Just throwing my two cents in...
I have to say that I agree with Bradley on this one. I know first hand how people inside the organisation can hurt it's members, and I know that to a lesser or greater degree the organisation appears to protect the perpetrators. But what the WT is actually doing is protecting itself, not as a religious structure, but as an organisation. It is an organisation's first responsibility and priority. See Business Organisation 101. All organisations do this. They are governed by laws, regulations and policy and it's one of the reasons that the legal department is what it is in the WT. They need it to be.
It's no surprise that the WT deals with such serious issues as pedophiles and blood transfusions etc. in the way that it does. It has to. It's a strength and it's also a weakness. I think that's why what Bradley is saying here is quite important. By doing what it does, the WT maintains itself and it's appearance to the outside world as a credible organisation. That's why relatively little has happened to the organisation itself in spite of all the public outcry on the pedophile and blood transfusion issues. Also, I don't think it's an accident that the organisation felt the need to restructured legally a few years ago. They knew they had big problems, and they fixed some of them. But not all. No organisation is without it's weaknesses. It would be interesting to hear what a corporate lawyer would have to say about the structure and the restructuring of the WT. That would go a long way to see just what the organisation thinks it's weaknesses are.
The problem for those that have been inside of the organisation and experienced the difference between what the WT defines itself to the outside world as and how the WT defines itself outside of those perameters to it's members is how do we establish our credibility. It's not enough to have gone through the experience. We have to prove it. It's one thing to go through the painful and gutwrenching, heartbreaking experience. It's quite another to try to make an organisation as protected as the WT accountable for what is done in it's name. I underlined that phrase to make it distinct. What the organisation does, and what is done in it's name are two different things, most importantly in the legal sense. We get hung up on that quite a bit here, and it is one of the distinctions I think Bradley is trying to make.
I think it's great that we can get attention to these issues by the emotional impact they have, in the court of public opinion, but that doesn't work so well in a court of law. They require evidence. Solid evidence and that has been the hardest thing to achieve. Most people who are inside and come out of the WT, don't know how important it is to keep records, times, dates, witnesses (ones that won't lie or use theocratic warfare tactics), etc. How important a journal can be. In pedophilia cases, it's impossible to prove someone said, "Don't go to the authorities" unless you have it written or taped. And that's how they get out of it. Legally defined perameters = Credibility. That tape recording Bill Bowen had of the WT representative saying, "Just walk away", was a powerful piece of evidence. Used properly, that evidence could help establish that there is a difference between what the WT says is a policy and what it practices. But the tape is only one piece of that puzzle. More is needed.
I think what Bradley is suggesting is a fair methodology, a means of achieving that elusive credibility publicly and legally. It seperates the anecdotal experience from the evidence of it. It doesn't belittle the experience, it defines how to describe it.
I look forward to part two of this topic Bradley.
Thanks
Inq