a hypothetical question.. at a minimum, what evidence would it take to prove that the society is trying to quietly shed publishers?.
now, i don't think we have evidence of this yet but that doesn't mean it could never happen.
we must consider where the trends of magazine/literature cuts, branch office sales, coerced contributions, bethel/do layoffs, and emphasis on jw.org lead us.. otoh, you might argue that there would never be a deliberate move to get rid of them, just moves that discreetly abandon them.
At minimum, I would say some kind of confidential letter/phone convo containing direction to "thin the flock" would need to surface. And this "direction" would need to contain the trademark surreptitious manipulation of scriptures that the society is known for.
EDIT
OneEyedJoe wrote:
you'd have to get multiple independant reports from high-ups at bethel, or some internal memo or GB agenda item or something that confirms it.
great minds think alike
from the wording of the letter it seems that the co has been given carte blanche with appointments and deletions.
nowhere in the letter does it indicate that any records are sent to and from the co to the branch office.
even if a body wants to delete an appointed brother and he disagrees his only recourse would be to write a "brief" letter to the service dept.
Separation of Powers wrote:
However, I believe that there will be a huge wave of removals with the CO solidifying his power base by getting rid of the more vocal among the elder bodies. Animal Farm anyone?
I was thinking this as well, but I don't know. Would a CO really risk upsetting the current power bases in the congs all at once? With the emphasis being more on the local leadership, you run the risk of creating pissed off splinter cells, especially if you delete entire elder bodies, or individual elders who are respected within the cong/circuit. Though, this stragegy could play into the theory of a intentional trimming/pruning phase of the borg. Should be interesting to sit back and watch it all play out.
from the wording of the letter it seems that the co has been given carte blanche with appointments and deletions.
nowhere in the letter does it indicate that any records are sent to and from the co to the branch office.
even if a body wants to delete an appointed brother and he disagrees his only recourse would be to write a "brief" letter to the service dept.
As a side note to this, from what I've observed locally, it seems that all appointments are on hold until this new arrangement takes effect. I suspect we'll see a barrage of appointments come September.
a few years ago i became interested in the subject of neuro-linguistic programming (nlp).
while the core concepts of nlp have been largely discredited as new-age pseudo-science, there is no doubt that there is at least some validity to the idea.
words and images remain the key way we communicate.
DATA-DOG wrote:
The extreme control that we exert over you exists so that we can extend leniency towards those who cannot meet our standards.
Couldn't agree more; or have said it any better myself. One thing that drives me up a goddamn wall is when they try to talk about marriage/dating. The fucking first line of almost every article is some derrogatory/negative experience, so that they can line up whatever "counsel" contained thereafter as "wisdom in such a wicked world". It's a physcological smear-campaign of words, designed to make their viewpoint look like the solution to peoples failures.
Fucking assholes, I swear to god. If you would just encourage and train people to believe in themselves, YOU WOULD'NT HAVE TO DEAL WITH HALF THE IDIOTIC PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
i've read on another thread you need to delete the cached file of the profile picture so that it can be updated by the gravatar user.
i created a gravatar account, added the email address i use on here and uploaded the an image, but nothing happens.
this was 3 days ago.. could you please solve this problem?.
Simon wrote:
What is never fine or acceptable is making threats and harrassing people.
Well, his public comments always seemed to me to be a bit abrasive, but nothing that I would personally take offense at, or even discount as a repercussion of a relatively anonymous internet chat forum. Though, I am not privy to whatever private messages were sent, or complaints from others, or how substantial such threats/harassment were. I trust that your judgment is as objective as possible.
i've read on another thread you need to delete the cached file of the profile picture so that it can be updated by the gravatar user.
i created a gravatar account, added the email address i use on here and uploaded the an image, but nothing happens.
this was 3 days ago.. could you please solve this problem?.
Just Kidding wrote:
Focus... I always felt he was over-extreme
eh, satiracal hyperbole has its place. did he over-do it? possibly . . . i think people tend to be slightly defensive and tender on this fourm, i guess this place has evolved over the years to be more of a support site than a discussion/debate site
i've read on another thread you need to delete the cached file of the profile picture so that it can be updated by the gravatar user.
i created a gravatar account, added the email address i use on here and uploaded the an image, but nothing happens.
this was 3 days ago.. could you please solve this problem?.
oh snap, did focus just get banned?
....... then why wouldn't the wtbt$ easily make the entire program, complete with rockstar gb's, cheesy dramas, etc, available on youtube or some other free or almost free web streaming service?
obviously it is a huge burden for a majority of the "friends" to attend a regional convention and many either cannot go or it takes all of our their funds (or borrowed funds) to be able to make it.
how about all the "friends" that are morbidly obese, infirm, have extreme health conditions, have unbelieving mates, or have mental issues which prevent them from attending a convention?
If they made the RC just a downloadable/streamable video, how would all the volunteers and overseers at the convention lengthen their fringes and have any prominent places? There would be no "platform" for any extracurricular, outward apperance of righteousness. We wouldn't want to take away all the greetings in the RC marketplace, now would we?
when i read coc, i was stunned that the 2 elders (theotis french & rob dibble) were on ray franz judcial committee.
i have known these men for over 20 years having done rbc and convention work with them.
they are still elders today which means they were in their early 30's(which is unheard of for a case of this importance to have inexperienced elders to sit on) on this committee.. without revealing myself, i have never tried(but have wanted to), ask them about their on having to judge a former gb member.. then out of the blue, about a year ago, i was mentioning how hard it is trying to get younger ones to volunteer to one of these elders, and he says"this is nothing compared to to sitting on the committee that had to disfellowship ray franz".
Focus wrote:
If the words can be pinned to him (two witnesses rule), I can cause the wheels to be set into motion which will have the disfellowshiper himself disfellowshiped.
Which would be poetic justice.
What justice is it if you use the same fear tactics against them? Does that not make YOU just as guilty? Who's deluded now?
number one- fact-it was dangerously overcrowed.
ok its one thing dropping the ball on this one.
or they just didnt care.
OneEyedJoe wrote:
So now you've got . . . 50000 people who all head to the same group of about 10000 seats first, then upon seeing that they're full they go search somewhere else . . . This creates a TON of unneccessary foot traffic (since people can't just go straight to their eventual destination) which just makes the whole process exponentially worse.
I remember when we used to go to Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Each year we KNEW exactly what you described was going to happen, so my brother and I found this set of three escalators that we took two steps at a time. We could make it to the 600 level concourse in like 3min and nobody was even remotely there. But this was only possible because we used the same large venue year after year and we could find shortcuts. I think things will get better only if the same large facilities are used over and over so that people can get into patterns of self-assigned seating.
