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Getting Out : Seeking Justice
Where we are now | from Albatross - Monday, January 31, 2005
accessed 2025 times I know that TF leadership and their “media team” read and probably files every word I write on this site. A big part of what I write in this article will be directed at them.
Because I am very busy, this article will address things on a point-by-point basis and will be mostly devoid of rhetorical flourishes.
Firstly I want to thank those many people who have either called or emailed me with expressions of support and offers of help. If I have not responded, it’s only because I have been very busy or in the last couple of days trying to catch up on three weeks of missed sleep.
I understand that TF has decided to single out a few of us and especially myself as “declared enemies” of TF. Aside from being inaccurate, it is a tactic error. In my writings and comments both on Movingon and to the media, I have never made the “destruction” of TF an issue. I have argued for a few simple things. I will list them in bullet form:
1.We want accountability from TF for the abuses that the organization institutionalized and committed.
2.We want the cooperation of the leaders to identify and bring to justice those who committed egregious abuses against Family children and young people.
3.We want quantifiable and third party supervised systems in place to ensure that A) those with abusive pasts no longer have access to any children, and B) that there be a codified system for addressing future cases of abuse by both excommunicating abusers and notifying the relevant authorities.
To suggest that only a handful of disaffected ex-members support this is disingenuous in the extreme. I wonder when a list of some 150 people calling for the same thing stops becoming a “handful’ and become a real concern
To call for accountability and protective systems in not hate speech. It is not vitriol. I have been forceful in calling for such things. I will continue to be forceful in calling for such things. The Family speaks of “discrediting me.” In attempting to discredit my own tale of abuse they come across as cold and heartless. They cannot discredit the evidence of their own writings.
The Media:
As anyone who follows the media knows, the media responds to events with a flurry and then loses interest in short order. After the initial rush for headline, there are follow-ups by magazines and documentary shows without the same pressing deadlines. We are beginning to enter that phase now. The story will eventually subside and then disappear. This is to be expected. But what has happened is that a baseline understanding of the situation has been established. No longer can TF throw out their carefully crafted catch phrases and press packets without having to face the real questions as to their past writings and behaviors.
Whatever comes next, be it more in depth coverage or legal action, The Family leadership now has to deal with a press and public who has at least a basic understanding of the history of their organization.
When I decided to put my name out there for the press I took careful stock of the ramifications. I am about to transfer into a good four-year college (a long time goal of mine). I have a good job, and many loving friends who knew little or nothing about my upbringing. I understood that all this I have spent so long to build would be impacted on some level. I understood that per TF’s usual modus operandi, they would ignore the majority of voices speaking out and instead seek to target me as “vitriolic, disaffected, lying, someone taking advantage of the situation” etc. I did not and still do not know to what lengths they will go. I have to say I have not been surprised at the attempts to illegally access my phone records on line, nor at their efforts to place some of the blame for Ricky’s crime in my lap. I repeat that I believe they have made a tactical error. By placing the onus for this firestorm they find themselves in on me, they ignore (to their own peril I believe) the ranks of those many calling for accountability and justice. And even if by dint of some dirty trick they succeed in shutting me up, I have no doubt that they will not be able to do it to all those who are stepping forward to speak up.
I repeat a call that I fear continues to fall on uncaring and unhearing ears:
Leaders of The Family: Come out and face those many who have made complaints against you and some of your followers. There must and will be accountability. This will not go away. Every year your victims become stronger and more unified and we cannot all be “discredited.” More than a decade of carefully crafted PR has crashed in three short weeks. It will be a long fight back uphill for you. Unless you take the steps to acknowledge the abuses directly, and acknowledge the victims, there will be no end of this for you. Don’t YOU be responsible for the destruction of TF. Come out and meet with us to address the complaints of the victims. The ball is in your court. We will not stop pressing for answers EVER. If this goes away for a year or two we will come back next time with more education, more money, more influence, and even more determination.
Sending your second generation out to cover for you is a cowardly thing to do. It is ineffectual because our complaints are not and have never been against them. They are our brothers and sisters. We are saddened by their words but we know why they speak them…we did the same once.
You know what you must do. We will not stop until you do it.
Daniel Roselle |
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Reader's comments on this article Add a new comment on this article |  from conan
Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - 16:56
(Agree/Disagree?)
To those in TF whom it may concern:
We the Vandari, stand together against those who have labeled us as such. We are not "a handful of apostates" who are bitter and seeking revenge for "personal issues". We are people who were told we were loved as long as we did as we were told which included (but is not limited to) taking abuse, eating whatever (s**t) was set before us, lying to cover for you, prostelitizing to raise the funds needed to keep our "father" as drunk and abusive as he wanted to be, and finally we were downtrodden, berated, beaten, isolated, tortured, forced to do physical labour at extremely youthful ages, and sexually taken advantage of in the name of Jesus, your Lord and Saviour, and in the name of "love".
These are the crimes we are guilty of; putting up with you for as long as we have without taking any kind of action, and for participating in your strange rituals and acts for the years we were subject to you and yours. We are not merely "delusioned" and "vindicitive". We were grossly wronged and demand that these grievous offenses against us no longer go (vocally or otherwise) unheralded and ignored by your "leadership of the Family, the Family International as a whole, the necessary authorities, and the world in as a whole. Whether by the media, or various other legal avenues, we will not just "go away" while you plot and pray against us. We were you children! We were your future! You changed that, and turned a blind eye and deaf ear to us when we needed your help the most.
You most definately have not heard the last from any of us, and we on this site and many other silent "detractors" support Daniel Roselle and the others who have braved your hateful slander against them to reveal their identies as well as the identities of those who physically and emotionally wronged them as individuals.
Until justice is served, we will not quit! Tell your members what you will but many know the truth, and it is the truth itself which will set you (and the Family members on a personal level) free.
(reply to this comment)
|  From Beth
Wednesday, February 02, 2005, 22:17
(Agree/Disagree?)
Thank you for saying so. I, for one, will not be frightened anymore by those foolish, over-sexed, key-loving, Geesus-f--king egomaniacs! However, I do respect those of us who need to maintain their privacy due to their respective professions or family situations. And thank you again to Jules & Albatross for standing up and so eloquently expressing what I have thought, but could not say for many years now. Jules, you have given so many of us a voice, one we never had while in The Family. Thanks.(reply to this comment) |
| | from Nancy
Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - 15:19
(Agree/Disagree?)
I don't know where to post this, so I picked here. I just wanted to caution everyone to guard their privacy as much as possible, especially those who feel vulnerable to the cult for whatever reason. We should not be so naive as to think that the cult and its leadership only sit around praying against us all day. That is just not the case. Sometimes, they are not above putting actions behind their damning prayers against us. Please be careful people! Don't be naive. They are riled up right now. I don't think we've seen the end of the smear tactics they are capable of. Don't allow yourself to be an easy target. Guard your life you've worked so hard for and guard your personal information. Don't be afraid of them. They cannot hurt you unless you lay down and allow it. In many ways, they are like schoolyard bullies. They pick on the weak ones and are scared off when stood up to. Just don't be easy prey, either.
(reply to this comment)
| From John LaMattery (Sr) [aka LTN]
Wednesday, February 02, 2005, 18:25
(Agree/Disagree?)
Nancy,
Your words of caution are well put--for SGA's. I agree that SGA's should be very wise and careful about coming out publicly with their legal names. It could adversely affect them and just add more weight and burden to their lives than they already have. They're living in a past shrouded in lies and deception but this is not a past that they created or had any control over. Some SGA's have bared their mind and past to their present friends, wives or husbands or even their own children as my children have. Some other SGA's feel compelled to stand up openly and fight for all their brother's and sister's such as my son "little" John, Daniel and others. I think the SGA's are 100% united in their quest and I believe they all understand each other very well and have a great respect and a compassionate love for one another--a bond that will never be broken. They totally understand if one brother or sister is unable to come out publicly or not. They have a mind-set among themselves set from their past which they share in heart and soul. I truly believe they do not have any expectations of one another...they know their tortured past better than any. I believe they ARE united in mind and purpose.
So, that said, who are the ones then who should come out at all costs and speak the truth...US, the parents the First Generation.
You know, the day I posted my Statement on this site was the same day that Warren Buffett gained a 645 million dollar profit from the forthcoming acquisition of Gillette by P&G. His gain is but the size of a grain of sand in comparison with what I gained on that day: the respect of my own dear children and, much more importantly, the casting aside of the great burden on the hearts and minds of my own dear children and the many many other SGA's who share in their release from the years of bondage of lies and deception that I, their father, had heaped upon their innocent souls. So, whatever the price I paid or will continue to pay (it's a price which will never be repaid) will never ever be worth all that has been gained.
That day, too, when I posted my Statement was my father's 83rd birthday, my children's grandfather. It was my re-birthday, I don't say this lightly. It took a total commitment for me to come out with my Statement..a commitment no less in totality than my commitment more than 30 years ago to leave all my present life behind and go for something I believed to be true and good--a life of dedication to God. That conversion so many years ago was a personal one made from my heart having seen the truth of my present life and the hope of making a better future for others by being a sample of what I believed to be true. And, it is no less the same motivation that stirred me to go public and lay it all on the line for what I know in my heart is right. And I thank God, my brother, and my dear children for helping me in coming to that point in my life.
It will take just such a conversion in the heart of each parent who has yet to do the same for their families. I believe there may perhaps not be one family of my generation who has suffered the separation of heart that I and my children have suffered. I believe I noticed on the myconclusion site that even Peter A's family has family members outside the group. Until each parent comes to admit the guilt we each share for placing our children into a situation that endangered their very souls (not to mention in many cases their body) there will be no healing. It's a one-to-one, parent-to-child healing. This, I respectfully submit, is what will start a healing process that will eventually bring a lasting and a positive change.
Nancy, you are correct in your advice,,,for SGA's. But, us FGA's should ignore all such warnings and lay our lives back down on the line where we laid them many years ago and stand up now as we did then and fight for the truth and fight to wrap our arms tenderly around the precious children we were blessed with and say from the bottom of our hearts, "Sweetheart, I'm so very very sorry for all that I caused you to suffer, for turning my back on you, for not protecting you and for not righting the wrongs. Please forgive me."
Respectfully yours, John LaMattery (Sr)(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | from XR
Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - 09:12
(Agree/Disagree?)
Daniel, you're not the first to give a list of demands like these. There was a similar, even more extensive list presented to F leadership about 10 years ago, by representatives of both the first and second generations in separate events. Plus all the demands of the judge in the UK.
The press ought to ask Justice Ward if he isn't sorry now he didn't come down harder on the Family leadership, and end it all then. He's partially resonsible for all the suicides and murders since. And lives wasted in so many other ways. (I'm writing this for the press who read this site as much as I am writing it for you, so please pardon me repeating the obvious here.)
The Family leadership will never ever ever voluntarily change. They believe it is their sacred duty to do what they do, and only prison will stop them. They will go to the death before they recant their belief in the Law of Love (a.k.a. being free of all law). There is as much chance that Peter and Maria will repent as there is in Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda turning themselves in to be re-educated by Bush. In their eyes it a holy war to the death, and they intend to be martyrs, or at least get all their followers to martyr themselves to protect them. As Sue Kauten (Angela Smith) just did.
It has to be hard ball. It's got to be legal charges by those of the direcly affected to get an indictment in a local court, then that can get passed on to Interpol, along with all their aliases and assumed legal names and nationalities and fraudulently obtained passports and nationalities they travel under.
If you can't get Peter and Maria, go after the CROs (Central Reporting Officers, teams of which are on each continent.) and every other current officer. (Just as the US is doing in going after Al Qaeda.) There are plenty of leads to target among those who are corporate officers in their shell companies in Switzerland that they use for their money laundering. Go after every name that tithe checks are made out to. Or closer to home, get the goods on those at FCF and the other several US-based shell companies.
Make an appeal for anyone directly harmed by one of those officers to bring charges, and quickly, before they all run off to Mexico. Get their assets seized under RICO laws, those for racketeering. Target every place they have an audio/video ministry, or mail or create literature. They are using sanctuaries in California and elsewhere in the US with total impunity, and more Family members are still coming into the country from overseas to work in these shell companies. Get copyright infringement suits against them from those whose artwork and literture they reproduce without permission, or videos they illegally duplicate and distribute. Bring those artists and companies the evidence so they can file charges. Bring the information about the group to the purchasing offices of WalMart in Bentonville, Ark, who are distruting their videos.
Cut off their money. Cut off their ability to travel, flee, hide. Collect legal names of all the CROs. Do this same thing in Japan, Thailand, Mexico, Switzerland, Brazil. Expose their PR home in DC. Gather a list of the politicians and academic defenders Family agents have slept with. Did anyone ever follow up with the Secret Service so the White House ever found out just who it was that did the carol singing year after year in the White House and even at the State Department? I'm sure a few of those singers are now out of the group and can make a few calls. And their names should be written into the White House guest log as evidence.
At the very least, list every Family officier's legal names you can here and/or on wikipedia so the FBI and State Department can at least add them to their files. Set up a Wikipedia-like page on this site, that no single outside person can delete or distort. And to which reporters, investigators, and law enforcement can come for reliable data.
All this to say, you've written a wonderful article, and have the very best of honorable, charitable intentions. I'm just offering the above as a reality check. In a nutshell, you are at war, and have had the loss of about 30 to 40 of your generation by suicide as a direct consequence of their experience in group. And untold other hardship among thousands of others that is unmeasurable. And the repercussions are being passed now to a third generation.
At the moment you are bargaining from a position of weakness. If your appeal and approach would not bring results with Osama Bin Laden, neither will it with Peter & Maria. You are dealing with no less an extremist mindset, and a very similar shadowy informal, almost invisible underground worldwide network that gives them support and refuge.
You've got to get the uppper ground by filing legal charges at every place they are known and vulnerable. There is no point negotiating. Only more young pepole will die in similar tragic cicumstances while we dither. And more kids born to single mothers. And more kids not getting educated. And more deception getting spread to more young innocent people in the 3rd World getting swept up and polluted by the teachings of the Family. (No wonder Jesus gave the warning that whoever would break the least of the commandents and teach others so, would be least in the kingdom of heaven.)
Just look at the literature in the group for the last ten years if you think negotiating can change anything. It's gotten worse, year after year. As soon as they were off the hook after all those raids in the early '90's the teachings got ten times worse. Tell me it's not so. And look how they have cranked up their propaganda machine. Now with crap websites for Angela Smith and myconclusion. And new rounds of mind-numbing internal thought-control literature current members are going to have dumped on them, to keep them from engaging their God-given ability to think critically.
So there is a chance that if you are not careful, you will become their best asset, just like Bush and Osama need each other for their recruiting and to justify one another. You give them the excuse to crack down on the remaining members, make them all take yet another round of loyalty oaths, go further underground, etc, etc.
The only option to take down the whole organization. It's a bad tree and needs to be cut down. It's not going to start bearing good fruit after 35 years of bad fruit. Look at the seed that started it, David Berg. He even looks like OBL.
I hope each person reading this posting will think of what information they can contribute to end that organization now. Or can think of friends in media, law enforcement, law, or government who can help.
Well, there are a few thoughts for the day.
(reply to this comment)
| From ErikMagnusLehnsher
Wednesday, February 02, 2005, 17:27
(Agree/Disagree?)
I think an all out relentless attack against TF essentially plays into their hand and is counter-productive. When you sit back and think about it, most of their beliefs are of the apocalyptic and conspiratorial variation. Historically, anything that TF perceives as "persecution" merely galvanizes their beliefs and increases their ability to manipulate their membership through fear.
Your profile does not provide much information about you but if I ran your post through the "Lehnsher Psycho Analyzer" it would likely produce names like Rick Ross or Stephen Hassan. I think many of us former members place a high value on personal freedom. However, freedom also means the ability to choose to be in a religious cult as well as freedom to leave it. Young people in the group will make choices as they grow older and I think it's more important to shine the light of truth on the history of the leadership of the group. Information that is verified by unbiased academics cannot easily be dismissed. I would hate to fall into the trap of fulfilling their leadership’s prophecies by relentlessly attacking the group. TF leadership is only too willing to dismiss us and initiate TF into another era of fear, demons, Vandari, paranoia and extreme security measures which will force them to burrow completely underground.
I would prefer that the group didn't exist but if you take the "cut down the tree" approach with this group I think it would only make the roots grow deeper and in the end place kids in greater danger because the little outside supervision that they have would be lost and members would willingly relinquish their freedoms in the name of security.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | from
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 10:42
(Agree/Disagree?)
Daniel your whole post here is a "rhetorical flourish."
If I had deep interest in bringing the Family to justice I could do so without the hyperbole.
I understand that perhaps the paranoia and personal attention generated by your posts might give a certain entertainment to you but the more you post this sort of rhetoric (for some years now) the more hollow it starts to sound; like a lion with no teeth.
I agree with much of what you have to say but don't think it has any serious pragmatic value and is in its essence "rhetorical flourish."
(reply to this comment)
| | | | From Albatross
Tuesday, February 01, 2005, 10:50
(Agree/Disagree?)
Ah, but you see...there is more to everything than what meets the eye....even on this web site. Hyperbole (as you put it) is only one part of a greater effort. That you do not see all the parts does not speak ill of you. It only suggests that basing you assessment of event only on what you gleen from this site is to see an incomplete picture. If you haven't seen my "teeth" as of late, then you haven't been looking.(reply to this comment) |
| | from Nikisan
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 03:46
(Agree/Disagree?)
I agree with your statement, Daniel: “To suggest that only a handful of disaffected ex-members support this is disingenuous in the extreme.” TF has not portrayed a genuine estimation of the many who deplore past abuses within the cult. They want to believe there are only a few hostile ‘apostates’, each leading ineffectual and meaningless lives because they lack the strength of character necessary to repress past experiences. OUR story is quite different; have we misrepresented ourselves?
Those who have taken their lives might be the weakest or the strongest amongst us—but who are we to cast the first stone? Their stories, bottom line, are tragic, and TF should be extending their sympathy, not their judgement. Many SGs are working double-time to catch up with our secular peers, whether academically, professionally, and/or perhaps recreationally. To get personal: apart from one year of Uncle Dan’s Math and science lessons from a devoted individual in my 13th year, I received NO academic training in TF. I have spent the last five years labouring in academia, and having recently graduated with honours, am now taking my graduate degree from a respectable university. I only say this because even as I am a ‘well-adjusted’ (though that is, indeed, a loaded term) ex-member, one who might be considered a ‘positive example’ in TF’s over-simplified vocabulary, I am still appalled by TF’s continued insistence on adding insult to injury by callously categorising my brothers, sisters, and friends as the enemy.
If we were sympathetic towards The Family, many might have never left. There is a reason we have chosen the secular world, to be counted amongst humanity rather than reject society in displaced pride and self-centeredness: The Family was NOT all it claimed to be. There is a whole generation of their children seeking compensation for TF’s psychological, economical, and sexual fraud. Each may be at quite different emotional and intellectual stages, but as we successfully overcome near-insurmountable obstacles of our past, and revel in each increment of our progress, we also cannot forget there are issues yet to be dealt with, apologies heard, and justices had. TF should, again, be extending their sympathy, but all we have received is their judgement.
Our outcries for justice are not merely “bitternesses”; they are the painful remembrances of individual and collective wounds. Perhaps once our parents acknowledge this (and some have!!) they will then become an example of Christ’s love. As of now, they make themselves the antithesis of it.
(reply to this comment)
| from venusbutterfly
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 02:06
(Agree/Disagree?)
as mentioned in previous mails...with you all the way Daniel!! just let me know how to help.
(reply to this comment)
| from challenger
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 00:06
(Agree/Disagree?)
It will be hard for the child abuse issue to be put in the light as Zerby had a lot to do with it, she still thinks child-adult sex is OK. Like all pervs. They think what they did was in love even if it is considered abuse by the rest of the world.
(reply to this comment)
| from Beth
Monday, January 31, 2005 - 20:40
(Agree/Disagree?)
I also express my support for Daniel Roselle. I am standing beside all who wish to see TF take responsibility for their actions, both past and present.
(reply to this comment)
| from ErikMagnusLehnsher
Monday, January 31, 2005 - 18:59
(Agree/Disagree?)
Thanks for all your work, Daniel.
One can hope that maybe they won't find the 3 issues entirely unreasonable. I do tend to think that legacy of the child abuse will continue to be a dark cloud over the group until they find new leadership. However, having abusers out and preventing future abuse are in the interest of everyone both inside and outside the group.
(reply to this comment)
| from LTN
Monday, January 31, 2005 - 16:33
(Agree/Disagree?)
Dan, I know you're incredibly busy and I thank you for putting this on the site. Keep up the good work and don't get discouraged or disheartened by the lies of TF. Keep up the good work and remember there are many out here fighting along side you and as you said we are not going away.
--John--
(reply to this comment)
| from Regi
Monday, January 31, 2005 - 10:26
(Agree/Disagree?)
I also want to publicly express my support for Daniel Roselle. He spoke up on behalf of all of us, and he has my full support.
(reply to this comment)
| from Guccigirl
Monday, January 31, 2005 - 09:48
(Agree/Disagree?)
I stand by Albatross 100% He isn't alone and we wont give up.
(reply to this comment)
| from banal_commentator
Monday, January 31, 2005 - 09:11
(Agree/Disagree?)
To the leaders of The Family: Albatross is not alone in his stance. I, for one, back him 100%. So don't single him out as a lone enemy and tool of satan as you have "Mene", "Debroah," "Watchman" and others. Albatross is articulating feelings that are shared by hundreds of people that were born in your cult. When you look around and you realise that almost every single child that has left your cult has negative and even hateful feelings toward you, perhaps you will wake up and do the math. You know, maybe the "devil" (aka: police/social services/media and basically everyone thats not in your cult) would stop "fighting" you, if you stooped to adhere to "mans" lowly little laws.
(reply to this comment)
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