← Previous

Page 622 of 2211

Next →

1 ... 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 ... 2211

Wow!!! Surfing the web this afternoon, I decided to see what I might come up with if I entered "International School Ake Pecha' into Google.com. And lo and behold, here I landed, like Alice through the looking glass, once again, deja-vu. Astonishing... this group is still up to its old tricks? Still functioning in the US??? Still growing????? Cripes!!! This is really infuriating...

I am a former American employee of the International School Ake Pecha (circa 1984-85). I, along with another American teaching colleague hired at the same time -- both of us, I can say, were "liberal, but world-worn, fairly worldly-wise". Neither of us were the young starry-eyed revolutionary idealists our employers were used to dealing with.

My American colleague and I always wondered about the "holes" in the picture we were able to put together about ... Where all the money the Commonwealth of Virginia paid to house, feed, clothe and educate their students ("Our" children, American children, wards of the courts of Virginia), was going... Why the obsession with collecting donations: of books, of clothes, of food (some of which went to our students, some... who knows)... Why the shabby little cinder-block nursing home that served as school and dorm to our 26 students was never invested with adequate repair monies, leaving our kids to live in third-world conditions...Why so little actual care for our students, who were pretty much left to run wild by their burnt-out dorm captains (who were on call 24/7/30/365 -- sound familiar...?), most of whom were, frankly, too inexperienced, unskilled and immature to have been placed in the role of sole parent of up to 9 at least haywire, if not profoundly disturbed, pre-teens, teens and (violent)young adults.

We recognized the political bent, and had some sympathy for the idealism and the dedication of our Scandinavian peers, but there was something just really fishy about the whole thing from the top down. It was the money...It was the secretiveness (the main office was deemed out of bounds for my American colleague and I from the first week of our employment -- which made us just itch to get in there). It was the hostility toward us, when it became clear we were not interested in moving on campus or handing over our (grudgingly paid and always late) paychecks to the school. It was the wierdness and nervousness of the American "executive director," who eventually just disappeared without an explanation or a trace. It was the vehemence with which my students were "shooed" away from the Ake Pecha bus, freshly arrived from Massachusetts with a load of newly returned Danes (and what else, we always wondered?... on their way to Central America), to whom my students were simply extending a kindly welcome.

One of the things that rankles me to this day is that our kids could have benefitted greatly from the (generous) funds alloted monthly to the school for the care of each child -- these kids had already lost so much in their lives, and time was wasting for each one of them. It became very clear, very quickly to my American colleague and I that those dollars received by the school were not going provide services for our kids, but to feed somebody's pockets somewhere else in the world. We thought at the time -- I think we got the impression from our Scandinavian peers, who probably thought it themselves -- that they were scornfully sending "rich American dollars" to their schools in Zimbabwe, St. Johns, in the UK, Holland, (Thailand, I think?)... where it was needed so much more than it was needed by our students, who could do without, because, being American, they were, of course, so much "better off".

My American teaching colleague and I, within about three months being hired -- enough time to get the picture that the picture was not good -- with much deliberation, and with growing outrage, decided to go through channels to at least initiate an investigation of the school. The scarey thing about that process was that we didn't know who to contact who would listen to us... from what we could tell, the placement agencies had been ignoring all the problems, some of them MAJOR safety issues for the students that clearly indicated the school should have been closed (never mind the financial and political stuff). The clever Tvind people had made inroads -- and, for all we knew, had the full support of -- at least the Department of Mental Health and Retardation, Department of Social Services, Department of Education. (..There might have been another agency, too.. I remember five funding agencies.) The Department of Corrections had already ceased placing students there when it became clear to them that their students were at greater risk there than they might have been anywhere else -- I think they only had one student still placed there when the school was closed. My American colleague and I eventually met with the heads of the Departments of Mental Health/ Retardation, and Education. The gentleman from the Department of Education (Les Goode) was very concerned with what he heard, and it is my understanding that it was he who pushed for a thorough investigation.

The hearing was held in Richmond on May 21, 1985. Both my American colleague and I testified, along with social workers who had filed complaints or who had concerns, and some of our Scandinavian peers in their own "defense." The political and financial concerns were shied away from -- too embarrassing, probably, for the funding departments to approach -- in favor of the stacks of reports and complaints that had been on file with the separate agencies: security and safety infractions, neglect, students attacking other students, students being left behind a distance from the school when they became out of control. Separately, (tragically) these reports did not appear to amount to much, but combined the stack was impressively tall -- this was pointed out in the courtroom -- containing enough material to justify rescinding the school's license. After the hearing, we were thanked by one of the social workers (who had no doubt contributed to the pile of compliants, but had not for some reason been motivated to publicly question the depth of her personal pile). We were thanked for "having the courage to speak out."

When you go through something like this, you don't forget. We always wondered what the heck WAS going on at Ake Pecha. Several years after the school was closed my American colleague encountered a British teacher who worked for an American school in Denmark... The question was asked... "Say... have you ever heard of The People's Folk School... the school in Tvind?" The Brit visibly recoiled: "Why do you want to know?" "Because I had a bad experience working there, and I'm curious about how the school is thought of in Denmark." The Brit: "Oh, when people in Denmark hear of that school they cringe. They go making money off of everybody, starving their poor idealistic workers,working them to death, and the people on the top are driving around in Merceds and wearing Italian suits." Click! So it wasn't a Euro-communist/Maoist/revolutionary cell (whatever)...It was a scam, for the Commonwealth of Virginia, for our kids, even for our idealistic Scandinavian "peers." We were all "suckered."

And here on this website today I'm seeing confirmation of everything we'd pretty much put together without confirmation. Thanks! A long-standing mystery in the process of being solved.

I'll be certain to email this site to the woman who was our contact in the Virginia Attorney General's office, for her information...

One more thing that remains a mystery to me... in about November of 1984... something happened to the ship the Folk School was operating in the Atlantic -- My Scandinavian peers were on the phone to Denmark, walking through the halklway of my section, very upset. Everybody was speaking in Danish, hush-hush about it... I've always wondered, and was never able to find out... What happened to The Big Bear? Would somebody who's "out of the cult" be willing to share that story with me?

folkfreeatlast@angelfire.com

Can anyone tell me if that recent posting about ADEEC and the Maya Indians of Guatemala has anything remotely to do with Tvind/Planet Aid? Is ADEEC anything to do with Tvind? If not, it has to go. Michael

a lot of great informations about humana - www.humana.org :)

Sorry Jummo, I didn't realize you wanted me to answer your questions, as you answered them yourself. I don't know if it is because you want to know more or because you want to argue, but here you have my point of view:

Q: So you're saying that if you are a member of the TG you're not allowed to get a salary??

A: No, I am saying there is a common economy in TG. And the deal is to leave all salary you get and even all other things you own to TG. If you inherit money or land it goes to TG. Some 50 pounds you'll have for pocket money. Of course it is said that you can get as much as you want, but at the same tima you are supposed to live cheaply. If you are arguing for really a lot more than the others, there would be discussions. And nobody wants discussions about themselves... So before joining things are explained to you. It is not a surprise for the one involving oneself. Clothes you get from the Casablanca-factory, you dont have to worry about clothes, food or anything else private. Everything is common. But ALL is not explained. What happens with the part of the salary you give away? One can live with not having much, as long as you see the point of it. E.g.: There IS no money. But when there start to occur to you that some people in this hierarchical system live under totally different conditions than others (all are said to be comrades in the very same group, though), then I see no point no more.

Q: Don't I have the right to do with my private money as I please, as long as it doesn't break the law??

A: Of course you have! You can play bingo! Buy candy! You can buy cigarettes if you prefer, and let all your money burn away. And make Mr Marlboro-man richer. But the difference is, that there is a warning-text on the cigarette packages about what consequences you might have in your life if you smoke.

 

Q: Witchhunt, let Tvind do what they do best, development work and taking care of the young people in Denmark that the communes cannot handle. Where would these students go if Tvind was nonexistant??

A: Tvind is ONE alternative to troubled youth. And if the intentions of everyone in TG were as good as yours, there would be nothing more to say. Think of where you have heard all this about Tvind schools being the only real solution for the kids? Probably it was somebody IN the organisation claiming this.

Sigge

this what are you doing SLANDER !!! DO STH, DON'T WAISTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY FOR THIS SHIT GREETINGS WE WILL STILL GO ON MY PUPILS :O

VWhile the peace process in Guatemala continues to gather momentum and violence diminishes in the large cities, in the countryside Indian groups seeking to establish title to their communal lands still often encounter virulent opposition. Campaigns that use media slander instead of bullets, but nevertheless recall the intimidation of the 1980s, seem now the preferred approach.

The village of Tampur, in the Panzos Municipality of the northeastern department of Alta Verapaz, is the scene of one such incident. For several years now, the families of Tampur have been meeting in a full discussion process that has led to the communal building of a bridge and a school. This communal work strengthened in many of the families a deep sense of shared interest in their community, in the prosperity of their fields and forests and their future together as Kekchi Maya people with a common language, a common culture and, increasingly again, a common sense of spirituality and the future.

The elders of Tampur and the community-elected leadership have in recent years sought and achieved collaboration in projects with a Maya-based organization working in the region, ADEEC, which Indigenous people of Guatemala set up in the mid-1980s to seek assistance in community development efforts. Having had some acquaintance over the years with the work ADEEC (Association for Economic, Educational and Cultural Development), particularly in their partnership with the Tampur, I was surprised to read in Guatemala's national dailies about deadly conflicts occurring in that community. I had known of an intense land issue which the newly elected committee was addressing, but I was fully alarmed when a friend sent me clippings from one of the Guatemalan national newspapers that not only reported three dead, 16 wounded and houses burned, but actually named the leader of that village, Miguel Chun (don Meq), a man I have known over the years, as the perpetrator of the acts. Don Roderico Teni, director of ADEEC, and a noted speaker on cultural development, was also attacked for introducing an "agitating" NGO into the community.

Right: Mayan work group works collectively to achieve community development objectives. Photo: Courtesy of Jose Barreiro. Judging from the virulence and frequency of the media attacks, which began in October of last year, Teni surmised for me that a group of people who had been caught selling lands illegally were directing the campaign. They largely blamed the "foreign" NGO for the trouble, while also accusing and threatening the community leaders. "Radio Verapaz," the departmental radio station, broadcast the first report to that effect all over northern Guatemala in November. There followed immediately the report claiming the "three deaths, 16 wounded, burned houses, hundreds of refugees," that lent a dangerous tone to the shrillness of the attack while yet another radio report called for "security forces" to intervene.

Headlined articles with similar accusations began to appear next in national newspapers. ADEEC personnel and Tampur leaders were stunned to see the wildly accusatory articles that appeared in Prensa Libre (12/27/96) and Siglo XXI (12/28/96), the former reiterating the supposed three deaths and the latter announcing the arrest of four community leaders, including don Meq. An incident of miscommunication in November was mentioned, when the governor and the retired general (now a Deputy of the National Congress) were disarmed by local Tampur authorities when they were brought to the community by the ousted group under suspicious circumstances.

Suddenly, with the departmental governor, the deputy to the National Congress and the group from Tampur denouncing the "violent acts" committed in the village by the new "recalcitrant Indians," with Miguel Chun cited as "perpetrator" and Roderico Teni as "intellectual author," it appeared to the ADEEC team that their space to operate development projects and work directly with communities was closing. Severe danger lurked as for six weeks the press chorus blamed a "foreign NGO" for a community movement "that took the law into its own hands."

The journalists who filed these fabricated stories (no deaths were documented or even actually reported to police), Eduardo Sam Aldana and Ramiro Gonzalez, succeeded in throwing the community into alert and forcing don Meq and the professional staff of ADEEC, all dismayed by the magnitude of the lies and accusations, to respond as quickly and as forcefully as possible. Nevertheless, before it was over, numerous articles, some clearly libelous and likely paid for, had appeared in several national Guatemalan dailies. These painted the "indigenas" of Tampur as a violent and rebellious lot, prone to committing criminal acts that would require "the intervention of security forces."

Fortunately for ADEEC, don Meq and the families of Tampur, their moment of tension occurs in 1996-1997, as the national political climate of Guatemala shifts toward a peaceful resolution of conflicts. Their story, which I and many other international friends had witnessed over the years, already had a degree of exposure. And they have a tenacious and capable alliance of people who understand their work. Thus a stream of depositions, press releases and invitations to journalists, lawyers and judges, the governor and several national agencies went out to respond to the public charges, and a small community that has united to achieve a self-determined development reality was able to fight back in the public eye.

"Most everything in the stories was a planted calumny," Teni recounted. "In fact, we had worked for weeks to counsel peaceful and legal resolution to the conflicts over the land. The community leaders invited many groups and people to an open forum, where the reality of the case could be heard."

"We are peaceful, hard-working people of the land," don Meq's deposition read. "All we want is fair distribution and preservation of our communal lands."

As in all Indian communities in Guatemala, complaints of illegal land sales and growing cases of complete dispossession of community member families from their working lands, had created hardship and hostility in Tampur. When intense participatory discussion surfaced as the community worked together on the ADEEC-sponsored bridge and school building, it led to an open call by the families for more information and education on their legal rights. The elders and leaders of Tampur dusted off the community's legality and title, granted by an agency of the national government in the 1970s, defining Tampur as a Collective Agrarian Patrimony in the names of some 210 family heads. As the community became more exactingly aware how lands had been sold, and by whom, and as the group in power resisted, the community consensus called for large informational meetings.

The present political opening in Guatemala facilitates legal information to communities that seek it vigorously and soon Tampur had held full assemblies of all its membership, held elections on a new village committee, and in 1995, elected its new president (don Miguel Chun) and, with this new committee in place, called on the assistance of legal professionals to sort out twenty years of transactions that had reduced their lands.

The problem lined up like this: about 15 men representing as many families--the core group of descendants of a German immigrant in the largely Kekchi region--had moved into position within Tampur by the 1970s and appropriated the village committee and its power as a personal patrimony over the rest of the community. These few, who are clearly identifiable in the obvious ethnic reality of this Guatemalan Indian region, had exclusive access to Spanish language materials--as no one else in the village was literate enough in Spanish to read the documents-- and ingratiated itself to the repressive system--via connections with the now-disbanded military commissions and civil patrols and with some unscrupulous merchants in the nearby ladino trading center of la Tinta given to strong-arm methods.

As don Meq, an alert and well-respected village cacique (chief), who even now speaks only Kekchi (although he accompanies himself with a couple of Spanish speaking community members), began to press for a new measurement of the community lands and to re-enfranchise excluded member families to their proper planting and wood gathering areas, the group of fifteen (voted out of power unanimously by the other 200 families) responded with the virulence and aggression systematized in Guatemala over so many years. As cases of illegal land sales emerged in the documentation and testimony, the pervasive system of "violence as an option" resurfaced.

It began with the openly bought press misinformation and intimidation and went on to produce midnight phone calls to the ADEEC office threatening death to its director, don Roderico Teni. Teni, a Kekchi man with impressive professional accomplishments and a deeply rooted background in the traditional village culture, responded with well-reasoned letters to the media that described the work of ADEEC.

As threats and counterthreats escalated in the community, don Meq generally cooled the hotter heads, but as the individuals earlier ousted from office occasioned some beatings of people after a bout of drunkenness, the community prevailed on don Meq to close a family-run speak-easy where the incident occurred. Almost the whole community turned out. A litany of incidents, from the slashing of whole cornfields to the vandalism of tree nurseries, compounded the hostilities to the point that the accused families left Tampur and took refuge in the Catholic church in the nearby town of la Tinta. There, the local priest called for collections to feed "over 800 refugees," nearly 20 times the actual number, bringing some needed humor to the case.

 

Left: Foot bridge into Mayan community opened outside access but not encroachment. Photo: Courtesy of Jose Barreiro.

Finally, on February 19, nearly one thousand people of Tampur hosted 200 representatives of government agencies, the media, local tribunals, as well as the governor of the department, Dr. Jorge Mendez Castaeda. At the huge meeting, the community consensus became transparent, documentation revealed the facts, and with a generous offer to reincorporate the families who had left, closure to the public confusion in the case, first introduced by the corrupt reporting, finally resolved the issue.

For ADEEC personnel and for the leadership of Tampur, the stressful season of recrimination has given way to new vistas. Tampur is in a unique cultural and geographic situation that could provide a regional, maybe a national Guatemalan Indian model of sustainable community development. As in many Indian villages of the region, the overwhelming majority of the families still work together in communal "tareas," or tasks, agreed to by the elders and community leaders. The strong family networks are supported by an indigenous Maya agricultural spiritual system, the "Calendario," their cropping of corn and beans and other species, their many uses of medicinal plants and their general cultural predilection for harmonizing with nature--all are factors that have responded positively to the rural sustainable village development method undertaken by ADEEC.

Throughout the department of Alta Verapaz, in north-central Guatemala, the Kekchi-speaking Mayas number approximately 400,000 people in nearly one thousand village-communities. The municipality of Panzos is home to some 50,000 Kekchi, 95 percent of which are village-dwelling corn farming people. Comprised of some 215 families, or about 1,200 people, Tampur is a leading village. Located along the southern shore of the Polochic River, it is the base community in a network of some 30 remote villages that extend south to the Sierra de Minas mountain range, in a watershed that runs east to Lake Izabal and the Caribbean coast.

During the comprehensive, day-long meeting on February 19, human rights and legal investigators determined, upon reviewing all the evidence, that in fact there had been a misinformation campaign and that the process of electing a new village committee, the actions of don Meq as its president--including the analysis of land tenancy in the village--were completely in order and according to law.

"The activity was a success," reported "Radio Verapaz," in the words of a government representative about the unique assembly session the representatives witnessed in Tampur, where over one thousand neighbors (the overwhelming majority of the village) laid out food and flooring of fresh pine boughs in the village square for the visitors. "A number of the families returned, reconciliation was achieved in many cases, and the community is obviously happy with itself, in a tranquil atmosphere, working the land."

"ADEEC, like any NGO," said the governor to the radio reporter, "has the right to conduct and manifest its work, in any situation."

"People were able to see that even when the legal framework is in place nationally, the real system that still operates in these villages easily turns against Indians," director Teni said. "Right now, we are coming out of a dark tunnel. But there is light ahead, the sun is ahead. The people of Tampur have made themselves heard."

A small step, perhaps, in a small river village called Tampur, but in Guatemala, among Mayans at least, all hope endures.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jos Barreiro is associate director of extension, American Indian Program at Cornell University.

check this out www.darknet.dk/~avatar/hexan/taliban.swf

Down with corrupt Charities nd CULTs bob

Down with corrupt Charities nd CULTs bob

After alot of consideration after reading this site I'm going to write to my MP. Organisations like this give Charities a bad name

Sigge, why are you avoiding answering on my questions to you??

 

Jummo

Why do Tvindies have to have Amdi, why don't they just create smaller groups amongst themselves. Can they do this? Or is the Tvind leadership too powerful? And has total control over the money?

To Sigge

Sorry that you are unhappy with TG, but that doesn not make everyone else a liar....

Sigge, yes I am in TG I have posted my email here before: less_thanaw@yahoo.com You sound like you have left recently, thats what I am about to do. I just wanted to talk to you about it.... L.

Comments on previous...

You are telling the TG-way is not an efficient way of earning money. No, but you are right, an out of ordinary way it sure is. I am surprised that you dont think it is not smart too.

So you lived on water and bread? Well, I am sorry but isnt that a little bit to exaggerate? And now you are playing golf, laying on the beach, mountain climbing, going to concerts and theatre while starting up schools and projects and TV-channels pfiuubusy life indeed. Somehow I dont know if youve identified yourself that strongly with TG that you dont even see a difference with yourself and the whole groupI mean, did YOU start OWC up???? While eating bread only? And now things are so much better that you can play golf too? I am sorry, but I dont believe you have played much golf at all! Oh, you might mean the whole TG and not only yourself?? Well, some people in TG ARE obviously playing golf. But if it is a person that once upon a time had connections with the schools I am not so sure of. And if you would think twice youd realize this thing you are writing is not really even half a truth.

I like living a good life as well. And I agree that the values you mentioned are not so bad: Working with other people and doing something worthwhile. Materially good standards and not so much worries about that I dont think many people have in this part of the world. Whether you are outside or inside TG. Unless you insist on dieting on bread and water of course. Something that in my opinion also is characterizing a good life: Honesty. And sorry, my friend, there is not much of that neither in your posting nor in TG.

I have a suggestion...why don't you have a common meeting with your pals and suggest a year or two off and you'll find out what I mean.

Sigge

 

 

Regarding "recruiting"

I would love to "recruit" many more people! There is plenty to do and more people needed!. I like it very much and believe many others would do so as well.

I am happy to hear that you call Humana a recruiting machine. Great!!!! That shows that it is something quite good and out of the ordnary going on there!! An obviously not something where people get exploited. I do not want be exploited and I certainly not consider myself being it.

I have a great time and an ocean of good friends and opportunities to work for something that I enjoy.

TG is great for me and I think that Humana and The Travelling folk highschools are achieving something good.

If TG would not have anything in their heart except earning money why go through all the hard work it is to establish Humana, Travelling Folkhigh schools, to start TCE up, build a One World TV channel and so on.....

It is not the most efficient way to earn money in this world. Not a very smart "business" is it??

That then, after many years of hard work we also decide that we do not want to live on water and bread any longer is that bad?????

I would like to live a good life. A god life i consider being: *Doing something worthwhile *Work together with other people *Having a material good life as well where i do not need to worry about my basic material needs. And just like many other people in this world do I appreciate relaxing inbetween. Enjoy a beach and a nice surrounding, playing golf, running, walk a mountain, go to a concert, theatre etc etc.

But there is a general understanding at this website that doing good does not equal with living good. No, the only way you can do good is to live on water and bread? Or to give all your own earnings to others, for example volunteers that have a big urge to join a Development Instructor program. i have done that for many years, by working without a salary, and do not want to do it anylonger

What about the "poor volunteers having to pay" at the Travelling Folkhighschools, you might ask? Plus that they need to fundraise!! Outrageous you might think? I do not think so. I think it is a great opportunity to learn, work and experience together with other people. Why should they not pay and fundraise? The money fundraised at most of the Travelling Folkhigh schools goes to the running of the schools. Where should the money come from?? They have to be sustainable. Able to make their economy ad up and balance.

Regardless if someone that once upon a time, that really do not have any ties or control over an activity at a Travelling Folkhigh school, would have a golf membership or not.

If anyone want to join the programs at one of the Travelling Folkhigh schools they have to consider if that is program that they want to do or not. It is a choice they individually has to make. I believe that it is a great opportunity for many people. I enjoyed it, i know many others that did.

So therefore I STRONGLY ADVICE YOU TO SERISOULY CONSIDER TO JOIN UP!!!!!!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to recruit here!

Check out the websites www.drh-movement.org and www.humana.org

NB. As a TG member do you not give your monthly salary away. you CHOSE to put it together with others. One alone cant do as much as many together. I have never felt like Sigge saying she gave her money away.

 

 

 

 

Just to let you know 11 peopel have walked out of hull due to the way things were run at the school (eg poor diet, bullying,demorolizing,no time to think,no heating,pushing you to work long hours,threatening behaviour,taking away choice and fredom of speach.) The point im trying to make they lie to peopel to sighn them up with no questions,then make there life a living hell and still getting away with it.This scool must stop praying on inocent peopel therefore must be stoped.

I just received this today. A chilling read, certainly thought provoking, and it would be good to find out more about John Pilger's claims.

 

Inevitable Ring to the Unimaginable

By John Pilger

 

 

If the attacks on America have their source in the Islamic world, who can really be surprised?

Two days earlier, eight people were killed in southern Iraq when British and American planes bombed civilian areas. To my knowledge, not a word appeared in the mainstream media in Britain.

An estimated 200,000 Iraqis, according to the Health Education Trust in London, died during and in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter known as the Gulf War.

This was never news that touched public consciousness in the west.

At least a million civilians, half of them children, have since died in Iraq as a result of a medieval embargo imposed by the United States and Britain.

In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Mujadeen, which gave birth to the fanatical Taliban, was largely the creation of the CIA.

The terrorist training camps where Osama bin Laden, now "America's most wanted man", allegedly planned his attacks, were built with American money and backing.

In Palestine, the enduring illegal occupation by Israel would have collapsed long ago were it not for US backing.

Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims - principally the victims of US fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic and economic, is the greatest source of terrorism on earth.

This fact is censored from the Western media, whose "coverage" at best minimises the culpability of imperial powers. Richard Falk, professor of international relations at Princeton, put it this way: "Western foreign policy is presented almost exclusively through a self-righteous, one-way legal/moral screen (with) positive images of Western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence."

That Tony Blair, whose government sells lethal weapons to Israel and has sprayed Iraq and Yugoslavia with cluster bombs and depleted uranium and was the greatest arms supplier to the genocidists in Indonesia, can be taken seriously when he now speaks about the "shame" of the "new evil of mass terrorism" says much about the censorship of our collective sense of how the world is managed.

One of Blair's favourite words - "fatuous" - comes to mind. Alas, it is no comfort to the families of thousands of ordinary Americans who have died so terribly that the perpetrators of their suffering may be the product of Western policies. Did the American establishment believe that it could bankroll and manipulate events in the Middle East without cost to itself, or rather its own innocent people?

The attacks on Tuesday come at the end of a long history of betrayal of the Islamic and Arab peoples: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the foundation of the state of Israel, four Arab-Israeli wars and 34 years of Israel's brutal occupation of an Arab nation: all, it seems, obliterated within hours by Tuesday's acts of awesome cruelty by those who say they represent the victims of the West's intervention in their homelands.

"America, which has never known modern war, now has her own terrible league table: perhaps as many as 20,000 victims."

 

As Robert Fisk points out, in the Middle East, people will grieve the loss of innocent life, but they will ask if the newspapers and television networks of the west ever devoted a fraction of the present coverage to the half-a-million dead children of Iraq, and the 17,500 civilians killed in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The answer is no. There are deeper roots to the atrocities in the US, which made them almost inevitable.

It is not only the rage and grievance in the Middle East and south Asia. Since the end of the cold war, the US and its sidekicks, principally Britain, have exercised, flaunted, and abused their wealth and power while the divisions imposed on human beings by them and their agents have grown as never before.

An elite group of less than a billion people now take more than 80 per cent of the world's wealth.

In defence of this power and privilege, known by the euphemisms "free market" and "free trade", the injustices are legion: from the illegal blockade of Cuba, to the murderous arms trade, dominated by the US, to its trashing of basic environmental decencies, to the assault on fragile economies by institutions such as the World Trade Organisation that are little more than agents of the US Treasury and the European central banks, and the demands of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in forcing the poorest nations to repay unrepayable debts; to a new US "Vietnam" in Colombia and the sabotage of peace talks between North and South Korea (in order to shore up North Korea's "rogue nation" status).

Western terror is part of the recent history of imperialism, a word that journalists dare not speak or write.

The expulsion of the population of Diego Darcia in the 1960s by the Wilson government received almost no press coverage.

 

Their homeland is now an American nuclear arms dump and base from which US bombers patrol the Middle East.

In Indonesia, in 1965/6, a million people were killed with the complicity of the US and British governments: the Americans supplying General Suharto with assassination lists, then ticking off names as people were killed.

"Getting British companies and the World Bank back in there was part of the deal", says Roland Challis, who was the BBC's south east Asia correspondent.

British behaviour in Malaya was no different from the American record in Vietnam, for which it proved inspirational: the withholding of food, villages turned into concentration camps and more than half a million people forcibly dispossessed.

In Vietnam, the dispossession, maiming and poisoning of an entire nation was apocalyptic, yet diminished in our memory by Hollywood movies and by what Edward Said rightly calls cultural imperialism.

In Operation Phoenix, in Vietnam, the CIA arranged the homicide of around 50,000 people. As official documents now reveal, this was the model for the terror in Chile that climaxed with the murder of the democratically elected leader Salvador Allende, and within 10 years, the crushing of Nicaragua.

All of it was lawless. The list is too long for this piece.

Now imperialism is being rehabilitated. American forces currently operate with impunity from bases in 50 countries.

"Full spectrum dominance" is Washington's clearly stated aim.

Read the documents of the US Space Command, which leaves us in no doubt.

In this country, the eager Blair government has embarked on four violent adventures, in pursuit of "British interests" (dressed up as "peacekeeping"), and which have little or no basis in international law: a record matched by no other British government for half a century.

What has this to do with this week's atrocities in America? If you travel among the impoverished majority of humanity, you understand that it has everything to do with it.

People are neither still, nor stupid. They see their independence compromised, their resources and land and the lives of their children taken away, and their accusing fingers increasingly point north: to the great enclaves of plunder and privilege. Inevitably, terror breeds terror and more fanaticism.

But how patient the oppressed have been.

It is only a few years ago that the Islamic fundamentalist groups, willing to blow themselves up in Israel and New York, were formed, and only after Israel and the US had rejected outright the hope of a Palestinian state, and justice for a people scarred by imperialism.

Their distant voices of rage are now heard; the daily horrors in faraway brutalised places have at last come home.

 

 

John Pilger is an award-winning journalist.

September 13, 2001

 

 

__________________________________________________

 

About the Amdi-picture!

I agree, it is not relevant if the picture is real or manipulated. In fact...Amdi looks like the picture. Maybe not that old, but still! One can recognize him from it.

Sigge

So you're saying that if you are a member of the TG you're not allowed to get a salary??

If I start up a company, I have to right to have a salary, even if the money from the salary comes from my own company, and if I sell products to the state, it doesn't matter.

Now I'm not equalising the schools with companys, but still it's the same; you're saying that as a techar you don't have the right to have a salary IF you decide to use the money commonly..

Don't I have the right to do with my private money as I please, as long as it doesn't break the law??

Witchhunt, let Tvind do what they do best, development work and taking care of the young people in Denmark that the communes cannot handle. Where would these students go if Tvind was nonexistant?? We had one boy who came from a (state) psychiatric centre, so full of drugs that he was like a zombie. The reasno for that was that they couldn't handle him, when he came here we called his doctor and asked if we could remove the drugs, and he said yes. so we did, the first night he smashed his room completely, second night he smashed all the windows on his building, after a while when he realised that we actually cared about him he started to settle down, we gave him some responsibilities like running the windmill during the night and he really liked that, now he's even started to study and get up in the mornings (except when he's running the windmill). There's more to the story but this was the short version.

There's a lot of "happy" stories about kids that now works fine, there's alot of "unhappy" stories too, but the absolute majority is positive ones.

 

 

Jummo

The list of Tvind companies on Tvind Alert has been revised and brought up to date - we have added details of an extra 20 or so from all kinds of countries including Kazakhstan, Rusia and west Africa. The total at the moment is: 114.

A lot of the new companies are in the USA, trading in used clothes. Look especially at U'SAgain, Garson & Shaw Inc, Gaia, CoMore bv.

There must be many, many hundreds more.

If anybody has information about these companies or the names and addresses and directorships of any others, anywhere, please pass the information on to Tvind Alert so we can publish it. Thanks

The picture of Amdi.

Tvind Alert has heard the picture is supposed to be from a credit card application

I do not read Danish, however, even I can see that there is something suspicious about this picture, as Ekstra Bladet reports. I am going to put a link to Ekstra Bladet's report so people can make up their own minds.

So - maybe some unscrupulous photographer in the USA who knows how much he'll earn has been tempted to make a lot of money, and maybe Jylland-Posten has been completely taken in. But it is only a picture - it doesn't matter what he looks like. He must look something like this. Let's forget this picture and get back to the main point - what is this man, whatever he looks like, doing living in luxury on a private tropical island off Miami??

The money Humana money is one thing. TG money another. Yes and no. There has been questions here on this page whether 3rd world projects is an efficient way of making money. Of course it is efficient! It is a recruiting-machine. There is a lot of people out there who want to "do good". Some of them go throwing bricks on the police when on demonstrations. Others want to "roll up their sleeves" as the TG-language says, and do some work.

The 3rd world projects has been an argument for some recent posters, who I presume being TG-members. It is obvious they think that they are doing some important work. This is a big point. Otherwise these people would not keep giving not only of their monthly salary, but of their daily time and the right of thinking freely.

Imagine what power this gives to a man like Amdi who without blinking uses this TG-peoples lives in the purpous of...WHAT? Projects?? There is of course money in the projects, but not that much. All TG-members are aware of that the TG money is not humana-money. Their salary goes to TG and they have to work more to get more money into the projects.

But you who wrote about RESULTS, you who asked about what we/I have accomplished in our lives (probably meaning you have a feeling that you've accomplished a lot)... Why don't you start thinkinig about WHY you put your money into Amdi's bucket? I mean, what are your real reasons? Are you really thinking you are not able to accomplish anything outside TG? Are you personally impressed by and trusting Amdi? Maybe he gave you once some good words on your way, a present, something that meant much to you...? Are you really thinking TG is something special, giving you possibilities that you wouldn't have otherwise? Well, the price is just so high. And I understand if you cannot see it now. It takes some time to get out of lies and selflies. The feeling of being fooled is not very pleasant.

So, if you want to avoid truth some more, work on. But stop dragging more peole into it. (Which you of course don't stop, as part of your work is recruiting, recruiting...)

sigh

Sigge

So "TG is a private group of people putting their earnings together....." Fine, but where does this money come from? Do they go out and work and earn money from Ford, Nokia, Eriksson, the town coucil, a corner shop? No, in most cases they work for Tvind. And where does Tvind get its money from? The public. That is at the heart of the big fallacy that TG people are clubbing together with 'their own' money. The money just goes around and around. It is other people's money, that Tvind has conned well-meaning citizens and charities and governments to hand over in the belief it is doing a humanitarian job.

Open your eyes, TG members. Come back to the real world. Common time, common money, common work, common delusion.

www.worldonline.dk/~dddc/amdi.pcx

Study the picture....

Check out this article (in Danish) by Ekstrabladet that says that the photo on a certain person that Tvindalert have pointed out as leader or Guru for the so called Tvind empire.

Criminal assistant and leader of the Danish Photograppical section at the National Police says that the picture has been manipulated.

The leader of the Animation department at the Danish films school tells the same.

Further do they explain that the picture is probably made out of 2,3 or more pictures.

Maybe you AntiTvind people are about getting desperate?? So many years of claiming that Tvind is evil, stealing money, brainwash, not doing a good work etc etc etc and there has been nothing that you can prove has been done illegal and more and more places you turn in the world. More and more people do you find appreciate the work done by people from the TG

 

The link http://www.eb.dk/VisArtikel.iasp?PageID=142714

 

 

 

 

 

TG is a private group of people putting their earnings together. it is their PRIVATE earnings and not Humanas. In the same way does not Humanas money belong to these private people, but to the organization and its purpose

To the previuous posting.

It is easy enough to say that "Humanas money does not go where it is supposed to".

But please think rationally. It is close to 200 projects run by Humana. It has been quite some critical eyes looking upon how the money is spent for many years, and they havent found anything that really is not as it should be. It IS many, many people that thinks Humana does a very good work.

Visit www.drh-movement.org and www.humana.org for more relevant information

Furter. If any of you ever donate to a Humana, to one of the Travelling Folk high schools can I tell you that it is safe. I have personally seen and worked at several projects and know many that have done the same and are satisfied with how it is run.

the one here telling that the donated money goes to some luxury places do not have a clue about what he is talking about

 

First, it is not clear that Humana is doing a good job in third world countries...there is no independent evaluation of the programs. The one thing that is clear, is that the same old problems are made over and over. Second, it matters what the TG is doing with its money comes from people who are donating to a charity in order to help people. If you are going to beg on the streets to help the third world and beg for free food and beg for free accomindations it seems that society has an interest in knowing what the money is going to.

Yes Humana has accomplished a lot....but living in luxury apartments is not what most people who donate think they are supporting.

Why is it so important to know what the TG is doing with their money? It their own business. Is it not much more interesting to know that Humana is really doing a good job in third world countries?

I suspect that quite some people in the UN organs are quite wealthy. But they do not put their salaries together, so they are not "criminal as Tvind".

When many people put their salaries together THAT THEY HAVE EARNT BY WORKING, can a lot be done. It also create reactions.

 

 

I think that this site is a proof of that people in the TG has achieved quite some remarcableble results.

A bunch of people, starting about 30 years ago put their money together to do something.

Today we see Humana,schools, private enterprizes, farms and many activities.

Great achievemnt!

Yes, how stupid of me. Despite the fact that the leader of the TG is living a luxurious lifestyle based on the donations to the 3rd world, we should just shut up and get to work like all good Tvind-ites......I guess it is better to accomplish the enrichment of a total bastard than to try and stop this abuse. Again, mea culpa I'm so sorry.

Don't you people have anything better to do with your lives then to complain about a group of people that aren't even concerned with yours. Come on, these people are doing something that they want to do and are doing it. How much in your life have you accomplished???????? Get a life and find something else to do then to complain about nothing.

I have no idea what criteria Agfund used to judge programs. From what I see from their webpage all it took was an application and there was little or no ground-checking. And we all know that the TG are experts in propaganda about themselves.

In terms why doesn't the TG do something else...well they do. Clearcutting lumber in Brazil and growing bananas in Belize. Also they also seem to embemzle money from their aid projects. Perhaps not the most effecient way to make money but it works. I for one would support the TG dropping the pretense of "good work" and they becoming full capitalists...at least then they would make their volunteers cynical.

Who are you asking? Somebody from TG trying to calculate out who I am? You will find out sooner or later anyway. Don't worry. Or was it of some other reason? Why do you think I will answer an anonumous poster? You tell me who you are first. Sigge

Hey Sigge. How long have you been in TG and when you left?

YES there are results. YES some people are doing good. But please, please TG-people STOP focusing only on your results. Stop rationalizing stop defending yourselves. Stop hiding the fact that there is a hidden curriculum! I know that you are aware of it. I was! But I defended it to be necessary. I thought TG was ahead of it's time, misunderstood by media etc. (still I find many of Tvind-related articles mostly ridiculous and not targeting the real problems). I hid things from students and I hid facts from those TG members that were better not to know this or that "yet". They might be new members and react in a wrong way to certain things. I never talked about Amdi to anybody. We just didn't talk about him. that meant my thoughts about him were my personal thoughts. I thought he was a fantastic man. Sure everybody else thought so as well. But as we never or seldom commented anything there was no risk for bad talk among us either. I knew he was the boss. Was it what I talked about when an outsider questioned? No. In order to let him keep the power I needed to think of him as a "good" leader. As a good example. I was listening to stories told about how fantastic he was and how hardworking, thoughtful... But never mentioned this to students. Isn't this double moral, dear old TG-friends? YES most of you are working like hell and doing a damn good work. Some of you are really clever and talented, some of you are oppressed. But please...there are so many good things one can do outside TG! I mean you act like people in a bad marriage, defending it until the last blooddrop. I don't feel any guilt of divorcing TG anymore. I am SO happy!

Sigge

I must admit I always expected to find Amdi living it up but what a absolute bastard, all that bullshit he was coming out with all those years. How many people he has conned I wonder what he really thought about the people in his organisation collecting money on the streets. Its a betrayal on a collossal scale.

I guess the AGFUND looked at the RESULTS of the TCE projects - and that's why they decided to give them the prize.

Look at the RESULTS people - and please think about it. How is it possible for HUMANA to pull off so many projects, and to develop more and more, if the money that is collected for it in the West doesn't end up where it is supposed to be?

IF the TG only wanted to make money, why would they choose to do it in such a difficult way - ripping of charities or running schools that doesn't receive any government funding. I know these TGs (or at least some of them). Most of them are dead smart and could earn big salaries in business. If amassing wealth was the only thing the TG was about - why do they bother with troublemaking youth or projects in really awkward places in the world?

I read the message ending with "Thanks for reading", and got terribly irritated. Who are you to talk about diversity? About visions? About pointing fingers at sbd else? Who are you to tell about doing good? How can you be so sure of that you (whoever in TG you are and wherever you are placed) actually ARE doing good? Yes, you can vomit even more from your statistics ripped out from "State of the world's children reports" etc showing the situation of the third world. I agree, it is terrible. But that is just a curtain covering up for what you really do...Why are you NOT telling about the endless teacher's meetings where you discuss all participant's? About the aim of all later joining the teacher's group? About the need of "upbringing" of the participants you mostly forget are adults? Your words about UN's good work blablabla is just a coward way of trying to justify your own work. Why don't you write about what you REALLY think about UN? Why don't you write what TG thinks about UN or all other organisations that are not TGs? I mean, as far as I know Amdi doesn't give a shit of people outside TG. Neither was his words about UN really uplifting as far as I can remember. What I really dislike about you TG-people is the way of deciding some things being TG-talk, some other things the things you tell to people "outside". The sort of talk that is on your leaflets, broschures, lectures, web-pages, etc. It is called propaganda. You might fool some people with your bullshit about visions, you sure don't fool me no more. How come you still haven't woke up? Too many invested years of your life to your "vision"? Count the hours you have spent on the streets begging for money! I spent alltogether NINE months on the streets. I collected around 20 000 alltogether! If that would have been for instance to Joao and Fernando and all other decent poor people in Angola, but... GOLF CLUB-memberships...Damn Amdi and Kirsten, I really thought you were nice, gorgeous people, I really looked up to you once...Now I really am angry and I hope that they'll get you and make you pay! And you with the visions...why don't you just move on yourself and see what a lie you are living on! Whoever you are, what ever mountaintop you are living on...I feel sorry for you.

People believe what they want to believe. Alot of the tvindies are in the organisation because they reject alot of the pressures of everyday life. Tvind and the comradeship and support they recieve from their friends within the organisation makes up for alot. Its a shame that such a group of people ended up in such dire straights. Amdi started out as a left winger with Marxist tendencies and he ended up living with the rich on a private island. The same mugabe was a marxist lives in a Palace and drives round in a motorcade. I will have to think about this alot what I can say is I don't believe in Politics any more

I really wonder if this will change much for Tvind. First, members of the TG will likely just discount it as yet another attack from an unfriendly world. (You'd be amazed at how much rationalization people are capable of). Second, they will claim that Amdi is not really part of their organization and that his actions are not connected even though they are. Finally, they will enter that "lets just hunker down and work" mentality and ignore what is right in front of them.

I sincerely hope that people actually take the time to stop and think about what this means but I fear that they won't. If people don't want to face the truth they will find ways to avoid it and the TG are experts in pushing aside all evidence that contradicts their worldview.

 

 

 

It is to be hoped that the thousands of young people who have given their cash, time and effort to this dreadful organization will now be reimbursed. The police should mount an international hunt world wide for Petersens cash. It should all be redistributed to the donors with interest. Petersen himself should be brought to justice in the most uncivilised country in which Tvind has so called humanitarian projects. This man does not deserve any justice in for instance Denmark. That country would probably release him after a few years, anyway. He sould also be held responsible for all the suicides in his wake.

Hi all.

Tvindalert and Jyllands posten can write whatever. We just continue to do our work as good as we can.

 

 

What happens to the schools in Africa if Tvind really falls apart (as hopefully, it will)?

In my opinion, it would be diasterous for Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe if Tvind shuts its doors with noone there to pick up the pieces. I seem to have heard that Tvind controls something like 90% of the entire school system in Mozambique alone. In my opinion, after Amdi's properties have been sold and the Tvind teachers have been given their rightfully deserved compensations, the remainder of the money in the Flleseje fund should be put into a real fund that would then be administered by someone like the Danish government, the European Union or what have you. This fund would then provide for the continous funding of Tvind's African school systems, ensuring that ALL the raised money will finally go to its intended recipients.

Peter

(btw, I'm not a big fan of Amdi's buddy Mugabe either, but I don't think it would do much good to the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans to have any schools in their country close.)

Hmm, OK. Now that it's beginning to sink in, what have the pro-Tvind writers got to say about this? Tomas? Anna? You all seem to be keeping rather quiet....

I all fairness, I have to say that it must be a humbling experience to realise that one has been so cleverly and comprehensively duped. It seems that this really has been the most impressive piece of indoctrination. Amdi, and his close associates, deserve Oscars for their performances. They really seem to have pulled the wool over people's eyes, anyone who wanted to do some good in the world could be so easily taken in. That is the biggest tragedy of all this - shattered ideals.

 

Amdi Petersen is found in luxury hideaway

Mogens Amdi Petersen, the reclusive leader of the so-called 'aid charity' Tvind, has been located in a luxury private tropical island resort off Miami, according to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten yesterday.

Petersen is said to have a $6 million penthouse apartment at Fisher Island, one of the most exclusive resorts in the world, used as a hideaway by top sportsmen and film stars. The apartment has marble floors, five bathrooms, a Jacuzzi, a steam shower and a fitness room and was bought for him by a Tvind company for $624,000 in 1991. Petersen is an enthusiastic member of the $100,000 Fisher Island golf club. In fact, Tvind rents two apartments - one for each of Petersen's two dogs.

The newspaper's coverage begins: "Mogens Amdi Petersen, leader of the Danish Tvind organisation, is hiding on a private tropical island, while earnings from companies in The Third World and Tvind-teacher salaries keep pouring into his coffers...."

Jyllands-Posten also publishes the first photograph of 62-year old Petersen since 1979.

Story in English with links at: http://www.tvindalert.org.uk (follow links to story) and in Danish at http://www.jp.dk

 

I just visited the Tvind school in Denmark and i must say i liked it very much. Everyone was very friendly and we had a great conferance about development in the third world. What Tvind stands for i something very good and if there would be no people like the tvindalert people in this world much more would be don for the thirld world. Go Tvind, go!

ALERT! Might wanna check www.jp.dk - they've found Amdi!

So Amdi hiding on Fisher island in luxury. I bet he doesn't wear Tvindie clothes doesn't sound like he has a common economy on a $100000 per year Golf club. What about buying a spare flat for his dog. With all you Tvindies sleeping on 2nd hand mattresses. Well better late than never to find out, you all have my sympathy

Hi Lars,

I'm a bit lost, so in essence your main beef is over the way the money raised was spent, i.e. it could have been better used, budgeted and controlled and you think that you as the team should have been control over the budget? If so I agree, our Asia team did just that and it does put a different perspective on fund raising when you know that you need X Krona to buy enough petrol to get to India and X Krona for food, X for Visas and so on. I think also it would make people have a more positive outlook on fund raising if they new exactly where what they raised went in their team, even if it was on rent, bills and so forth, at least you'd know.

To be honest it never bothered me, I never gave it much thought, I know members on both teams I worked had issues with it and it cuased some members to quit.

That said, I hate selling post cards, hate it more than anything else in the world, thankfully on my second team in Sweden I worked at a chicken farm cleaning the pens...boy I stank..but it was better than postcards :O)

Cheers

Chris

The TG and all the activities - especially HUMANA would be very good - IF Amdi had the moral to resign - or TG members had the courage to ask him and his body guards to go. He is a very, very sick, afraid and small minded man.nn.

MD,

Why do you assume that I am not using my "time and effort to do some good"? For all you know I could be Desmond Tutu... And if you truly believe that TvindAlert contributors don't have lives outside this forum (unlike Tvindies that have no personal lives), you are sadly mistaken.

You try and call humana a "cult" because there a group of people working together to do what they believe in. So if you call humana a "cult" then what is tvind alert? Would you call yourselfs a cult because you work for what you so called "believe in" you use your time and effort to write all theses things why dont you use this time and effort to do some good. MD

Hi Chris and Jimmy, Actually I was at IICD not CCTG or the Danish schools. I should also probably restate since I think that my "commitment" sentence is not conveying what I was trying to get at. Mea culpa...just the result of typing something off very quickly late at night.

I'm not actually critiquing IICD for lack of support in the field. We were working with another NGO at the time who was very well organized and provided the logistical support that we needed. (Just to prove my "toughness quotient" - always necessary to avoid being casted as lazy - I too lived bare to the bone in the field, where spending ten cents on a newspaper was something we split between three people and a coke was a once a month luxury)

My critique is less about support away from the US and more about the fund-raising/training period. The energy of the TG members was clearly on fund-raising and left little time for the so-called "training" offered and left us fairly unprepared.

In terms of specific funny dealings with money, (1) we were led to believe that the money we were raising was for our project and only later found out that it was going to IICD's costs. Not necessarily a bad thing because someone has to pay for electricity but my impression was that our fund was raided because of an IICD budget shortfall. Hell, we might of even volunteered the money but we were never asked. (2) Upon return to the US, the pot of money that we had been budgeted for traveling and doing presentations was cut in half making it very difficult to do. Maybe I won't get CCTG to give a day by day breakdown of expenses but I learned to distrust the statements of TG organizations around money.

I actually don't buy the idea that the TG is paranoid simply because everyone is out to get them. I extended them a lot of trust but the misused it. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Lars

 

THERE IS NOTHING MORE PATHETIC THAN A GROWN MAN OR WOMAN WHO IS SO INSECURE THAT HE OR SHE HAS TO JOIN A NEO-MAOIST CULT LIKE TVIND!

THERE IS NOTHING MORE PATHETIC THAN A GROWN MAN OR WOMAN WHO IS SO INSECURE THEY HE OR SHE HAS TO JOIN A NEO-MAOIST CULT LIKE TVIND!

THERE IS NOTHING MORE PATHETIC THAN A GROWN MAN OR WOMAN WHO IS SO INSECURE THEY HE OR SHE TO JOIN A NEO-MAOIST CULT LIKE TVIND!

Lars

"It is just when we had to deal with the TG that things broke down. We were committed but the lack of any support and a lot of funny dealings with money was the problem. In a very real sense, any commitment for our group dropped off once we out of the US and away from fund-raising. "

How much commitment does that show? as soon as you were "on your own" doing what you trained for all commitment dropped?

Funny dealings with money, please specify

When you had to deal with TG things broke down, yeah, sure. "TG made us loose the commitment" or something??

Jimmy

Hi Lars,

So you went to CCTG then, not the danish schools? I'll agree that while I enjoyed my time working at Tvind and on various projects they can be a bit "protective" of the information, paranoid maybe.... then again you're not paranoid if everyone really is out to get you are you, which for Tvind, would seem to be the case.

"any commitment for our group dropped off once we out of the US and away from fund-raising. " Where did your team go and who was your LG teacher on the team. When I went to Zambia, our LG teacher Jostein was a pillar of strength and organization. At the same time, yes we were pretty much, on our own resources 95% of the time, but so what, that was what we had trained for, we didn't go to Zambia to be put in a nice hotel and baby sat for 3 months. We lived out in the bush doing our work, showered when water was available and ate chicken 3 times a day 5 to 6 times a week. Cola when available was a luxury...and usually served at30 degrees C.

I know that you'd like CCTG to give you a dollar by dollar break down of where the money goes from fund raising and school fees etc. But you'll never get it, just like you'd never get it from any private institute.

cheers

Chris

I totally agree with Bonnie why write all of your stories on this page what are you looking for smpathy well your not going to get it. Everyone who joins the program knows what their getting into before they start every single person knows that they will have to put 100% in to get results as in every job. I have been in one of the schools for a while now and i have met lots of intresting people from all parts of the world and from all different social backgrounds but they all have one thing in common they want to make a difference in this cruel world. This is where humana comes in, humana gives the people this chance the ones who really want to make a difference. Before i started this program i was stuck in a dead end job doing the same thing everyday seeing the same people everyday. Then one day i was surfing the net and came across humana web site looked into it and made further inquires and well here i am today having the best time of my life and with the company of some of the best people i have met. So if anyone reading this page is still intrested in joining a project and lets face it whats stopping you go to www.humana.org and look further into it and if you want phone one of the schools they will be happy to answer any questions you have. MD

Hi Bonnie, I write what I do not because I found it "too hard" but because there are serious problems with the Tvind system. Just saying that people object didn't work hard enough is insulting to those of us who worked are hearts out and a dis-service to people who volunteer with the groups since it means basic problems never get addressed. This saddens me because it means many well-intentioned idealists (as I was) will continued to go through this highly manipulative organization.

Chris, Actually my group got along fairly well with each other. It is just when we had to deal with the TG that things broke down. We were committed but the lack of any support and a lot of funny dealings with money was the problem. In a very real sense, any commitment for our group dropped off once we out of the US and away from fund-raising.

Cheers....Lars

Hej Another Namless

>>Hej, Chris!

>>Better visit them than waiting for a posting. >>Why not find a phone number or ask to some of >>their home-pages? Posting in Tindalert is not a >>priority for many of TG members...

 

I think you should read my past posts, you have the wrong end of the stick.....

Cheers

Chris

Hi Bonnie

I agree, I think many of the volunteers who had a rough time, probably had poor team co-operation. If a team does not work well together then I expect the volunteers will have a very different experience, most of the teams gell together and work well, but some don't and then things don't go right, just like they wouldn't on any activity where team support and wellness are important.

At the end of the day a high level of commitment is required to succeed, some people only discover they can't give that commitment when it is too late.

Cheers

Chris

Hi everyone, my name is Bonnie, im from NZ & am a participant at CCTG. im very saddened to read that some people feel they had a bad experience at these schools or projects, but it makes me wonder is this just your way of not feeling as though you have just given up ,to write these awful stories ,is it a way to make yourself feel better about quitting something that you found too hard, it is so easy to blame someone else. I have been involved in training & voluntering at CCTG for the last 5 months now & not only have i Had a good time, i have worked hard (as promised before you arrive) & I have met wonderful people who really want to make a difference in this world! I have seen people come & then leave as they decided it is not for them (all have left on good terms & still keep in contact) & i have seen a team train & leave for mozambique, well prepared & happy. We get reports of how they are doing every couple of weeks, they are certainly making a difference & having a nice time. I hope that anyone who reads this site does not let it put them off, if you are concerned phone one of the schools,ask what questions you need to, talk to the participants,ask for me if you want, this is a wonderful place full of caring & intelligent people from all around the world of all different ages, it is an experience of a life time!!!!, dont let small minded slander put you off!!!

Some of the nicest people i have ever met do programs in humana. These are the type of people the worlds needs more of. People who arent selfish who put other people before themselves and actually care about the situation in the world today. MD

YOU PEOPLE WHO WRITE BAD THINGS ABOUT HUMANA SHOULD STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT THE PAST AND GET ON WITH THERE LIVES. IF YOU AIM IS TO SCARE AWAY THE PEOPLE WHO ARE INTRESTED IN JOINING HUMANA YOUR FAILING. THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY WANT TO JOIN HUMANA WILL JOIN NO MATTER WHAT YOU WRITE ON THIS WEB PAGE. THE PROJECT THAT THEY DO ARE BRILLIANT AND WORTH IT THEY HELP PEOPLE WHO MOST NEED IT. YEA YOU ALL COMPLAIN ABOUT "BUILDING, CLEANING AND FUNDRAISING". BUT THATS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT THE PEOPLE IN AFRICA HAVE TO GO THROUGH EVERYDAY. THE AIM OF HUMANA IS TO HELP THE PEOPLE WHO NEED IT THE MOST AND GIVE THEM A BETTER CHANCE AT A BASIC LIFE AND YES PEOPLE HAVE TO PUT A LOT IN TO GET A LITTLE OUT BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY ITS WELL WORTH IT. MD

Hej, Chris!

Better visit them than waiting for a posting. Why not find a phone number or ask to some of their home-pages? Posting in Tindalert is not a priority for many of TG members...

Hi Nameless ,

I read all the other posts which is why I find the most recent batch to be pretty dull. People such as Sigge and Lars have their own understanding of Tvind, UFF and LG which is what I'm interested in debating, not just reading thoughtless posts from both sides of the fence.

Added to that I'm still waiting to see a post from any one I knew at the many schools I studied and worked at in Tvind, be interesting to catch up on life.

Cheers

Chris

Hi Nameless ,

I read all the other posts which is why I find the most recent batch to be pretty dull. People such as Sigge and Lars have their own understanding of Tvind, UFF and LG which is what I'm interested in debating, not just reading thoughtless posts from both sides of the fence.

Added to that I'm still waiting to see a post from any one I knew at the many schools I studied and worked at in Tvind, be interesting to catch up on life.

Cheers

Chris

Hey! Tvind alert has no connections with neo nazis. If you read the Politiken today what they say is that Tvind alert receives economical suport from the Christian Democrats and some of the members of the secret police that investigated tvind in the 80's. LS

Hi, Chris! Don't be so sad; development is like these postings, downs and ups. I red this page, i'm reading the postings, and I think the last postings are reactions to the paternalistic postings that overflow these pages. Read all the postings, please, read the ones of Sigge and others for example. They show a lack of understanding of the schools movement, the projects movement and people in general. She sounds a mother plenty of reason in her speaches; they provoque reactions! This is not a page for revolutionaries turned up in house wifes! This is a page for people to react and not to pray. You have a page called News stories. Why come here to write the story of their so normal lifes? The world is changing fast, TG and Humana are inside this movement of change, like you and me. Using terms like propaganda, cult, sect to explain what we can't understand because of fast changes, is not the way. Personally I like the last postings; they are fresh, they are happy! They are not so boring has the postings of the serious people that try to monopolise this public space. Internet is like this, my dear Chris!...

 

Dissapointed, I had kind of expected from earlier posts some interesting discussions but it seems that folks from both side of the fence have nothing to do but propagate their own propaganda and meaningless conspiracies and so forth. Most people don't even read the previous posts before putting up their little bit of text, yes where are Sigge, Tomas, Steen and others?

Cheers

Chris

To be honest: I really have heard, that tvindalert has coonections to the neo nazi scene - from different sources, by the way.

Hello! Can you please update your home-page? How many were arrested after police found the secrets of tvind? And Amdi is he a world class golfer or a sunday one? And Amdis cats? Don't feel them alone in so luxurious and big apartment. And how many more left the schools? What is the difference between a sect and a cult? And is Tvindalert an anti-cult or an anti-sect? So many questions waiting answers. So many young people anguish without a confort word of you. And stories, mails and secrets from inside the schools? Please, please update your home-page! Thank you!

Sigge, where are you?! Please restaure a good level on this mess, with all your good old stories!

The previous sounds like part of the charter.

 

And how about a page "Alertvindalert"? with a link to Tvindalert. Sessions like "The last gossip", "Salsa Cult", "Tvindalert danish branch", "News from the Group"?

What about if we use Tvindalert tactics to spread a "truth" about Tvindalert?

Maybe we could start a debate in this statement:

I have "heard" that someone is investigating where Tvindalert is getting its money from and that it is claimed that they recieve support from people that have connections to the neo nazi movement.

Next could be that we get a journalist writing about it.

After that could we write: According to the independent paper of ?? (Whatever name) is there an private investigation in process to uncover Tvindalerts connection to right wing extremist groups.

Next would maybe be a statement from Tvindalert saying that they have no connection to the neo nazis and claim that it is "Tvind propaganda".

We could then maybe claim: Tvindalert have been in contact with a person, we do not wish to name, that has openly claimed that he think that foreigners in Denmark should be Danish or otherwies they can be kicked out. Some people, that we still wish to keep anonymous, say that the new "righ wing movement" in Europe is very closely related to what in Germany during the 30-40ties was call National Socialism=Nazism

Tvindalert can answer: We do not support that.

We could say. Oh no, one person listed here at the site and obviously a supporter of Tvindalert has, according to sources that wishes to be anonymous, been i frequent contact with people with extremist views and political agendas. Why do not Tvindalert admit their connection??? What are they hiding? We are fighting for a more transparent Tvindalert. Tvindalert is spreading propaganda to hide their real agenda.

This is off course a made up story and only an example on Tvindalert tactics.

 

 

This is a guestbook, but not the place for propaganda. We don't mind debate, but very long messages that are just propaganda will have to be deleted - there are plenty of DRH websites where you can find this.

 

Do you believe in the theory of conspiracy? Tvindalert is a branch of the secret danish police. Read with attention the names of people beyond the site, read with attention the reports of different danish newspapers, find out who was with the police when they broke in the property of members of TG. Ask where they live, what they make, where to find the dozens of thousand pound they need to link this page in Google and other search engines; donations? do they show their accounts, do they have a postal adress?...

The previous sounds like part of the charter.

Tvind alert express the power of democratisation of Internet. Everyone has a place and something to share with others. For us it is an important in one hand, an easy place to discover the history of a peculiar group - the teachers group - and in the other hand, the dicotomy of the western world: the good ones in one side and the bad ones in the other side. It is clear to understand - if you have a modern perspective of the world - that teachers group is a different reality of humana people to people. Teacher group has different model of development than humana people to people. The first points towards the realisation of the individual in a common perspective, the second points towards the realisation of the aspiration of comunities via the empowerment of individuals. It is what it is, and the tone xenofhobe of tvindalert contributions is also clear to the ones that study development. This doesn't take away the merit that tvindalert has - to make a chronology of an important reality in the world today: that development can be done by any person.

 

NB : there are at least two ships missing off your list, both were used by Red House School, one was based in the Caribbean and the other moored locally and used for teaching sailing to the students prior to their sailing in the Caribbean. The boat in England was in excellent condition and a beautiful boat, the one in the Caribbean I never saw as I moved from Red House to DRH Hornsjo shortly before my class went there.

Cheers

Chris

Hi Steen

If you still visit this site I was wondering were you at Red House when I was there, I seem to recollect that you were, but left when Winestead opened, though I could swear it was called White Haven when it first opened... long time ago.

Cheers

Chris

Hi All

What I find most interesting is the perception by the complaint letters is that the whole of the LG is run with the concept of ripping people off. Have any of you ever seen the break down on what happens when you donate one pound to any aid organization, of where that money actually goes and how much of it ever gets to the thing you think you are aiding? I'll have to dig it up, it makes for interesting reading and makes you think twice before giving to charity. What I liked about Tvind was the ideal that "anyone" can make a difference and volunteer, AND see exactly what happens to the clothes that are donated and so forth.

I was on the first Norwegian team to go to Zambia, working in Monze to build a tree nursery, our education in Norway was very much "self planned" and it worked very well, learning the history of Africa, Zambia, Tree agriculture, errosion effects and so on, even some of the local language which ended being more useful as entertainment in Zambia than for communication, our LG teacher Jostein was excellent, I learnt and owe him a lot. In Zambia will built what at that time was considered one of the best tree nurseries in Zambia, government officials from all over the country flocked to the opening ceremony to "take credit" and to our utter shock and my total pissed off horror they eventually gave all the credit to The Norwegian Aid Org NORAID and not UFF, having seen the NORAID nursery first hand all I can say was "glad they didn't have anything to do with our work".

Summary, while things do go wrong, Tvind/UFF/Humana etc all have a common goal to help people, sure they have ideals that I didn't agree with, their complete lack of respect for "personal belongings" really irritated me.

But for every negative thing I saw, or heard I can merrily counter with many more positive things, be it from a Small School, Efterskole, Travelling High School or DNS.

Cheers

Chris khunkwai@somtam.com

Nov 23rd 2001

Hello Sigge

Thanks for your straight forward and honest answer. Even though I don't agree with some of the things you say about TG do I now understand much better where you are coming from. Thanks I wish you the best!

Tomas

 

Hi! Did you red the bonga bonga story? Great staff, ahn?! It is true that the charter of this group is like this? There is any possibility of buying that book? Can any of you folks give me a tip where to find it? m74gardner@excite.uk

Date : Nov 22nd 2001

Hi All

Wow interesting site, I was a voluteer (not part of the LG/TG but as a pocket money paid volunteer)at Tvind, I started at Red House, was a student at DRH Hornsjo, spent a month at DNS, taught at DIE Tvind and was a student at DRH Tvind. During which time I travelled the world, saw and did some amazing things and made many many good friends...this was all back in 1988 through 1992... now a days I run a company in Thailand, which is funny becuase the day they finally kicked me out of Tvind Anna Laursen asked me not to go to Thailand when I told her I was going there, funny enough in 1995 when I enquired about going back to Tvind as a volunteer again I was accepted but eventually didn't go as my then girlfriend was against the idea...oh how life could have been very different.

I have read every story on this site from ex students and teachers and a lot of it has a lot of truth behind it, and I say this while saying in the same breath, DAMN I had a good time at Tvind, Maybe I didn't love every minute but it was one hell of a ride and an education available no where else on Earth, my work in Zambia was great, my bus trip to India and Bangladesh was amazing and the sports days were just awesome, yea I almost froze to death hitch hiking in Sweden, went insane selling post cards in Finland and found the budget for fund razing and school fees to be a tad vague (is that old nuclear bunker still in use).

Some of longest friends are ex Tvind buddies, one of whom is a total avid hater of Tvind and is a fan of this site.

All said an done, yes Tvind has some weird stuff going on so does Greenpeace.

Was I brain washed, no I was kicked out of Tvind, when I left Red House to go to DRH in Hornsjo one of my students (Maria) said "please don't even change", to which a LG teacher said "Of course he will", not quite the road that was planned out for me.

Tvind taught me many things (even danish and norwegian as a side effect), and for that I will always be very grateful. Would I go back..... would they let me might be a better question.

Cheers

Chris khunkwai@somtam.com

About why to write in this guest book

I dont use the word evil about anything. Not even TG. Many people that I know were in the Teachers Group were OK. Even though one didnt really get to know them. We seldom talked about ourselves or our families or life before. We were not in focus as individuals. The work was of overall importance.

I dont consider those TG-members I knew as stupid or non-intelligent. Not more or less than those I have met before and after TG. Even intelligent people can become members of a cult. It has nothing to do with intelligence. A cult is not introducing itself as a cult. I dont believe anybody would consciously start up a career as a sect-leader. Neither would there be so many students if the brochure would say: Hi, welcome to our cult. The projects in Africa need your contribution. We need all your time, money and your whole life. Forget about friends and family we will become your new family. Dont worry if you some day realize you have been a cult-member you are not less intelligent because of that. When can one be totally sure that the people you trust actually are worth the trust?

Do you think that I am fighting you? Actually I am not using so much time and energy to combat you. I just write in this guest book sometimes. Thats about it. I have a life to live you know. And why I am writing at all I have explained. I was not aware of being in a cult when I was in TG. I pushed that kind of thoughts away. (There were so much other things to do like morning cleaningJ). Manipulation and misuse of peoples goodwill is something that I am against. Thats why.

You say that you dont pray to a guru. Who has said you have to PRAY to a guru? I have never claimed that people are praying in such a pragmatic environment as the Teachers Group. My experience is the opposite: Religious people were questioned. My tactics is not to repeat Tvind is bad until it becomes a truth itself. (But I do remember that this is how we explained to each other why there always were those newspaper articles making our life difficult). I have no tactics at all. I just write what I think about things.

I need no justifications whatsoever. I am not unhappy with my years in TG now that I am out. Some fewer years would have been enough, though. I am not bitter I have also good memories. And I think that after some very troublesome years after TG when I had to let it sink in that I had been wrong, I have learnt a lot from the experience. (Even though it is not exactly what you would write about in your pamphlet either).

I dont get paid. Who would pay me to write in a guest book? I am very content with my life, I dont feel like writing here is filling much more space in my life than writing something else. TG is not THAT interesting. Yes, what I write is honestly what I think. But please, dont bother being sad on my behalf. It would be in vain, as I am happy with my life. And I dont think I am doing less good today than in the teachers group. Actually the opposite.

I agree with Lars who appreciated you taking part in the discussion.

Sigge

About why to write in this guest book

I dont use the word evil about anything. Not even TG. Many people that I know were in the Teachers Group were OK. Even though one didnt really get to know them. We seldom talked about ourselves or our families or life before. We were not in focus as individuals. The work was of overall importance.

I dont consider those TG-members I knew as stupid or non-intelligent. Not more or less than those I have met before and after TG. Even intelligent people can become members of a cult. It has nothing to do with intelligence. A cult is not introducing itself as a cult. I dont believe anybody would consciously start up a career as a sect-leader. Neither would there be so many students if the brochure would say: Hi, welcome to our cult. The projects in Africa need your contribution. We need all your time, money and your whole life. Forget about friends and family we will become your new family. Dont worry if you some day realize you have been a cult-member you are not less intelligent because of that. When can one be totally sure that the people you trust actually are worth the trust?

Do you think that I am fighting you? Actually I am not using so much time and energy to combat you. I just write in this guest book sometimes. Thats about it. I have a life to live you know. And why I am writing at all I have explained. I was not aware of being in a cult when I was in TG. I pushed that kind of thoughts away. (There were so much other things to do like morning cleaningJ). Manipulation and misuse of peoples goodwill is something that I am against. Thats why.

You say that you dont pray to a guru. Who has said you have to PRAY to a guru? I have never claimed that people are praying in such a pragmatic environment as the Teachers Group. My experience is the opposite: Religious people were questioned. My tactics is not to repeat Tvind is bad until it becomes a truth itself. (But I do remember that this is how we explained to each other why there always were those newspaper articles making our life difficult). I have no tactics at all. I just write what I think about things.

I need no justifications whatsoever. I am not unhappy with my years in TG now that I am out. Some fewer years would have been enough, though. I am not bitter I have also good memories. And I think that after some very troublesome years after TG when I had to let it sink in that I had been wrong, I have learnt a lot from the experience. (Even though it is not exactly what you would write about in your pamphlet either).

I dont get paid. Who would pay me to write in a guest book? I am very content with my life, I dont feel like writing here is filling much more space in my life than writing something else. TG is not THAT interesting. Yes, what I write is honestly what I think. But please, dont bother being sad on my behalf. It would be in vain, as I am happy with my life. And I dont think I am doing less good today than in the teachers group. Actually the opposite.

I agree with Lars who appreciated you taking part in the discussion.

Sigge

Tomas, what is the connection between Tvind and Humana? Was Humana founded by Tvind, or did Humana start Tvind?

The best evidence of the work done are the results. Check out www.humana.org

"If you're not careful the media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing" -Malcolm X

I'am a member of TG. We got proff that we are doing good things. Unfortunably we got mugged by som unpleasent, nicely dressed, well educated assholes, with know sens of humor, who stole the evidence. Sorry!

Why do you say all these things about humana have you a little thing called "proof" to back these lies up with. Of course some people might have had a bad experience but thats only the small minority how about the majority who have a great time and get the most out of it these are the real people that humana is made of.

By MD

Hi Tomas, A couple quick points and then some questions (1) Yes Laszlo mentioned both lack of Internet access and sleeping on the floor. However, you are picking out two sentences out of several pages in which he reports lack of organization, lying, little training, a court investigation, etc. etc. etc. You're simply taking a cheap shot and ignoring the largely issue.

(2) I'm glad that you are participating in this forum so activily and promote it. It certainly makes for more interesting discussions.

Questions (1) Are you saying that Morgens Amdi Peterson is in no way associated with the Teacher's Group? Are you simply calling Steen's report a lie?

(2) Just out of curiosity Who owns the CCTG building? I assume that it is the Teacher's Group (or a corporate identity) but often this has been something that has not been admitted. I guessing that you see no reason not to say this.

Regards....Lars

To Sigge To All reading

What is life about? In my opinion is it to get most out of it now when we have the opportunity to live and a lot of choices for how we can live it.

Many people have had an extraordinay time being for example a Development Instructor in Africa, project leader in Humana a teacher at One World Volunteer Institute in Norway and so on. MANY people have been Development Instructors and many people has also joined the TG. Some people do it for shorter time and others do it for longer time. Many have enjoyed the time even though that they decided that 1,2,3 or more years was enough and started with something else. I have friends that joined the TG and after a while decided to stop. They do not say that the Development instructor program is a bad thing or that TG is a bad thing. They liked it, but wanted to do something different. Life is filled of choices.

I believe that the number of people that has joined the Development Instructor program is something like 5000? Right? Out of them some have quit. Why? I think it is for many reasons. Some because it was too hard, others have quit cause of other personal reasons, others have quit cause they didn't like the way it was set up or they didn't like their teacher etc etc. Out of the people that have quit do many not have anything "againts" for example the One World Volunteer Institute or TG, but is also some that thought it was "so bad and evil" that they have decided to "fight" it. The same counts for the ones that have joined and quit the TG.

Now, what I am wondering is why these "really unsatisfied people" have such an ambition to say that the people that liked the experiences and still do are actually stupid and haven't "understood"?? We are in their eyes both brainwashed, a cult and thiefs.

What is it that is driving you Sigge??

Here at Tvindalert do you read comments about that there is no transparency and that economy is a secret. That is certainly a big lie. Just take a visit to IICD:s website and you can see their economical results online. This from an account that yearly is audited by a Independent public Auditer. Here at Tvindalert you read the money raised for Humana is not used for the purpose. Also someting that certainly is a lie. Just visit www.humana.org and see how many projects there are. Here at Tvindalert can you read that it is a certain guru that decides everything and that for example me, I am a "loyale cultmember". I do not pray do a Guru and sacfrice myself for a higher aim. Furthe do I think that i am at least a bit intelligent. Maybe you people lying know that? Maybe you have chosen a "a tactic" to say Tvind, bad,Tvind, bad, Tvind, bad so many times so that people starts believing it?.

I can understand some of the stories for ex Lazaros about their time in South Africa. It gives me a clear picture and have a bit of truth in it. Even though he thought it was really bad that they only had internet for 2 hours a day and that they had to sleep on madrasses. I don't think that is bad at all!!!!! (It is more then I and others here at CCTG have had the last year.) But in one way does it clearly explain (among other things) that even if we claim that the development instructor program is something that everyone can participate in might it not be a program for everyone.

What I have more difficulties in understanding is that some persons uses lies to achieve what they want. And it is no limit to what they can write and lie about!!!

Maybe they wish to achive a justifcation for themselves? Maybe they have a empty space that they need to fill out? Maybe they get paid to do so by some that love to have a certain picture or make up a story? Maybe it is that they truly believe what they write? Something that makes me sad on their behalfs.....

Regardless. I think this Tvindalert site is an interesting phenomenom. A bit annoying at times but really interesting!!!! I really advice people coming by to read some of the stories and also some of the comments in this guestbook.

I certainly do not know if sitting and writing this is a total waste of time. I might be classified as "brainwashed" in the next posting? But I must admit. I like discussing!!!

Tomas CCTG

About what a discussion is... This is a guest book, and of course you don't have to feel pressed to answer my questions as you consider them stupid. Just to clarify something: A discussion doesn't necessarily mean that the other part automatically changes opinions. I haven't posted the things here to try to convince you in person that TG is bad. If you are running a school, you have probably been in TG a long time. I have no illusions of trying to "save" you from TG by provoking you on this site.

I believe that each one of us has got a responsibility of ones own life. It is up to each one to choose to get involved with TG. But what I think - and there you of course cannot think like that, you would be needed to take the consequenses of living on a lie - is that here people are not told the truth. I mean, you denied in your latest answer that there would be a one leader in TG.!!! It is a lie!

The whole thing is run by good people's eagerness to do good. They are used and put behind the light. As many of old TG-members are able to talk about, after a longer or shorter time passed. And I think that to fool people is a bad thing and there those getting involved know too little to be able to judge what they actually are involving themselves in.

Yes you ar right, you cannot change my mind. To see your defencive comments make me to see even more clearly how I thought about things myself before and what I have understood afterwards. It has been a long way. You are probably working a lot and beliveing a lot in what you do. Well, if it was that you guys are not trying to get so much more people "captured" I wouldn't mind. I understand that you do it 'cause you think it is the best thing in the world to be in TG. Exactly as Jehovas think about their group and Scientology-church about themselves. TG is a sect. Maybe you think it is a good thing. I just cannot agree on that.

Sigge

 

 

 

The previous sounds like part of the charter.

← Previous

Page 622 of 2211

Next →