http://www.jehovahsjudgment.co.uk/watchtower-un-ngo/
I'm sure I'm not the first one here to "discover" this site. There's probably a thread here somewhere responding to it. (Any direction?) An XJW friend told me about it last night. It is extremely lengthy, and I read 80-90% of it. For starters, here are some of my reflections:
- He never once addresses the fact that the Society has remained as silent as death on this topic. If there is nothing to be ashamed of, why are they letting free-lancers like this guy, do their defending for them. After all, they are, in fact, one of the largest publishers in the world.
- He accuses critics of saying the Society had secret "back room deals" with the UN, and was really positioning itself to form some sort of alliance. I’ve never read anything from critics of this sort of thing. I won’t deny that someone out there might have, but it was zev on the JWD board who initially broke this story and did a good bit of the research back in August of 2001. I’ve never seen him or anyone else on the JWD board, (which, to my knowledge is the most active board of its kind) suggest anything like that. But he brings it up, I think, to try and make the apostates™ look ridiculous.
- He tries to make a big deal out of there being two kinds of NGOs. But the letter from the head of DPI makes no such distinction.
- He tries to overturn the weight of the letter from Paul Hoeffel (Director of UN DPI) which states that the Society DID agree to these things, by saying that he is being misleading in his letter. So, let’s see. The apostates™ are lying. The UN is lying. Only the Watchtower is telling the truth?
- He never deals with the fact that this letter has been on the UN website for years and apparently that’s OK with the Society? If it is so inaccurate and defamatory, why has the Society not petitioned them to remove it or amend it? Why has the Society not presented it’s case, the real truth™, in it’s magazines, which go to tens of millions of people?
- He addresses the fact that the Society submitted magazines, notably the Nov 22, 1998 Awake! as evidence of their compliance with this formal agreement to be a publicity agent for the UN, but stating that this was a reasonable requirement to prove that the Society was not advocating Nazism or racism. Say what? Even if they were advocating these things, would any thinking person suppose they would then submit these to the UN?
- He represents that the application the Society submitted did not require a signature or a statement to support the UN and submits as evidence a blank form that he says is what the Society submitted. Are we to take his word that this is the form the Society used and he has not altered it? Why does the Society not release their completed copy (surely they kept a copy) to the public so we can all see it for ourselves? Better yet, why does the Society not ask the UN to post it on their website for all to see? That way we could see a copy from the official source, and unbiased at that.
There is so much secrecy surrounding this whole affair, for so many years. How can anyone regard it as anything other than suspect? I had some more thoughts, but that's all I've got time for right now.
Lenny