Deafening Silence

Yet Another FLDS Linkfest

With the completion of the first group of DNA tests, over 100 children taken from the YFZ ranch are being moved into foster care.  Testing of the remaining adults and children continues.  These tests became necessary when FLDs adults and children gave authorities multiple names and other conflicting information designed to obscure genetic family relationships.  Some girls originally claiming to be 18 have been found to be younger.  Some accounts are reporting that men from the sect are fleeing the area before charges can be brought against them.

In order to defend itself to the public, the FLDs has set up two new websites:

Captive FLDS Children.org

and

FLDs truth.org

It's worth pointing out two things in regard to these websites- first, they contain extensive photos and footage from the now-famous raid on the YFZ ranch.  Reports from the day of the raid told of many FLDs parents videotaping and photographing the event.  The fact that these pictures are now posted on an FLDs website shows that no cameras were confiscated and that there has been no attempt to stop the group from publishing the images.  (Would the Nazis have allowed Jews to publish photographs of their removal to the death camps?  Did Stalin permit his victims to broadcast footage of show trials and executions?  I dislike cheap Nazi references, but these are the historical equivalents suggested by FLDs members and their supporters.)

Another detail to reflect on is the line of portraits across the top of the FLDS truth site, depicting their prophets up to the present day.  Warren Steed Jeffs, convicted of being an accessory to rape and currently incarcerated, is shown without comment. To be fair, both websites appear to be "under construction" and new information may be posted later.

There is a new website called FLDS News that has a thorough roundup of print and video stories connected to the raid.  It's an impressive list of links and I highly recommend it.

Next I would like to present a short collection of audio links culled from NPR's coverage of this group.  The newest refer to the recent raid, but others center around Warren Steed Jeffs' trial and conviction as an accessory to rape last year.  Here they are, with some brief descriptions:

Court Orders DNA Tests on Polygamist Sect's Kids/4/22/08(Day To Day)- This covers the confusion over the children's identities.

Emerging from the Shadow of Polygamy-4/11/08-(Day to Day)- This is an interview with Elaine Tyler of the HOPE organization, which assists people fleeing polygamy.  It describes the challenges faced by the children in the "outside" world.

Document Sheds Light on Fundamentalist Church-9/19/07(Day to Day)- A brief snippet outlining the contents of a document that describes FLDs beliefs. I have searched, but am unable to find the original document.  If anyone else locates it I'll be glad to post the link.  Just alert me in the comments field.

Courtroom Testimony Opens Window Into Polygamy-11/26/06(Weekend Edition Sunday)- This is taken from tapes of testimony at the Warren Jeffs trial.  It describes the realities of FLDs marriages and lifestyle.

Warning: Next Link Contains Material that May Upset Some Listeners.

If you are especially sensitive to emotional issues surrounding child sex abuse, proceed with caution.

Key Witness Testifies in Case Against Polygamist-11/21/06- Taped testimony of Jeffs' accuser.  Initial moments are graphic and can be disturbing.

FLDS Update and Linkfest

And so it begins.  The legal battle over the fate of the 400+ children taken from the YFZ ranch promises to be sprawling and complex.  It may also set some far-reaching legal precedents.  It will be a while before observers such as myself have any coherent opinions to offer, but in the meantime, here's a text and video roundup of recent events:

Polygamy Case Poses "Logistical Nightmare" for Courts-CNN

Hearing Over Polygamists' Kids Turns into Farce-MSNBC

I do not envy the lawyers and judges who take up this task, but I *do* respect their desire to provide every mother and child with an individual attorney.  And I salute the 350 or more lawyers who volunteered pro bono time to this cause.

Something to think about: CPS officials compained at the outset that women and children were giving incorrect or incomplete names and not explaining family relationships.  This makes sense.  If you can convince the cops that mommy is really your sister, maybe no one gets into trouble.  In addition, creating confusion slows the investigation and buys time.  And lastly, escapees report that FLDs children are raised to view all the "sister wives" in their homes as mothers, not just their birth mother.

With that in mind, I support the idea of using DNA testing to sort out the family relationships.

Next up: Let the spin begin!  FLDs members unleash a flurry of interviews and letters of protest about the raid.  Thus far, they have played the Nazi card, comparing their treatment to that of Jews during the holocaust, maintained that the children are being made sick by poor conditions in shelters, and professed horror at the physical examinations that the children have undergone.

It is worth noting that, at the time of the removal, authorities reported that an outbreak of chicken pox was making the rounds of the children.  It is not known if the sect gives their children any of the standard vaccinations against other diseases, either.  The physical examinations, according to authorities, are no different than the standard exams given to any child suspected of receiving physical or sexual abuse. And the fact that the mothers were initially allowed to accompany their children off the compound is an extraordinary departure from standard procedure in child abuse cases, where the first priority is always to separate the child from the suspected abuser.

Some stories touching on these issues:

Fallout From FLDS Raid is Intense- Joy O'Donohue/Deseret News

State Now a Danger to State's Children, Sect's Mothers Say-CNN.com

Mothers From Polygamous Sect ask Texas for Help-CNN.com

The first thing that strikes me about these stories is a question- where are the men? This is a culture which assumes that a single righteous man can feed, clothe, house and protect dozens of women and children.  If that is truly the case, why are the women- repeatedly touted by the sect as the height of sheltered modesty- being forced into the limelight to make all the explanations and excuses?  Why do no men appear on camera or give interviews?  Isn't this their problem, too?

I suspect that the answer might be that weeping women in long, old-fashioned dresses create more sympathy.  To see the men is to be reminded that they are accused of child rape.  To see only the women is to constantly confront the separation of mother and child.  It effectively changes the subject.

Negative publicity and propaganda turned the 1953 Short Creek Raid into a disaster.  The FLDs has always retained expert lawyers, and it seems to me that their lawyers are trying to recreate the 1953 public relations disaster.

And for the most part, they are doing are pretty good job.

Speaking of plaintiffs, lawyers, and so on, the Salt Lake Tribune has published a kind of "cheat sheet" listing the main players in the raid.  It's a convenient way to keep things straight:

Key Players Involved in the Texas FLDS case-Salt Lake Tribune

(I *highly* recommend the coverage of this issue by the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News.  It's comprehensive and thorough.)

State officials are trying to head off negative press by releasing some details of their procedures and findings:

Texas Custody Hearing Update: Cult Expert, Former FLDS Member Consulted before Raid-Brooke Adams and Kristen Moulton/Salt Lake Tribune

Child Welfare Worker Describes FLDS Ranch as "Scary Environment"-Amy Joi O'Donohue and Nancy Perkins-Deseret News

State Says FLDS Beliefs Turn Girls into Sex-Assault Victims-Brooke Adams and Kristen Moulton/Salt

Lake Tribune

It is worth noting that those already acquainted with FLDs beliefs and practices are reluctant to condemn this raid.  Among those practices is the "reassignment" of families to new fathers.  When a man falls out of favor with the sect's "prophet", his wife and children are often taken from him and given to another man.  This kind of "reassignment" can happen several times in a woman's life, and always at someone else's whim.  She has no say in who raises her children.  This practice has a corollary- the dumping of unwanted, excess boys.  In order to award favored men with more and more women, the playing field is "levelled" by kicking out boys who might also want mates.

'Lost Boys," Other FLDS Teens Lobby Lawmakers-Ben Winslow/Deseret Morning News

Some of these discarded teens decided to sue the FLDs church.  When the Hildale/Colorado City assets of the FLDs were taken over by the courts, they settled their suit by accepting parcels of land for themselves and establishing a special fund to help children discarded by the sect:

"Lost Boys" Seek Dismissal of Their Suits Against Polygamous Leader-Salt Lake Tribune

I do not wish to be cruel, but whenever we are shown footage of women weeping for children taken from them by the state of Texas, we should also consider that these same women said and did nothing when their sons were driven outside the compound and, in many cases, literally dumped at the side of the road to fend for themselves. These women have been conditioned to condone abuse.

I'll finish up this post with a list of video links:

Via YouTube:

FLDS Women Speak Out About Custody Dispute

If you look at no other video on this subject, at least watch this excellent overview from CNN:

CNN: Busy Day for Sect's Attorneys

It covers lawyers for both sides, former cult members  and at least one FLDS researcher.  Well worth watching.

Carolyn Jessop speaks about her experiences escaping from the FLDs settlement in Hildale/Colorado City in this 2007 video:

A former member of FLDs describes going to school with Warren Steed Jeffs as a teacher:

Lastly, the most recent reports say that authorities are turning their attention back to Colorado City as the investigation progresses.  One FLDs woman has been accused of lying to the police:

Polygamous Ranch Raid Shifts to Colorado-CNN.com

YFZ Raid Video Roundup

Here's a quick roundup of some of the video reports on the YFZ Ranch Raid.

From MSNBC:

And from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/09/texas.ranch/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Several video clips are available here, including a discussion of polygamy and child abuse between 3 ex-polygamists on Larry King Live.

This YouTube video shows the size and scope of the YFZ Ranch in various stages of construction:

The video above shows Anderson Cooper interviewing Carolyn Jessop about the raid.  Footage of the raid appears in the background.

Marching From Zion

We're marching to Zion

Beautiful, beautiful Zion!

We're marching upward to Zion

The beautiful city of God...

Hymn written by Isaac Watts and Robert Wadsworth Lowry

They were prepared for a siege.

By the evening of Thursday, April 3, law enforcement had blocked all roads leading to the YFZ Ranch just outside El Dorado, Texas.  State troopers guarded all ranch entrances.  By Saturday morning, April 5, the airspace over the 1700-acre ranch had been shut down, save for a single helicopter monitoring events from above.  Ambulances, K-9 units and even a SWAT team had been brought to the scene.  Authorities were calling it the largest child-welfare operation in Texas history.

Don't mess with Texas.

By Wednesday morning, April 9, 534 women and children had been removed from the ranch and taken to holding facilities in and around San Angelo.  Investigators from Child Protective Services, accompanied by law enforcement, had spent days interviewing ranch residents and searching for women and children in a compound big enough to hold over 1200 football fields.  Originally thought to be populated by about 400 people, the ranch held over 400 children alone, and over 100 women.

Many of the females were young teens who were pregnant or appeared to have already given birth.

The removal of the women and children was remarkably peaceful.  Footage and photos showed groups of women and children quietly boarding buses with tinted windows.  Resistance was mostly passive; investigators reported that some of those interviewed gave false names or other misleading information about family relationships.  Two men were arrested for attempting to destroy evidence or impede the investigation, but their actions were not called violent.

Who are these people and what have they done?

They called it the Center Place- 1700 acres purchased by David Allred on behalf of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints in November, 2003.  Initially, the sect told surrounding communities the property would only be used as a hunting retreat.  It soon became clear, however, that an enclosed community was being constructed.  By the time of this week's raid, numerous homes, manufacturing sheds, a medical facility, orchards and gardens had been built on the land.  A massive limestone temple said to be 80 feet high dominated the property.  A fence including surveillance towers and armed guards with night vision goggles surrounded it. 

The ranch was meant to become entirely self-supporting.  The most faithful of the FLDs- a sect already considered fanatical by outsiders-migrated to the YFZ ("Yearning for Zion") Ranch to build a perfect community and await the Apocalypse.

The trouble came with their definition of "perfection."  Although the mainstream Church of Latter Day Saints had completely disavowed polygamy by 1904, the FLDs sect continued to practice it.  They believe that in order to enter heaven and become a god, a man must take as many wives as possible and produce many children.  Women must serve their husbands meekly, "keeping sweet" in all things, so that they in turn will be resurrected by their god-like husbands in the next life.  In FLDs life, the commandment to "keep sweet" was often enforced with vicious beatings.  When Warren Steed Jeffs took over leadership of the group in 2002, it also meant curtailing education.  Textbooks were razored to remove passages referring to dinosaurs and moon landings, and formal instruction stopped at the 8th grade.  Eventually, FLDs children were simply removed from the classroom altogether, and homeschooled.  Homeschooling was the ideal option as Jeffs steadily lowered the age of matrimony for FLDs girls from 18 to 14.

No prying eyes to detect the girls suddenly missing from school.

Teen girls were awarded like prizes to men old enough to be their fathers- men who often already had upwards of 5 wives.  Deprived of newspapers, television, the internet or any other communication with the outside world, the women were kept semiliterate and captive inside the fence.  Shopping expeditions or even trips to the doctor were tightly controlled events taking place only with chaperones.

Their main duty was to "keep sweet" and produce children.

When Warren Jeffs was jailed as an acomplice to rape in November 2007, Merrill Jessop took over leadership of the ranch.  Jessop is the ex-husband of Carolyn Jessop, who fled the FLDs stronghold of Hildale/Colorado City five years ago with her eight children.  The book she wrote about her experiences, Escape, has become a bestseller.  It describes Merrill Jessop as a volatile, controlling, violent man.  In a recent television interview, Carolyn Jessop has claimed that her ex-husband even practised a kind of "waterboarding" on his own infants, beating them and then holding their faces under a running faucet when they cried.

Merrill Jessop was in charge of the ranch on March 29 and 30, 2008, when a local women's shelter received a cell phone call from inside the fence.  A 16-year-old girl wanted to escape. The cell phone wasn't hers,  she said.  She was whispering. She said she had been sent to the ranch by her parents 3 years before, had been married at 15 and had a baby.  She was wife number 7 to a man who beat her, breaking her ribs, and raped her.  Now she was pregnant again, and had heard that her sister was being sent to the ranch as well.  She wanted out.  But she was afraid of being "found and locked up."

Merrill Jessop has condemned the raid in the press, saying that it "matches anything in Russia or Germany."

To date, authorities have not publicly identified the girl or found her among the 534 people removed from the compound.  They hope she is simply using an assumed name.

References

FLDS Outposts/Brooke Adams-Salt Lake Tribune

Child Welfare Officials Have 18 Children in Custody/Nate Carlisle and Brooke Adams/Salt Lake Tribune

Update: Judge orders all children out of FLDS compound/Salt Lake Tribune

Texas Polygamist Compound Sealed off by Troopers/Miguel Bustillo-Los Angeles Times

Officials were expecting worst during action/Salt Lake Tribune

Siege on FLDS Intensifies/Brooke Adams-Salt Lake Tribune

219 Children, Women Taken From Sect's Ranch/CNN.com

400+ Kids Taken from Polygamist Compound/Michelle Roberts-AP

Texas Takes Legal Custody of 401 Sect Children/Cnn.com

Police Question Women, Children from Polygamous Sect/CNN.com

Detention of Nearly 300 FLDS Women and Children May Strain Texas Resources/Brooke Adams-Salt Lake Tribune

People Who Have Left Sect Go to Texas to Help/Brooke Adams-Salt Lake Tribune

534 Women, Kids Leave Polygamist Ranch/MCNBC.com

Woman Describes Escape from Polygamy/Mike Celizic-MSNBC.com

Texas Raid: 401 FLDS Kids in Custody/Brooke Adams-Salt Lake Tribune

Jeff's Son is One of Two Arrested at Texas FLDS Compound/Brooke Adams-Salt Lake Tribune

FLDS Ranch Leader Says Texas Raid 'matches anything in Russia or Germany'/Brooke Adams-Salt Lake Tribune

Children Groomed for Sex by Texas Polygamist Sect/AFP

Rampant Abuse Alleged at Polygamist Camp/AP

Final Tally: 416 Children Removed/Brian West-Deseret Morning News

Sweet Home Allah Bamya Encore!

It appears that the Arab World Studies Notebook has come to the attention of the blogosphere once again.  I'm not quite sure why it has suddenly resurfaced (Gateway Pundit put up a post about it on April 6), but Deafening Silence readers will remember that investigating this textbook was the genesis of the Sweet Home Allah Bamya series. (Which is still ongoing, btw.)

Here's a set of links to all the entries in the series thus far:

Sweet Home Allah Bamya, pt. 1

Sweet Home Allah Bamya, pt. 2

Sweet Home Allah Bamya, pt. 3

Sweet Home Allah Bamya, pt. 4

And here is a correction I posted when I discovered that I had reported one issue in error in the series:

A Correction

Blogger Miss Kelly once left a comment on one part of the series, and has covered some of this issue on her own blog here.