Are JWs Un-American and Un-Patriotic?

JWs will point to their taxpaying and law-abiding nature, of which they are (to some extent justifiably) proud, and at one time (Qualified to be Ministers book) it was the done thing to accuse hecklers at JW meetings of being `Un-American' (this was of course in the MacArthian days). In earlier days, the USA was presented in glowing terms (to justify the WTS encouragement for it's followers to buy war bonds):

By JB

According to The Watchtower's President "Judge" Rutherford, this man would win the war against the "Anglo-American Empire"

"In accordance with the resolution of Congress of April 2nd, and with the proclamation of the President of the United States of May 11, it is suggested that the Lord's people everywhere make May 30th a day of prayer and supplication. God was graciously pleased to cause this nation to be formed and to grow under the most favorable conditions in the world for the preservation of liberty, civil and religious. This is the land divinely `shadowed with wings' - overshadowed by the providential watchcare of God's Word - where God has lifted up an ensign on the mountain (kingdom), and where he has blown the trumpet message of the truth." WT June 1, 1918, p168, 174 ; WT 5/15/1918, p152; 3/1/1919, p67

It is true that in June 1933, the WTS in Germany produced a 'Declaration of Facts' in which "the greatest and the most oppressive empire on earth is the Anglo-American empire" and that "it has been the commercial Jews of the British-American empire that have built up and carried on Big Business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the peoples of many nations" and located the center of the evil Jewish menace in London and New York. However, this volte face, in which they declared their position as 'exactly the same' and 'squarely behind' the National Socialist party of Germany, had more to do with persuading Adolf Hitler to give them their property back, assure him of their loyalty and focus his attention on the 'real' menace to world peace (yb34, p130; yb74) The situation changed again to the Nazis, who rebuffed this hand of friend- ship, being 'the oppressive empire' and the USA being used again by God, this time to rescue JWs from fascism (this event is more widely known as W.W.II). The scanned letter to Hitler is on a German WWW site (Q99.1).

But there's something much more fundamental to it than matters of tax and law - take a look at the artists impressions of Paradise, of the photographs of `standard JW families', and more powerfully, at the JW-effect on 3rd world converts. The Paradise Image is an extension of the American Dream, sometimes recognizably in New England farmland, but never some Rousseauvian back-to-nature scenario - there's the out of place detached suburban house, Standard American Family, and usually a rustic bridge worked in somewhere. Likewise, the world mission - whatever its doctrinal content - is arguably in effect an embourgeoisification of the rest of the world - spreading American, East-Coast, small-town middle-class values (the original WTS socioeconomic group); this has especial appeal in Central America, where the Mormons also have become a major avenue of class mobility.

This will attract obvious criticisms of Cultural Imperialism, and 'bourgeois' is one of these terms that sharply polarizes people; there is good reason to be so disturbed, but it also must be admitted that there is quite a lot to be said for those middle-class values and Protestant work ethic - it means for many people, not just in the third world, the encouragement to keep personal and domestic hygiene, gain literacy, wear a suit and tie, carry a briefcase, engage in 'study', become a self-employed entrepreneur, gain the rank of elder or deacon, meet people of other classes and nations. People can gain self-respect through the Mormon or JW sects who'd never make it by the college route; although it's equally legitimate to worry about the loss of indigenous cultural values and social structures.

All in all, if the CIA are not shoving the occasional large wad of money under the Brooklyn Bethel door: more fool them! - it's a cheap way of spreading American values and influence around the world and promoting political quietism and small business values. As a side note, the yearbook which covered the CIA coup which overthrew the democratic government in Chile and put in the fascist dictator Pinochet, hints that the action was divinely inspired for a) it permitted a convention to take place that the liberal regime (or according to the WTS, the 'Marxists', 'leftists' and 'extremists') was `threatening'; b) it `ended years of hate and strife between Chileans' and c) lots of JWs got the vacated jobs of the arrested suspected `communist infiltrators', and d) the yb explicitly admits that the poor lost their hopes of betterment and were more amenable to preaching, whereas during the previous years JWs had concentrated on the upper classes who feared the loss of privilege and imposition of higher taxes to feed and educate the poor. Further, amidst much disinformation spread at the time to justify the coup, were 'hit-lists' of supposed enemies of the previous government, American WatchTower personnel and missionaries included. The yb82 p86 claims that the previous government had planned to liquidate all JWs.