do by yourself.

By setting up a call center exclusively for our team, we have put a nitrous oxide charger on our business! The best thing is that by doing this we have eliminated the biggest reasons why people fail in network marketing.

Join today and you will be provided with your own personal access code and a toll-free number you can use right away to put a team of assistants to work for you.

You will also receive a website similar to this one and a simple, user-friendly back-office area where you will find proven, cutting-edge training, time-saving tips and sure-fire techniques that you can apply immediately to see the long-term success you previously only dreamed about.

The training, which is sure to set you apart from other home-based business executives, is broken down into three easy-to-understand modules, including:

1. How to effectively and efficiently market online (and off) with any budget.
2. How to acquire customers for the products in our chosen network marketing opportunity. (This does not involve calling your friends and family and bugging them about joining your business.)
3. How to market your own Networker’s Assistant Call Center, toll-free number and code, to take your home-based success to enviable heights.

Did I mention that all of this training is included?

Unlike other so-called "leaders" in the network marketing industry, we are not going to nickel and dime you with motivational tapes and videos that make us a ton of money and teach you nothing of real value. This is another little secret that many of these leaders prefer you didn't hear about.

Additionally, your website's comprehensive back-office area allows you to keep a close-eye on your progress and helps make sure you are on the right track!

It’s surprisingly easy.

When a potential business partner calls in, one of your specially trained assistants will answer the phone and explain the program in detail. He or she will also answer any questions your potential business partner has and direct them to the appropriate validation for our main network marketing opportunity as well as Networker's Assistant, Inc. Your assistant will handle all the follow-up calls and keep a log of each contact made, which you can track in your new website’s back office.

Finally, when the potential partner is ready to enroll (and trust me, they will be), your skilled assistant will enroll them into the Call Center.

The final step: Your assistant will put you in touch with your new partner so you can enroll them in the network marketing program yourself. When you talk to your new partner for the first time, it is to say "welcome to the team!"

In other words... your assistants do the bulk of the hard work for you.

By now, if you’re like me, you’re asking: “What's the catch?”

And, given that you are obviously thinking ahead: "This must cost a fortune!"

I believe that honesty is the best policy and with this in mind, I must admit that I was astounded at the amount of time and money invested in keeping the robust servers up and running, the toll-free lines open, and an army of professional assistants trained and ready to work on your behalf.

However, we have made it affordable for any person who is serious about building a home business to participate in this program.

The truth is that we have a vested interest in your success, so we do have a couple of things you must commit to in order to participate:

• Before you can start sending callers to your call center assistants, you need to have in place two people within your network that are enrolled as customers. You see, these are the two strategic positions that we will then help you build a larger, more effective moneymaking team with the help of your assistants.

We require this simply because we have found it an essential component to maintaining motivation. And, by already having these two in place, you can immediately see the difference your call center assistants can make. Do not let this scare you off because we help you find these two people, showing you the ropes and helping you to build your team every step of the way – even before you utilize the Networker’s Assistant Call Center.

In working to determine the very best way to help ourselves and to help you, we have found time and time again that by starting up with just two enrollees allows you to immediately generate more customers, which helps you qualify for attractive bonuses (more on this later) at an accelerated rate and increases your overall sales volume tremendously.

• You will need to be active with the network marketing company, which means that you have in place approximately a $100 automatic order. Easy enough - trust me!

As you learn more about the reputable, proven company we have aligned with, (this company was chosen after a LOT of research) you will learn for yourself why millions of people worldwide already rely on their products every day. The company we partner with is truly the flagship in its field.

• We do not tolerate spam or deceptive marketing tactics, for our reputation is at stake. And, if we ever receive complaints about you on this matter, you may lose your membership in the call center and in the company. It’s as simple as that.

I want to put your mind at ease about something else: We are not a network marketing opportunity, but rather assist people in building a network marketing business.

We have no affiliation with the network marketing opportunity we promote other than the fact that we have selectively and cautiously hand-picked it as a business vehicle because it met our strict criteria and because it generates the income we want to live the lifestyle of our dreams.

These requirements are not unreasonable and allow us to operate the Networker's Assistant call center for the long-term and with the integrity we absolutely demand.

Of course, we also make similar commitments to you, which include:

• Our assistants will follow up with each potential business partner that calls in until they either decline or enroll
• We will train our assistants to the highest standards, for they represent us and you
• We will show you how to structure your team for maximum growth and profitability, while allowing you to build and expand as you see fit
• We will ALWAYS respond to your questions or concerns promptly and courteously

So what does this cost?

To get started using the call center, there are two options:

1) The Basic option provides you with a comprehensive start-up package with the network marketing company and membership in the Networker's Assistant Call Center. The total for this option is a one-time fee of $799 (plus tax and shipping). The setup fee also covers your first 2 months of service. After that, it is $9.97 per month.

2) The Standard option provides you with a comprehensive business package with the network marketing company and a premium membership in the Networker's Assistant Call Center. The total for the Standard option is a one-time fee of $1599 (plus tax and shipping). You should check with your tax professional, but in many areas this can be written off as a business expense. The Standard setup fee covers your first four months of service.

Note: Among the many benefits to enrolling as a Standard member is that you can buy a block of leads from the lead pool and have your assistants do outbound calls on your behalf. In other words, even if you don't have people calling in, your assistants will be on the phone talking to folks looking for a business. There is obviously a charge for this service, since we have to pay for the leads. Also, you have the option to get your own personal toll free number, so there is no referral code necessary.

Using the Standard service is completely optional, but only people who chose the Standard option can take advantage of these premium options. However, because we are so sure this is where you will want to be, we now allow Basic members the option to upgrade to Standard at any time by getting the business pack upgrade from the network marketing company we work with.

If you really want to find out what kind of job the assistants will do for you, call right now and ask them to show you around!

PS: You are not going to find any other opportunity where your assistants will be doing the majority of the work for you. You owe it to yourself to investigate this further! Call right now!

 

 

 

As an Investigator,  I feel I must give you both sides of the story.

 

Here is a great article, attacking MLMs.  

 

If you have a secure job, like you work for the AMA, which I suspect  this author does,    then the MLM model,  does not look like a good idea.  If, on the other hand, if you are looking for a way to create your own home business, then MLM can look like a good way to join a large company, like AT&T, IBM or GM, all of which now use MLM.   

 It is either this, or selling second hand goods on E-Bay.

Read both sides and you be the Judge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think about this, if some one tells you to not join an MLM business attempt,  yet they will not tell  how to get a job,  then they are not trying to help  you.   I want to show you how to create your own business.     I am not sure what will work.     I am not sure how to do this, but I  do believe you can start your own business, and succeed,  if you start learning somewhere.  I started my own business in 1974, and have been my own boss since.   I make $70 K a year working for myself.   You can too.   Start somewhere.   Learn by trying, failing and trying again.   Listen to that song, by Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way."   Warning, most of my friends got jobs working for the government.  They are all better off than I am.   Do not go for the glamour, big money or excitement.   Just get a job working for the government.   You will be better off in the long run.  Take it from experience.   But, if you want to take a flyer, then by all means, do join an MLM company, that sells a product you use every day and actually helps you stay healthy.     Just remember, real MLM people have day jobs.   You need a firm base.   MLM is slow, tough work.  It takes years to learn how to do it right.  It takes at least 5 years experience  to make $50K a year.   Work with a product you really think will help you be healthier.   Don't go into MLM for the money.   Go in it to help  people.   What is wrong with MLM?

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing?

---

a.k.a. "Networking" Companies

 

Bad Image or Bad Reality?

"Let me tell you about an incredible ground-level business opportunity," and you are invited to a house or to lunch for "a discussion." Funny enough, you feel sick in your gut that there is some hidden agenda or deception. "Probably a multi-level marketing (MLM) organization," you think. Suppose it is? Should you trust your instincts? Is there anything wrong with MLM?

This article will analyze four problem areas with MLM. Specifically, it will focus on problems of I) Market Saturation, II) Pyramid Structure, III) Morality and Ethics, and IV) Relationship Issues associated with MLMs. Thus, you can properly assess your "instincts."

---

I. Market Saturation: An Inherent Problem

Back to the Basics

A tutorial on market saturation hardly seems necessary in most business discussions, but with MLM, unfortunately, it is. Common sense seems to get suspended when considering if MLMs are viable, even theoretically, as a profitable means of distribution for all parties involved. This suspension is created by a heightened expectation of "easy money," but more on that later.

 

New, Innovative?

MLM can no longer claim to be new and, thus, exempt from the normal rules of the market and the way goods and services are sold. They have been tried and, for the most part, have failed. Some have been miserable failures in spite of offering excellent products.

Marketing innovations are not rare in the modern world, as evidenced by the success of Wal-Mart, which found a more efficient and profitable way to distribute goods and services than the status quo, providing lasting value to stockholders, employees, distributors, and consumers. But this is not the case with any MLM to date, and after 25 years of failed attempts, it is time to point out the reasons why.

 

Don't Some People Make Money in MLM?

First, we will analyze the "driving mechanism" of MLMs. We will detail how they are intrinsically unstable, guaranteed by design to oversaturate the market with no one noticing. We will look at why MLMs can never equalize into profitability the way companies in the real world can, so that the result will be that the organization as a whole cannot, even in theory, be profitable. When this inevitable destiny occurs, the only money to be made is not from the product or service but from the losses of people lower down in the organization.

Thus the MLM organization becomes exploitative, and many high-level MLM promoters have been shut down, the "executives" incarcerated, for selling the fraud of impossible success to others. Other, larger MLMs have survived by hiring large batteries of attorneys to ward off federal prosecutors, even bragging about the funds they have in reserve for this purpose.

The unfortunate "distributor" at the bottom is the loser, and once this becomes apparent beyond all the slick videotapes and motivational pep-talks, good people start to get a bad taste in their mouths about the whole situation.

So, yes, money can be made with MLM. The question is whether the money being made is legitimate or "made" via a sophisticated con scheme. And if MLM is "doomed by design" to fail, then the answer is, unfortunately, the latter.

But how exactly does this happen, and must it always?

 

Doomed by Design?

The first question is this: Is any company choosing this marketing strategy destined to fail, to degenerate into an exploitative venture, regardless of how good the product is?

To see this clearly we must go through an, otherwise, obvious and elementary discussion of how any business must be careful not to overhire, overextend, or oversupply a market.

 

The Real World

Any business must carefully consider supply and demand. For example, if the ReVo Corporation thinks that it will have a full-fledged fad on their ovoid sunglasses next summer, perhaps they should plan to build and distribute, say, 10M units. This involves gearing up factories, setting up distribution and dealer networks, and carefully managing the inventories at each level so that ReVo will still have credibility with their distributors, retail outlets, and the public the following year.

If it turns out that there is a "run" on ReVo products, and they sell out in mid-June, then they have miscalculated demand and will miss out on profits they could have made. The more serious problem, however, is overestimating the saturation point for the product. If they make 10M units, and sell only 2M units, this may be the end of ReVo as a company.

The all-too-obvious point here is that management of supply and demand, and keen insight into realistic market penetration and saturation are crucial to any business, for any product or service. Mismanagement of this aspect of a business will eclipse good market access, excellent product design, human resource assets, production quality, and so on. Simply stated, a failure to "hit the target" of supply and demand can ruin a company if the market is oversaturated.

 

Market Dynamics and the End of the Cold War

Interestingly, the issue of supply and demand is what brought the USSR to its knees. By design, the Soviet government tried to macro-manage supply, where bureaucrats would decide how many potatoes were needed, how much toilet paper, etc. Assuming these bureaucrats did the best they could, unfortunately their efforts to deliberately manipulate the control "knob" of supply and demand was not good enough. Notwithstanding their good intentions, they were usually wrong, which created huge shortages and surpluses, and led to a massive economic collapse.

Seeing the disastrous end of market naiveté in Russia should help clarify the fundamental problem with the MLM approach. In the real world, the profit of a company is directly related to the skill and prescience of the "hand" on the "supply knob," so to speak. In the USSR, that "hand" could not react fast or accurately enough to market realities through the best efforts of the bureaucrats.

With MLMs, the situation is much worse. Nobody is home. Even the Soviets had someone thinking about how much was enough! If the bureaucrat in Russia was having a hard time trying to play Adam Smith's "invisible hand" in setting the supply level in the Soviet Union, then an MLM "executive" is in a truly unfortunate position. Not only is there no one assigned to make the decision of how much is enough, the MLM is set up by design to blindly go past the saturation point and keep on going. It will grow till it collapses under its own weight, without even a bureaucrat noticing.

MLM is like a train with no brakes and no engineer headed full-throttle towards a terminal.

 

"Everyone Will Want to Buy This Product!"

All products and services have partial market penetration. For example, only so many people wish to use a discount broker, as evidenced by the very successful but only partial market penetration of Charles Schwab. Not everyone wishes to join a particular discount club, or buy gold, or drink filtered water, or wear a particular style of shoe, or use any product or service. No one in the real world of business would seriously consider the thin arguments of the MLMers when they flippantly mention the infinite market need for their product or services.

 

The Demand Problem: Of Widgets and MLMs

Imagine a neat new product called a Widget that will sell for $100 (a fixed price, to keep it simple). Now, while everyone could use a Widget, not everyone will. Some will be afraid of anything new. Some will be loyal to existing brands. Some will want to buy an inferior product for less money. Some will want a more expensive product for prestige, regardless of quality. The reasons go on and on, and the fact is that only "X" Widgets will sell at $100.

The question for would-be marketeers is... what is "X," and how can it be predicted to maximize profits? The fact that "X" is hard to pin down does not mean that it does not exist, and every Widget built beyond "X" will end up producing a problem for the organization. The market only wants "X" Widgets at $100. What are you going to do with your extra inventory of Widgets beyond "X" that no one wants, and the sales people you hired to sell them?

No one can perfectly predict "X," and the situation is not nearly as simple as considered here, but the objective for marketeers is to forecast "X" as closely as possible in order to provide lasting value to all parties involved: to avoid missed opportunities as well as waste, loss, or failure.

 

The MLM Forecasting Approach: Ignoring the Target

Who has an eye on "X," the point of market saturation at a given price, in an MLM? Well, the funny thing, or perhaps the tragic thing, is that "X" will be reached and exceeded without anyone noticing or caring.

Let's just suppose that "X" has been reached today in a particular MLM; the number of possible units sold at this price has just been exceeded, and you happen to be a starry-eyed prospect sitting in an MLM meeting listening to the pitch. Now consider: Does anyone in this company know about "X"? Does anyone care? Is the issue being suppressed on purpose for some other motive? Since we are supposing that the market saturation number "X" has been reached, everyone joining the MLM from now on is buying into a false hope. But that is not what the speaker will be saying. He will be telling you, "Now is the time to join. Get in on the 'ground floor'." But it is all a lie, even though the speaker may not know it. The total available market "X" has been reached and nobody noticed. All the distributors will lose from here on out. Could this be you? How could you possibly know at what point you will become the liar in an MLM?

 

Pop or Drop

Perhaps a better paradigm than the runaway train analogy offered earlier of how MLMs perform over time is this: a helium balloon let loose in an empty room with a spiked ceiling, where product quality is analogous to the amount of helium. The better the product, the faster the balloon will rise, accelerating unhindered, towards disaster. The other option would be the case of a lousy product, in which case the balloon will sink of its own accord, never getting off the ground. To be sure, equilibrium is not in the cards, except perhaps as an accident, and then only temporarily. MLMs are intrinsically unstable. For any company that chooses an MLM approach, it's pop or drop.

 

MLMs vs. the Real World

The basic question that needs to be asked is this: If this product or service is so great, then why isn't it being sold through the customary marketing system that has served human society for thousands of years? Why does it need to resort to a "special marketing" scheme like an MLM? Why does everyone need to be so inexperienced at marketing this! Is the product just a thin cover for what is really a pyramid scheme of exploiting others? But more on that later.

 

From Contracted, Protected Distribution... to Mayhem

Imagine that Wendy's became suddenly possessed by the idea that "everyone needs to eat," and opened four Wendy's franchises on the four corners of an intersection in your neighborhood. Who would benefit from this folly? The consumer? Certainly not the franchises; they would all lose. Wendy's corporate? Perhaps temporarily, by speculative inventory sales while the unfortunate franchises were under the delusion that they could all make money. But in the end, the negative image of four outlets dying a slow death would likely offset the temporary inventory sales bubble. Even the most unreflective of the hapless franchisees would think twice about doing business in such a manner again. This is why real-world distributorships and franchises are contractually protected by territory and/or market.

Again, the simple fact is that even the most successful products will have partial market penetration. The same is true for services. Demand and "market share" are finite, and to overestimate either is catastrophic.

So why are MLM promoters obscuring this? Who is in control of the supply "knob," carefully and skillfully managing the size of the distribution channels, number of salespeople, inventory, etc., to insure the success of all involved in the business? The truth is chilling: nobody.

Imagine trying to write a computer model of how MLMs work, and you will see this point most vividly. An MLM could never work, even in theory. Think about it.

 

The People Machine

Chernobyl had a control system that failed. MLMs have no control mechanisms at all.

Where is the "switch" that can be flipped in an MLM when enough sales people are hired? In a normal company a manager says, "We have enough, let's stop hiring people at this point." But in an MLM, there is no way to do this. An MLM is a human "churning" machine with no "off button." Out of control by design, its gears will grind up the money, time, credibility, and entrepreneurial energy of well-meaning people who joined merely to supplement their income. Better to just steer clear of this monster to begin with.

There is simply no way to avoid the built-in failure mechanism of MLMs. If a company chooses to market this way, it will eventually "hire" (with no base pay and charging to join) far too many people.

Thus, the only "control system" will be the inevitable losses and subsequent bad image the MLM company will gain after it does what it was designed to do: fail. And sooner or later we have got to stop blaming this particular MLM company or that, and admit that the MLM technique itself is fundamentally flawed.

 

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II. Pyramid Structure: An Organizational Problem

The Un-Pyramid

For most MLMs, the product is really a mere diversion from the real profit-making dynamic. To anyone familiar with MLMs, the previous discussion (which focused so much on the fact that MLMs are "doomed by design" to reach market saturation and thus put the people who are legitimately trying to sell the product into a difficult situation) may seem to miss the point. The product or service may well be good, and it might oversaturate at some point, but let's get serious. The product is not the incentive to join an MLM. Otherwise people might have shown an interest in selling this particular product or service before in the real world. The product is the excuse to attempt to legitimate the real money-making engine. It's "the cover."

Intuitively, we all know what is really going on with MLMs. Just don't use the word "pyramid"!

"You see, if you can convince ten people that everyone needs this product or service, even though they aren't buying similar products available in the market, and they can convince ten people, and so on, that's how you make the real money. And as long as you sell to a few people along the way, it is all legal." Maybe...

But the way to make money in all this is clearly not by only selling product, otherwise you might have shown an interest in it before, through conventional market opportunities. No, the "hook" is selling others on selling others on "the dream."

 

Math and Common Sense

MLMs work by geometric expansion, where you get ten to sponsor ten to sponsor ten, and so on. This is usually shown as an expanding matrix (just don't say "pyramid"!) with corresponding kick-backs at various levels.

The problem here is one of common sense. At a mere three levels deep this would be 1,000 people. There goes the neighborhood! At six levels deep, that would be 1,000,000 people believing they can make money selling. But to whom? There goes the city! And the MLM is just getting its steam going. Think of all the meetings! Think of all the "dreams" being sold! Think of the false hopes being generated. Think of the money being lost.

 

It Will Fail??? It Cannot Fail???

Nothing irritates a die-hard MLMer more than the preceding argument. If you point out the absurdity, for example, that if "the pitch" at an Amway meeting were even moderately accurate, in something like 18 months Amway would be larger than the GNP of the entire United States, then listen closely for a major gear-shift: "Well, that is absurd, of course. Not everyone will succeed, and so the market will never saturate."

Well, which is it? Are we recruiting "winners" to build a real business, or planning by design to profit off of "losers" who buy into our "confidence"?

During "the pitch," anyone can make it work. "It's the opportunity of a lifetime." "Just look at the math!" But mention the inevitable saturation and the losses this is going to cause for everyone, and then you'll hear, "Of course it would never really work like that." "Most will fail," you will be told, "but not you, Mr. Recruit. You are a winner. I can just see it in your eyes."

If you are a starry-eyed recruit, it will grow as presented. If you are a logical skeptic, then of course it would never really work like that.

But the dialog usually never even gets to this. The fact that MLM is in a mad dash to oversupply is largely chided as mere "stinkin' thinkin'." Expert MLMers know how to quickly deflect this issue with parable, joke, personal testimony, or some other sleight of mind.

 

New Solution: A Retarded MLM

Some modern incarnations of MLMs attempt to address this particular problem by limiting the number of people you can sponsor, say, to four. But the same geometric expansion problems exist; the failure mechanism has just been slowed down a bit. And now there is the added problem of even more unnecessary layers in the organization.

The claim that an MLM is merely a "common man" implementation of a normal real-world distribution channel becomes even more absurd in this case. Imagine buying a product or service in the real world and having to pay overrides and royalties to five or ten unneeded and uninvolved "distributor" layers. Would this be efficient? What value do these layers of "distributors" provide to the consumer? Is this rational? Would such a company exist long in a competitive environment?

 

Confidence Men and the Shadow Pyramid

The age-old technique of "con men" is to create "confidence" in some otherwise dumb idea by diversion of thought, bait, or force of personality. The victim gets confidence in a bogus plan, and, in exchange, the con man gets your money. MLMers are very high on confidence.

Since the brain inevitably intrudes itself into the delusion that an MLM could ever work, spirits drop and attitudes go sour. But this depressive state can itself be exploited. As doubts grow when the MLM does not do what recruits were first "con"fidenced to expect, then a further profit can be made keeping the confidence going against all common sense.

Thus, a parallel or "shadow" pyramid of motivational tapes, seminars, and videos emerges. These are a "must for success," and recruits are strong-armed into attending, buying, buying, and buying all the more. This motivational "shadow pyramid" further exploits the flagging recruits as they spiral inexorably into oversaturation and failure. The more they fail, the more "help" they need from those who are "successful" above them.

So, MLMs profit by conning recruits up-front with a "distributorship fee," and then make further illicit money by "confidencing" these hapless victims as they fail via the "sale" of collateral material.

 

Special MLM "Job" Offer: A Losing Proposition

Would a rational person, abreast of the facts, go to work selling any product or service if he or she knew that there was an open agenda to overhire sales reps for the same products in the prospective territory?

What do you think? Is this a good "opportunity" or a recipe for collective disaster?

So, as the saying goes, "Get in early!" This is a rationalization on the level of "getting in early" on the L.A. looting riots. If profit from the sale of products is fundamentally set up to fail, then the only money to be had is to "loot" others by conning them while you have the chance. Don't miss the "opportunity," indeed!

Where is the money coming from for those at the top? From the sucker at the bottom... as in every pyramid scheme. The product could be, and lately has been, anything.

The important thing is to exploit people while the exploiting is good, if you want to make quick money at MLM.

 

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III. Morality and Ethics: A Problem of Greed

Moral Riddle: What is Ever Present but Universally Condemned?

While issues of morality and ethics can be tricky to discuss, materialism and greed are universally condemned by every major religion, and even by most of the irreligious. This does not mean people are not materialistic or greedy; in fact, the common ethical call to not be so is strong evidence that we are.

For most people, this means if we are going to be materialistic or greedy, we would rather not be obvious about it. Thus, Madison Avenue has subtle, highly polished ways of appealing to these vices without being heavy handed. We don't mind so much... as long as it is "veiled." This hypocrisy, while sad, is the status quo. So, Madison Avenue is trying to be ever more subtle in appearing not to be manipulating our immoral "bent" towards greed and materialism.

 

A Blatant Appeal to Materialism and Greed

Not so with the MLM crowd. Pick up any brochure or videotape for an MLM and you are more than likely to see a cheesy, obvious, and blatant appeal to greed and materialism. This is offensive to everyone, even die-hard materialists. Typical is an appeal to "the American dream." Usually there will be a mood shot of a large new home, a luxury car, a boat, perhaps a beautiful couple boarding a Lear jet, and so on.

While this need not necessarily be part of the MLM approach, it usually is.

Such a transparent appeal should make people suspicious. "Why the bait?" "Are they trying to 'get my juices going' so that my brain turns off?" "Couldn't they show people doing more wholesome things with the money they make?" "If this is really a legitimate opportunity, why not focus on the market, product, or service instead of people reveling in lavish materialism?"

But we have reason enough to know, having read this far, why the distraction is needed. Unbridled greed suspends good judgment. When the eyes gloss over in a materialistic glaze, common sense is a stranger.

Besides being cheesy and offensive to our sensibilities, this is not a big deal for participants, right? But consider that all companies must have control over the way they are presented to the public. Thus, an MLM has the right and obligation to dictate what material is used. Otherwise any agent could say whatever he or she liked about the nature of the company, causing obvious problems. Again, it would take too much time to audit and approve each individual's idea for a presentation where the goal is mass marketing. Using "boilerplate" presentations affords the added benefit of consistency. This is basic "information quality control."

The net effect is that the MLM rep is "stuck" with the company-approved video, brochure, and presentation outline.

 

"Not Me, I Would Never Stoop That Low!"

In 1991, some distributors in the MLM FUND AMERICA began to produce their own, improved recruitment material. They were summarily fired, which did not please them since many of them were founding members who had "gotten in early."

Later the same year, by the way, the founder of FUND AMERICA was arrested for having generated some 90% of revenues selling "distributorships" versus product... making it clear that this particular MLM was little more than a pyramid scheme.

 

Job Opening: Salesperson of Sin!

Do you want to be involved in the blatant promotion of values contrary to your belief system?

In most MLMs you will have no choice. You are going to have to sit through meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. You are going to be "motivated" to coerce your friends and family to hear "the pitch." This is the way the "dream" is planted and fertilized. Get used to it.

If you are a materialist, you only have to get over the cheekiness of the presentation. But if you do not wish to promote such ideas, if you consider them sinful, then this puts you at the focal point of a moral dilemma. Do you wish to be a salesperson for materialism?

 

Lack of Information Quality Control: An MLM Incentive?

On the flip-side of the issue of being stuck with the recruitment "pitch" is the fact that the MLM organization is otherwise loose, to say the least. This is part of the appeal to many, to "be your own boss."

But in practice this leads to loony product claims, many of which are deceptive and some of which can be positively dangerous.

Hyperbole is a given in an MLM. When inexperienced salespeople are turned loose to sell on full commission without supervision or accountability, what else could happen?

Since MLM organizations are notoriously flash-in-the-pan, one has to wonder why any new company would choose this flawed marketing technique. Perhaps one of the things to consider is that the MLM organization can effectively skirt the Federal Trade Commission by using word-of-mouth testimonials, supposed "studies" done by scientists, fabricated endorsements, rumors and other misrepresentations that would never be allowed to see the light of day in the real world of product promotion, shady as it is.

Thus, MLM has evolved into a "niche": it can be used to sell products that could not be sold any other way. An MLM is a way to get undue credibility by exploiting people's personal friendships and relationships via "networking." This is an intrinsic moral difficulty with MLMs that will be expanded in the last section.

 

MLM Sales Technique: Rumors, Slander, Defamation

Hyperbole is not limited merely to product claims, however. When MLMers turn to their competitors it can get ugly indeed. Some of the most outlandish rumors of modern history can be traced to MLMs. In recent years, for example, the international rumor that the president of a major real-world corporation was a Satanist, and that the logo of his company contained occult symbols, turned out to have a commercial motive and was traced to specific Amway distributors. These were successfully sued in 1991, but the rumor persists. And how much else of the MLM negative "sales pitch" is fabrication or outright lie? Not all the negative selling claims are as scandalous or widespread as the previous example, but the MLM culture produces so much of this stuff it would be hard to prosecute it all.

Again, what else could be expected from inexperienced salespeople thrown into an oversaturated sales market on full commission and no accountability?

Negative selling is not unique to MLMs, but MLMs have a legacy of fostering a culture of credulity, of bizarre "gossip-as-fact." After all, this is a friend telling me this!

Telling lies about people or groups is slander. Systemic and malicious slander is illegal in most civilized countries. Slander is a sin listed next to murder and adultery in Biblical texts. But how will you know when you become the slanderer by repeating what you heard in an MLM meeting?

 

Great Men?

Another morally questionable practice that is not intrinsic to MLMs, but seems axiomatic, is the pent-up idolatry of the leaders.

In FUND AMERICA, the "approved materials" showed what a great man the founder was, depicted the depth of his management experience, showed him in mood shots, etc. It is easy to swoon in admiration of such a powerful, visionary man, dedicated to bringing this wonderful opportunity to common Americans like us.

It turned out he was a criminal fugitive from Australia, where he had been run out of town for doing the same.

But you would never guess it from the company material. A great man.

There are more than a few MLM "executives" like this who will pop up tomorrow in the MLM du jour. MLM exploitation can be very profitable and the jail sentences light. Let the MLM "dream" buyer beware.

I have been taken to task for making this point too strongly--and do not wish to imply that all MLM leaders have criminal records--but it does pay to do some research here. Are the idols you are being asked to worship in MLM worthy of respect, or contempt? Have they been prosecuted or sued for exploiting people in the past? Have they done prison time?

Do not expect to hear the full truth in the MLM video.

 

Pride and the Secret Closet: Vanity and the Way MLMs Grow

"Mr. Prospect, now you aren't required to buy more than three product units, but why bother joining unless you plan to succeed? Besides, all of our products are 100% money back guaranteed."

"Hmmm... To ask for a refund, then, is to admit defeat. Others appear to be doing O.K. at this. I'm no failure! Perhaps I should go to another motivational seminar or strong-arm and alienate one more friend to join. I wasn't fooled! I'm no failure!"

So, the "inventory" and "recruitment kits," never viable, collect dust. They become a pile in the back closet or attic, a trophy to pride being unable to admit that greed seized the moment.

 

Back to the Pyramids: Innovative Marketing or Organized Crime?

It is generally agreed that to mislead people in order to get their money is morally reprehensible. It is labeled "theft" or "fraud," and those who do it should be punished. No one is naive enough to suggest that you can't make money at it. Crime can pay, at least temporarily.

Pyramid schemes are illegal. They are illegal because they are exploitative and dishonest. They exploit the most vulnerable of people: the desperate, the out-of-work, the ignorant. Those who start and practice such fraud, should, and increasingly are, being punished for their crimes.

But add a product for cover, and call it an MLM, and people are willing to swallow its legality. Is this true? Really? Who says so?

 

The Feds versus the MLM Gang: The Other Side of the Story

It is a fact that a few large MLMs have survived against the best efforts of law enforcement officials to shut them down, spending millions of dollars to protect, lobby, and insulate themselves. But the same could be said for any organized crime. It is difficult to stop once it becomes so large.

And MLMs look so legitimate to the public, so decent. So many nice people are involved. Surely, it can't be illegal! The people lower down may even defend the very organization that is robbing them, hoping that they might get their chance to make "the big money" later.

But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Unless it is an MLM, and then it is NOT a pyramid.

The Feds generally see it differently... when the ML (multi-level) aspect begins to eclipse the M (marketing) of products or services.

People can make money in an MLM, undeniably. The moral issue is: Where is the money coming from? Selling product? Then why not sell the same product in the "real world"?

But everyone knows that the real incentive is the pyramid aspect, and the product just the excuse to make it legal, or at least the MLM promoter would like you to believe it is legal.

 

The Mob and the MLM: A Stretched Analogy?

Talk to a mobster, and he will tell you that he is "merely misunderstood in his benevolent intentions." "We are just trying to 'build our business.'" "It's all a conspiracy to make us look bad." "The Feds are out to get us because they are jealous or afraid of our new way of life." "Why, look at all the good we do!" "We are looking more legitimate every day." "Here's a statement from a famous DA that the Mob is really a good organization and no harm ever comes from it." "We've even got a minister to endorse us now!"

 

Propaganda and MLM Expansion

The MLMers of the new millennium are starting to sound a lot like the gangsters of yesteryear. In an era where management science and the law generally condemn MLM, they've "got their own experts," from academia or law, who are "on the payroll." Confidence, remember, is key.

Regardless of all the vehement denials, MLMs are all to some extent pyramid schemes, and pyramid schemes are illegal. Sure, some are "getting away with it," but so did the Mafia for decades. It is hard to stop a juggernaut, especially one that has taken such pains to look legitimate and misunderstood, that is highly organized, and that has so much money from its victims to propagandize, lobby, and defend itself. And so the exploitation goes on.

If these guys show up in your neighborhood, you are either "in" or "out," family or target, friend or foe. Suspicion rules the day; everyone has an "angle"; greed supplants innocence. The "neighborhood" is turned into a marketplace, and may never recover from the blow.

The ethical questions remain: Are MLMs a morally acceptable way to make money? Are they--and will they continue to be--legitimate?

 

MLM Proselytizing: Beneath Begging?

If money is needed that badly, why not simply ask friends and family for help rather than taking money from them under false pretenses--and also selling them a bill of goods? By "sponsoring" them, you have not only conned them and profited at their expense, you have made them feel like losers, since they are not able to make a success of the hopeless MLM concept.

Once seen, only the morally blind, or consciously criminal, could continue in such a "business."

But wait, perhaps you could recruit... your mother!

 

Moral Inventory

By way of review, the prospective MLM initiate has to face and resolve these ethical issues:

 

1. Do I want to be involved in encouraging people to be more materialistic?

    

2. Do I want to sell a product that perhaps couldn't be sold any other way?

    

3. Do I want to be a part of an enterprise famous for slander, libel, and rumor?

    

4. Do I want to be a part of a company that may employ criminals as marketing experts?

    

5. Do I want to make money off my ability to convince people that an unworkable marketing system is viable?

    

6. Do I want to be known among my friends and family as a person who tried to con people with a thinly veiled pyramid scheme?

    

If you can answer these questions "yes," training is available... But remember that God is watching, even if you never get "successful" enough for the Feds to notice you.

 

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IV. Relationship Issues: An Experiential Problem

Learning the Hard Way

MLMs grow by exploiting people's relationships. If you are going to be in an MLM, you swallow hard and accept this as part of "building your business." This is "networking." But to those not "in" the MLM, it seems as if friendship is merely a pretext for phoniness, friendliness is suspected as prospecting, and so on. There is no middle ground here, try as you might.

While this is the most difficult point to make, it is perhaps the most important. Anyone who has any experience with an MLM has strong feelings, either for or against, and this is the problem. Polarization runs deep.

 

High-pressure Selling -- Reserved for Pyramids Only

When it comes to selling product, MLM sales reps are probably no more aggressive or obnoxious than ordinary salespeople. Since most are not salespeople by nature, and it is characteristic that MLMs attract few people with any experience selling this particular product or service, they usually sell through pre-fab "parties" or home "demos." Thus, sales pressure is exerted by situation, if at all.

It should be noted that when selling product, the only distinction from a real-world business is the possibility for deception due to the "looseness" of the MLM and the incentive to exaggerate claims without any accountability. Other than this, selling product in an MLM is fairly similar to selling any product in the real world.

But when it comes to getting you "signed up" as a "distributor," the MLMers get pushy and deceptive beyond the boundaries of polite social norms.

Remember, an MLM is defined by its rewarding people to recruit others in multiple levels.

 

"Mother, Let Me Tell You About a Fantastic Opportunity..."

Even ex-accountants are willing to practice the crudest of high-pressure selling tactics, at least when it comes to "signing people up." The end justifies the means, when it comes to getting people to come to the "meetings," where the objective is to get a materialism frenzy going at high pitch through a slick speaker or video. The reasons for this "confidence building" should be obvious by now, but here we are considering the relationship cost associated with the "success" of the MLM.

The above title is meant to be absurd. Most people, no matter how jaded, would not foist such a con on their own mothers. Even if people don't know the specifics of what is wrong with MLMs, intuition often warns us: "Don't tamper with that relationship." The first marks for recruitment are the gullible, or the "expendable" friends. But successive moral compromise, experience, and desperation... may yet lead to "good old Mom."

 

Never Admit You Are Wrong

Many have left high-paying jobs to "pursue their dreams" in an MLM. Having been conned so dramatically, they do not easily admit defeat. It seems easier to cling to the bad dream in an increasing cycle of desperation to make the MLM work against all odds. "Losers" at the bottom congregate into support groups, perhaps spinning-off another MLM where they can be "boss."

There is an undeniable camaraderie among MLMers. But for everyone else, "there goes the neighborhood." It is saddening to see people being encouraged against all instinct and common sense to chase after an illusory "pot of gold," but what can be done?

 

Counting the Cost: The First Church of MLM

Many readers will share the experience of observing MLMs divide families, friends, churches, and civic groups. Lifelong friends are now "prospects." The neighborhood is now "a market." Motives change, suspicions rise, divisions form. The question is begged: "Is it worth it?"

Especially nasty is the church situation. Will the pastor join? If not, he will take a dim view of MLM proselytizing at church functions; animosity will rise, factions will form. You are either "in" or out. If the pastor joins, then those who are not "in" will feel a little uncomfortable in this church.

A church (or any community group) can be easily torpedoed by an MLM.

 

Trust Your Instincts?

For most people, thankfully, the MLM experience usually ends in very quick financial failure and is then sidelined. Two possible responses are: 1) being embarrassed about participation, or 2) becoming even more intractable when the MLM has failed. You will find the latter chasing after the latest "get rich quick" scheme with similar results. "If we could have just sponsored so and so--they have so many friends--we would have made it."

Thus, there is reason for the "bad taste" most people have for MLMs. By instinct if not experience or insight, we wince at the thought of what we know will follow in the wake of an MLM. Relationships strained, factions formed, deception, manipulation, greed, loss, a closet full of videotapes, brochures, and useless inventory that "everybody wants."

 

Disease Alert: Beware of MLM Blindness

Apparently, it is difficult for gung-ho MLMers to see how they look from the outside. They can watch lifelong friendships unravel, churches and civic groups poisoned, the avoidance of friends and family, etc., and never see that MLM was the cause.

If you try to point this pathology out, you are treated as if you have attacked the very gospel! Perhaps for some, the MLM approach is a new gospel?

They will claim to have made "new friends," most of which are MLMers or new acquaintances who could be considered "future prospects." The shallowness of these "new friends," the stilted conversations among the "old friends," and the embarrassment, in general, for what seems clear to everyone but the MLMer go unnoticed. Callousness sets in; standards are lowered.

Of course, it could be pointed out that this might have happened anyway. Perhaps the die-hard MLMers would have ruined their friendships anyway in some other non-MLM business failure. Is the MLM really the cause, or just the vehicle?

Business failure of any type is traumatic on the relationships involved, but in most small businesses there is at least the chance of success. And this is never the case in an MLM, unless "success" can be defined as profiting off of the failures of others.

Non-MLM real-world businesses that offer products of interest to friends, family, etc., such as insurance agents and small retail shop owners, seem to be more circumspect in dealing with personal relationships in all but a few rare (and grievous) cases. But the MLMer is recognizable by duplicity of friendship overtures, overbearing glad-handing, full-time prospecting, outrageous initial deception, and social callousness. This is no accident, but rather sheer desperation. How could it be otherwise? For the active MLMer is in a hopeless bear trap: with hubris as one steel jaw and oversaturation the other.

And so the MLM relationship "bull" tramples through the relationship "china closet," blindly ruining fragile and valuable things. Some never pull out of this, figuring the coldness they experience in their emotional lives is due to some other cause than their MLM participation.

 

The Aftermath

One can't help but wish that the "neighborhood" could be like it once was. But an MLM storm has blown through, ruining valuable relationships with no regret or conscience. And brace yourself, another one is coming. Perhaps it is in that smiling face approaching you, or in that nice letter you just received from a "friend"?

What goes unnoticed to the MLMer is that when the neighborhood is turned into a marketplace, something precious is lost... which is not easily regained.

This aspect of the MLM experience should not be underestimated, and the reflective reader would do well to think twice about the value of friends, family, community, and church fellowship before joining or continuing in an MLM.

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Summary of What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing

1. MLMs are "doomed by design" to recruit too many salespeople, who in turn will then attempt to recruit even more salespeople, ad infinitum.

    

2. For many, the real attraction of involvement in multi-level marketing is the thinly veiled pyramid con-scheme made quasi-legal by the presence of a product or service.

    

3. The ethical concessions necessary to be "successful" in many MLM companies are stark and difficult to deal with for most people.

    

4. Friends and family should be treated as such, and not as "marks" for exploitation.

    

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It is hoped that by clearly pointing out "What is Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing" that many might be spared the inherent and associative pitfalls by avoiding the practice.

As well, for those who insist on practicing MLM, it is hoped that this analysis will serve as a handy framework of problem areas to be avoided if and where this is possible.

 

 

 

Rembrandt. St. Paul in Prison. 1627. Oil on panel. Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany. More.

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