THFWS&TTM’s: Polarity and Polarization

Polarity and Polarization

As the trial progressed it became a time of extremes.

Kali’s website was bringing in tremendous revenues as more and more people learned of its existence. Similarly, people began to flock to the Saturday performances and Sunday services at The Home for Wayward Souls like never before.

Those who could not attend watched it on cable, wherever it was available even if it was only public access.

Soon, so many people were attending from out-of-state, and other countries that even SRO admittance required reservations made weeks in advance unless you were already a member, and Stanley Linderman himself ran background checks on all those who were admitted.

If you were not a known entity, you were screened by standards higher than the TSA uses for aircraft travel, which helped stem the onrush of pilgrims to a manageable level…all courtesy of the US government’s ever-expanding database..

Eventually, Ash, Charles and Lothar set up a giant video projection screen outside the Sanctuary with a huge PA system to accommodate several hundred more. A giant tarp was flown above the outdoor viewing area to give some degree of shelter from the South Florida sun and rain.

Ash was quick to point out that a great deal of their meteoric rise in followers came from the bad press that the Defense attorneys had tried to use to demonize his church in order to challenge its validity as a house of worship for the primates seeking asylum.

The Ultra-Right(eous) Wing of the Ultra Christian Moral Majority jumped on the bandwagon, calling Ash the Anti-Christ, and Kali the Whore of Armageddon, but the more the other side tried to slander and malign his efforts, the more people began to listen to his words, ideas, and songs.

Ash offered an homage to them at the start of every service, and said a prayer to thank and bless them, even if “…they know not what they do….”

Whenever you project energy…even hate can empower your imagined enemies, especially if it is not reciprocated.

It was an interesting state of affairs indeed. Because THFWS was not implicated in any wrongdoing, and it was constitutionally illegal for any agency of the government to interfere with the lawful actions of any church. Anyone anywhere else would be charged with harboring a fugitive, but embassies and churches are unique in that respect.

It was far from business as usual, however. In fact it was the best place to be in one of the greatest periods of time in at least the last fifty thousand years since the dawn of man.

They had to build and install a huge computerized state of the art telephone switchboard system just to filter and handle all the telephone calls, providing jobs and income for sixty full-time expatriate PharmaCorp telemarketers. Many called for information, including how to contribute to The Primate Sentience Defense Fund.

A disturbing number of the calls were either bomb or death threats, but considering that the FBI, FDLA (Florida Department of Law Enforcement), county SWAT teams, and undoubtedly a few CIA spooks had surrounded the place to presumably keep the Chimps from escaping and to protect the subpoenaed members and Frederick, accompanied by Lindermand during transport to and from the courthouse, they also prevented anyone not on “the guest list” from entering, or even getting near enough to cause any mischief.

There were even a few unsubstantiated rumors that off-duty secret Service agents were offered overtime pay to help lend their expertise. (Let’s face it…all the other above-named agencies had a pretty crappy reputation for Protection.)

And, as always all calls were monitored and recorded, not only by THFWS, but also every government agency with enough of an agenda to obtain wiretap orders from a judge.

Stanley Linderman was on the inside, charged with “protecting PharmaCorp’s assets” (Notably Frederick and the other Chimps and Bonobos). He additionally recruited a small group of members whose previous life experiences…well, let us just say predisposed them to being useful for security. Young Gulf War and even more senior Viet Nam Vets were among the trusted followers well-trained at maintaining a perimeter.

And then of course were the Chimps themselves, all of whom had received some degree of pseudo-military training while on “retreat”. They were more at home in this South Florida jungle than anyone, and accustomed to patrolling their territories when in their natural wild habitat, and even at the Center for Primate Studies. For them, it was inborn, or perhaps instinctive.

As much as PharmCorp/SAIC/Leidos attorneys tried to paint a picture of guilt by association between The Home for Wayward Souls and the primates, it was already agreed among the members that there would be no lies told by them as regards the practices of Ash and his followers.

They decided that the best defense was to offer their candid testimony as a bully pulpit that they hoped would serve as a clarion call to all the disgruntled, disappointed, disgusted people who had rejected the idea of any religion, but still wanted, and needed the companionship, fellowship, support and love of people of common mind and heart.

People not interested in feeling guilty and preoccupied with sin or giving groveling homage endlessly to a silent, disapproving, angry, jealous, wrathful, vindictive God who required intercessions by self-serving clergy of questionable motivation who told them that “the Age of Miracles was over”. It was a call for people who loved sex, and people who sought communion with The Ancient Ones.

People who had studied enough history to realize what a sham virtually all religions were except as another way to control and manipulate the masses.

People who did not regard themselves as part of the masses.

It turned out that there were literally hundreds of thousands of them, and their numbers increased daily. Even atheists were welcome and encouraged to attend, and frequently did because The Home for Wayward Souls had become such a Mecca for rational debate and discussion of alternative lifestyles and belief systems that it became chic, fashionable and avant-garde to watch, listen, or be seen there.

The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the only secret that was kept by those few individuals who had been initiated, each of whom took an oath to not discuss with anyone else.

The Sanctuary was proving to be worthy of its name.

Fortunately, this was not a stand-off, like Ruby Ridge in Idaho, where the FBI and ATF surrounded the Randal Weaver Ranch after shooting one young son in the back while he was hunting on their own property. Where a sniper later shot his wife as she stood before a window while she held their infant son in her arms.

Or unlike Waco, Texas where they surrounded the Branch Davidian Congregation led by David Koresh. There they shut off all electricity and water to the compound and played loud music at all hours of the night before sending the fire trucks more than five miles away outside the perimeter (“…for their protection…”) right before the building “mysteriously” caught fire only seconds after the first tank pushed its barrel through the compound walls.

This was indeed not a stand-off because the Church itself was not considered complicit with the actions of the fugitives despite the best efforts of the Defense.

The primates were seeking Asylum in a Sanctuary in a church, a time-honored practice that has been respected for many centuries. Despite innuendo about witchcraft, polyamory and paganism, the attorneys for the Plaintiffs successfully defended The Home for Wayward Souls as a valid church without ties to any other denomination.

Also too many people already knew about the situation and most respected the institution of Asylum within a Sanctuary offered within a church to make it acceptable to just storm the premises by force.

Public knowledge and attention is important. When the trials against the government for their actions against Randal Weaver were being conducted, only C-Span covered it, because CNN and all the other major news networks were too giving hourly updates on the attack on olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan by Tanya Harding’s boyfriend.

Keep in mind that PharmaCorp/SAIC/Leidos were the Defense by virtue of the fact that the Primates were charging that they had been inhumanely treated, kidnapped and enslaved, and that they were sentient, self-aware beings entitled to self-determination rather than ownership.

Because the counter-suit for damages and reinstatement of the Primates as their legal property on behalf of PharmaCorp being contingent upon the decisions concerning this case, it took a back seat to the charges leveled on behalf of the primates.

And since The Home for Wayward Souls had become a fantastically wealthy non-profit corporation, they had plenty of money to spend on the very best attorneys that money could buy.

Some of the most famous (and expensive) defense lawyers as well as quite a few well-known former prosecutors and two retired judges were clamoring to be a part of the Dream Team. Enough to successfully challenge one of the most powerful corporations in the world.

This would be yet another case where the principles of Trial by Money would be operant.

But more than this, The Primates had one source of power that no amount of money could buy. They had the support of the brightest and best men and women of good conscience everywhere who were not willing to just stand aside and do nothing.

They awoke the latent rage against injustice that had been lying dormant for decades within the people who could still think and feel.

People who either observed or participated, even if it involved arrest as the civil rights movement raged against the institutionalized machinery of prejudice and protested a war that never should have been started until they stopped it and kept on raising hell and challenging every established institution in our world culture that deserved to be questioned until it turned into a cultural war.

People who knew all too well what it was to fight for their own self-determination. People who refused to die trying to live the lives their parents had been unable to live.

And it turned out that they were everywhere, perhaps long dormant, but once resurrected, they became galvanized by the realization that this might be their one last chance to take a stand against the tyranny of evil men with too much money and power.

The so-called Talking Monkeys sought sanctuary from cruel and unusual treatment and were petitioning the court to have their sentience acknowledged along with certain inalienable rights that would prevent them from being bought and sold like livestock.

They too sought their own version of self-determination.

In the midst of all the carnival atmosphere, somewhere between a Doors concert and a latter-day Woodstock, the lives and rights of many sentient primates (and humans) hung in the balance.

And all the while the band played on. The ArchAngels became what amounted to a modern orchestra, playing in shifts for more than twelve hours a day. All audio and video recording was now done on premises and distributed from there.

A small FM radio station was built with internet web access that broadcast twenty-four hours a day.

They were also available on satellite radio.

Pay-per-view streaming and DVD sales of the programs and Music of the Siege were the best vote of support they could have imagined.

In situations like these, mere donations are devoid of the symbiosis that exists between an exchange of money for art, music or ideals. A donation is a one-way transaction. These supporters were in effect welcoming The Home for Wayward Souls into their hearts and minds, and in the process, they became a part of the movement.

Their music had become a series of anthems and ballads for people everywhere who were looking for something more and wanted to belong to something larger than just themselves.

(…and it was good…very, very good…like…well, by now you should know the rest….)

Testimony: Test and Testiment

Testimony: Test and Testament

Once word leaked out about Frederick’s scheduled appearance on the witness stand, the whole world literally was watching, but it took some considerable legal maneuvering to even have his testimony allowed in the first place.

The attorneys for PharmaCorp (and the SAIC and LEIDOS) swarmed the court with injunctions of every imaginable configuration because to even recognize the ability of a primate to offer testimony was unprecedented.

Preliminary interrogation of Frederick away from the jury eventually determined to the satisfaction of the court that he was capable of answering questions by way of American Sign Language. What surprised them the most was what he had to offer of his own volition.

This was by far Frederick’s most limited method of communication, but considering the fact that his ASL vocabulary included over three thousand words, it still far surpassed anything that PharmaCorp’s attorneys had anticipated.

It is noteworthy that Frederick’s comprehension of words was many times over even that, and given his telepathic abilities he was far more eloquent than anyone except the most enlightened members of The Home for Wayward Souls could possibly imagine.

It was documented by PharmaCorp’s own research that the primates in the “Talking Monkeys Project” were capable of ferreting out certain “buzz words” from entire conversations that correlated to matching pre-recorded responses designed to function as answers used to qualify particular prospects as targets so as to be diverted to an appropriate human closer.

ASL has thousands of hand signs, positions and gestures that symbolically represent words, concepts, and combinations of ideas which are much more acceptable to the simian brain than the “finger-spelling” often used by humans using ASL.

Stimulus-mediated responses of primates to identified word triggers was already old news to the members of PharmaCorp’s research participants, but interpretation of meaning by decoding combinations of letters to produce words is infinitely more abstract and indirect than the processes used to communicate in the way that it has already been documented that primates like chimps and gorillas are capable.

We are not talking however, about normal primates or great apes. The randomly produced quantum leap that Frederick’s hybrid mutation by virtue of his Chimp father and Bonobo mother represented the absolute apex of primate evolution very similar to what occurred during the The Great Eurasian Leap Forward that had produced the first branching from the lineage of hominids that eventually yielded the ancestors of modern man.

And once Frederick was introduced to The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he found himself suddenly capable of standing upon his own shoulders in terms of intellectual and conceptual developments that had taken Man tens of thousands of years to accomplish.

And when he was put on the witness stand, the harder PharmaCorp, Leidos and the SAIC’s attorneys tried to discredit Frederick’s sentience, the more eloquently they helped make his case for him.

The telepathic communications that were possible between Ash, Kali, Merle, Mark and Darcy to help prompt Frederick’s answers as essentially One Common Mind of the group additionally gave the impression of an inspired level of genius that few, if any humans could aspire to attain.

And so it was that Frederick’s testimony began. It was mutually agreed that the court-appointed interpreter would speak for Frederick to the jury unless there was a significant disagreement between either the plaintiff (Frederick et al) and the Defendant (PharmaCorp/SAIC/Leidos).

“Hello, my name is Frederick. My father, Malkira is a Chimpanzee and my mother, Lilith is a Bonobo, sometimes called a Pygmy Chimp. I am to the best of anyone’s knowledge the only member of a hybrid species I like to call Bonanzee.”

(Plaintiff’s attorney): “Why are there no others like you?”

(Frederick): “First of all, the Congo River separates our two tribes, and Chimpanzees do not swim, which is very fortunate for the Bonobos.”

(Plaintiff’s Attorney): “Why is that fortunate?”

(Frederick): “The Bonobos are generally much smaller and considerably less aggressive. Left to their own devices, the Chimps would have undoubtedly overrun the Bonobos into extinction. Also the cultures are not especially compatible.”

(Plaintiff’s Attorney): “What do you mean?”

(Frederick): “The Chimpanzee are more like conservative Republicans. They are monogamous and almost exclusively heterosexual. They are not only more aggressive, but also somewhat territorial. They frequently patrol their territories to drive off, or even kill other tribes that invade their territory, and will sometimes even eat smaller primates, like monkeys for instance.”

(Plaintiff’s Attorney): “And the Bonobos?”

(Frederick): “They are very much like liberal Democrats. They are more prone to polyamory and bisexuality. The females are often known to use sexual favors to barter special foods, and as a bargaining tool for promoting higher pecking order within their tribe.”

“They are also more passive. Murder is almost unheard of, and there are no known instances of Bonobo cannibalism or the eating of other primates, like monkeys. Also, they are generally more clever, although both tribes are inventive and imaginative as regards tool-making and use.”

(Plaintiff’s Attorney): “Is there anything else that they share in common?”

(Frederick): “Comprehension and manipulation of abstract concepts and symbology, simple arithmetic, bargaining and deal-making, even lying to avoid discovery of guilt, and emotional responses to elements of their surroundings…plus, maintenance of a tribal social order, conducting funerals, and adopting orphans within the tribe.”

(Defendant’s Attorney): “Wait a minute…lying?…what’s to say you aren’t you lying now?”

(Frederick): “If you mean in my previous statements, the question would be to what end? If you were asking about my actions, or a sequence of events, yes I could be capable of lying about them, but everything I have said so far are simple documented statements of scientifically proven facts.”

“In order to claim possession of those skills it would necessarily require some understanding of them. However, lying to cover up guilt or to gain an advantage in deal-making is an essential part of negotiating skills…but then again, as an attorneys, you should already know that.”

With that the laughter that was only marginally stifled prior to Frederick’s last remark broke out into such pandemonium that the judge threatened to eject all non-subpoened members within the court that did not have direct reason to be physically present.

The trial was televised, breaking all previous records for viewership since the O.J. Simpson Trial, but there was nothing to say that any non-essential observers had to be allowed in the courtroom at all.

A live audience gave Frederick his best opportunity to perform for them, and to play them like a fish on the end of a line and in so doing create a moment in time that could be felt, like a humid atmosphere or a smell so strong that once acknowledged, could even be witnessed on a television screen.

The attorneys for PharmaCorp/SAIC/and Leidos would have preferred no audience at all. For them, the best possible public opinion was NO public opinion, or even knowledge of any of the facts related to the trial.

PharmaCorp’s recent mergers and acquisitions had created the most powerful near-monopoly in the history of the business in the United States, if not the world, all with the approval and sanction of Congress.

The fact that they were almost single-handedly hijacking the entire institution of pharmaceutical healthcare insurance within the United States was producing more than just a ripple of negative public opinion.

With more than half a dozen states’ attorney general already seeking indictment of PharmaCorp, several of the major pharmaceutical manufacturers, and a number of the healthcare insurance providers for conspiracy, violation of SEC regulations, price-fixing, and unfair restriction of trade, the wave of public opinion had the potential of turning into a tsunami of ill-will and resentment.

In the recent past, as they had risen in less than two years from a merger of a Fortune Fifty and a Fortune Five Hundred company to one that was soon to rise to somewhere in the teens they had simply ignored all public opinion and got away with all of it with complete impunity.

All to the tune of over Two Hundred Sixty Billion dollars annually.

They disallowed coverage and changed co-pay rates in the middle of the year for hundreds of drugs, forty to sixty at a time; an action that was previously illegal in the healthcare insurance industry prior to January first of 2014.

PharmaCorp had leveraged themselves into becoming regarded as the Gold Standard for denial and attrition of claims and money paid out by virtue of successive denials. Even if they simply delayed the payout by three months, the interest on the money in question is still free money for the investors.

Just think of it as being a way that a company can pay for its entire existence, as well as all the salaries of all the executives by virtue of the amount of money they can “save” the programs.

They function by ostensibly saving “waste” by doing things like sending nurses home early in the middle of a shift if the momentary census, called a DRG drops below a certain level.

Then if something else happens, like a car wreck on the local interstate that generates enough patients to justify calling more nurses or doctors back in, they will have to wait for the arrival of those doctors and nurses so that a six-figure suit with a guaranteed salary can live in luxury.

Healthcare Insurance Administrators do just that. They study how much money can be cheated from the insured overall in a year, and give back a specified portion to the Insurance Provider.

As the population glut produced by the “Baby Boomers” reaching retirement age prepares to hit its peak, the enslaving of America doesn’t just continue…it careens out of control.

They even crowded out Wal-Mart with Bombay Batches of bathtub remedies that masqueraded as generic drugs by paying off the FDA to approve pills that were pressed so poorly, they had already begun to disintegrate in their vials before reaching their intended recipients.

Medications were sent that were described as smelling like cat urine or gave the recipients severe diarrhea despite the fact that the brand name (or even other generics) did not.

Although it was ruled that a generic medication had to be within +/- 5% of the strength of the active ingredient of the original brand name drug, proprietary “secrets” regarding bioavailability may remain the intellectual property of the company making the brand-name drug.

There are good, and there are bad generic copies of the original trade name medications. The good ones all cost more money. Do the Math.

There seemed to be nothing to stop them as they breathed the same sweet, rarefied air inspired by only Apple, Google, Microsoft, the Big Oil companies, Big Tobacco, and pharmaceutical manufacturers, but the idea of subjecting Chimps to conditions only a telemarketer would tolerate had the kind of emotional content that might be regarded as the last straw.

Fuck telemarketers….

They are so generally maligned and despised that virtually no one cared how they were treated, but to do so to anything as charming and lovable as Frederick seemed unthinkable, draconian and inhumane…even without adding the Chimpanzee Commando Scenario, which, at least for now, PharmaCorp/SAIC/Leidos had managed to get gag-ordered.

They also desperately wanted to prevent the public from finding out that the chimps and bonobos were being drugged in order to get them to repeat the same sequences of events endlessly day in, day out. They had research statistics that showed how Cerebral Tunnel Syndrome (Repetitive Brain Injury) was measurable and significant among their test subjects.

The primates had happily embraced the initial testing that had proved that they could do it, but once they had proved their point, the seemingly endless daily repetitions were what necessitated administering the drugs to the “test subjects”.

It was also at that point that what could be legitimately considered experiments in learning, perception and behavior crossed over into slavery.

The public would consider it to be an abomination to force chimpanzees and bonobos into a life of addiction to amphetamines, SSRI’s and Xanax, even if their own lives mimicked the same. Theirs was a life of their own choice, promoted by a combination of necessity and greed.

Chimps already had everything they wanted or needed in their own natural environment.

Chimps are disinclined to the concept of working overtime to pay for a bigger house in a better neighborhood, luxury automobiles, designer clothes or to send their offspring to private schools.

(…and there are some things a Chimpanzee won’t do….)

One of the things PharmaCorp/SAIC/Leidos’ attorney’s hadn’t anticipated or prepared for was the way that Frederick was able to not only take control of the interrogation, but also to captivate the attention of all of the jurors.

(Frederick): “But a great deal more than just intelligence determines the difference between simply being Human and being Humane…I was touched by the recognition of emotional responses and self-awareness being characteristic of possessing sentience.”

(Plaintiff’s Attorney): “Why shouldn’t you be used for experiments that might eventually save human lives?”

“Is it not reasonable to assert that simple possession of emotional responses to one’s environment coupled with the ability to express those emotions justifies the validity of their sentience?”

“And once that sentience can be established, does it not follow that beyond simple pecking order, are they not exempted from placement upon your food chain?”

(Defendant’s Attorney): “Would you deny that Man is intellectually far superior to the Apes?”

“If Man is indeed blessed by his prominence at the apex of All Things Living, shouldn’t his enlightenment breed empathy for all others?”

“There are all kinds of masters in this world, but among those, kindness and understanding are the earmarks of a benevolence bred of tolerance. You don’t have to be able to do algebra to understand Nobless Oblige.”

(Defense Attorney): “Are you suggesting that animals shouldn’t have to work for Humans?”

“I think we need to re-examine how we work with Man. There are monkeys that act as the hands for quadriplegic. Almost no one uses horses or mules or donkeys as beast of burden or draught animals unless they need to go someplace a motorized vehicle can’t.”

“Although we couldn’t find an approved spokesperson for industrialized poultry…Look at canines in law-enforcement…they like what they are expected to do…it suits their natures, which are basic and simplistic.”

“I never heard of a dog that questioned his willingness to obey his master’s commands. That doesn’t say they are less entitled, or somehow inferior to Chimps…its just not in their emotional make-up to question whatever rules their masters enforce.”

(Defense Attorney): “What’s so bad about working for Man?”

(Frederick): “Some of the chimps liked some of their job assignments, at least for a while. Some of the Bonobos didn’t like some of the assignments they were given at all. And none of them liked the routine work on the telephones.”

“They didn’t want to be made addicted to drugs that made them feel crazy, just to go to work every day…that’s why you Humans have the expression ‘The Man’ to describe how you treat each other. Imagine a Chimp with no cocaine…Now imagine a stockbroker or an attorney without it.”

(Plaintiff’s Attorney): “Just what is it you Primates want, anyway?”

(Frederick): “You humans are the top of the primate chain…we get it…everybody gets it…but do you get it that we are your first cousins, and are therefore entitled to fundamental deference and respect among the other animals?”

“You invented your so-called “Soul” in order to proclaim some sort of exclusive rights to God. We may not be able to produce spoken words, but would you deny that we have thoughts and feelings?”

“Once I learn to express myself in a way that we both can understand, how long must we wait for you to allow that our sentience can be regarded as having crossed the abyss between Man and the Apes.”

“If you need to proclaim the exclusive existence of your Soul to assert your superiority over us, so be it…that’s your problem…we just ask that you don’t make your problem our problem…fair enough?”

At that exact moment, and for the second time in this story, a fly was startled by the sound of a pin dropping somewhere in that courtroom.

 

Every Bonanzee has his Day (In Court)

 

As anyone who has ever been in a protracted legal dispute can tell you, it has a way of taking over your life completely until it is over, and the legal maneuvering can easily sidetrack the real issues until it becomes difficult to even remember what got your there in the first place.

That is what attorneys are for; they create a self-justifying need with each side upping the stakes (and fees) while still eventually getting to the heart of the case.

The real meat, bone and gristle of this case centered upon the question of what is sentience, and how is it measured, or determined to exist? Both sides insisted upon having their choice of interpreters of American Sign Language present to translate Frederick’s testimony.

Mark was the obvious choice for Frederick’s side. His credentials were flawless and indisputable. The opposition, represented by SAIC and Leidos (the subcontractors for the DOD) attempted at every point to marginalize the answers Frederick gave, and it was up to Mark to call them on it every time they did.

Both sides had their share of skeletons in their respective closets that neither wanted to have to share with the judge, jury or general public.

SAIC and Leidos although admittedly under the employ of the DOD, used the cloak of “National Security” to avoid discussion of (forgive me) a “Gorilla (actually “Guerilla”) Army” of primates being trained to do the government’s bidding.

So far, Ash, Merle and the other church officers of The Home for Wayward Souls had managed to keep the secret of The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to themselves by restricting its use, knowledge and distribution to themselves, with only very select members of the ArchAngels and Anastasia being the only others who were privy to its existence.

Neither side wanted to have to explain or justify the full extent of their individual hidden agendas.

Charles and Lothar found themselves having to constantly upgrade their electronic security of the premises. Government spooks were constantly trying to invade the grounds to place cameras, transmitters and microphones everywhere imaginable to try to gather damaging Intel to use against their opposition.

Although Stanley had ostensibly been assigned to supervise the group and gather Intel as well as provide protection of PharmaCorp’s assets (Frederick), he secretly made sure there was no breach of the members’ privacy, even though he made sure that Charles and Lothar made the actual discovery of any bugs of any kind.

It became a larger-then-life full-time occupation for Charles, which was fortunate enough because he suddenly found himself unemployed by PharmaCorp after the meltdown of the “Talking Monkeys” project. Ten years of diligent hard work and a very impressive sale record meant nothing, once he was identified as working for the other side by virtue of being named as a church officer.

Florida, as well as most “Right to Work” states have complete legal impunity to fire anyone at any time for no reason whatsoever under the guise of the “business needs” of the employer with no recourse on the part of the terminated former employee. Period.

Ash assured Charles that he would always be an integral part of the church’s organization. Therein lay the difference between a job and work. Ash in fact insisted that Charles be paid a salary at least double his best hourly wages including commission and incentives. He did not have to punch a time clock, even an electronic one.

Imagine if da Vinci or Michelangelo worked for a modern corporation, say under the auspices of Michael Eisner and Disney.

Jobs may come and go, even if they rob you of every bit of energy, enthusiasm and joy a day at a time, but the real work of a person’s life is always there, forever waiting like an insatiable lover to be either ignored or satisfied; the choice is yours.

He knew what was needed and gladly worked incessantly until it was done, and there was no shortage of work, which for him was a labor of Love. He had a vested interest in every action he performed, and he felt, for the first time in his life that any and all of his knowledge and skills were needed and appreciated.

And he was trusted on a level that most family members never know (especially if an inheritance or an estate is involved so as to turn kin into adversaries).

This was as transparent a group of individuals as could ever be found, which was not without a certain degree of discomfort, adjustment and growth. Fortunately, The Knowledge also fueled the insight necessary to find acceptance of the truth.

It was during this time that Suki discovered that Charles and Anastasia had a history that went back more than twenty years ago when he was a faculty member at Miami-Dade Community College and she was an eighteen-year old aspiring film student.

She re-discovered him by pure accident when she went on her quest to write a story about the Kink/Fet community and Polyamory. She had originally used the name Stacey when she met Charles in school, which was simpler and more trendy back then, and she had changed her last name when she got married.

They had become quite an item for a while, but they drifted apart when she went back to LA, and Charles honestly did not initially recognize her despite their romantic history. Twenty years is a long time for appearances to change a person almost beyond recognition.

Anastasia was reluctant to broach the subject, and was a little bit stung by her pride because she thought that he did not remember her, when in fact, he did remember her…he just hadn’t recognized her.

It wasn’t until the three of them took The Knowledge together that Charles suddenly realized he was in the presence of a long-lost flame, and under the influence of such a powerful empathogenic drug, there can be no secrets, and Suki quickly sensed, and finally realized the full extent of Anastasia’s subterfuge.

And almost as quickly, they all came to the realization that Anastasia’s intentions were good overall; she had no axe to grind as far as intending to take Charles from Suki; she had her own hands full maintaining a very strong and loving relationship with her part-time absentee husband, and she and Suki both knew in their hearts that the love and friendship they had developed for each other almost eclipsed Anastasia’s earlier fascination with Charles.

You could say that the two women’s relationship with each other had all the earmarks of serendipity, and it was easy for both to trust each other’s intentions, given the transparency and inability of guile or falsity to exist in such a transcendent and intuitive atmosphere. There were able to trust their own hearts because they knew each other’s hearts.

Once that was out of the way they became as solid a triad as there ever has been. This sent a ripple through the entire group, pointing out once again how much emphasis the illusion of the need of most forms of privacy are largely rooted in some kind of secrecy that is unnecessary amongst such a truly sentient and telepathic group.

This event took all the members through a sort of quantum leap of self-realization as well as group consciousness from which there could not be any turning back.

They became as one.

Finally, both legal parties agreed upon one additional independent sign language interpreter hired by the court from a pool of available experts who seemed to be completely neutral regarding the issues at stake in an attempt to give the court a better idea of what might be regarded as a middle ground between two admittedly biased interpreters.

What no one else knew was that during Frederick’s well-rehearsed testimony he had the added advantage of silent telepathic prompting from Ash and Merle, who sat in the midst of the lawyers.

Frederick believed he had spent his entire previous life preparing for this moment in time, and the fate of all primates hung in the balance. He could not have been more ready for this test.

 

 

 

 

 

THFWS&TTM’s: Every Day is Judgment Day

Every Day is Judgment Day

 

You could fill a law book with a summary of the flurry of motions, claims and counter-claims filed by both sides regarding the disposition of the primates requesting asylum at The Home for Wayward Souls. The basic premises were these:

• The Home for Wayward Souls was being challenged as not being a legitimate house of worship because they were not affiliated with any specific denomination, nor did they espouse belief in or worship of any specific deity. If it was ruled that they were not in fact a true church, then seeking asylum in their sanctuary would not be a valid claim.
• PharmaCorp was petitioning the IRS to revoke their Religious tax-exempt status. The government stood to receive a great deal of money if this did occur, were it not for the 501-(c)3 non-profit status incorporated into what in effect constituted a line marriage of all the church officers, including Ash and Kali. PharmaCorp’s strategy here was to disarm them of their considerable wealth in an attempt to limit their ability to finance their legal campaign. It was more of a show of flexing their considerable muscle and a psychological intimidation factor, once their non-profit status was discovered.
• Ash maintained that as an ordained minister (due to his original affiliation with the Unitarian Universalists), as well as a Doctor of Divinity it was not within the purview of The State to dictate, regulate, define, or pass judgment upon what even constituted a church in the first place by virtue of the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. He also publicly stated that if pressed, he could claim that they worshipped all primates, including Man, or even the Ancient Ones, or Los Guerreros, not unlike the Church of Lukumi Aye Babalu, (aka Santeria). If the Hindus could worship cattle, elephants and monkeys he defied The State to discredit his church.
• The Primates, both Chimps and Bonobos alike (as well as Frederick, who was a hybrid cross between the two, who also maintained he was the sole member of a unique species so rare as to be classified as endangered) claimed to possess sentience, therefore to be owned or possessed by anyone and forced to commit labor against their free will and choice constituted slavery, as well as false imprisonment.
• PharmaCorp maintained that all the primates as well as their offspring were their legally purchased property, and were to be returned to their rightful owners.
• In an attempt to play both sides of the coin however, PharmaCorp further stated that even if the courts did find the primates to be sentient, then they should be held accountable for their actions, including the destruction of millions of dollars of property, as well as disruption of commerce.
• PharmaCorp further alleged that the influences of Frederick’s attendance of services at The Home for Wayward Souls was directly responsible for inciting the rebellion of the primates, therefore they were suing Ash’s church for damages and subsequent profit losses incurred, alleging conspiracy to incite riot, sedition and malicious aggravated vandalism.
• It was the contention of the primates’ attorneys that they had been subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment against their will, including using coercion to cause them to unknowingly take addictive drugs to induce them to perform tasks that resulted in profits being made from their servitude without proper compensation. They were countersuing for unpaid wages as well as punitive claims for damages, interest, and all attorney’s fees.

• Perhaps the most controversial claim made by the primates was that they had incurred stress and injuries resulting from the influences of forced repetitive thoughts and stimulus-mediated responses, much like repetitive motion injuries, which they referred to as Cerebral Tunnel Syndrome.

• Because the conditions to which the primates were subjected were no different from those in any other telemarketing boiler-room operation, a great deal was at stake regarding working conditions. If it was to be ruled that it was inhumane to treat an animal (sentient or not) to such conditions, the consequences would be far-reaching in an industry already notorious for poor treatment of its employees.

 

• In the interim, Stanley Linderman was put in charge of “protecting” the property and personal interests of PharmaCorp as regards all of the primates, especially Frederick. It was mutually agreed that he be allowed to remain on the premises, even though the FDLA (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) and the FBI had established a perimeter around the property associated with The Home for Wayward Souls. It was sketchy as to the jurisdiction that warranted FBI presence, given the fact that PharmaCorp was not owning up to any affiliation with the DOD despite the fact that it was becoming increasingly clear that the federal government also had a vested interest, and no one wanted to see either the Army or National Guard surrounding the premises.

Amidst all of this, Darcy’s due date was rapidly approaching. Mark and Darcy had already moved into the Sanctuary, but despite the chaos and stress that would normally be associated with the stand-off and the never-ending surveillance by the news media as well as law-enforcement including helicopter fly-overs and obnoxious paparazzi the religious services and television shows continued, and the human members were allowed to come and go as they pleased, including Ash’s congregation and guests.

Most of the single members of Ash’s band, The ArchAngels had moved in semi-permanently, and during that time they produced a double album entitled Apocalypso Music from The Siege of the Garden, which went double-platinum in less than six weeks.

The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil got to be like a vitamin for the enlightened inner circle, and provided much-needed insight and a sense of calm for all of those privileged to experience it.

It became the place to be, to experience, and to give and receive in like kind, and it seemed like the whole world was watching…and all the while, the band played on.

THFWS&TTM’s: Watching the Days Go By Pt. II

Watching the Days Go By Pt. II

 

It may be hard to imagine how life at The Home for Wayward Souls could ever be routine, but relative to what the group had become accustomed, even consciousness expansion, group marriage, and regular visitations from The Ancient Ones took on a pattern and a rhythm that was in many ways regular and relatively predictable.

The popularity of the televised programs as well as Kali’s web site subscriptions had gone world-wide and the revenues were becoming so huge that it took a full-time team of attorneys and accountants just to manage the funds, and still maintain a not-for-profit status by charitable funding and re-investments in enterprises related to the stated purposes of the corporation.

Stan went through a few changes regarding Anastasia. He was not comfortable with what he referred to as “swinging” with Charles and Suki when he was with Anastasia. Anastasia had taken The Knowledge several times with the rest of the members of the group, and was in fact the only “outsider” that had been allowed to participate with the group, and he was starting to have some issues regarding jealousy over her in general. He accepted her relationship with her husband, but for him, there were too many extras regarding her other relationships.

She and Stan took The Knowledge (willingly) several times after that together and Stan was quite enthused about the results. He knew that if Sebastian were to learn of it, the results would have been disastrous for his career, but he also was beginning to see a side of S.G. Lodge that was more reprehensible than he thought possible, but he was able to keep it to himself. His insight and intuition had given him a large lead over his supervisor that enabled him to see several moves past him.

They knew that The Home for Wayward Souls was under investigation by The Management, but he was not willing to disclose what government agency was behind it. He apologized for not being able to reveal more, but he did promise to keep them appraised of anything they really needed to know, and did indicate that he also was withholding most of the more private aspects of the lives of the members of the group in respect to matters that did not in reality involve national security, which essentially meant he told them very little, except in general terms that they did not attempt to hide in the first place.

Then one day his supervisor called him into his office and told him he was to terminate his “involvement” with Anastasia, explaining that her husband was also under the employ of the DOD, and his “affair” with her was unacceptable. He knew better than to argue, but his heart broke a little in the process.

Although Anastasia was quite disappointed, and although she did not know that Stanley also worked for the DOD, she accepted the fact that his orders came from “above” that he had concerns for his continued assignment to THFWS if he did not comply with direct orders.

Just the same, the passion between the two of them was incredible, and given his extraordinary prowess in the standing position, she became a regular at Sunday services whenever her husband was away, and there was no shortage of places they could steal away for a fast fuck when they felt inclined, which was usually whenever the two of them were in the same building.

At the same time, her involvement with Charles and Suki was taking a real upswing that kept her too busy between an occasional absentee husband and her frolics with Charles and Suki to be overwhelmed by the prohibition of public involvement with Stan.

There was trouble brewing at the Center for Primate Research however. By this point, all the Chimps and Bonobos had been given several doses of The Fruit of the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil, and with enlightenment there often comes more than a few bumps in the road.

For starters, once they realized they were being drugged, they refused to eat the food reward pellets that contained them. Some of the primates were not at all fond of the military-style training they were receiving, and some of them were beginning to get bored with it as well. Some of them loved it however, (mostly the more aggressive chimps) and those who did were being brought back to the training camps with increased regularity.

Many of them began to get sick from withdrawal, and Frederick encouraged them to eat no more than was absolutely necessary to stay well and comfortable. Management began to realize that their scheme was starting to unravel, and tried putting it in the water they drank instead.

The problem was that once they recognized the old, familiar symptoms of their previous addiction, they revolted. They were all in agreement that the work they performed as telemarketing “qualifiers” was stultifying and mind-numbing, and without the attraction of the pellets, since their captors had not yet found a way to instill Greed in them, let alone a need for money they were no longer willing to subject themselves to such inhumane treatment.

It turns out that Frederick, unbeknownst to anyone else, had formulated a plot to free his brethren. At a pre-arranged time they simultaneously assembled back at the building that housed the workplace for the Center where the telemarketing computers were located (which was literally walking distance from their Habitat) and burned it to the ground, although they left the rest of the Center intact. They had all learned to drive vehicles during their military maneuvers, stole several trucks and cars, and drove straight to the Sanctuary at the Home for Wayward Souls, guided by Frederick.

The fire created such a commotion that neither the disappearance of the primates nor the vehicles was noticed until after they had already arrived at the Sanctuary. The single guard at the gate had been overcome by three chimps who ambushed him, tied him up and carried him off to the site of their abandoned homes.

Initially, both the police and the military thought that they had been stolen, or even kidnapped for ransom. The missing guard was the initial prime suspect until they finally located him bound and gagged in one of the homes.

Sebastian and Linderman quickly ruled out terrorism or counter-espionage from a number of standpoints, including the fact that the entire rest of the world was unaware that the primates were anything other than test subjects used for telemarketing schemes once their “pure” research purposes were co-opted by PharmaCorp.

Rather than wait to be raided by SWAT, the FBI and who-knows-who else once their location was discovered, Ash hired an attorney to represent the primates who were proclaiming that their treatment was inhumane and that they had been illegally enslaved against their will, given their newly-proclaimed sentience. No mention of The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was ever made, nor did they intend to make any reference to it.

Ash then also appeared on the local (and eventually national) press and media stating that the chimps and bonobos were requesting asylum at his church. This effectively threw the proverbial (forgive me) Monkey Wrench into law enforcement’s plans to overrun the premises to re-capture the Primates.

 

Watching the Days go by

Watching the Days go by
As it turned out, the wedding was set for two Sundays after the first group of Chimps returned from their off-campus training. What Frederick had shared with Mark and Darcy during their absence was that he envisioned the chimps being flown in a large army cargo aircraft to somewhere in the Deep South.
What he described to them sounded as if they were getting military training. Upon their return, they confirmed that they had been given a primate equivalent of “boot camp” that initially centered around following orders and conducting relatively benign maneuvers as a group.
They ate as a group, exercised as a group, slept in common quarters, and followed several trainers’ instructions, which included wearing helmets with video cameras while patrolling forest perimeters searching for human intruders who had been assigned to infiltrate their territory.
They were taught to activate an alarm when they initially discovered the invaders as well as how to capture and subdue them, including immobilization techniques and flex-cuffs, all done unarmed and without harm to the captives.
They were also taught how to follow a wrist-watch sort of GPS map that each of them was given to coordinate group maneuvers. The trainers had not expected it to work quite as successfully as it did, although they did notice that the chimps were more inclined to follow their instincts than the exact directions of the map.
They often cut through designated paths to utilize more direct routes, for instance, and actually anticipated several of the maneuvers better than the trainers thought possible.
It was considered a mixed success insofar as they worked very well as a group, and were generally quite enthusiastic about following orders and instructions, but were sometimes unpredictable because of their penchant for improvising, even when it worked better than the designated plans.
The trainers were not prepared to recognize intuition amongst their test subjects, largely because they did not possess it themselves.
Sebastian Lodge was kept informed of the progress of the group and seemed to indulge himself in a certain glee about only informing Mark and the other researchers about the nature, extent, or details of the experiments on a very limited basis.
When questioned, he would smirk and put a finger to his lips and mouth the phrase “Need to know” if pressed to divulge anything Lodge did not care to share with the Mark and the trainers.
Interestingly enough, the chimps generally enjoyed the entire adventure, the exercise, the outdoors, and the break from the monotony of telemarketing.
There had been a few isolated instances of rebelliousness or disobedience that had been mitigated with either tranquilizer darts or Tasers. The incidents made a lasting impression on the chimps, who were deeply disturbed by the use of punishment as a form of control, which was something to which they had never been subjected before.
Another group was sent out immediately after the return of the first group. The trainers were told to anticipate this schedule until all the chimps were eventually rotated through the first round of training. They were also told there would be additional rounds of training sessions off-campus in the coming months.
What was not anticipated was how poorly the chimps would acclimate themselves back into their old positions at PharmaCorp. As much as Mark had been suspicious of the intentions of “The Corporation” when the off-campus training began, he understood why the chimps preferred it to the “research” they were conducting for PharmaCorp, which he had already noted, was far too much like a “job” that stifled and victimized the primates to maximize corporate profits.
The real dilemma was that he could not discuss it with Lodge because he was not even supposed to know about it in the first place, and he did not intend to show his hand as far as his sources of information, although it is doubtful that Lodge would have been willing to accept that the test subjects had communicated any of this to Frederick, or that Frederick had leaked this to Mark. Were he to say anything at all, it would trigger too much suspicion and probably get him thrown off the project.
Although Mark and Darcy discussed it extensively, they decided to take the information to the rest of the group to ponder.
As researchers who were personally involved with their test subjects they were disturbed and offended that what was being done was to prepare the primates for some kind of military training.
Charles was the first to point out that canines are routinely used by both the Police and Military services. The chimps were enjoying the break from the soul-killing monotony of telemarketing, and this might represent a breakthrough for the status of the primates.
Think about it…because of their police service, specially trained canines were legally considered law-enforcement officers, who are never charged with excessive use of force or held accountable for doing anything other than what they were told to do. To resist or harm a police canine constitutes charges of Assault on a Police Officer, which is a serious felony.
No such sort of recognition or status has ever been bestowed upon any primate. Perhaps military service would enable them to “climb the ladder” within our social order.
It generally takes a changed paradigm of public opinion to effect any changes in our society.
It has only been in the last few years that the use of higher primates (especially chimps) for medical research has been banned by most countries in the world.
Ash argued that the same sort of logic could be used to justify the slavery of Africans as a free trip to America. Once sentience is introduced into the equation, it is questionable to justify any activity that does not include the free will and choice of the participant.
The rest of the evening was devoted to planning the wedding and making arrangements for Mark and Darcy to move into the Sanctuary.
Charles and Suki already owned their home, but it was understood that they could move onto the premises at any time, or even build their own quarters on the property if they chose. They were still considering their options and in no rush.
Although the presentation of the Church officers (wedding) would be a public event scheduled for the Sunday service so as to accommodate Frederick’s presence, the reception would start in the Sanctuary and eventually move to the rectory for the rest of the evening.
Select members were invited to the reception at the Sanctuary following the service, but only the members of the group (minus Frederick) would be in attendance at the rectory. As it was, they planned for Frederick (and Stan) to be around until at least seven o’clock.
Frederick was greatly missed over the last several months since he was only allowed off-campus for the Sunday services, but Mark and Darcy planned that they were going to petition Sebastian G. Lodge to allow them to take him off-campus for entire weekends once they were moved.
The argument was that the increased human social contact would be beneficial to Frederick, and could be well documented by Darcy, and that he could be transported by Stanley Linderman to and from the facilities, ostensibly to protect the interests of “The Corporation”.
The property surrounding the Sanctuary was a well-controlled and protected habitat that would help to provide a nurturant and supportive environment. Because Frederick had not chosen a mate, it would give him (and Lilith and Malkira) a break from his enforced isolation.
It was hoped that it might sublimate the frustration and violence that often begins to appear in chimps kept in captivity beyond about the five-year mark by providing a social network and interaction with a larger group of individuals. Frederick’s case was unique indeed, due to his Chimp/Bonobo hybrid status as a self-proclaimed “Bonanzee” who really had no peers.

Cerebral Tunnel Syndrome…WTF?

Cerebral Tunnel Syndrome…WTF?

When Frederick returned to work, he soon became aware that he had not been listening very well. With human trainers training him how to train chimps for the Talking Monkey Project (…Damn!…how he hated that name!) he had become all mouth and no ears, and now it was painfully obvious to him, since his consciousness had been raised by way of The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

He suddenly went from feeling lighter than air to being deeply burdened by the sorrows of his fellow primates. Granted, most of his previous contact with them involved one-way communications because he hadn’t taken the time to consider that any of them had anything to tell him, telepathically or otherwise.

The other chimps and bonobos seemed to sense the change in Frederick, and quickly began to reach out to him once they realized he was their liaison to the top primate…man.

All the professionals in all the human resource departments in the world could not have learned in weeks of extensive interviews with countless subjects what Frederick divined in a few minutes each with any of his peers.

They no longer exhibited any enthusiasm or playfulness. They seemed dull-witted and slow. Their responses as far as their training or performance exams showed only slightly less improvement according to the trainers, but even they had commented on how truly unhappy the chimps and bonobos appeared to be. And the repressed data about the violence and other behavioral problems in their natural habitat was no longer something that could simply be ignored.

It was as if all of their vitality and energy was focused solely on the endless repetitions of their assigned stimulus-response-mediated behaviors, which they quickly learned. Further mental stimulation of the primates was not a priority, and they were beyond just being bored. This was also way beyond simple monotony, because all of these primates had been selected for their intelligence and learning skills, which were no longer being challenged.

Repetitive motion injuries have long been recognized as a very real and documented risk in certain occupations, but repetitive thought or stress injuries to the brain have never been considered.

Many occupations will address “burn out” but they do little other than lip-service to do so. There does not exist the kind of standardization or controls in the human workplace that are present in research. Some workers possess better coping skills than others do. Outside stressors, hobbies, friends, and family issues vary greatly within any specific occupation, and these items tend to mask the effects.

Because the chimps’ behaviors generally mimicked human workplace environments, and because at the end of each day, they returned to their natural environments, which themselves mimicked human home environments and social order, this project had the potential to give a glimpse into the effects of a particular type of workplace environment upon a very standardized group of test subjects.

With Frederick’s new-found level of sentience came the burden of trying to identify what it was that made him so uncomfortable. He did not possess the reasoning skills to establish a cause and effect relationship. He just knew that his fellow primates were very, very unhappy, but none of them knew specifically why, and neither did he, but he had already become tuned-in enough to recognized that the trainers were also aware of it on a different level, although no one had begun to connect the dots.

He reached out to Mark and Darcy, who agreed with his concern, but something was missing in their analysis. When Mark and Darcy spoke with Merle about their concerns, they came to an interesting question that proved to be the missing key.

Mark and Darcy were unable to explain what could drive the chimps and bonobos to push themselves so hard as to get to this state in the first place. It’s just not in their nature to seek achievement or recognition, and they were not subject to the greed to make commission like their human counterparts.

Most Chimpanzee research has been just that…research, not a long-range occupation consisting of endless repetitions of minimally challenging tasks. There were no new stimuli. Nothing to provoke their curiosity or ingenuity. Nothing to distinguish one day from the next.

Their only reward was a manufactured food pellet that was allegedly comprised mostly of fruits and other flavorings they enjoyed plus some vitamins and a few brain-stimulating nutrients that humans often use to sharpen their wits.

Merle was the first to question the content of the pellets, and asked for a few samples to analyze.

What he discovered shocked them all beyond belief.

Apparently, the designers of the project anticipated that the chimps and bonobos would only work for so long once it became boring and monotonous, unlike their human counterparts, who would do anything for money…especially more money, so the enticements of a few tasty pellets would be minimal…unless there was something more to the pellets.

Merle’s analysis indicated the presence of a very short-acting variation of Adderall (“mixed amphetamine salts”) that were highly addictive…suddenly the “motivation” was obvious. The better that they performed, the more pellets they received.

Thinking two steps ahead, Merle then secured the special vitamins and brain nutrients that the working primates received upon completion of their day. This proved to be especially ingenious; among the usual and customary ingredients, there was a mixture of sleep-inducing hypnotics that helped ensure that they rested at the end of the day. These were also addictive, and resembled alprazolam in terms of the clinical effects.

Devoid of the human addictions to wealth, position and power, the primates required a physical addiction to push themselves to mental and physical ruin the way mankind has done for eons.

This new revelation was huge, but it would be difficult, if not impossible to address, since the entire project was cloaked in so much secrecy in the first place…and Merle was not even authorized to be involved at all.

Frederick’s comprehension of any of this was limited. As has been stated before, sentience and intelligence have a very limited correlation to each other. Sometimes, it even seems as if there is an inverse proportional relationship between intellectualization and true understanding.

It was probably better that he did not really understand what was being done, but if they tried to hide or disguise their findings, he would undoubtedly sense their deceit.

They soon realized that this was a dilemma that would have to be addressed openly amongst the group. Frederick was now one of them. What concerned him was now a concern for the group. In the pursuit of higher consciousness, they had sought the insight of a being outside of their closed human society.

They all believed that there was a purpose in doing so, and had already been given a glimpse of their own origins vis-à-vis the so-called Ascent of Man in terms of how one tribe of primates suddenly achieved sentience beyond the grasp of all the others, thanks to Frederick’s incantation of an age-old chimpanzee legend.

In addition, they appeared to have stumbled onto an awareness of a previously unidentified brain injury that may have been manifesting itself in various forms to various degrees in humans for decades, depending upon the occupation.

In that respect, telemarketers represented a sort of specialized subset of conditions and conditioning conducive to isolating the nature of the injury, almost like a laboratory experiment. The problem is that telemarketers are so generally reviled and despised that even PETA would not be as likely to feel compassion for them as they would for a room full of lab rats.

It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of what is inhumane. Whether it be what we do to animals or to each other, only humans can be capable of inhumanity. When confronted with the spectacle of animal cruelty, most humans feel compassion, outrage, or pity, but when it comes to telemarketers most people feel only schadenfreude.

 

 

 

THFWS & TTM’s: Some of my Best Friends are Telemarketers

THFWS & TTM’s: Some of my Best Friends are Telemarketers

Telemarketers are one of the most maligned groups of people in the world…and sometimes, for good reason.

First of all, they practice their craft by way of home invasion via the telephone.

The vast majority of them sell everything from extended vehicle warrantees, long-distance telephone plans, re-financing of debit, new furnaces, new air conditioners, re-roofing, kitchen or bathroom remodeling, mobile cellular service, to schemes that allegedly allow you to buy anything from appliances and power tools to home remodeling supplies at a fraction of their retail cost (neglecting to mention that you have to pay the freight and shipping costs, with no guarantee that any of the vendors you wish to buy from have any such arrangement to sell directly to you, plus the exorbitant annual fees associated with joining their “club”).

It was almost twenty years ago that PharmaCorp decided to develop a sales task force to market home delivery of prescription medications as a subsidiary to their pharmaceutical manufacturing company.

Then came the Medicare Part D enrollments of 2006, which was a massive boondoggle for the insurance companies competing for an estimated market of seventy-five million prospective targets to be enrolled in less than forty-five days. Tens of thousands of agents were trained and licensed as healthcare insurance agents for all fifty states to enroll prospective Medicare part D recipients over the telephone.

They made upwards of ten thousand dollars in six weeks, only to be faced with going back to selling long distance plans and extended vehicle warranties once the smoke had cleared.

As a general group, telemarketers act as agents for some of the most despicable scams ever devised, and there is little or no true value to what they do, which is essentially to separate people from their money. They are like trained assassins, who work for the highest bidder, so it is no coincidence that they refer to their intended customer/victims as “targets”.

Fifty years ago, most of them would have been “traveling salesmen”.

When the real estate market tanked, the industry became flooded with failed mortgage brokers and real estate agents as well as automobile salespersons.

Not all of them are necessarily “snake oil salesmen,” but there comes a time when one must choose between a telephone and a gun just to feed your family.

Their rationalizations are almost endless, and their aspirations are high. Sometimes, they make huge commissions, if they are involved in launching a new program that is as yet untried, or has failed or been met with marginal success at another call center or by a different team.

Once the core group has defined and honed the pitch and the approach, they will hire a boatload of new people, who they will then train, thereby watering down the available market, and knocking the bottom out of their commissions.

There is a paradigm in sales that mandates that less than 20 percent of the sales force will make more than 80 percent of the commissions. It has nothing to do with fairness or the ability to climb the ladder by proving your worth. It is a purposeful manipulation of basic motivations and drives, and on a purely Machiavellian level it is the most efficient and successful way to exploit your sales force.

The idea is to give the impression to the main body of the sales force that they could do just as well as the top performers, if only they worked a little harder, or were better at their job, while the elite members are treated like gods, to be emulated and worshipped. Little other than personal favoritism initially determines who is favored and who is not. Talent and personality may enter into the equation to some extent, but once the choices are made, unless you screw up and do something to alienate yourself to Management, it makes little difference. Why? Well it goes something like this:

Most clients know that only a certain percentage of their potential customers are viable, qualified targets, but the sales force is tasked with going through the motions of giving presentations to everyone targeted.

Given the choice between a level playing field with a resultant $45 thousand dollar average yearly salary, with top earners getting less than ten thousand dollars more than the average, or presenting the possibility of being one of the fortunate, and earning one hundred thousand dollars per year, with everyone else getting only about $36 thousand, the logic is to create as wide a margin as possible for the top salaries so as to create the impression that if they only worked a little harder, or handled their after-call work a little faster, that they too could be a top dog, rather than one of the doomed.

Thereby, the doomed work very hard to eke out marginal commissions from marginal possibilities leaving the privileged to be free to grab all the low-hanging fruit with ease. The first question that comes to most people’s minds is to wonder how anyone can control who gets what opportunities. It goes like this:

There is a feature of most computer-controlled automated dialing systems that allows for a practice called “skill weighting”, meaning that a select group of “closers” get access to the wealthiest, or most vulnerable targets, or the ones who have never been called before, people who are new to the offering, never cancelled the service, never declined the product, etc.

Also, the difference between being next in line for the first available call, as opposed to waiting your turn as the dialer marches through the list of assigned positions makes a huge difference, especially on inbound callers. It quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy as to who are the top dogs and who are the underdogs.

It is no accident or euphemism that sales call centers are called “boiler rooms”. The pressure is intense. The time constraints are totally unreasonable, and no one is such a superstar as to be immune from having their jobs and success dangled over their heads like the proverbial carrot on the string hanging from the stick in front of the jackass that continues to plod along relentlessly, just a hairsbreadth away from its goal.

Heart disease, stroke, diabetes and clinical depression run rampant among the sales force due to a combination of stress, too much coffee and too many cigarettes, sitting for too long without regular opportunities to get up and walk away from their desk, and poor diet due to a limited ability to access nutritious meals in the half-hour allotted for meal breaks.

Most modern call centers now track every second of every aspect of your workday. How many “personal non-work related (“bio-breaks”), counseling time, meeting time, time spent getting back online after the meeting, after-call work (the amount of time it takes to record the results of the call and get back online), “system problems” if your computer, or the mainframe, or some aspect of the program you are utilizing fails or slows down, including the amount of time it takes for you to re-boot or initialize your system…all of it is recorded, and reported and printed out and presented to you on a weekly basis. No one is immune.

Middle management is prohibited from fraternizing with the rank-and-file, even the top performers, and generally given such ridiculous workloads (as exempt salaried employees, they are the new wave of indentured servants) that they have little time for friends or family anyway. They have a gun to their heads to extract as much work from their charges and are just as likely to be terminated as the other employees are. This tends to bring out a very mean-spirited neurosis very quickly in even the most well-adjusted supervisor.

Years ago, factory workers who were subjected to repetitive motion injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome were finally recognized as a legitimate work-related health insurance claim. Until it actually cost the employers money, they paid no attention. Workman’s Compensation claims finally got their attentions long enough to result in attempts to prevent the injuries by modifying their methods to more worker-friendly conditions.

A very good case could be made for repetitive thought injuries being documented amongst telemarketers. The data is certainly there to support the claim. The victims are everywhere you look amongst any telephone sales force, but PharmaCorp’s casualties, including suicides were becoming difficult to ignore.

Had they been test subjects, it would have been obvious, but no one was paying much attention or tracking the data, except to suppress it.

Although human Resource departments are quick to reassure the employees that because it is so costly to advertise, recruit, train and hire new employees, they are a valued asset, in truth the longer they stay, the more benefits they accrue and use, and the more their salaries rise, the more of a liability they represent, especially in terms of matching 401K pensions and healthcare benefits, considering that the longer they work, the sicker they become.

Workplace employee surveys began to show an alarming degree of mistrust, dissatisfaction, resentment and outright hostility despite the fact that most employees did not believe the surveys to be confidential or without some risk of retaliation.

An online internet survey of adversarial workplaces placed PharmaCorp so high on the list of worst places to work in the country that even their board of directors began to look for band-aids to cover up the problem so as to create the impression that they actually gave a shit.

It was like giving cough drops to tuberculosis patients.

The real shock came as a result of the “Talking Monkeys Project”. More and more of the Chimpanzee test subjects began to develop gastric ulcers, heart conditions, and suffer cerebral vascular attacks (“strokes”).

Because the chimps returned to their natural environments and families at the end of their workday, alarmingly higher and higher numbers of incidents involving violence among other chimps, including mates and their offspring were being recorded and documented.

Keep in mind, the entire project was unknown to almost all of the employees in the sales force, and the use of the chimps as “feeder-qualifiers” was considered to be an experiment conducted by one of PharmaCorp’s subsidiary research companies to test the cognitive, learning and language skills of primates. It just happened to be convenient to use their sales and marketing operations as their test lab.

The stress-induced physiological effects and behavioral dysfunctions began to become so prevalent that the handlers of the chimpanzees began to express concern and alarm.

Management’s answer to the growing dilemma was to strongly discourage written reports being generated in favor of unrecorded “discussion forums” and “feedback opportunities” in dialogues between the staff and Management.

Frederick was such a high-performing test subject that he was quickly utilized as a liaison between the trainers, handlers, and the chimps themselves, so he was not subject to the rigorous demands placed on the chimps on a long-term basis, and therefore had not suffered the mental and physiological damage that his comrades faced.

Mark was in charge of the American Sign Language training of all the chimps, including Frederick. Darcy was assigned to Lilith, Malkira, and Frederick as a family group. Each handler was responsible for one family group, including all offspring. Frederick’s superstar status within the research group brought many perks, bonuses and unofficial accolades to both Mark and Darcy, but because of the secrecy surrounding Frederick’s very existence, they were prohibited from publishing any of the results.

As was stated before, even a massive conglomerate corporation like PharmaCorp is answerable to “other concerns” known to only the most highly-placed corporate officers who are subject to being played like marionettes if the right strings are pulled by the right individuals.

Off in the distance, those other “interested parties” were monitoring the results of the entire “Talking Monkeys Project” for entirely different reasons. Fortunately (and somewhat amazingly), this necessity of distancing helped preclude detection of Mark, Darcy, and Frederick’s extra-curricular off-campus activities.

And that was especially fortunate on this special weekend when Frederick became truly sentient by virtue of administration of The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.