GAME OF TROLLS: STARRING ISKCON'S KIRTANANANDA SWAMI

THE MADMAN KIRTANANANDA SWAMI 

This posting is the first in a series intended to acquaint readers unfamiliar with the history of the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) movement to obtain a brief but thoroughly representative snapshot of some of its most prominent leaders. I know that most of my readers come to my blog curious about the cult after having received a mailed invitation to attend one of their temple celebrations. Others go directly to my essays to read topics of interest to them either through a recommendation or a web search. So far, however, most of my writings in this blog and its companion, https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com have dealt with philosophical or doctrinal issues and my personal experiences during my 13 years as a Hare Krishna devotee. 

Now I would like to turn my attention to the most influential leaders within ISKCON, specifically those who were direct disciples (as was I) of its founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ("Srila Prabhupada"). While vast troves of information (mostly critical) about these individuals exists on the web, going through it all and making the necessary connections between what they did and why can be a daunting task. (For a summary of the mindset behind the attraction of the hippie and New Age generations to ISKCON and similar cults, please go to https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-hare-krishna-bliss-addiction.html.)

In addition, my intention is to refute the prevailing ISKCON propaganda that treats the crimes committed by most of these early disciple-miscreants as byproducts of immaturity and personal deviations from the pure and wonderful teachings of their guru. 

In fact, the worst of these deviant disciples were also among the best fund-raisers in the history of the Hare Krishna movement. Their charisma and sharp business sense coupled with their fanatical adherence to Srila Prabhupada's strictures regarding bare-bones expenditures for his disciples were responsible for the rapid openings of many new temples as well as grand temple projects. One of the best examples is the still-admired New Vrindavan temples and grounds that rose from its incongruous location near Wheeling, West Virginia under Kirtanananda Swami's leadership. 

His tenure in ISKCON dates from 1965, the year Srila Prabhupada arrived in New York from India. Judging from the information below, I think you might wonder why he was not apprehended and removed from his position before matters took such a tragic turn. Sad to say, the answer was obvious almost from the beginning: for our guru, the ends indeed justified the means. The price of what we believed was transcendental bliss was the abdication of our highest moral values. For Kirtanananda and his followers, moral cynicism and relativism were the rule of the day. Lost souls, all of them.

KIRTANANANDA UNDER HOUSE ARREST IN 1992

• Kirtanananda, a childhood polio survivor, avid homosexual, and unrepentant pederast, was one the earliest disciples of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ("Prabhupada") and certainly one of the most infamous. A toad-like man in the grip of full-blown megalomania, he oversaw the construction of the New Vrindavan temple in Moundsville, West Virginia while assembling a rogue's gallery of violent, salacious peons.[i]

• Along with his fellow homosexual and good friend Hayagriva (Howard Wheeler), Kirtanananda built a criminal empire in addition to the ornate temple and grounds. His devoted goons included the Sankirtan leader and sex abuser Dharmatma Das (Denis Gorrick), the murderer Tirtha Das (Thomas Drescher), another murderer, Daruka Dasa (Don Reid), and many others.

• Nothing, however, compares to his offences to humanity than his role in allowing and perpetuating the horrible child abuse innocent children of devotees suffered at the Gurukula boarding school.  The infamous New Vrindavan gurukula was a nest of unimaginable cruelty and sexual abuse suffered by children dumped there by their parents. Imagine the misery endured by children who never had a family life (or toys of any kind) forced to take ice cold showers at four in the morning and fed a diet so meager that many appeared emaciated.[ii]

• His criminal propensities—pedophilia, drug trafficking, stockpiling weapons and ammunition, to name a few--as well as his determination to usurp his guru's role in his community were widely condemned, but, like most narcissists, he still managed to attract a large and devoted following. Expelled from ISKCON in 1987.
   
•  In 1990 the U. S. Federal government indicted Kirtanananda on five counts of racketeering, six of mail fraud, and conspiracy to murder Steven Bryant and Charles St. Denis. The mail fraud charges included the claim that the swami had illegally amassed a profit of more than $10.5 million over four years. On March 29, 1991 he was convicted of nine of 11 charges (not the murder charges, however), but  eighteen months later, an appeals court (influenced  by Kirtananda’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz), threw them out and ordered a retrial in 1996. Before the retrial was completed, Kirtanananda plead guilty to one count of racketeering in regard to the mail fraud allegations and was sentenced to 20 years, but was released on 14 June 2004 due to poor health.
  
  
  👺Tirtha Das (Thomas Drescher): on orders from Kirtanananda ( despite the legal maneuvering on the part of  his lawyer, this is the truth) murdered Chuck St. Denis in 1983 and dissident Steven Bryant in 1986. Currently serving life in prison.
  
  
• Kuladri Das (Arthur Villa): Kirtanananda's henchman, now associated with Radhanath Swami. Alleged co-conspirator in Bryant's murder. Currently employed by ISKCON in life member drive targeting non-resident Indians. 

• Radhanath Swami: both he and Gopal Krishna Goswami took sannyasa initiation from Kirtanananda in the early 1980's. After the fall of Kirtanananda, Radhanath took over his disciples. Sworn testimony of Dharmatma Das in the Sulocana murder trial implicated Radhanath as a co-conspirator. Although he stated that he "broke all ties once I came to know about the murder," both he and Gopal Krishna Goswami attended Kirtanananda's funeral in 2011, where they were seen prostrating themselves before his garlanded corpse.
  
  

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  GOPAL KRISHNA AND RADHANATH GOSWAMIS AT KIRTANANDA'S FUNERAL

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[i]Hubner, John, and Lindsey Gruson. Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas. San Diego:  Harcourt, 1988.

ii]  http://www.iskcontimes.com/archive/radhanath-swami-helped-murder-sulochana-dasa.

     This article was written for ISKCON Times, a webpage maintained by Padma Shri honoree Madhu Pandit and his associates, staunch enemies of the GBC-controlled ISKCON. Shri Madhu Pandit dasa is also the founder of the famed Akshaya Patra food relief charity.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS ESSAY CAN BE REPRODUCED IN ANY MEDIUM WITHOUT THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR.

MISSION STATEMENT

Enlightening readers about the beliefs and practices of the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) cult is the sole purpose of this blog and its companion, The ISKCON Cult Unveiled, at https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com. Many of the essays I have written over the past ten years deal with controversial issues and others deal with basic philosophical concerns.

Like most cults, ISKCON is two-faced: it has a private side that it reveals to its adherents and another is reserved for the public. Exposing the truth about both aspects of the Hare Krishna movement is vital for a number of reasons that I will summarize shortly. Before I continue, however, let me introduce myself.

Back in 1967, my sister and I (we were 16 and 14 years old, respectively) saw a group of Hare Krishna devotees dancing and singing at one of the famous Central Park “Be-In” hippie events in the “Summer of Love.” One of the devotees approached me and invited me to the group’s “love feast” that they held every Sunday. (For more details about our actual visit, please see my blog essay, https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2010/07/reductive-thinking-and-cult-propaganda.html) I began high school that September and in December, my sister and I were initiated by the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (also called “Srila Prabhupada”). My initiated name was Ekayani and my sister’s became Indira.

Ekayani “married” at 17 years old!

Our guru had come to New York only the year before, so I became at that time both one of the earliest and youngest initiated devotees. We certainly were sincere and stalwart devotees, going to school during the week and worshipping our deities at home and living for the weekends when we would take the subway train to the temple and help prepare the Sunday love feast. We also carefully read all of the scriptures our guru translated (or so we thought) and for which he also prepared commentaries (“purports”), such as The Bhagavad-Gita As It Is and the multi-volume Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagwat Purana). We also created oil paintings of various scenes in the Krishna legend in our spare time.

After two years, my elder sister married a devotee and moved to St. Louis to start a temple there. Her loss left me to pursue my devotional service in near total isolation, but I persevered. Tragically, just after I graduated from high school, I was told by my sister, her husband, and Srila Prabhupada’s personal secretary that our guru had ordered me to marry one Gopal Krishna dasa, an Indian (now the guru Gopal Krishna Goswami) then living at the Montreal temple. I was only 17 years old and a virgin. (As it turns out, Srila Prabhupada told me himself that he had never given such an order.) For me, that horrific event ended the honeymoon phase of my involvement with the Hare Krishna movement.

But I digress. I do, however, want to make it perfectly clear that I knew the founder-acharya of the Hare Krishna movement personally (in fact, he never failed to greet me whenever we met, even when there was a crowd of other devotees present). I also wrote many letters to him, all of which he answered, sometimes at length (see one very influential photocopy of one at the end of this blog page). Critics of my views, all absolute strangers who never met me or my guru, think their fanatic adherence to his now-thoroughly discredited views entitles them to diagnose me as an insane person and recommend that I seek professional help. Such persons are themselves delusional and, should they ever find the fortitude to reject the nonsensical beliefs they slavishly follow, will find themselves on a therapist’s coach for years to come.

It is a daunting task to summarize the truly bizarre beliefs that our guru held and that he insisted we accept without any investigation on our part. As I and many others have written elsewhere, the problem seems to have its source in his belief that Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism is the ultimate expression of devotion to Lord Krishna, despite the fact that the philosophy of the character of Bhagwan Sri Krishna in the Gita and the Indian folk stories about the antics of Krishna and his cowherd gopis cannot be compared. He also held that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a Bengali Krishna enthusiast, was an incarnation of both Radha and Krishna together, ignoring the obvious: read the Chaitanya Charitamrita and a picture emerges of a cross-dressing Brahmin whose ”devotional” proclivities are better left unstated.

How could I, a woman who, after leaving ISKCON after wasting 13 years of life there, manage to earn a B.A. and M.A. while raising my son alone and working a demanding, full-time job (I have worked for a total of 33 years), if, as Srila Prabhupada insisted, women have half the brains of men and (I quote) “there is no very great scientist, mathematician, philosopher among woman.” In these and other laughably ignorant comments about so-called Vedic science— coming from a one-time chemist who, by his own admission, never read the Vedas—A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami proved that he lacked the authority by education and common sense to represent the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita to the West. How could we naively sit by and listen to this man state that the moon is farther away than the sun and the astronauts could never have gone to the moon since it is a “heavenly” planet and they never worshipped the moon-god Chandra in the first place?

Rather than continuing to hide their fundamental beliefs under a cloak of secrecy, ISKCON leaders and members should adopt a full disclosure policy immediately. Your lives--your souls--deserve no less. We  are all reminded from the lethal building collapses in the news that to live in a building with a faulty foundation is to court disaster.

Before ending, I want to restate that my writings are intended solely to educate and inform. Furthermore, I strongly believe in freedom of religion, but still insist that children, who, as the gurukula tragedy taught the public are helpless in such an irrational and abusive world view, are educated in public or private schools with a state-approved curriculum. I also despise and disavow any kind of discriminatory views, whether they concern women, ethnic groups of any kind, races, or religion. Lastly, I want to make it clear that the views expressed in this blog are mine alone and that I labor on them without assistance and have never received any financial help of any kind to support my efforts.

Just out! Please see: https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-note-to-my-readers-voice-crying-in.html

Select Essays on Various Topics in This Blog

Abuse of the Legacy of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Swami Vivekananda:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2012/09/standing-on-shoulders-of-giants.html

ISKCON Pretends to be an Ambassador of India's Cultural Heritage:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2011/10/iskcon-cultural-center-hoax.html

Using the Bhagavad-Gita to Advance ISKCON's Ambitions in Russia:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2012/03/gita-and-russia-another-iskcon-public.html

Female Infanticide and Selective Abortion:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2012/01/sequin-for-mr-al-zahrani-very-short.html

Evils of Arranged Marriage and Treatment of Widows in India:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2010/03/widows-and-child-brides-no-more.html

Child Abuse in ISKCON and Organized Religion:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2011/08/sex-abuse-claiments-win-big-justice-at.html

Link between Cultural Intrusions in Russia and Terrorism:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2011/01/islamic-tribalism-converts-and-terror.html

All rights reserved. No part of this essay can be reproduced in any medium without the express written consent of the author.

OF SCAPEGOATS & SUB-HUMANS: THE NEW DELHI RAPE AND CULTURAL PRIMITIVISM

For sheer brutality, the rape, torture, kidnapping, and murder of a young Indian student in New Delhi last month is astonishing, even in a country known for its ingrained misogyny. Protests continue unabated in India and the topic will continue to rivet the news media world-wide for a long time. The low status of women and the ossified state of the Indian legal system make prosecuting the offenders of such cases (few, unfortunately, are reported) very difficult. Moreover, the current state of affairs is also fundamentally incompatible with the rapid modernization that is sweeping across the sub-continent. One thing is for certain: swarms of morally crippled brutes--of which the monsters who savaged that innocent student are a representative sample—have made life a hell for Indian women who venture outside with or without a male escort. Why are so many young Indian men sliding backwards into a state of feral, sex-crazed savagery and why is it being tolerated?

That religion should ennoble rather than degrade humanity is a noble claim, but history has shown time and again that it is often without warrant. Instead, religious beliefs tend to promote self-serving, irrational notions. One of the worst of these uses what psychologists have termed “transference”; simply put, it is the means by which a culpable party seeks to objectify their moral evils and put the blame for them on an innocent party (usually called the “scapegoat”). This practice, visible in the Judeo-Christian scriptures as well as the Vedic system, is fundamentally a matter of a corrupt and powerful individual or entity seeking to ritually purify the self or group from sins for which they are entirely responsible.

Indian culture is permeated with myths and superstitions that promote the treatment of women as scapegoats. For example, the Laws of Manu claim that

Consuming liquor, association with wicked persons, separation from her husband, rambling around, sleeping for unreasonable hours and dwelling -are six demerits of women (9.13).i

So, if a woman is “rambling around,” how to control her? The answer, as the slavering beasts in New Delhi have shown the world, is to degrade her. Worse, people who otherwise seem models of propriety have sought to export these warped ideas to the West, usually under the guise of teaching the“degraded West” the Vedic system. Many examples abound, but speaking from my own experience as an early Hare Krishna follower of Bhaktivedanta Swami, this is a familiar and highly distressing pattern. The general tactic is disarmingly simple: praise men for their alleged intellectual and moral superiority and attack women for being dull, lustful temptresses. It amazed me when I was a young teenager to see how readily educated European and American men fell for this nonsense and so I was not in the least surprised to see how Indian men have reverted to using young women as scapegoats for their irrelevance and insecurities. As one commenter to today’s Wall Street Journal writes:

It's high time that these animals get over their gender bias and act like men, instead of sex crazed animals. Further, there ought to be severe penalties.ii

Indeed, but what penalties would be severe enough? The rapists who did the unthinkable to such a fine, intelligent young girl anyone would be proud to call a daughter or sister should be executed after a speedy trial. Enough of dragging out the legal process for decades. Like it or not, gropers will soon find their hands and fingers cut off and others will get doused with pepper spray. In my opinion, the pen might be mightier than the sword, but, in a pinch, the sword will do just fine.

http://nirmukta.com/2011/08/27/the-status-of-women-as-depicted-by-manu-in-the-manusmriti/ This website is an excellent resource for any rational analysis of Hinduism, even for believers.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323482504578227751166162988.html?mod=WSJ_article_comments#articleTabs%3Dcomments.

All rights reserved. No part of this essay can be reproduced in any medium without the express written consent of the author.

HARE KRISHNA MATING RITUAL REVEALED

"I was rotting in my household life." 

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Room Conversation, Bombay, 21 Sept. 1973.

It has often been observed that the stricter the religious sect, the more obsessed it is about sexuality. This is most certainly the case with the Hare Krishna devotees. Of the four “regulative principles” whose practice is required of all aspiring and initiated ISKCON followers, the most onerous is the one banning any sexual activity not specifically intended for procreation. Furthermore, according to the direct instructions of the founder of ISKCON, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (“Srila Prabhupada”), privacy was out of the question as to when the conception might take place: the married couple intending to “try for a child” would have to appear before the congregation in the temple in the morning and announce that they would be doing so that night. 

If that were not indignity enough, both partners were required to spend the day chanting 64 rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra on their japa beads, which means that they would be rapidly mumbling it for a total of 6,912 times. In practice, this is a sort of self-brain washing ritual designed to rid the mind of any anticipation for the act to follow, which, in any case, was supposed to be limited to one fast act during which the couple was supposed to be chanting Hare Krishna anyway. Artificial insemination would have been far more humane.

HARE KRISHNA/ISKCON MATING RULES ARE EVEN WORSE

The process soon became the butt of jokes and whispers among many devotees because of the sheer ludicrousness of the situation: since you were supposed to think only of Krishna during the brief copulation, couples were sometimes overheard frantically chanting the mantra during the minute or so that the man was supposed to muster an erection to shove into a woman who might as well have been in a coma. If pregnancy did occur as a result of this indignity, the woman was expected to return to the brahmacharini (unmarried women) ashram, take her rest on a sleeping bag on the floor like everybody else, eat the same food (except for an increased milk allowance), and then give birth in a municipal hospital with the bills paid by Medicaid or another medical welfare program paid for by hard-working taxpayers.


For the excuses and some outcomes of these sick practices, please see: https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com/2016/01/sex-lies-and-sadhu-making.html

All rights reserved. No part of this essay can be reproduced in any medium without the express written consent of the author. 

SEX ABUSE CLAIMENTS WIN BIG--JUSTICE AT LAST!

Champions of Liberty and Fairness, rejoice! A few high profile sex abuse cases were resolved today and yesterday, both of which deal with the abuse of minors over the course of many years.

The case in the news today (for details, see http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/08/10/us/AP-US-Priest-Abuse-Lawsuit.html?_r=1&ref=us)concerns an abuse case dating from the 1970's and gives hope to survivors of decades-old abuse: An Illinois man has received a $6.33 million settlement for abuse he suffered at the hands of a parish priest over the course of five years. Another black eye for the Catholic Church, especially since this case involved the hiding of the priest's misbehavior and the way the Church "quietly shuffled him among parishes."

Yesterday's news was even more significant: Warren Jeffs, the leader of the breakaway of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known as the FDLS) was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting one of his child brides, in this case a twelve-year old girl. Please read the full article (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/08/09/us/AP-US-Polygamist-Leader.html?ref=us) to get a fuller picture of this bizarre case. This case shows how the so-called marriage of grown men (often old enough to be the grandfathers of their victims) to children exists in this country. This cult, like so many others,is led by a charismatic leader who takes their money, controls their most intimate activities, and insists that he is divinely inspired.

Put a pajama-style outfit on this man and change his religion, and Jeffs would be comfortable as a tribal leader in Afganistan or Pakistan. Put the priest, who got away with abusing his young parisher without any punishment for 40 years,in a saffron robe, and you have a swami or another cult leader who sexually abused minors and now sits on a throne-like chair, dispensing moral precepts to his gullible followers. Worse, many cult survivors are expected to simply "forget" about their abuse by family and friends, most of whom might wonder why the victim has trouble with dating and is often a loner. It is just wonderful to see that this man, now undoubtedly middle-aged, finally has been compensated for his suffering. $6.33 million for abuse that occurred "dozens of times in five years" seems hardly enough, but it is a start. May the girls who were robbed of their childhoods in the FLDS case get enough money to bankrupt that corrupt parody of the Christian religion and wipe it off the face of the Earth.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

NEW WEBSITE: "THE ISKCON CULT UNVEILED" IS ONLINE!!!

After more than a year in development, my new website, "The ISKCON Cult Unveiled" at https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com is finally online. It will definitively reveal, for once and for all, how an irrational, deadly idealogy subverts normal ties to family and country.

The evidence to support this claim will be directly taken from the letters and other published writings of the founder of the Hare Krishna cult, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ( also known as "Prabhupada"). For example, what follows is a transcription of an especially damning series of comments about this guru's views about women. (Please note: Trivikrama was a disciple of the swami and Dr. Patel was an early Indian admirer of the cult.)

Morning Walk, 9 January, 1977, Mumbai

Prabhupada: I condemn everyone, that “You are all dogs and hogs.” And United Nations a pack of dogs barking. That’s a fact. And in Chicago I said, all women, “You cannot have freedom. You have got only thirty-four-ounce brain, and man has got sixty-four-ounce.” I told them. So I became a subject of very great criticism.

Trivikrama: Women’s liberation.

Prabhupada: I denied, “No, you cannot have.” I told them. One girl in the airship, she was seeing like (makes some gesture-laughter). I asked her, “Give me 7-Up.” “It is locked now.” So I frankly said that “No, no. You cannot have equal rights because your brain is thirty-four ounce.” Actually that’s a fact. Where is woman philosopher, mathematician, scientist? Not a single.

Dr. Patel: Apart from that, I mean, they are made for a particular mission.

Prabhupada: How they can have equal rights? Up to date in the history there is not a single woman who is a great scientist or great philosopher or great…

Dr. Patel: Madame Curie was a…

Prabhupada: All bogus. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: You are getting too harsh on them because…

Prabhupada: No, no. How can I give you equal rights, because your brain is less substance.

Dr. Patel: We cannot degrade our mothers that way.

Prabhupada: It is not degrading. It is accepting the actual fact.

These statements are outrageously ignorant and complacent, but, worse, were accepted by legions of Western ISKCON disciples who should have immediately corrected the swami with the truth. Brainwashing, however, had succeeded in perverting the minds and actions of many young people who simply wasted their lives (and ruined many others) in the pursuit of an exotic delusion.

Comments and explanations will be included, but the purpose of this new website is for the damning information to speak for itself. It will hide nothing and, as such, its contents will be sensationalist in the best sense of the term. For example:

• An original essay, "The Guru-Faking Business," which will offer an introduction and concise history of the descent of the ISKCON cult into the mire of criminal abuse;
• It will also guide the reader to easily obtainable sources where the Swami's support of racism, child abuse, and the mistreatment of women are unmistakeable;
• A handy resource for people to want to extricate a family member or friend from ISKCON (or any other cult) and need to familiarize themselves with the persuasive means that ensnare vulnerable souls.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

WEAPONIZING WOMEN OR A NOVEL MEANS TO AVOID BEING USED AS A HUMAN TARGET

The use of women and children as human shields during wartime has probably been going on since time immemorial and is certainly a staple of current terrorist practices in Afghanistan and Iraq. If that were not emasculating enough, the countries harboring these cowards regularly condemn the U. S. or Israel for targeting these civilian populations, when in fact the militias who infest their own countries hide in plain sight in villages packed with families and then flee just in time to see the bombs intended for them drop on these pitiable human targets. At times is seems as if we are dealing with a bunch of deranged, gun-toting zombies whose bloodlust and cowardice have shrunken their brains to the size of walnuts.

Experience and time, however, teach us that notions of innocence and ignorance are tightly intertwined. We all know that keeping women ignorant and therefore submissive is an evil waste of human potential. While it hurts to hear of another school burning or acid attack in Taliban-held areas of Afghanistan or Pakistan, most people shrug at the news; after all,what can you expect in countries where the four-legged and two-legged donkeys are almost indistinguishable? As long as a warlord supplies them with a fancy, shiny rocket-propelled weapon fit for shooting down helicopters and assures them of good standing among their rotten-toothed, pajama-clad comrades, what else is there to wish for? The spectacle of these grimy slack-jaws yelling insults to the U.S. and burning our flag to protest the targeted killing of a mass murderer who has also been making their lives a living hell just shows how their individuality has vanished, reducing them to little more than a blob that rolls along mindlessly, killing and incorporating everything in its path.

What hope, then, remains for the women who live in the shadows of these thugs? That they are determined to learn and persevere despite frequent school and polling place bombings shows how much they value education and the right to vote. Their situation reminds me of the plight of European women during the Dark and Middle Ages, with one very important exception: these women, if their families permitted it, could flee the outside world and seek education, shelter, and a life of quiet industry in a convent. This separation from a life of grinding poverty or early death in childbirth advanced a revolutionary change in attitudes about women: far from being merely a submissive, two-legged uterus, women were intelligent human beings who could devote themselves to scholarly pursuits as well as grow their own food as necessary.

Parents living in a tribal region of Afghanistan,for example, who are desperate about providing for a family of daughters could place one or more of them in a fully-funded scholarship program that would also provide room and board in a non-sectarian school where they would get a first-rate education and also learn a trade. A foundation in economics would be an essential part of their education and teaching them how to grow a business using micro loans would be its practical demonstration. Pouring money into programs in villages that are terrorist-controlled hives of death and misery only makes the population resentful and envious because the terrorists steal the aid anyway. They need to learn how to produce honest wealth first. Mark my words: day schools are a start, but building fortresses or rather, walled cities of education and industry to assure that girls and women can use their intellectual gifts simply acknowledges that they really do live in an Islamic version of the Dark Ages and that we have the means to gradually bring light into their lives.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

HARE KRISHNA & CATHOLIC CHURCH SEXUAL ABUSE CASES: THE CRIME OF STATUTES OF LIMITATION

How would you feel if someone you loved mistakenly entered a train station that was the target of terrorists, was killed, but later on you discovered that someone who suspected that something bad was going to take place fled the station without warning anybody? Was fear the reason, or simply cowardice? Whatever the reason might be, you would probably be furious and hold that person at least partially responsible. Dealing with these feelings in a world where terrorists have proved they can infiltrate our most familiar and trusted places is the topic of this essay.

As the recent bombing of the Moscow train station has taught us, betraying our trust by using the most unexpected terrorists to strike during broad daylight means that the sources of these menaces need to be wiped out first. Furthermore, people who are familiar with these terrorists need to step forward and offer their services. However, getting inside the minds of the offenders is the highest priority because something is rotting them from the inside out. Simply put, victims of discrimination and especially sexual abuse are ripe targets for recruiters who prey on their feelings of dispair. If you offer them a way to avenge themselves while going to what they seem to believe is Paradise, many will take the job offered to them even if it means killing and maiming countless others. True, some of these women bombers, like the "black widows" suspected in the Moscow bombings, have suffered the loss of their husbands and sons in the regional wars in Chechniya and other former Soviet republics, but what about the increase in women bombers in Afghanistan and Iraq?

We are clearly dealing with an atmosphere of mistrust and hopelessness that has a direct connection to the near-impossibility of the victims of domestic and sexual violence to confront their attackers as well as seek compensation for themselves in civil court and prison sentences for their abusers in criminal court. As the recent spate of cases of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in Ireland and Germany has brought to light, the laws regarding Statues of Limitations for sexual abuse most often sabotage the efforts of these victims and their defenders to get any justice. In the U.S., an effort is being made to abolish the Statue of Limitations in regard to these crimes altogether due to the knowledge that it often takes many years for the victim to recover sufficiently to confront the abuse and seek justice. In Germany there has been talk of extending it to 30 years, but that might even be too little.

Cults and terrorists are allied, but worse yet, the fanaticism that kills is bred by both. Sadly, putting these miscreants in policy making positions has disasterous results (for a graphic description of the child abuse at Hare Krishna Gurukula schools that led to the Windle Turley lawsuit of 2000 please see http://www.harekrsna.org/iskcon-child-abuse.htm). All of the former Gurukula children who were victimized are bound to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to some degree and, if you read their accounts and have recently visited one of the lavish Hare Krishna temples recently, you will have to wonder if there is justice in the universe at all. Moreover, if you see a video of a madrassa and just imagine these students of Islam recruited to blow themselves up, the similarities become distressingly clear.

Well, as the saying goes, a fool is born every minute.

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