Scott77...as I said, it's just not my style.
I think there are much more effective means of educating people....such as the internet. I'm not an in your face kind of person. I manned the 800-why-1914 helpline as time allowed for a number of years... and I think that is one of the most effective means of reaching people who want to be reached. I still volunteer as a referell. You can't drag a jw out of the organization. They have to want to know the truth about the truth. I clearly remember that when I was a jw, and encountered people picketing the assemblies... my friends and I would comment that they were just nuts. When I was a child my family knew a guy who picketed headquarters for years...Literally quit his job in Massachusetts to virtually live on the streets of Brooklyn and confront jws. He didn't accomplish a thing...his efforts were for nought. My parents believed he was unbalanced, and they were eventually proven right.
Picketing a jw event just reminds me of Rutherford's tactics of standing outside churches with a megaphone, bellowing "religion is a snare and a racket".... We can look at that now and recognize that they were just being selfrightious verbal bullies.
Picketing can get attention... but rarely has it garnered much media attention for xjws... Even the Silentlambs march on headquarters several years back hardly got any media attention at all...regardless of all the planning an 100+ marchers. That was the one and only time I have ever picketed in my life. In hindsight, I would not do it again. It had virtually no impact.
In reality, the watchtower is a just a tiny organization, with little impact on the world as a whole. It's bigger than life to all of us, because we were victimized by it. On the world stage...it just isn't that important...and the media just doesn't care.
I don't think you can compare xjw picketing with war protests or political protests... War and politics are 2 things that the media will report on all day every day. Those are 2 subjects that are constantly reported. The watchtwer? Not so much.
JWs will just ignore protesters...or think they are crazy...and gossip all the more. It will convince them all the more that they have "the Truth", because you are "persecuting" them. The media will ignore you. Who do you think you will reach?
Just my 2
Coffee
All of us former witnesses are not in competition with each other, we all have different ways in trying to reach people trapped in a cult. All of us no matter how we are doing it are making a difference. Lets work together in exposing the evils of The Watchtower Org. Anyone making an effort to speak up and try to reach those trapped should not be condemned but be applauded.