Since this thread has run its course, I'll make a comment about Friday's program:
It was interesting to see how they wove several thoughts into the whole day's program -
- Pioneering - every experience, skit, etc (bar none), had pioneering as its end goal. In every case the experience or skit ended well when the participants either got back into pioneering or started pioneering. And any drama or setback experienced threatened one's pioneering. Everybody interviewed was a pionner.
- The Kingdom's 100th year of operation & 1914 were woven into talks & comments throughout the day. Yet nothing was said to prove or backup the chronology related to 1914. (Not that they can.) Once or twice it was mentioned that the 20th century was a century of warfare (mentioning 100 million or so killed in warfare during that century). But no proof offered that this was anything different from past centuries.
- The Governing Body. This was interesting how they did this. There were, of course, comments throughout the whole day about how "the slave" has done this or provided that. There were also a couple of talks via tie-in by GB member David Splane from East Rutherford NJ. (There was also a tied-in talk by a brother introduced as a 'GB helper.' His somewhat un-fluent or halting speaking manner gave me the impression of a man who was part of a harem, or a professional brown-noser. Maybe that's not the best way to describe it. But there was something about him . . .) But anyways, there was a part on a talk about "thrones" (God's, Jesus', and "the anointed's"). Part of this talk was about how we could trust "the anointed." There were a couple of interviews where brothers remembered how they knew various GB members and what down-to-earth and loving brothers they were. There were no other examples of "anopinted" except for GB members. And of course, it was assumed without doubt that they were "anointed." There was also an interview with a CO's wife late in the afternoon where she recalled the July 2013 WT "new light" about "Feeding the Many by the Few" and she plainly stated that "the slave" was the GB and how we must accept that, and how these eight (or seven?) were responsible for feeding 8 million JWs and the rest of the world (spiritually).
Like I said, just from a propaganda standpoint, it was interesting to see how they wove those three ideas into the day as a whole. Obviously, the individual parts are analyzed to bring about or achieve an overall goal that is bigger than any individual part. As some have mentioned elsewhere, there was also some crass emotionalism in some of the video presentations and the afternoon drama. (Yes, there was a short live drama in the afternoon.)