And that is supposed to be remarkable? I knew three fucking days ago who they were, to 99.5% certainty. Although I guess it helps I used to live in Brixton.
>>2723 >newspapers late this afternoon
No, the newspapers had it long enough ago to be able to write about it last night, you dullard. The name came outearly this afternoon, presumably after the embargo expired. In order to be able to announce these things properly, the police will feed that sort of information directly to the press (embargoed, naturally), just to make sure that they don't accidentally spoil the surprise with a good bit of hackingbribery investigative work.
>>2727 I am surprised anyone who visits .gs wasn't aware of Urban 75, whatever people might make of it it's one of the biggest and longest-running general interest UK forums (and less irritating than mumsnet and digitalspy at least).
>>2726 You're wrong. The newspapers were umming and ahing over how much info to release from the little they had due to the possibility of sexual abuse and legal restrictions. Bloggers and researchers forced the issue and it's become more of a silly story than a horror story anyway.
>>2732>>2734 It's a non-story really and being pushed due to trafficking hysteria and loony left demonising.
>>2735 >You're wrong.
Bollocks. How do you think details of all those anonymous injunctions came out? The media are briefed on this stuff all the time, precisely so they don't reveal details that may be sub judice.
>>2737 Well I bow to your superior knowledge then, Mr Annoyed Media Expert. I guess the small details that allowed the internet to name the cult were deliberately leaked by the Telegraph on Sunday - I don't really know how these things work.
It's a story full of spin where the police and media are congratulating themselves for making the lives of people in a fucked up cult unimaginably worse if only temporarily, where the 'Freedom' NGO in question is blatantly grant-grabbing and hyping itself, and where the shadow of a forthcoming modern slavery/anti-trafficking bill lurching towards Parliament lies long over the reportage.
More obvious and distressing cases of modern day slavery (discounting everyday work conditions in Africa and much of the far east) are the curious stories of Irish gang bosses exploiting the mentally frail that have cropped up repeatedly. If these 'victims' are to be regarded as trafficked or slaves, you could say the same for many other members of fringe political or religious organisations/cults extant in the UK. This case is about mind control and its effects.
Well I have just read the Vice article. I will say that the Jesus Army is not for me, and I have stayed with them as a visitor.
I do not believe in god.
One thing that strikes me in the article is the bloody moaning about people having to hand over their money or work for "free". As I said, the JA is not for me, but the people that live there do not work for free. You get a place to live, which is normally some type of multi million pound property in a very nice location. Transport to and from your place of work. Use of a vehicle with a fuel card if you have a driving license. All meals provided, and if you are male, all your washing and cleaning done for you whilst you are out at work. How this equates to working for free just beats me. You get plenty in return for your work, plus the fact that you do not have the worry of maintaining the roof over your head or doing the shopping etc, it is all done for you.
They do however hassle you to go to bloody church every Sunday. When I stayed with them as a visitor for a month or two I was constantly having to tell them to fuck off every Sunday when they would try to get me to go. When they asked me why not, I simply said, what's the point, I'm not a Christian and I'm not interested?
And for the record they do not kidnap anyone or stop anyone from leaving, and if you are fucking stupid enough to hand over your life savings then you're a mug. I know of an elder in the church who stays at the Cornerstone house in Rednal, who earned £100k plus, he is a Dr, retired now, and he contributed his wages every month and still contributes his pension which I am sure is also quite substantial.
"Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work."
How does this equate to slavery?
What do people expect these days? To have their cake and eat it? So do you think they should get their bed and board for free and contribute fuck all out of their wages?
Let's have a reasonable discussion about this. I in no way advocate the Jesus Army. I fucking hate the place.
How did your brother and dad get into the Jesus Army? How long have they been there and is it easy for you to get in touch with them? How often are you in touch with them?
When they were asking you to go to Church and you said you weren't Christian, how did that work? Did they know you don't believe in God? I'd have thought that might have been something they'd want you to be at least open to. Did it cause any tension?
Why do you now hate the place so?
I've got a point to make on the slavery comment but will post that separately.
My brother has his own mobile phone, so I can contact him any time I like. In fact he has just married a fellow church girl, and the church have provided a house for them.
My Dad lives at "Living Stones" and generally dosses about but does the odd bit if joinery work. He inititally joined purely for the benefits of having an easy life in a frankly exclusive location.
I am in touch with them both fairly regularly.
I hate the place because thet are like any other religious fanatic, constantly trying to ram their brand of it down your throat. My not going to church, even though I was only there as a visitor, caused more problems for my brother than it did for me, as he told me the house leader was hassling him to get me to go, so I finally did end up going just to be nice and ease things a little for my bro. It was just a general evangelical meeting, but once there I kept getting asked if I had "found god" and when I said I hadn't I was pushed into finding "him".
That's why I dislike the place, I suppose hate is a little strong a word to describe it. but you do have a choice, no one is keeping you there after all.
And on the slavery point again, it's like staying at home with your parents as an adult. Why should you not contribute something to the communal pot when you have access to everything you need? And I really mean everything. Also, you do get an allowance every week to buy fags and other sundries even though they do encourage you to give up smoking, they will still give you the money to do so.
ABSOLUTELY no drinking or drugs allowed though. I used to drink there on the sly, no one said anything about my beer breath though as I was only a visitor. There was a guy called Roy who used to leave a window unlocked and go out and get leathered and sneak back in later. Made me laugh that.
Very interesting. Would you consider it a cult? From what you said and what the Vice article stated it doesn't seem like one to me on the surface.
Regarding the slavery, it's not the strict word definition that I think 2805 was getting at. Obviously no one's implying that these people are being bought or sold, however they are effectively working without pay.
I appreciate your comment about how they get food and board but so did the folks who built the pyramids. Granted the conditions are a lot better and they aren't being forced to work but keep in mind that's the angle people are coming from with that word.
The greatest problem I have with that arrangement, is that it's a cycle that could easily trap people. You don't need guards if they feel they can't leave. Yes, it sounds like it's a better place than the streets and obviously some people will get clean from being there but how are they meant to get back into the world?
If they leave they have no money, no food and no roof, so there must be a fair few people there who feel like they don't have a choice but to stay. Catch 22 I suppose.
I don't feel like I've worded that very well but hope I've made whatever point I was trying to make.
But you do have money if you decide to leave. For example my brother has left the community and they provided him with a house. It belongs to the church but they have given it to him fully furnished in return for his work.
Roy, who could not stop drinking decided to leave and they set him up with a bed sit. In fact anyone that decides to leave gets help to set themselves up.
Also, the vice article seems to focus on the farm labour type jobs when in fact there are a wide variety of jobs that you have to apply for just like any normal job. You can be a delivery driver, a warehouse person, work in management at one of the TBS building supplies places, or be a joiner like my brother is. He makes doors and shit for sale at Good Timber. You can even work outside of the church if you like.
Also, if you are unable to work due to sickness you are fully entitled to just stay at home and you won't have to do a thing as the "sisters" do it all. It is however a condition that if you are able to work you must do so, which is fair enough I suppose.
Bear in mind that my point of view is neutral and the fact that I quite dislike the place lol but it does have its benefits. Not everyone there comes from a down and out lifestyle there are a broad spectrum of residents.
The thing about slaves is that they work, but neither get to decide what work to do or how to do it, and they don't get to keep the produce of their labour. If you leave the Jesus Army, you leave with nothing. Its members aren't threatened with a whip, they're threatened with abject poverty. The difference between being poor and not being poor is that if you get hungry and take food to eat, you may be beaten and imprisoned for it. In other words, the Jesus Army threatens with violence, but it is the violence of the state that they threaten with, not their own violence.
We are familiar with the idea of slaves being treated as property. This has little subjective relevance to the slave; the experience is the same. If slaves are treated as property, it dictates the behaviour of the slave owners, not the slaves. Slaves do not necessarily need to be treated as property, just as land does not; it may be treated as a common, for example. What people decide to treat something as has no physical effect in itself upon the object, but dictates the behaviour of the people who treat it.
Slaves must be cared for. This has always been the case, and it seems that Jesus Army members are treated relatively well. The question is; is this a product of the virtue of the organisation, or a product of generally far living conditions in Britain? A few centuries ago, a "free" peasant had to endure horrendous conditions. You'd expect slaves to be treated worse, but still cared for as one would care for any owned object. If slaves had been treated better than peasants, placed in fancy houses and fed well, the peasants would likely have jumped at the chance to become a slave; consider the superior treatment received by American house slaves.
Now, I'm not saying that members of the Jesus Army are slaves. I'm saying it sounds like slavery to me; I have only just heard of the Jesus Army, I'm not intimately familiar with them. I will say, though, that contemporary slavery will often take rather unfamiliar forms compared to the historical framework that we are used to. Consider the government's workfare schemes; these are beginning to approach slavery. If in lieu of benefits workers were given government or corporate-owned domiciles to live in "for free", and similarly fed "for free" from a canteen, it would represent actual slavery.
I've also nothing against communes. A commune ought to organised democratically, though.
The govt workfare scheme would be FAR FAR worse than what the JA have on offer. Like I said you get a choice as to what work you want to do and how you want to go about it.
I also said my dad tends to doss about doing the odd bit of joinery and my brother happily makes stuff out of wood for Good Timber. In return he and his wife get a house.
Whereas I slave my bollocks off in "normal" life and can barely make ends meet. Do I get a vehicle with a fuel card? Do I fuck. Do I get my food provided for me and delivered as needed? No. Do I get a spending allowance to spend on luxuries? Only if I work for it.
My brother is better off than I am, and he lends himself to slavery?
Lol yes plenty, but OMG I remember one in particular, her name was Juliet, she was a very beautiful girl. Then we went swimming together and I noticed she was COMPLETELY unshaven D:
My brother however, has scored himself a very hot chick, but wedding arrangements are complicated. If you want to "get with" someone, you have to approach their "house leader" and then it's all arranged to a degree from there.
My brother swears he had no sex before marriage, and I didn't believe him until we were having a drink at the pub (paid for by the church) and I asked him to be straight with me, and he told me he had in fact abstained.
He was allowed to take me for a couple of drinks on church money seeing as he was entertaining his outsider brother.
It's like anything in life I suppose, there are rules and restrictions, and there are ways around them.
Oh, and of course you do get people sneaking off and shagging like rabbits in the rather expansive grounds and outhouses of the properties.
People that live in-community have children that live completely normal lives and come home absolutely bladdered at the weekends but its kept a bit hush-hush.
My brother describes it as being his idea of communist perfection.
In actual fact, from what I saw of the place the only thing you are really really forced to do is go to bloody church and worship an imaginary man in the sky.
Yeah, alright. It sounds good for your brother, if you have a degree of control over your life you could do far worse. I reserve judgement until I'm better informed.
For the record, I'm critical of wage slavery, which is the 'freedom' we are afforded. Some people defend slavery by pointing out that wage slavery can in many ways be worse. They're mostly reactionaries, and you have to dismiss their goals, but unfortushopy not all of the arguments are so easily dismissed. After all, why build your workers a house and feed them when you can make them pay rent and get their own food from a shop?
I've become fascinated with the Jim Jones' People's Temple and the Jonestown Massacre. Such an interesting yet terrifying series of events, and up until 9/11 it was the largest loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act, with 918 deaths.
It's scary that a lot of the people who joined the temple were well educated liberal people. Jim Jones was a socialist, and his church was one of the few racially integrated ones in the era where blacks had their own churches, so a lot of the church's members were left wing people who cared about equality. Ended up with people poisoning themselves and their children on Jones' command, and those who refused were forcefully injected with cyanide.
>>2824 There were a few unwilling suicides at Jonestown from the sound of the screams in the background on the infamous last tape. Not watched this particular documentary, but you know there's a conspiracy theory that the whole thing was an extended CIA mind control experiment in seeing how far he would go? The smoking gun for that among other things is one final tape recording after everyone's dead of two unidentified men watching the news coverage before the clean-up started.
>>2871 The victims were almost all USA nationals and a few Europeans who had gone to the backwoods of South America a couple of years previously to create their dystopia.
