The Shriners are plagued with ethical and prostitution scandals related to their secret sub-group, the Royal Order of Jesters. This is a way to approach these problems instead of oversight by law enforcement.

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OK.

I have been turning to one of my journalism heroes for guidance, Hunter S. Thompson. I have had my nose in "Better than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie."

This is dangerous, at best, but it's one of the things that keeps me going.

It starts like this.

"Chapter 1 Authors Note

Confessions of a shootist: Cruel humor on the campaign trail, from the murder of JFK to the crimes of the Marquis de Sade.

'Trace a line of goose pimples up the thin young arms. Slide the needle in and push the bulb watching the junk hit him all over. Move right in with the sh!t and suck junk through all the hungry young cells.'

William S. Burroughs, The Soft Machine"

Hunter writes:

"John F. Kennedy, who seized the White House from Richard Nixon in a frenzied campaign that turned a whole generation of young Americans into political junkies, got shot in the head for his efforts, murdered in Dallas by some hapless geek named Oswald who worked for either Castro, the mob, Jimmy Hoffa, the CIA, his dominatrix landlady or the odious degenerate FBI chief, Edgar Hoover."

I got in trouble when I was four for wearing a "Kennedy" button to my private Christian school. And don't get me started on my other journalism heroes, Woodward and Bernstein or Watergate as I won a SPJ award for my interview with John Dean when I was in college.

So, as two and a half years of investigating Shriners corruption whirls wildly around in my brain, like the frog in the blender but the frog lives, I'll ask myself "What would Hunter do?"

Well, he'd go after the rat bastards, like an evangelical journalist wielding his pen like a plugged in Fender crucifix, obeying the Gods of sex, drugs and rock and roll with a fury and frenzy for which he will always be famous.

Not that this is a bad thing, as my roots are the basically same except that I have been sober for the past 26 years.

So, it is from these points of view that I have been trying to analyze and understand the corrupt behavior exhibited by some Shriners.

I want to better understand the behaviors of those who appear to be drunk with power and addicted to politics; those who break the law as they put their own interests before those of the burned and crippled children, not to mention deceiving their brothers, the widows who bequest their estates and the IRS.

As a point of information, before a man can be a Shriner or Jester, he must first become a Master Mason. He can then join other sub groups like the Scottish Rite, the Knights Templar or the Shriners. So, a man who is a member of the Royal Order of Jesters was first an invited Shriner who was first a Master Mason. The Shriners are best known for their $8.4 billion network of 22 hosptials that provide free medical care to burned and crippled children.

In the case of the Jesters, two of them have pleaded guilty to felony counts of facilitating prostitution for their weekend parties via sex/human trafficking, article here. Their national "court" throws weekend bashes that cost over half a million dollars. Or at least this is what the Jesters National Court told the IRS on their tax 2007 returns. And some may be involved with child sex tourism, articles here and here.  

Remember, these groups have been classified as "non profit" and "tax exempt" by the IRS so they get tax breaks at taxpayer expense.

Instead of ripping into these guys like Hunter, I'd rather offer experience, strength and hope to those who are suffering.

A recent Interim Report describes leaders in serious trouble; those who have been caught doing unethical, if not illegal, things.

These behaviors are typical of drunks, addicts and junkies.

Or those willing to do anything for their next fix.

Like Hunter wrote, maybe they are political junkies who will do anything for the rush of winning?

Here is a definition of "addiction" from a website that ties former New York governor Elliott Spitzer to sex addition:

"Addiction can make both the best and the worst among us grandiose and blind. The addict feels somehow bullet proof. Their thinking becomes so twisted with chronic lying, sneaking, and bending reality to suit their needs and desire that they truly imagine that they are getting away with something and that they will continue to do so.

And for a while, even a long time, they generally do. They are grandiose; medicating their own insecurity, anxiety, and fears of fraudulence with substances or behaviors that take away -- albeit it temporarily -- feelings that they cannot bear to feel. And they have a primary relationship with their addictive substance or behavior that they will do anything, lose anything, risk anything to maintain."

Back to Hunter.

He had this particular aversion towards Richard Nixon, too. The first paragraph of Nixon's obit goes like this:

"Richard Nixon is gone now, and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing --a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in heaven and hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that "I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."

It's kind of ironic that Ford was also a Shriner as well as a member of the Royal Order of Jesters.

It looks like there is no Betty Ford Center for those needing this type of help, huh?

Since there is no treatment center, or as they call it today, rehab center for this, we'll just modify the Twelve Steps for "Shriners Anonymous."

The best part?

This could be set up through the Shriners' Employee Assistance Program.

Seriously.

We saw that immediate past Imperial Potentate, Bernard Lemieux, M.D., tried to do an intervention of sorts by appointing a committee to investigate self-destructive dysfunctional behaviors that, if not changed, will destroy the Shriners and their ability to continue to provide free medical care to burned and crippled children.

So where do we start?

With Step One, of course!

Step One says "We admitted we were powerless over the politics of the Shrine - that our lives had become unmanageable."

This helps us recognize that we have hit rock bottom and to do so puts us on the path to recovery. Rock bottom can be defined as:

* violating conflict of interest policies and IRS "excess benefit transaction" regulations by hiding free trips from a former contractor

* conspiring to violate employment confidentiality and influence negative employee evaluations in order to remove an executive in retaliation for not supporting self-serving business deals

* knowingly executing fraudulent tax returns

* pushing for contracts with a vendor who kept $43 million out of $47 million raised for the hospitals

* not reprimanding and, instead, like lemmings off a cliff, re-electing leaders who used their positions of public trust for private gain

Step Two says: "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

This should be a no-brainer as these guys are Master Masons, who admit to believing in a power greater than themselves. About the word "sanity?" Is it crazy or just plain greedy to exploit burned and crippled children for your own gain?

Step Three says: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

Or Her.

Step Four says: "Made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves."

This is an action step that involves putting pen to paper as we list our liabilities.

Step Five says: "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

Better this than what John Trowbridge Michael Stebick did. I seriously doubt that FBI agents listened to both Jesters confess and plead guilty to taking illegal alien prostitutes across state lines to Jester parties with a box of tissues on the desk or were willing to hug the former police captain and former Erie County prosecutor, heads hung in ultimate shame.  

Step Six says: "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

Here is where we turn from the path of death and destruction towards living a life of spiritual growth.

Step Seven says: "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."

We begin to move beyond living lives of self-centered fear and self-will run riot towards living a life of humility.

Step Eight says: "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

It's all about the willingness possessed only by those facing and dealing with the wreckage of our past.

Step Nine says "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

Ouch. Don't be surprised if the person you confess to blows you off or tells you to go to hell. Remember, those involved with the addict are most likely addicted too. In other words, the only relationships the addict has are primarily with those who enable their behavior and, as such, are dysfunctional and co-dependent. Co-dependency is the flip side of alcoholism and has its own set of destructive behaviors.

Step Ten says: "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." This helps us work a program of honesty.

Step Eleven says: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." The rewards of meditating and praying are meditating and praying.

Step Twelve says: "Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Shriners, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." It is through giving that we receive.

This really is the "easier, softer" way.

The alternative is "ShrinerGate" where the media compares the leaders' retaliation to Nixon's rat f&cking and Congress begins to ask questions about the Jesters Bacchanalian bashes.

Wikipedia writes:

"The bacchanalia were wild and mystic festivals of the Roman and Greek god Bacchus."

Maybe it's no coincidence that the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is named Max Baucus.

So, here's the bottom line.

Oversight by law enforcement is no way to run a non profit organization, especially if investigators somehow link the "missing" $43 million and the prostitution to racketeering and compare these activities to the RICO statutes.

At the end of the day, Robert Plant sums it up best in "Stairway to Heaven" as he sings:

"Yes there are two paths you can go by
but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on."

All copies of material reprinted or duplicated from "by Sandy Frost" must include the following credit line: From http://sandyfrost.newsvine.com/ Copyright (c) 2008 by Sandy Frost. Used by permission.

Authors Website: http://sandyfrost.newsvine.com

Authors Bio:
Investigative reporter, author and researcher into that which would rather remain hidden. U.S. Navy Electronics Tech vet, original shareholder of Ahtna, Inc, an Alaska Native corporation, Board of directors, Western Washington Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (named best pro chapter in the nation two years in a row), member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, Native American Journalists Association and Mohican Veterans. Four time Society of Professional Journalists award winner. Peer nominated and presented with Newsvine.com's top honor, "Random Act of Vineness." Publisher/Editor/Reporter of the first exclusively online investigation to be featured in Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. "Extra, Extra" section.
Author of the soon to be published "Shriner's Shame: The Dark Side of 'The World's Greatest Philanthropy."