Two Upcoming ICSA Conversations

New York December 15, 2017.  7:00 - 9:00 pm Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew (United Methodist), 263 W. 86th St., New York City (Subway stop: #1 train at 86th St. and Broadway) (map) - Social Hall (downstairs; handicap access via elevator). Sexual/Romantic Intimacy: Challenges for People Raised in a Cult Sara B. Waters, MS, MA, is a psychotherapist and licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) and credentialed substance misuse counselor (CASAC) in New York City, with 18 years of experience in the mental health field. She was raised as a “missionary kid” in France in a high demand, fundamentalist, evangelical group and missionary boarding school. She left the group as a teenager and is intimately familiar with the trauma of religious psychological abuse, parental rejection, and loss of community. Sara specializes in treating posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and recovery from high-demand and abusive relationships. In addition to maintaining a private practice in Manhattan, Sara conducts empirical research in psychology and is completing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at The New School for Social Research. For individual or relationship counseling, email sarawaters@protonmail.com or call/text (347) 554-0191. sarabwaters.com. Abstract.  This talk is an introduction to the ways that cult dynamics can negatively impact the normal sexual development of children. Issues include the effects of institutionalized sexual coercion, hypersexuality and/or sexual repression. Psychological abuse related to sexuality will be discussed, both in terms of sexual and intimacy issues while in the group, and after a person leaves the group. Strategies are offered for developing beneficial attitudes and behaviors related to sexuality and intimacy as a part of healing from cult involvement.Register Online New York February 23, 2018.  7:00 - 9:00 pm Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew (United Methodist), 263 W. 86th St., New York City (Subway stop: #1 train at 86th St. and Broadway) (map) - Social Hall (downstairs; handicap access via elevator). Ready to Mine: Zen's Legitimating Mythology and Cultish Behavior Stuart Lachs encountered Zen Buddhism in New York City in 1967. After more than 30 years of intensive practice in America and Asia, and having taught for a number of years ‒ as well as witnessing countless instances of questionable teacher behavior ‒ he severed all ties to Chan/Zen Buddhist centers around 2000. Stuart's research interests are Chan/Zen Buddhism and the sociology of religion. He has been active in the Columbia University Buddhist Studies Workshop, the Princeton University Buddhist Studies Workshop, and the Oslo University Buddhist Studies Forum. He has a number of papers critical of Chan/Zen institutions and leaders available on the internet as well as a paper on the Hua-t'ou, a Chan form of meditation. He has presented at the annual conferences of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the Association of Asian Studies (AAS), the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS) and the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). His articles include “The Zen Master and Dharma Transmission: A Seductive Mythology,” published in Minority Religions and Fraud: In Good Faith (Ashgate, London, 2014); “Denial of Ritual in Zen Writing” published in The Ambivalence of Denial (Harrosowitz, Wiesbaden, 2015) and "Modernizing American Zen Through Scandal: Is "The Way" Really the Way?" published in Buddhist Modernities: Re-Inventing Tradition in the Globalizing Modern World (Routledge, New York and London, 2017). Stuart enjoys corresponding with people who reply to his papers. Abstract. Zen Buddhism was the first of Eastern religions to gain wide acceptance in the West post WWII. It was accepted mostly uncritically by artists and intellectuals alike. However, beginning in the 1970’s, the most prominent Zen groups in America were wracked by scandal. In spite of these repetitive scandals caused by the sexual abuse of students by their supposedly enlightened Zen masters, Zen followers and academics  have refused to associate the phrase “cultish behavior” to these developments. This was not the case with a range of Christian oriented groups or with Asian teachers associated with other traditions or a variety of other groups, though the Zen scandals mirrored these groups. This paper will show how Zen’s legitimating story and mythic history lays the ground work for authoritarian inclined charismatic leaders - titled Zen master or rosh i- to draw his followers into a world dependent on obedience, his approval and with an ethical frame dependent on the master’s self serving understanding. Though Zen presents its idealized master as being fully in the world, spontaneous, unattached, a state in which one is internally firm and free while remaining perceptually competent in the world, this has hardly been the case. This is not an abstract conjecture as the paper will mention a number of examples of Zen masters, both Eastern and Western and their followers that displayed cultish behavior, while highlighting one case in particular. It is by explaining the mythic and idealized legitimating story of Zen that helps followers make sense of their lives and earlier choices when these groups implode. After all, the Zen mythology of the super human Zen master was developed over hundreds of years which makes it hard to counter for individuals breaking with a group when the Zen master’s great attainment is shown to be wishful thinking. Register Online

For Those Interested in Doing Good, Not Just Looking Good

Attention all activists! This piece by Dominic Cummings -- centrally involved with Vote Leave in Britain -- illustrates how evidence-based issue campaigning looks different from the more common talk-the-good-talk-and-get-your-face-on-TV variety: https://dominiccummings.com/2017/01/09/on-the-referendum-21-branching-histories-of-the-2016-referendum-and-the-frogs-before-the-storm-2/

Non-British readers may find the following glossary helpful:

No10 — 10 Downing Street — the PM’s office

Downing Street — Cabinet more generally

Westminster — the government

SW1 stands for Southwest London. Broader than the government, includes the media, probably even more

N1 — north London. I don’t know what it signifies.

“Vote Leave” (VL) is the name of the campaign he ran. It had some official status. There were several leave campaigns. This campaign was officially nonpartisan. Several Labour politicians were involved in it, but there was another Brexit campaign, “Labour Leave” that was partisan. The UKIP (i.e., the tiny party wholly devoted to Brexit) had its own campaign, Leave.EU. Grassroots Out was yet another campaign.

GOTV — Get Out The Vote

NHS — National Health Service, government run medicine in UK

HQ — the people running VL?

MP — members of parliament, often MPs affiliated with VL, but not involved day to day

backbencher — junior MP, ie, not in cabinet (nor shadow cabinet)

IN — the campaign to remain In, as opposed to Out of the EU.

I’m not sure whether he means this informally, or specific groups.

The main group is "Britain Stronger in Europe,” aka “The In Campaign”

ECJ — European Court of Justice in Luxembourg — judges EU law

ECHR — European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg — technically not EU

EEC — European Economic Community — predecessor to EU

Purdah — 6 weeks before the election, in which the government is constrained

Here are some people. He sometimes refers to them by given name and sometimes by surname.

David Cameron — Tory Prime Minister (PM), opposed to Brexit.

George Osborne — 2nd most powerful Tory, anti-Brexit

Ed Miliband — head of Labour until shortly before campaign, anti-Brexit

won that position by defeating brother David

Jeremy Corbyn — head of Labour during campaign, anti-Brexit

Boris Johnson — cabinet Tory, pro-Brexit. celebrity face of Brexit

Michael Gove — cabinet Tory, pro-Brexit.

Nigel Farage — head of the tiny UKIP (i.e., the Brexit political party)

Malcolm Pearson — former head of UKIP, formerly Tory MP

Dominic Cummings is the author. Not a politician, i.e., not public figure.

Previously worked for Gove.

Gisela Stuart — Labour MP, pro-Brexit, chair of VL.

During the Blair government had been involved in renegotiating EU.

Kate Hoey — Labour MP, pro-Brexit, involved in VL, not mentioned in essay

Steve Baker — backbench Tory MP, previous IT career

Jeremy Heywood — head civil servant

Ed Llewelan — chief of staff for Cameron

Craig Oliver — head of PR for Cameron

Jean Monnet & Jacques Delors — architects of the ECSC/EEC/EU

Trump Helps Put the One-State Solution Back on the Table

Attending yesterday's rally to Protest Trump's Reassignment of Jerusalem in downtown Philadelphia, I was gratified by how all the leaders explicitly called for one "state for all its people," without regard for religion or ethnicity, as the just solution in Palestine/Israel. I haven't heard this at previous demonstrations, and it's especially welcome because it counteracts both Islamist attempts to monopolize the Palestinian movement, and Zionist fear-mongering about same to monopolize Jewish opinion on the other side (as discussed by this Palestinian-American, for instance: https://postwarwatch.com/2012/11/26/the-one-state-solution/).

Ironically, much of the credit for this probably belongs to Benyamin Netanyahu's actions making a two-state program increasingly obviously unworkable, and especially to Donald Trump for so brazenly abandoning any pretense of US neutrality.

Even granting that a just two-state solution is conceivable in principle, I think it's always been the wrong outcome to advocate, because doing so implicitly undermines the ideal of pluralism. If people are capable of co-existing peacefully, after all, then they are capable of co-existing in a single country. Advocating two states suggests otherwise.

I'm pleased to report that, without having resorted to any unilateral edits that might have started a war, I appear to have induced someone better established in the Wikipedia community to remove misleading language in the article about The Red Pill that without warrant described rightist Mike Cernovich as a "men's rights supporter," based on a single article whose author mistakenly conflates antifeminism with men's rights activism.

How *Not* to Cope with Politics and Stress

The Philadelphia Gay News's Kristina Furia wrote something truly shocking and benighted in her psychology column last week. I've submitted this letter to the paper:

Your editorial was quite correct in saying Donald Trump's election "was unanticipated by many on the left -- a fact that may speak, in part, to why Trump was victorious."

Which is why this statement by Kristina Furia is appallingly bad advice: "It's crucial that we try our best to avoid situations where political discussion with people of opposing views is likely." Has she learned nothing from last November?

I've been repeatedly bemused to hear people say they were "shocked" and "devastated" by what happened that day. I was mildly and momentarily surprised when I saw Trump take the lead -- the polls had given Clinton the advantage, but not a huge one. (Like presumably most people at the Mt. Airy watch party, I'd pushed the button for her, but reluctantly, trading my preference for Jill Stein with someone in California who voted for her in my place.)

Why the different reaction? Because, unlike Furia and many people I know, I make a conscious effort to expose myself to other ideological viewpoints, via both mass and social media. This means not only that I had a better sense of how many people in the country don't share my social and political attitudes but, equally important, an awareness that not everyone interprets Trump's statements and actions the same way.

For instance, many people think he was, in fact, simply engaging in "locker room banter" with Billy Bush, not describing anything he'd actually done to women, let alone against their will. Diana Davison even made a video detailing why she thought so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok1Gd0CQsiM

When one has an awareness of these different perspectives, an outcome like last November's is not only less surprising, but also less disturbing -- because it doesn't mean millions of people are OK with sexual assault, for instance.

For this reason, Furia's advice isn't just bad civically and democratically, but psychologically too. People following it are more likely to experience psychological trauma when someone they don't like is elected, because their skewed information diet gives them an overly dire sense of what other people's voting behavior signifies.

The grain of truth in her advice is that discussing politics the wrong way certainly can be bad for you. When people approach each other as antagonists who must be defeated, they are apt to end up reinforcing and intensifying their stereotypes of each other. But if, instead, you try to just listen and really understand the other person's point of view, you may well end up both more politically/sociologically knowledgeable and less scared -- even if you disagree with them just as much as before.

On a mass media level, Clay Johnson's book The Information Diet has some good tips on how to un-skew your information intake. A good place everyone can start is to regularly reset your search and social media platforms so they're not just feeding your own biases back to you (the "filter bubble"). If possible, use platforms that don't track you in the first place, like the search engine DuckDuckGo (better for your privacy too).

On a person-to-person level, I'd encourage everyone to look for opportunities for regular conversation with people who don't think alike, such as the Philadelphia Political Agnostics meetup group.

On Islamophobia, a Miseducated Left Will Aid and Abet the Right

A little while ago Greens4RacialJustice, an arm of the Green Party of the United States' Coordinated Campaign Committee, did a webinar on Combating Islamophobia. I've submitted a comment on the G4RJ site and Green Facebook groups, and now share it here:

I'm concerned about some seriously wrong information that was imparted a few weeks ago during the webinar about combating Islamophobia. The webinar leader said one should never use the term "Islamist," and that this is just a "euphemism" employed by people who don't want to say "Muslim."

I was so taken aback by this incredible statement that I didn't know what to say in the moment and, being conflict-averse and not too good at cutting in, said nothing at the time. But the fact is this statement was seriously miseducational and could jeopardize both our work in combating Islamophobia, and our ability to recruit people from the Muslim community.

Roughly speaking, "Islamist" is to "Muslim" as, in this country, "Religious Right" is to "Christian." It's synonymous with Muslim supremacist, and calling it a euphemism for Muslim is just as wrong-headed as calling Religious Right a euphemism for Christian.

In fact, many Muslims have been actively engaged in combating Islamism from what they consider an authentically Islamic standpoint, and would probably be quite insulted that a group such as ours is saying their religion is synonymous with it.

Further, they correctly point out (in this statement, for instance: http://www.prlog.org/12645136-muslims-for-progressive-values-accuses-act-for-america-of-supporting-islamist-agenda.html) that by making this false equation, we are actually aiding and abetting the Islamophobes. Hate groups like Stop Islamization of America advance their agenda by telling people who don't know better that all Muslims support the Islamist agenda and that this is inherent in the religion. By saying essentially the same thing from the other side, we would be doing the alt-right's propaganda work for them.

The Daily Pennsylvanian Needs Some Education About Due Process

An article appearing in yesterday's Daily Pennsylvanian (to which I'll link once it's posted on line), titled "A look at Penn's sexual assault investigation policies," suggests that, at my alma mater, student journalists are now worse than administrators when it comes to understanding due process issues. I wrote them as follows:

Dear editor:

I'm perturbed by your failure to follow the good example set by Penn administrators when it comes to the language used in writing about sexual assault investigations.

You write, "Harley's office uses the word 'complainant' to describe people who reported the incident of sexual harassment or violence and 'respondent' to identify the person the complaint was against." Wrong. They use the word "complainant" to describe someone who alleges an incident of sexual harassment or violence. Your use of "report" and the definite article implies all complaints are of real incidents, disregarding the presumption of innocence. This wrong-headed usage is repeated throughout the article.

The administrators' choice of words reflects at least a degree of respect for due process. Yours should too.

_The Pulse_ Gets It Wrong on #Gamergate

WHYY's The Pulse aired a show today about nerds, which is good. One of the segments relied on Brianna Wu for information about #Gamergate, which isn't. I submitted the following comment on their Facebook page:

Great that you've done an episode on nerds. But you shouldn't have relied on Brianna Wu for information on #Gamergate -- she's very much an interested party and has been a major part of the disinformation campaign about this movement, which feminist scholar Christina Hoff Sommers has described as "a consumer uprising" against unethical and authoritarian practices in video game journalism and criticism. (You can hear her discuss it at length here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_jTwA_rg0) Contrary to the disinformation, Gamergaters are video gamers from all walks of life and of all genders, ethnicities, and political persuasions. They've received just as much harassment on line as opponents of #Gamergate, and quantitative studies have shown that tweets associated with the hashtag are no more likely to be abusive than tweets are overall. A particularly common form of abuse is anti-Gamergaters' "silencing" female, POC, and GBT Gamergaters by accusing them of not being who they say they are. A group of GGers targeted by this kind of abuse put together a video in response: "Giving Voice to the Voiceless: The #NotYourShield Project": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzwGIHUCtjU

P.S. I had occasion to mention this piece in an interview appearing in the December 2017 issue of One Step Away, Philadelphia's street paper. I wrote, "I was proud of myself this year for achieving the degree of freedom from social anxiety sufficient to write a piece correcting misinformation about #Gamergate, even though many people I know might look askance at it."

To Enable, or Not to Enable?

There was a rally today at the corner in Mt. Airy where I often sell One Step Away newspapers. P'nai Or Philadelphia gathered to promote anti-hunger efforts in the community. I stood with them for a while as they took turns speaking, singing, chanting, and reading certain lines about social justice from scripture.

As they started to head toward another destination, one of them asked if I could take some pictures of the procession before it was gone, adding that she couldn't as she lent me her camera phone. As I was in a good mood I obliged her.

Not long after she thanked me and joined the procession, I started to feel some resentment. When she'd said she couldn't take the pictures herself -- and I could see that her hands weren't full -- I'd inferred that this was for religious reasons. In retrospect I felt a little used and started thinking I should have insisted in getting the photo credit if I was taking the pictures.

Then I recalled a line of thought I'd had a few years ago after hearing someone on the radio recount how, as a boy, he'd been a paid "goy" for an elderly Jewish man in his neighborhood. I'd felt that if the man chose to believe something that inconvenienced him, he should experience its full consequence himself, rather than paying someone who didn't share his belief to relieve of him of it. It  seemed hypocritical, and I imagined that if I were in that boy's position, I would decline the job.

So I started having the same feelings again in the wake of today's experience. If I accommodate someone in this way, am I enabling irrationality? Would I be doing that person a better turn if I said to her, "No, I want you to experience the inconvenience you've chosen for yourself, so I'll leave you to it"? That's the way I'm leaning right now.

KSU Earns FIRE’s Highest Free Speech Rating

Kansas State University adopts free speech statement, earns FIRE’s highest speech rating

MANHATTAN, Kan., Aug. 25, 2017 — The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is pleased to announce that Kansas State University has earned FIRE’s highest, “green light” rating for free speech. In consultation with FIRE, the university revised its speech-related policies to fully reflect the university’s commitment to free speech. Kansas State University further affirmed its commitment to free expression by adopting a statement similar to the University of Chicago’s laudable statement on academic freedom. 

“This is an important, reaffirming moment for our university,” said Cheryl Strecker, general counsel for the university. “We are committed to our values of inclusion, diversity, anti-discrimination and nonviolence. At the same time, our principles and policies reflect the university’s longstanding commitment to free speech, a commitment that now is also formally expressed in our Statement on Free Speech and Expression. I hope that we can serve as a leader on this front as we and other institutions face the challenges of our day.”

The university became the 33rd green light institution in FIRE’s Spotlight database of nearly 450 colleges and universities, and the third institution to earn a green light this summer. This positive trend is the result of increased cooperation between students, faculty, administrators, and FIRE. In August, Strecker informed FIRE not only that the university had reworded its policies, but also that it had adopted a robust statement of commitment to free speech.

Kansas State University joins a growing list of colleges and universities that have adopted free speech policy statements that closely mirror the University of Chicago’s “Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression,” better known as the “Chicago Statement.” Kansas State University’s version expands upon the Chicago Statement, acknowledging not only that “the ideas of different members of the University community will often and quite naturally conflict,” but also that “some individuals’ ideas will even conflict with the University’s values and principles.” 

The university’s statement further provides that freedom of speech is “one of our most cherished rights, protected by the United States Constitution. Without unwavering protection of that right, our society would suffer, and the vulnerable in our society would suffer the most. Progress such as civil rights movements and the resulting gains would not be possible.”

“With its robust new free speech statement and its other policy revisions, Kansas State has established itself as a leader in championing the free speech rights of its students and faculty,” said Samantha Harris, FIRE’s vice president of policy research. “We could not be happier to welcome Kansas State University to our list of green light institutions.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending liberty, freedom of speech, due process, academic freedom, legal equality, and freedom of conscience on America’s college campuses.

CONTACT
Daniel Burnett, Communications Manager, FIRE
215-717-3473; media@thefire.org

Jennifer Tidball, Director of Communications and Marketing, Kansas State University: 785-532-2535; jtidball@k-state.edu

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
510 Walnut Street | Suite 1250 | Philadelphia, PA 19106

Good Video on Stephan Molyneux and Defooing

I discovered this video today and think it's an excellent introduction to what's wrong with Stephan Molyneux and why I advise people to keep their distance from him and refrain from giving him publicity. The group that produced it, FDR Liberated, is a place people can explore anarchocapitalist ideas without being subject to cultic manipulations.

In the International Cultic Studies Association, I've known two couples who were defooed by their children at Molyneux's instigation. Fortunately one subsequently escaped his influence and has resumed relations with her family. I like to think it may have something to do with her having eagerly received the information on mind control I brought to their discussion of Anthem.

Rick Ross on Cultism and the Trump Movement

In this recent interview, Cult Education Institute founder Rick Ross discusses cult-like aspects of the Trump movement:

http://stateofbelief.com/segments/cult-education-institute-founder-and-executive-director-rick-ross/

Two comments:

1) Like a number of others lately, Ross misuses the term "cognitive dissonance." What he's actually describing is cognitive dissonance *avoidance*; if hardcore Trump followers actually experienced cognitive dissonance (as defined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance), their loyalty wouldn't be so stable.

2) He mentions the option of ordering things through amazon. If you care about labor rights, don't. Best is powells.com, the online store of Powell's City of Books in Portland, OR, a union shop; if you order through ILWU Local 5's portal powellsunion.com, a commission will go to their strike fund. If you set up as a Powell Partner (where state regulations make that feasible -- unfortunately they don't in PA), you'll get a commission when someone orders through your portal.

CREDO Too Credulous

Today I received an email from CREDO Mobile asking me to sign a petition titled "Betsy DeVos: Stand with survivors of sexual assault." I responded by contacting CREDO with this message:

You should remove this petition because it misrepresents both proposed policy changes and the facts on which those proposals are based.

Contrary to the accompanying text, no one at DEd is considering taking any rights away from those making complaints of sexual assault on college campuses. Rather, the proposed changes would simply restore Constitutional protections traditionally enjoyed by the accused which have been drastically eroded by the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter issued by President Obama's Education Department Office of Civil Rights. There have now been no fewer than 53 cases in which colleges and universities, acting under the pressure of the DCL out of fear of losing Title IX funds, have been ruled by courts to have violated accused students' due process rights (http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/cynthia-m-allen/article162774733.html). In the process, actual victims of sexual assault have also suffered, because these mishandled cases promote cynicism about all such accusations, including the true ones.

Part of the means by which such unconstitutional policies have been promoted has been bogus statistics, such as the "1 in 5" figure cited on the petition page (http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/ten-myths/). Leaving aside purely ethical questions, such fearmongering does college women a disservice by creating needless anxiety, and potentially even dissuading some from attending college.

New Civil Liberties Group Launched

Announcing FIRE Student Defenders

By Molly Nocheck July 17, 2017 

 

After noticing an alarming number of due process injustices across the nation in university conduct hearings, FIRE decided to take action. We are thrilled to launch the FIRE Student Defenders program, which will help students start groups dedicated to defending student rights on campus.

The judicial process provides a great opportunity to teach students about why their rights are important. Often in campus disciplinary proceedings, there is no guarantee that students will be notified of the allegations against them, have sufficient time to prepare their defense, have the opportunity to present their case to an impartial hearing officer or panel, obtain access to exculpatory evidence, or be able to hire a lawyer. These and other elements are necessary to ensure accused students receive a fair hearing. It is essential to have students on campus who can help their fellow students advocate for a fair process.

Student Defenders will be able to provide each student with a comprehensive overview of their rights and options within the campus conduct process. They will serve as allies to students — providing explanations of each step of the process, answering questions, and oftentimes just being there to listen. By offering this assistance to all students, Student Defenders will make each university community a better, fairer place.

FIRE is pleased to provide students with the resources they need to start a Student Defenders group of their own, including a comprehensive start-up guide, sample constitution, tips for recruiting and training members, logos, templates for flyers, and much more. FIRE is also able to offer $150 grants to assist with starting a group on campus, and $50 grants for advertising 

While these groups have no formal connection to FIRE and will vary in size and structure, they will be united in their mission to promote legal equality and protect due process for their fellow students.

To learn more about our new program or how to start a Student Defenders group on campus, visit us at studentdefenders.org or email us at studentdefenders@thefire.org.

I don't know what excuse Anya Kamenetz can possibly offer for relying on a blatantly biased intermediary source like _Slate_ for this story. One of the most egregious falsehoods is the claim that SAVE "lobbies against domestic violence protections," for which no evidence whatever is offered, nor even a source. And it tries to stir up outrage over their pointing out that much DV is initiated by women -- a claim treated as self-evidently malicious -- even though the US government itself is the source on which the claim is based: http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/Seven-Facts-Every-American-Should-Know-About-DV.pdf

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/07/15/537023511/uproar-over-education-department-officials-approach-to-campus-sexual-assault

This morning I attended a Certified Peer Specialist Information Session at the Department of Behavioral Health, 801 Market St. My friend Maria Pupo, who first made me aware of opportunities like this by telling me about PRO-ACT, also attended and we sat together. I'll be reviewing the information I received to determine if I can apply for the next CPS training.

For my participation today, I got three tickets for the Recovery Idol and Fashion Show at the Dell Music Center on August 25.

I Reach Out and (Hopefully) Make a Difference

Eight days ago I went along with a door-to-door fundraiser for an organization with which I was considering employment. I found some of his conduct quite offensive and decided to communicate my concerns with the charity on whose behalf he was acting. I wrote them as follows:

Inappropriate conduct by fundraiser

To whom it may concern:


Last Thursday I shadowed an employee of one of the contractors who go door-to-door to enroll support for your organization, [company's name deleted]. I decided not to take the job because of conduct on his part that I found disturbing and inappropriate.



More than once, when a prospect told him they didn't want to sign up at the door but would look Child Fund up online, this [company] employee, T---- J------ , responded by repeating to them that only one out of ten thousand people seeing the TV ads responds by sponsoring a child. Whether or not this is true (and I'm a bit skeptical since he seemed to state a higher figure to me between doorbells), how could it be relevant to the prospect in question? Since they just told him they were going to research your organization online, they are in an utterly different situation. Not responding to a TV ad you've passively watched is obviously different from breaking a promise you've just made to someone in person, face-to-face. And, since any reasonably intelligent person can see this, they can also see that he's 1) calling them a liar, 2) blatantly trying to blackmail them emotionally, and 3) by acting as if they won't notice 1) and 2), insulting their intelligence.


While it's possible that, in spite of all this, those individuals nonetheless went online and enrolled, Mr. J------'s obnoxious behavior surely left a bad taste in their mouths that made them less likely to do so. In fact, since he did this more than once, he may have cost Child Fund Inc. more enrollees than the two he actually signed up at the door during the period I shadowed him.


After we returned to the [company] office, I tried to convey this to him, saying if someone behaved this way toward me I would shut the door in their face. And I'm not someone lacking in social concern; one reason he thought me a promising potential employee is that I've often done door-to-door canvassing and other work for causes as a volunteer. But soft-hearted isn't the same as soft-headed.

Mr. J------ defended himself by saying he was the top performer at his office (Philadelphia). But how is his performance measured? Only by enrollments at the door. Those who decline to do so but say they'll look up Child Fund online aren't tracked, so there's no way of telling how many potential enrollees he's turned off. What I can tell you is that the two people he did enroll that afternoon didn't do so because of his obnoxious behavior. In both cases they were eager to enroll as soon as they heard who he was representing, since they'd heard of it from people close to them who were already enrolled. So, his offensive behavior accomplished nothing on behalf of Child Fund, but may well have cancelled out the enrollments he did get.


The other thing he said in his defense was that he was simply doing what [the company] had trained him to do. All that means is that it's not just T---- J------, but a whole organization of people who may be costing Child Fund many potential supporters.


While I decided not to be part of that organization, I felt it behooved me to inform you of this troubling situation. Thank you for your attention.


Sincerely,


[my name]

I received this reply today:

That was a very difficult email to read. From the bottom of my heart thank you so much for taking the time to compose and send us the account of your experience.

I have forwarded your full email to our department that handles the face to face vendors and they will ensure that this is addressed immediately.

We want you to know that the behavior you outlined is not acceptable behavior for our representatives and we deeply apologize to you for your unpleasant experience having to witness it. Unfortunately, it seems that we have missed out on the opportunity to have you represent us, but perhaps another opportunity will arise. For now, suffice it to say, that you have assisted enormously by sharing this information and I, personally, am grateful.

Thank you again for your support of our work and please let me know if there's anything we may assist you with.

All my best,
Victoria

For additional information regarding ChildFund International and our programs to help children in need around the world, please visit our website at http://www.ChildFund.org.

Quote of the Day

This poster can currently be seen in the office of PRO-ACT (Ambassadors for Recovery) in North Philadelphia: "This Printer Shall Be Called Bob Marley... Cause It Be Jammin"

"Chicago Dyke March: Full of Shame!"

That's the title of publisher Mark Segal's opinion piece in the latest Philadelphia Gay News, concerning the expulsion from that event of a contingent carrying rainbow flags with a Star of David superimposed on them. The reasons Segal gives for condemning this action are pretty much word-for-word the same ones I would make, centering on the wrongness of politically stereotyping people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion.

Anti-Zionism isn't and shouldn't be an excuse for anti-Semitism -- and I say this as an anti-Zionist and a past volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement.

The fact it even needs to be said is a sad comment on the pathological evolution of much identity politics in recent times. The symptoms are manifest in the rationale for the expulsion given by one of the march organizers, that the flags "made people feel unsafe." It's funny how, as the number of incidents escalates in which this phrase is used, it's almost never the people who use it who seem to be the ones actually experiencing physical force or violence.