Another piece of JW chatter I heard - some JWs are sending letters to the Russian embassies in their own countries.
OrphanCrow
JoinedPosts by OrphanCrow
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How much $$$$ will have been spent on the letter writing campaign to Russia?
by OrphanCrow ini have been following the jw chatter online about the letter writing that has been furiously undertaken by the jws around the world.
a global effort done on the command of the gb in ny.. several jws have mentioned the cost of mailing letters (and packages of letters, where allowed) to russia and the cost is substantial.
some jws have mailed dozens of letters.. the jw boast is that the russian postal system will be overwhelmed with letters.
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How much $$$$ will have been spent on the letter writing campaign to Russia?
by OrphanCrow ini have been following the jw chatter online about the letter writing that has been furiously undertaken by the jws around the world.
a global effort done on the command of the gb in ny.. several jws have mentioned the cost of mailing letters (and packages of letters, where allowed) to russia and the cost is substantial.
some jws have mailed dozens of letters.. the jw boast is that the russian postal system will be overwhelmed with letters.
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OrphanCrow
Richard, your calculations are based on US figures. Some countries are paying more for postage and I have read accounts of single JWs sending 20-30 letters just themselves. "6" each is really low - that is only one to each official and there are many JWs who are determined to "make up for those who can't or don't write". And don't forget the army of JW children called into action.
It's a good start, though. Your estimate is on the low side but that is good. I would use it as a minimum number. 27.6 million is a pretty large investment.
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How much $$$$ will have been spent on the letter writing campaign to Russia?
by OrphanCrow ini have been following the jw chatter online about the letter writing that has been furiously undertaken by the jws around the world.
a global effort done on the command of the gb in ny.. several jws have mentioned the cost of mailing letters (and packages of letters, where allowed) to russia and the cost is substantial.
some jws have mailed dozens of letters.. the jw boast is that the russian postal system will be overwhelmed with letters.
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OrphanCrow
blondie: When I did this back in the Malawi days, we were allowed to count our time....I wonder if they has been said now. I hope jws realize that the intended receiver will not likely read it any more than elders read DA letters
Blondie, according to the chatter, counting time is part of the effort. After all, it is "service to Jehovah!". *to add....some are holding letter writing parties to share the experience and excitement
Of course the receiver won't read it. The JWs seem to think that each and every letter will have to be read and they can command the long drawn out attention of Russian officials who have much better things to do than read every one of those letters.
WT induced psychosis. It should be a new category in the DSM manual. All by itself.
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How much $$$$ will have been spent on the letter writing campaign to Russia?
by OrphanCrow ini have been following the jw chatter online about the letter writing that has been furiously undertaken by the jws around the world.
a global effort done on the command of the gb in ny.. several jws have mentioned the cost of mailing letters (and packages of letters, where allowed) to russia and the cost is substantial.
some jws have mailed dozens of letters.. the jw boast is that the russian postal system will be overwhelmed with letters.
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OrphanCrow
I have been following the JW chatter online about the letter writing that has been furiously undertaken by the JWs around the world. A global effort done on the command of the GB in NY.
Several JWs have mentioned the cost of mailing letters (and packages of letters, where allowed) to Russia and the cost is substantial. Some JWs have mailed dozens of letters.
The JW boast is that the Russian postal system will be overwhelmed with letters. Apparently, this will be no surprise. A friend of mine, who is from Russia, thinks it is so silly - the Russian postal system is notoriously bad anyways.
Regardless, I have been thinking.
I wonder how much the JWs from around the world will have invested personally in this campaign? How much money, in total, will have been spent? To benefit the WTS? Will this outlay of "donation$" by the faithful flock be considered on the income line in the tax returns for the WTS?
If, indeed, millions of letters are mailed from locations worldwide, how much $$$ would that actually be? How large of a donation, to the WTS, does this letter campaign represent? In real $$$$?
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Two (circumstantial) lines of evidence for the real motivation behind the Russian lobbying?
by doubtfull1799 in1. in bro sandersons latest video (in which he shows a very impressive skill with russian) he mentions two likely results of the imminent russian ban: the liquidation of the branch office and its assets, and the individual brothers capacity to worship freely.
no prizes for guessing which one gets mentioned first!.
2. why have the gb never attempted in the past, and are not interested in attempting now, such a letter writing campaign in other communist countries where the work is under similar restrictions, like china, or vietnam?
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OrphanCrow
baker: Wonder why they didn't have a letter writing campaign back in 2004 when they were first banned in Russia?
There have been letter writing campaigns within Russia before. There was one back in 1999 to protest the Russian government including refusal of blood transfusions in the definition of "extremism". Apparently, it must have worked. It wasn't included.
This global call to pen and paper is a followup to one that the Russian JWs did in 2105:
In that campaign, the Russian JWs "buried Putin in emails".
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The Watchtower are Right About Blood...
by cofty in... but, they fail to take note of one important detail.. i believe that if we are going to have any chance of reasoning with a jw about blood, this is the place we need to begin.. don't try to convince them that it was only a dietary law.
it wasn't, and they will never go along with it.. don't tell them that saving a life is more important than obeying a law, even a seemingly trivial one.
they take pride in obedience.
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OrphanCrow
TD, was that quote from the December 1944 WT?
It was in the July 45 WT that they became even more specific, wasn't it?
Regardless, their blood transfusion ban occurred at a critical time in blood transfusion history. The advances that happened in blood transfusion technology during the war were noteworthy - Cohn had just discovered blood fractionation and blood banking had become well established. Instead of moving forward with medical science, the WT dug their heels in and moved in the opposite direction.
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556
The Watchtower are Right About Blood...
by cofty in... but, they fail to take note of one important detail.. i believe that if we are going to have any chance of reasoning with a jw about blood, this is the place we need to begin.. don't try to convince them that it was only a dietary law.
it wasn't, and they will never go along with it.. don't tell them that saving a life is more important than obeying a law, even a seemingly trivial one.
they take pride in obedience.
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OrphanCrow
cofty: Who is responsible? Knor? Franz?
Both of them.
Knorr and Franz both held the reins to power in 1945 when they added blood transfusions to their restrictions on blood consumption.
The blood taboo could have relaxed in the next few years, and it did somewhat. There were signs that the blood phobia craze could fizzle. JWs didn't always comply and they faced loss after loss in the courts. But what happened?
In 1961, Knorr and Franz, the power duo, came down hard on the JWs and made taking a blood transfusion a disfellowshipping offense. At the exact same time that medical science, using blood transfusion technology, had developed a way to create a bloodless surgical field.
It was Knorr and Franz who fed the flames of Armageddon in the years following that, using the blood prohibition - the ban against sharing blood - as a sign of separateness from "the world". A way of "taking a stand". And more people died.
And then, when the '75 flames died down, what did Knorr/Franz do? They gave authority and birth to the "Hospital Information Services". That is their legacy. The HLC, the blood squad, comes from Knorr and Franz. From both of them.
And more people die. Every day.
Because of Knorr and Franz. And their bloodless legacy.
*good thread, cofty. It makes people think. -
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Are any of the governing body going to russia for the court case?!
by nowwhat? ini think it would be great if the gb could testify on behalf of the russia brothers they say care so much about.
if nothing else it would show the dear russian brothers that jehovahs organization has their back.
and give them moral support.
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OrphanCrow
Blondie, I read that Spokane piece (press release submitted by the JWs) as well and I thought it was misleading of the JW to say:
"“We just want to be able to exercise our freedom of religion as we have in every place in the world,” Hardy said."
He makes it sound like Russia is only place in the world that is saying "no" to the Jehovah's Witnesses practice of evangelizing. Russia isn't the only country that isn't pleased with the JWs. What about China? Singapore? Iraq? Morocco?
He also says this:
“We’re very concerned about what will happen to our fellow Witnesses in Russia,” Hardy said.
Really? Concerned about individual Russian JWs? I don't think so. This aggressive move by the GB, to call to pen and paper of their 8 million followers to launch a paper attack on the Kremlin, is an incredibly irresponsible move that will increase the risk to JWs in Russia. And the GB knows this very well. They know it will make it more dangerous for the JWs in Russia, not less.
What this WT spokesman fails to say is that this letter writing campaign is being done to protect the WT assets in Russia and it disregards the individuals themselves. The WT property is losing "freedom of religion". The WTS in Russia is a foreign organization. The individual Russian JWs aren't.
It is the WTS organization that is facing a ban - the Russian JWs aren't. They will continue to be free to believe whatever they want - as long as they follow the law in Russia against spreading their infectious ideas. But the org doesn't want that. They don't want peaceful, happy JWs in Russia - they want all the rest of the people in Russia to be exposed to their anti-government teachings.
That is why this letter writing campaign is so so dangerous for the JWs who are living in Russia. This action proves to the Russian authorities that the JWs are a group of people who will unquestioningly follow the commands of leaders outside of Russia. This is very bad. Very bad. Russians do not trust outsiders - hell, they don't even trust their own people. Russia is not a country that will be receptive to outsiders coming in and telling their people how they are supposed to resist the government and that their "worldy/earthly" government is going to be destroyed by god. In a horrible Armageddon scenario. And replaced with a group of men from New York that will reign over Russia and the whole world. They preach world supremacy. World supremacy of their group and their group only.
If there is one action that will prove to the Russian authorities that they are right to be concerned about an anti-government group spreading in Russia, this letter writing campaign will seal the deal.
The GB know exactly what they are doing. The GB are irresponsible. They know that this will make it worse for the JWs, not better.
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Chairman of the St Petersburg-based Administrative Centre of JWs issues press release - Forum 18
by OrphanCrow inaccording to the latest forum 18 article, this is what happened in russia on march 15:.
http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2265.
with immediate effect, a 15 march suspension order forbids the administrative centre and all its local religious organisations from "using state and municipal news media, organising and conducting assemblies, rallies, demonstrations, processions, picketing, and other mass actions or public events, and using bank deposits, with the exception of use for making payments connected with their economic activity, compensating for losses (damages) caused by their actions, and paying taxes, fees, or fines, and making payments based on labour contracts" .
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OrphanCrow
*by the way, darkspliver...I do know that you are trying to be helpful, but I find that posting walls of text that has been written by the very org that we are putting under scrutiny, isn't really all that helpful. All that does is make it difficult for people, who use their phones to read this site, to scroll through watchtower generated propaganda. I don't read that stuff unless I am planning on criticizing the way it is written or to point out the errors that have been printed. Just posting it is non-productive. All that does is circulate WT material for them. Jus' sayin'*
But back to the letter writing. I have spent some time reading material from Russian exJWs and they made a couple interesting points about this letter campaign.
Firstly, one poster had mentioned how this campaign is going to prove to the Russian authorities that the JWs are a group of people that will follow, unquestioningly, whatever they are told to do by their American leaders. This is not a good thing in the face of an "extremism" charge.
Secondly, it was discussed that the JWs know that this initiative will do drastic things to the Russian postal service. In fact, jwtalk confirms that. The JWs are all excited over the fact that the Russian postal service is going to get slammed and that their letters have the potential to disrupt that service. That is a problem which could turn into a huge, huge problem for the org. The word used to describe this deliberately aggressive letter writing campaign is "sabotage". Sabotage of the Russian postal system. By an American corporate religion. Done with intent and for malicious reasons - to shut down or overload the postal service and cause problems for the Russian government. Bad news for the WTS. Jail terms seem certain for the WT guys at the Administrative Center.
The JWs are insane. Delusional and behaving like lunatics.
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Chairman of the St Petersburg-based Administrative Centre of JWs issues press release - Forum 18
by OrphanCrow inaccording to the latest forum 18 article, this is what happened in russia on march 15:.
http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2265.
with immediate effect, a 15 march suspension order forbids the administrative centre and all its local religious organisations from "using state and municipal news media, organising and conducting assemblies, rallies, demonstrations, processions, picketing, and other mass actions or public events, and using bank deposits, with the exception of use for making payments connected with their economic activity, compensating for losses (damages) caused by their actions, and paying taxes, fees, or fines, and making payments based on labour contracts" .
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OrphanCrow
Lostgeneration: I'd love it if Russia boxed up all the letters, drop shipped them to Brooklyn with a note on the box(es) saying "A little housewarming gift for you to take to your new HQ."