Can one person make a difference? Need your help please.

by apocalypse 25 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  apocalypse

  I don't post very often, but today, I just have to. I am feeling a bit out of sorts & I need to bounce this off the board.

  Do some of you remember the coming out of the UN scandal back when?

  Have you seen the letter from the UN in C of C?

  I am sitting here with that original letter in my hand.

  The day before the date on this letter, I had heard about the watchtower involvement on HOURGLASS2. Till this day I still do not know who it was that first posted about it and I'd like to meet him/her.

  I called the UN the next day around 3:30PM. I spoke at length to Paul Hoeffel and I pleaded, I mean pleaded, with him to produce a letter defining watchtower's involvement. I believed, I still do, that one person can make a difference.

  Paul agreed to do it and faxed it before dropping it in the mailbox. It was faxed to the Ministry of Environment, Kingston ON Canada. The first appearance of this letter in Ray Franz's book Crisis of Conscience was not the original, but the fax.

  After seeing the fax in C of C I called Ray and asked if he'd rather have a scan of the original. He said yes, so I sent it and that is what appears there now. (Ray was a superman, the best there could be)

  Now, I couldn't risk having the UN send that to me. Today would be a different story, but those days, fear was huge. My significant other was not "out" like today. It would have been chaos for me.

  So, my good friend, who went by the name Hawkaw here on the forum, and who works for the Ministry of the Environment, consented to receive it. In fact, he also called Paul Hoeffel to make sure that that letter would be coming.

  In time, my good freind sent me the original which I have till now. He feels his work is done and you don't see him here anymore. He has gone on with life. Thankyou to him.

  My dilemma. Even though I lived all this, Ray put the thing in his book, and I am sitting here with the original in the date stamped post marked envelope, one in my group feels strongly that one person cannot make a difference. Not much of one anyway.

  I have been told that I have "gone off the deep end" with my thinking.

  Why this comes about... All this chatter about anti watchtower activists has caused some controversy amoung my group and I expressed myself in one place. It has caused me some distress.

  Now, I will be the first to say that I feel that the anti wt people are doing it wrong. Just my opinion mind you. Seems others share that opinion.

  I might even call Barb Anderson and express such and hope she doesn't go the aaw route. I hope she doesn't hate me.

  Was my effort with the UN so meaningless? Did it not matter. Does it not count? Can one make a difference?
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  PaintedToeNail

  apocalypse-yes it does make a difference. I made a huge difference to me. When I was a child, there were letter campaigns to the authorities of Malawi to stop the persecution of the 'brothers' who were being persecuted because of not buying a .25 cent political party card. It was heart-wrenching for a little kid to hear of all the despicable things done to those JWs.

  Upon learning within the last 3 years about the WTBTS involvement with the UN, allegedly for library 'priviledges', it sickened me. A Malawi JW couldn't buy a stupid card and remain in good standing, but the Borg could have NGO affiliation with the UN...what hypocrites.
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  Scully

  Hi apocalypse,

  I remember hawkaw... even had lunch with him once, and lots more phone conversations with him. I don't remember what it was that possessed him to help out a bunch of exJWs, because he had no affiliation with JWs at all, but he was instrumental in the publicity of the JW child sexual abuse scandal that resulted in the 2003 episode of CBC's The Fifth Estate on the topic.

  The UN letter isn't in my personal copy of Crisis of Conscience - we left the JWs in the mid 1990s and so had the earlier edition. The UN scandal broke in the fall of 2001. Even though I've had a couple of computers since then, my PDF of that letter from Paul Hoeffel is something I will never delete. I have it on a back up disk too. Even though we'd been out of the JWs several years by that point, it helped me personally to validate that I didn't make a big mistake in leaving the JWs. Sometimes it's tough to be the black sheep of one's family and be ostracised for having a contrary opinion to the way I was raised. I remind myself that my parents also turned their backs on the religions of their own parents when they became JWs, except my grandparents had the wherewithall to recognize that ostracising their children for changing their belief system was unloving... mine don't see it that way where I'm concerned.

  Don't sell yourself short - you provided a very valuable service at a time when the information was relevant, and now it's archived here and in CoC for others' benefit. As it turns out, the WTS affiliation with the UN was just the tip of the iceberg of WTS hypocrisy. Since then we've learned all kinds of dirty little secrets that the WTS keeps hidden to maintain the appearance of being "above reproach".

  Thanks again for sharing that very important document with the world.
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  betterdaze

  Was my effort with the UN so meaningless? Did it not matter. Does it not count?

  
  
  
  Of course it counts! I cannot understand why you think it wouldn't. You oiled the wheels that helped ME and many others OUT. My belated thanks!

  I want to share something. A few years back, people here were kvetching about how that letter was eventually deleted from the UN website. Conspiracy theories about how the Watchtower somehow shut it down. AS IF. As if they had the power to censor the UN!
  
  Well, I came to know an individual here in the NYC area whose claim to fame is programming the United Nations website. I just had to ask, and I made a fool of myself. He of course explained that it's a HUGE network of websites, multi-lingual, and they can't possibly archive every piece of correspondence forever to eternity. And here I was, about to ask him, "Hey mister, about that letter, could you put it back up?"
  
  apocalypse, Please know that letter sent shockwaves throughout the earth and will continue to do so, helping JWs learn the truth about "The Truth" whether the UN continues to host it or not. And to everyone else: Please don't blame the webmasters at the UN, nobody at the WT cajoled or controlled them to take it down, it was just routine maintenance.
  
  I am thrilled that you still have the original. Please guard it well.
  
  
  

  Can one make a difference?

  
  
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKPWzLgvgW4
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  zeb

  you... have made a difference.

  The world is ful of two kinds the sheep and the sheep dogs to keep them safe. woof!
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  still thinking

  Was my effort with the UN so meaningless?

  It wasn't. That letter from the UN was THE turning point for me. Once I discovered this...my search for truth began.

  Thank you. xoxox
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  Pickler

  Apocalypse this kind of thing makes a huge difference! Life changing!

  There are 3 issues which absolutely shocked me to the core when I found out about them.

  One was the UN issue ( the other 2 were the Conti/paedophile issues & the Mexico/Malawi nightmare)

  thankyou for exposing this. The more truth that is out there, the harder it is for the org to rewrite history to suit themselves.
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  DesirousOfChange

  I concur that the UN issue is a Big Deal.

  My wife doubted that the letter was real. (Any apostate could work that up on fake letterhead.) I already had seen enough to know that it was the real thing. No one would bother faking something like that.

  I would love to see and touch the original. I wish it was more easily accessible, tho we have come to learn that JWs won't believe anything until they are in the right frame of mind.

  I would like to think that it will always be safe in secure hands.

  Doc
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  Band on the Run

  I was completely shocked when I read about the WT and the UN. The WT could not deny it bc of that letter. Please, their library excuse

  NY has so many libraries at no or little cost. So many foreign affairs foundations, think tanks are here. Plus, the CIA publishes information for the public. Many seminaries are here.

  I would like to hear more details from you. I

  I
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  Nathan Natas

  Apocalypse, of course one person can make a difference; you have PROVED that by your own actions.

  I would submit that the person who told you that one person CANNOT make a difference was not thinking of you, they were thinking of themselves.

  "Whether you think you CAN or think you CAN'T, you are right."

  "Success comes in CANS; failure comes in CAN'TS."

  I think the first mention of the UN scandal I recall was in a post by Norm. And I too recall Hawkaw, but I didn't know him well.