What Kind of Activism?

TerryWalstrom

Activism or any kind of push back really is NOT about the size of your emotion, your disgust, or the feeling of powerless frustration at the religion.

Being an EX-JW is about one of two things and two things only:

1. BEING EFFECTIVE

or

2. BEING INEFFECTIVE

To which I add: effective at what?

1. Not identifying yourself as the foaming at the mouth, demonic, mentally diseased piece of shit the Watchtower has framed you out to be in the minds of their captive slaves.
2. Reaching the hearts and minds of depressed, anxious, fearful people under a spell of mistaken belief.

BEING EFFECTIVE is about the message and not the messenger.
Watchtower anti-apostate propaganda focuses AD HOMINEM because such propaganda makes the Ex-Dub appear threatening and misguided.

WHY play into the GB's schemes?
We are not the legion of doom, we are not vigilantes or insurgent agents of chaos come to visit grief and terror.

We are Good Samaritans stopping to help an abused victim.
Yes.
The people still inside the Kingdom Hall are the victims.

By focusing on our own pain, mistreatment, and mishandling we make OURSELVES the victims which--as accurate as that is--MEANS NOTHING to those trapped inside a place they've been programmed to see as an ark of refuge at the start of a Great Tribulation.

To be EFFECTIVE, we must become the ambulance, the doctors, and nurses, the volunteers inside a disaster area INSIDE the Kingdom Halls.

We need to be people victims run TOWARD rather than AWAY from once they see their own condition plainly.

We are a source of believable information or we are nothing but another pain in their ass.

We have to be more LIGHT than DARKNESS.

Bottom line: if you are an activist you strive for EFFECTIVENESS in getting trapped people out of a burning building.
An activist's job is to help those inside the religion to SMELL the SMOKE and head for the nearest exit.

Phizzy

I agree Terry, where ever possible we should work in a gentle and kind way to show people the safe Exit from the Building.

Aggressively entering K.Halls or Conventions and disrupting what is going on is not only doubtful legally, but is INEFFECTIVE, and worse, it entrenches the JW in their belief in the Org.

I remember the feeling of anger at the org I had when I first woke up, they had stolen 6 decades of my life, and more really, I now have an impoverished retirement due to them.

I wanted to find ways to hasten the demise of the cult. But personally upsetting JW's who were just like I had been a short while before seemed morally wrong to me.

Activism needs to be a positive thing, showing the good life that can be, and is, led by many many ex JW's.

stuckinarut2

Well said Terry!

Excellent thread!

TerryWalstrom

When I first started out writing articles and posting on Ex-JW sites, I was full of piss and vinegar and wanted to "bring down the Organization" and blah and blah and blah.
I was simply full of lava.
And about as effective as Vesuvius.
Just being loud and proud does not an effective activist make.

Reaching somebody is effective.
Reaching a mind and a heart in a human being trapped in fear is very tough.

You have to start each day saying to yourself, "This really isn't about me."

And yet, so much of what I was writing and arguing really was all about my anger.

The crunch of knuckles is not a prayer of healing :)

pbrow

Thanks for assuming the motives of every ex here. You must be a mind reader

We all do things for our own reasons.

If being effective is your aim, then stay in plant seeds from within. I wanted to lead my own life and my kids to be able to live normal lives. The ones stuck in can leave when they are ready to leave.

Picketing a convention, raising a toast at the memorial or simply engaging the dubs at a cart are all ways of helping to lay the bricks of doubt. There are so many different people and different ways of being woken up that taking any option off the table is shortsighted.

Dont be a dick, dont be violent and I am ok with a little civil disobedience.

pbrow

TerryWalstrom

pbrow says:
Thanks for assuming the motives of every ex here. You must be a mind reader

We all do things for our own reasons.
_________________
Let me offer my apology if my words came across as high-handed mind reading. You are surely correct when you say our "own reasons."
I guess I meant something more akin to the old adage, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
It's obvious so many active JW's have the best intentions in the world for what they do. Not all of them are trembling with anxiety and pining for rescue from the likes of us.
By the same token, I'm pretty clear on how the very mention of being EX triggers a Pavlovian impulse in the Dub at the door to bolt.
If I go off on them, the reinforcement of their programming is surely intensified.
Being friendly, real, and reasonable sews an approachable seedbed from which later something liberating may spring.
Or not.

Bungi Bill

Terry,

From a personal satisfaction point of view, having a rant and blowing off some steam does have certain benefits. But then if you are intending to help others wake up to TTATT, then what you said was very correct.

Londo111

Terry: I couldn't agree with you more.

I really don't get the mindset of those who are aggressive. It's as if they've forgotten what it's like to be a JW or they just don't care about helping them.

TerryWalstrom

For those who have lost all their friends and family and who are considered mentally diseased the only way to gain self-respect SEEMS to be in finding a way to return the HURT from a feeling of righteous indignation.
The irony comes with remembering it was THEIR own warped righteous indignation which brought about the split in the first place. They saw you as you now see them.

But as natural a feeling as that is, after awhile it will devour you if you don't let it go. IF for no other reason--it doesn't solve anything and it lowers you to their level.

The way to win is to not lose.
Figuring out the way to "win" requires considerable maturity and--dare I say it--"love."

You save them and they are no longer enemies.
Twist ending:)

But it's really hard to get there in your head. It really is.

What Kind of Activism?

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