Comments on the 12 Tribes-Sept. 2015

September 2, 2015 /  Charlie  /  Make A Comment  /  Blog Post, News

Source: Metafilter“I was robbed of my childhood”
September 2, 2015 6:33 PM

There’s a Yellow Deli in downtown Boulder. I am told the sandwiches are really good. I’m glad I have never gone in.

It’s reasonably priced because they don’t pay their labor — that’s a great way to cut down on overhead.

I am acquainted with someone who grew up in and left Twelve Tribes. She doesn’t speak of it much, but she’s deeply conflicted when she does. She suffered, but she continues to see a spark of good in the community. I can’t even imagine.

They’re in Canada as well, unfortunately. Thanks for posting this disturbing article. I’ll be on the lookout for the products at farmers’ markets, etc. so I can avoid them and ask others to do so as well.

I’ve never heard of this group before. Interesting and tragic. I am so angered by abuse that’s let pass because it is religiously motivated. That is no excuse and only a broken system with no care for women or children would allow it.

Good for Germany. Terrible.

In lieu of a Class V Profane Tirade, I direct persons obsessed with sadistic notions from the Old Testament to the Book of Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 31 to 46.

I hope that the group’s former hostages (I will not call them members because that assumes a degree of personal agency) rally together to bring this group down, and I hope this for all groups like it. Human rights trump “religious rights” – always – and this fact needs to be taken more seriously, everywhere, and enforced. Children are human beings and not the property of their parents or religious group.

And also, wtf, USA? You need to get on board ratifying the UN Convention on Rights of the Child. I was flabbergasted to find out the USA is pretty much the only major country that hasn’t when answering another question on the green recently. Check out the map here.

I always got the sense that if you were the type of person that wanted to abuse children, joining an extreme religious community would be the easiest way to get away with it. It’s horrifying.

I always got the sense that if you were the type of person that wanted to abuse children, joining an extreme religious community would be the easiest way to get away with it. It’s horrifying.

I looked up The Yellow Deli in Australia and was shocked to see it had such good reviews. I can only assume the majority of people who go there have no idea what is going on behind the scenes. I really hope articles like this can expose it for what it is.

From the article: “Corporal punishment—which the United Nations defines as “any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort”—has been banned in 46 nations. The general consensus within the medical-research establishment, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, is that physical punishment, especially of children, can lead to increased aggression and psychological problems. Hitting a child in the home in the United States, however, is legal in every state as long as it doesn’t leave a mark.”

From the first link, ““You were never abused,” she murmured. “Our life is full of love.”’

They are also in Australia and run a food cafe called Common Ground at all the big festivals – Big Day Out, Woodford, Royal Easter Show, even the Olympics which must have raked in a fortune 15 yrs ago.

I live in the same town as sauril. My wife swaps yarn for meals at the Yellow Deli. I don’t know. Do they beat their children? I was disturbed by the concept that children will naturally try to be bad (so it needs to be thrashed out of them) but this is an ancient debate about human nature where I am on the other side. So many cults have set up in this region, most are gone now. The worst was probably the Catholic Church which operated a pedophile ring here for years. Every adult should be a protector of children. I will be looking further into the Yellow Deli/Twelvers here.

I don’t know. Do they beat their children?

I’ve walked by their cafe often – it was always packed since it was located in a touristy area – and wondered why the children were so….somber. They would congregate around the park next to the cafe (probably waiting for family who were working), but wouldn’t play or smile and avoided eye contact. It was an unsettling experience, especially when juxtaposed with the crowds of kids laughing and tearing around, having fun around them. This is so, so terrible.

The reason the USA hasn’t ratified it is the psychotics in Congress who think that every UN motion is trying to take over the world, and the psychotics in Congress who think that not letting parents hit their kids is, in fact, taking away their rights to parent as they see fit.

We have one here, along with something called Preserved Seed, and they’ve set up a commune near the river which the cafe supports. They fit right in here with all the other religious zealots this place seems to attract.

They ran a really lovely(-seeming) little cafe down the street from where I grew up. It was a beautiful room – it felt like you were walking into a fairytale forest when you entered. And as others have said, you’d often see them selling healthy snacks at town fairs and festivals around New England. There was a lot of chatter about it being a cult, and you always got a bit of a weird vibe from the people who worked there, but I had no idea how terrible it was – it really just seemed like some sort of back to the land kinda thing.

Congress even ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities after former Sen. Bob Dole, who was 89 at the time, showed up in his wheelchair on the Senate floor to lobby for it. There’s absolutely no way they would think about ratifying the Convention on Rights of the Child, which really gets the zealots up in arms. Pathetic.

I don’t know. Do they beat their children?

Holy shit, the Twelve Tribes-run tea company Maté Factor (google it, I can’t do donotlink on mobile) claims to be fair trade and to have never used child labor. Dude, NO.

They seem like they’re very active on their Wikipedia page:

This is horrific. Praise to Noah though for getting out and then helping most of his siblings escape as well.

They opened a Yellow Deli in my then-unhip, then-somewhat-poor hometown. It was one of the first places to help revitalize downtown and absolutely one of the first restaurants to be open 24 hours (except for their sabbath day) in that area. We went a couple of times when they first opened but my friends–who are evangelical Christians and who engaged the adults in conversation–were very uneasy about them. So I haven’t been back in years, all credit to my friends’ wisdom, but I am still horrified that I supported that community in any way.