by mikepence 34 Replies latest jw friends
The topic title is of course misleading. IMO most JWs will leave when the time is right for them. This board will be there for them when they do. I think we have the bases covered on most issues and a number of active JWs 'lurk' here. I don't see much of a problem.
ISP
Andi,
You yourself admit you have an agenda to promote. We have to get past that? Says who? What's there to get past?Everyone has an agenda. If someone claims they have no agenda, then their agenda begins with not being honest with themselves, or you. When I say We have to get past that my meaning was that if we are to get past our inability to work together in unity, we have to realize that we all may have serious baggage with terms like "organization" and "unity", and understandably so. If we are to present a unified front, we have to get past that. You may choose to think of yourself as part of that "we" or not.
Level of committment to what? Your agenda?I thought the language was pretty plain here. I said:
I am coming to try to come to terms with the entire community's level of commitment. It appears to be lots of bitching, lots of commiserating and peer support (I feel your pain) but no action or unity.By this, I meant that I am trying to understand if the level of commitment of the community extends beyond mere griping and solitary acts of resistance. Your ad hominem attack, making this about me and my agenda seems inappropriate to me. I have said clearly that:
This is not about me, it is not about money, it is not about this one call to action. It is about the much broader issue of how much the whole community REALLY wants to affect some change. Which, unfortunatley seems to be not at all.You further said:
My point is that not everyone has your agenda. Not everyone wants your agenda. To say that it's unfortunate that we don't stand up behind you and get more organized isn't unfortunate to those of us that have a different agenda.Understood and accepted. If you feel you are doing enough for the ex-JW cause, that is great. I just wonder if you are being honest with yourself based on the passion in your replies.
Peace,
Mike
XJW User Submitted News & Views at http://xjwnews.com
Mike,
It seems to me that many of us resist the idea of a central organization of any kind. We prefer to work, with our own methods, with input from others.
It seems to me that this discussion group works very well in this regard without a formal organization and no cost. Look at the intense research on the UN issue. Also, several people have sent information to a number of news sources regarding this issue. It only takes one interested reporter for a story to make national news. If this story isn't making it, it is because the rest of the world doesn't care much about it. I think the upcoming Dateline story will be different.
Several people have drafted letters here for other people's review and comment. Others have shared strategies for getting the word out. Thus, this board can be a central resource to draw upon for our own individual efforts.
My wife put a lenghty post on this board about reaching newspapers and churches. As a result of her own work, there is a reporter at a large Ohio newspaper that will follow the dateline story. There also is a minister in Brooklyn near Bethel that is interested. My wife is waiting untill the date of the program is announced before corresponding with them.
It seems to be that individuals here, by the dozens or hundreds, sending out information across the world is more effective than one letter from a centralized source.
Any way, that is how I see it.
I think there are a number of problems with trying to get some organised campaign going:
* People have just come out of one organisation and generally don't want to get involved in another.
* Not everyone is after the same results.
* People don't have the time or the money to spend.
* Many have been victims in one way or another and are busy recovering.
Not least, I don't think that big, organised campaigns are always the thing that is going to have the biggest effect.
What does work is individuals telling what they have learned to people they know. Convince one person to leave and they may help others and in turn, they may help more. Just as families join the WT starting with one person, so they can leave starting with one person.
In time, it will grow and the tens will become hundreds and then thousands, hundreds of thousands .... millions etc...
The best we can do is to make information available, promote it where we can (given the resources that we have and that people are willing to contribute), share experiences and provide the support that people need when they want to leave.
We've already seen the growth of the WTS stop and membership start to decline. They won't get the new recruits that they once did (if I'm thinking of buying into anything I do a search on the Internet first) and I think the heart & soul has gone from the rank & file. I think their decline will accelerate in the coming years - it will be an interesting time.
Ok, my head is spinning.
Larc, I think I get your point, and I am not devaluing the import of the actions of individuals. However, the co-operative efforts of the few will beat the pants off of the cacaphony of the many. We are talking about a basic concept here, right?
Do I really need to point out that a group of people focused on a common goal, a sports team, a symphony orchestra, insert a million other examples here, can acheive what is otherwise simply not possible?
That is my point. I am not looking to necessarily lead such an effort, but to point to the obvious need. A focused, organized group can affect change that millions of disharmonious voices simply cannot. Is this such a difficult concept? Am I not communicating effectively?
XJW User Submitted News & Views at http://xjwnews.com
Mike....the numbers exiting the BORG are saying something. I wouldn't be too concerned about organisation etc....heck we just left the mother of all organisations!
ISP
Howdy Mike,
I would suspect that others before you have felt the same frustration at the seeming fragmented xjw world.
But that's just it - - we're all different people with one thing in common -- and I'd bet it's nearly universal -- we ain't gonna be part of no damned organIzation (said in my best southern dialect, btw.)
I cringe at the thought - the reality of what I've given up, and forced on my children for 30 years is still too fresh. I would suspect our feelings are similar to a newly divorced person - give me freedom, time, and don't corral me - I'll rebel.
I personally don't feel the need to overthrow the WTBTS. I also have just about all I can handle in my private life - so this board becomes my relaxation/banter time. Well, unless Tina & I are tanglin' - but we won't go there....I can be quite bitchy sometimes, if you haven't noticed.
It seems to me that this discussion group works very well in this regard without a formal organization and no cost - larcWe, as a discussion group, have no cost. Simon has very real costs involved - $200 every month for over 1.5 years. Those who contribute regularily - or once in a while, help.....but I'll bet it doesn't come near covering his costs.
Let alone his irritation of dealing with us..........
waiting
Mike have you ever thought about AKIDO politics? We are talkin about a
seriously devoted R&F for the most part. Influence is power and power is influence.It only takes a small rudder to move a big ship.Align with the force and speed it into the iceberg. Just make sure there are enough intelligent life boats that are really concerned with rescue, at the present time I think not, most jw life boats are still in stormy weather and are fighting their own inner battles for personal survival and can't focus on rescue at the present. However
I encourage you to keep calling out for united effort.Keep checking the tempreture.When enough exjw life boats attain equilibrium and a large enough consensus is made, then and only then can a force of significant magnitude be directed and applied to the legalistic rudder
of Noahs Ark.
Let eyes who see understand.
Hmm I will add my two cents
Seems that the lack of organization proves once again that the borg is wrong. They like to contend that those who leave get organized to campaign agaist them. Well not here LOL
I'm all for continuing to prove them wrong.
That being said I do what I can on a personal level. I talk to friends and strangers - just about anyone who will listen. I have my web page and I lecture whenever and wherever I can
I guess that I am learning. There are always many ways to look at things. Interestingly, someone just sent this to me in regard to the "war on terrorism", but I thought it may equally apply here:
"The echo goes on, a reflected image of the possible and forgotten: theXJW User Submitted News & Views at http://xjwnews.com
possibility and necessity of speaking and listening; not an echo that
fades away, or a force that decreases after reaching its apogee.An echo that turns itself into many voices, into a network of voices
that, before Power's deafness, opts to speak to itself, knowing itself
to be one and many, acknowledging itself to be equal in its desire to
listen and be listened to, recognizing itself as diverse in the tones
and levels of voices forming it.This network of resistance is not an organizing structure; it doesn't
have a central head or decision maker; it has no central command or
hierarchies. We are the network, all of us who resist."- Subcommandante Marcos
at the First International Encuentro
for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, August, 1996.
