James Thomas Rook Jr.

Soon after I was born, this came out in the AWAKE! magazine ..... As Dorothy said (paraphrased) "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto"

If they are registered as a "Company" ... which according to this news THEY ARE ... the civil authorities have the moral high ground.... and the "Company" has to obey the laws that APPLY to "Companies". The same thing has been recently established through the UK Supreme Court ... The Society is registered as a "Charity" in the UK, and for the past several years have been resisting and fighting in court after court that the Government DID NOT have the right to investigate Jehovah's Witnesses for the incidences of Child Sexual Abuse in the Congregations and what appears to be institutionalized policy. They ALSO lost in that legal battle, and will be investigated. This is an example of what happens when something that walks like a Duck, looks like a Duck, and quacks like a duck tries to pass itself off as a cow ... and discovers that people also EAT COWS. .Who knew? Remember the October 2015 meltdown, when MASSIVE Bethel and Special Pioneer layoffs resulted in about 83,000 ( ... if memory serves ...) Witnesses to be "shown the front door", and escorted out?

Whoa .... *coff* ...AAAAA

. ..so you agree, then ... that the triangle is mad at the tube?

Tom, Tom Tommy Tom Tom: Since you have misconstrued everything I have said, taken it out of context, and misapplied the PRINCIPLES of what I was ILLUSTRATING with contemporary examples of generally common knowledge in the Western world .. there is nothing I can do for you. You will just have to wallow in being you ... and I will wallow in being me. I quote you here to serve as a PERFECT example of my previous statement ... It is FALSE ... but you believe it to be true. You MADE IT UP .... misquoting me for your own agenda. I will give you this .. you are 100% consistent. Your supposition is absurd on the face of it .... and your reactions to my postings is actually FUNNY. I have enough experience with dangerous people whose philosophy is one stick away from a witch hunt and burning one at the stake to disregard it personally. .... and, oh Tommy Tom Tom ..... have a nice day!

O. K.

If they have ALREADY confiscated the Society's property, it now belongs to the Russian Federation ... if so, WHO CARES? I have no interest in insulting people ... just sloppy thinking, which I myself occasionally wallow in.

I stand corrected .... but.. a "Cowboy" is someone that manages cows, nicht wahr?

Eoin Joyce: It is SO refreshing every once in a great while to hear a well reasoned, coherent thought. Thank You! .

bruceq: Since reading comprehension seems to suffer because of the agendized glasses you look through .... I cannot help you understand other than the straight English sentences I have already posted. Some people look at a house and say "That is a white house (or green, or tan, as the case may be ..). If you asked me I would reply "The parts of the house I can see are white (or green, or tan ,,,), with a dark colored shingle roof, and a red brick chimney, etc. ". Good detectives detect a LOT ... bad detectives ... no so much. People that base their perceptions on an agenda, ... not at all. The back of the house may be painted black, or cherry red. When your life depends on it, details are IMPORTANT! . . . .

bruceq: Your last post presumes that Jesus can be wrong, which is FALSE. You obviously did not read where I have ALREADY completely answered the exact question you asked previously. SCROLL UP ! When we have a constant stream of "New Light", it means that the people that are NOT Jesus Christ .. WERE WRONG ....... constantly. . .

bruceq: That is a LOT of "perhapses", and "may be", and "may puts" testings of theoretical loyalty. That is WHY we have trained consciences .... to be able to discern the DIFFERENCE between Jesus's direction, and arbitrary made-up stuff that is NOT Jesus' direction, but corporate policy. We each have to decide what "perhapses", and "may be", and "may puts" testings of theoretical loyalty are REAL, and what are merely mechanisms for control by men, for no legitimate theocratic reason. To answer you question ... If I did not ALREADY know the symbolism ... I would have done BOTH! Like the old saying goes (paraphrased) " Fairie Tales by a milkmaid can be disregarded ... Fairie Tales from a REAL FAIRIE deserve your attention". Remember, the constant stream of "New Light" means that formerly we were, BY DEFINITION ... given darkness as spiritual food before .... and it was necessary to APOSTATIZE from those beliefs for "new light" . . .

I believe (if memory serves) that it was American Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale that said "My country right or wrong... but MY COUNTRY!" The Nazis also had that philosophy, as do we for OUR Spiritual Nation.. Remember, even David, the beloved of God, had to hide out when King Saul went nutso and was trying to kill him for his own selfish reasons ... and Saul was ACTIVELY ... the Annointed of Jehovah at the time. "STUFF HAPPENS!" I disagree. When they serve the cause of righteousness correctly, your statement is true ... when incompetence and ignorance and self serving aggrandizement is the law ... NO! AND OF COURSE! we will have to pay whatever price levied. That is the theme of the 2016 movie "Hacksaw Ridge" ... illegal orders do NOT have to be obeyed. . .

bruceq: I agree that disfellowshipping is a necessary part of keeping the Congregations clean from the things you mentioned ... BUT ... can you imagine Jesus Christ doing it the way that it is practiced today? ... ONLY in a Monty Python movie reduced to the absurd.. or a Vatican horror movie such as the Hunchback of Notre Dame Early "christians" also tortured people, and burned them at the stake to cleanse their souls with fire. TECHNICALLY, when a soldier uses a flamethrower against enemy soldiers, as the Americans did against the Japanese during the battle of Okinawa, it was NOT torture to burn someone alive ... because there was no INTENT to torture. The nuances of that well recognized legal distinction is lost on those being burned to death. Remember: Jesus Christ did not ruin the prostitute that was about to be stoned to death by the Elders of his day ... he said "Go your way, and sin no more ...". .

IT'S COW'S BLOOD !!! IT'S COW'S BLOOD !!! WHAT PART OF IT BEING COW'S BLLLLL0000000OD IS NOT UNDERSTOOD! ?

Justice you get from Jehovah God, and Jesus Christ .... any time men become involved, the MOST you can reasonably hope for in "due process". Remember ... during the times when the Nazis ruled Germany and much of Europe ... they had a fully staffed and operational "Department of Justice" ... but there was no Justice .... ... but LOTS and LOTS of "due process". Remember when called into the little back "Room 101" that the trial is called a "hearing" ... NOT a trial .... an example of "due process that may or may not have anything to do with Justice. .

I don't think most Witnesses ever consider that to the Russians, "Family" is extremely important ... during the Gulag years family was the only thing there was, as the tyranny of the Soviet Empire was a corrosive fog that eroded everyone. They saw neighbors rounded up and shipped to Siberia, in winter, dumped on the side of railroad tracks in the wildernesses, and with no food, or tools, told to build a city. MUCH cheaper than prisons . Work camps in the wilderness WERE the prisons. THEY HAVE LEARNED what tyranny is and the only refuge is Family, and neighbors. Wikipedia says this about the Soviet Gulags: " The Gulag Archipelago (Russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, Arkhipelag GULAG) is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about the Soviet forced labor camp system. The three-volume book is a narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a gulag labor camp. Written between 1958 and 1968, it was published in the West in 1973 and, thereafter, circulated in samizdat (underground publication) form in the Soviet Union until its appearance in the Russian literary journal, Novy Mir, in 1989, in which a third of the work was published over three issues. GULag or Gulág is an acronym for the Russian term Glavnoye Upravleniye ispravitelno-trudovyh Lagerey (Главное Управление Исправительно-трудовых Лагерей), or "Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps", the bureaucratic name of the governing board of the Soviet labour camp system, and by metonymy, the camp system itself. The original Russian title of the book is Arkhipelag GuLag, the rhyme supporting the underlying metaphor deployed throughout the work. The word archipelago compares the system of labor camps spread across the Soviet Union with a vast "chain of islands", known only to those who were fated to visit them. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Russian Federation, The Gulag Archipelago has been officially published, and it has been included in the high school program in Russia as mandatory reading since 2009." THEY HAVE LEARNED about families being ripped apart and scattered to the wind, for senseless administrative cruelties to keep the system supplied with money, labor, and suppression of dissent ... so when they learn that Jehovah's Witnesses in disciplining their "flock" also destroy families, extended families, and entire social networks for the same reasons ... they look at it as cruel and unusual, and destructive to the fabric of society as a whole. The fact that Jehovah's Witnesses NEVER behave in an extremist manner toward the Nation as a whole is not that important, as they can see the seeds of past terrors lying beneath the surface, waiting to infect the fabric of the Russian Federation as a whole. They have learned from history ... their pogroms of the past killed over 20 MILLION Russian citizens in THEIR witch hunts. When we, as disfellowshipping is practiced today, to discipline ONE PERSON .... destroy his relationships with mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, and cut off all communications with them ... it is worse than being arrested on fabricated charges and being sent to a wilderness work camp to freeze or starve. It is cruelty BEYOND physical hardship. I have and have read all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago, and understand this nature of the Russian people. They were sheep, and they were led to the slaughter by their leaders to consolidate their power and authority. This is what is called in every political and religious system that has ever existed, or exists now ... NORMAL. When will WE ever learn / When will WE ever, Ever, EVER learn? The reason Jehovah's were banned in the Russian Federation was because we DESERVE TO BE BANNED. Such CRUELTY flying the false flag of righteousness the Russians know all too well. .

Not so far ...batting zero.

Is this a "composite story", made up from fragments of real life experiences, or a "teaching story" made up completely from someone's imagination? If it is real, it should have a date, a place, details of the person, a name, and other details to corroborate it's authenticity. Where did this story come from? Years ago (circa 1969) there was a notice on Kingdom Hall bulletin boards, and I saw them in both Richmond, Virginia, and a year later in Hollywood, California, that astronomers had via "calculations" determined that the Sun had actually stood still for a day during the times of ancient Israel ... and Brothers picked up on it, and gave talks citing this reference ... everyone (but me) that I met in the Truth KNEW this to be true. It wasn't. Fairie Tales told by the easily deluded or fanciful need to be disregarded .. Fairie Tales told by genuine Fairies can be given more credence.. In the 7th Grade I learned that "stories" need to have "Who, What, When, Where, How Much, and sometimes Why?" to be credible, otherwise we make ourselves into complete fools .... where the credibility gap is equaled by the gullibility fill. Choose !!! I know Bro. Elumbaugh who used to be in our Circuit, and his homespun humor often includes stories like this, which I enjoyed, as homespun stories .... but the average person does not understand this .. and it is NECESSARY .. IF ... Is this a "composite story", made up from fragments of real life experiences, or a "teaching story" made up completely from someone's imagination .. IT IS CLEARLY IDENTIFIED AS TO BEING A PARABLE. In practice, this is almost NEVER done. That is why it is presented here as fact ... and without backup .. that is extremely embarrassing to have to see. NOTE: Eight days ago JW Insider responded to my posting on the Archive calendar board as follows: " There will be Witnesses who think it's true, and that it's about a JW. It's not, of course. It was once supposed to be about a soldier ("Robert the Bruce") in Scotland back in the 1300's. http://www.wrensworld.com/s... and that story ended: "Where God is, a spider's web is as a stone wall. Where God is not, a stone wall is as a spider's web." It was also attributed to a Midrash about King David a couple thousand years prior to that: http://www.azamra.org/Bible... "One Midrash tells that David was actually saved by a . . . web-spinning spider. . . . He discovered the benefits of spiders' webs when once forced to hide in a cave, over the entrance to which a spider spun a web, making those searching for David assume he could not have entered the cave." It's called a traditional Jewish tale here, too: http://www.beliefnet.com/lo... In 18th and 19th century book collecting expeditions I've picked up old books called "Ideas for Sermons" and have learned that a lot of Circuit Overseers have likely seen such books before I did. I remember the "Joshua" astronomy discovery, too. And it also made it onto our bulletin board. You weren't the only one to question it. But it stayed up long after it was questioned." .

If only ... it was Caleb the Cartoon character that in order to chastize his sister ... banned her to "Coventry" and destroyed the entire family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and ripped her friends from her all by edict ... then perhaps that extreme activity, akin to chopping off a baby's head for pooping in it's diaper, would be cause for banning Caleb from Russia. Fortunately, cartoon characters only obey the scripts that are written for them according to the agendas in force. Unfortunately, cruel, clueless humans do the same. You do realize of course, that the REAL reason Jehovah's Witnesses were banned from Russia is their EXAMPLE of extreme cruelty toward EACH OTHER. If you can by edict destroy entire families and social groups to discipline ONE PERSON .. you can also be a real threat to the Russian Federation's cohesiveness. All rational people understand this. . .

TTH: Again, as is your custom, you attack the person instead of the issues. .

That presumes that all Jehovah's Witnesses think exactly the same way, about the exact same things, which is the Society's goal .. but it never happens. The Society has NEVER been right about ANYTHING they predicted .. which is why "new light" is discovered AFTER the facts become evident. I remember as a preteen boy accompanying my Mom to Assemblies where the "King of the North" and "Gog of Magog" were discussed with millions of words extending over 60 years of my lifetime, and NONE of it had any practical relevance to my or any other person's life, with the possible exception of keeping me too busy to get into trouble. We have seen so much "New Light" that no one has noticed the long trail of dead, corroded batteries trailing behind, from "light" that was actually darkness. It is no shame to say to any hypothesis "I am GUESSING ... I really have no idea whatsoever " Sorta like the Pyramids found in Europe recently that are at least 25,000 years old. "Prophets" in modern times never have to work hard, miss any meals, or turn down "green handshakes". .My guess about Russia is .... to paraphrase ... "STUFF HAPPENS!".

TTH: When you CANNOT address arguments with facts, ad hominum attacks are clearly the way to go ... it's less work, and avoids having their facts (whoever "they" are ..) validated by a "unicorns eat rainbows and poop butterflies" response. Basically, it's like playing baseball, getting mad, and leaving the field. You LOSE, by default. .

Yes, but they have to hold it at arm's length straight out, with the other arm bent and hand on hip, and the head covering has to be a large Mexican Sombrero, with tassels.

. Well, it appears that the Russian Prosecution is grasping at straws on this "extremism" accusation, which is a catch-all for anything that they don't culturally like ... sort of like our term "brazen conduct", which shows up for the first time in the 2010 secret Elders Handbook, and three years later for the first time in ANY Bible translation in the 2013 New World Translation, for obvious reasons. The only time in my life I had heard the term "brazen" heard before was in a Western cowboy movie where the refined womenfolk of a frontier town were incensed that the saloon prostitutes when shopping dared to come on the "respectable" side of the street ... referring to them as "brazen hussys!" As far as "extremeism" goes ( whatever THAT means ...) Jehovah's Witnesses are the most pacifistic people on the Earth, and are no clear and present danger to ANY secular society or government ... and most of the secular world is fully aware of that. The prosecution tried to throw the blood issue up against the wall to see if it would stick, but from the pseudo-translation/summary it looks like ( to mix some metaphors..) the low down caper on that scam did not fly, for the reasons stated. My first GUESS is that the Russian Orthodox Church wants JWs out of the country, and wants to confiscate their assets. Putin THINKS of himself as a solid Christian, and a defender of his doctrines, and the Russian Orthodox Church's doctrines .. plus it would be fun to confiscate all their assets. He is a multi-billionaire many times over and can afford to play with the "pawns". My second GUESS, which was actually the first thing that came to mind, is that the Global reputation Jehovah's Witnesses have for within their own ranks, exhibiting extreme cruelty in the manner of disfellowshipping ... disciplining one person, and destroying entire family relationships between immediate families, and across generations and extended families, and across every person in his culture .. is akin to setting a disobedient baby on fire. It will be interesting to eventually get full and complete transcripts of this case after it fully plays out, and someone makes it available on the Internet. I hope that, since the Brotherhood has spent about $80,000,000 ( Eighty MILLION DOLLARS) on international postage, that the Society will be the ones to provide those transcripts to not only the Brotherhood, but the whole world. It is shameful when in order to get HARD NEWS, we have to go elsewhere. I thank everybody for making available what we have so far ... .