Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00602)

	Let's assume for the moment that those who run the TSA are not 
arbitrarily evil. What, in your opinion, will they achieve if they win 
the lawsuit which they would not have been able to achieve without it? 
By the way, I am telling your in advance that I will ask for more detail 
if I believe your answer translates to "they are abirtrarily evil." In 
other words, please don't interpret it as trying to browbeat you down.

	You see, I understand (but do not have enough evidence to accept) the 
TSA's explanation about the reason for the lawsuit. I don't understand 
Tacoma's.

	Bart

Steven Levey wrote:

> Bart
>    
>        The problem, as I see it, re: Tacoma and the TSA, is that the TSA has become so politcally motivated that this is what determines their action regarding the existence of other Lodges. This really corporate behavior on the part of TSA, to me, is the problem. Theosophy as a philosophy and movement, standing for Brotherhood as it was intended by definition, is therefore being tarnished in this kind of trial. In other words, if Tacoma, as an entity in itself wants to do and be what they are, this should have nothing to do with TSA. Even if the Tacoma Lodge became a foolish and non-theosophically  oriented group of anti-HPB folks, they still have the right afforded to all human beings to be that. Yes, the TSA can write them off as no longer under the TSA umbrella, so to speak. But so what and how hypocrital. The TSA has shown itself to be run by particularly non-theosophically minded folks, and in that sense no longer represent theosophical thought in their own actions. 
Yes, this
>  is the thought of one student, but it is how I feel, after following this from the beginning.
>    
>   Steve
>
> Bart Lidofsky <bartl@sprynet.com> wrote:
>   krsanna wrote:
>
> > If you are interested in more information about this case, I suggest 
> > you do what the "Aquarian Theosophist" did. Make written 
> > inquirities. It saves much speculation.
>
> Except that I am very much aware of the history that Rodolpho Don has 
> with the Theosophical Society in America. He published an early web page 
> (which, by the way, I frequently used as an example of an excellent web 
> site). John Algeo had two major problems with it, however. The first was 
> that it represented itself as the official website of the Theosophical 
> Society in America. The second was that it revealed rather publicly 
> certain information about the TSA which could be used to help in a 
> hostile takeover. He requested that Rodolpho put in a statement that his 
> site was not the official site of the TSA, and also pointed out that 
> posting the fiscal information was probably a bad idea, but did not go 
> as far as requesting its removal. Rodolpho was furious, and contended 
> that any member of the TSA was entitled to speak for the entire 
> organization, and posted John's rather polite letter in lieu of putting 
> in the simple disclaimer that John asked for. As such, I find Rodolpho 
> to be a highly prejudiced source.
>
> According to Wheaton, the lawsuit has to do with financial 
> improprieties, and violation of the organization's publicly filed bylaws 
> on the part of its officers.
>
> One thing that I find interesting is Rodolpho's accusation that Wheaton 
> intends to keep the resources for itself. I recall a time when Wheaton 
> had published a new version of the bylaws which would have property of a 
> dissolved lodge revert to Wheaton. It was pointed out that the key 
> language that required that the resources stay in the area of the Lodge, 
> and not be moved, was no longer there. All sorts of conspiracies were 
> imagined. As then chairman of the bylaws committee of the New York 
> Theosophical Society I gave John Algeo a call. According to him, this 
> was the first he had heard of this, that it was entirely unintentional, 
> and that had I called 48 hours later, there would not have been enough 
> time to fix the wording. As it was, there was enough time, and the 
> wording was changed. But what impressed me was that, for all the 
> complaining, there was so much faith that the leadership of the TSA was 
> the embodiment of evil that nobody thought to actually try to fix the 
> problem.
>
> This is not to say that the TSA board has not taken numerous actions 
> over the years to keep its oligarchical status (notably taking the 6 
> regional districts and combining them into 3, as well as de-emphasizing 
> individual lodge membership in favor of member-at-large membership, as 
> well as setting up a pseudo "National Lodge"). But it is to say that I 
> will take any representation of them as the embodiment of evil with a 
> grain of salt.
>
> Bart
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 		
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail
> Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze. 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>