potato

I think lcm is a greasespot. he's a hard-hearted h8er who used people and threw them away. I don't think God would spit in his direction. he's out of zion, man. he's a waste of air. lcm is (as Dewey Finn would say) a funny little footnote on God's epic @$$.

they use myspace, but as far as I can tell their profiles are all set to private. I don't know how much the "internet is a devilish place" doctrine still rules. there was one idiot coordinator in Washington (the guy who actually sealed my decision to leave twi because of his arrogant pontificating about the internet) who claims to be a web designer but I haven't seen any of his work so I don't know. I do know that when I was working as a writer via the internet, the area coordinator tried to pressure me to quit (via my now-ex-husband, the @$$hole didn't even have the balls to tell me to my face) but I wasn't about to give up the income I made working from home so I told my now-ex-husband that if dude wanted to tell me to quit, he could tell me to my face. I don't know where I found the brass to stand up to him... I guess it was knowing how close skated every month to the edge of keeping it together financially because of his low wages and no benefits from his "believer" employer. somehow, shockingly, that was the end of it.

well hell, they'll never take me back now!

heh, well I found by searching google that the only thing on twitter about twi was a flurry of scorn over the March '07 videos they posted. apparently twits do not tweet... or they're very secretive about their association with twi.

it's when you put a hash in front of a word, like #theway or something like that, so people can find tweets about certain subjects. I read it's been successfully used for organizing rallies and other stuff, like the #amazonfail hash brought attention to amazon's catalog mess. made me wonder if there are any hashtags in use for twi subjects.

has anyone run across twitter hashtags used by twi members? I know they don't like the internet, but I've seen some of them on myspace and it seems the younger crowd might not be as averse as lcm's old cronies.

shelby county tax records would give the value of the farm at the time of the transfer... or should, anyway. at any rate, they exchanged a small, decrepit farm in the middle of nowhere for tax write-offs and free labor to fix it up, then vpw lived there the rest of his life for free, + benefits.

donated labor isn't tax deductible, unlike the tangible donation of land. I'd also be interested to know how many tangible donations (i.e. furniture, materials, etc.) got funneled through harry's business so it worked out as a personal write-off to him.

we used mechanical pencils because doctrine changed every year or so and rather than get a new bible, we could just erase the old notes and write in the new "true" interpretation.

the only thing that made the 60s and 70s different from, say, the 20s and 30s or any other set of decades with "moral decay" followed by "renewed sense of holiness" was accessibility to the total package of telephone, film, audio recordings, publishing, and reliable postal delivery.

I still have both of my twi bibles. I plan to someday look through the things I wrote in them, before I burn them in a ritualistic healing ceremony. I'm just not ready yet.

I find the correlation between college age, chocolate and my choice interesting.

I hope she finds healing. it makes sense that she would come to you if you were best friends before her intense indoctrination. I wish you both the best. you sound like a very strong person.

she sounds really messed up. I hope she's sincere. I hope she really wants help, and that her heart is in the right place. but I wonder why she would come to you, a person she emotionally and physically abused? unless it was to ask forgiveness, and hope that you, who made it out, can lead her into the light. be very, very careful.

hehe, I'm actually thinking of going to law school, Ham. I've been studying law for several years now. I wrote a research paper on statutory interpretation that's under review by a state agency, and a lawyer has already consulted with me because of my expertise in that particular area of law in my state. a good friend has been encouraging me to go for it. imagine a potato of my age going to law school... but you only live once, right?

I won't put them on my ignore list, because I hate bullies and I don't feel like sitting around being quiet while they bully other people who might be new and unfamiliar with the bully's tactics. my life was run by people like him in twi. so legalistic! there's really no reason to put him on ignore because his opinions don't influence me, but I do consider him good practice for my philosophy studies because he thinks the way I used to about a lot of things and being reminded of that motivates me to keep working on myself.

I agree with Garth. WD has his mission, he can set up his own forum for it. it's not hard to set up a forum... but then he wouldn't have a somewhat captive audience for his posturing and abuse. some of us come here because we NEED a place that tells the other side of the story. this place has been an essential component of my recovery. WD is a predator who takes advantage of that.

amen, newlife. twi culture is corrupt. the fact that corps were not trained in counseling skills but were told they were the authorities on running peoples' lives is indicative of how sick twi was, and as far as I can tell, still is. I'm not even in a position to reveal specifics about my experiences, but what I can tell, I will continue to speak up about because people still need to hear it.

Ham! do you think he was literally frozen... like cryogenically preserved... then thawed out to infiltrate GS and carry out his program to derail every thread with anti-vpw flavor? it could be a movie, you know... the avenging White Dove, defender of Truth, fights to the death with the rag tag mutant colony at GSC. naturally he'd have to appear in the movie in a white body suit and big feathery wings, and fight us all with swords. I'm a potato so I don't expect to fare well, but squirrels are really quick, we have a wolf, and yoda has the force.

thank you Paw

I looked into a lawsuit, and although many of the things done to me were illegal and the root cause was twi, the burden of proof was so onerous as to make it impossible to win. you can't prove that you were held against your will if everyone else present says you weren't. a civil multiple plaintiff action, maybe... but then we'd need a lawyer in the state where twi is incorporated to take it on a contingent basis, and we'd need enough people willing and able to give testimony that establishes a pattern of abuse. I for one would be happy to testify. finding a lawyer to work with is much more problematic.

I don't remember anyone saying that. testimony is testimony, and where multiple witnesses heard the same thing, why would we have to "be there" to accept she said it? do you have the book, WD? if you do, can't you read it for yourself? I read it once myself because it was required reading, but I can't recall if she said that in the book. if it's not in the book, fine, go ahead and establish that.

there's the keyword: "hobby". if you were doing something that you didn't make money at, it was a hobby, not a calling, and you should drop it. that made even getting started as a professional artist really hard as a college kid, because you don't get paid as you go. you work your butt off as an investment hoping you'll be able to support yourself in the future. to twi, this is unacceptable because there's no ABS from it. the pressure to create using only certain themes and on demand was also overwhelming and killed my drive to create. the pressure was on artists of all kinds. I quit drawing and painting for years because my life was under such a microscope. finally, this year and after lots of therapy, I'm getting back what I once had, and I find I still have the potential to make a living as an artist.

they already have apprentices growing up in limb homes across the country. pretty soon twi will be as inbred as any isolated colony becomes after a few generations.

twi doesn't actually have a legal right to disregard copyright law and make up special rules for themselves so they can claim ownership of published materials that they distribute. could qualify as stolen merchandise, you assert? I guess they'd have to take it to court and show the contract proving they own the property and that a crime has been committed. of course they have the right to do that, but their actual "rights" to property which has changed hands must be established in court in the face of evidence that puts their claim of ownership in questionable light.