Do tyrants ever get overthrown by their subjects?

by moshe 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  belbab

  Moshe,

  Your question, Do tyrants ever get overthrown by their subjects warrants further discussion. You state, not very often. Permit me to question this as briefly as I can. I claim that most often the tyrants are overthrown by those who were at one time subjects but then changed to rebels.

  You state that Hitler and his fascist cohorts were defeated in war, not by it's cowed citizens. Hitler was defeated by his own delusions and ideologies. He gained the support of a bare majority of the citizens of a defeated nation, weighed down under the heavy burden of war reparations. His citizens were not cowed, they were willing nationalistic socialists. Along with their leader they believed they were the master race, the saviors of the world. He made the mistake of attacking Russia, and allying with the Japanese whom attacked the US. As an aside point, there is a documentary film out that shows there was, I believe, fifty attempts by German citizens that endeavored to assassinate him.
  

  Had it not been for constant Western external pressure against Russian Communism, it's subjugated citizens would likely still be ruled by atotalitarian government.

  External pressure has a tendency to unify a family, city, or country as a united front countering pressure. Western pressure led to the construction of the Iron Curtain. Communism fell from within precipitated by dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, the builder of the USSR hydrogen bomb. All the satellite countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary broke away under leadership of dissidents.

  Turning your attention to Jehovah’s Witnesses you state:
  History leads me to believe that JWs will be unable to throw off their WT overlords on their own. And, Fear of shunning, i.e, the social death sentence, is the power that keeps JWs imprisoned.

  I do not believe that it is the fear of shunning that keep JWs from leaving their community. It is the idolization of their collective group. We are God’s people, we sit a queen and shall not see evil is their war cry.

  The internet is not the enemy of the WT. The exposure of WT falsehood started well before the proliferation of the internet. Myself, I woke up in 1967, and it was not the fear of shunning that made me speak out. I knew I was on a disfellowshiping course and was going to create the biggest waves I could before they nailed me. Many other dissidents also spoke up and wrote books exposing WT doctrine. Cetnar, Penton, the Bottings, Harrison and others. Ray Franz wrote his books just before the internet came into vogue.

  So, if readers of this thread have arrived at this point , let us have a poll.

  1. Did the fear of shunning prevent or influence you from abandoning the Watchtower Society?

  2. Is it the fear of shunning that keeps zealous adherents of the WT imprisoned within the confines of their organization?

  belbab
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  moshe

  belbab, I am humbled to meet one of the 1/10%'er JWs who spoke out and gave a warning before they left the KH.

  Seeing how mad everyone gets around here when I put the doormat label on a fader JW, I know a little bit about fear of being shunned by mommie, daddy and great aunt Bessie, that keeps JW's from openly quitting the WT religion.
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  JRK

  On occasion, does "Let them eat cake" ring a bell?

  JK
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  moshe

  Irregardless of what shades of gray History is personally remembered in, I don't see the JWs overthrowing the WT leadership on their own. Did they get angry over being convinced into sacrificing their kids over a flawed WT no-blood transfusion dogma. On the contrary, the WT turned those dead children into martyrs on the cover of one of their magazines.- As examples of True faith for JWs.

  Does anyone remember William Schnell's , "30 years a WT slave"? It is considered a dated work and is hardly ever mentioned anymore, I imagine in another 10-15 years Ray Franz and the other ex-JWs you mentioned will have faded from memory, too. The ruckus you raised in the KH back in the 60's and mine 20 years later is fading rather quickly, too. Dead people don't talk about about the big waves a few JWs made on their exit from the KH 40-50 years ago.

  Even Ray Franz, the ex-GB author, was not a public fighter. When he died I tried to get religion writers to do a national story and they all said, "Ray who?" The world doesn't give a rat's @ass about JWs, the broken familes, screwed up doctrines that kill and their wasted lives.

  Maybe they know something I don't.

  I think I will be taking a long vacation for awhile- good night all.
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  Satanus

  I, too, don't think that the wt corp will be overthrown, anytime, soon. It's not extreme enough to attract an outside attack from a govt or negative public opinion or the media. It's recruiting methods are agressive enough to keep new ones coming in as old members die or leave. It's one of those low level quasi religious mlm's that works it's way through society, like a little noticed earthworm, or something.

  S
• 

  cameo-d

  Moshe: "We have elders on board who are still keeping a tight lip about what they know and I expect when they leave the KH, they will do so quietly-fading into the night. By the time they do come to their senses and begin to tell others about the WT, they have been completely discredited by the elders and no JW will listen to them."

  What suggestions do you have Moshe? If a tight-lipped elder begins to plant seeds of doubt in others he might end up being "reported" and that's the end of that. The road goes no where. Do you really think an elder could make slow subtle moves and accomplish anything for very long?

  Do you think the tight-lipped elders should rise up and use their position while they are still "in good standing" and just give one big expose talk from the pulpit in an unstoppable manner to the shock of everyone?

  Or how about anonomyous "culture jamming".....leaving papers behind (like copy of UN/WT union, etc.) under the seat in someone's car, or in their office, etc. Very discreetly so as not to be discovered?

  What ideas do you have for elders who should be doing more to help others out while remaining quiet?

  And what happens when that "knowing" elder has to sit in on a JC knowing he is killing someone else's family life with the judgement of df and shunning for them? How ethical is that?
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  JunkYardDog

  The wt is not going anywhere soon But the young ones are leaving faster now than any time before. even the Spanish jw's in the U.S. will start to fold in the next 20 years. these kids are living in the information age, if 65% of jw kids left before , I will say It will be close to 85-90% in the next 10 years. remember the wts has TONS of $$$$ . even if they lose half of their members in the next 30 years the leaders have enough money to hang around for another 100 years just on interest payments on investments. The only thing I see knocking out the wts would be the United States Gov't/ Courts. And still many top wt leaders would walk away with billions. the gov't would have to take their assets to destroy the wts. don't laugh it coulde happen.