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In Reply to: New here, have some questions..... posted by goth88 on June 26, 2002 at 19:19:12:
Hi,
just wanted to briefly respond to the part about Rick (Watchman)
From the time I remember him, Rick did NOT have a problem with alcohol. If he drank while he was in Japan, at times, and was pilloried for that, well, consider the fact that what was happening in Japan was enough to drive anybody crazy or at least crazy enough to break 'the rules' and have more than the 4 ounces allowed in the Family (like the time he got his bike and went out, drank beer and was found in an uncoherent state....what REALLY happened that you will not hear is that that was one of the times where his relationship with a woman who was expecting his child was suddenly severed by 'leadership' edict, and that he was forbidden to ever see that person from a day to the next. I challenge anybody not to BE ROYALLY PISSED at losing somebody they loved because of someone's 'orders' - especially since that was one of leadership favorite means of torture and had already happened before - taking a bike and going to have beer and possibly wrecking the bike seems really minimal when compared with the wreckage of a person's life as a whole, but you won't find THOSE fine details going around because few people know them)
I was very close to him during the last year and a half of his life, and spent several months with him before he died. Again, there was no alcohol "problem" when I knew him. I find that there are so many uncorroborated rumors going around and it is important to establish facts.
There are many things that have not come out about Rick's story for many reasons:
some of them involve people of his personal family and are rather sensitive material. It is not something I would put out there for all.
Basically the ONLY person who was close to him and know what happened in the end is me. That has been a VERY heavy weight for me to carry, emotionally and psychologically. Immediately after his death, his family called me to know details, because I was the only person he regularly talked to. I was the last person to talk to him before he died as well. I have most of that in my journals as I knew even back then it would be something important to remember, as things tend to get blurry with time, especially when it is complicated stuff.
His story is therefore a complex story and, just like Merry Berg's, and in many ways a story emblematic of the worst you can find in the Family, at top leadership levels, as far as intrigue, slander, propaganda (through the Watchman series that was published in the early 90's -does ANYBODY have those pubs? I would really like to be able to have them or copies,) torture, and plain distortion of facts in order to destroy a person completely. I have always believed the Cog leadership capable of murdering people. There are no other words for some of what was perpetrated upon some who happened to end up in the Berg/Zerby meat grinder.
I can explain most points specifically if we were to take individual documents and issues (like the Getting to know Rick Dupuy document, for example, that the F concocted and got out to the media in 1993 - I would like to know who worked on that one in the Family as it is a prime example of the smear jobs the F put on, ad hominem attacks, that usually used a mixture of lies and truth, that really did not prove that the Family was after all innocent of what they were accused of, which is exploiting and abusing people and children - which was the main point in the Larry King Live show as well, where he was slandered and ridiculed even though he was the ONLY person who told the truth)
I have not had the time up until now to put together letters, tapes, and a lot of stuff I have that Rick left before he died. Since he often said he was dying but was concerned in clearing up his record because "after all he had been through the ONLY thing of value to him was just the truth" the countless hours he spent with me recollecting issues about the Family and discussing personal experiences are to be considered bona fide. He really had no particular interest in glossing things up - he was down enough on himself, and there was enough self-loathing there (especially after countless exorcisms, isolation, imprisonment, sleep deprivation, private screaming in your face sessions with a sexually deranged Faith Fisher Berg - must have been like sex with Mocumba or something for a 'sane' male instead of Berg - that was considered part of his retraining while he held in isolation in Japan - yes, men CAN be raped I learned then, since apparently she is a lot like her father - and having his stuff burned, the loss of family, friends and just about everyone he had been close to in 20 years in the F) and rued some of the things he had done in his life.
He talked at length about lots of sensitive issues, including his legal testimony in Argentina and England, the arranged single sexual episode with a 10 year old in the Dominical Republic in the early 80's when Peter Amsterdam got to their home, (he told millions of viewers about it in Larry King Live so it is no secret...what is interesting about it is in the details surronding the awful episode) and so much more...hours of testimony and personal reflection over many years of a life that seemed now irreparably wasted.
But... once I do manage to revisit ALL of this with its emotional considerable costs, I plan to have some of that stuff up on this site, including passages of tapes where he is speaking about issues that may be of interest to many who did or did not know him.
Sorry if this is not so well organized. As you can see, it is still a difficult issue to talk about for me.
