Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2011 03:40PM by steve benson.

I couldn't log on fast enough to say "Not soon enough!" But you beat me to it. So I second that

Not soon enough!

Information can spread very quickly through social networking.

Unfortunately as long as members "NEED" to belong to an organization, they will always support it. It will make no matter what doctrine is taught ,what scandles are uncovered, there will always be hangers on to "float the boat".

Don't hold your breath !!!

JB

WHen that precision earthquake hits SLC and I mean only the Temple and COB. That should make a few people think, especially if it's Twittered enough...

Every empire has an arc, and it looks like Mormonism is past its peak. Though still large, it is experiencing "negative growth."
It certainly is a mill stone around Mitt Romney's neck. Watch him distance himself from it to gain the white house.

I'm getting really anoyed! The other day I had this (female) politician from Utah asking to follow me on twitter and today this guy from Utah (also a political whatnot). I have never sent a tweet with anything morg or Utah. Perhaps I need to send one out with additions of #Utah, #Mormon etc. and ask poltely to 'bug off'.

I just watched PBS's show on CPAC, and although I'm conservative (centrist) everyone of the possibly presidential runners scare the hell out of me.

. . . according to a good source of mine in Utah's Mo Corridor.

It happened after I outted Dallin H. Oaks for lying to a reporter about Boyd K. Packer's behind-the-scenes involvement inMy head-butt with Oaks happened after I outted Oaks for lying to a reporter about Boyd K. Packer's behind-the-scenes involvement in the excommunication of Paul Toscano--who was a Salt Lake City attorney, an outspoken critic of the General Authorities, a firm advocate for women's rights and a member of the so-called "September Six."

Oaks had told me in a private meeting with fellow apostle Neal A. Maxwell held in the Church Administration Building in September 1993 that Packer had exceeded his ecclesiastical authority when he (Packer) contacted Toscano's stake president, Kerry Heinz, in a move to have Heinz excommunicate Toscano.

Oaks told me that he (Oaks) was responsible for the portion of the official Church Handbook of Instructions dealing with matters of member discipline, not Packer. (Maxwell chimed in at that point, adding that he--Maxwell--had helped bring Oaks into the Quorum of the Twelve because of the need for Oaks's expertise in legal matters).

Oaks lamented to me that Toscanco might end up suing the Mormon Church over violation of his (Toscano's) ecclesiastical rights.

Oaks, in exasperation with Packer, went on to utter this classic line to me about Packer, saying, "You can't stage manage a grizzly bear."

As I left the meeting with him and Maxwell, Oaks asked me to keep what we had talked about confidential.

But all bets were off on that score when Oaks subsequently lied on the record to a newspaper reported about what Oaks had told me in private regarding Packer's underhanded actions.

When "Arizona Republic" reporter Paul Brinkley-Rogers asked Oaks in an on-the-record interview about rumors circulating that Packer had been involved in backstage direction of the excommunication of Toscano, Oaks said he was not aware of any such thing, adding that such claims went against everything that he knew about Packer.

Reporter Brinkley-Rogers played me the tape of his interview with Oaks and when I heard Oaks lie in this regard, I was astounded. I told the reporter what Oaks had told me in private about Packer's out-of-bounds efforts to get Toscano excommunicated via the stake president--and how what Oaks said to me directly contradicted what he had falsely claimed to the reporter.

I subsequently contacted Oaks by fax and informed him that he had 24 hours to set the record straight, advising him that if he did not, I would publicly do it for him.

Oaks called my home in Arizona from Salt Lake City but I was not there at the time (my young daugther answered, instead, and told Oaks that I was still at work).

Oaks then proceeded to contact the reporter to whom he had given the misleading interview. He left a message with the reporter, who called him back through the LDS Church Office Building switchboard, reaching Oaks at his home.

In that phone call, Oaks admitted to the reporter that he had not told the truth, but insisted that what he had told the reporter about Packer was not a lie; rather, he said, it had been a long interview and he had misspoken.

I listened to the tape of that phone call between the reporter and Oaks, since the reporter had made the recording and later allowed me to listen to it (I have the tape of that phone call--which the reporter eventually gave to me--from which I made a written transcription).

I eventually decided to go public with what Oaks had actually said, via a guest column I authored for the "Salt Lake Tribune." I faxed Oaks again and explained that he had broken his trust with me by lying in public about what he had told me in private, that he had not come clean in his phone call he made to the reporter and that I therefore had decided that I not be a partner in his attempted cover-up.

My source whom I mentioned earlier (and who had excellent contacts) informed me that in the wake of the exposure of Oaks's lies, Oaks offered to resign from the Quorum of the Twelve but was persuaded by fellow Quorumer Gordon B. Hinckley to stay the course.

Oaks stayed the course.

But I suspect that Oaks knew he had been caught flat-footed in his lies; otherwise, he would not have offered to resign in the first place.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 03:17AM by steve benson.

Steve, great story. What do you make of the sudden flood of conscience that would lead to the offer to resign? Is the remorse only because he was exposed? If not, why would he feel remorse about this lie and not the many others told by the church? Thanks for sharing.

In that sense, Oaks demonstrated a personal conscience when, according to my source, he offered to resign over the untruths he told the reporter.

But, for whatever reason, Oaks's conscience eventually lost out to Hinckley's urging that he hang on. It might have something to do with absolute power corrupting absolutely.

I certainly don't think Oaks would have come forth on his own to admit he had not told the truth. I believe he offered to resign because he knew he had lied--and that bothered him immensely, combined with the fact that he had been exposed as having lied, which embarrassed him immensely.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2011 11:25PM by steve benson.

OK noted. It just seems funny (perhaps it is the quintessential example of mormon compartmentalization) that Oaks would all of a sudden have this huge personal crisis about dishonesty, when all around him the bait and switching, image management and down right deceptive lying is going on ad nauseum. Thanks.

Personal conscience my arse!

The GA's do not mind lying one little bit and you of all people know it. The crime here is getting caught and Oaks goofed up and his gaff threatened to (gasp) make Mormon leadership look bad.

Which is the unforgivable sin.


Anagrammy

. . . in which he has shown flashes of forthrightness, only to subsequently and inconsistently manifest positions that were less than honest.

Like I said, Oaks has demonstrated a personal conscience that has been at odds with his duties as a high LDS Church leader--and I have observed that personal conscience lose out to the Church.

For instance, here's another simple but telling example:

When I was an undergrad student at BYU in the 1970s and Oaks was president of the university, I told him how some readers didn't like my editorial cartoons that I had drawn for the campus newspaper, "The Daily Universe."

Oaks scoffed and replied that he felt some people "had their lids screwed on too tight."

In the 1990s, after Oaks had become an apostle, I mentioned that comment he had made to me at the Y. He defensively denied he had made it, adding that he doubted he would have ever said it. (Gotta maintain a certain image, I guess).

When I eventually publicly outted Oaks for lying to the press about Packer's involvement in the Toscano excommunication, I received a private letter from a Church member who noted that the Dallin Oaks from earlier years had morphed into a noticeably different and less admirable person since becoming an apostle--and who said that this observation had come from people who knew him.

Oaks is a conflicted man, at war with himself. I think he's certainly smart and well-read enough to know deep down that the Mormon Church is not true in some of its basic historical and doctrinal fundamentals but is nonetheless unwilling to break ranks with it.

It's in personal conversations like the ones I've had with him that his split personality has come through in some of the unguarded and spontaneously-uttered thoughts he has expressed without perhaps first weighing their potential consequences.

I think he should go more with his gut, but he's caught in a rut--trapped by member expectations, LDS Politburo peer pressures and his own life choices.



Edited 19 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 03:21AM by steve benson.

Maybe they were all as sincere as George Pace and probably equally as shocked to find hardball politics at the top. My sniffer tells me the LDS corporate culture at the very top is more like the mafia than to a corporation, with death being public disgrace.

A person like Oaks who overcomes a personal conscience for prestige, career benefits and $$$ is called an attorney. Oh, yeah, he is an attorney.

And he's worse than a person who was born a narcissist or a sociopath. He had to work at it.

Great to have you back--thanks for the insight and keep 'em coming. By the way, if you have any connections in the COB financial area, please give them an info leaking site link. A Mormon Leakfest is number one on my dream list.

Anagrammy

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 11:33AM by steve benson.

Maybe he'll pitch the Emperor (the church) over the side in the end, though it would be (career) suicide to do it.

I would rather NEVER be an apostle, than be an apostle who lied.

The people in Tunisia and Egypt thought the regime was so powerful and entrenched that they couldn't do anything about it. When enough of them got together they realised they were strong enough to oppose the regime. This isn't the case with the Mormons. TBMs and Christian Fundamentalists are the same. They don't really want to think for themselves. They don't want to deal with moral or ethical dilemmas. They want to live in a morally unambiguous world where everything is in black and white. The ones that do have taken (or are at least considering taking) the red pill and have escaped the Matrix. Eventually the LDS will be reduced to a small core group of believers in the SW USA who will stay in for family and cultural reasons. I can't see any other reason why a corporation like LDS, Inc. would spend vast sums on property development during an economic crisis unless they thought that more (not less) people would be moving to Utah for the (theocratic, total immersion living) Mormon experience.

Hang on to your hats!

more or less. When, like Mubarak and many other despotic leaders, the word leaks out that Mormon leaders are making their fortunes off the free labor and contributions of the members, then we will see the mighty humbled and the great leaders fallen.

Eventually the information will come out and someone will turn a "leader" or two into the IRS.

Just my opinion, of course.

Sorry, but it will never happen.

For example, there are many websites exposing the truth about what a fraud and a pedophile Mohammed was (all based on Muslim sources) and about the overwhelmingly violent teachings of the Koran--yet not only are few Muslims leaving their faith, but also Americans and Europeans are still converting to Islam, and it's not like they don't have Internet access. Granted, Islam prescribes death for apostasy, which no doubt keeps many Muslims from leaving, but then, why do people with easy access to the truth about that faith still decide to join it?

Similarly, I am confident the Internet has decreased conversion rates to Mormonism and obviously has encouraged many LDS to leave, but the Internet still cannot conquer human gullibility, family and social ties, etc.

Thanks for posting that--interesting!

Do you know a ward where more than 50% of voting-age members are active? Just one ward? Neither do I. If mormonism was up for re-election, it would lose.

I predict within 10 years the world will know the morg is in terrible financial condition and a major crisis will expose the church for what it really is, a cult.