TrueTomHarley

No. More on this later as well.

They are incestuous, with execs freely migrating from regulatory agencies to the companies they are supposed to monitor, and then back again. A favorite piece of interview from the movie ‘Inside Job’ about the 2007 Great Recession is an interviewer asking a business professor why, several years later, no exhaustive inquiries have been undertaken. ”Because then you will find the culprits,” the fellow said. They go to the same country clubs and belong to the same social strata. They are not interested in turning upon one another. Do a little to have something to present the masses and then ‘on with the show.’

Sometimes I marvel that Jehovah’s people do not swallow more conspiracy theories than they do, for they have uncovered the greatest conspiracy theory of all time—that God’s most damaging enemies are not the atheists, but those who claim to be his friends. As near as I can tell, JWs swallow them in no greater proportion than the overall world. Yes. How can it be said of an American city that “in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth?” “All those who have been slaughtered on the earth?” It’s rather easy to say this with regard to unfaithful religion, not primarily for its acts of commission but for its acts of omission—why have people not been taught how to be peaceful? By not teaching God accurately, providing ‘junk food’ instead, people become disillusioned and stray and become easy prey for no end of underhanded schemes. How can that record be pinned on an American city with 3rd class subways? The joke in Russia during Soviet times was: “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” A turning point for—I think it was Gorbachev—was his visiting a factory and discovering that any key worked for any vehicle. One fact that flies in the face of Russia being the belligerent king is that America bombs more countries than he. When Bob’s Bomb Company gets an order for a bomb, small businessman Bob goes down in the basement and builds one. However, when Bob’s Bomb Company has become a huge enterprise with stockholders that must be fed or they will go elsewhere, Bob sends lobbyists to Washington to promote the view—and spread money around liberally to those who pick up on it—that the world is an extraordinarily dangerous place of countless enemies that must be kept in check—and as it turns out, ‘we build just the products to facilitate that.’ The lobbyists are not there primarily to hawk Bob’s Bombs over Bill’s Bombs—they are there to foment rising waters that will float all boats. The expression is that ‘the tail wags the dog.’ It is little different with a host of other industries—tobacco, food, pharma, for instance—they reach the point where they must keep that money rolling in and then they do things to that end without regard to effect on the consumer or general society. I do not follow anything on Twitter without following its polar opposite, and in this way I have come to feel that some ‘conspiracy theories’ are actually much better argued that the mainline, which often just says that ‘we’ve got this locked up’ and shouts down whoever would challenge it. As you point out, the large internet firms are also going this way—agreeing to whatever nasty terms this or that government lays down—just to expand their reach. Yes, and they never are by a generation that considers itself the wisest of all time. I have said before that when time travel is invented, historical revisionists will give a friendly wave to founding father American slave holders as they race back in time to haul the real villians—the Ancient Greek pedophlles that form the underpinning of Western civilization—back in leg-irons. As to Hitler positioning himself in his pre-1933 days, the GreatCourses professor on American history refers to a “low-level anti-semitism” that was almost universal prior to WWII—and in many parts of the world, not so low-level—so that picking up on it would be no more controversial than breathing air. After the Holocaust, that low-level anti-semitism vanished overnight. so that it is easy to forget that it ever existed and read more into expressions of the day than is merited. Did JR suffer in his overall outlook of the world by reading mostly WT pubs? That is possible, in my view. He would be more widely read than most Witnesses, of course, but that’s not saying much. Even then, JWs were “insular”—a label most of them would reject but only because they are unsure of the implication of a word they don’t use themselves. Modify if to ‘no part of the world’ and they will embrace it happily. Isn’t that was insulation is—a means to separate something good from that which is damaging or corrosive? Okay, okay—olive branch here. I was in an atypical mood at the time, rethinking some things in view of yesterday WT article. It was not the greatest time for me to read a post that seemed to me something that would make Alan envious. But that’s not really the same as accepting it right here on the worldwide media network forum, clear-channel broadcast to the entire world. Or is it that? Is it (as I usually maintain and so do you) a tiny backwater followed by only a handful of persons and followed even less for its longwindedness?—people only have so much time in their day, after all, and for most of them, almost all of their time is already claimed. On the other hand, I sometimes suspect and I’m sure you do too—that as the only vehicle I know of in which hero and villain roam alike—neither all-villain, nor ‘cumbaya’ ‘where never is heard a discouraging word’, it is followed by some who matter.

I don’t like the tone, for I am not particularly trying to do that. Rather, the statement suggests to me that you are trying to condemn him. As Putin had been a KGB officer before ascending to power? I went out of my way in Dear Mr Putin not to demonize the Russian President, as most in the West does, and you praised me for it—not for Putin specifically, but for writing a book that did not reflect the common Western perception of Russia. I did that so as to build a bridge to any Russian authority, should they ever read it. In that probably unlikely event, I wanted the the result to be of benefit to the brothers and not make it harder for them. ”Knew or should have known” appears to be the permanent yeartext of this world, I’m not sure I want to play that game.

Which “goals” of Hitler that JR agreed with do you think that he was speaking about? Was JR referring to Hitler’s goal to bring paradise to the entire earth so that residents could pet the animals? Was JR referring to Hitler’s goal to bring everlasting life in perfect health to all of his subjects? Was JR referring to Hitler’s goal to break up the works of the devil and hurl him into the abyss? NO! he was referring to the feel-good cumbaya boiler-plate goals that every human agency that comes down the pipe promises and fails to deliver because of their insistence to do it by human thinking and not God’s. JR is doing no more than building a bridge of introduction so that the rest of his communication will not be tossed in the trash, the same as Is universally thought a good thing to do with anybody. What would you have him say: ‘Dear Rat-face’? This is why he chose tact at the time and didn’t say: “Dear Rat-face.” He did later on. Same here: What “high principles” do you think are being referenced? Was Is the League’s high principle to bring paradise to the entire earth so that residents could pet the animals? Was Is the League’s high principle to bring everlasting life in perfect health to all of earth’s subjects? Was Is the League’s high principle to break up the works of the devil and hurl him into the abyss? NO! he was referring to the feel-good cumbaya boiler-plate high principles that every human agency that comes down the pipe promises and fails to deliver because of their insistence to do it by human thinking and not God’s! Certain ones have commented with some disapproval —I think you have been one of them—at the seeming ‘need’ of the organization to diss anything that does not come from them. Here you seem to be holding them accountable for not doing just that.

I’m dubious of that. I’m dubious of that. Oh. Okay. He just didn’t spit on them the instant they made their appearance—as though he should have been expected to. He acknowledged that a new player has come upon the scene who means to influence for good—the same as you would for Obama. The same as you would for Trump. The same as you would for any human leader who doesn’t introduce himself with the words: “I am the Dark Lord.” What the identification of the UN with the image of the wild beast has going for it is that nothing, nothing, nothing stands in the holy place where it ought not more than that body. If there is one thing that is holy, it is the notion of God ruling over the earth by means of his Kingdom. If there is one thing that stands more disgustingly in direct contrast it is the notion of Man ruling over the earth by means of his Agency—a composite of all nations. It is the Federal Counsel of Churches that famously declared the League of Nations was the political expression of God’s Kingdom on earth. At almost the exact same time, the Witnesses, at their showcase Cedar Point convention, unfurled the banner and made the call: “Advertise, advertise, advertise, the King and his Kingdom.” It wasn’t the League of Nations that they had in mind, though it was for the Federal Council of Churches. Never has there been a more pronounced fork in the road than the two sharply divergent views over who will rule the earth: The mainline churches said it would be government by man. The Witnesses said it would be government by God. The beginning of a course of action in both cases that extends right down to the present. The fact that the two-headed wild beast forms and promotes it as an image of the original seven-headed beast only clinches the deal The fact that it goes into the abyss and comes out of it only further clinches it. The fact that no drama is more visible ‘from the eastern parts to the western parts’ of the earth only clinches it even further. As to the ten bullet points that conclude the wiki article, ten different factions have smelled a rat but they can’t quite put their finger on it and in trying to do so they make statements with various degrees of validity—statements that seem ‘far out’ in some respects. So? Shall this be presented as evidence that they are all nuts, and that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt the general wisdom of that international body and its tools to implement that wisdom? The most slippery slope of all to the acceptance of conspiracy theories is manifested when some of them turn out to be true—thereafter the temptation is to swallow anything that comes down the pipe. I don’t doubt that at all. For the bare facts that it lays out, I suspect that it is quite accurate. What I do doubt about the site is the author’s clear intent to present that organization as human wisdom at its finest—and the “proofs” thereof that he supplies: Look at all the “loony” things that are said about it by the crazies!

I could be wrong (fat chance) but... I don’t think that was in any way, shape, or form an answer to the question Sower put to you. That was just you carrying on the way you always do. In other words, you—riding in with the other true anointed that the Great 8 never allowed to speak with one another.

Well, what ‘d ya know? Now I see what the old mutterpuss (who has been awfully subdued lately) carries on about.

‘The cumbaya group.’ Ha. I like it. People’s places in life differ. Some find those sites just great. But I have told ones that I don’t come on the internet to find friends. I have more friends—in the congregation, circuit, and beyond—than I know what to do with. I choke on friends. So why would I come online in search of more, with ones whom you will never really know who they are because all you see is a digital persona? I, too, need more than this in a social interaction in the digital world.

Well....I think he has made pretty clear that he is not really our brother.

Had it? Was it? This one was a slide—a photo. Photoshopped, it was. I think the lightning bolt was a bit hoaky, but the building itself looked genuine—if you allow for it being rent in two. There were no little guys falling out that I recall, nor file cabinets or desks. I recall the Seventh Day Adventist’s came around to hang a packet on everyone’s door. It was of an erect Jesus knocking on the UN building as your would knock on a door—only he was every bit as tall as the building itself.

As much as I agree with the sentiments here, I have come to wish that young people were better prepared for whenever they might stumble across such a site—almost like a vaccinated person is better prepared for the plague once they encounter it. In an increasingly informational age, it becomes more and more likely that they will. Should they hang out there? Obviously not. The one common feature of these sites is that they feature people who are hypercritical to the nth degree, carrying on ad nauseam about complaints great and small. They are among the most unforgiving people on earth. Some of them will be blasphemous, filthy, and foul besides. Not a place to hang your hat. Even counselors in the general world speak of the advisability of cutting off “toxic relationships.” ‘Rocks submerged beneath the surface ready to rip the bottom out of your faith,’ is how the Bible writer puts it. But to absolutely make it taboo to go there doesn’t serve young people very well either. In the event that they succumb to the most basic force of human nature—doing something because they have been advised not to—and are stumbled, there are barely any in the congregation who can help them because they don’t know what is there themselves. All they can say is: “Don’t go there!” Trust me, opposers are very skilled in turning that advice on its head. “Sure they don’t want you to go there!” they say, “they want to keep you in blinders!” It is all very well for us to say it is like the devil with bad motive—“for God knows in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened!” but it is a tough sell. It is very easy to explain why ones ought to keep away from porn, from graphic violence, or from demonism. But from apostasy? ‘Are they wrong there?’ some will say. ‘I’ll just go there to see what they are wrong about, and then I will set them straight.’ Not all will reason this way. Not even most. But some will. After all, here they are advised to be bold with the Word at the door—for it is the all-powerful sword—but cowardly with it when it comes to ones who have rebelled and from there launch another attack on faith. Getting a measured glimpse of these apostates for any so inclined, when there are ones who can talk them through whatever they may find, might almost be likened to lab class in school. See how some of the Bible themes play out—not just why people come into the truth—we surely know that—but why some leave. Let youngsters see, if they ask, how “Demas has forsaken me because he loved the present system of things.” Let them see how some have left “because they were not of our sort.’ Let them see what happens when people do not ‘take the rafter out of their own eye but focus on the straws of others. Let them see that mistakes can be made by old and young alike—it was certainly true in the first century—why should it not be true today? What has come to be a favorite saying of mine is: ‘The trick is not to sanitize the present—it is to desanitize the past.” Will that happen anytime soon? Or at all? And should it? All above my pay grade. But it doesn’t seem likely. The counsel to avoid apostates is well-supported scripturally—Matthew 11, for starters. Moreover the GB takes on the role of the fine shepherd—they see the wolf coming and they beat it off, holding the sheep out of harm’s way as they do so. Still, in view of the poor track record we have with significant numbers of the young, maybe they will someday reassess and consider it a matter of degree. Surely, as ones who had “received the Law but have not kept it,” the Pharisees could be described as apostate. Could Jesus’ own manner of dealing with them be looked to as an example? He certainly didn’t seek them out. Nor did he argue with them when they approached to trap or attack. He wasn’t especially nice to them, really, though he always left open a way of return for any wanting to take it. I’d just as soon the young never run across these guys at all. But they do. And being totally unprepared and unfortified—something that could be effectively addressed but so far has not been—some stumble and there is no one able to help. I can’t make head or tails of that. But I do note that Witness has told me I’m wrong no less than I have told her the same.

Fine. Send me both your inner and outer garment. I’ll keep them in storage while you freeze.

Of course. Both @Anna and @Arauna do it all the time. The thing that rankles about the other woman is that I have never seen such a massive collection of scripture put to no practical use whatsoever other than that of Absalom: ‘Yes, your matter is weighty and valid, but there is no one here from the king’s office who will hear you out—oh, if only I were king!’ Gender has nothing to do with it. It would be tiresome regardless of from where it came.

I was always impressed that the wild beast goes into the abyss, then comes out again, and that Knorr seemed to anticipate it. I had two close friends who both gave me a hard time about the UN when I became a Witness. It seemed so weird to them and they went on and on about it. Being new, I didn’t understand it backwards and forwards myself, but I finally told them that it was just a footnote, not a huge deal, and that they should give it a rest. The circuit overseer was to visit our congregation and there was to be a special slide presentation. I invited my friends and gave them to understand that, in view of their giving me nothing but grief about the new faith, if they attended this one meeting I would consider that they had given it a fair shake and would thereafter shut up about it. They came and were shoehorned into a crowded Kingdom Hall. All was going well, and I was happy that they was receiving ‘a witness,’ but toward the end of the presentation a slide displayed the U.N. building rent in two by a lightning bolt from heaven! an image that I had never seen before and do not think I have seen since. I didn’t entirely keep my end of the bargain, never to speak of it again, but I was more subdued, to be sure.

Trust me, they do. I used to post and then hang around to briefly answer any responses. They are almost always hostile, so I do it rarely now. They welcome them with open arms at first, assuming they are coming in from the cold. When they discover that is not so.... Generally true, but not necessarily. It probably helps that I am not disrespectful. Still, it is mostly because of the Philly reporter that I went there. ‘If he considers it a source, maybe others do as well,’ I thought. Not all all exJWs, though most are. I visit there less and less and I interact hardly at all.

I have posted on both the “Jehovah’s Witnesses and the ‘exjw.’ There is even a loyal to JW subreddit that I have posted to. I visit there sometimes—But I live here. I also have my own page there. I haven’t quite figured out how reddit works and I find navigation there a challenge.

Hold on there, Arauna. He can’t hear you now. He’s finishing up his bile salad and will return presently.

If it’s any consolation to you, I do not demonize them over there. They are people with viewpoints. We are all people with viewpoints. “Taste and see that Jehovah is good,” the verse says. They have tasted and seen that he is bad. What is there to converse about? I post and go. Sometimes it actually is Jehovah that they have seen is bad—requirements of his that are plainly laid out in scripture. Other times they find fault with those trying to represent him. They are not necessarily wrong in all that they say. But they are hypercritical, carrying on forever with complaints over the slightest thing, just like on this thread. Even in general society, we receive advice from professionals on cutting loose “toxic relationships” with those who do nothing but tear down in one manner of another. That’s why my involvement there is slight. I respect the counsel of the Witness organization to not even leave comments on their blogs and would be much worse without such counsel.

Why do you think I do it discreetly? If it gets any favorable reviews at all from that crowd, it will be a grand slam. To be sure, I don’t hang out there. I have posted stuff from time to time after I learned it was the prime source for the philly reporter. I did not know that anyone had offered specific comment on it.

There you go, then. The position of every Witness is that what they do does help people—in fact it offers them the most lasting help, in contrast to efforts whose effects are temporary. Your position is that it does not. You could desist, you know. It is inherently more noble to defend something than to attack it.

Make no mistake, Arauna. I do not think for one second that I will successfully be able to reason with 4Jah. It is for other reasons that I write what I do.

Moreover, the hundreds of volunteer workers, most of them young people, were exposed to what they had never been exposed to be—antique restoration work. Many made use of it in their later secular employment—thus saving state vocational and worker displacement & retraining services—trust me, there are a ton of them in the states—oodles of money. Such agencies gave Witnesses high praise for doing their work for them. It is all in the secret files that you can’t see.

Volunteerism is volunteerism. What’s it to you where they choose to volunteer? Besides is a life-saving work that preachers of the good news have been entrusted with. That being the case, I fitted my own vehicle with flashing lights and siren. Don’t worry—I got them cheap at the junkyard and restored them myself.

Excellent point as always. The answer is the same as that given Srecko. Make volunteer work illegal. Those volunteer fire departments? Tell them to let the houses burn. Those volunteers at the hospitals? Tell those lazy patients to get themselves out of traction and take care of their own needs. Those volunteers during every election? Free them! Tell Trump and Sanders to knock on doors and present their own case. The purpose of life is to accumulate money. How can people do that if they are giving away their work? Free them from being manipulated. Let no one do anything without a paycheck. I made a normal one, too. What we need is a Department of Volunteer Monitoring so that any volunteering can be run by you for your approval or not. I suggest they will all be quickly approved except that concerning JWs