Thanks everybody for pursuing this discussion. I, like many others, are on the "mailing list" for Silent Lambs so whenever Bill sends stuff around, I get a copy, and last night 3 emails came from SL (evidently Bill had been on vacation and was catching up with his mail). I will continue to post to the forum copies of whatever info/updates., etc. comes from SL.
Avengers: Way2go re: America's Most Wanted. I read your letter at the other thread. Good job, 'cuz you know J. Walsh loathes child abusers! And, hey, I bet Walsh has some GREAT "BIG" CONNECTIONS, PALS, BUDDIES he's made over the years in the legal/law field, FBI, etc. So you just never know what may come of your letter!!! (Remember when Fox cancelled AMW a few years back? And Fox got BOMBARDED with mail from not only regular fans from the general public, but LAW AGENCIES, JUDGES, ATTORNEYS, POLICE ORGS., etc. all wrote in to Fox and raised holy hell about Fox's plans to cancel AMW. Hence, Fox did an about-face and did not cancel the show...). I think EVERYBODY has great respect for John Walsh, imho.
Mary, I loved your re-worded-corrected-summation of the "speech" by the bros/GB, surely to be given at the NEXT assembly... (yeah, right!)
True confessions: The only reason I can be so sarcastic [8>] about this is because I KNOW FOR A FACT, if I was still sitting in a KH, and was still a JW, I'm sure I would be BELIEVING everything they told me from the platforms at meetings and conventions. (What can I say? Guilty as charged I would be, IF I was still a JW). Over the years since being DF'd, and in those early years right after I had to come to grips with my own sexual abuse (NOT by JWs, tho), but at the time I sometimes wondered if it hadn't been a "blessing" that I was DF'd & "out" because, otherwise, I would have felt too "guilty" AS A JW investigating/reading/learning about my own sex abuse and taking all the time necessary dealing with it. (This being years before I learned of the sex abuse WITHIN the org). The way it has turned out, I think is a blessing for me personally, as God knows what I could and could not handle. In other words, I got my first "taste" of sex abuse IN the org when I read of an incident in the local paper by a former MS/friend several years AFTER I had already come to grips with my own (then it took me about 2 years to be able to cope with THAT news about the bro/MS). Then I stumbled upon Silent Lambs last fall, in enough advance time of the airing of the Dateline show to be able to absorb/swallow the horror stories at SL, all and come to grips with it emotionally. Then Dateline, Newsweek, etc. but by then I was "all ready," and able to soak it in without totally falling apart all over again. -- Does this make any sense what I am trying to say? :-/
(Nothing can be changed unless we first acknowledge it.)
To Crawdad2: I doubt you could get any of the elite at the KH to put it in writing, but you could always take a trusty little micro-taperecorder in your purse/bookbag and verbally record any talks from the platform. However, I doubt they would ever NAME "Dateline" or "Newsweek" specifically, since they probably "know better" legally. -- Here's another idea: We could copy this Drama Talk and send it in letter form to WT-HQ and ASK in our letter (play dumb), "Are you brothers referring specifically to Dateline and/or Newsweek as being lies by the media?" And see what kind of reply you get (which, likely, would be No Reply At All).
Hawkaw: Wasn't that a slam-dunk ending of Dateline when they gave the measely TWO examples after a SIX MONTH WAIT? That was too good! And Stone Phillips (I think it was) relayed that info in the usual professional (no emotion attached) manner of speaking, but the POINT WAS CLEAR.
Jack2: You said it! I guess I had NO thinking ability when a JW, 'cuz I remember having the "FEAR of apostates" in my heart. And I mean the kind of "fear" that would make my heart start pounding really hard and make my adrenaline go haywire. And now Here I Am... --- About the media/Satan: They can't have it both ways. If the media IS from Satan, then why would Satan print all those "good stories" about the JW conventions, etc. etc. that were always in the mags...? Is Satan bipolar? On a bad day he prints hate-mail re: JWs; on a good day he prints "great news" about JWs...
The whole mess is a sorry sack of potatoes... I'm glad I'm out here where I can read/see/think, be exposed to ALL of the info straight as it comes from media or wherever...
Love to all/GRITS... rambled on long enough for one post...