Thank you, Sir Ornery of Thornery, for starting this thread. I am not altogether sure that MK and Jerry Bartlett are friends, but this seems as good a place as any to respond to some valid points that MK brought up on the Fanda Eagles home page.
Needlessly, I know, I want to emphasize that my answers reflect my personal opinions, based on the difficult times that I have had with NTM in the past. I do not presume to speak for any victims of child abuse, the primary subject of this forum, or even for other victims of spiritual abuse, the secondary subject. Others may welcome phone calls from leadership in NTM. I respect that and fully support their decisions.
MK's questions from the home page are in boldface.
Ok, so NTM is not supposed to call anybody and have a personal conversation?
NTM is a corporation. Corporations cannot have personal conversations. If any human being wants to call another human being on personal business (Hello! Wasn't that a marvelous harvest moon?!), no one would object. Communications regarding the topics covered on this forum should be in writing, not phone calls.
Absolutely all communication should be through official correspondence?
For personal, private communication, please see above.
Absolutely all communication regarding the topics covered on this forum should be written. There are many advantages:
1. It can be reviewed by all the parties involved; every single word can be scrutinized, something that has been lacking in NTM circles since its inception. 2. It can be used in a court of law as evidence. 3. While it may be subject to differing interpretations, it is not subject to faulty, conveniently faulty, memories. ("I wouldn't want to attempt to reconstruct the entire phone conversation.") 4. It can be posted in a public forum, so that others can see what NTM is saying/ doing or not saying/ not doing.
We are not talking here about intimate, personal details of private lives, subjects that often get (and do not necessarily benefit from) a public airing. We are talking about sexual and other abuse of minors that was purposely hidden from public view in order to protect the corporation's reputation, a course of action that also protected the criminal behavior of the perpetrators and further abused the victims. So, yes! Communication on this issue should be open and public. Look where "discretion" has landed us!
Do you think this would have gone on so long, been so widespread and the response to it been so pathetic had every single instance of it been as widely and purposefully exposed as it was hidden?
(Rephrasing a bit for quotation) NTM is well advised to limit the volume of its correspondence because of past "incidents."
Well advised by whom? And to what end?
It is only well advised to do so if it objects to the very few advantages listed above and if it places a higher priority on corporate survival than it does on justice for the victims.
While NTM's "well advised" course of action holds no advantages for victims of abuse and their families, there are some decided ones for NTM.
Here is the short list of advantages for NTM of limiting correspondence, and relying on phone calls: 1. It is not capable of being reviewed by anyone; nothing can be scrutinized at all, much to whose advantage? (Hint: Not the victims' advantage.) 2. It is of very little value as evidence in a court of law, much to whose advantage? (Hint: The victims are not worried about being sued.) 3. It is subject to faulty, conveniently faulty, memories. ("I wouldn't want to attempt to reconstruct the entire phone conversation.") 4. Any negative summary of it posted in a public forum can be denied with a large degree of credibility by NTM. 5. Any positive summary of it posted in a public forum is allowed a free ride on the reputation/ sympathy accorded the recipient/ poster.
How can NTM accomplish anything if it has to spend an unbelievable [sic] large amount of time responding to correspondence regarding communications that were not intended for public consumption.
NTM is not spending any time responding to communications at all. They are limiting their correspondence, remember? And, for all the effort they are saving on that score, they certainly are not accomplishing much!
A number of other questions followed in MK's post, but I understand these to be rhetorical and so I'll pass them up for now. And, even if they were content questions, they propose things that no one has proposed, not even I. They add fluff, but not content.
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