Hitch-those songs would be hilarious if not for the fact they were really sung. SGI USA is like something out of Monty Python from this forum. Over here we had songs written and performed by members but no group songs as such.

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leeduffield
Hitch-those songs would be hilarious if not for the fact they were really sung. SGI USA is like something out of Monty Python from this forum. Over here we had songs written and performed by members but no group songs as such.

It sure as hell felt like I was watching Monty Python when they were singing it too. (I love Monty Python, but what I was seeing was very real and right in front of me.)

The most hilarious gakkai song I ever heard was "Have A Gohozon" to the tune of "Hava Nagila." They started out slow and built up to a 100 mph version, arms swinging wildly back and forth. Utterly hilarious, I couldn't believe it and wanted to fall off my chair laughing the very first time I was exposed to it (at a YMD meeting). I still remember their crazy eyes, screaming and frantic movements. That brass band drum major I talked about earlier was one of the guys doing it to. HAHA!

"Have a Gohonzon!
Have a Gohonzon!
Have a Gohonzon!
Chant for a while.

When day is dawning,
Gongyo each morning
keeps you from yawning
and makes you smile.

You'll find that you will be
full of vitality,
watching your benefits
grow in a pile.

And do Shakubuku!

You will find your day goes smoother,
even though you've been a loser.
Your surroundings may be loony,
just remember Esho Funi.

Turn it on!
Karma's gone!
And be happy evermore."


The "Turn it on! Karma's gone" part was out of this world!

Crazy a** gakkai USA Cult Org!



- Hitch

I cannot remember where or how I found that Umberto Eco article.

Its like a great recipe that one passes on ---- because it's nourishing and hits the spot.

" I wish someone would have clued my parents into that earlier, it would have saved me a lot of spankings. - wakatta1"

I, too, am sorry that your parents were so clueless, wakatta1. I'm sorry you were raised in a physically abusive environment. Do you realize that 33 countries in the world have passed laws protecting children from corporal punishment? There is *nothing* you could have done to deserve being hit by someone bigger and more powerful than you, when you were helpless and dependent. That is the textbook definition of bullying, BTW.

Let me state at the outset that I mean you no harm. I wish only the best for you. You brought up a subject that I have given a significant amount of thought and research to, as a parent, so now I am going to go ahead and share some interesting information with everyone here.

You might not be interested, but for anyone who is, child psychologist Alice Miller has a brilliant body of work that can be accessed at her website: [www.alice-miller.com] I realize that there is hardly anything more annoying than a stranger who undertakes to psychoanalyze you, someone unknown to him/her, on the basis of one or two sentences you have written, so I will let Dr. Miller speak for herself. Two great intro articles: [www.alice-miller.com] and [www.alice-miller.com]

Your hostility suggests to me this excerpt from one of her interviews:

"You speak of child abuse in our cultures as A Forbidden Issue. Why is this so? What is needed to change this state of affairs?

The issue is forbidden because most of us were spanked in childhood and we don't want to be reminded of that. We learned as children that spanking is harmless. We had to learn this lie in order to survive. Now, as adults, we don't want to know the truth, that in fact spanking is harmful. It is interesting that when you say 'don't spank your child' people become aggressive with you. They become even more aggressive if you say 'you were spanked yourself and suffered as a child, you were forced to deny your pain in order to survive'. They would rather kill you than admit the truth and feel the pain of having been humiliated and unloved when they were spanked by someone five times bigger than themselves. These aggressive reactions are understandable. Imagine how you would feel if you went out on the street and suddenly somebody five times bigger than you beat you in a rage and you didn't even understand why. A child cannot bear this truth, it must repress it. But an adult can face up to it. As adults we are not so alone, we can look for witnesses and we have a consciousness we didn't have when we were children." [www.alice-miller.com]

"wakatta1: So, when children are growing up, is it the case that they already innately know right from wrong, and will 100% of the time do the right thing if left alone? Who needs parents? As a child I recall coercion being applied - Don't Lie, Don't Steal, Keep your promises, etc. and that obviously was all just a waste of time since I already knew it. I wish someone would have clued my parents into that earlier, it would have saved me a lot of spankings. I could have spent the rest of my life living in my mom's basement and avoided all that career junk... Now they tell me..."

I stand up for the powerless, and I find myself attacked by YOU, wakatta1. Slandered. Insulted, condemned, attacked - with the suggestion that I am tremendously *stupid* or at least naive. So children must be "spanked" OR ELSE they will NECESSARILY spend the rest of their lives living in their moms' basements and "avoiding all that career junk"? That's our "either/or" here? Talk about the king of false dichotomies!

What one typically finds is that, as adults, formerly abused children will defend the abuse they suffered AND insist that it be imposed on all other children likewise. Here are a few relevant Alice Miller excerpts:

"What would you like to do now?

I would like to support people who are confronting child abuse. I received a letter from a child therapist in California. He was a consultant for a school. A girl told him stories of a "hot box," a tiny windowless closet in which the children were locked up as punishment. He believed her, investigated, and, when he wrote a report about it, was fired. But he kept on investigating and found these hot boxes used in other schools. Newspapers reported about the case, and his voice and experience were noticed. He thanked me because he felt supported by my books. This shows one person can make people aware that methods they never questioned before are, in fact, damaging. The single advocate of a child can save a life; advocates say a crime is a crime; they don't conceal the truth by calling it ambivalent parent's love. An advocate can help keep a child from becoming a criminal. The child learns from an enlightened witness to recognize cruelty, to reject it, to defend himself against it, so as not to perpetuate it. Experiments have conclusively proven that no one learns anything by punishment. What you learn is how to avoid punishment by lies and how to punish a child twenty to thirty years later. People continue to believe, however, that punishment can be effective." [www.alice-miller.com]

"How many people do you think were abused in their childhood?

It is difficult to estimate how many people were not abused. I do know people who were not exploited in their childhood, who were loved, cared for and allowed to live their true feelings. I saw them as babies and I see that they are able to give their children the same respect which they got from their parents. But I don’t know many like that. Spanking children is still regarded as harmless and useful all over the world. I think that about 90% of the world population has been abused in this way more or less severely. You can see every day on the TV what the most severely abused are doing when they become adults who deny their suffering and admire and respect their abusing parents. You can test it, you can go around the world and ask the most cruel people how their parents were. The answer of the biggest tyrants will often be: My parents were wonderful people. They wanted the best for me, but I was a stubborn child.

Human blindness to abuse can be astonishing. Even when confronted with their own obvious abuse, people still believe in the myth of being loved, and keep abusing their children (and children of others). How would you most effectively "open their eyes" to what they are doing? Is this possible at all?

I can’t open the eyes of others; they will quickly close them again, and they don’t want to see – or they are afraid to see – the truth because they expect to be punished by their parents or by God who represents them. I can only open my own eyes and say what I am seeing. And sometimes people feel encouraged to open one eye or even both. They are then surprised that they were not punished, that they feel even relief since they have stopped betraying themselves.

If parents say: "Spanking didn’t do me any harm", they will do the same to their offspring without a second thought. But if they can see that the treatment of their parents mutilated their lives, they will try to spare their children from the same destiny, they will look for information and will not want to be blocked in denial and ignorance." [www.alice-miller.com]

"There is no shortage of books and articles informing us about horrific deeds and circumstances (cruelty to animals, exploitation of nature, torture, despotism, etc.), and it is only natural that we should respond to such accounts with strong feelings. The reaction displayed by a large majority of the thinking and feeling population is one of indignation. But there is an exception to this rule. To a striking degree, reports on the physical abuse of children in the form of spankings or beatings meet with almost total indifference. Most people are still convinced that for children physical "correction" is both necessary and harmless.

Reports on cruelty to children have been common knowledge for at least 20 years, yet there are still no signs of revulsion and horror at this ruthless exploitation of the helpless situation children find themselves in. Cruelty of this kind serves one single purpose: the discharge of the feelings of hatred pent up in adults, parents, and so-called caregivers. But what do we say when we hear a child has been beaten? "So what? That's quite normal, isn't it?"

In the last 20 years or so, some people have been raising their voices and insisting that it is in fact anything but normal, that it is both dangerous and ethically unconscionable. But these people are still a small minority. My numerous attempts to persuade the Vatican to assist me in enlightening young parents about the dangers of hitting their children have all failed. I have invariably come up against a wall of indifference and silence." [www.alice-miller.com]

"The mistreated and neglected child is completely alone in the darkness of confusion and fear. Surrounded by arrogance and hatred, robbed of its rights and its speech, deceived in its love and its trust, disregarded, humiliated, mocked in its pain, such a child is blind, lost, and pitilessly exposed to the power of ignorant adults. It is without orientation and completely defenseless.

Its whole being would like to shout out its anger, give voice to its feeling of outrage, call for help. But that is exactly what it may not do. All its normal reactions, the reactions with which nature has endowed it to help it survive, remain blocked. If no witness comes to its aid, these natural reactions would enlarge and prolong the child's sufferings. Ultimately, the child could die of them.

Thus, the healthy impulse to protest against inhumanity has to be suppressed. The child attempts to extinguish and erase from memory everything that has happened to it, in order to banish from consciousness the burning outrage, fury , fear, and the unbearable pain - as it hopes, forever. What remains is a feeling of its own guilt, rather than outrage that it is forced to kiss the hand that beats it and beg for forgiveness - something that unfortunately happens more than one imagines." [www.alice-miller.com]

And in response to the typical assertion: "I was spanked, and I turned out okay," I would respond, "No, you didn't. You think it's okay for adults to harm small helpless children."

"I notice that a lot of people become allergic when they see a truly childlike child unburdened by guilt and abuse. They just can’t stand it. They repeat that every child must be socialised as soon as possible, in other words taken away from parents and put into kindergarten so that he/she becomes "available" to anyone. They preach the benefits of socialisation as if it was a most sacred, noble cause. I find this social pressure enormous. But in this context socialisation equals adaptation to cruelty. Why is a child who is alive, genuine and pure, in their eyes unbearable, even sinful, and must by all means be mutilated so he/she would become similar to them?

Because the child’s creativity and liveliness triggers in the parents the repressed pain of being suffocated. They are afraid of feeling the pain, so they do whatever they can to avoid the triggers. By insisting on obedience they kill the lively child, they victimize him or her as they themselves were victimized before. For that reason, they absolutely need information. This is why we talk and work on this interview. Most parents don’t want to hurt their children, they do it automatically, just by repeating what they themselves learned as children. We can help them to stop this destructive behaviour by explaining to them why it is actually destructive. So that they can wake up and make a choice." (Ibid.)

"Background: One of the headquarter leaders was attending the district meeting and the her daughter was running amuk (and I do mean AMUK!). I asked her - (mom- the hq chief) if she could settle her daughter down because she had just knocked some things down and was just getting wilder and wilder as the meeting continued."

Instead of thinking that the solution to this was to lock down that child, why was that child there in the first place? That certainly wasn't an appropriate activity for that child's stage of development, was it? Why was no one thinking of what was best for that *child* instead of just dragging the poor thing around like some accessory? Was this one of those evening meetings? Which likely let out after this child's bed time? Why does no one consider what's best for the child first, and then AFTER THAT the adults work things out? Leaving the child *at home* with a relative or a friend is the obvious solution. If the venue does not offer something appropriate to that child's age and stage of development, then there is no purpose to bringing the child along. Some homes are not childproofed! Perhaps yours wasn't - I wouldn't have expected it to be unless you were routinely hosting small children. In that case, the parent in question should have not burdened you, your activity, AND her daughter by bringing her to an activity that was not age-appropriate for HER. A HQ leader does not *need* to be at a district meeting. She is showing up to have her colossal ego stroked and to be deferred to and fawned over while she preens and basks in everyone's admiration. It's pure narcissism.

"Today we know more about facts but we obviously still lack the compassion for a child that must silently tolerate being beaten, neglected and disrespected by people whom he/she loves. And most people don't see the consequences of such an event. They lack the empathy that I so much hoped to wake up in them when I gave interviews or wrote articles. In these interviews I have been often asked why I was talking so much about beatings. Are there no other ways of making a child suffer? Of course, there are. But almost everybody agrees already that we shouldn't maltreat a child while most people still claim that corporal punishment is OK, is not maltreatment when labelled as "educational disciplining". I think that only with a law forbidding corporal punishment to children, also to the own ones, can we overcome this dangerous error. The goal of this law should be not punishing parents but informing them that every beating is maltreatment, a physical and an emotional one. Even if this law will not change the parents' behaviour in one generation, it will certainly change the MENTALITY of people very soon. And this is the first step to important social changes." [www.alice-miller.com]

No one is concerned about the child's needs or the child's experience. It's all "This child was running amok and causing a huge disruption! Her parent should have done something!" Yes. Like taken her home immediately so that her needs could be compassionately and sensitively tended to instead of it all being about her narcissistic, selfish mother. BTW, Sweden, which banned any hitting of children (however euphemistically anyone would like to describe it, as if that changes the ugly reality) in 1979, with *no* legal punishment for parents caught hitting their children. Instead, they ramped up social services. Every report resulted in a visit from these social services representatives, and every place where children were, from schools to social groups, public announcements were regularly made TO THE CHILDREN that *any* hitting is wrong and should be reported.

"The Effects of the “No Spanking Law” on Child Abuse in Sweden, discusses a law passed in Sweden in the 1970’s that made spanking a civil offence. Before the law, the family violence child death rate in 1970 was 18%. In recent years it has been 0%. By 1981, only 26% of Swedish parents supported spanking. Now it is less than 11%. In 1996, there were 57 reported cases of child abuse per 100,000 people. At the same time in the US that figure stood at 4,500/100,000." [www.stophitting.com]

There were FOUR children killed by child abuse in Sweden in the 27 years since Sweden established its law against violence against children. In the USA, more than FIVE children PER DAY are beaten to death by their parents. Spanking isn't harmful, eh? [www.childhelp.org]

Studies have shown that parents who routinely use corporal punishment on their children are FAR more likely to use levels of punishment that are considered to be abusive. There are far more children *KILLED* by abusive parents within families that consider corporal punishment acceptable and necessary "discipline."

"In answering the question about spanking, and abuse, I turn now to a fascinating study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study, reported on the Medpage Today website (Heavy Spanking Predicts Overt Child Abuse, 2008), revealed the following results:

1. Parents who spanked were 2.7 times more likely to engage in overt abusive behavior than non-spankers.

2. Parents that spanked with a belt or paddle or another object as opposed to their hands had triple the odds of becoming abusers (remember the “neutral” object theory?).

3. For each additional spanking per year, there was a 3% increase in the likelihood of yet stronger punishments being used in the home. (When I was in the fundamentalist church, it was not unusual for children to receive two or three spankings a day.)

4. The report stated, “This is the first study to demonstrate that parents who report spanking children with an object and who frequently spank children are much more likely to report harsh punishment acts consistent with physical abuse." (Ibid.)

""We're a very violent, hitting society, a very child-unfriendly society," said [Susan] Lawrence…[www.sfgate.com]

"When the Bill on the anti-spanking law was put forward a member of the Swedish Parliament said: 'If we as parents cannot convince our children with words, then we shall never convince them with violence.'" [www.endcorporalpunishment.org]

Indeed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2013 01:24PM by TaitenAndProud.

You know, in reading Spartacus's analysis, I think perhaps one of the things that kept me from being drowned in the SGI was that I don't have father issues. Thus, Mr. Williams and Pres. Ikeda never appealed to me. I didn't need a father figure - I had a good relationship with my father; I was his favorite! What I had were MOTHER issues, and thus I ended up taking far more shit from WD and pioneer crones than any reasonable person should have. Of course, I believed the promises, that if I did, I would "grow" and "advance" and all that nonsense.

Taiten and Proud: No Longer Advancing in the Wrong Direction!

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leeduffield
Hitch-those songs would be hilarious if not for the fact they were really sung. SGI USA is like something out of Monty Python from this forum. Over here we had songs written and performed by members but no group songs as such.

I agree with you leeduffield. We had not such group songs, but when I compare the videos posted by Hitch from the FNCC there is no diffrence to Trets. Absolute the same stuff, the same words and phrases, the same behaviour. I even claim you could exchange the members from the Kontinents like in those students exchange programs and only the language would be different.
I noticed the fact that " the others as the weird ones", as a part of the program. For example my Area Leader always said, Sgi is so different in Japan or the US, but not so here in EU. We are the intellectual elite, the german propaganda magazine "forum" was full of Goethe, Kant and Schopenhauer. You thought when you read that all, you are part of Ikeda's intellectual elite group. But when you had a closer look at the articles about Ikeda in dialoge with some Goethe experts, it was all shallow and lame. The message in the articles were always like : WE the true buddhists, WE= the good ones and the outside world = the bad ones, the last and only existing truth is always at Ikeda, the philosopher.
It was also part of the program to defend borders. I once had asked for a permission to go to a world peace gongyo at the kaikan in switzerland cause it's only a 1,5 hours drive instead of a 7 hours drive, the answere had been "NO". You have to stay in your country, the Sgcult cake is accuratley cut into perfect pieces, how dare you and bite from your neighbour's piece of cake!
Part of the brainwashing program was always to let it look like the soft version of Sgi, as a bad example the Italians had to be the fanatics because of their more allegro temperament . Some of members from Italy fled the pressure and moved to the northern countries in hope to find a world peace organization the more reasonable and the leaders here had to find excuses, why it was all the same craziness.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2013 08:14PM by sixtyseven.

"t was also part of the program to defend borders. I once had asked for a permission to go to a world peace gongyo at the kaikan in switzerland cause it's only a 1,5 hours drive instead of a 7 hours drive, the answere had been "NO". You have to stay in your country, the Sgcult cake is accuratley cut into perfect pieces, how dare you and bite from your neighbour's piece of cake! "

I noticed that same sort of thing here in San Diego, CA, area - it was all about the organizational structure, not the convenience of the members. Remember, members serve the organization, not the other way around!

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sixtyseven

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leeduffield
Hitch-those songs would be hilarious if not for the fact they were really sung. SGI USA is like something out of Monty Python from this forum. Over here we had songs written and performed by members but no group songs as such.

I agree with you leeduffield. We had not such group songs, but when I compare the videos posted by Hitch from the FNCC there is no diffrence to Trets. Absolute the same stuff, the same words and phrases, the same behaviour. I even claim you could exchange the members from the Kontinents like in those students exchange programs and only the language would be different.
I noticed the fact that " the others as the weird ones", as a part of the program. For example my Area Leader always said, Sgi is so different in Japan or the US, but not so here in EU. We are the intellectual elite, the german propaganda magazine "forum" was full of Goethe, Kant and Schopenhauer. You thought when you read that all, you are part of Ikeda's intellectual elite group. But when you had a closer look at the articles about Ikeda in dialoge with some Goethe experts, it was all shallow and lame. The message in the articles were always like : WE the true buddhists, WE= the good ones and the outside world = the bad ones, the last and only existing truth is always at Ikeda, the philosopher.
It was also part of the program to defend borders. I once had asked for a permission to go to a world peace gongyo at the kaikan in switzerland cause it's only a 1,5 hours drive instead of a 7 hours drive, the answere had been "NO". You have to stay in your country, the Sgcult cake is accuratley cut into perfect pieces, how dare you and bite from your neighbour's piece of cake!
Part of the brainwashing program was always to let it look like the soft version of Sgi, as a bad example the Italians had to be the fanatics because of their more allegro temperament . Some of members from Italy fled the pressure and moved to the northern countries in hope to find a world peace organization the more reasonable and the leaders here had to find excuses, why it was all the same craziness.

Sixtyseven - I also remember hearing about SGI in other countries and how it was supposed to reflect the nature of their culture, and that's why the UK seems a bit calmer on first impression but you are absolutely right about Trets - it's full of singing, dancing, sketches, crying and all that craziness and the UK courses are the same.

Leeduffield - I think you got off lightly not having to experience many group songs. They may have been written by members but we still ended up getting roped up on stage to sing them. LOL.

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TaitenAndProud
You know, in reading Spartacus's analysis, I think perhaps one of the things that kept me from being drowned in the SGI was that I don't have father issues. Thus, Mr. Williams and Pres. Ikeda never appealed to me. I didn't need a father figure - I had a good relationship with my father; I was his favorite! What I had were MOTHER issues, and thus I ended up taking far more shit from WD and pioneer crones than any reasonable person should have. Of course, I believed the promises, that if I did, I would "grow" and "advance" and all that nonsense.

Taiten and Proud: No Longer Advancing in the Wrong Direction!

Very true, TaitenAndProud. People I have known in the organization who've had problematic relationships with their fathers really go for the Sensei gaga-ness. I also had a great dad, so never felt the need to glom onto Mr. Ikeda or Mr. Williams as a Master/Father figure. The cult of personality I saw never reeled me in at all, which looking back, I am very grateful for.

There have been so many great posts lately--they have enlightened me even further!

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TaitenAndProud
"t was also part of the program to defend borders. I once had asked for a permission to go to a world peace gongyo at the kaikan in switzerland cause it's only a 1,5 hours drive instead of a 7 hours drive, the answere had been "NO". You have to stay in your country, the Sgcult cake is accuratley cut into perfect pieces, how dare you and bite from your neighbour's piece of cake! "

I noticed that same sort of thing here in San Diego, CA, area - it was all about the organizational structure, not the convenience of the members. Remember, members serve the organization, not the other way around!

T&P, check your PMs.