Crap! Wrong Picture!
This is the one I really wanted. Doggone this interweb thing...
Actually, I guess the first one wasn't so bad after all.
It's a planet for slow learners.
It's another one of those endearing homilies we heard at the Spritual Rights Foundation almost every day. We never heard what it meant - that was said to be evident. We did wind up hearing it a lot.
I never recalled seeing any examples of what constitutes slow learning. Well maybe when I reflect on the wasted years I spent there. I did see a recent example, though: I'm reading the absurd cease and desist letter sent us by the Spiritual Rights Foundation.
First, since the SRF attorney, William J. (Will) Rogers, filed this letter in Superior Court as part of an idiotic libel complaint, it is public record. I and every other American are free to post, read, email, copy, print or use it to wipe up cat vomit.
Second, you'll see how low these people will stoop to silence the people's side of the story.
Third, in case you are afraid this letter caused this blog to close or become restricted in its activities, I can tell you: the cease and desist letter FAILED, the lawsuit filed by the Spiritual Rights Foundation FAILED, the plaintiffs were legally declared FAILURES and said plaintiffs were forced by the Superior Court to pay money to ME. The court also declared ME as the prevailing party.
So, that's why this blog remains and I'm about to tell you how we responded (in a nutshell).
Now, on with the - uh, well, here's the letter:
His first paragraph is:
"The defamatory statements are numerous and wide-spread throughout your media. Your frequent and blatant references to SRF and ISHI as cults are actionable as libel. Your statements that Rev. Robin and Rev. Angela "scheme" to take money and property from church members, and that they "enrich" themselves from church funds, and that they are "continuing [Rev. Bill Duby's ] legacy of insanity and unrestrained hate", are false, offensive, and constitute libel."
The term "cult" was one that the SRF CULT brushed aside long ago. Here is a quote from the guy who wrote the above:
Petaluma attorney Will Rogers, who represents the Spiritual Rights Foundation, argues that according to the dictionary definition, any organized mainstream religion could be called a cult. "To one person," Rogers says, "the Catholic Church can be considered a cult." -- East Bay Express, "Consider the Children" By Will Harper, October 10, 2001So, the guy who wrote that it is libel to say SRF is a CULT, is on record saying: Who gives a damn if you call SRF a CULT? So's the Catholic Church!
Libel is the action someone can take if a person tells a lie in writing. There's a lot more to it but that's it in a nutshell. We know that Robin and Angela don't have jobs. We know that the church is paying them a stipend. That, I don't have a problem with. I do know that as soon as someone gets a little bit of gain in their life, Angela and Robin have their hands out.
As soon as she was sure I would receive a modest inheritance, Angela reinforced the concept of the tithe. After I was gone, she ranted and raved that I left because I wouldn't tithe my inheritance to the church. I didn't tithe because I had serious doubts about what the money would be used for. It certainly would not be spent on me.
Instead, I saw lots of money going into church operations that had little to do with serving the church itself. Operations like the venerated Blue Sky Ranch.
We thought this ranch was "the people's place". A place for relaxation, meditation and recreation. Instead, we were told we were not welcome at the Blue Sky Ranch unless we were working or paying. Isn't that an unusual policy for "the people's place"?
I later discovered the Blue Sky Ranch - always represented as church property, was titled to Robin and Angela in the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder's office. Many members of SRF, myself included, donated money to SRF for the purchase of the property and for maintenance. That money was paid to SRF, then tendered to someone to fund supplies and operations on a property Robin and Angela own. In fact, we donated money to SRF to support the purchase of the Blue Sky Ranch thinking it always was a church property.
I'm not the only one shocked and disgusted by that revelation. Everyone who heard it felt the same. I'm just the first to say it out loud.
Bill said to me several times that the church helped him attain personal prosperity and prosperity for Robin and Angela as evidenced by the nice vehicles they drive and their ability to buy anything they want. Bill bragged about having his women well taken care of financially. He told us we men were responsible for maintaining our woman's standard of living, which he demonstrated by showering his women with praise and riches.
Now, how in hell do you create that kind of wealth on a preacher's pay? And if you did, where did the money come from? The Lottery?
Do those two "scheme" to take property? Well, yes. Blue Sky Ranch. The Kawahara Residence. Who else lost inheritances or other windfalls to the Witches of Ellsworth Street? I remember one time when we all went to Lake Tahoe for a weekend of gambling and other perverted activities. A member received a large winning from gambling. Immediately afterward, one of Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin's tithe collectors appeared literally with a hand thrust out and demanded their cut. It was paid.
Another ex-member was made SRF legend when she received property from her family as part of her inheritance. She (wisely) vamoosed soon after and was from that day on, debased for preferring to raise a family and live comfortably rather than submit to selling the property and giving Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin a huge amount of cash year after year. Not only did Bill Duby curse this person, so did Angela and Robin.
Angela Silva said to the gathered ministers: "Goddamn Kawahara doesn't want to tithe (his inheritance to the church)". A yearly ten percent tithe to SRF (over which Angela presides) would bankrupt me in a short time. And as SRF conducts no charitable activity nor does it endow any members who engage in long, dedicated service to them with stipends, I had a serious problem seeing Angela drive a Cadillac and own real estate while the rest of us bounced along in clunkers and swept cockroaches out of our SRF-owned apartments.
It's my money and I'll decide if I want to spend it on my wife and family or see it go to another luxury car for Robin or Angela. I chose family. Angela's track record of personal enrichment and outburst in front of the ministers shows clearly who she favored.
I know of others who lost property. And it's not just real estate. It's cash and other items given as a tithe. If could purchase land, own luxury cars and buy anything you want, travel as much as you desire and have no concern for your retirement and future while not working a day of your life, wouldn't your neighbors wonder how in hell you can do that?
As far as the unrestrained hate and so on goes, the snarl on Angela's face when she said to me "Sell that goddamn house!" was enough for me. Could you picture her face as she denounced me in front of the ministers? No one receives more hate than a person who doesn't give Angela money.
Others relate several times when Angela and Robin railed with emotion so high it reminded them of the insane anger expressed by Bill Duby himself. The Revelations Class students faced the brunt of that behavior then and continue to this day.
Unrestrained hate is their way of healing, you know. And if you object: well, you are just projecting you own spiritual shortcomings on the pure and humble servant of the church spitting in your face.
False? Not when several people have told me all the things I relate in this blog. Not when my sources are from print or court cases involving SRF. And especially not when my sources are ex-members hungering for the chance to come forward without repercussions.
Libelous? Not a chance. That was proven when I beat their ass in court.
Offensive? Well, I'd be offended if my ill-gotten gains were threatened and the fresh young spirits I need to grow and sustain my dysfunctional organization never make it to my doorstep.
Besides, the First Amendment protects content a lot of people will find offensive. I mean, Maury Povich is still on the air, isn't he?
Second Paragraph:
"The YouTube videos, some with pictures of _____, are clearly intended to destroy _____ reputation and business as a hypnotherapist. The references to _____ daughters demonstrate a reckless disregard for the rights of others, as well as a disregard of common decency."
You know, I always wondered why Angela, Robin and ____, demonstrated a reckless disregard of others or eschewed any semblance of common decency when they degrade, insult, ridicule, browbeat and otherwise berate the members of SRF and in some cases, their own life partners for imaginary and inconsequential infractions.
Has anyone at SRF been on the receiving end of an Angela Silva tirade? Has anyone received the stink-eye from Robin Dumolin? Of course, they have and of course all of us were upbraided in front of as many of our peers, spectators, innocent bystanders, children and chihuahuas as could be mustered. I have seen men and women reduced to quivering and utterly destroyed ghosts of themselves at their hands - especially Angela's, for any kind of imaginary crime.
Maybe I should have some compassion for them. Perhaps I should understand their total lack of human decency and disregard for the rights of others are a product of emotional abuse, mind control from the evil influence of a madman. Perhaps their behavior is mere projection, or a result of receiving a vaccine as a child or watching too much Oprah?
Aww screw it. When was their own compassion any more than superficial? When was their own human decency any more than you would find in a crack house? When did you ever see them operate without a quid pro quo?
When they have to face the consequences and take their medicine, their bluster becomes silence. Their bravado turns to fear. Their inviolability reveals chinks in the armor. They become a giant with clay feet.
_____ was not at all bashful when KRON came to shoot a pleasant, breezy segment on her World Hypnosis Day. But come back and ask her about Steve Sanchez's book "Spiritual Perversion" or raise questions about how she conducts her hypnosis practice (as KRON did), she suddenly becomes camera shy.
And if a humorous YouTube video contains a picture of _____ (the same picture she uses in her self-promotion materials and on the web) _____ is aghast.
Maybe she had a bad hair day when that picture was taken.
As for the intent to destroy the ISHI "business" - when is providing information to an otherwise unsuspecting public, speaking out truthfully about your own experience and those of many others unlawful, indecent and libelous?
It's not per law but apparently, it is to the squeaky hamster wheel in the noggins of Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin.
I guess they concocted their scheme while reading "Consumer Reports".
In Joy's blogs, there were no direct references to _____ daughters, as claimed by Rogers. Basically, Joy described the situation the "kids" were in without using their names.
When Joy retold that situation on YouTube, those "kids" later revealed themselves by posting critical and outright hostile comments under their own names and identified themselves as _____ adult daughters At the same time, posts from others (who we believe were SRF members or their adult children) were left with similar threats and hostility. Presumably, those comments were left at the direction of the sisters.
The two daughters (both in their twenties - certainly well beyond wearing footies and Strawberry Shortcake undies; in fact, one daughter describes her favorite activity as "going drinking") never offered any kind of correction or told their side of the story.
Instead, they hurled personal insults at Joy then left their true names and real, correct email addresses, daring others to respond using taunts, excessive profanity and invective. One such commenter even left threats to come to our home to deliver "spiritual retribution" in person. The others were satisfied with leaving the usual "bitch" and "cunt" comments to Joy.
Anyway, the comments left by the sisters were anything BUT an attempt to set the record straight. Instead, they focused their hate, their need for revenge and desire to silence any open commentary on the public lives of the very public Angela and Robin at Joy and myself.
The sisters accomplished exactly what they wanted: Joy and her viewers felt physically threatened, I felt physically threatened and commentary on YouTube was chilled (that's a legal term, not a street colloquialism) to the degree that no rebuttal was possible. These comments were becoming very close to a terroristic threat.
It was because of the threats and unacceptable conduct of the adult daughters that all comments on the YouTube channel were deleted and the two adult daughters were banned from commenting on Joy's YouTube page.
The purpose was to restore a civil atmosphere for open discourse and stop the sisters from their efforts to incite not just hostility but to create fear among the participants and compel silence through intimidation - just like their spiritual godmothers do all the time.
Unsaid in Rogers' letter was that Joy offered reinstatement to any banned party. All they had to do was promise to refrain from leaving threats. As of today, there has been no reply. (and as of today, Rogers points to Joy's statement that the sisters were banned for threats attacks and bullying, and Joy's offer to reinstate banned persons as "proof" that JOY posted all the statements that were actually made by the sisters. If you can figure out what that does for the Spiritual Rights Foundation other than make them look like exactly the things their ex-members say about them, please tell me.)
Given all that happened, maybe Joy has a case against the sisters.
At any rate, the sisters moved on to Joy's blog where they continued their attack on Joy using similar language and the same hostile and combative posture. Only this time, there were two differences: their posts only flirted with unacceptable and threatening commentary and they were neither banned nor were their comments deleted.
Since our blogs on Blogger is an open and public forum, there is no way to exclude an individual from reading or participating in your blog. If your blog is public, anyone can read it. Anyone can comment on it. You still retain the ability to approve comments but that doesn't stop someone from commenting or reading.
So in the spirit of Blogger, the sister's choice words were left on the world-wide billboard of Blogger for public discourse. And boy did those two start hating it.
Their comments gained no support from their counterparts this time. Instead, after they left their taunts, their insults and basically pissed off everyone reading the blog, a return salvo was fired from the readers giving the sisters a taste of their own medicine. Neither Joy nor I participated.
I suppose the look on the sisters' faces was something like the look on my niece's face when she realized that needle the doctor was holding wasn't going in her ARM.
I stepped in to tell the sisters to stop acting like 5 year olds fighting for space in the sandbox and start acting like the smart young women they are. Joy stepped in to calm them down as well despite the degrading treatment she endured from them.
To her credit, one of them soon realized what she was doing and made a polite exit. I was happy to see she came to her senses. She was always the smarter one. The other remained defiant, vowing to keep fighting. But we never heard from her either.
All in all, the "flaming remarks" the Spiritual Rights Foundation has alleged Joy made on her blog and YouTube channel were posted by the sisters and others whom the sisters may have directed to make those comments. Not Joy, not me not anyone else. The sisters and their colleagues were solely responsible for posting hostile comments intended to intimidate other participants.
Third Paragraph:
"The acknowledgment by Ms. Butler that her blog and video contain "flaming remarks", and Mr. Kawahara's boast that he "takes the credit" for SRF's cessation of the broadcast of church services, demonstrate malicious intent. You cannot shield your malice with your disclaimers that your speech is protected under the First Amendment. The First Amendment has never protected malicious speech."
Here, Will got everything just plain wrong. It is as if he never read Joy's blog or YouTube channel - actually, he did but he clearly didn't understand it or misrepresented it. Or maybe his clients read them and told him what to say. Either way, it would turn out to be a very bad move.
As I just described, the "flaming remarks" were left on YouTube and Joy's blog by _____'s own adult daughters and others believed to be SRF members or their adult children in a direct personal attack against Joy. Again, those comments never addressed Joy's statements but only insulted her with degrading and extraordinarily hostile and profane language.
In her statement, Joy only pointed out she had to remove flaming remarks from others and ban those who left them. She never made hostile or flaming statements to the members, staff or children of SRF.
In my "Drinking with the Woman at the Well" post, I joked that I turned the tables on SRF and commented on the craziest broadcast of a church sermon I ever heard.
When they learned of my commentary, SRF responded by pulling the plug on all broadcasts.
Now, the Spiritual Rights Foundation may have pulled their broadcasts because of what I said about them but it was their decision to discontinue them. And their action was in response to one person (me) standing up on only one occasion saying "what a load of crap!".
Well, if a broadcaster has to dump his show after only one person says at only one time: "this is a load of crap!", we wouldn't have Rush Limbaugh on the air.
Apart from getting the kind of feedback a public statement will attract, the absurdity of one person bringing down a whole series of live broadcasts is a better joke than I could have ever made. They are on shaky ground just on that alone.
What is even shakier, is Rogers tries to say SRF does not control their broadcasts - I do. I didn't know I was their boss but since Rogers says I am: Robin, Angela, YOU'RE FIRED!
Anyway, he got the concept of "malice" totally wrong. When a law student read his letter, she said "this guy is not very good at all." I told her "unfortunately, he graduated from your law school." She reached for a Tylenol.
In the context of the First Amendment, "malice" means the writer knew his statement was false or should have known it but wrote it anyway. And in context of the First Amendment, the actual term is "actual malice".
Jokes are not considered malicious.
Making a statement that someone finds embarrassing is not malicious.
Speaking your mind is not malicious.
The truth is not malicious.
All the above is malicious only in the mosquito-infested swampland of the SRF mentality.
The First Amendment does not protect "actual malice", it's true. But let's face it, even a first year law student knew the free speech exercised on this blog is anything but "actual malice". I knew that through many years of college studying at the bar - Clancy's Bar on "L" Street. In fact, I'm late for class now - we're studying the effect of distilled spirits on, uh, well... All right, we're going to slam some Jagermeister, OK?
At any rate, this blog IS an expression of free speech. The only ones who think otherwise is the leadership of SRF. Too bad for them, the Superior Court smacked them down as well.
Last Paragraph:
"You have ten days from the date of this letter to remove all references of my clients from your blogs and video posts. If you fail to do so, my clients have instructed me to assert all their legal remedies against you. The remedies sought will include injunctive relief, monetary damages, attorney fees, and punitive damages."
Obviously, I gave Rogers the finger while I assembled our secret weapon: a First Amendment attorney who was salivating at the chance to kick their ass. A few days later, we received a badly photocopied pile of papers about the thickness of a slice of baloney, crudely stapled.
Their muddy complaint asked for damages at about $700,000.00. There was a single page printout of my blog - of a post that had nothing to do with their complaint. There was a single page printout of Joy's YouTube channel showing absolutely nothing related to their complaint. And a copy of his idiotic cease and desist letter.
They also wanted to determine the identity of the anonymous posters (how they would do that was unstated) and for what purpose was also unsaid.
Our response was a sledge hammer to the forehead: a Demurrer and Anti-SLAPP motion (which is called a Special Motion to Strike).
In support of those motions we clipped several articles in SRF's own American Spirit Newspaper, printed several pages of SRF's own website, reproduced several pages of news articles regarding SRF, added legal documents filed by SRF, included legal documents filed by persons with court cases involving SRF members, attached our own written declarations of our experiences with SRF - well, you get the idea.
Our motions and supporting information were almost four (4) inches thick. We didn't include a single slice of baloney.
Making unfounded, unsubstantiated legal claims only because someone said something you didn't like (or maybe didn't understand, in SRF's case) sounds very much like a reckless disregard for the rights of others and a disregard of common decency. Would you agree?
Our response, thanks to our brilliant and talented attorney, is intended to restore balance and affirm our rights by using the law as a shield, not a sword.
Judging from what happened lately, the SRF sword is getting mighty dull.
It's a planet for slow learners. And we are stuck with the slowest.
update: We won. They won't try to trample on your First Amendment rights any more.
New Update: they are trying to duck our demand to pay our legal fees. Not only will their argument not work, it can't possibly work. Film at eleven.
Even Newer Update: We got a court order forcing them to pay our legal expenses. As their tantrum cost them over $50,000.00, I would imagine they aren't going to pull a stunt like that again.
