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….)
dreamlanddancing 