Kismet: I agree. You have inadvertently paraphrased my posts on this.
PopeOfEruke: I agree.
hillary_step wrote (emphasis mine):
.. the most important issue, which both supporters and non-supporters of Bill seem to have a problem grasping. Bill seems to me to be a decent man who thinks with his heart and not his head, I suspect that is why he has been able to achieve so much more than many others in the past in bringing the problem of the abused children within the JW religion to a wider audience.
Bill is a boiler-room man
Well, hillary, I didn't have any problem grasping this, and my post earlier in this thread says all of this. And perhaps I was a step ahead of you when, ten weeks ago, I penned in http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=39486&site=3 :
Of course Bill is often pushy and has a bandwagon to induce people to jump on to.
Of course Bill is now a showman.
Of course Bill now is melodramatic.
He needs to be.
He has to be.
He MUST be.
He has activated the press and international media like no one else before him.
Without being a melodramatic, aggressive showman, he would not have got their attention.
Yep. The name "Silentlambs" helped.
Bill has damaged the Watchtower more than Franz ever did. Whatever either of their intentions may have been.
Explains some things? Perhaps, perhaps not.
And this is despite the fact that Ray Franz, quite evidently, is more articulate and "studied" than Bill. And probably more intelligent (which is not in any way to suggest that Bill is unintelligent)
But the key is: Is Bill basically speaking the truth?
That is the question.
I hold that Bill is.
...
[Ray] is IMO:
(a) more learned
(b) more authoritative
(c) more restrained and much less melodramatic
(d) much, much less of a showman
(e) a better writer
(f) better presented
(g) more effective, in his gentle works of text, with wavering dubs
(h) old; much older (and so finding it more difficult to adjust his thinking on a major issue now, perhaps?), with such respect that this must here command,
(i) probably more kind
(j) possibly more humble
than Bill
And at http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=39318&site=3&page=6 I wrote :
Bill and Ray are very different persona. One is a crusader and showman, the other reflects and chooses his words with enormous care. One is a man of physical action and energy, the other (even when much younger) one of mental agility and calm, armchair rebuttals - a man of words. One values tact, form and discretion, and one believes they have their place.
If Bill was not Bill, he would not have got the media rolling as he did. He gave them the soundbites, not essays as Ray, or I (and I dare say you) might have. He K.I.S.S.'d it for them, as they needed it.
...
Bill sometimes chooses the wrong words (possibly trying to oversimplify or to dispense with "formalities"). Had he used "expositor" instead of "author", what would you now say, Carl? Perhaps to Bill there was but a small difference therebetween. To men who set store in their precision of expression - men such as Ray, and some others, including (blush) perfectionists such as myself - there is, of course, a whole world of difference.
And I too have described Bill as a simple "heart" person. This is no criticism of Bill. It is what helped him achieve what he did. As I believe you, hillary_step, fully realize.
Depersonalization of Silentlambs is hard for Bill. It is Bill's baby. But it must happen, and the sooner the better.
Trauma: I understand you have just revealed on a public board your interpretation of part of the contents of a private email Bill sent to you. Am I correct in understanding this?
RevMalk: While I realize that you are hurt, I counsel you also to sit on your hands for a while rather than post on about this tonight or in the morning, and write things you might later regret. Emotions are evidently and understandably running high.
--
Focus
(Peace A Chance? Class)
Edited by - Focus on 2 January 2003 21:57:33