Power of Publication

When Charles Taze Russell stole the Watchtower magazine from Barbour 150 years ago he gained control over the publication business and the strength of the organization ever since.

Publish or perish is the cry and the Watchtower uses its relentless publication power to push its message out across the planet from New York.

No matter what enemies or detractors say, the latest Watchtower will fill the faithful with the appropriate thought and logic. Add to that a volunteer army to disseminate those magazines and you have power.

With social media - Blogging, YouTube, Facebook and websites - that power can be challenged for the first time.

If you have a JW negative story, and there are millions of them, you can quickly and easily get it out there with a Blog, video blog, or simply as a comment on a chat room.

Google is the engine that will drive viewers to your posting or message. To increase the chances of getting heard, linking to other sites is important. Wherever you can link your site to other JW topic sites and encourage reciprocal linking.

With social media we have the power never before in the hands of the people. You shall publish the truth and it will make you free.

28 Years of Freedom

It's been 28 years since I left the JW's. It seems like I never was one except for memories.

Of course there's the emotional abuse from my family but after almost 3 decades it's hard to take them seriously. I've gotten adjusted to my 88 year old mother not really embrassing me like a good son.

Those things hurt every once in awhile but otherwise keep me away from those nutballs. Their world view is too preposterous for words and the gestapo surveillance tactics too much.

I come in contact with them weekly though since JW's love to comment on my YouTube videos. Almost 7,500 people have watch that video. Amazing.

I get a chuckle from people misquoting the Bible to defend the death of a family member. From a philisophical level this is similar to sending one's young men into war. The belief system is the state not a religion.

Personally I prefer to follow no leader. My mistakes will be my own.

Barbara Anderson responds to Knocking

Barbara Anderson has two replies below it: (To Joel Engardio the producer of Knocking_

Date: 01 Jul 2005
Time: 12:41:32
Comments

Dear Sirs, I'm writing regarding your documentary, KNOCKING. I'm sure you spent a tremendous amount of time and money on this production, and I certainly wish that I could congratulate you on your efforts, but I can't. I'm so sorry that before you embarked on this project you were not privy to another viewpoint about Jehovah's Witnesses, the one that comes from those who know from first hand experience that what you have been told and what you presented about this organization is not 100% correct. Of course, many statements you made on your web site regarding the subject of your documentary are true. However, you have not been told the whole truth, but many half-truths. Also, as a professional researcher, I can prove that some of the things you think are true about Jehovah's Witnesses is revisionist history.

I know what I'm talking about because of my past 43 years as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, many of those years spent living and working at the world headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in Brooklyn, NY. I have attached a transcript of a lecture I gave last year in Washington State to a group of people from many parts of this country who were deeply interested in Jehovah's Witnesses for diverse reasons. The attached transcript of my lecture explains who I am and what I did in the Watchtower Writing Department in Brooklyn, NY. It also explains why I'm embroiled in a lawsuit against all of the legal entities of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc., the corporations representing Jehovah's Witnesses.

I'm not a disgruntled ex-Jehovah's Witness who has an axe to grind. I'm the foremost whistleblower who uncovered the massive cover-up of pedophile activities within the Watchtower organization. I spoke out in 1992 on the TV program Dateline and continue to do so even at great personal cost and risk. I can substantiate my claims 100% and I think it might be wise for you to consider to include in your documentary the story about the other side, the secret side, of Jehovah's Witnesses before you offer your documentary to PBS stations, or you will be very embarrassed in the future as the facts start to unfold in courts across this country.

Please, I beg of you, read my lecture, and let me hear from you. I will be most happy to kindly discuss this and other important issues that are bedeviling the Witness organization at this time.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,

Barbara Anderson

Letter to the Producer of "Knocking"

Ed: The pro-Jehovah's Witness movie "Knocking" was aired on PBS this week. The producer Joel P. Engardio is doing a heavy promotion job on the movie which is what producers do. The process seems inherently dishonest since Mr. Engardio says he is neutral to the Jehohah's Witness sect and he is gay. That is impossible since JW's are kicked out for being gay. What Mr. Engardio is saying is I don't want to be a Witness since they don't like gay people. The promotion of his movie is part ego, part greed.

Randy Watters says, "The following was posted at my guest list the other day, by a producer of a new documentary that is pro-Witness and may go out on PBS. We need to write these people!"

Date: 28 Jun 2005
Time: 20:19:32
Comments
Subject: Thanks for your interest in the KNOCKING documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm Joel Engardio, director of the project. Since the http://www.knocking.org/ web site went live a few days ago, I've been hearing from Jehovah's Witnesses like yourselves from Arizona to Arkansas and everywhere in between. Some have commented that the film clip downloads don't work. The site is brand new, and is still a work in progress. Check back from time to time to see new bells and whistles. Also, please note that my email address will change in a few weeks to joel@knocking.org. It's been great to hear from so many Witnesses around the United States. Hopefully word will spread to other countries in Europe and beyond. Please feel forward the link http://www.knocking.org/ to all your friends far and wide.

Beyond a national broadcast on PBS in the United States, my goal is to make the film available to international audiences with language subtitles. Indeed, Jehovah's Witnesses are in more than 200 lands, and their story about blood, the Holocaust and preservation of civil liberties resonates around the globe. The aim of KNOCKING is to give a general, non-Jehovah's Witness audience a fair look at a religious group that has long been misunderstood and relegated to cartoonish stereotypes. KNOCKING uses the real life stories of real families to humanize Jehovah's Witnesses. We show both the ups and downs, including what it is like to have unbelieving or opposing family members, and how divided families can find common ground.

For instance, the young man who does a groundbreaking bloodless liver transplant has opposing family members who come to the hospital to see first-hand that the new bloodless technology works. I think KNOCKING will be educational and illuminating for a non-Jehovah's Witness audience, affirming for those who are Jehovah's Witnesses, and compelling and entertaining for all. I imagine Jehovah's Witnesses will enjoy the film and will want their extended family, neighbors, co-workers and classmates to take a look as well. We will eventually offer DVDs for home and school use. There will be a special introductory rate for Jehovah's Witnesses. I'll be sure to send more details on that later. In the coming months, I'll send periodic newsletter updates on the film. If you don't want these updates, just write back and tell me to take you off the mailing list.

As of June 3, 2005, the film is being edited in San Francisco. We finished production earlier this year. Throughout the course of the project, we filmed in California, Georgia, Ohio, New York, Nevada, and Texas as well as Austria and Poland. We may have filmed in your congregation or at one of your conventions! Throughout the summer we will continue to edit, crafting more than 200 hours of footage into a 60 or 90 minute final film. Thankfully, the DVD will be able to retain all the wonderful additional scenes and interviews that end up on the cutting room floor.

The film will be delivered to PBS in the fall, and it will be entered in film festivals such as Sundance. In early 2006, we hope the film will premiere at a prestigious film festival. The national television broadcast on PBS would follow later in 2006. Between a film festival premiere and the national broadcast, we hope to bring KNOCKING to cities throughout the United States for special screenings in community event theaters. This will be a chance for you to see a sneak preview and perhaps meet some of the film's subjects in a live Q&A session. The KNOCKING web site and messages like this email to you will provide information about where and when the sneak previews will take place.

If you are interested in organizing such a screening in your city, please contact me directly and we can talk more about how to make that happen. I plan to use local volunteers to organize these screenings. Please keep in mind that every Jehovah's Witness who has contributed to this film, either on camera or behind the scenes, has done so by their own personal choice. There is no official connection to Watchtower, though the Bethel organization in Brooklyn, Patterson and Wallkill, New York has been cooperative with the producers of this film. It is important to know that this project is independently produced for public television, using public funds. We feel this lends added credibility to the film when viewed by a non-Jehovah's Witness audience. No one on the production staff is a Jehovah's Witness. The director's mother, however, is a Witness in Michigan.

I look forward to seeing the positive impact this film has in telling the untold stories of Jehovah's Witnesses. I hope you do, too. Thanks again for contacting us, and the KNOCKING staff will be sure to keep you up to date on the latest progress.

Sincerely, Joel P. Engardio Producer/Director

Come in stranger

Illustration by Carolina Arentsen

Ed: A friend wrote me about the end of World, God style and this came to me.

God sent us here not to sit around
Waiting for the End our buts on the ground
He gave us strength and two good hands
To get out and about, help our fellow man.

If things are tough, like they often are
Stop your moping, you’re better by far
Than billions of people who go to bed
With a hungry stomach cause they ain’t fed

They don’t care about Wal-Mart color TV’s
Driving in fancy cars taking their ease
They need a doctor when they get ill
And the help to buy expensive pills.

God’ll come when he does, who knows when
Then he’ll be asking what you did for your fellow man
Did you clothe him, or feed him or take him in
Give him a drink, go to prison, and forgive his sin.

If you’re doing all that, you don’t need to worry
Your life will pass by in one awful hurry
And when you meet God, wherever that may be
He’ll say “Come in stranger you belong to me.”

Matthew 25:40 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

THE LAND 'LORD'

Ed: While ostensibly a religion, what drives most of the Jehovah's Witness empire is the same as all organizations: power and money. Pastor Russell's takeover of Barbour's Watchtower magazine was a power grab. Russell, who had no printing plant experience, was able to manoeuvre Barbour out of his printing plant and out of his company.

Today the organization is one of the world's largest publishing companies with 6 million unpaid and willing salesmen pounding the streets pushing bibles and magazines. No other publisher can boast the free distribution of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

There is an old joke, the three most important things in life are money, sex and power. Jehovah's Witnesses run on the money and power. Where is the sex.

By RICH CALDER
May 14, 2007 -- The Jehovah's Witnesses might be better known for Bibles than buildings, but the religious sect's vast real-estate portfolio in Brooklyn would make even Donald Trump salivate.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the Witnesses' publishing arm, says that while it's not planning a mass exodus from Brooklyn, it is selling six of its 18 Brooklyn Heights buildings. Those include four on Columbia Heights, the borough's priciest street, which overlooks New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

Watchtower owns 30 meticulously kept buildings and three lots in affluent Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO worth hundreds of millions of dollars that brokers say are more valuable than ever with ground breaking this summer on the 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park project.

The Witnesses say they are not using an outside agent and haven't set asking prices, but one local broker estimates they can rack up more than $60 million for just the six sites they have announced.

"It's such a windfall of property," said J. Jean Austin of Brooklyn Bridge Realty.

Austin estimated that the largest of the six, the 12-story Standish Arms Hotel building at 169 Columbia Heights, could command $35 million alone.

The Witnesses have been a mainstay in Brooklyn Heights since setting up their world headquarters there in 1909. With a need to house its growing membership, the sect began gobbling up properties, both in the Heights and neighboring DUMBO, in the 1980s and early '90s, when real-estate prices were relatively cheap.

But in 2004, the Witnesses slowly began moving some of their operations north, relocating their Bible- and magazine-printing business upstate to Wallkill. At the same time, the Big Apple's real-estate market was booming - particularly in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO.

That year, they sold their former book plant at 360 Furman St. for $205 million - more than 50 times the $3.9 million they paid for the 14-story building in 1983, according to records. The site is being converted into a 449-unit luxury-condo complex within the planned Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The Witnesses also made hefty profits last year selling a 76-unit building on Livingston Street for $18.6 million and a 42-unit building on Hicks Street for $14 million.

"They bought their buildings for their own use, not looking to cash out, at a time when the market was dead and you couldn't give real estate away in this area," said Andy Gerringer, managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman Developments. "I don't know if it was savvy investing, luck or divine intervention."

The buildings for sale include the hotel on Columbia Heights, between Clark and Pierrepont Streets, which is being sold in a portfolio with seven- and four-story apartment buildings on the same street.

Three 19th-century properties - a two-story carriage house on Columbia Heights, a four-story brownstone on Willow Street, and a four-story brick house on Willow Street - are being sold separately.

"The Heights has always been a desirable place to live, and Brooklyn Bridge Park will even accent that more," said Richard Devine, Watchtower's property manager.

But he added that the timing of the park's construction "has nothing to do with the sale of the properties."

Parents appeal court order for blood transfusions

Susan Lazaruk, The Province (Vancouver, BC)
Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Four premature sextuplets apprehended by the B.C. government for blood transfusions were taken one at a time without their parents getting a chance to argue the transfusions were unnecessary, B.C. Supreme Court was told yesterday.

"Very simply, the case is about the right to have a fair hearing when the parents are making important decisions," said Shane Brady, the parents' lawyer.

The parents were given little or no notice of the apprehensions at the end of January and beginning of February, he said.

Shane Brady, lawyer for the Jehovah's Witness family, said he will argue there was no medical emergency that justified apprehension of the babies.

The parents, whose names cannot be published, are Jehovah's Witnesses and their religion forbids blood transfusions.

The young father of the four surviving babies of Canada's first sextuplets, wearing a dark suit, a crisp white shirt and his dark hair short and jelled, sat attentively in the front row of the public gallery.

He spoke with his lawyers during breaks but politely declined to speak with a Province reporter.

Three of the babies are now living with him and his wife at home and the fourth is expected to join them in a few days. Two died soon after birth.

Two of the babies, born 10 weeks premature on Jan. 7 at B.C. Women's Hospital, were removed from the parents' care without a court hearing and two were apprehended after an ex parte, or one-sided, court hearing over the phone, Brady said. Parents were given 20 minutes' notice of the hearing in one case.

The first baby was removed on Friday, Jan. 26, and the second and third the following day. On the following Wednesday, the parents took the province to court, at which point the three children were returned to them. Two days later, the fourth child was apprehended.

"It was just a social worker [that] walked in, told the parents, 'We're going to apprehend your child and authorize transfusions,' and the parents had no opportunity at all to test that," Brady said outside court.

He said a federal court ruling more than 10 years ago upheld the right of parents to challenge before a judge a hospital's prescribed treatment for children.

Although all four babies, two boys and two girls who are now three months old, received one blood transfusion each, the parents took court action to prevent similar apprehensions in future.

They are appealing the two court orders and have applied for a judicial review of the removal of two children without court orders. That case will be heard this summer.

Brady wanted to cross-examine doctors who ordered the transfusions based on the babies' hemoglobin levels.

But Chief Justice Donald Brenner denied his request, saying cross-examining those who provide affidavits is not a usual practice.

The Crown said the issue is whether the social worker correctly removed the children, "given the urgent situation with each child."

Brady said he will argue there was no medical emergency that would justify the apprehensions.

He said he will present medical evidence from three expert doctors arguing transfusions aren't necessary based on certain low hemoglobin levels.

Brady said outside court that the parents are "delighted that three of the children are at home and the fourth is about to return to them in the next few days."

He said "it's still too early to tell" what their long-term prognosis is.

slazaruk@png.canwest.com