one(rather big one) for the road...

i know this is insanely long. my daughter taught me how to copy/paste today. so it is also an experiment. not sure if will work, so if it comes out wierd it is because i forgot the magic word.

i hope i can follow that ancient eastern wisdom i read on a pkg of firecrackers..."lay on ground. light fuse. retire quickly."

Stepping back a little bit, it occurred to me that much of my frustration in attempting to communicate on this board is due to the very format. A persons ideas come out piecemeal…someone reacts to some aspect of that post. The dialogue than takes off on a tangent, new voices jumping in as they click on, and stumble on some “trigger” half way thru the discussion, possibly not even aware of what the discussion was originally about. Then one finds themselves having to go back and re-explain what they were saying. Then someone new jumps in, etc. etc. etc. all the while blood pressure continues to rise. One starts to think about their preferred choice of dueling weapons, and…

Just to gain some sort of closure, (you know, one last smoke before I quit…) I would like to try and clear the slate and try to summarize w/o too many daggers to anyone’s heart, what it was that I was trying to say. I want to stay away from that “hypothetical” thing. I found it very labyrinthine, and got a little lost in its passageways.

It all started back w/ that “snakes, nazis, addicts” thing, as far as it related to actions taken against ssu. Too summarize my feelings about ssu, it is my personal opinion, from what I have seen , that it was a project of some individual family members, not ws owned or operated, from their public and private statements, business/distribution plan, method of operating etc. the fact that they did not disclose this to a christian company w/ whom they were entering into partnership, knowing that if exposure were to come it could significantly their partners, was highly unethical. Of course this is to be expected to some extent, as “decievers- yet true” is so woven into family thinking.

The fact that they are fammems means that a portion of their earnings will go to ws in the form of tithes. I agreed that this is a valid issue, but no more than if that income came from canning, carwash, or kiddievids.my own personal judgment that , aside from the unethical identity hide, that producing and selling what appear to me to be reasonably healthy, innocuous, childrens material, produced independent of ws scripting etc. was a step in the right direction…towards a conventional business, rather than gypsy street scam. Others may not agree, but I think it is at least a reasonable position.

As far as the action taken to “out” them, I may not feel it was necessarily the right thing to do, but I can see the logic presented by several, that they could not in good conscience allow the partners and public to participate in any activity family related w/o there knowing who was involved. At that stage, even conceding the logic there, I feel the ethical , biblical, and just plain decent thing to do would be to contact them and explain your concerns, and rationale for the planned action. Some seem to feel since the believe no one in the family is incapable of any honest behavior that they are not deserving of this simple act. But how could it hurt? If approached w/ some compassion and understanding, completely up front, and given a chance to evaluate their position, if they were having some doubts about things, this may have given them an incentive to explore those issues. If not, and they opt for “my family, my family”, then at least the action taken will have a better chance of impacting their conscience further down the road, (or amongst other fammems who read the report about it later.)

The part that leaves me puzzled is exactly what one hopes to accomplish thru this type of action against individual homes. Back to the nazi snake heads. Some posted such actions forced the family to change policies in the past. Fair enough. But what would one try to pressure them to change now? The crimes , of which we all agree, the family is responsible for in the past have all been outlawed. We know persecution not only does not make m&p rethink their theology (if one can even use the term about their beliefs) , but actually tends to harden their pharaonic hearts, heighten the paranoia levels & further reduce contacts w/ outsiders, (particularly exmems, many of whom have relatives still in.) in the light of the vandari stuff and their recent persecution prophecies, it may even play directly into their hand. Creative people are effectively limited to fam only projects. Folks exploring economic lives independent of the “tools” are chastised and warned. To borrow imagery from the past, the sheep are gather into tighter folds, w/ higher walls, as the dark clouds gather on the horizon.

I do see it as an expression of rage. And that is of course, as jules so eloquently expressed, is totally deserved. I suppose if it would really in anyway aleviate the suffering of the wounded, whatever the side effects,it may be worth it. but it seems to me, and the book of proverbs I believe, that a more carefully thought out strategy might be more effective, especially if the ultimate goal is “to set the captives free.” (as for the goal of dismantling the family, I appear not to be alone in seeing that as an unrealistic objective. There will always be those who stay for the koolaid.)

the end.