We should collectively create a list of outrageous JW beliefs, behaviors, policies, hurtful coercions, mind control examples and whatnot that would appeal to a broad audience.
We can't just leave it as crazy beliefs one through a hundred. All religions could create such a list.
And we can't really expect people to care too much about how Russell treated his wife or sold Miracle Wheat or how Rutherford drove two 16 cylinder Cadillacs and drank too much.
The human interest side of things is what puts a real emotional stigma on these bastards. The Awake! cover more or less bragging about kids who died refusing blood transfusion is closer to home.
German Bibleforscher (Bible Students) who ended up in Concentration Camps because Rutherford wanted his books distributed even if people died is more like what shocks public awareness.
I'm sure with all of us working on it--we could present quite a laundry list of talking points episodes could build around. There have been many victims over a century, like stacks of bodies, whose stories must be told.
ANY IDEAS?
TerryWalstrom
JoinedPosts by TerryWalstrom
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Leah Remini (Scientology expose' series) "May turn attention to Jehovah's Witnesses next"
by TerryWalstrom inhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4935392/leah-remini-turn-attention-jehovah-s-witnesses.html.
remini said that she was warned of the jehovah’s witnesses that 'these f----rs are super powerful,' but is not one to cower in fear.. 'are you ready for my response?
'i don’t give a s--- about powerful.
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TerryWalstrom
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Leah Remini (Scientology expose' series) "May turn attention to Jehovah's Witnesses next"
by TerryWalstrom inhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4935392/leah-remini-turn-attention-jehovah-s-witnesses.html.
remini said that she was warned of the jehovah’s witnesses that 'these f----rs are super powerful,' but is not one to cower in fear.. 'are you ready for my response?
'i don’t give a s--- about powerful.
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TerryWalstrom
Remini said that she was warned of the Jehovah’s Witnesses that 'these f----rs are super powerful,' but is not one to cower in fear.
'Are you ready for my response?' she said. 'I don’t give a s--- about powerful. The truth is what I care about.'
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Sexual Depredation as a function of male society by men of a Certain Age
by TerryWalstrom ini would like to remind those folks younger than i that it was very few years ago when almost the entire planet earth was run by and for the benefit of men.women have throughout history been the property of men.due to religious restrictions, teachings, and fundamentalist doctrines, women in the largest societies on earth right now (muslim, chinese, n.korean) have almost no human rights at all.next year, in june, women will, for the 1st time, be allowed in arabia to drive---but--only if they are 30 years old or older, and for only a few hours per day!the old testament laws (read through them sometime) are horrifying reflective of prejudice toward gender, bodily cleanliness, guilt-tripping, and anonymity.
(what was noah's wife's name?
lot's wife?
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TerryWalstrom
(How do you know? Did they tell you specifically, "Alan did his thing, but I don't find it degrading or insulting"?
Or are you interpreting their lack of comment to you, specifically, as acceptance of his behavior?)
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I worked with the same people for about 6 years and most of them had worked together long before I started. I DID ask the women because it struck me as astonishing how they brushed Alan's "comedy" away.
The consistent reply was that they knew Alan was harmless. He had a sly and quirky sense of humor which was dry.
It has only just now dawned on my WHY the company policy was founded on subjective individual assessment: each person has a sense of boundaries unique to themselves alone.
I could arguably compare it to a sense of humor. You can't declare something to be officially "funny" or not funny.
So, maybe I'm overthinking that situation. (Or is it under thinking it?) -
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Sexual Depredation as a function of male society by men of a Certain Age
by TerryWalstrom ini would like to remind those folks younger than i that it was very few years ago when almost the entire planet earth was run by and for the benefit of men.women have throughout history been the property of men.due to religious restrictions, teachings, and fundamentalist doctrines, women in the largest societies on earth right now (muslim, chinese, n.korean) have almost no human rights at all.next year, in june, women will, for the 1st time, be allowed in arabia to drive---but--only if they are 30 years old or older, and for only a few hours per day!the old testament laws (read through them sometime) are horrifying reflective of prejudice toward gender, bodily cleanliness, guilt-tripping, and anonymity.
(what was noah's wife's name?
lot's wife?
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TerryWalstrom
The last company I worked for supplied videos emphasizing the precise definition of sexual harassment.
It went like this:
IF the other person thinks what you said or did was harassing, IT WAS.
I remember being a bit dumbfounded by such a subjective definition.
I made the terrible mistake of asking, "Should we view our pay scale by the same standard?"
The point I was missing (probably due to my age and social conditioning) is that certain people just don't get it.
I still don't get the subjective part entirely, but that doesn't mean I'm exempt from observing company policy.
One fellow who worked at the same company seemed to get away with the most egregious behavior simply because his persona made him acceptable.
He'd stand next to a female worker who has hunkered down shelving books on lower shelves (we were a bookstore) and pretended to unzip his pants as he said, "Hey--while you're down there--could you do me a favor?"
His name was Alan, and no female employee ever found his actions degrading or insulting. Therefore: I guess they weren't.
But, REALLY? -
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Sexual Depredation as a function of male society by men of a Certain Age
by TerryWalstrom ini would like to remind those folks younger than i that it was very few years ago when almost the entire planet earth was run by and for the benefit of men.women have throughout history been the property of men.due to religious restrictions, teachings, and fundamentalist doctrines, women in the largest societies on earth right now (muslim, chinese, n.korean) have almost no human rights at all.next year, in june, women will, for the 1st time, be allowed in arabia to drive---but--only if they are 30 years old or older, and for only a few hours per day!the old testament laws (read through them sometime) are horrifying reflective of prejudice toward gender, bodily cleanliness, guilt-tripping, and anonymity.
(what was noah's wife's name?
lot's wife?
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TerryWalstrom
Those who are most "surprised" by Weinstein are probably the least informed, i.e. "young".
I'm so old (70) I remember the water fountains marked "WHITE" and "COLORED".
I remember "people of color" riding only on the back of the bus.
I remember when the only people hanged (i.e. lynched) for rape were black.
Until the late 1950's the word "rape" was never spoken aloud. It was actually whispered. But then, so was the word "pregnant"!
Society was filled with cigarette smoke on buses, airplanes, in restaurants (while you were eating somebody with a cigar could light up next to you) in elevators, in grocery stores, etc.
Litter was everywhere you looked.
People BURNED their garbage in their backyard!
Oh, I could go on and on about the positive changes in society during my lifetime.
It isn't too surprising the sexual changes necessary (power/sex/harassment) is the last bastion to erode.
When we look at the amount of time it took from the freeing of slaves until Civil Rights Act legislation, we shouldn't be too surprised if sexual harassment takes another century of unmasking and prosecution to make much progress.In fact, I won't actually BELIEVE anything is changing unless Weinstein does time in jail.
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Sexual Depredation as a function of male society by men of a Certain Age
by TerryWalstrom ini would like to remind those folks younger than i that it was very few years ago when almost the entire planet earth was run by and for the benefit of men.women have throughout history been the property of men.due to religious restrictions, teachings, and fundamentalist doctrines, women in the largest societies on earth right now (muslim, chinese, n.korean) have almost no human rights at all.next year, in june, women will, for the 1st time, be allowed in arabia to drive---but--only if they are 30 years old or older, and for only a few hours per day!the old testament laws (read through them sometime) are horrifying reflective of prejudice toward gender, bodily cleanliness, guilt-tripping, and anonymity.
(what was noah's wife's name?
lot's wife?
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TerryWalstrom
I would like to remind those folks younger than I that it was very few years ago when almost the entire planet Earth was run by and FOR the benefit of MEN.
Women have throughout history been the property of men.
Due to religious restrictions, teachings, and fundamentalist doctrines, women in the largest societies on Earth right now (Muslim, Chinese, N.Korean) have almost no human rights at all.
Next year, in June, women will, for the 1st time, be allowed in Arabia to drive---BUT--only if they are 30 years old or older, and for only a few hours per day!
The Old Testament laws (read through them sometime) are horrifying reflective of prejudice toward gender, bodily cleanliness, guilt-tripping, and anonymity. (What was Noah's wife's name? Lot's wife? Practically all the women we remember/who are named/ are "bad").
Eve, Delilah, Jezebel, Athaliah, etc.
In my childhood, wives knew nothing about how much money their husband earned, where he kept his insurance, or--often--who he banked with or what he invested in. Women stayed at home and worked as housekeepers, nanny's, cooks, errand runners, and concubines.
Law everywhere permitted husbands to beat their wives and it was deemed impossible (legally) to rape her.
The Atlantic magazine mentions:
"...those repressed and much pitied 1950s wives—their sexless college years! their boorish husbands, who couldn't locate the clitoris with a flashlight and a copy of Gray's Anatomy!—were apparently getting a lot more action than many of today's most liberated and sexually experienced married women. In the old days, of course, there was the wifely duty. A housewife understood that in addition to ironing her husband's shirts and cooking the Sunday roast, she was—with some regularity—going to have relations with the man of the house."
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The fact that Western society has rid itself of many evils (slavery, smoking, racial epithets) is miraculous.
The eventual purge of sexism adjustment is not complete and WILL NOT BE until everybody my age and slightly younger, has DIED and those who reared their children in sexist latent prejudices and mindsets have died also.
Sexual domination and white male superiority is everywhere in old movies and especially comedies.
Why? IT WAS NORMAL!
I didn't realize this completely until I sat my kids down one night long ago.
I wanted them to see a movie I "remembered" as being hilarious: HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE with Jack Lemmon.
As we watched it, I was suddenly horrified.
The movie not only wasn't funny AT ALL, it was so blatantly misogynist and mean-spirited, my kids were disgusted with it---and by extension--ME.
I say all the above to point out to those who aren't aware, the way Harvey Weinstein operated is NOT unusual for a wealthy man in power. It is in churches, it is in politics, it is in corporations, and just about anyplace Men of a certain age have the inclination and opportunity to cash in.
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The plot of the comedy is simple: A cartoonist gets drunk and married and immediately regrets the fact his bachelor days are over. He takes out his frustration by filling his cartoon panels with a plot to murder his wife by drugging her and dropping her body in the Pucketa pucketa machine. When his wife disappears, he is charged with murder. In the scene depicted below, he is defending himself in court by a very strange appeal to male attitudes toward women and marriage which are pretty cold-blooded by today's standards. Back then however, it was hilarious.
WATCH THIS CLIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhoRLHUGBmE -
48
Paradise? Was it?
by TerryWalstrom inparadisewas it really paradise to be in paradise?adam and eve never were held by a mother, never cuddled and sung to with a lullaby nor nursed or coddled with tenderness or any human familial embrace.
the first humans (adam and eve) never learned to toddle surrounded by brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles and grandparents cheering them on.
the entire experience of childhood was excised surgically like a trauma patient awakening from an accident with amnesia.adam and eve were never in a neighborhood with other kids forming friendship bonds for life and exchanging dreams and hopes for a future they were building in their community.
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Paradise? Was it?
by TerryWalstrom inparadisewas it really paradise to be in paradise?adam and eve never were held by a mother, never cuddled and sung to with a lullaby nor nursed or coddled with tenderness or any human familial embrace.
the first humans (adam and eve) never learned to toddle surrounded by brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles and grandparents cheering them on.
the entire experience of childhood was excised surgically like a trauma patient awakening from an accident with amnesia.adam and eve were never in a neighborhood with other kids forming friendship bonds for life and exchanging dreams and hopes for a future they were building in their community.
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TerryWalstrom
My last marriage lasted 18 years. I married into a Jewish family. Nobody in that family had ever married outside of the "chosen":)
I found these particular Jews to be among the finest human beings I have ever met as far as their attitude toward family and others. Their private efforts toward helping non-Jews, ordinary people, anonymously shocked me. I suppose because JW's are exceedingly non-charitable (in my experience.)
Tikkun olam (world repair) is not only extraordinarily practical, it is more genuinely spiritual in that it applies human efforts toward humanity rather than wasting effort on impressing an already perfectly whole super being.
The big difference between JW's and JEW's is the missing "E" which is empathy.
Also, the fact Jews are not evangelical is remarkable. They are not selling Judaism like a retail business with brokers and it only illustrates to me more clearly how feckless Christian aggrandizement has become.
My association with Jews and Judaism, as isolated a sampling as it was, left me with only positive opinions.
I think, in the end, we are born with only so much capacity to love the invisible.
I squandered my full measure by the age of 23. It's sort of like virginity. Once it is gone--it is gone forever. -
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My Invisible (cat)
by TerryWalstrom inmy invisible (cat) .
when i was a little boy all the way up to when i was a not-so-little boy, i had sort of ...well--an invisible cat as a friend.. .
i'll let you adjust to that thought before i continue.... .
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TerryWalstrom
I think the pattern of proving things using a dictionary transferred easily to proving religious things using a WT publication.
I recall how shocked I was when I got to be a bit older and discovered the dictionary is not an absolute arbiter of language use and meaning, but rather, it is a reflection of common use over time. Lexicographers monitor the written and spoken word and make "adjustments" the same way the GB gets new light. So, opinion rules one way or the other.
My mom died 27 years ago. She was 65. -
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My Invisible (cat)
by TerryWalstrom inmy invisible (cat) .
when i was a little boy all the way up to when i was a not-so-little boy, i had sort of ...well--an invisible cat as a friend.. .
i'll let you adjust to that thought before i continue.... .
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TerryWalstrom
It will be shortly!
My third book, my working title (so far) is
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED TO ME ON MY WAY TO ARMAGEDDON
(A Memoir)