For he's a jolly good felon: True-dough speaks out for Death Ray

Note: The bits in orange type below are additions to the original post.
Huckster extraordinaire Kevin Trudeau, star of idiotic infomercials and rabble-rousing radio, has long been one of my favorite snargets (see links at the end of this post). Well, Dear Ones, True-dough has just reached a new level of snarget-worthiness with yesterday's KT Network show, in which, according to the blurb on his site, he "reveals what is really causing civil unrest and riots around the world and how the government is trying to crush free enterprise and anything that could empower YOU!!" True-dough can speak quite well to the topic of being "crushed" by the government, as he has been playing the role of martyr for many years, ever since he served prison time for larceny and credit card fraud, which are felonies.

Now he wants to paint the entire selfish-help industry as a martyr to the government and the "criminal" mainstream media.

Yes, among the things that the big bad gummit is trying to crush, according to True-dough, is the selfish-help industry, as indicated by how they went after poor James Arthur Ray, recently convicted of three counts of negligent homicide, which are also felonies, despite some of Ray's defenders trying to pretend otherwise. My friend Dave Cook alerted me to this segment, which starts at about 36:00. "Yes," he wrote, "I listened all the way to that point to hear what he had to say about JAR, so you didn’t have to… You’re welcome." (Thanks, Dave!)

Dave added: "Oh, if you listen to the first part, 'KT' talks about his running for office and how you can help him. What a douche."

Here's the link to the entire segment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97PZY1--Eq4&feature=youtu.be

And in case you don't care to hear all of KT's grandstanding and the usual ads for stuff "they" don't want you to know about, here's the link to the part that starts at about 36:00: http://youtu.be/97PZY1--Eq4?t=36m

Addendum, 26 June 2011: As you may know by now, I did not listen to KT's entire rant. And that has earned me some harsh criticism and accusations of willful blindness and/or various sins of omission.

Since I wrote this I have been informed that True-dough included some racist rants in this program. I was not aware of this at the time I wrote this post, because I only listened to a very few minutes of the video -- just enough to support my basic point that KT was defending James Ray. And then I pushed the "stop" button. I have listened to entire KT shows before when they were only audio. But video is a larger download and my satellite Internet service has a strict Fair Access Policy. Once you go over a certain amount for the month you are seriously slowed down or all but cut off. Ron and I were reaching our limit. We cannot afford to be without Internet. Our livelihood depends upon it.

And that's the truth, though apparently not a good enough truth for those who have Issues, and who think that I willfully chose to ignore the racism because I'm "all about the whiteness."

Had I actually heard the racist remarks I would certainly have mentioned them as one more criticism among many that I have of KT. You can choose to believe me or not. For those of you whose judgment is not clouded by your own agenda: do you honestly think I would miss a chance to snark about and criticize True-dough?

I may do a follow-up post on his ignorant, racist remarks as soon as I hear the relevant parts and know more of what I am talking about. 

For now, this blog post purposely focuses on Kevin True-dough's defense of James Ray and the selfish-help industry. I have no doubt there were many other objectionable bits in that KT show even beyond the racist remarks; as far as I'm concerned, almost everything KT says or does is objectionable.

In my original post I mentioned that his video elicited fawning comments from supporters who apparently look upon True-dough as one of the last great heroes. I got called on that too, accused of ignoring the people of color who had criticized his racist rant. At the time I wrote this blog post, however, I saw four comments, and they were all favorable to True-dough. I did not see any critical comments. That is why I did not mention them.

Over the years many people have criticized Kevin True-dough for many things. But he still continues to stay in business, because even though he has severe critics he also has many, many supporters. This is one of the points I have repeatedly made about him on my blog. Again, I did not see the remarks criticizing his racism. Had I seen them, I would have investigated further to see what they were talking about.

[Back to the original post] As I have noted before, it's not that I am any big fan of big government. The U.S. government has done and continues to do some dodgy, oppressive, and downright criminal things. That's one reason True-dough is able to attract so many followers (that, and his endless stream of frauducts and flopportunities, such as his Global Information Network pyramid scheme).

However, as I have also noted many times before, the government's misdeeds do not exonerate True-dough and other hucksters.
 
To me, KT's rant, and the fact that he has so many supporters -- plus the fact that Death Ray still has many supporters -- are just a few more indications that we shouldn't count Ray out of the selfish-help game any time soon. People want heroes, and many are willing to overlook the felonious deeds and serious character flaws of some of those "heroes."

Speaking of scoundrels sticking together, Scientist Bob Proctor had supportive words about James Ray in response to news about Ray's conviction. According to a piece on the Arizona Republic site:

"Anybody had the right to leave there (the sweat lodge), and they didn't. Some did," Proctor said. "It was a tragic thing that happened, but I don't think (Ray) should be the one that's held responsible.

LaVaughn wrote a good post about this, and Scientist Bob's amazing gift for rationalization, on her Celestial Reflections blog. 

I'll be waiting to see if True-dough starts a fund to help Death Ray. Perhaps some of what he raises for his own defense fund will go to help Ray's cause. Turds of a feather...

Addendum 19 July 2011 ~ While Googling around I came across this interesting March 2010 discussion on Cecil Adams' Straight Dope Forum, regarding True-dough's Ponzi-like Global Information Network, as well as his past with motivational infoproducts giant Nightingale-Conant. I don't know how I could have missed it previously. Particularly fascinating is a comment from a participant named banjoDavid (03-04-2010, 03:01 AM ), who said he was a studio engineer with N/C back in the day when they were selling True-dough's stuff. Though I suspect that the full story of True-dough and N/C has yet to be told, banjoDavid offers some insight that jibes with other information I've heard:

A PUBLIC APOLOGY

I worked with Kevin Trudeau for a couple of years. I was a studio engineer at Nightingale-Conant during the late 80's until I got sh%&t-canned 13 years ago. I recorded Mega Math and Mega Speed Reading. I condensed Mega Memory from 6 a hour program to a 2 hour program. In order to do that, I had to get Trudeau's OK for the edits, as stipulated in his contract. I had to work through his attorney, because he was in the Federal pen for credit card fraud. I recorded the training tapes for the Nutrition for Life multi-level marketing scheme he was involved with.

I was the low man on the totem pole at Nightingale, and Kevin Trudeau was part of the sh%it detail I had to deal with.

He told me one day, just as an aside, "I spend most of my time in court with lawyers."

The speed reading program with Howard Berg was really bad. This was in the day they were publishing 6 cassette programs. Side 12 was Kevin pitching his other products. The program needed a lot of editing, but I was told to push it through fast, and skip the editing. Some distribution company heard it and refused to sell it the way it was, so I was told to re-edit.

There was time to do it over, but not time to do it right in the first place.

When I joined Nightingale-Conant in 1987, there were about 250 employees. It was a well respected motivational and sales training tape company, the best. I was proud of the stuff I worked on, and I learned a lot.

When Trudeau got out of the pen, he and his cellmate Jules got involved in Nutrition for Life, an Amway-style pyramid scheme scam, and we produced the tapes they sold.

Not we, I. I recorded him in Studio A for 2 or or 3 years, i don't remember many details. Jules did a Yoda impression that he thought was hilarious. I had to record this crap, it was my day job. Trudeau did TV infomercials with Danny Bonaduce about some health products around that time. Nightingale housed the Trudeau Marketing Group in the building for a while, and the company's morale slid downhill.

People were laid off from Nightingale in a few waves. Mike, Rose, Roger, Steve, and many others. When I was laid off in March of 1997, they fired 50 people that day. The personnel director had a sign on his desk that could be moved around to say, "Have a nice day," or " Take a hike."

Guess what it said that day?

I took a hike. I'm still pissed off and bummed. It was a good company, and buying into Trudeau's bullsh%t cost them their reputation and a lot of jobs, mine among them. I think there are about 75 people working there now. Trudeau is long gone from Nightingale, and they don't even sell his stuff anymore. He does that on his own.

Before you buy from Kevin Trudeau, read on the internet about the complaints against him.

I'm not making this sh%t up. Thanks for letting me rant
David

I find several points in this comment interesting. To begin with, I've heard from various sources that True-dough nearly drove Nightingale-Conant into bankruptcy due to his tendency to...um... party hardy on their dime. (By the way, Peter Wink, who worked for N/C in the early to late 1990s, and who now works for True-dough, and with whom I had several conversations that resulted in a series of blog posts -- here's the first one -- was NOT one of these sources. He did not seem to know much about KT's previous association with N/C when I asked him, and since we had agreed not to converse about KT, to whom he is steadfastly loyal, I did not push it. Peter did, however, tell me that his own marketing and negotiating skills helped save N/C when they were in trouble in the early 1990s. You are free to believe that or not.)

What really interests me about banjoDavid's remark is that it would appear N/C was making lots of money selling True-dough's stuff even while he was doing time in the Federal Pen, and they continued to sell his stuff and associate with him after he was released. (Apparently True-dough did not learn his lesson in prison, judging by the business ventures he and his cellmate got into once they'd been released.)

Particularly since N/C has long been associated with Scientist Bob Proctor and other New-Wage hustledorks, it's hard for some of us to shed tears for them, and easy, perhaps, to speculate that they may have gotten a bit of what they deserved from their choice to associate with True-dough. However, I do feel bad for people such as banjoDavid and other employees who apparently lost good jobs because of N/C's poor choices and KT's shenanigans.

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Related Whirled links about Kevin True-dough:

• I first blogged about KT at length when Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale wrote a gushing blog post about meeting his hero True-dough.
• Subsequently I wrote about a radio conversation between Mr. Fire and True-dough, in which they praised themselves and their industry at length, while dismissing skeptics as losers.
• A while later I wrote about one of True-dough's major ongoing cons (you'll have to scroll down a bit to get to the part about him).
• And the following month, I elaborated about this scheme on my "Illuminutty" post.

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