I have long thought that the Society's use of the title 'Birth of a Nation' was borrowed from the famous film of that name. If I remember, the film came out in about 1916 or 17? and for many years (until Gone with the Wind) the film with the most viewers. Surely anyone who saw the name 'Birth of a Nation' in the 1920's would have immediately associated it with the movie, and for Rutherford to use that as the title of a Watchtower article just blows my mind. 'Birth of a Nation', for those who may not have heard of it, is a portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as heros who were saviors of the South. It is outrageous propaganda that is so blatantly racist that it is shocking. At the same time, the movie was recognized for a number of cinematic effects that were quite ahead of its time.
PAYBACK: How Judge Rutherford conceived the MILITARY neutrality policy
by Terry 17 Replies latest jw friends
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Terry
Birth of a Nation came out in 1915 while C.T.Russell was still alive and working on bailing out his leaky boat of chronology predictions. Rutherford hit the ground running in 1916 after Russell's death with his MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE prediction for 1925. He had to keep the momentum going. He was in deep doo-doo before long managing to piss everybody off in every direction. That man needed all the booze he drank to calm him down enough to think up something new and hateful!
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Terry
Ten years ago I posted the above and only about a year ago was I finally able to pull the information together
under one cover in my book, I WEPT BY THE RIVERS of BABYLON.
If you have interest in this topic and would like to use the information to trigger curiosity in JW's who are waking up
to the lies of the Watchtower Society, I recommend it.
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Apognophos
Can you refresh my memory, what was the technicality that let Rutherford et al. out of prison? I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he'd been kept in there, as I seem to recall that he got out just in time to be re-elected President of the Society (but I might have that wrong). In any case, he probably would have been unable to continue controlling the religion from prison, and who knows what direction the org. would have taken.
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purrpurr
I was always taught that it was Christendom that got Rutherford et al put in jail and that it was a fulfilment of a profecy? And that it was the holy spirit that got them realsed?
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Terry
In 1919, the Bible Students obtained 700,000 signatures in a petition directed towards President Woodrow Wilson on behalf of the imprisoned members. After WWI ended and the case was overturned on a Writ of Error without prosecution seeking another trial, the Society claimed exoneration, but this is inaccurate. The trial errors meant certain procedures must be corrected and retried.
The war was over. Everybody involved wanted to move forward and put the war and its woes behind them. That was that and it was a time for moving forward with hope.
The Government was not out to get Rutherford and the Bible Students. If this had been the case, they could have had a new trial, corrected the errors and still convicted them. The purpose of the anti-sedition laws during wartime had been served and there was no further interest in keeping zealots in jail.
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designs
I still have my grandfather's copy of Vol.7 of SITS with the "offending" page still in. My grandfather was arrested here on the West Coast when Rutherford and the others were back East.
My uncle served in the Forestry Camp in Oregon with about 50 JWs during WWII.
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Band on the Run
When viewed through the experience of Viet Nam, the military policy seems wise. As a child, I was horrified that my father did not serve in the military during WWII. Anyone around my age knows that the only films and TV shows involved WWII propoaganda films. Hitler and Churchill/Roosevelt/DeGaulle were not moral equivalents. There was nothing courageous in my father's actions. He was brawny. Heck, he was at Bethel so he knew military discipline. Every time I am in the West Village I realize a Holocaust happened there. There is a marked difference. Democracy is worth the fight. British common law rights are also worth a fight to the death. I wanted to tell Knorr and the rest my mind at every convention. My parents were both pro-labor and they wanted Des to win. Not Southern dems.
I lived near pacific anaBaptist churches in eastern PA. If our way of life is so Satanic, how dare Witnesses call the police, use public highways, send correspondence through the mail, etc. Oh, higher ed is no good so no use of doctors or lawyers. Don't use any technology developed through our exploration of space. Paramedics are out. No public park usage.
I was already here a while when I read Rutherford's antiSemitic letter to Hitler. He made his allegiances clear.