Authored by: janed on Friday, June 05 2009 @ 04:56 AM GMT+5
Why would we *not* resurrect a Twelve Tribes thread in light of this new article, and with their current foothold in downtown Brattleboro? Sounds worthy of discussion to me.
Authored by: sender on Sunday, June 07 2009 @ 03:32 PM GMT+5
What a horrible hatchet job from a writer who had no interest in balance or objectivity. While not my particular cup of tea, the 12 Tribes group has been integrated into our community long enough to deserve a tone of respect and honesty. Not a drive-by hit job. If the writer wanted to learn about the decisions of Judge Mahady and the reasons therefor, she had the web page to go to . Judge Mahady, for whom the Courthouse in Addison County was named, found that the State did not present a single case of identified abuse of a single child in Island Pond. Not one. None was ever produced.
Even by the standards of The Commons,this "journalism " was pretty yellow.
Authored by: Genie on Sunday, June 07 2009 @ 06:12 PM GMT+5
Excuse me. That article was an exceptionally well written article. And the author stated explicitly that she was documenting her real-life experience with the TTs.
Authored by: HowardP on Sunday, June 07 2009 @ 10:37 PM GMT+5
I agree,it was well written. Im not sure why any reasonable person could
say other wise. I personally know and like several of the tribe
members,but the story was about her own experiences there, and it is
unique to see it thru her eyes as an African American. But I also dont
really want to restart the whole tribe debate. i just thought the article
was well written. I do see the Commons evolving into a much needed
voice in our area.
Authored by: pjmelton on Monday, June 08 2009 @ 04:22 AM GMT+5
Questions of the Twelve Tribes itself aside, there was no burden on this writer to do a typical he-said/she-said piece. It was quite clearly a personal essay. The Commons did a very good investigative piece on this topic on its front page several months ago. That's not what this piece was about, and if someone from the organization itself wishes to respond, I'm sure the editors are likely to accommodate them.
The Commons is a valuable resource for presenting in-depth news, features and opinions from many different perspectives. But there is no particular burden to present "both sides" in any given piece or even in any given issue. I think the "both sides" format gives a false sense of a black-and-white world, and that expectation has been the downfall of many formerly good news organizations, including the NYT and NPR, and has led to phenomena like "the torture debate." About some things, there simply isn't a "debate." And even when there are two main sides to an issue, presenting each one in turn in one article is not necessarily the most fair way to give each side a hearing. I am glad if we are finally getting away from that rigid format.
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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR
Authored by: JeffPotter on Monday, June 08 2009 @ 05:53 AM GMT+5
Your criticism is well taken, and I appreciate it. Reasonable people can disagree about whether it was responsible for us to have run such a strong opinion. I see the bigger picture as an opening salvo in a longer, serialized discussion. I invite you (and anyone else who disagrees with our decision to run the piece) to express your concerns in a letter that we can share with our readers.
I agree with the posters who have come to our defense on this issue (and appreciate the kind comments). I thought this piece was a powerful, thought-provoking (and provocative) personal account, especially in the context of all the awareness of racial issues since the NHRA incidents in the area about a year ago.
For what it's worth, I contacted Melevav, one of the eminently likable proprietors of the Common Ground, to give him and his fellow TTers a heads up:
"Our Voices section exists as a public forum for personal viewpoint and opinion. I fully expect that you and your brothers and sisters at Basin Farm will find her piece as upsetting and objectionable as [Clara Rose Thornton, the writer] finds your beliefs and they way they were expressed to her when she lived at your farm. The nature of strong opinion is that there is always an equal and opposite reaction.
"I would invite you or any of your brethren to provide a response, which I would run as a letter in print and on our Web site, ultimately giving our readers the ability to make up their own minds."
I hope they do. And Melevav said that the group is thinking about holding a forum or discussion to elaborate on the Twelve Tribes' beliefs as they concern racial issues.
I would like nothing more than for Clara Rose to have been wrong about the TT. But this is her experience, for whatever it's worth. Clearly, the writer here thinks that's not worth a whole lot. And that's fine -- we put material out in our Voices section clearly labeled as opinion -- in this case, memoir. I also felt compelled to add several quotes from TT literature as a sidebar, including what I think most people would consider an offensive screed from TT founder Eugene Scuggs condemning Martin Luther King Jr. as evil. If you check out the version of the story on the Web site, www.commonsnews.org, I've included links back to the source material I used for same.
By the way, I am scheduled to join Steve West on Live and Local today at 11 a.m. on WKVT. Feel free to call in and discuss the story or our handling of same. I think I also will address this on my (lately very dormant) blog on our Web site.
Authored by: javanyet on Monday, June 08 2009 @ 06:16 PM GMT+5
Sender: Unless you are suggesting that the writer invented all of her experiences and her conversations while on the farm, or the quotes from and information about the leader of the group, I fail to see how this is a "hatchet" job.
Being "integrated" into the Community doesn't automatically mean they are a positive influence. On the other hand, that Clara Rose came away with a bad impression might mean only that the people she encountered gave that bad impression. Every organization has members who might inadvertently give it a bad name.
I am confused by something... what does the name of the Addison County Courthouse have to do with the Island Pond case? Does this make the judge's decision somehow more credible? It should stand on its own. The name of the courthouse is irrelevant.
This was clearly the chronicle of a personal experience, and was described by the writer as such. Her own conclusion was that she did not know what definitive statement to make about the community. How much more even handed can you get?
Authored by: JeffPotter on Wednesday, June 10 2009 @ 02:50 PM GMT+5
I received an e-mail today from Tim Kroehler, an editor of the Twelve Tribes' Web site, www.twelvetribes.com. I would like to alert iBratt readers to a clarification I've posted on the Web version of the sidebar to Clara Rose's piece.
One of the three quotes comes from a Web site, www.twelvetribesteachings.org, a repository of Twelve Tribes teachings. My research convinced me that this was a reliable source. The problem is, most material about the Twelve Tribes, particularly material from people formerly associated with the group, is anonymous or pseudonymous for a number of reasons that are made clear to anyone who spends a little time with the issue.
Kroehler took issue with our including this material and demanded that we remove it from the site. He called the fact that the site ownership in the Internet whois directory is blocked and calls it "spurious." I immediately added an introduction to the quote to address his concerns and to disassociate the origin of that material from the material quoted from the Twelve Tribes' official site. I attempted to do so honestly and respectfully.
I just received an e-mail that further "asked" (i.e. demanded) that the twelvetribesteachings.org quotation be removed from the site.
Following is my response:
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Dear Mr. Kroehler,
Regarding your "request" for me to remove quotes from twelvetribesteachings.com:
No.
Just because you don't want that material on our site doesn't mean that I'm going to delete it without some further investigation -- and I absolutely do owe it to you, and to our readers, to investigate this further. I promise I will this week, and I really do appreciate your calling me on the point.
In the meantime, I can link to any Web site I damn well please, and I choose to retain the link and information I found in my research because despite the anonymity, I believe it to be accurate, since multiple discussion boards and Internet sources have confirmed this central tenet of your faith and it is fully consistent with the firsthand accounts we published.
So, to clarify: we are dealing here with an issue of accuracy versus provenance.
Again, I respectfully offer to remove that content and offer full apologies, no questions asked, once it is proven *inaccurate*. I spent hours poring over about 30 Web sites before we went to press -- yours as well as many others -- in an attempt to learn more about the Twelve Tribes and your beliefs. To me, there is ample reason that the creator of the site in question would remain anonymous, and there is no reason in the world why anyone would make up an entire body of theological writings. Your pushing this point at the expense of answering what to me is a very simple question -- is the information accurate or is it not? -- only enhances the other site's credibility.
You cast some appropriate concerns about the sources of this information -- concerns and context I immediately acknowledged and shared with our readership. While the text I found there is fully consistent with the Twelve Tribes' beliefs ***as expressed to two of my writers firsthand for two stories we've published in the past six months *** I will grant you that it might not be accurate, as the source responsible for posting the data (not for creating the data itself) is anonymous.
Your concerns are duly and appropriately noted, and until I can determine authorship of that material, I will tell our readers exactly what we know -- and don't know -- about these sources more responsibly and precisely.
By the way, I have extended a courteous offer to the citizens of Basin Farm to offer their perspective on the matter, fully expecting an equal and opposite reaction to Clara Rose's memoir, and one did today. I appreciate her efforts and will post her response to our Web site tomorrow and publish it in the July issue of the newspaper. You, Mr. Kroehler, are welcome to do the same.
Given that members of your faith told a citizen of our community and one of my reporters that the Bible says that people of her race should be enslaved, I would think you'd be more forthcoming -- and a whole lot less belligerent -- about disputing the accuracy of the text if that were in question rather than pasting information about the ownership of Internet domain names and lecturing me about journalistic ethics.
You can believe what you wish -- that is your right in this country. When those beliefs are hurtful and offensive to the core for the mainstream in an area deeply hurt by numerous racial conflicts that have taken place here in Windham County over the past few months, I feel it is our newspaper's duty and mission to shine some light on those beliefs so we can cultivate a healthy discussion about race in a society that includes potential customers to your array of businesses.
Authored by: annikee on Wednesday, June 10 2009 @ 09:28 PM GMT+5
Good job, Jeff.
I agree that while the websites posting info from former Tribe members are largely anonymous, that seems to be with good reason. Retribution is real and the various ex-members express their worry about it.
Any "belief system" that includes prejudice and subjugation should be examined closely. Too many KKK-like groups are wrapping themselves in the Bible as an excuse for their hatred. White supremacists are popping up all over the midwest and in Canada.
In such a climate, I'm glad we have onelocal paper with the guts to do what all papers should- investigate, without bowing to pressure or apologies.
Certainly we can all agree that this was fierce attack on someone or their work, in print.
It is very easy to denigrate a group of people you don't like or fear using emotionally laden terms. The far right and the far left do it all the time. How many times has the hate word 'cult" been used on this thread? How many times in the article. How many time have the B'Hai been called a cult?The Jehovah's Witnesses? The Roman Catholic Church? Jews? Muslims? Quakers?
Can't we in Brattleboro do better than this?
Fear of retaliation or retribution? Show it. Prove it. Former members of this religious group seem very willing to talk in print to anyone who will listen. But so far as i have seen, not one claim of violence or abuse by the religious group in Vermont has ever been either documented or proven in a court of law.
Perhaps we should spend a little time recounting how hate, false claims and hysteria led to the burning of women as witches in Salem, Mass. Just so we don't repeat the same patterns and mistakes.
Authored by: javanyet on Thursday, June 11 2009 @ 11:35 AM GMT+5
Bravo Jeff!
You have stood your ground in a very balanced and professional fashion.
I have to say when the Commons first appeared I thought, Oh great, another target for a Reformer buy-up. Not only was I WRONG about that, I am incredibly impressed with the quality of journalism in the Commons, and that's not just by comparison to the Reformer (who have lowered the journalism bar to somewhere below sea level).
And at the risk of sound silly, aside from the wonderful content of the paper one of my great joys in reading the Commons is being able to go cover-to-cover and NOT be assaulted by egregious spelling and grammar mistakes, cut-it-off-to-fit-the-ad editing, and headlines that misrepresent the articles they head.
Again, bravo! The Commons has restored professional standards of journalism to the area.
Authored by: JacobEberhardt on Thursday, June 18 2009 @ 11:59 PM GMT+5
My name is Jacob Eberhardt and I can be reached at 530-554-2540. Upon hearing about the dispute between Tim Kroehler and Jeff Potter concerning the authenticity of the Twelve Tribe teaching quotations, I called Mr. Kroehler first and then Mr. Potter.
Approximately 2003, I took a trip from NH to Vista, Ca to meet Yoneq after overcoming cancer in order to resolve past issues. I stayed for a time in Vista and Yoneq had me flown to Arcadia, Fl. In the process of deciding to return to my covenant with the TT, it was noticeable to me how clothing was used to condition visitors, teachings I had heard given by Yoneq in Vista took a legalistic bend when I heard them in Florida, members telling me my prayers were not heard when Yoneq had said something quite different concerning me at gatherings in Vista. I was allowed computer access in Arcadia and came across the digital library of teachings the elders possessed and recognized them from my days around the Print Shop in Providence RI in 19997, when I was a covenanted member. Upon reading the teaching "Execution of Justice", which describes Yoneq calling a little girl over and asking for a pair of scissors to cut off her because she would not obey him,.... I realized much of the child abuse that had occurred in the Community, i.e. Jones children, Zadok's children, etc., was based on a legalistic view and absolute adherence to Yoneq's teachings. I left the Community forever. Before leaving, I took the opportunity to copy 15 - 20 teachings I thought imperative because I realized no one had ever made them available to outsiders and considered it beneficial for their understanding. I posted these on the Internet. Soon after an ex-elder who wished to remain anonymous because they had family still in the Community sent me a disc with the bulk of the catalog you find on www.twelvetribesteachings.com, including the catalog of teachings available there. I posted these teaching without alteration because I wished to present an objective resource for people to read the teachings that motivate the TT and that people could make an honest decision before deciding to visit.
I am reviewing the teaching in question and can verify it's authenticity. Originally, I presented these teachings to the Religious Movements website at UVA/University of Waterloo; they could not post them because they are in electronic format, but encouraged me that they are a valuable resource for researchers.
Authored by: JacobEberhardt on Friday, June 19 2009 @ 12:13 AM GMT+5
In the teaching, "Execution of Justice," Yoneq theatened the little girl to cut off her thumb for not obeying him.
Mevesaer, in Vista CA, tryed lighten the severity of this documented event by telling me that few members have seen this teaching and it happened so many years ago. It made the apparent root of the passive-aggressive nature of psychological abuse within the Community; perpetrated by absolute obedience to Yoneq's "Annointing."
Authored by: JacobEberhardt on Friday, June 19 2009 @ 12:55 AM GMT+5
It was only a matter of time before a professional writer outside Academia or an axe to grind (pro or con) documented their stay in the Community. This piece is an accurate representation of a visitors experience, especially one who had no extensive knowledge they were walking into a closed religious sect.
Lying about WWOOF.
The value of reproduction to the Community.
Sharpness when ways are not their own.
Preaching out of turn and without depth of understanding.
Which brings me to Mr. Kroehler. I called him before calling Mr. Potter. He treated me indignantly, with suspect, and requested I turn myself in for theft of electronic material. I called him to offer a chance for him to explain his issue with the quote and to avoid embarrassing him and the Community. Many times the left had does not know what the right hand does in the Community.
I am not sure Mr. Kroehler represents the Community in this matter. A few years back Hakam (Eddie Wiseman), generally respected to be the number 2 man in the TT, met me in Burlington, VT. At first he was angry because it is believed in the Community that the teachings can not be understood properly outside of their Spirit; Yet when I explained myself, he understood, walked me home, and hugged me wishing me that I find what I am looking for. I told Hakam, I was tired of exposing the Community. Someone else recreated the Twelve Tribes Teachings site. From looking over the site, many of us ex-members could vouch for the authenticity of these posted teachings. Hakam also expressed that the Communitiy's eldership did not have issue with them being posted, just that people outside the community do not have the same spirit that the teachings were intended.
Mr. Kroehler would better serve the TT by taking full credit for their beliefs and express that how the salvation Yahshua has offered the Community has removed racism from their midst. Love draws people, and defending a theology through technicalities drives people away.
The Community hides their sin while judging those outside their covenant. Their numbers are decreasing. The sad thing is: They could have been a Light, rather than perpetrating US and THEM.
Ha emeq, Yoneq's wife shoulders much of this shame and the fact that they hide their sexually deviant from justice.
I love the Commons' new website! You can even sign up for daily e-mail updates.
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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR