Hillary Step

by JT 66 Replies latest jw friends

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  JT

  ck your mail
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  JT

  ..."I tried to email you,"...

  ok.

  ..."but got blocked"...

  maybe hes tryna tell you something?

  ___________Refiner -- i was able to reach him today just an update
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  BeautifulGarbage

  I simply refuse to accept HS's resignation!

  Less involvement, yes. Good-bye, no.

  Mama has spoken.

  Andee
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  IslandWoman

  Farkel,

  Assholes chased him away. Assholes like to do stuff like that.

  Which "assholes" are you referring to? HS did not give that impression, imo. Maybe I missed something. Please clarify if you can. Thanks.

  IW
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  ozziepost

  Just popped out of the jungle for an hour to collect the news and came across this.

  What on earth's been going on?

  HS is one of the galaxy of stars IMO and adds lustre to this place.
  I hope "normalcy" returns before Mrs Ozzie and I get back aboard.

  I'm bereft.

  Ozzie
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  Englishman

  Hillary Step is a gentlemen who values good manners extremely highly. He would find it very difficult to post here alongside a high profile figure whom he feels holds him in contempt, if I am reading his final post correctly. He says:

  If you do you 'take it to him privately', then you are liable to me met by a long and vitriolic essay, punctuated by the thought that anybody who disagrees with his methods is a 'dickhead' and then insisting that if you write more than two sentences in reply to this essay, he will not bother reading it....lol In the entertainment business I am daily regaled by those who have fallen in love with their own press, so this attitude is not a great surprise to me. It seems to me that Bill feels strongly that he is being used by God in this cause, and in this he might learn a lesson from the GB who also started out believing that way. I think that this belief is at the route of his heart before head modus operandi.

  As some who know me personally will have noted, I have in recent months been feeling less of a need to involve myself in the life of an XJW and more of a need to move on to more creative projects, so it is to you Farkel, whom I have come to respect greatly that I present my good-byes.

  I wish you all my very best in your prospective journeys, thank Simon for being such a gracious host and offer a sincere good luck to Bill.

  Kindest regards - HS

  Englishman.
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  hawkaw

  So lets see if I get this straight.

  H_S slammed the organizers (or lawyers?) of the march for Pat's comments. I personally disagree with H_S comments in that there was nothing in the statement that could be used against her. Pat will need those witnesses though and it is my opinion that it should be Bill's and the lawyer's number one priority to find those witnesses (hint hint to those who wish to read between the lines).

  I think H_S was upset at not knowing what was going on. Like I didn't even know if Pat was going to make this statement either but it didn't upset me - then again my effort at gatheirng information in no way was impacted by the statement - H_S's stuff was and it was a huge loss. Yet I don't know if anyone at SL knew what H_S was working on either - I sure didn't.

  So then it appears H_S and Bill hold a conversation. It appears Bill lost it and told H_S where to go. So H_S takes offence to it and some of Farkels comments and quits?????

  Gee ... this is all very sad news.

  But H_S, as an exJW, it is also very important that H_S finds other forms of work and interests. Learning freedom and enjoying it is very important. So I hope H_S does take this time to enjoy what life truly has to offer.

  The one thing I have noted in this and other conflicts is that some are not knowing what is going on but want too. Remember Bill, Barb and others are out of the closet wheras others have not come out but want to work behind the curtain. I hope you guys can all work out your conflicts so this doesn't happen too much. It is very important to work together rather than apart.

  BTW who in the hell told Simon he was not helping this cause? I have yet to figure that out.

  hawk
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  hillary_step

  Due to private mail that I have received on this subject I feel it incumbent on me to offer a public explanation regarding my comments to Bill Bowen in a recent thread on this Board.

  I made comments on three main issues:

  1) Bill Bowen serving notice on the GB to appear before a committee in a motel room in Kentucky. My comments were that this would be of little use to anyone, unless of course it was satire, then it might serve the purpose of entertaining the Board. As Mr. Bowen has clearly not been 'following Theocratic procedure' for over a year, it seemed strange that this should be his defence over this letter, a letter that was published on a discussion forum, and which I was free to discuss.

  2) That Pat Garza was ill-advised to have made a public statement, without her lawyer at her side and without reading from a carefully prepared script during her appearance at a Silentlambs march arranged by Bill Bowen in New York who had oversight of this march, even to the extent of instructing the marchers as to what attire to wear for the sake of not alienating public opinion. I am well aware of *all* the circumstances, including the individuals personal circumstances, that led to this statement. The allegations made by this person during the Silentlambs March was posted to a discussion forum in detail and I discussed it.

  3) That the time had come in Silentlambs evolution for it to be depersonalized and that all its statements should be made through lawyers specifically experienced in this type of activity. I presented to this community a member of this discussion Board, Commie Chris, a Political lawyer who has such experience and has offered to help Silentlambs at a reduced financial rate. I also suggested a means by which funding might be arranged for the services of this lawyer. This statement was offered in view of the other comments that I had made above. I personally believe it is third point that was actually the spark that ignited the reactions of Mr. Bowen.

  I offer no apologies whatsoever to anybody, and I stress this, to *anybody* involved in the points that were made above.

  Soon after my posts I received several notes from Slientlambs founder Bill Bowen demanding an apology for my posts and in a series of personal attacks described me as a 'dickhead', and those who sent private notes of agreement to my posts as, 'your dickhead friends', a 'cockroach', 'a dumbass', 'a cowardly little man', 'a whiner' and other choice expressions. It is quite obvious that Mr. Bowen is using JW.com as his personal notice board and not as the discussion forum for which it has been designed for. Posting something publicly will induce discussion and dare I say it even criticism as thank God in the real world people do have their own viewpoints.

  In these notes it became obvious to me that apart from viewing himself as beyond criticism, Mr. Bowen felt and feels that he is being used directly by God in the work he doing. This may or may not be true, I rather have my doubts, but what is more important is that I began to see a worrying pattern emerging, a Joseph Rutherford in the making, whose autocratic manner and cruelty in speech were viewed by his followers as forgivable as they 'were needed at the time' to 'get the preaching work going'. I suggested that he look to the example of the GB who themselves trudge their sad road in life, victims of exactly the same perception. Do the ends justfiy the means, even in the case of child-abuse?

  Mr. Bowen made repeated demands that I make an apology and pledge my support for *him*. I was asked twice to pledge support to him personally and I twice countered saying that I support the oppressed in any religion, in any walk of life, but that under no circumstances would I support *him*. The worrying specter of what I have fought tenaciously against this past twenty years had again appeared before me. Here appears a man who thinks himself more than a man, dictating my allegiances for me. I re-iterated that under *no* circumstances would I support Mr. Bowen, though the cause of abused children would always be my concern, as it had been for the two decades before I knew that he existed, and would continue to do so without any attachment to him or his organization.

  I eventually blocked my mail which precluded my having to explain to him *yet again* that snowballs might melt in hell before I pledge my support for him. I have never been a team player, and am not likely to become one by pledging support to a man with an admittedly large heart but whose demands for personal allegiance, and whose tawdry manner are as repulsive to me as the man-traps I escaped from within the WTS. I met many elders like Mr. Bowen in my years as a JW, I believe he is having difficulty understanding that he is a JW elder no longer.

  Mr Bowen accused me of sitting on my 'dumbass' while he was doing something practical. I answered his questions regarding what I had done to help abused children by informing Mr. Bowen briefly of my history since that late 70s when I had played a major part in the imprisoning of two abusers, had literally saved an abused young persons life, how I had paid for the University education of an abused JW so that the child that her brother had left her with might have a mother by her side with a future. I did not tell him of the many sensitive cases that I handed over to the authorities for investigation over the years, or of the documents smuggled out of WTS hands and which made their way into others hands, all this at great danger to myself and my family. If this man has fallen so in love with his own press as to diminish the work that people that Kent , Jan, and AlanF and yes, persons such as myself have done in exposing this problem years before the Internet was there for support and solidarity, and if Mr. Bowen is intent on starting another personality-founded cult then he can be guaranteed that I will not be marching beside him, nor wearing his tea-shirt uniforms. I will, away from public adulation, continue to offer my personal support in any way that I can for any person, young or old who has been abused by any system, as I always have. Some of us do not wear our heart on our sleeves and prefer to work outside the public eye and have been doing so for a long, long while.

  Apart from this, the 'you are either with me or against me attitude' is facile and eventually counterproductive to any cause, as it dismisses logic and intelligent analysis on the historically bloody altar of the marching song. Even people who have done nothing to help the cause of child-abuse victims have a right to question the methodology of those that have. This is true freedom of speech which Mr. Bowen seems to react strongly against.

  Each year for the past decade I have been involved in raising funds for charitable concerns by arranging benefit concerts. I do just one each year since moving stateside. These shows normally gross around $250,00 per concert, depending on whom I can con into appearing. Before anybody asks, yes I might be willing to do the same for Silentlambs if I was convinced of its structure as a broad charity, and if it had professional legal presentation, a Board and accountants and if Mr. Bowen were to pitch a tent in Iceland for the duration of the project.

  I am making this statement, especially regarding my activities out of the public gaze, not to draw attention to myself but to set matters straight regarding my own position. It is true that I have in recent months been contemplating a lateral shift from JW / XJW issues, it is also true that straws break camels backs.

  It is also true that the statement made in New York unraveled much work that I had been doing at this end which would finally have provided documented hard evidence of a GB members complicity in covering over a case of abuse some years ago. Was I annoyed? Yes, I was. Am I annoyed now? No, not any longer. Do my issues still stand as valid? I believe that they do.

  As of this point I have heard no compelling argument from Mr. Bowen regarding the issues that I and others raised and had a right to raise. As they were posted to a public discussion Board they should be looked at and discussed carefully without fear of reprisal email messages from Bill Bowen and his White-shirts. If responses from other posters cannot be entertained by Mr. Bowen, he should cease using this community as his personal Bulletin Board.

  I once again bid you all good-bye and thank all of you, even those that I have vehemently disagreed with in the past, for a stimulating year or so of community on this Board.

  Best regards to all, and fire at will. - HS

  edited for forum script problems

  Edited by - hillary_step on 8 October 2002 15:39:39
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  RandomTask

  Hillary, thank you for clearing this up. Personally I have had some of the same concerns about silentlambs for some time and I am now worried that those concerns I had are turning into reality.

  I think a lot of us were hoping that silentlambs would be something that would finally be able to expose the WTS, and maybe because of this we were willing to put aside doubts so that we could support this cause even though many of us were never abused ourselves. We simply wanted to see someone succeed against the WTS where so many others have failed. Some are still holding onto their "faith" in silentlambs and others are becoming disillusioned with radical tactics that seem to do more harm to the cause than good. It is unfortunate that it has come to this point, but these things usually do.
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  Englishman

  HS,

  Thank you for taking the time to explain your viewpoints about Silent Lambs and Bill Bowen. I feel that you separated your statement very well indeed, on the one hand you support the exposing of paedophiles, but you also refuse to give your total allegiance to any individual who organises such an expose. You also feel that you should be able to criticise areas that could be improved without being called names or otherwise insulted.

  I think that there are many persons who feel the same way, they want to support the idea without having to give over their very soul too.

  Maybe this whole thing needs to be a little less "sales orientated", I must admit to a reluctance myself to go back to being a salesman for a company where a boss demands total loyalty to not only his business, but to his own personage too.

  Maybe that's why I like being self-employed so much.

  Englishman.

  Edited by - Englishman on 8 October 2002 14:51:51