*waves*
"NEVER SEND A LETTER TO WATCHTOWER HEADQUARTERS UNLESS YOU WANT TROUBLE!"
by Bubblegum Apotheosis 27 Replies latest jw friends
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Dogpatch
I think that while sneaky tactics were once effective in dealing with the Watchtower, as drumming up bad publicity, nowadays those tactics will backfire on you... especially if you are an organizer or promoter of such activities. With today's Internet, you can be easily caught and challenged in your yellow journalism. If people see that you are using dishonest methods to promote your agenda, you will be mocked mercilessly by the Witnesses and those who side with them, especially those involved in other high-control religious groups. Resist the tendency to make it an "us versus them" battle.
We see the perfect example of this in politics ar present. Campaigners throw plates of mud at each other, each trying to embarrass the other by taking their words out of context, etc. People soon see through this and after they are through being entertained by it, they turn on the dishonest statements or call the campaigner out for their pandering to the various subcultures they hope to win votes from, showing their lack of personal integrity to what they believe in, and then the media scorches them. Thus they often don't even get a second chance to vindicate themselves... as they realize it willl only make it worse. They become a laughingstock like many of the most recent political candidates have become this year in the United States. Just tuck your tail in and walk off the stage to the left. You are through... your half hour of limelite is over, and you are disgraced.
Honesty is not so much of an altrustic tactic as it is a very smart tactical move. If your detractors have nothing on you (or at least you admit your mistake(s) and take actual steps to prevent it again), you can only be viewed at worse as naively misinformed, have eaten your humble pie, and promise a superior strategy in the future. Then you prove it, not with empty words, but by either changing the leadership or having the leader step out and start SHOWING the public that you are an honest corporation... not just by clever words or P.R. firms. You get out and meet people, common people, and learn to recruit them in a fresh grassroots campaign.
If you are going to counter the "enemy," whoever that may be, it is becoming more important with all the instant communication and independent reporting (that can be filmed and shown on Youtube in minutes) that you are not bowing to the enemy's techniques. Half-truths and yellow journalism will bite you in the butt in the end. Often you can make your "enemy" look better than you!
In this country, many have this collective hatred towards the Iranians. What they are incapable of accepting is that MOST Iranians dislike or even detest their own clerical leadership. There are millions of young men and women attending good universities in Iran, learning the skills man needs to move ahead for a better world. If you live in a big city and rub shoulders with these young ones, you unlearn the stereotypes, and see they are really just like you.
Much better to address the abuses of the few in charge, calling them out by name, having plenty of proof in photos and home movies that you are right, showing the beatings and imprisoned ones and interviewing them, even interviewing those who oppose your stance. Only then can you really win over masses of people to the truth about the matter. Simply stated, you are being fair. Good people will recognize each other, even if they find themselves on the opposite side of the fence.
The key? Join the ones who are hit-the-pavement activists... get the attention of as many people as possible, and avoid unnecessary attacks on the character of others who are not the leaders. Attacking the VICTIMS of the leaders (by lumping them all together) is the worst possible strategy. Yet since the "resistance" is usually attacking the DISHONESTY and lack of integrity of the "enemy," and that enemy is a noted person in the public's eyes, there is every reason to use your own anger, righteous indignation, petitions, and exposure of the group's hidden agenda.
This is not only legal but should be encouraged.
We live in an age when it is becoming an embarrassment for a country to be seen by the rest of the world as a power-hungry dictatorship. Millions of ringing cell phones with cameras will destroy your character in a matter of days. Thanks to Google, anyone in the world can know who you really are inside, and what you have done. That is why, for instance, I can love Jehovah's Witnesses, yet expose their leaders as frauds in a way that is shocking, and may seem mean or nasty to some. FOR INSTANCE and also HERE: (Most Wanted Watchtower Leaders - For Crimes Against Humanity).
Also notice my tactics in my article, "I Hate Jehovah's Witnesses and Eat Small Children for Breakfast." My goal was not to be funny, but to make light of stereotypes and even make fun of myself... a surefire way of getting the opposition to let their guard down. To attract attention to my thoughts and real nature, I use a nutty title.
I learned this from exit-counseling people out of cults. Typically you have about 5-15 minutes to show the cult member that you are not the devil, but just an ordinary person who has a really sad or horrible story to tell. Otherwise they will run in fear. Why? Because you fit a stereotype they have learned. To me, I just turn it into humor (without undue sarcasm), and when you see the first tinge of a smile on their face, you have your "in." The clock ticks fast, and they are sweating at yellow alert standing near you. Crack a joke about yourself, or overblow your stereotype as the devil's agent to the point of absurdity, and they just might laugh. GREEN LIGHT. Three days later they are out and a much happier, though humbled, person.
So what can you do?
Find association with those that are up front in all that they do, and have a code of ethics that forbids using the same dishonest techniques as those they criticize. But one has to be careful in choosing the right associates to side with. The larger a group or even a corporation gets, it soon becomes itself an entity (with the rights of a person, in effect). People connect with good and not-so-good motives, and corporations desperate for power or money or both will join up often just for the sake of sharing this newfound, overblown ego. Power by osmosis.
Whistle-blower organizations can be attractive because they stand for a "righteous" cause... but it can balloon the egos of those that support them, thus granting them newfound status and power. Their cause and slogans become like icons, perhaps even forming a new memetic shift in thinking. In some cases that can translate into corporate wealth. This is the point at which people who support the organization, and especially those who run it, realize a point of no return: They have tasted power and they are damn well not going to give it back or lose it.
This is why you have to be transparent and have checks and balances, be honest with your own financial reports and remain accountable to others, and be humble enough to admit when you make mistakes. There is nothing more powerful than transparency, compassion, shown even by emotion, and touching the hearts of those that might hate you.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Oh, Hi MrsJones!
I'll put your mom's name on the letter instead
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Bubblegum Apotheosis
Hi Randy, I believe we are able to relate to the "lurkers", by posting the most common reasons people start to fade from the Organization. The congregations are loaded with lonely and unsatisfied men and women, who blame themselves for their spiritual and emotional roller coaster feelings. We have the ability to help our brothers and sisters know, it's not their fault for the way they feel. Many of the reasons for feeling inadaquate are derivied from the sneaky writing style, double tongue talks, and unfriendly and unloving Kingdom Hall participants.
The Organization is quick to silence these would be "alarmist, whistle blowers" by encouraging the elder body to keep a close eye on "anyone who shows an independant spirit". New visitors (on JWN) are feeling ignored by a group that claims to be "Jehovah's Hand Picked Faithful Slave", and are exhausted from hearing "Wait on Jehovah!" How many victims of pedophiles were told to "Wait on Jehovah!" while the Slave had their legal department create a lawyer filled moat around Bethel? To sisters whose husbands were treating them like dirt, many of their stories did fall on deaf ears! What amount of beating should a sister take, would a letter to the Society who wrote (Police officers time is wasted on Domestic Disturbances) shocking material in the 1980s Awake, bring the sister relief if she knew how the Slave felt about "Domestic Issues"?
The lurkers are here because they are not feeling the love, even questioning if the problem is some how, some type of inadaquecy on their part. The truth is the Kingdom Halls are not geared towards helping weak ones, it's geared to helping their high performing members, feel righteous about themselves, as long as they keep performing on a higher level each year. Depression, Suicide attempts, family chaos, widows, father-less children are not taken very good care of, most will leave the Organization with a permanent wound to their Soul.
The remedy of sending a letter to the Organization might sound logical to a sister or brother, their heart will break once they find out, the Watchtower does not really care about functioning Kingdom Halls that pay their bills on time. The Slave might decide to send out representatives after all chaos has busted loose, donations fall off a cliff, meeting attendance drops to all-time lows, elders realize their work is an exercise in futility and pursue a new job or some activity that draws him and his family truly close, he finds out the Congregation was ripping his family apart and leave's to rebuild his family, after years of working with ungrateful, never ending, black holes of time and emotional energy. Letters don't work unless you are a "high giver" of donations, have some skill the organization covets.
Average weak Joe or Jane will be sad, when they find out, Bethel won't leave the light on for you! Just my views from fifty years dealing with this group of men, who desire to push our dear ones over their head, a way of making everyone feel "They are nevering doing enough!" My goal is to try to reach the lurkers who say with a certainty "I have been through this or "This same thing happened to my brother, favorite elder or loved one who was put down by evil men." To many of the sisters who have been abused and told "Be a better wife, Christ-like women can change a wife beater, the depressed soul, "Just pray to Jehovah more" "Don't allow depression to control you!" The advice many received from some "self-professed didactic psychologist does not work. The lurkers need to realize the brothers are not trained to deal with many of our problems, which are so far out of their skill-set!
@flipper: Thank you for your nice comments, it's heart breaking to see the looks on victims faces, when the Society blows them off! The system is slanted against brothers and sisters who are not considered important or highly productive.
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Disillusioned Lost-Lamb
Nothing positive will ever come from going over the elderberries heads, because their job is to make sure NO ONE disturbs the peace. When you send correspondence to any higher up (even to the almighty $ociety) it will trickle back down to your local BOE and they'll be told to "deal" with you along with getting a tongue lashing for being bothered by not "dealing" with you the first time.
So to all you would be boat rockers and lurkers, remember the (now pissed off) BOE will have no problem silencing you or throwing you out of the raft with no life preserver.
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Brainfloss
bump
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hamsterbait
Dont you just love that:"All congregation elders are appointed by the Holy Spirit. That is an important point to remember"
I am soooo silly! I was taught that the holy spirit is just a form of energy like electricity, not a person. WHY then do they capitalise it? How can a force appoint anybody? Isnt that jehoobies job, or his sidekick?
What about the child molestors, wife beaters, trannies, homosexuals who are appointed? Cant it see their sinful deeds before it made the decision??
Classic case: I knew a guy who was an MS, also a secret trannie (I am not condemning him - the witchtower uses an obsolete verse to DF them).
He went to "The Ball of a Thousand Dresses", where he bumped into a drag queen, who had been an elduh for 25 years, and was regularly being gorgeous before he was appointed...
Go figure.
