Star Chamber Tactics by the Governing Body (related to Merriman/May)

by Dogpatch 26 Replies latest jw friends

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  BluesBrother

  Thanks for showing us this Randy, truly the Ed Dunlap episode must be one of the most shameful in WTS history. I believe that the writer could have have clarified the matter a little more in relation to the charge against him.

  If I were to ask the family dubs about Holy Spirit and the Great Crowd, they would answer "Of course we get Holy Spirit!" . It is the energising force to which they attribute any success they have. I guess he means that the Gt Crowd are not believed to be adopted as God's Sons...rather they are "declared righteous with the purpose of being his friends. " in the same manner as the pre Christian worshipers.

  I can well understand Ed Dunlap's concientious stand against that teaching but is is not quite as described in the text.
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  Band on the Run

  When I was young, I believed the substantive result was important. Whether or not someone should be disfellowshipped based on facts presented. A hard calculus. Time has changed my tune. A fair substantive decision requires a fair process. Notice, a hearing, a chance for the adjudicators to hear all sides presented forcefully, a right to appeal. The United States enshrined these principles in our Fifth Amendment but they were developed in Britain long before American colonization. The total lack of due process and arbitrariness defines the Witnesses, more than any particular doctrine.

  Criminals rights are protected more than Witnesses. Living in JW culture, shunning is much more painful than for a wordly person with outside associations. I wonder how many cases have concrete facts. With the lack of due process, looking at an elder cross-eyed or slightly challenging authority are grounds for punishment. A certain type of man craves such power. The very ones who could wield the power with some fairness are precluded.

  We seem to repeat the same assertions here. Active Witnesses will always defend the Society in all respects. Many time in private conversation with my grandmother, I would assert that it just isn't fair. She would admit once I was a preteen that it struck her as fundamentally unfair but she was a Witness and accepted that she had no right to question. So her default position was to shut up and listen. Being female meant her views always were wrong. Thus, good Germans actively aided the Nazis. I doubt the Nazi party could accomplish what it did. People who normally despised the Nazis had to fear its power and went along with the unconsciable.

  No one knew of the death camps. The railroads and camps were all over Germany. No geographic region was exempt. Central, bustling train stations in major cities were transit points. The stench from gassed bodies could be smelled for miles. Yet no one had any cause for alarm. Please.

  I'm not saying Witnesses are Nazis. But a lack of fairness and respect for others leads to similar results.
• 

  Dogpatch

  Terry said,

  I'm completely convinced that a person does NOT KNOW they are filled with pride and hubris UNTIL somebody questions them

  and they can't answer. Suddenly their own SENSE OF SELF-IMPORTANCE comes alive! Anger wells up inside. "Who are you to demand and answer of ME?" pops into their head.

  Since this "important" person has the power to cut the questioner off at the knees (rather than humbly admit fault) they do so.

  This is THE moment.

  The person's (lack of) character is revealed to everybody.

  That was the moment I realized the whole thing was a sham; it took me to see 18 "respectable" men start coming to work in diapers and calling people names. It was absolutely disgusting.

  I had respect for them for 5 of my 6 years at Bethel, until they were put to the test. They failed my test for honesty and humility in others.

  They became (or, as you hint, Terry, they probably already were in latency) like trolls on a board - only you actually knew them personally.

  Yet one would NEVER HAVE GUESSED they would respond the way they did without knowing their characters in advance. Many like I at Bethel enjoyed their company for years before with no clue as to their spinelessness.

  And here they were, calling people "worms, leaches, a cancer, and liars," people like Cris and Norma Sanchez; and you've GOT to listen to their story:

  Cris and Norma Sanchez, former Bethel Spanish translators testimony of how they were treated at Watchtower headquarters in 1979.
  MP3 format | Real Media part 1 part 2 (RealMedia format, free player)

  I was there when Dunlap got DFed. Tom Cabeen told me the day before that this was going to be announced in the AM.

  The GB PLEADED with him up to the night before the morning table announcement (I was sitting at the breakfast table shaking, waiting for the announcement, and vowed not to go to breakfast again; though I was a table head and was supposed to) to just "tow the line," so to speak, to just go along with the Franz lynching. People had to be sacrificed.And the WT will use your closest friends to sacrifice you.

  It's all about tests of compromising, like in Floyd Kite's talk - I counted 78 "tests" Jehovah can put you through in less than one hour!)

  http://www.watchtowernews.org/media/kite.wav

  Ed Dunlap tells the story:

  Edward Dunlap, former Watchtower Gilead Instructor on the Franz Incident (mp3 format, 28 meg)

  my interview in 1981-1982:

  Randall Watters and Robert Sullivan, What Happened at the Watchtower Headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Spring of 1980? MP3 format | REAL MEDIA format: part 1 part 2

  Then it was like Jonestown tapes - the moans and cries and weeping over the slaughter as it occurred.

  I had seen enough.

  Randy
• 

  No Room For George

  The GB PLEADED with him up to the night before the morning table announcement (I was sitting at the table shaking, waiting for the announcement, and vowed not to go to breakfast again; though I was a table head and was supposed to) to just "tow the line," so to speak, to just go along with the Franz lynching. People had to be sacrificed. And the WT will use your closest friends to sacrifice you.

  Fascinating read, and thanks as always for your insight Randy. Thanks for all the work you've done and continue to do. One thing that stood out to me was this paragraph, about the WT using your closest friends to sacrifice you. It's just like a prison gang. Prison gang shotcallers will often have the closest friend of their potential victim, do the hit. They might do it with a hot-shot, which is a syringe of heroin with enough dope to cause an over-dose. Or get the victim drunk, and then rock him to sleep. Regardless of modus operandi, the intent is always the same, use someone close to eliminate the unsuspecting victim. Its fascinating that "God's chosen organization" does the exact same thing LOL!!
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  Scott77

  Very insightful article. Thank you.

  Scott77
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  losingit

  Listened to the interview od Ed Dunlap. Convinced more and more that i need to do my own Bible research, but where to start? There has to be a good startibg point. Of ciurse, the Bible itself, as he ourrightly proclaims. But I'm afraid to pick it up. What will I fnd? I love how he says that the only real danger to the WTS is the Bible itself.
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  sd-7

  I found that just reading Paul's letters was a great place to start and really undo a lot of the incorrect notions the WTS has put out there. As I was making my transition out of the WT, that was a real comfort to me. Seeing verses in context really makes it so much clearer.

  --sd-7