chockfull

How do I respond to bullying now? I tend to b1tch sl@p bullies much faster now as opposed to putting up with their shenanigans. Pardon the french.

It's a bunch of hooey that CG wrote to try and make VPW look larger than life. Kind of like VPW used to teach that Jesus Christ decided when it was time for him to die by revelation. I mean people can lose the will to live and if they are really sick over time they can stop fighting and die. But some pinhead telling you they can teach you how to shut down your organs if you want? Ridiculous. And yes, there are a lot of pinheads that went through the Corps training and had / have Corps status.

Mark, I read the language of the bill. The quote I pulled was from someone in office explaining the intent of the bill to the press. That's an example of representative democracy, as neither you nor I have any idea of the events, facts, and discussion in Congress that led up to this bill being introduced. That said, it doesn't look like the bill has enough support to pass, and that is probably because of the vagueness in language that you are pointing out that upsets the checks and balances. Overall, this bill is a wartime measure, and to me it's unlikely that any sitting President would commandeer major Internet resources that are so intricately involved in our economy without adequate justification. To do so would invite impeachment, and those checks and balances are very much still in place.

Just did. Here's some of the text from the article: "The president of the United States has always had the constitutional authority, and duty, to protect the American people and direct the national response to any emergency that threatens the security and safety of the United States. The Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity bill makes it clear that the president's authority includes securing our national cyber infrastructure from attack. The section of the bill that addresses this issue, applies specifically to the national response to a severe attack or natural disaster. This particular legislative language is based on longstanding statutory authorities for wartime use of communications networks. To be very clear, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill will not empower a "government shutdown or takeover of the Internet" and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false. The purpose of this language is to clarify how the president directs the public-private response to a crisis, secure our economy and safeguard our financial networks, protect the American people, their privacy and civil liberties, and coordinate the government's response." This is a bill highlighting wartime procedures w/r to US assets on the Internet. To interpret it as a government takeover of the Internet is not accurate. But it may be appealing to conspiracy theory buffs, of which a number of TWI or ex-TWI individuals might fit the bill.

<sarcasm> No, you mean they could do away with the "Tape Duplicating" department, the DVD recording department, half of A/V, bookstore personnel, packaging / shipping personnel all by just offering a "subscription" option on the web to download an audio or video file of the STS?????? Or to post it up free? You must be joking. </sarcasm> But that would require actually acknowledging the times, and adjusting to them. Not going to happen.

Yeah, most of their recent artwork looks like the children's coloring book version of Planet of the Apes... Actually, one interesting observation is that if you've observed any of the artwork on the literature that the Jehovah's Witnesses gives out - their Watchtower magaine, it looks eerily similar...

The internet is a powerful medium of communication, for sure. It does seem to follow that power struggles in government would try and harness it and get control of it. There are many countries where internet content is censored - the Middle East, China, etc. In the US, our government is a representative democracy, so those in political office certainly do think of the general public as uneducated on most issues. With the Fairness push, that is kind of a reaction to the different balance of power in the media. CNN and the bulk of the news media is liberal/left slanted. Fox and the whole talk radio is conservative/right slanted. I don't think the Fairness push will gain any kind of traction necessary. Shucks, they can't even gain much traction to regulate porn over the Internet. It's too vast to control and there's too much commerce tied to it. And anything affecting US commerce is too volatile an area to touch from a regulatory perspective.

I was bored the other night and picked up a recent Way mag that I found somewhere. The articles there were the same boring drivel that they were when I was in TWI. Except they seemed even more vanilla. I'm sure the SNS teachings are the same, although I don't need to subject myself to that snoozefest. On a recent thread I read about the AC Special recently. Boring drivel on "likemindedness", at a 7th grade level straight out of the collaterals. People in TWI seem to be mindlessly talking about the same things. Oh, and here's a clue. It's not "the Word". It's TWI corporate dumbed down drivel of their brand of "Christianity". It's not "It Is Written". It is "It Is Position". As long as they persist, there will be a steady stream of people who need answers to why that kind of thing goes on and affects them.

I agree with you on the wasted time. However, my take on this is the Bible is for the individual to build a relationship with their Father, and research can help understand Him. I don't let the abuse of a few false prophets cause me to deny my relationship I've built with God over years. God could work with me inside that insipid cult. He can surely do even more without the restrictions those sick individuals imposed. One verse talks about being delivered from wicked and unreasonable men.

There's a number of levels of answers to this. Of course, the little chief building his kingdom of control locally is always true. However, the whole structure of the organization is like this. An established local church has land, buildings, paid staff, etc. TWI has none of this. They run on no budget in people's houses or cheap rentals. The budget is 75% of money in the US goes to the farm, 15% stays in the area. The bulk of that 15% is the region coordinator's salary. So it's a system built on using people. Expectation and obligation. The word "serve" is thrown around. So when people have other priorities, or when they aren't quite as compliant to requests to clean the branch coordinators home for a meeting, or cart in all the cr@pola to set up a stage and backrop so a local dooface can bore people to tears for 45 minutes, they are pressured to resort to more strong-arm tactics or mind games. Like the "grow a pair" comment. In reality, TWI needs to "grow a pair" and invest the money back into their people rather than hoarding it at HQ, stocking it up, and continuing to grow thier little worthless farm with its delusional hierarchies. Then you wouldn't have this typical type of problem out in the field areas.

When you're under their authority there is that "spell" TWI leaders have on you - it reminds me of that stupid "Athletes" video where there are the stately and powerful spirits and how they walk and act. That's the perfect depiction of TWI leaders throwing their weight around or their self-deluded image of their positions of importance. But it makes you afraid while you accept the authority they have as genuine. Once you get out from under it you realize that all that is an illusion. Their authority is not genuine. It is not God-given. It is climbed up to through political means just as in any corporate entity in the business world. Nowhere in the New Testament do you find 8 layers of leadership between a believer or Christian and the "Chairman of the Board". It's all a hierarchical man-made construct that delivers fear and compliance. And they certainly play mind games with all of that too - that's imminently clear. Their authority is a complete illusion. When Jesus Christ comes back that will be made abundantly clear how they abused that and set themselves up where God did not. They are just a bunch of 2-bit second-rate idiots who couldn't even climb to a middle management spot in the secular realm. Then you start asking yourself "Why?" a lot. Why did I listen? Why didn't I laugh in their face? Why didn't I file a lawsuit like I could have? Why didn't I get out sooner? There's no clear answers other than we did the best we could when we woke up. And you start to see why they close ranks so fast and shun people when they leave. They don't want anyone else waking up.

I think all "works" based Christianity is a "not good enough" issue and produces insecurity. I suppose a strong basis in common sense and a good sarcastic sense of humor are a good start...

Straight out of the PFAL video / film. Filmed in 1965.

That's one sick individual - doing "bootie calls" in the middle of the night with his wife sleeping in the next building over.

Now with the Limb homes being in small out of the way places that was more late '70's to mid '80's. That was after VPW's consipiracy theorisms where the government / aliens / illuminati / whatever was trying to take down TWI, and we almost lost our country. So they bought small homes with acreage in out of the way places where if the country went down TWI members could come move onto the property. All that didn't work out too well as they just ended up being large places out of the way that required 3-5 "Limb staff" to upkeep. And of course the country magically didn't end up getting taken over somehow. After VPW died and they lost 80% of people / income, they had to sell off those places, as well as Emporia, Tinney NM, Indiana to stay afloat. They managed to hang onto Gunnison somehow at $2M / yr, and used it for the only location they trained Corps for a while, and now use it for a vacation spot and classes. Witnessing, in the last 15 years since they have taken the "no debt" stance and "no discussion of our research on debt" stance along with preventing anyone from being a fellowship coordinator, going to Adv. class or specials, or going into Corps with any debt, that alone has basically sidelined TWI to alienating the middle class with home mortgages. So basically everyone is ashamed of witnessing to their co-workers and acquaintances in society. Everyone is ashamed - Corps, people, everyone, and won't bring people to fellowship. Not ashamed of "the gospel" as Paul writes, but ashamed of the poor quality and controlling aspects of TWI. And with all the leadership living in rentals there is more restriction on meetings. And they mostly try to meet in "free" locations as well to preserve more money flowing into the delusion farm in Ohio. So they have far less to attract people than even your smallest local church. Der Verd is all they can promote, and even all that is restricted back to all foundational research material. So basically it's a fundamental Christian push targeted towards the 5th grade level with all the "Way" twists on scripture interpretation. In a nutshell their product sucks so their salesman are only selling out of obligation as opposed to out of enthusiasm. And absolutely that includes Corps. But they'll lie about it if asked. Because actually that's the one thing that Corps does best across the board - lie.

Waylaid, You sound like a nice person. I didn't mean to pile on with lectures - but there were a few posts around the same time as mine. An "innie lurker" is a person who is still actively involved in a TWI fellowship who reads posts on this forum but typically does not post. You don't need to apologize a whole lot. People all see if you do it once. It's just that there's a reaction time and people may be responding to a previous post or something. These forums and the people on it are mostly pretty good folks. They are worth getting to know a little.

He was a p3n1s healer? Just like his father in the Word?

I have a life. Sometimes it includes posting on these forums. Most of the time, not so much.

Yes, the superiority complex was pride, ego, and sickening. It was us deceiving ourselves, like I John talks about, saying we were walking in the light but dwelling in darkness. How many friendships, families, marriages were damaged by the pride and ego involved? TWI "believers" want to convince themselves they are better than your average Christian. However, in reality, they are far below par for you average Christian, however you measure it.

With the Home Depot thread, it is an appeal to the common sense logic that rules corporate entities. In the business world, anyone who made decisions of the nature that were made in TWI under the guise of 'revelation' would have been fired immediately upon the realization of the results. However, with the mysticism that is attached to these spiritual leaders, and justifying their decisions by saying "God told me this", they get away with far more, and there is far greater destruction experienced as a result in the lives of the average follower. Sure there is sarcasm, venom towards LCM in that thread. However, there is sarcasm and venom in the business world towards CEO's that run their companies into the ground as well, and surely from corporate employees. I'm sure LCM earned every bit of it by his actions. If the presidents of TWI in the past and present had been held to any kind of reasonable business standard they would not have been able to lead with such poor quality, all the while putting political religious spins on their actions to entice people to believe they are "better than the world". Your average corporate BOD has former presidents of similar organizations, people with experience in similar markets, and the ability to vote out a cr@ppy CEO. TWI's BOD, and especially the President / CEO position has never had accountability to anybody. They have no accountability to shareholders or members. They say they are accountable only to God. Well, eventually, yes. But right now or in their position they are subject only to their own pride, ego, and selfish interests. They blackball any dissention, and slander and ruin people who present differing opinions. This is corporate unhealthiness and disease all covered over by scriptures on "likemindedness". You seem to like to pick at some of the terminology around here and ways people express dislike, distaste, and contempt for the evil they've experienced. It is true that there is some jargon going on here that has developed among ex-TWI members. However, if you take the time to think about it, it is far less distasteful than the BS Pollyanna jargon in TWI. I mean, come on. "We're crossing over the bridge into the Promised Land of the Prevailing Word"?????? People gave up careers, took losses on selling houses, moved across the country all for that metaphor which turned out to be some dooface's power mongering false revelation. And now the controlling nature of the leadership is so fear based that people engineer their whole lives around their relationship with the idiot the next step up the chain from them and are so afraid they practically ask if it's ok to go to the bathroom. Leaders love slogans like "We're going to run on the rails that got us here" to discount new ideas and continue to enforce their control and stubborn resistance to change. There is no threat of poor economic returns to oust them. There is no democratic element of leadership. There are no checks and balances. It is far worse than any denomination, which have democratic elements and checks and balances. Many people who have been here for a long time already have "gotten over it". However, some of us feel that it is service to God and our fellow man to help others "get over it", or "avoid it", or "understand it", or "not get fooled by it". And those of us with that mindset who are hearing your insulting comments towards us pretty much can say to you - "why don't you remove the beam in your own eye there, brother". Then we can have a conversation.

If that j@ck0ff were president of Home Depot, it would be bankrupt in 5 years, despite it's world presence and brand. Their HR department would need a staff of lawyers to deal with issues not protected under freedom of religion. He would need a whole security dept to protect him from ....ed off husbands, fathers, brothers of brainwashed women he took advantage of with his power. The corporate credit would be overdrawn, they'd make acquisitions they couldn't pay for, they'd need to double the size of HR trainers for sensitivity training, all the employees would have attitude problems, and probably the corporate mascot dog would be violated. Just going on track record, that is.

You know this is where local churches are just so much better witnesses than any of your fear-bound cult group braindead TWI types. They have an actual building in the local community, which represents permanent investment into the community. They have members who own homes in the community, unlike TWI who are not allowed due to debt policy. They pay property taxes. Churches many times host for free community groups such as scouts or intramural sports. Church members and leaders are there as permanent fixtures, not volunteer Corpse who move around at TWI's whim. All in all your average church has TONS more investment in any local community than anything TWI can muster. And that's why they have more membership, more excitement, etc. All TWI really is is some boring tapes from HQ weekly, a structure dictating how many times to hold your Bible study and what to study, a magazine, some basic boring fundamental classes, and a local despot trying to build their little fiefdom. And a bunch of puffed up worthless idiots with holy titles acting important. All encased in fear, politics, and bribery. Jesus said by their fruit you know them. What is TWI's fruit? What does TWI's HQ literally produce? Over-edited, vanilla teachings and articles all based on the collaterals, which themselves were the publishing of VPW's weekly sermons and writings. Dictatorial control over leadership. Directives on how to do everything. A fear-based ministry. A ministry that says it's based on "It is Written", but instead functions on "It Is Position". Who says something is infinitely more important than a Bible verse. And the people at the top have over years been exposed having worse morals than just about any professing Christian out there. You know, people in TWI SHOULD say - "I'm not going to fellowship tonight, I'm going to my son's soccer practice." Or blow off the stupid branch meeting to do something to REALLY help someone rather than going and listen to some self-important idiot blather on out of the collaterals for the 500th time. But they don't, because they are sheep, not men and women. They are blind, deaf, dumb, and numb. They want to be led, fed, babied, coddled, pampered, called, told they are great, etc. They aren't. They are despicable, and they don't even take care of their own families. They are worse than the Christian middle class in a community. They are spiritual vagabonds and nomads, begging for table scraps, and flagellating themselves with mental whips to keep themselves doing "good works", while in reality they are just serving the devil in the form of an egomaniac disguised as a spiritual authority. They should WAKE UP. There is no new light in that ministry. There is no movement of God. Even the sexual predator leaders could at least pretend like they were getting revelation and do something exiting once in a decade or so. Even the flashy lie could at least pass for a movement of God at times, and if enough believed it, God could honor it. But now - it's just death warmed over on toast. God doesn't work in those leaders - they've compromised their integrity too many times and screwed over too many people. The burning flax has gone out. The light is gone. You can find more genuine Christians per square foot in ANY local church in your community.

And of course for a little bit of common sense logic (never found in TWI)... In a top-down organization, which way does sh!@#$% flow? Downhill, of course.

It goes right along with what my statistics teacher used to say consistently as a joke - "did you know 80% of all statistics are made up on the fly?"

Sounds like some regimented and hypocritical BS you went through there WG. I'm sorry you had to endure it.