In the summer of 2001 I attended the first conference for survivors, I was so terrified that I would not even tell the organizers my real name.
After the conference I took a day in DC, Monday, and went to the offices of my congressional representation in person to file a complaint. I made it clear that I wished to testify at the open hearings for the confirmation of Mr. Sembler as Ambassador to Italy.
I purchased the domain stopsembler.org, established an online petition against him and collected hundreds of signatures.
The hearings took place during the chaos shortly after the 9/11 attacks. They were not announced publically, and the vote for confirmation was held in secret. Mr Sembler filed a statement lauding himself and his wife Betty for founding straight and claiming that they had 12000 succesful graduates.
Ken and I were tireless in making contact with our representatives, to the point that Dianne Finstein's office stopped responding to my letters.
I wrote letters telling my own story to every senator- all 100 of them. I also contacted dozens of house members. No one wanted to hear about this stuff.
When the confirmation took place quietly and behind closed doors, Ken and I both were furious and spoke with a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Staff. We were promised an explanation for why we were not allowed to testify, and no explanation ever came forth.
Plenty of people with more influence than me or Ken had the chance to make calls and to try to move mountains- Dr. Trebach not the least of all.
The simple fact is that Mr. Sembler is VERY VERY VERY well connected politically, and few if any members of the House or Senate are willing to oppose him or his Drug War obsession.
Sure more letters will help, but in the end there is very little that will be done without major media coverage. And the unfortunate reality is that the major media are in business for ratings- not journalistic ethics.
I have pestered writers at Salon for two years to cover the issue with no avail. Michelle Goldburg once said she would follow the issue, but she ahs chosen to stop responding to my emails. The same is true for Gary Kamaya.
If you really want to do something, then pester Mike Moore to do a film about the cult.
Or you can send a registered letter to the DFAF in Florida requesting their 990 tax forms and track down the way they spend Federal Dollars, if you find a problem there, perhaps you can get their 503c tax free status revoked.
However, the most important thing to me these days is healing, healing myself and those few who I knew and may have hurt.
If anyone choses to organize and activate I strongly urge that they contact Wes Fager and Sammie Monroe, as they have already formed a tax exempt group to help focus the effort at exposure.
One of the best things that any of us can do is to file an affidavit, a sworm statement, of our story, using simple declarative statements about those thigns that we witnessed only. Tell the truth and do not embellish- that is perjury and will make the fight more difficult. Wes or Sammie can tell you where to send it. I suggest that you send to the DA for whatever state or city your own program was in as well.
The unfortunate reality is that most people consider drug users of any kind to be second class citizens and they will not be stympathetic no matter what horror story you tell them. Some will simply dismiss it as a disgruntled few complaining, others will consider it a lie outright.
I am not saying that organizing is a bad idea, or tryign to discourage anyone from doing whatever they need to do, but I am sayign that it is an uphill battle, and that for most people this was twenty years ago, and they wonder why we don't just "move on".
They simply can not understand and to force them to do so would break the bubble of their reality. A world that is black and white, with a 'them' to define as evil, and an 'us' to define as good is a far more comfortable place than the messy real world of shades of grey. People will fight with their last breath to defend the bubble, sorry but that is reality.
