Theos-Talk Archives (May 2008 Message tt00752)

The letters are not problematic. I congratulate all three Radha, Bland
and Carbonell for sharing information and views about the most
important subject election. I would suggest all the concerned members
and officers to think more about the issues before the TS and share
maximum information with members, discuss it, find out what would be
the best course. Without such discussion and sharing of information,
members caste their vote with little information, and outcome of it
could be election of wrong candidate. To avoid it there should be in
place sophisticated information system.
In Christ.
Anand Gholap

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Govert Schuller" <schuller@...> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
> 
> Last week I posted a question about the status of the March 12, 2008
letter
> by PTS Radha Burnier as an opening question to look into the issues
> surrounding this 2008 PTS election.
> My base line is that everybody acted in good faith, but that
mistakes were
> made and these have to be sorted out. The situation is urgent for the
> election process seems to be compromised.
> 
> I posited three possibilities about the statusof the Burnier letter :
> 
> 1) The letter was private. Therefore it's unproblematic. It's her
opinion to
> which she's entitled [to share] with her friends and she might be right.
> 
> 2) The letter was to all General Council members intended as a
response to
> Ms. Carbonell's letter, to which Burnier was entitled as Oliveira points
> out: "Mrs Radha Burnier, about whom some presumptions were made in Ms
> Carbonell's letter to some General Council members, of necessity, as
is her
> right, has had to state her position and her intentions in relation
to the
> forthcoming election for international President."
> 
> 3) The letter was to all General Council members expressing her
position. If
> so, then it was electioneering and therefore sufficient grounds for
General
> Council members to respond and/or protest.
> 
> In his answer to my question Pedro Oliveira re-affirms that:
> 
> "As Elvira Carbonell and others at Adyar wrote the above
communication to
> the members of the General Council of the TS, not only attempting  to
> pre-empt Mrs Burnier's candidacy but definitely announcing that Dr
Algeo had
> agreed to accept nominations, Mrs Burnier was entitled to write to
the same
> GC members and present her views."
> 
> I take this to mean that he settles for possibility #2: The Burnier
letter
> was a response to the Carbonell letter. This might be the case, but
still is
> highly problematic, for it raises the following questions:
> 
> 1) Why did Burnier not mention the Carbonell letter to make it clear
that
> her letter was a legitimate response to the questionable, but
> understandable, action by Carbonell? Any GC, or any TS member,
reading the
> Burnier letter, would not be able to ascertain that the letter was a
> legitimate response, and he/she would be on relatively firm grounds to
> perceive the Burnier letter as electioneering, as Betty Bland did.
> 
> 2) Even if you put the two letters side by side, there seems to be no
> structural congruency to conclude that one is a response to the other,
> because:
> 
> a) Carbonell's main issue is Radha's health and fitness for another
term and
> that is not addressed in the response.
> 
> b) Burnier in her letter shares information that is not relevant to the
> Carbonell letter.
> 
> The only issue both letters share is the question regarding the future
> residence of Algeo if he becomes PTS.
> 
> Given the above, I think that,
> 
> 1) to construe the Burnier letter as a response to the Carbonell
letter is
> hard to maintain
> 
> 2) the status of the Burnier letter is not yet firmly established.
> 
> 3) the plausible genesis of the letter, and this is merely my
hypothesis,
> was that it started out as a private letter (as Pablo Sender
informed us),
> but through wide dissemination it became a de facto electioneering
letter,
> which then, implausibly, was construed as a response to Carbonell to
defend
> its legitimacy.
> 
> 4) the responses that the letter solicited, especially Betty Bland's
letter
> to the GC, seem legitimate, because she perceived the Burnier letter
for an
> unprecedented act of electioneering and makes it clear that her own
letter
> was a response to that specific act.
> 
> 5) On the other side, Bland's letter to the TSA membership is
problematic,
> because:
> 
> a) she did not mention the Burnier letter to legitimize hers,
> 
> b) she makes the incorrect claim that her letter was tradition-breaking,
> while in her letter to the GS's she makes the case that it was Radha
who did
> so first,
> 
> c) the Bland letter is obviously private, but then uses the official TSA
> mailing-list for distribution.
> 
> Ergo: all the letters here in question are highly problematic except
Bland's
> letter to the GC.
> 
> Peace
> 
> Govert Schuller
> 
> ==========================
> 
> The letters:
> 
> 19 December 2007 - Elvira Carbonell
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/44371
> 
> 12 March 2008 - Radha Burnier
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/43516
> 
> 19 March 2008 - Mrs Betty Bland
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/43531
> 
> 11 April 2008 - Mrs Betty Bland
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/44370
> 
> ==========================
> 
> P.S.: Other issues still to be addressed:
> 
> 1) The discrepancy between the official health certificates and personal
> observations regarding PTS Burnier's health; and the absence of a
> professional medical assessment of her taking on another 7 years.
> 
> 2) Algeo declaring that he would accept nominations, something
Oliveira and
> Ramadoss find objectionable and I think is a non-issue.
> 
> 3) The best course of action for this situation to defuse for the
benefit of
> the TS in its entirety.
> 
> 4) the lessons to be learned from this situation, especially regarding
> elections, communication, the use of modern technologies and
possibly even
> the entire governance model of the TS itself.
> 
> And soon I will give a link to a little piece titled "The State of
the TS
> (Adyar) in 2008: A Psycho-esoteric Interpretation," in which the
> Krishnamurti issue will take center stage as an issue for this election.
>