Replying to:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=17880&site=3
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=17923&site=3
Hi Amazing,
You wrote:
Hi Amnesian: I made a separate post to you since the topic is getting buried down the board.Hmm. How do you mean buried? What’s to keep any thread from its own eventual descent into oblivion on the board?
Actually, I rather anticipated your calling me out in a new thread and you didn’t disappoint. After my last comments, I expected you’d want to maneuver my comeuppance into a brighter spotlight that would beckon some of your former-elder homies. ‘S okay. I’m a big girl with no back room I can be dragged to. Some bashing by men who don’t know me won’t kill me .
Anyway, I oblige you with another spanking new thread since I am only now able to get back to you and your new thread is now itself buried along with its progenitor.
You begin:
…you raise a number of issues that deserve some more discussion.Actually, I didn’t think I was raising anything but merely responding to the issues you’d raised, but no matter.
First, it was not my goal to anger anyone, but I perceive that the anger comes from past experience, and my post seems to have facilitated that to the surface.We “girls” often get accused by men of being A N G R Y when we express strong opinions adamantly. Your accusing me of being angry reminds of how the “emotion” card is played on JW women whenever they don’t grin and make quiet-and-mild-spirit prettytalk to Jehovah’s big, strong men who think while they, weaker vessels that they are, only feel.
Lol!
Slow your patronizing roll there partner. I’ve been angry about a lot of JW stuff, including this topic, but only when I was forbidden by WT sexist dogma to express myself. Being free and well over 21, I can and do express myself on any topic I choose now, so have no need to be angry about it. I do feel, though, that this is a very important topic that touches on some issues that ex-JW women owe it to you ex-JW elder types to confront you on. So I argue it passionately.
Passionately, not angrily.
Clue: A N G E R is the disabling emotion men display that keeps prisons and cemeteries worldwide bursting with their rotting remains in staggering numbers.
You add:
Second, I didn't intend to offend you, and if I did, I am sorry.No need for an apology. I am also not offended.
However, I believe there are some points in this issue you are not correctly seeing for what they are:I’m trying to continue not being offended, but I really don’t care for the condescension in that.
There are your perspective, experiences and opinions and there are mine. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between our poles or, more likely, perhaps no where near either one of them. But to suggest that yours are the “correct points in this issue” for no other reason than that they are yours is a bit Watchtower-ish, not to mention elder-like in its sexism ---ah, but that’s redundant.
You sure you ain’t still an elder?
You quoted my: "No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t, lacking the requisite Y chromosome and all. That left me with nothing to do but merely provide 25+ years emotional and administrative support to a very prominent man who has been nearly used up by the WTS."
Though you didn't exactly say your husband was an Elder, am I to conclude you were an Elder's wife?The only road to “prominence” among JWs is that of “serving” at some level of elder.
You continue:
You supported him emotionally and administratively? You gave aid and comfort to the wicked enemy? Why did you not immediately divorce him and renounce this wickedness?Pardon me, but what the hell are you talking about? Why would I divorce a good man providing a good service to God’s organization?
Look, try to stay with me here.
I was once, for a long time in fact, a loyal, true-believing JW wife who thought the elders were carrying out the instructions of Christ’s anointed. Along the same lines as this curious logic of yours, I would ask you why you ever accepted your “appointment” as elder in the first place if you were the noble man of conscience you portray yourself to be? Obviously the answer is that you did so when you were a true-believing JW who thought the elders were carrying out the instructions of Christ’s anointed.
The point of my questions are not to stir up anger or a fight, but to show that we each how our burdens and circumstance to bear.
Then maybe you’d better run them by me again cuz I definitely missed the logic of your questions.
You continue:
Elders have wives, children, and often other family in the organization. When they come to their senses about the religion, they have to assess their individual situation, and make choices that work for them and their families the same as any JW who is not an Elder.See, here’s where I think we might be debating past one another. Or maybe not, I don’t know.
I’ve expressed no opinion about men---or women---who stay in the organization for whatever reasons they have a right to without needing to justify to me or anyone else, except maybe God. My don’t-get has to do with men who claim they are somehow “helping” other Witnesses by continuing to destroy lives by holding office as elders. I’ll come back to this further ahead where you speak of Silentlambs.
You quote me: "As regards many of them, my experience (and from who else’s would you expect me to speak?) suggests that the very nature and rules, of which you speak, of this organization that disdains intelligence and education (which certainly qualifies too many of these men!) seduces with the hypnotic allure of power the below-average, insecure, marginally-literate, semi-man who peers in from the fringes of society with virtually no hope of being employed as a leader of any sort in any progressive organization."
You respond:
When I began my justice Series in the Summer of 2000, this was among my main points. It was the revelation of some of the molestation issues that brought about the emergence of SilentLambs. The reason that he was able to take the issue fartehr than me is that the media was more interested in an "Active" Elder and PO. The media talked to me, and I have supported SilentLambs since the beginning of this issue. But, he has been in the position to attract more attention to the issue. While he resigned as an Elder, he stayed in the organization, which has given him an advantage. Lee Elder did likewise when he exposed the Blood issue.But, you see, there’s the rub. (And again, I’m not talking about men who merely stay in the organization, but not as elders.) There is a difference between men who remain elders indefinitely and those who remain knowing they have a definite time in mind to resign while carrying out a plan as SL and LE were.
Once an elder decides to become a “Silentlambs” or “Lee Elder,” he recognizes that that will be life-altering, his last kamikaze mission as an elder and likely a JW. It also means that he’s got the hormones most elders lack, no matter how conscientious and honorable they perceive themselves to be. They don’t remain elders with some vague notion of making things better for the relative few they happen to personally know. They remain for a specific time with a specific plan in the works that can help many. These are not the men one considers to be remaining as elders.
Big difference.
You see, if every good and conscientious man who decided to remain an elder did so only until he pulled off his one big covert operation that will likely reap huge benefits for lots more JWs worldwide than merely a couple of troubled teen-agers and one elderly and ill sister or two in his own congregation, I’d be in their cheering section. You and I both know that is not only rarely the case, it is virtually never the case, which is why “Silentlambs” and “Lee Elder” are receiving well-deserved backslaps.
These type men do more to raise questions in the minds of sincere JWs than any man does who sits on some JC in some remote congregation of 55 publishers in French Lick, Indiana “compassionately” voting to publicly reprove instead of df Brother Filtertip Marlborough. This French Lick man who remains an elder with the weak justification that he is helping others is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He gets to continue enjoying the perks of being an elder and yet be thought of by the vulnerable and needy sheep as “the good elder” all the while accomplishing nothing nobler than perpetuating the myth that the WTS is God’s organization, with just a few rotten apples that Jehovah is using just to test our faithfulness---“Behold, Jehovah has provided us a ‘good’ shepherd until He comes to rescue us from the Pharisees. In this way we’re helped to stay among God’s people while we wait upon him. Jehovah is good, come quickly Lord Jesus!”
<insert audio file: “projectile vomitous emitus.wav”>
You add:
I must caution that…You’re still a JW and an elder and can't even see it. Caution me?
Why? I might hurt myself with a big old heavy, independent thought no big strong man like you ran through the strainer and pre-approved for me?
Pssst: I set the limits of my own thoughts nowadays, thank you very much. That is, if I think I need any. Save your "caution" for the wimmenfolk in your next cult. You don't need to ever caution a free-thinking adult woman regarding her thoughts. Now, if you see her about to walk into oncoming traffic, that's the circumstance for which a "caution" regarding her actions might be worth your breath.
Btw, don’t you want me also to “be mindful of…”? (I used to always wonder why we couldn’t just remember, for pity’s sake!). Ah, JW-speak---you gotta loathe it.
Anyway:
…that not all JW Elders are incompetant or poorly educated. Many of these Elders also hold good positions in secular society. And many would go even farther in the world if their JW beliefs did not discourage them from doing so.Obviously.
And another many of them are ”below-average, insecure, marginally-literate, semi-men who peer in from the fringes of society with virtually no hope of being employed as a leader of any sort in any progressive organization,” like I said before.
<Cue music: “…here we go ‘round in circles...”>
You quote me: You said, "Only the WTS with so few men and so much work they will only allow men to do will employ these hapless misfits who, once these lay mitts on the coveted prize of P-O-W-E-R, they are anything but the “average JW Publisher.”
Your response:
Time for a reality check: The overwhelming JW men who reach out to be Elders are "NOT" seeking some kind of "coveted POWER". This view displays ignorance of reality.
You’re the one needing the reality check. Yours is the view betraying spectacular ignorance. Or perhaps, mere self-serving naiveté is more on point.
The avergae JW Elder, if they are a true believer, consciencously reaches out because they want to help serve the cause, believing this serves the best interest of other JWs.You’re half right.
True believing JW men conscientiously reach out because they want to help serve the cause---the cause, in their minds at that time, being to serve the best interests of other JWs.
And all the while also getting to work on their “make your advancement manifest” merit badges which leads to additional badges and medals and shiny prizes.
Once appointed and having served for some length of time, many,---no, most---, remain elders long after they learn that the real “cause” is anything but “serving” their brothers (unless one means “serve” in the Twilight Zone’s “To Serve Man” kinda way), but to serve their corporate masters and their interests. Why? Because they enjoy the P[rizes]s: P R I V I L E G E. P O W E R. P R E S T I G E. P E R K S (and if you wonder what some of the little perks are local men enjoy, drop into a local TMS of your choice this week and observe the number of elders standing around the book room or parking lot laughing over deep spiritual matters while the auditorium is full of women and children and men with no Ps scratching their heads trying to “pass” their written reviews!). They are scared spitless at the prospect of losing all this bounty and suffering the recrimination of being thought “spiritually weak” or worse (which any man is considered if not holding an office.)
Oh yeah, and others can’t help being the gelatinous spine donors they are.
The scant few remaining who maintain their positions as elders, for a time anyway, are of the “Silentlambs” and “Lee Elder” type with a plan in motion. And we know how few there are of them, don’t we?
Privately, these men, and me included, want to validation and acceptance that comes with being 'appointed.'Bingo! And on its surface, not necessarily indicting. If only it ended there.
Your Statement about POWER: This is understandable because the JW religion does wrongfully keep women in a place of inequality, and subjected to men in a disproportionate power share, menn = 99.999% and women = 0.001%. And, when a person is in a position where they weild little or no power, they often see everything and every motive as a power play against them.You’re quite the laser-tongued combatant behind those smooth lips, aren’t you?
Okay.
No, I didn’t see everything and every motive among the JWs as a power play against me because, as a woman, I’d wielded so little power. I got my power jollies elsewhere in my life.
So let’s try this instead:
For many of my years as a JW I held a high-profile, well-compensated, managerial position with a Fortune 500 financial services institution. In it I had a considerable span of control over some women and lots of big, strong professional men whom I could order when to jump and how high. The interesting thing, though, is that, because I don’t covet or get off on power, I usually didn’t have to order anybody to jump. Once they came to know I’d never, under any circumstances, lie to or mislead them or sell them out and came to believe that I meant it when I said we were truly fellow (team) workers and wasn’t just paying lip service to a lofty-sounding, over-used cliché, they couldn’t do enough to ensure we succeeded together. And if you think that means I was a pliable little girlie boss the boys used as their doormat, I can supply you with the phone numbers of a few of them with whom I am still in touch who will gladly disabuse you of this notion.
My point: My misery and A N G E R as a JW owed minimally to my being a “powerless” woman. I wielded plenty of power in my profession and had the guilty satisfaction of knowing I made way more money than easily 75% or better of the JW elders we knew far and wide and of knowing they knew it, too . I was generally treated quite deferentially because 1) I was my husband’s wife; and 2) As low a profile as I deliberately kept, the boys knew, I knew, and they knew I knew that their position “over” me owed merely to the happenstance of genitalia and nothing more. And if they wanted women like me to keep propping up their dry-as-gunpowder-and-twice-as-deadly Q&A stints, they knew they daren’t ever piss me off.
No, by the time I left my office and got to the meetings at night, all I wanted was a good nap. I was more than happy to let Brothers Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum scamper around the hall, flaunting their “power”.
My misery as a JW had plenty, though, to do with how women as a whole were regarded. How I was personally treated did nothing to get me past how so many of my less-educated/compensated sisters were treated by these cowards who never picked on those their own emotional size. Even husbands accorded my every utterance the utmost respect while ignoring their own wives' humble comments. For many years before I quit I was never without a rage simmering just below my surface and, many times over the years---when I felt it beyond my willingness and ability to ignore---quietly and respectfully pulled men to the side and helped them check themselves.
The things I saw that finally eroded my faith for good had to do with important, non-ego-related matters.
Hope that helps.
Whereas the average JW Elder is still very subjected to the power of the organization, and is not normally seeking power.You obviously hail from some alternate bizarro JW universe.
Whatever.
Helpless to change things, many people are driven to other extremes. The radical Al Qaeda and Taliban, in an effort to get rid of power they hate, became as obnoxious and abusive themselves as those they condemn and fought off.Kinda lost here. We still talking about elders or about people who talk about elders???
Sometimes, as ex-JWs, it becomes very easy to vent extreme anger and extreme views because we have resented the power of the WTS leaders over our livesUh, I’m guessing now you mean me? Do I gotta spell it into your hand? I AM NOT VENTING EXTREME ANGER. I can and I do when I feel it, but I am not feeling it over this subject. I am passionately arguing some points I care to make. Got it yet?
... a power that we unwittingly gave them ... and if we are not careful, thoughtful, and take things slowly, we can inadvertently become just as bad.By doing what, starting my own cult and making the men wear burkas and worship their wives and children? Lol! Extremely tempting, hon, but I’ve taken the most extreme step I ever intend to as regards JWs and that was to separate myself from them. I don’t try to convert other JWs to ex-dom and I don’t myself plan on joining up with any other lunatics, i.e., mainstream or cult or, even, ex-cult.
Other than that, when the mood strikes, I have my say here and with my husband and I have it the way I feel it. I rarely use profanity and don’t call names or intentionally go after a person’s dignity. But I also don’t smiley and winkie every one of my comments, don’t insert any ((((hugs))))…ever, and will be quite sarcastic when it suits me and the subject I’m addressing. If that, in your mind, makes me a cross-dressing Talib in the making, well, no offense, but it would be silly for me to care, wouldn’t it? Plus, I have the luxury in life now of not having to give a buck what some big strong men who have my Publisher’s Record Card think of me.
That said, though, I bet I’d be one of your best friends and one you’d love to spar with if you knew the really marvelous, balanced person I am in real life. Perhaps you’re pretty swell yourself--- underneath that pompous, self-deluded veneer. Further down you mention your daughters and any man that loves, cherishes and trains daughters gets an automatic pass from me for many of his shortcomings. Not all, but many.
But, I will say, I guess I’ve missed some of your posts afterall, Amazing. I can't seem to recall your offering any of these sanctimonious little sermonettes to the manly-men who strongly-express their muscular, manly opinions---the AlanFs, Farkels, MadApostates, Kents and the other male “heavyweights” who contribute to this community. If it’s just been my oversight, kindly point me to these posts.
You quote me: “You continued regarding ELders: ‘They have far exceeded their grandest expectations in life and proceed to relish the experience at the expense of those who cannot or will not “meet WT rules.’”
Again, this is not the reality of JW men who become Elders. Maybe for some it is true. But not the vast majority.The “vast majority” again, eh? Betcha I know about as much about the “vast majority” of elders as you do, but this ain’t a pissin’ contest that interests me---‘specially since I’d be at a WT-like disadvantage---not doing it against a wall and all. So have it your way.
You quote me again: “You noted: ‘As for those who actually do start out “no different [from] the average JW Publisher” and are decent, well-intentioned men, a considerable percentage of them must relinquish those humble and noble anchors if they are going to avoid losing their “privileges” --- which, unfortunately, becomes the goal that supercedes all others for many of these men.’"
You answer:
Well stated. I would only say that the vast majority of JW men are decent before they become Elders, and a large majority remain decent men, though misguided. I agree with you that the WTS system is its own enemy, and that many of these good men engage in a struggle between acting in good conscience and retaining priveleges. Though the lines are so easily blurred, that they are not normally conscious of the struggle, not until they reach the point of leaving the religion altogether.
At which point it would be gratifying to hear more contrition from these men, when they do speak at all, that is. Instead I hear most of them feverishly draping their hindquarters as you do. Makes me all the more convinced that nothing is going to change in the WTS. How could I ever imagine that the [K]GB would repent and seek forgiveness for their gross transgressions when even individual men levels down on the organization chart who leave for reasons of conscience continue to use WT-like deflection to justify their lower-level complicity in the evil agenda of an evil empire. (Again, for the record, this indictment applies to men who remain in office once they know what the corporation is really about. This has nothing to do with the still-green and enthusiastic, true-believing young elder who is still in training and tripping over never-before-imagined revelations.)
Also makes me very sad cuz, in spite of your super-glued-on blinders, you do sound like a decent sort.
You quote me: "It’s one thing to be “caught up” as one of the blinded ignoranti confined to the general admission seats without a clue other than the lofty claims colorfully displayed in the printed Playbill. Quite another thing when your seats get upgraded to reserved orchestra where you’re afforded a closer view of what’s really occurring on stage."
To which you respond:
In any organization, rank has its priveleges. What else can I say about this. I was not among the Elders who got such seats, but once in a while, I got to shake the hand of some of the big shots. LOLWell, we quite often had the expensive reserved seats---at least my husband did and even the WTS doesn’t relegate wives to the cheap seats, not yet anyway. Still, even in this seat, I always had the same Playbill as the r&f ---without marginal references---so it took a major occurrence for the curtain to be pulled back for me and finally lay waste to my already-flagging confidence in the organization.
You continue quoting me: You said: " --- and elders’ Playbills have a lot more notes in the margins plus direct contact with those who are in direct contact with the playwright."
You respond:
Yes. This shocked me too when I became an Elder, and discovered the material given to them apart from the general Publishers. I have posted about the Elder Ministry Schools often held at Circuit Assembly Halls where Elders have to have literal "tickets" in hand to attend. (Ostensibly to keep out apostates and 'other' not invited. But, I can say that much of the 'secret' material is BS, and is merely condensed from material given to the average JW. But, I also have to admit, and have agreed with other ex-Elders that much of what is said to Elders is done 'orally' so that the average Publisher can never check it out. These 'oral' instructions always irritated me.Precisely my point. And I do appreciate your admitting this. Many elders want to base their defense on their claim that they receive nothing more than the average publisher and that, unless one sits in the boardroom at GB meetings, he’s just as much in the dark as anyone else. Poppycock!
Many non-Elder JWs do not believe in the organization, and by your standard, they are all therefore culpable. I think this is far too harsh, and does not allow for gray areas.
I responded: "Not what I said. Non-elder JWs have no official power over the lives of others. In what way did I state or imply that they were deputized to inflict the same level of harm on the lives of the flock as those who allow themselves to be appointed and used to judge and, in even their own minds, determine the everlasting fate of their fellows?"
…and you responded:
I agree that you did not directly say anything about non-Elder JWs. I was using your standard to extend the same logic to the average JW. But again, I see your theme of "Power" behind this. No, the average JW does not have as "much" power, but they abuse what they have just the same.You could not have been this clueless as a JW or an elder, could you? The average JW has no power. Zero. None. What they have is petty ways to curry favor and keep the party bosses clear of their own rear portals.
You continue:
Here is what average JWs do that make them as guilty: They "Report" on other JWs, turning them in for every conceivable offense, and even inventing offenses and lying to the Elders to betray someone they do not like.Yep. Lots of them do that. Especially those who are goosed by the cutthroat, reprehensible example of some of those who “take the lead” among them.
I can say that not a week went by where I was not being called or pulled to the side, often by the X Chromosome class to tell me some bullshit about some other brother or sister, and how I needed to look into it.“Bullshit” you solicited, Brother Barney Fife, when you stood on that platform and gave the local needs part or instruction talk or read that letter “To All Congregations” that claimed that such tattling keeps Jehovah’s organization clean and constitutes faithfulness to Jehovah.
In that talk, though, you never inserted an aside of your own as to how important it is for Christians not to meddle in the affairs of their brothers and to mind their own business. And you know why you didn’t insert it? Because such would’ve undermined mother’s agenda. And yours.
Elders count on, indeed extort, the sheep to rat each other out.
And before you introduced the closing song or the speaker to handle Bible hi-lites, you concluded by reinforcing the WT message that even lying, malicious gossip, false accusations, and most any bad acts would be forgiven by Jehovah and lovingly covered over by the “spirit-appointed shepherds” for the one exerting herself vigorously in the pioneer service (therefore improving the congregation’s sales stats for the corporation). Which is why so many of your lying tattlers were undoubtedly of the fork-tongued and single “X chromosome class”---women who pioneered because they were without an elder husband as their claim to fame and, therefore, forced to earn their “medals” in the only ways the organization allowed them---kissing the backsides of the likes of the Brother Fifes in the organization and door-knocking.
Blech. Your tank is one drop above bone dry in the matter of gender politics, especially among JWs.
Now, if you claim my condemning you is to exonerate these women, you’re scrambling for straw men. And just so you don’t hurt yourself doing so, my condemnation also goes for meddling, busybody, gossipy women who do have elders for husbands. When the thread is about them, perhaps I’ll weigh in on that. But this thread has to do with men who continue destroying others’ lives long after they discover the organization is a fraud. And no matter how guilty the women you care to cite, veeeeery few of them can boast slaughter and carnage in astronomic ranges elders can.
Average non-Elder JWs have enourmous power over their children, their Bible studies and often hurt and manipulate their non-JW families. While you did not say it, I did ... by applying your standard, I simply carried it to its logical to its conclusion.Like cowardly elders, most JWs have the courage to only have the degree of power over their families the WTS---and its henchmen elders--- permit them.
It’s the WTS---through its appointed elders packing pistols with Jehovah’s name on the bullets--- that teaches its adherents that beating the $#!+ out of kids who don’t act like adults (more accurately, used to; they don’t teach this anymore), that turning in your spouse for his/her verboten lovemaking preferences, that letting your loved-ones bleed out, and that shunning your df’d teen is the only way to get through the narrow gate. Why, one’s everlasting salvation is held hostage for the paid ransom of submitting to the spiritual and emotional abuse elders mete out “from the ‘fds.’”
The shoe hurts when it is on your foot too ... and as I said, we are ALL pups from the same bitch. Thge show hurt me too ... and I finally had to admit it. Just as yu and many other ex-JWs need to admit that in your own way, and with the influence and power you did have, you are just as guilty.What we are guilty of is wanting to believe the lie you elders conspired to keep mouthing long after you knew you were lying. This in spite of overwhelming suspicion we harbored to the contrary. The thing is, though, where the “vast majority” of average JWs may think or suspect or wonder if something is wrong, you elders find out for a fact but mostly choose to continue to pimp for the organization. Neither is in a position to protest his innocence too vociferously, yet there are degrees of guilt that carry varying penalties.
Quoting me again, you say: “With respect to atrosities and harm, you said ‘I need to state here that I know that the words “abuse” and “atrocities” are highly-charged terms that automatically conjure the spectre of sexual molestation and hemorrhagic deaths in today’s environment, but when I used the terms in my post, I was speaking of abuses and atrocities of less spectacular, but no less evil and harmful, kinds.’"
Fair enough. At times, I step into the highly charge pit, and piss people off, though unintended. But, you did not piss me off in this case. But, I just wanted to try and effect some clarity.Glad to hear it. But, again, all together now, I am neither pissed off nor A N G R Y nor offended. Nor migraining, nor lactating nor menstruating nor menopausing---in case you're reaching for those cards.
Hello-oh?
Quoting my: "I know well of your posts, Amazing, so I feel confident it is not your conscious intent to be disingenuous here. That said, I have to wonder that you still suffer some measure of self-delusion about what the real situation is for average JWs and your contribution to that situation in your former role among them as an elder if you can honestly suggest that JWs do not have a gun to their heads. They do."
You respond:
Guns to the head: I have long made the argument that the threat of total shunning is effective as having a 'gun' pointed at our heads. We all, even the men on the GB have the same proverbial 'gun' at their head. As Ray Franz stated in his book, we are 'victims of victims and followers of followers', and it take courage and good sense to be able to leave the JWs on our own.Yeah, courage and integrity. Most men, once they become elders, forget where they put theirs, assuming they ever had any to begin with.
That said, there is still a "very distinct difference" between this and having a literal gun pointed to your head. I have had a literal gun pointed at my head three times in my life, and I can say that there is a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE between the JW proverbial gun, and the cold steel things that shoots live bullets! My butt still slams shut even thinking about the times a literal gun was at my head ... one of those times when I was going door to door as a JW!How can your thinking be so shallow? Then again, if most thinking on the dynamics of the abuse and victimization cycle were not this shallow and simplistic, most atrocities could never get a toe-hold in a civilized society.
Do you really impugn victims of abuse and injustice who fail or fear to free themselves of their captors merely because they don’t have literal weapons held to their heads?
I am sadly now much more disappointed in you than I am in disagreement with you. Had I any idea this was a serious position you were taking when you initially made the “gun to their heads” argument, I doubt I would’ve spent any time with this discussion.
I’m wondering who’s really were the elder’s experiences re-counted in those “Justice Series” essays you posted if you truly subscribe to the foregoing? You’ve really shocked me. I doubt now we’re going to end up anywhere near the amiable medium I envisioned at the outset.
I’m thoroughly exhausted now, but I do want to finish addressing the few remaining less horrifying comments you’ve made.
About your being confronted with a literal gun: I certainly don’t mean to minimize your trauma, but if you think there is no difference between having a literal gun held to your head and having the df gun held to it, might I suggest that you interview victims of the former and the suicided victims of the latter and report back which you determine to be the better or worse off.
Or, more to the point, why not try talking to some who are df’d and shunned who cannot bring themselves to suicide and so are condemned to continue lives rotted out by this policy? I wonder if too many of them might wish that someone would sneak up behind them and put a bullet through their skulls.
My sense is that most df’d victims are not of the hale and hearty, resilient constitution of those who post their happily-ever-after testimonials here on JWD. Many, too many, suffer indescribably in spite of getting on with life. Physical death is not the worst consequence one can suffer, or have you discarded that teaching from your JW days?
You continue quoting me: "At the orders of HQ---their gun to your head I guess is fair to concede---you and all elders held guns to the heads of publishers. With Jehovah’s name on the bullets."
Your response:
And, Average JWs: point their proverbail guns at their families, dads at wives, mothers at children, and JWs at non-JW families with shunnings because 'worldly' family are "bad associations' and in this regard, average JWs are just as bad ... and that is why average JWs can get promoted to Elder, or Sister to Pioneer, or Pionner Elder and his Pioneer Wife to Bethel.Yeah, instead of lambasting the Pharisees at every opportunity, time and time and time again, the sadly-misguided Jesus should have spent his precious brief time on earth throttling the gullible sheep who were obviously co-conspirators in their own miserable spiritual plight. Instead, like a fool, he referred to them as skinned and tossed about, promising a millstone for the necks of those who stumbled them.
Poor sap felt sorry for them.
Me: "What exactly do you think it to be when you swell your chest, muster your full height, mount that platform, take hold of that authoritative podium --- which none but an elder or one in training can do --- and dictate to us God’s orders as issued from the mouths of the Brooklyn crime bosses? Perhaps you’re claiming a different experience for yourself from the godzillions of elders I’ve known. If so, fine, but ½ or better of the ones I’ve had the misery of knowing --- and I mean it when I say my husband is 100% excepted --- trampled down whatever proddings of conscience they might have experienced and never flinched in dishing out the spiritual slop exactly from the Society’s cauldrons exactly as they concocted it --- no matter how repugnant or outlandish."
You:
And avergae JWs lapped it up..I often marveled that so many gasbag elders got intoxicated from the fumes of their own breath and couldn’t discern when it was past time to shut up and un-ass the podium.
Brother, if you thought what you were looking at in the Orphan-Annied, glazed-over stares of your listeners in the KH was “lapping,” you must’ve really thrilled to the “…I really appreciated/enjoyed your talk, Brother Amazing” blather after one of your blindingly brilliant deliveries. Did you “lap” this up or recognize it for the usually meaningless, usually insincere claptrap JWs feel impelled to proffer?
Have a hit from the clue bong: “Lapping” is the least of the cues the discerning speaker takes from listeners in his audience who’s eyes don’t blink and who’s tongues are flapping from between their gaping lips.
You never did time as the TMS overseer, I see, for which you would have had to have gone through that grade school primary, the TMS Guidebook.
Lol! At least you got me laughing again. I really don’t mean to be insensitive but you’d simply have to be on the right-hand side of the Elder:“Non-Elder JW Publisher” equation to grasp just how truly hysterical such deductions are.
Surely you weren’t that full of yourself as an elder, Amazing. Did you have no one in your life who did not serve you as the idiot sycophant, one courageous enough to clue you in as to what the “large army of women preaching the good news” snickered and tittered about between doors when they didn’t have you big strong “trees of righteousness” around to have to make prettytalk to? <shaking head>
My husband used to be you, before we married, but snapped out of it once I clued him in. Good thing is he has a terrific self-deprecating sense of humor and a keen sense of his person-/manhood, so he learned to enjoy along with me the humor of the many empty JW rituals. I’m guessing no one ever clued you in and that there was no chapter devoted to it in your “Flock” book. More’s the pity.
… and did not complainIf you believe this, your gifts were wasted as a mere local elder---you should’ve been serving on the Writing Committee, concocting Watchtower stew.
Let me guess: You also believe that JWs are the “happiest people on earth” and that they owe this bliss to the blessings they enjoy in the spiritual paradise.
Welcome to the Land of Illusion. Population: You.
Watch Out For Falling Clues: That deafening sound of silence you hear is not the sound of the happiest people on earth not complaining.
[8>]
…but went out to the innocent public and spewed the same shit in everyone's face at the doors and on Bible studies, and at their children ...You’ll have to be more specific as to exactly which “shit” you’re referring to.
I and the publishers I knew spewed the “Christ’s parousia began in 1914/these are the last days/JWs are God’s one and only true organization/JWs are separating sheep from goats/you must flee to God’s ark of salvation---the WTS--- while it is the acceptable time” “shit.”
Is that the “shit” to which you refer? The “shit” written in endless WTs and brochures and tracts and 192-page books? The “shit” we were instructed on ad nauseum in Service Meeting parts?
I’m talking about the “shit” that assured the “average non-elder JW publisher” that the “shit” he saw going on in his own “shit”-ty congregation was an aberration and in no way representative of the loving brotherhood that could be found everywhere except in his local congregation?
That “shit?”
Well, sure, we “average non-elder JW publishers” certainly taught all who’d listen that “shit.” Of course that was the only “shit” we could teach cuz it was the only “shit” you told us. And, of course, we believed it.
You obviously don’t mean “shit” written and/or told to and/or known by only elders, of which the “average non-elder JW publisher” had no clue. You never told us that “shit.”
You aren’t claiming, are you, that the “average non-elder JW publisher” spewed to “the innocent public and… Bible studies… and at their children":
---“shit” such as the existence of the “Flock” book? Or
---the nefarious “shit” covered in the “Flock” book? Or
---the multitudinous “shit” you were told at KM Schools on what not to write on Society forms in order to protect, not the flock, but the Grand Dragons in Brooklyn? Or
---the “shit” that disallowed the reversal of a miscarriage of justice in a df’g so as not to stumble our brothers with evidence that the organization and its hit men loving shepherds are grievously fallible? Or
--- “shit” like the fact that BoEs are instructed to contact the Society’s Legal Department before determining whether you needed to report rapists to the authorities? Or
---“shit” like the fact that batterers, rapists and murderers, instead of serving prison sentences, serve as elders? Or
---“shit” like the fact that sisters get df’d who don’t not stop “slandering” their battering husbands who are allowed to continue serving as elders? Or
---“shit” like how parts are purchased on DCs and CAs from COs and DOs who reward their benefactors? Or
---“shit” like how only those who want to be df’d are df’d? Or
---“shit” like how the loving counsel of the elders to the battered wife who wants to stop the beatings includes suggestions on how she can vary the menu of meals she serves her batterer? Or
---“shit” like how the CO, in his semi-annual visits to the congregation, is only interested in how many field service hours each elder averaged and couldn’t’ve cared less how many shepherding calls were made? Or
---“shit” like how elders go along with corrupt COs in their evil deeds in order to avoid losing their “privileges?” And “shit” like how the Society encourages these mob tactics? Or
---“shit” like how many, many elders scoff at the notion of confidentiality when they desire to target particular publishers they dislike for persecution and slander---which is why you, Brother Amazing, could bemoan: “I can say that not a week went by where I was not being called or pulled to the side, often by the X Chromosome class to tell me some bullshit about some other brother or sister, and how I needed to look into it.” ? Like I said, following the example of their reprehensible leaders in many cases. Or
---"shit like...
Ah well, I could go on like this ‘til New Year’s Day, but my point is made.
How could the “average non-elder JW publisher” spew this “shit” when very few of them know it? Only elders can spew this “shit” and we all know they don’t.
The “shit” I and other publishers did spew to our innocent neighbors brings them into the organization, and it’s the same “shit” you taught them. But it’s the “shit” you knew and didn’t spew that makes you guilty in the first. Had you the integrity and conscience to divulge to them---or us!---the secret “shit” that you knew and we didn’t, well, there might be a whole lot fewer JWs today.
But then one of the shiny prizes elders covet is the secret “shit” they get to know that others don’t. It makes them feel speh-chuhl.
…that ARE just as guilty as the men who are likewise misled who stand on the platform and give talks.Maybe it would help me if you sl-o-w-l-y explained to me how you, as an elder, were as mislead as the “average non-elder JW publisher” once you had access to elder “shit” like that itemized above that the “average non-elder JW publisher” never even knows exists?
I’m willing to listen if you’d like to explain it to me. My husband couldn’t make me get it, but, then we know each other too well. Maybe I can get it if someone else tries explaining it to me. It’s gotta make sense, though, mind you. I’m not as easily duped as I was 30 years ago. The 3-card molly doesn’t work on this gal like it did back in 1972. I now know the truth ain’t under none of the shells.
And few of these men go up to the platform with swelled chest ... they are often just as apprehensive as when going door to door ... it is boring, and painful when one is not a good speaker and JWs are sleeping in the audienceLol! I knew you had a sense of humor beneath all that bluster.
Hey, so this means, in fact, you knew that when our eyes rolled back in our heads and we started to drool that we were not exactly, uh… “lapping it up?”
…and yet they give talks because it is required in addition to door knocking.
Wrong again. Door knocking---and turning in door-knocking time to elders--- is required of JWs. Being an elder who has to give “elder” talks is not. You chased that cuz you wanted your Ps.
You quote me: "Men that I knew to be relatively decent stood on platforms with their spiritual shotguns aimed at our heads and hearts. If they disagreed with the swill, not losing their “privileges” superceded their concerns for our spiritual nutrition and health."
Your retort:
And Average JWs, took the swill and went out to share it with the unsuspecting Public, luring more into the organization by deception. yes, the average Jw often knows quite well they are LYING at the door when they use the slippery language learned at the Service Meeting, training them to lie.Wow, I’ve never heard anyone, I mean anyone, make this claim. And certainly no one who was ever an elder.
The “swill” I had reference to was that which kept us obeying abusive and controlling organizational rules---not that which we were taught was the basic “good news of the kingdom” claimed to be taught in the Bible.
“Using slippery language” at the doors, eh? This is a new defense strategy. A Johnny Cochranian strategy.
You’re saying that many average JWs are lying and know they’re lying when they preach the “Christ’s parousia began in 1914/these are the last days/JWs are God’s one and only true organization/JWs are separating sheep from goats/you must flee to God’s ark of salvation---the WTS--- while it is the acceptable time” at the doors?
Let’s re-trace our path here a minute.
When I made the comment about elders “mounting the platform and dishing out the spiritual slop from the Society’s cauldrons exactly as they concocted it---no matter how repugnant or outlandish,” I had reference to the “counsel” that constitutes placing “a gun to the heads” of the publishers to force them to submit to abusive and controlling organizational dictates that have nothing to do with scripture.
Above, in this post, I elaborated on this with the following:
“It’s the WTS---through its appointed elders packing pistols with Jehovah’s name on the bullets--- that teaches its adherents that beating the $#!+ out of kids who don’t act like adults (more accurately, used to; they don’t teach this anymore), that turning in your spouse for his/her verboten lovemaking preferences, that letting your loved-ones bleed out, and that shunning your df’d teen is the only way to get through the narrow gate. Why one’s everlasting salvation is held hostage for the paid ransom of submitting to the spiritual and emotional abuse elders mete out ‘from a loving Jehovah and fds.’”
I was not speaking of the stuff that was supposed to be the “good news of the kingdom” we were told the Bible taught. “Average non-elder JW publisher” spew was the organization’s interpretation of scripture. Elder spew is the organization’s pharasaical oral tradition that goes beyond subjects the Bible even touches and is designed to guilt and control the “average non-elder JW publisher.”
“…and the average JW is just as guilty! No excuses, no exceptions ... WE are all pups from the same bitch ...You’re arguing that average JWs are in on the whole WTS con? And that elders are duped to the same extent?
You know what? You got this self-defense mantra down cold or you’re going for an insanity defense.
And you don’t sound like the person who claims to have healed. You sound like someone who’s still protesting his innocence too loudly and with preposterous arguments.
I just can’t figure out if yours is tofu or real bologna.
…and ONLY when you, me, and others can admit this can we get off of our goddamn self-righteous pedestal, get real, and then start to heal.Like I said, you don’t sound healed. You sound extremely A N G R Y and extremely defensive.
“Sometimes, as ex-JWs, it becomes very easy to vent extreme anger and extreme views... and if we are not careful, thoughtful, and take things slowly, we can inadvertently become just as bad.”
Double helping of standard, anyone? How about some of your own sermon?
I had stated: "Every single man who’s ever served on a judicial committee --- of any kind --- has inflicted harm on others. Period."
To which you now respond:
Andf every JW who participates in the shunning of those that Elders shoot with the proverbial gun, is just as guilty - PERIOD! This is what I mean about getting off of the high horse. MANY avergae JWs know full well, via Elder's wives gossiping, or because they are aware and also gosspi, exactly why others are DF'd, and as a result, they know of much of the unfairness, but nonetheless, when average JWs shun, and look down on DF'd people, they become just as guilty ... for why do they not speak up?More abject cluelessness. Yes, most JWs know what the sin is the df’d person is accused of committing. I have never, ever myself personally known nor ever had anyone speak to me who claimed to know of any unfairness or miscarriage of justice by a JC contemporaneous with its occurrence. Years later the stories surface after the damage is irreversible. You are so mis-informed, or self-deluded, on this, I am flabbergasted.
But I will tell you this: If I had personally known of any such, or even strongly suspected, the Service Department would have taken steps to muzzle me a lot sooner than they did 18 months ago for my blasting them and their corrupt mafiosos for the spiritual crimes of which I am aware. And, no, I’m not df’d or da’d or reproved but I am targeted---me, a girl. They are very clear on the fact that I can and will seek legal recourse against them under certain specific circumstances of which they have been unambiguously informed. All I can and will say.
Anyway, your self-defense is now desperately sucking at pools of water that are just a mirage. You are simply wrong. I don't know what else I can say.
I’d further stated: "If you want to plead ignorance of that harm, plead it to Jehovah or whomever you believe in. It’s just my opinion but I strongly suspect there is no man who’s served as a elder for any considerable period of time who doesn’t get to the point of realizing that something very wrong is going on in the organization. Some don’t care, some resign and/or get out, some try to tell themselves they’re performing some greater good for their brothers by staying. Whatever. It’s still terrible harm that one should be ashamed of ever trying to excuse or minimize."
To which you further respond:
I agree: And that is why I left, and went to the authorities to report the JW molesters. I wish at the time I would have done as SilentLambs did, and stayed in as an Elder, and went to the media ... for by staying an Eldcer for a time, he accomplished MORE good than I did. I have been suypprting behind the scenes, talking to the media, and directing people to legal help ... but, in 1992, I did not take this the way I wish I would have.You continued:
However, what you say about Elders can be said about the average JW, and it amazes me (that is how I selected my handle, because many things amnaze me) that many ex-JWs do not see thier own dirty hands in this ... and try to load all the blame on Elders.I’d stated: "I was a JW. Thank God, at least, never an elder, but I am still both culpable and guilty. And personally responsible.
To which you now respond:
Thank you for your direct honesty and fair admission. My respect for you went up 100%. If more ex-JWs could admit their guilt, and not make out the Elders to be a buch of Nazis, thus shifting balme, but instead take responsibility ... they would heal sooner, and the anger would subside. Thanks again for reaching that conclusion.I’d said: "But, unlike you, I do not hide this truth from myself or offer excuses and justifications.
Your reaction:
I have not hidden truth, nor offerred excuses.That’s exactly what you’ve done and persist in doing.
…I have tried to express understand and rational thinking. In my Justice Series, which started in 2000 on H20 and repeated here on JWD, I have noted my participation in JC's where I was wrong ... and I withstood scolding by those who assumed I was justifying something, when they were not correctly reading what I wrote ... I wrote in historical context ... and even explained this up front ... but they treated me as though I was an Elder today trying to justify myself now.That’s what a lot of your series sounded like to me---self-justification. I wonder just how many JWs get themselves df’d by a JC with arguments just like yours---“You can’t blame me. It’s not my fault. S/he was just as much to blame. S/he knew it was wrong just as I did and went along with it.”
Right. So much for demonstrating repentance, right? You know what verdict elders reach against those who accept and admit anything less than full and sole responsibility for their actions.
Anyway, I didn’t care to throw in with those bashing you cuz I thought that a lot of what you said pointed the finger of blame at yourself. At the same time, though, a lot of it deflected and excused and justified. Sort of praising yourself with faint damn, I’d say. I felt you deserved the beating, but didn’t feel strongly enough to jump into the fray with a club of my own.
I did not get mad, because I understand, and I do now ... and going to the authorities has not been easy, because whether JWs realize it or not, the Watch Tower Society has ways of hurting people, even after they have been DA'd. I have been cautioned to be careful about the WTS knowing where I live ... etc., so, believe me, I have not hidde3n anything ... but have been very forth coming here and elsewhere, even at risk to myself.I believe and respect what you’re saying. I’ve got my own standoff with them. When I speak of hiding the truth, though, I mean from yourself. You may be doing some courageous things now---and I heartily applaud you for that---, but they don’t, as you suppose, acquit you of your past crimes.
If telling yourself that you, as an elder, were no more to blame for the damage the WTS inflicted on the flock than the “average non-elder JW publisher” was who brought it on himself and inflicted it on others gets you to sleep at night, whatever. But it’s still 100-proof self-medicating. But then I’ve yet to run across a single current or former elder to date who doesn’t embalm himself in the same homebrew.
And your opinion should and does carry weight. And it is good that you express it, and debate, and hold your own. And, gievn that you are female, I imagine in many ways, this is even a more treasured position to be in, because the JW religion is sexists to a serious degree. Toward the last few years of being a JW, I taught my daughters to have good self-esteem, get a good education, and not be dependent on men. Not that men are all bad, we are not, but that a women, I believe, should come into a relationship on her own strengths, not 'needing' a man, but equally choosing her male partner on the same level playing field as men, so that their relationship is one of mutal equality. Also, I tuahgt them to stand up fopr their opinions and views, and not let men run over them, and to have a career for themselves ... and also it helps in the event their husband dies ... or they get a divorce ... they are able to fend for themselves.This makes you the very best kind of man society can hope for, despite your blind spots.
That said, I like it when women stand up for themselves and engage in debate, and disagree ... but, I also still stand up too ... debate right back ... and I think it is healthy.Glad to hear it. I don’t happen to think you in the majority in that respect but I do believe there are lots of decent men who feel the same way. I happen to be married to one and gave birth to and reared one.
You concluded with my "I do appreciate, though, both yours and LE’s and others’ divergent opinions on this. I just happen to vehemently disagree."[/i]
I am not sure we are that far apart.Despite the conclusion you may draw about me from some of my statements here, I am anything but a person who views the world in black-vs-white terms. Especially now that I no longer march to the WTS beat. That means that I can just as passionately defend my husband’s goodness and honesty and integrity as an elder as I can rip him a new one for defending this bullsh for so many years when I kept telling him something had to be wrong. Submitting to his influence for so long was a huge mistake on my part. But that’s what good elders cause when they insist on remaining elders once they know the truth about the organization. They keep the rest of us ensnared that much longer, hoping/believing maybe we haven’t been duped---while our lives leak away.
You will be interested in knowing why this subject has recently become a much more passionate one for me.
A few weeks ago, on this board, I tore into a decent, hard-working man, a frequent JWD contributor, who was critical of a Bethel-heavy my husband and I were friendly with many years ago whom I was deluding myself into thinking could somehow still be a good guy even though he works in Hypocrisy Central. The more this good man insisted that “RPJ” could not still be the good man we once knew, the more I snarled and snorted and bit and flailed. Of course, even then I knew the reason I fought him so was not because I had any evidence whatever that “RPJ” had not sold out. I was just so loathe to believe it. Well, the JWD poster of whom I speak, modestly---not brandishing it in any way---offered to connect me with someone who is in a position to know the truth about “RPJ.” Long story short, you know where that led. It confirmed my worst fear. “RPJ” has become one of the NY syndicate bosses. And why? Obviously not cause he’s still a true believer---this man’s way too smart and has seen and participated in way too much. The reason he sold out is the same one for which all men who remain elders mortgage their consciences and integrity and goodness and honor to the WTS: The Ps ---P R I V I L E G E. P O W E R. P R E S T I G E. P E R K S.
Period.
This was what I alluded to earlier in my comment to “Lee Elder” when I apologized for my wounds being still raw.
So much for my[/I] delusions. I suffer them no longer. Well, not in connection with the WTS, anyway.
I think discussion, debate, and venting some helps clearthe air ... and we can learn to understand one another ... and discover that our views are often closer than we realize..
Well, I think we’re moving in that direction, anyway .
All done, bye-bye.
-AMNESIAN