by neat blue dog 7 Replies latest watchtower scandals
It's a little long, but if you have a chance, read this court transcript of a sleazy JW lawyer's interaction with a judge and others. In the course of defending WT, he uses theocratic warfare non-stop, but the court sees right through him and it's both pathetic and infuriating:
https://jwsurvey.org/child-abuse-2/breaking-news-watchtowers-defense-collapses-jehovahs-witnesses-reproved-for-failure-to-report-child-abuse-settlement-with-fessler-reached
Thanks for posting this.
That "star witness" the WT brought out to represent them... holy shitballs, what a tool.
If he's the best they can come up with, they're screwed.
Yes, a long read, but worth the time.
WT would have been wise to just offer a settlement before they allowed their representatives to be put on the stand and make a complete ass out of everyone.
Do these settlement amounts ever "leak" out?
Do these settlement amounts ever "leak" out?
What I would love is a law that requires non-profits to announce at all public meetings the amounts of any court judgments and also out of court settlements.
All in all, an excellent article and summary of the proceedings, but I think there's still something that a lot of folks who report on this stuff tend to miss regarding the WTS's secrecy policies.
Yes, the Org has crafted them to keep the larger public and secular legal systems in the dark to preserve their own carefully polished public image, in order to keep recruitment up and minimize court actions in the short term...
...but...
...far more importantly, I think, is the long-term goal of keeping the true scope of the problem - that the Org's so-called "Biblical" ideology, worldview, and policies have actually made it pervasive, institutionalized, and endemic - from becoming a matter of public record (yes, the piece did mention the "public record" thing, but only in passing).
Why is that such a potential problem for the WTS?
Because once that happens - particularly if said public record includes self- and Org-damning admissions made by high-ranking WT reps - it becomes way, way harder for local elders (or any JW, really) to refute or dismiss them as "apostate-driven lies" when questioned by the rank-and-file...
...which cannot help but - ultimately - severely undermine said rank-and-file's confidence in the Org's claim that it's "God's Exclusive Earthly Organization", because, jeezus, how can it not???
Personally, I suspect that the GB would literally sell their souls to avoid that, because that could not help but eliminate the only real incentive for all but the most rabid hard-core loyalists to stay.
And while I believe that the WT leadership does indeed want to downsize the membership to said hard-core loyalists and/or proportional to the current downsizing of it's actual physical assets...
...they definitely wouldn't want to do so too quickly, in order to save face and keep it manageable (remember, deep down, all authoritarian regimes fear mass exoduses... even when there's no real danger of them actually happening).
Just my opinion.
But where did I find this transcript? An "apostate" website. Because of information control, no good JW will see things unless they're on mainstream news.
Worth the read!
