I don't know if this little emotional fish hook is a direct attempt to convince their intellectually challenged flock to cough up more nickels or dimes or not in the way of a guilt contribution. On the surface, it can easily be interpreted that way. It wouldn't be the first time they use such low life tactics. Looking on a bit of a broader scale this little tear jerker could be seen as another attempt to see just how stupid they can keep their meek and gullible fowlers.
The up and coming heirs to the watchtower thrown are not as stupid as the old dying Mafia god fathers. They realize the number of those leaving the cult and those who are not intimidated by their warnings about the evil Internet are refusing to stay stupid and are beginning to use their own brains. Keeping them stupid is the key to keeping the company going. Many double life living JW's are starting to question some of the infantile bullshit because they are doubting the length of that perpetual corner their leaders have been preaching about for a hundred years.
As long as Mob management can dictate the level of logic and reasoning they allow their follows to buy into, they can keep their jobs. More important than keeping the bank account up is keeping the middle management of the company employed long enough to make some of their worldly real-estate investments pay off.
The head office does not need the average JW to send them a dead kid's chicken money. They do not even need them to sell their books and magazines at the door anymore. What they do need is to keep the 6 million followers stupid and scared shitless. All the six mill need to do is spend at least five dollars a month on the companies printing products and that will put an easy 360 million "tax free" dollars in the bank per year. Add the fact they pay less than minimum wage to their employees, have them live in property tax free housing that has been paid for for decades, and is some of the primmest real-estate in the country, eat food that has been raised by other below minimum wage employees raise on more tax free land that has been long payed off and you have one hell of a profitable little company. Add in the 30% on the dollar saving on not having to pay taxes on it all, and that 360 mill looks more like 580 mill per year. With that kind of an automatic cash flow, who needs chicken money contributions?
Unfortunately, just as with Enron and a few other large companies, the employees are starting to read between the bullshit trails. Their retirement plan is starting to be questioned because they are starting to doubt they will live long enough to see the promised Disney land. This is making middle management nervous. The recent scandals are starting to pop up in board meetings and it is getting harder to make up bullshit stories to cover them up.
They are having a harder time keeping the fairy tail going becase the average flocker is growing up and getting smarter. This spells doom for the story tellers because they are loosing thier audiance to a more mature and more intellagent group of discruntaled listeners. Telling stupid little stories like the one made up about the boy and his chikens is just a anal thermomitor that their leaders can use to check the level of stupidity and gullability of their vanishing psyco ward.
The kid and the chicken story does not look like a ploy for contrbutions to me, they really don't need that particular revenue stream. What they do need is for their 6 million suckers to keep buying the five dollars a month worth of books and magazines with stories about dying little kids and their chicken flocks.
Just my take on this.
Dave
