would you do a ray franz deal and write a book or keep quiet and live out the rest of your life in bethel?.
would you keep reading the watchtower magazine?.
What would I do?
Well, you know that prank where you put dog shit in a paper bag, drop it in front of a door, light the bag on fire, knock, and then run? I would do that at the door to the GB meeting room when they were having a meeting.
Then I would go and get drunk.
And in the morning I would buy a new wardrobe.
original thread here.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/291080001/brave-high-school-student-exposes-abuse-corruption-within-jehovahs-witnesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdvt_gyq-ls.
I sent the video to the following women's rights groups:
Equality Now (New York office)
Amnesty International - Stop the Violence Against Women Campaign
Human Rights Watch - Women's Rights
Canadian Women's Foundation
FAFIA-AFAI - Feminist Alliance For International Action
original thread here.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/291080001/brave-high-school-student-exposes-abuse-corruption-within-jehovahs-witnesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdvt_gyq-ls.
It is a great video - a brave young woman.
Where this video should be sent is to is women's rights groups. Every story the young woman told on the video was about women being abused and having their rights taken away from them.
Amnesty International should be campaigned to have the JWs identified as a high risk group for women. The abusive policies of the WTS will never change as long as the women have no voice.
the jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
Yes, Simonsays, without doubt there are conflicting reports about many things, not just about the WTS and the JWs, that occurred during history. That is why continual excavation into relevant and emerging documentation is important when examining history. It is not progressive to just accept one view point. There are many varying accounts of past events.
I won't argue about Erich Frost with you - there are lots places online to research and evaluate sources when considering what happened. I won't waste space with material that others have already researched so well. It is an issue that is contentious and has supporters on both sides.
You are welcome.
i was thinking about green handshakes, and i knew my wife and i personally would try to slide at least $100 each c.o visit to the c.o.
if we were low on cash, we'd never hand him less than $20.
how many of such handshakes does he receive in a weeks time?
StarTrekAngel: They are fed almost everyday when in assignment, which is pretty much every day of every week. They don't pay rent or mortgage. As far as I know, in our circuit, brothers and sisters rotate in doing the cleaning of the house as well as the yard work.
If the COs and COWs had a real job, all those things would be considered "taxable benefits".
i was thinking about green handshakes, and i knew my wife and i personally would try to slide at least $100 each c.o visit to the c.o.
if we were low on cash, we'd never hand him less than $20.
how many of such handshakes does he receive in a weeks time?
rubadub: In the United States, there is no limit on the amount that a person receives as a "gift" as long as no goods or services were received (in that case it would be considered some sort of income).
"...as long as no goods or services were received..."
Does that mean that the gift cannot be given to someone who gives them services? That if there are services received, it is no longer a gift? Don't the COs "give services" to the congregations? Don't they have certain duties and activities when they visit that they are required to perform?
I can't figure out who receives, and who gives, in the tax statute...
the jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
Simonsays: Since this question is inflammatory and posses danger to Jehovah’ Witnesses in parts of the world under communist rule.
The only thing "inflammatory about "this question" is that the WTS is making false claims about their involvement in WW2. How this would impact JWs "under communist rule" is unclear. What it may impact, however, is the WTS claims for compensation and it may affect later attempts by the WTS to suppress accurate historical accounts.
The numbers that I refer to above, of JWs who got positions of privilege in the work camps, cannot be seen as inflammatory information - it is simply a report based upon outside sources other than the WTS' reports.
The WTS stories about the JWs in Germany during WW2 have concentrated on the suffering and death that was experienced by those who loyally followed the WTS commands, but, the WTS has never acknowledged that such large numbers actually "were considered partially free" and were placed in positions that gave them an advantage of survival.
The other thing that happened during the Nazi roundup of WTS loyalists, was the ease that dissenters within the organization were dealt with. Instead of having to go through all that rigamarole of disfellowshipping like they do now with apostates and those who don't toe the party line, WW2 made it simple. All they had to do was give the Gestapo the names of the ones they didn't like. The name that comes to mind is Erich Frost. He betrayed several of his colleagues yet has been made into a JW hero.
Simonsays: Wrong sir, it doesn’t take a genius to have a conclusion that if past Witnesses were political motivated the ignorance will then in sue to modern ideology. I reject your premise.
Firstly, thank you for calling me "sir".
Secondly, you are free to reject my premise. I don't expect you to understand it.
I don't understand your statement: "...if past Witnesses were political motivated the ignorance will then in sue to modern ideology."
if you're unaware of the letter tinged with anti-semitism and offering tacit approval that rutherford wrote to hitler, see this article on jwfacts.. so, we all know the witnesses were persecuted quite a bit during the war years.
i personally had family that was in jail with brother schroder in the 40's for the crime of "peddling.
i'm an agnostic fader, however i still think the mob violence against the witnesses was deplorable.
Simonsays: So what you’re saying is, if someone throws you in jail for your religious beliefs and lies made upon you, and then you find out who was behind it and their motives, you would sit and do nothing? Got it.
With respect to the WTS bigwigs who got their asses tossed into jail towards the end of WW1 in 1917, they were NOT tried and convicted for their religious beliefs.
They were convicted on treason charges. The book The Finished Mystery was considered seditious material by the US government, and it was edited before being printed again, with the offending pages removed.
Much of what Rutherford demanded from the followers later hinged upon his bitterness towards being jailed. He made a lot of mileage out of that jail term, misrepresenting it as religious persecution rather than what it was - treason against the United States. Many Bible Students and JWs suffered needlessly because of Rutherford's behaviour.
the jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
Finkelstein: ...but then again isn't religion about men's opinions and finding and procuring others to support those established opinions ?
Lol! I believe you have just described politics.
Which is my premise. Religion = Politics. You can't separate the two.
the jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
redvip: Rutherfraud should have at a minimum asked the local German JW leadership to address Hitler and perhaps Hitler would have had a more favorable view of JWs. Instead as the narcissistic a-hole that he was, Rutherfraud
had to call attention to himself.
The infamous "letter to Hitler" was passed as an unanimous decision at the June 1933 Berlin convention, attended by over 7000 JWs. The document was also drawn up at a time when German WTS lawyers were card carrying members of the Nazi Party. The "local German JW leadership" were involved in the "Declaration of Facts".
