Benchmark chokes on Psy's legal burrito..

[Che Gookin]

Seems Benchmark choked on Psy's legal burrito. Go read the drumroll thread for more details.

Best parts of the whole thing for me, are the parts where the school was blowing hot air at Psy about the protest.

1) Absolute fact: Psy never called the mother of the student we tried to spring. She called us 19 billion times.
2) Absolute fact: Psy or myself never once trespassed on Benchmark's property like they claimed.
3) Absolute fact: We in no way positioned ourselves so that access to the school was blocked. Benchmark claims we somehow managed to interfere with the ability of the school to run. Beats the fuck out of me how we did that when all we were doing was standing on the sidewalk waving signs.
4) Absolute fact: We in no way offered monetary payment to the residents to entice them to leave. I did offer out of my own pocket some food money and a bus ticket. However, Benchmark attempted to portray this as Mike attempting to pay them to leave. Umm no dumbasses.. We offered them a means of escaping their little 'Animal Farm'.

How could we have kept them from running by standing on the sidewalk?
How could we stopped them from abusing their residents by following their vans? (ok that is a silly one on my part. Of course they can't abuse the residents if we are around with cameras.)

We exercised our legal rights to protest a public entity. In the court papers you can clearly see how Psy's lawyers illustrate Benchmark and Jayne Longnecker's public status. Benchmark has released press releases claiming some sort of high muckity muck status in the world of tormenting young men and women. Well from what I'm gathering they did such a good job one of them jumped off a bridge and another one of them started a website exposing them. As for the rest of them Psy can fill you in on those particulars if he is up to it.

Benchmark has heralded Jayne Longnecker as a leader in the torture industry. I have to say from a professional point of view I'm in awe of the woman. She is doing torture the right way. No heavy handed physical brutality for her..

Nope.. She and her henchmen go right for the mental jugular.

Take a look at those papers and you'll see the absolutely fucked up accounting as related by Psy regarding his friendship seminar. Not many things have the ability to make me slightly ill or full on puking sick. But that recounting of his friendship seminar made me feel like getting sick. Maybe I'm a cynical old bastard, but that shit really struck a nerve.

Now my friends, enemies, and everyone else.. What we have here is opportunity..

An opportunity to learn.

We can learn that persistance pays off.

So does hiring good lawyers.

But first and foremost let's examine the tools used by Psy to cover his ass in the beginning.

Old Psy threw up that website back in '06 and sent Her Nibs Jayne "The world's biggest fucking moron and soon to be unemployed welfare recipient" Longnecker an email. This email invited her to contact Psy if he needed to make corrections to his website.

So let's check it out..

He sent an email inviting Benchmark to make corrections...
He didn't lie.
He didn't attempt to cover his tracks by changing his content..
He got really good lawyers..
He showed common sense and played his cards close to his chest by not yammering on and on and on and on and on about it to everyone and their cousin all over the internet.

There is some more, but I'm going to leave that to Psy to discuss as I'm having a hard time wading through the legalese of the papers.

So my friends Let's partay like their is no tomorrow.

 :rasta:  :rasta:  :rasta:  :rasta:  :rasta:  :rasta:  :rasta:  :rasta:

[dishdutyfugitive]

All aboard.

Next stop for the Benchmark lawyers - Bush Administration defense.

...a legal burrito...ummm.....perfect meal choice after the financial chimichanga I had for lunch

[Che Gookin]

Gonna burn on the way out isn't it?

[Anonymous]

is it ok to talk about the case now?

[Che Gookin]

Yeah dude.. the judge ruled in favor of Psy and dismissed the suit.

[psy]

is it ok to talk about the case now?

Actually, I have to get clearance from my lawyers on a few things (better to be safe than sorry).  I'll probably be releasing a press-release pretty soon after I pass it by them.  I have to ask them a few questions before I can let loose totally.

[Che Gookin]

the abusive practices was the "Friendship Workshop" which was a
28 confrontational form of group therapy which XXXXXX describes in detail in ,- 5 of his
-5-
1 declaration:
2 The room is prepared by covering all windows and taping all doorjambs so no
3 light from outside can enter. Watches and personal effects are confiscated so
4 the participants do not know the time other than the fact the session began in the
5 afternoon. XXXXXX "could only estimate" how long the session lasted and
6 believed it was at least 24 hours and possibly as long as 36 hours. (Benchmark
7 staff provided declarations indicating the time frame ran between 12-15 hours.)
8 During almost the entirety of this period the students were not allowed to sleep or
9 eat until the end of the session when they were fed and allowed to take a
10 "communal nap."
11 Near the beginning of the workshop the students, dressed in costumes, were
12 required to perform a skit written for them by the staff designed to highlight what
13 the staff believed to be their unresolved issues. XXXXXX found this public
14 ridicule embarrassing and humiliating and of no benefit and others told him they
15 felt the same way.
16 After the skit, came the disclosure circle during which the participants were
17 required to disclose intimate and shameful things they had never revealed before
18 while the staff played Kenny Roger's "Tell it all Brother" over and over.
19 Next the students were told to curl up in the fetal position on the floor and be
20 "rocks" - i.e. blocking out their feelings. As the Simon and Garfunkle song "i am
21 a Rock" played over and over, the group facilitator went around the room
22 shouting out intimate details and events at each person that the facilitator
23 believed caused the person to become emotionally isolated (i.e. like a rock). By
24 this time many students were crying.
25 Next, the students were told to lay on the floor with arms outstretched and eyes
26 closed (as opposed to the "closed" fetal position) and the facilitator would go
27 around to each person and comfort them, creating an artificial bond between the
28 facilitator and student through the intentional "breaking down/raising up" process during the marathon session.

And the sick fuckers bill themselves as leaders in the industry. Fuckers got a decent claim to being a leader in the 'teen torture industry' I'll give them that much.

As for being compassionate, caring, and driven by scientific principles they are lower than whale shit on the bottom of the ocean.

For being such great leaders these are the same knobs that wouldn't even give Psy's book on Cults(margret Mead) a second glance. They flat out refused to even consider looking at it.

Was it because they can't even read? Might be, but then I did offer a pop up book and they turned me down as well.

[Che Gookin]

Another goodie:

rd considers his experience at Benchmark to have been abusive and
3 harmful due to many of its practices. He was cut off from all contact with his family for
4 the first 30 days, and prevented from using his personal computer even though he (and
5 his parents) had been assured he would be allowed access to a computer due to a
6 writing disability he suffered. He was "verbally abused" by Benchmark staff, had his
7 mail read and privacy invaded, and was placed on a starvation diet (2 Cup-o-Noodle
8 soups and 1 granola bar per day) for being "hostile." At one point he was kicked out on
9 the streets and told not to come back for two days. (As his parents had been told not to
10 take him in he had no where to turn.) Crawford also claims to have witnessed or
11 learned of suicide attempts and that after he left Benchmark he states learned that a
12 student did commit suicide after a particularly abusive dressing down by a Benchmark
13 employee.

Yes... this is quality treatment...

In a gulag maybe...

 :twofinger:  Benchmark!

[Ursus]

For being such great leaders these are the same knobs that wouldn't even give Psy's book on Cults(margret Mead) a second glance. They flat out refused to even consider looking at it.

Oh, I am sure they already know it by heart. They use a great many of the methods detailed therein.

BTW, I believe you meant to reference Cults in our Midst, by Margaret Thaler Singer, yes? Also by same author: Crazy Therapies.

[Che Gookin]

That's the book, I have the copy Psy tried to get them to read at my Uncle's place in Washington State. Funny that you should look at it that way, but while they could recognize most of the tactics in the book they'd no doubt find someway to rationalize them. Such is the way of zealots and their ilk.

Some of the common themes that ring true between Mead's book and Benchmark include the tibbits about the Sciencetology slapp suits to silence opponents, various pressure tactics of cults used to gain compliance of new members, and the willingness of the cults to consquence members for independent thoughts.

Benchmark tried to slapp suit Psy..
Benchmark uses starvation diets, brainwashing seminars, and isolation to attempt to gain complaince.
Benchmark definitely uses consequences to threaten members of their 'family' to prevent them from expressing individual thoughts that run counter to the groupthink.

I'm not certain, Psy will have to elaborate on this, but I tend to remember one of the students saying something along the lines that if they talked to Psy they would get in trouble.

PSY? Did this happen or am I going senile?

[psy]

They flat out refused to even consider looking at it.

Or the handouts.  And they took the kids inside right quick too.

[psy]

Psy will have to elaborate on this, but I tend to remember one of the students saying something along the lines that if they talked to Psy they would get in trouble.

It did.

[Che Gookin]

Not on that one night though when that girl who got a good smushing by Ronnie went ape crap and started carrying on about how she felt the staff was her substitute family and all that nonsense.

AFter that though they started practically dragging them away from us whenever we came in the same time zone as they were in.

[psy]

Not on that one night though when that girl who got a good smushing by Ronnie went ape crap and started carrying on about how she felt the staff was her substitute family and all that nonsense.

AFter that though they started practically dragging them away from us whenever we came in the same time zone as they were in.

Well.  The girl broke the rules by speaking to us, and as such they shut her up right quick.  About the last thing I heard her say was "I have a right to speak", which, frankly shocked me.  It's no wonder we never even saw her again.

[psy]

just sent a draft "press release" to my attorneys.  They'll go over it, add to it, polish, etc...  They're really good writers.