The Dove World Outreach Center (DWOC), headed by Rev. Terry Jones has already triggered violence internationally with its promise this weekend to burn copies of the Koran (Qu’ran) and prompted our military commander in Iraq to speak out that such a hateful act would put the lives of U.S. soldiers in jeopardy. Jones, however, is unmoved and is willing to sacrifice someone’s son or daughter for his publicity stunt. Now, we are learning how really creepy this group is.
The 50-family Gainesville church is headed by Jones and his wife Sylvia. Its āAcademy Rulebook” was written in November 2007 by Sylvia Jones. The rulebook restricts every part of the lives of students including cutting off contact with family members. They warn ā[f]amily occasions like wedding, funerals or Birthdays are no exception to this rule . . . No phone calls. Exceptions can be made under certain circumstances but only after receiving permission.ā Romantic relationships are barred: “there is no need to talk at all, or even flirt!ā Students must be weighed repeatedly and are barred from āeating out in restaurants.” Students are told to āwash or shower at least once a day but not more then 2 a day,ā and to be sure to cleanse āMouth, sweat areas, hair, feet hands.ā
For members have accused the Jones’ of abuse and using church funds for personal purposes. They appear to be in the furniture selling business, though allegations have been raised about the use of the church for this purpose (here).
Jones, 58, is the author of “Islam Is of the Devil” and models much of his lectures on the movie “Braveheart.”
Source: here.
I find it hard to accept that anyone that publicly burns a book, of any kind, is a patriot, though I’m willing to be convinced. After all, there may be a book somewhere whose burning would help ensure my freedom.
Everyone here can probably think of some free speech issue that they would like to have prohibited. Top of my list would be corporations being allowed unlimited spending on political issues. It would be helpful to be able to separate actual speech from actions, but we’re past that point – at least at present.
What is really creepy is that Americans all over are sending this guy Korans to add to his pile to be burned. 1920’s Germany. Never forget.
Quote for the day:
āWherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.ā Heinrich Heine
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtFk_V6A4M&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Slartibartfast:
So you buy that building 7 fell down all by itself? The evidence suggests there are real problems with the official version of 9/11 events (as with the Kennedy assassination findings).
http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html
QUOTE “In America everyone has a right to be stupid and some people are willing to exercise that particular right to extremes.”
QUOTE “Are you exercising your right to be stupid by implying that 9/11 was a false flag operation of the government?”
Steel buildings do NOT ‘free fall’ to the ground from plane strikes. I don’t care if ya hit them with 5 planes, it ain’t gonna happen.
BUT even if you weren’t sure about buildings # 1 & 2, building #7 could have never ‘free fell’ to the ground from a fire as they claim…(since it’s plane went down before it reached its target)…IMPOSSIBLE!
9-11 stinks to high heaven
lottakatz,
Very well said.
This looks to me like the fear machine working overtime in anticipation of the coming mid-term elections. Without the hype fostered by the usual right-wing suspects this would have been just another bit of craziness from extremists with a bug up their ass, just as the Westbrough koran burning was a couple of years ago.
It is of great benefit to people in power and those wishing to attain power to have citizens kept in a state of perpetual fear. Ratcheting up fear and provoking real or imagined hostility from your enemies, manufactured or real, comes conveniently at a time when there was a serious debate about maintaining our armies in Afghanistan and Iraq building steam. That topic, which has been in the news for a week or more has ceased, along with just about every other ‘real’ news story. I don’t think this is an accident of timing. Too many politicians, the Administration and special interests benefit from a new wave of fear and the agitation of the radical Muslim community.
As to the controversy itself I don’t have a problem with burning Koran’s, Bibles, Torah’s, flags, effigies or marshmallows on sticks but this gross use of heavy-handed influence (and now the FBI) against some backwoods cult leader and his 4 dozen followers is grotesque. It’s repugnant to the Constitution.
It’s similar to the Muslim community center controversy in that while everyone acknowledges that the Constitution protects these actions, people of good sense, patriotism and decency would give up their RIGHTS to satisfy the majority. And if they don’t, we’ll send the FBI (Koran burner) or investigate where the money to complete the project comes from (community center).
The argument is being made on both sides of the political aisle that some rights, while rights, shouldn’t be exercised. We’ve heard this for decades. Anti-war protests demoralize the troops and jeopardize the war effort so even though one has the right to march in protest real patriots wouldn’t. I’ve heard that for 3 wars. This is just a variation on an old theme.
If the winger/hater Koran burner is a patriot (instead of a media whore) he’ll burn those books just as the Muslim Americans will build their community center in the old coat factory as was the original plan.
I hate the idea of burning books but as someone said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Slarti
I certainly hope you are right. It just seems like such a great fuss over such a non-important run of the mill event. Usually the top echelon of the government doesn’t make personal statements about such things. At least they didn’t used to. Maybe the whole government thingy HAS gone over the edge.
I don’t have the ability, but it would be interesting to follow the pattern of who/why this was picked up in the first place. This type of stupidity is carried out daily somewhere in the U.S., but this time it’s been blown into an international crisis – maybe.
Maybe its the October Surprise arrived early – somebody goofed.
Blouise,
I’m about 2 hours south of the bridge and the air is pretty good up here.
I think the high profile response is general damage control rather than specific – it’s about the only action that can be taken to mitigate the damage that this asshole did to our national security and the safety of our soldiers.
Buckeye,
I don’t think the mosque controversy had anywhere near the same recruitment potential for muslim extremists (although I’m sure it’s being used as a recruitment tool for the Christian extremists). In any case, what kind of specific intel would dictate this response? I really don’t think this is about anything that might happen in the next few days, but about taking reasonable steps to reduce the number of new extremists in the next several years.
Slarti,
See … that’s the problem with living in Michigan … down here, in Ohio, we are “conspiracy” conscious … you have all that good, clean air from the upper peninsula, where as we, well … not so much.
Seriously, I think Buckeye has a suspicion worth considering.
Slartibartfast
I’m suggesting there may be some information about something that will happen closer to home. They didn’t all weigh in, including a direct phone call to the protagonist from Gates, on the mosque controversy, which can have the same reprecussions – except there won’t be any pictures.
It all sounds like a lot of sturm und drang about very little, except by the 24 hour media feeding frenzy, considering how many other muslim bashing acts occur every day here and elsewhere.
BTW Fox News has decided to not cover the burning. Liability concerns?
Blouise,
I don’t think that silence is the appropriate way to combat this type of hate. You have to meet it head on – it’s okay to elevate this asshole in order to destroy him (figuratively speaking).
It now appears that Rev. Jones has backed down, probably with a little assistance from the FBI. He’s a moron, but I agree with Buddha that people appear a bit too anxious to argue that this is not a free speech matter. It clearly is.
As for the ministry, it has “cult” written all over it. I’ve read the Academy Rulebook, and it is bizarre, not to mention only semi-literate. One excerpt: “9. Clothe and sanity. Weekday uniform during the working days: Monday till Saturday.” And that is one of the more coherent policy statements.
Slarti … I think Buckeye is onto something or senses something that is worth considering … This Jones guy was/is a complete nobody until the government, closely followed by the news media, and vice-versa, decided to make him somebody. Why?
Buckeye,
Are you suggesting that something that puts US troops in danger is an inappropriate subject for the commander in Afghanistan, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and President Obama to weigh in on? Making a big deal about the backlash is the only thing that can help counter (a little bit, maybe) the damage this asshole has already done by just announcing his little al-Qaeda recruitment event.
I see this as a win win situation for everyone.
The crazies all over the world get to burn American flags and kill some people (whether the Koran is burned in FL or not).
The crazies here get to do the same.
The Right Reverend Jones gets to be a martyr, maybe.
All the politicos get to ignore our real problems for as long as this bruhaha lasts – but probably not till November.
Either the government has finally tipped completely over the edge or there is some information we don’t yet have which has caused the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Commander in Afghanistan to consider this kook’s proposed actions to be enough of a threat to our safety that they feel the need to weigh in about this particular strange group – out of the hundreds of strange groups so very like them.
Or else Rev. Jones is a front for some particularly nefarious group. Any suggestions?
Hopefully this incident has opened the countrys eyes,to see that there are some among us who are REALLY “off the hook”.
A church with 50 members started all this BS.
Hi all. I wanted to drop in an tell everyone about a Confederate flag Google Groups debate page that I’ve just started today.
Its inspired by Jesus’ General’s Burn a Confederate Flag Day.
I sent an email to a local and sort-of famous Confederate reenactor asking him about the event, and sarcastically asked him if he could help me get a flag to burn. He didn’t respond, but instead sent my email to a lot of other reenactors, which is fine.
Needless to say, I’ve been receiving a lot of hate mail and threats the last couple of days. So, I tried to respond to each one individually and as politely as I could(kill em with kindness).
The volume of mail became to much, so I started the Group page in an effort to have a forum to start a dialog. Anyone here that would like to join, please do. I tell some of the details of my experience of getting lots of heritage-not-hate-hate-mail, too.
Its brand new, so not many members or posts yet, but check it our anyway.
A Little background information on Terry Jones from TPMMuckraker:
Koran-Burning Pastor Was Once The GOP’s Poster Child For German Intolerance Of Christians
Megan Carpentier | September 9, 2010, 2:47PM
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/koran-burning_pastor_was_once_the_gops_poster_chil.php?ref=fpb
Excerpt:
A contemporaneous interview with Jones for Christian magazine The Voice (since removed) confirms that account. Baetz noted that Jones was deeply involved in opposition to a planned mosque in Cologne, and Der Spiegel noted yesterday that Jones inveighed against Islam from his German pulpit as well. But his preaching went far beyond sermons about religious differences.
Jones became increasingly radical as the years went by, former associates say. At one point he wanted to help a homosexual member to “pray away his sins.” Later he began to increasingly target Islam in his sermons. A congregation member reported that some members were afraid to attend services because they expected to be attacked by Muslims.
But even before Jones began inveighing against Islam, Der Stern reported that he was having trouble with the local government in the mid-nineties because he organized a group of nurses to encourage very ill patients to end treatment in favor of prayer. In a court trial in the nineties, Theo Matthias Herget (a nurse and former Pentacostal adherent) testified in German:
“I have heard from colleagues that members of the group attempted a healing in the hospital with an old woman in a wheelchair – she had multiple sclerosis. One dragged her out of bed and declared that she was healed.” He also observed that in further “healings, two more people died.”
The church denied the allegations — but it was around this time that local authorities apparently began looking into the congregation and its finances.
In the 1990s, Germany was under fire by the U.S. State Department over its classification of the Church of Scientology as a for-profit institution rather than a church — in part because of its widely-reported tithing policy. In Germany, as in the United States, Jones’ church had a for-profit arm. By Jones’ own admission, the CGK collected used furniture from its members for donation and sold off the remainders: investigations by the Gainesville Sun, Alternet, Daily Kos (which unearthed Jones’ eBay store) and TPMMuckraker, show that both Jones’ business and his use of church members to staff it continue today.
Jones’ for-profit businesses threw his church’s non-profit status into question and prompted reported raids by local tax authorities in Germany. It also brought Jones and his church to the attention of Amnesty International, British Lord Duncan McNair, the U.S. State Department, then-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY) (who was chairing the Commission on Cooperation and Security In Europe at the time), and Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY), all of whom defended Jones and his church. (Neither D’Amato nor Enzi returned calls for comment.)
Eventually, the church’s tax-exempt status was reinstated; in 2002, Jones was forced to pay a 3,000 Euro fine for using the honorific “Doctor” without a degree. In 2007, members reportedly confronted Jones about the direction of the church and his increasingly disturbing rhetoric, to no apparent effect. In 2008, following reported financial irregularities, Jones and his wife were expelled by the congregation and returned to the United States.
At least a few of his German congregants initially followed Jones to Gaineville before becoming disillusioned. The remaining, smaller CGK in Cologne has had no contact with Jones since expelling him, and doesn’t support the Koran burning.
Buddha,
I’ll be waiting for UPDATE #4.