Added my 2p about the action taken last week along with Cedars' great video over at WatchtowerWatch.com. Feel free to comment...
JV
Juan Viejo2
JoinedPosts by Juan Viejo2
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74
New video: Jehovah's Witnesses and Watchtower's secret child abuse letter
by cedars inwe have decided to let the world know what happened when our websites were shut down earlier this month by means of this new video..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_9efi84qnc.
huge thanks to nugget for lending us her gorgeous voice, and also to cantleave for his cameo role as the voice of the big bad watchtower!
cedars.
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74
New video: Jehovah's Witnesses and Watchtower's secret child abuse letter
by cedars inwe have decided to let the world know what happened when our websites were shut down earlier this month by means of this new video..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_9efi84qnc.
huge thanks to nugget for lending us her gorgeous voice, and also to cantleave for his cameo role as the voice of the big bad watchtower!
cedars.
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Juan Viejo2
Very nicely done, Cedars! An amazing piece of work considering the time frame you had to work with, barely more than a weekend.
For those of you who do not realize the importance of this letter, please go back and read the earlier articles that Cedars posted on JWSurvey.org about the Candace Conti case. The eleven videos that were produced that had Miss Conti and her attorney, Rick Simons, describing the events leading up to the court case held in Oakland, California are available on YouTube.com, Ex-JW.com, and ExJWSLosAngeles.org (and other sites as well). Just type "Candace Conti" in a search box on any of those sites and you will get access to the whole set.
I must caution some of you here who have your own websites to temper your sense of righteous indignation in connection with this subject. We want to educate our friends and family members who are still entrapped, not scare them away. What they don't realize is that if they have children and grandchildren going to almost any Kingdom Hall - they are at risk. If they are women, especially those who are married to JW elders and wannabees, they are at risk of being ignored should their husband or boyfriend ever threaten or actually abuse them. They can not count on the elders standing up in their defense.
And for those young men (and older ones too) that aspire to be elders some day, we should make sure that they understand that they will be put in situations where their own sense of fair play and desire to protect the weaker ones in their congregations could get them in hot water. If they do become elders and go along with the guidelines the Watchtower has given them - then they could face criminal charges or civil law suits for failing to do their duty as citizens should someone in their Kingdom Hall be hurt or otherwise treated in a criminal manner. Why would they ever want to be elders and have to face those choices? Why, I ask?
I can tell you all that many of us remain active in trying to get the word out to the public and current JWs of the risks they face. It took many years for the Catholic Church to come around and realize they had more to gain by removing pedophile priests than protecting them. If we keep trying then it is just a matter of time before the Watchtower will have to comply as well.
For those of you in the United States who have access or subscriptions to Netflix, I suggest that you rent or stream the following movies. What the Watchtower is doing is almost exactly what the Catholic Church has been doing for years. See for yourself:
"Conspiracy of Silence" - (2003 - 87 minutes) Stars Hugh Bonneville, one of the main stars of "Downton Abbey."
"Deliver Us From Evil" - (2006 - 103 minutes) Oscar nominated documentary about Father Oliver O'Grady.
After you see those movies, I guarantee you'll understand why we have to work together to force the Watchtower to change its policies. If they don't, then they will eventually be driven into bankruptcy for their intransigence.
I get a lot of contact forms and emails from JWs and young people who grew up in the religion who share their horror stories with me. It is rare that I can go a week without getting one that doesn't break me down emotionally to the point that I have to get up and walk away from the computer for a few hours. My wife often wonders if I am sick or upset with her when I go through one of these little episodes. There are times when all I can do is wave my hand at her to assure her I'm alright, but I am so emotional that I literally can't speak.
Empathy can sometimes be a heavy burden for old farts like me. We tend to imagine our own children and grandchildren being subjected to such abuse (or worse) and realizing that a group of unqualified men following orders from Patterson, NY are putting innocent JW children at risk every day.
I will be sharing some of these stories on Ex-JW.com and WatchtowerWatch.com over the next few weeks. All of us need to work together to make sure that our local newspapers and TV stations are aware of what is going on. All it will take is one good article in Time magazine, The Washington Post, or Vanity Fair to bust this wide open. We just have to keep pushing.
JV
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52
Do some GB know the truth about the truth?
by Bob_NC indo some of the gb consciously know the truth about the truth and they just can't say it?
or are they all still under the spell?.
how about cos or dos?
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Juan Viejo2
I have to disagree with my friend Cedars and feel that Phizzy and Aussie OZ are closer to the truth about the Truth.
I think several of the members of the original Governing Body (Ray Franz era) who were longtime associates with Rutherford, Knorr and Fred Franz probably believed their own bullshit. It's clear to me that Ray Franz had some issues in regards to some of the Society's policies and teachings, but felt overall that they were closer to the truth than any other religion. My guess is that most of the Governing Body of that time were in that same category.
On the other hand, I don't think a single one of the current Governing Body really believes anything about the religion. They all know that they don't qualify as being annointed, but they have to say they are and partake in order to be nominated and chosen to join the hallowed GB. I think they also know that what they teach has no real validity. These men are not stupid - they know that the earth wasn't created in 42000 years. They know evolution is true science. They know that 1914, 1918, and 1919 have no significance - absolutely nothing at all - in terms of the establishment of God's Kingdom. I don't really believe any of them actually believe that millions of dead bodies will be resurrected after 6000 years of human history and be recreated with the physical identities, personalities, and memories they had when they were alive. There are just too many scientific reasons to dismiss any such notions.
"Jehovah can do anything if he wants to" just won't cut it for much longer - and the Governing Body has to know that is a fact.
In fact, I doubt if they even believe in Armageddon, the 144,000, or the possibility of everlasting life on earth. There are too many reasons not to believe in any of that. I think they are very afraid of what will happen to the organization after 2014 (100 years after 1914) and nothing has happened. They have to know that the cards are quickly stacking against them in terms of their blood policy, their handling of child molesters and other criminal elements within the society, and the fact that someone will eventually expose their money-laundering schemes. When all of that happens, Don Adams and the Governing Body will have some serious explaining to do - not only to their own members, but also to civil authorities worldwide.
I'm sure that most of their meetings whenever they discuss "new light," they are all doing the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" with each other and then assigning some poor schmuck in the Writing Department to write something up that explains it to the rank and file. But they also know that even if it makes no sense and contradicts everything they've taught before, the JW sheep will simply doze through the WT study and accept whatever they are told at the assemblies - because they have no other choice in the matter.
I am convinced that the whole organization is just one highly organized and tightly controlled scam and everyone of the Governing Body members either know that or guess that it might be true.
JV
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Anyone Else See Les Miserables?
by BizzyBee ini went to see it today - by myself (mr bee is on a golf junket).
i was glad that that i was by myself because i cried so much at the end, i wouldn't have wanted to be with anyone who wasn't crying - and that would not have been mr bee!.
les miserables the current film is adapted from what is considered one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the past 150 years and one of the longest novels ever written.
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Juan Viejo2
I was fortunate to see one of the early (road) stage versions when it played in Fort Worth, Texas in the early 1990s. I also saw a concert where Betty Buckley ("Tender Mercies" and "Cats") who was from Fort Worth did a concert and sang one of the songs from the stage play. Unforgettable...
I've seen the Liam Neeson and Frederick March versions of the movie. Charles Laughton was the classic Javert.
My favorite of all is "Les Miserables," a 1995 French language version starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. You can find it on Netflix and Amazon.com with English subtitles. It is set in the 20th century around the time of World War 2. It's very intense and believable, not comedic or musical in any sense of the word. The characters and the plot are somewhat different, but Victor Hugo's story and plot lines probably come through in this version better than any other I've seen. Much in the same vein as "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring," this version really brings the story to life and tells a timeless story of intolerable inhumanity and the power of the human will and spirit.
My wife is pushing me to go see the new movie at the local theater, but like Skyfall and Lincoln it may pass through town so fast that we will miss it and have to wait and watch at home on our wide-screen HD TV screen with a glass of wine in our hands and our puppy in our lap. We'll each have a box of tissues within reach...
JV
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10
Bible Studies these days in the Borg
by l p inhey i just read on another thread that they dont study the truth book or the paradise book anymore.. omg when i was a dub i was always trying to get studies with the paradise book.. .
so what do they study with these days?.
lp.
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Juan Viejo2
In 1951 my mother and I started with the green cover "Let God Be True" book (replaced with a maroon cover and changed a bit in 1952). The "The Truth Shall Set You Free" book was supposed to be the second book you studied before baptism, but as far as I know, not a single person ever got that far. They either got baptized or slammed the door by the time they got through the LGBT (OMG!!!! do you see what those letters stand for?!?) book.
"Let God Be True" was, in my opinion, probably the best first study book ever published. It sure brought a lot of people into the "truth" and was cheap at 25 cents a copy.
I remember being severely reprimanded by my mother after one study we had when I asked the lady we were studying with ("Sister Kelly") when we were going to "study the Bible"? I was no longer included in any more "Bible" studies with my mother after that - apparently because I "asked too many questions."
I was 8 years old.
JV
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90
Several Sites Are Down
by Juan Viejo2 inin case you have noticed, several websites that are managed and administered by me are down.
at this moment i do not know specifically why, but my hosting company (secureserver.net) tells me only that it is due to a "copyright infringement.
" i do not even know which of the 30 some sites might actually have the claimed infringement and so far all i've been told is that there is a claim and that i have to email a certain group and they will get back to me.. i have no idea when these sites will come back on line.
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Juan Viejo2
I want to personally thank every one who commented on this particular incident. It has been an excellent learning experience for me and by extension, Cedars and my other web clients.
Another close friend of mine who occasionally posts here was able to do a little more research on this subject. One of his sources states clearly that letters and other non-distributed works of all types (letters, video, audio, graphics, etc.) ARE protected under the copyright statutes. They do not need the copyright symbol or any text announcing their copyrights. Therefore, the Watchtower had every right to request the takedown.
If I owned the server outright then they could come after me personally. I would then have had the right to challenge them and perhaps force them to get a court order. Or, perhaps I could have negotiated with them and agreed to alter my use of that document or any of their correspondence not clearly identified as being "copyrighted." But in this case, I did not own the server; I was renting it and then using it to support websites and email services for myself and numerous other friends and clients.
Since the hosting company had access to "the switch" that allows the contents of that server to access the Internet, it was their decision to either support me (their client - little guy living on the edge of poverty in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest paying them a couple hundred a year for the use of their server) - or fight the complaintant (the big wealthy corporation in Patterson, NY with lots of attorneys and God on their side).
If you were the big hosting company in Scottsdale, what would you do?
That's what they did. And correctly so.
The truth is that the big hosting company has to protect its own assets and the DMCA guidelines tell them exactly how to do that. And big hosting company did exactly what they had to do: They sent me an email notice and gave me five days to respond or take the offending document down. They did not want to face the prospect of fighting a lawsuit against the NY corporation with lots of attorneys. Big hosting company did nothing wrong and only what they were required to do under the law.
My problem was that the only email they sent to me went to a utility email box that catches notices of spam attacks, website subscriber registrations, and most of the usual spammy emails from companies who promise that they can get me to "number one on Google's search engine." The Watchtower chose to order the takedown on Christmas Day. The big hosting company sent the email on the following weekend just before another holiday. Guess what I was doing in my shack in the wilds of the Willamette Valley? Watching football and tasting wine - lots of "tasting."
So I missed reading that notice. By the time I went looking for it (big hosting company said they sent it, but that's all they would say other than they wouldn't send it again) that notice was buried deep in my spam box. I even tried an internal email search using big hosting company's mail address. No luck because they sent if from a different mail address that did not include their usual identifiers.
So a combination of events caused big hosting company to shut down my server (not just the one offending domain address), taking nearly 35 websites off-line for over 24-hours.
I do feel that the hosting company could have been more helpful, especially since I am also a reseller of their services. They could have sent me another copy of the original email. They could have sent more than the one notice. But the bottom line is that in the strictest sense, they did nothing wrong.
We all can learn much from this incident. I plan on writing an article about this case and sharing some of the details with my readers, many who have their own websites and blogs.
Let's face the fact that the Watchtower has been wounded severely by the Candace Conti case. They did not help their cause one iota by sending out that October 1 BOE letter. In fact, they made their position less excusable. I'm sure that prosecuting attorneys and those representing victims are "thanking Jehovah" for inspiring the Watchtower's (Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses) Legal Department for sending out that letter to all North American congregations. In fact, you might wonder if the actual author of that BOE letter might not be on our side.
Maybe there is a Jehovah and he is blessing OUR efforts.
Enough on this for now. Bottom line is that my server, in spite of everything, was only down a little over 24 hours. Not a single one of my clients complained to me about the problem, but waited patiently for their sites to come back up. I will take aggressive action to make sure that none of the sites hosted on my servers will make the same mistake again.
JV
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90
Several Sites Are Down
by Juan Viejo2 inin case you have noticed, several websites that are managed and administered by me are down.
at this moment i do not know specifically why, but my hosting company (secureserver.net) tells me only that it is due to a "copyright infringement.
" i do not even know which of the 30 some sites might actually have the claimed infringement and so far all i've been told is that there is a claim and that i have to email a certain group and they will get back to me.. i have no idea when these sites will come back on line.
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Juan Viejo2
I was interrupted while writing post 772. Here is one thing I wanted to add:
Do you ever wonder if some of the "helpers" in the Writing Department ever comment outloud to each other, "Jesus F. Christ! Did we actually write this crap? WTF were we thinking?"
And yet, if you go to almost any of the JW-favored discussion sites like Topix or Yahoo!Answers you'll see JWs and apologists copy complete pages out of Watchtower and Awake! magazines, with paragraph numbering and exact punctuation - everything - without any editing (and often with no commentary at all), just copy and paste work. Now all of that is clearly copyright infringement (or even worse - plagiarism).
Watchtower does nothing. I guess taking on Topix, Yahoo!, or favored JW discussion sites (you know, the ones that ban apostates and require you to tell them what song closed the last Watchtower meeting) is not on their agenda. Just the low-hanging fruit (speaking of Governing Body members in the shower ) is all they choose to go after.
I promise that Cedars and I will be a little more careful in the future.
Are you ready for the reveal? Here it comes...
I'm sure you all figured it out ahead of time...
JV
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90
Several Sites Are Down
by Juan Viejo2 inin case you have noticed, several websites that are managed and administered by me are down.
at this moment i do not know specifically why, but my hosting company (secureserver.net) tells me only that it is due to a "copyright infringement.
" i do not even know which of the 30 some sites might actually have the claimed infringement and so far all i've been told is that there is a claim and that i have to email a certain group and they will get back to me.. i have no idea when these sites will come back on line.
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Juan Viejo2
What cracks me up is that the Watchtower wets their panties when someone with an ex- in front of his name attaches a document to a website.
You are damned if you do, or don't.
If you just use short quotes from a Watchtower publication, JWs will accuse you of making it up. I mean, look - they still deny 1925 and 1975 ever happened or that the Awake! magazine changed its page two purpose statement three times in 15 years.
In the case of a BOE letter, for example, since most R&F JWs don't actually see those letters, we could quote all day and they'd deny it. THEY WANT US TO PROVE EVERYTHING WE WRITE.
So we print a copy of the Watchtower cover or a BOE letter or a major graphic from one of their books to PROVE TO THEM THAT WHAT WE ARE SAYING IS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH - and then Watchtower legal wants to hit us with a copyright infringement.
There are ways around all of this that are just as effective as providing copies of the actual articles or documents. Maybe more so.
I agree that the Watchtower should have the right to protect their copyrights and no one should profit from the work of a "non-profit" organization, but we all know that it is not about the monetary value of any of their publications, talk outlines, or internal letters - it about what they reveal.
Do you ever wonder if some of the "helpers" in the Writing Department ever comment outloud to each other, "Jesus F. Christ! Did we actually write this crap? WTF were we thinking?"
JV
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90
Several Sites Are Down
by Juan Viejo2 inin case you have noticed, several websites that are managed and administered by me are down.
at this moment i do not know specifically why, but my hosting company (secureserver.net) tells me only that it is due to a "copyright infringement.
" i do not even know which of the 30 some sites might actually have the claimed infringement and so far all i've been told is that there is a claim and that i have to email a certain group and they will get back to me.. i have no idea when these sites will come back on line.
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Juan Viejo2
We'd tell you, but then we'd have to kill you...
JV
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90
Several Sites Are Down
by Juan Viejo2 inin case you have noticed, several websites that are managed and administered by me are down.
at this moment i do not know specifically why, but my hosting company (secureserver.net) tells me only that it is due to a "copyright infringement.
" i do not even know which of the 30 some sites might actually have the claimed infringement and so far all i've been told is that there is a claim and that i have to email a certain group and they will get back to me.. i have no idea when these sites will come back on line.
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Juan Viejo2
I have just discovered the offending document. I have requested that the hosting company restore service so that I can remove it from one of my clients' sites.
I don't want to create any more problems at this point, but I can assure you that you will not be surprised at what caused the shutdown.
JV
