From the Dept. of Nothing Better To Do: Mormon Church Monitors Blog by Nice Lady from Philadephia

[neebob]

So I have this friend with a blog. Now my friend isn't what most people would consider a major enemy of the Mormon church. She was raised in some fundamentalist Christian religion, never been Mormon. Otherwise, she's a regular chick—artsy-smartsy, good liberal, bold netizen, bit of an activist, late-stage single mom, lover of animals and other things that regular chicks love. And she swears.

Being the outgoing, clever, compassionate person and bold netizen that she is, she's made a lot of friends including a number of ex-Mormons. They tell her things about Mormonism—things she can relate to, given her background, and some that just amaze and annoy her. She feels compelled to comment ... and remember, she swears.

It started with a tweet—something about asshattery and dumbfuckery, with a link to her blog. Now she's got people (three, at last count) from Mormon Church Headquarters Monitoring her blog daily.

Apparently, there are people whose job it is to do this. I assume they get paid, no doubt with tithing funds, which come from other nice ladies (and gentlemen) from Philadelphia and other places who have no idea how their money is being used.

http://ifightthedj.blogspot.com

And you thought the government was all up in your business. :)

[CreekDog]

1. I'm becoming convinced that the people at the top of every church don't believe in it

and are fearful that those below, whom they depend on, will come to the same conclusion.

i'm a church member too, BTW.

[neebob]

13. Well, there are easier things to believe in.

Wonder what they do with all the intel they gather from nice ladies from Philadelphia, besides tell the members not to believe anything they read on the internet and make out like the great evil porn addiction monster will jump out and grab them if they even think about going to a non-church-approved site.

I haven't posted much in the last couple years, but I was raised Mormon myself.

[BethCA66]

2. Yeah -- I guess I shouldn't have called them asshats, etc.

But really! The Philly Mission President, Mike Murray (also
the guy responsible for the Apple "1984" ad), has
been acting up around these parts. I start blogging about him
and the $4M the Mormon church spent on a contaminated parking
lot, and they act like I'm Public Enemy #1 (5-0 said,
"Freeze..").

Anyway, yeah, they've lurked me 12 times in the past two days.
I expect to be sued soon. Get the legal defense fund going!

[LiberalAndProud]

5. Welcome to DU, BethCA66.

Nice blog there. Sorry about your unwelcome guests.

:hi:

[BethCA66]

8. Thanks so much! Happy to be here!

Yeah -- it's soooo strange to see that ldschurch.org has been lurking your site. I invited them to follow me on Twitter, just to make their lives easier (they run Twitter searches on "lds," "mormon," etc. I don't even have to use hashtags). I feel sorry for Twitter Search Dude. It's got to be a crappy job. I'll suggest they just bookmark me.

[grantcart]

7. Welcome to DU

BTW I am a direct descendent of the first mayor of SLC and the second longest serving President of the Church although no one in our family has been a Mormon for generations.

As I said below it might be "elders" on a mission, one of their objectives is to scoure for anti-Mormon material.

[BethCA66]

11. Oh, you mean elders in the COB

Could be, but if you follow the screenshots of the lurkers, you can see my blog get kicked up the chain of command. So, yes, I agree, it could be the mishies initially lurking me, but then folks with better equipment get involved. So strange. I'm hoping for a visit from Pres. Monson...

[kestrel91316]

16. I come from hearty ex-Mo apostate stock, lol. You go, girl!!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

26. Welcome to DU!

[BethCA66]

28. Many thanks!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

31. Hi there! Here's something to your blog. This happened in Brazil circa 2002.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2119025#2119602

[BethCA66]

32. Thanks! Bookmarked it, and I plan to address racism very, very soon

I'm part "Lamanite" and a daughter of Bigfoot/Seed of Cain. I've got various flavors of European American mixed in, and I dig it all.

Oh, I am *totally* going to bust their chops about racism: 1978 priesthood issues, BY saying miscegenation should be punished with blood atonement (throat slitting honor killing). Oh, yeah, It's going to happen. And where was it where people donated their gold fillings to fund a temple? Pfft.

First I'm going to beat them up about Prop 8 some. And don't even get me started on the ERA!

MOFOs!

[Dappleganger]

35. Welcome!

Your blog is a breath of fresh air. My relatives from my mother's side are all devout LDS, but Mom left the church when she turned 18 and never looked back (thank goodness!). They hounded her for YEARS, too (personally I think her sisters were behind it). There's an LDS family in our 'hood who are the biggest bunch of RW crazies you'll ever meet, too. Nobody wants to be around anyone who thinks their life is perfect and that nobody else measures up to them, right?

[BethCA66]

37. I hear you!

Thanks for the props! I've got a special message up for you guys!

[Warpy]

3. She doesn't need to take it personally

Just posting the word "Mormon" will flag her blog and get people with time on their hands and nothing better to do at making a living to investigate a little more closely. I'm sure these poor souls read hundreds of blogs apiece daily, just like they'll all have to plod through this particular post.

All of this is dedicated to making sure church PR is going as expected and that the detractors are still disorganized enough not to make much of a difference to the cash flow.

I suggest she tackle the unemployment problem in the country directly and post "Mormon" every single day, something she seems to be doing. Eventually they'll have to hire additional victims employees.

I, too, knit, cuss and have little use for religion.

[BethCA66]

4. Haha! I haven't taken in personally in the sense that I think they're out to get me

Rather I'm weirded out and slightly annoyed that they micromanage to such a large extent. I criticize pretty much all religions, but I've never had any other church send paid lackeys to lurk me. It's bizarre. But if the Southern Baptists or the Snake Handlers officially come after me, I'll call them out on their dubfauckery, too.

Oh, and I didn't start posting about them like a crack addicted hamster until they started lurking me.

[Warpy]

9. Good for you and welcome to DU

Trust me, you belong here.

[BethCA66]

12. Haha! Thanks! It's nice to be amongst friendlies! n/t

[juno jones]

40. Just don't mention scientology...

:)...But as a thought, if you are worried about the surveillance and what they can and can't do you could do worse than talk to others who have come up against authoritarian religions with too much time on their hands.

A couple of good boards where you might get legal advice, these people get stalked all the time in various ways:

http://www.forum.exscn.net/index.php or http://forums.whyweprotest.net/

Those are both for scientology but I'm sure they have some analogous boards for mormonism as well. Like; http://www.exmormon.org/ might have people who are dealing or have dealt with the situation.

This guy seems also to have a decent resource center. http://www.freedomofmind.com/

Good luck. I hope you are able to keep speaking out.

[BethCA66]

42. Thanks for the advice and for the links!

I'm a regular poster at Recovery from Mormonism, AKA RfM www.exmormon.org I go by Beth over there.

I will mos def look at your other links. Thanks!

As long as I tell the truth, I'm in good stead for "truth is a complete defense to a defamation claim." Or something like that. ;-)

[grantcart]

6. Could be somebody that is on a mission

I realize that they are using the domain name of LDS but wonder if they can access and use that while they are on a mission.

The reason I suggest this is that one of the things that "elders" i.e. 19 year olds are supposed to do when they are on a mission is to go to used book stores and what not to buy all anti mormon books, one of the reasons it is so difficult to find any anti mormon books.

This would be a logical extension of that activity.

[BethCA66]

10. The reason I think it's from SLC is because I have their IP addresses

You can see them in the screen shots. Plus you can see what type of system the lurker is using, the size of their monitor, etc.

If it were just some kid on a mission, her/his IP address wouldn't be ldschurch.org's -- it would be from the library they use. No, these clowns are COB employees (or volunteers, which makes it even worse -- for them).

[WeDidIt]

14. Scientology pulls that shit too.

It's creepy as fuck.

[BethCA66]

15. Yes, and IIRC, they have members install software that blocks anti-Scientology sites

Yeah, creepy is the word for it. I mean, I've heard so many stories about how intrusive the Mormon church is in its members' lives, how it micromanages them to an extreme. But until ldschurch.org started lurking *me*, I didn't really know what it felt like to be under their microscope. Religious Big Brother writ large.

[BethCA66]

17. Tell me what you think about this...(paranioa alert)

I've notices that yesterday my lds hashtag wasn't working -- I wasn't showing up in #lds searches. It could be user error on my part, but now that I'm slightly paranoid, you don't think they can control who gets to use hashtags on Twitter, do you?

[BethCA66]

18. Oh, WTF! Now I'm really scared -- for real

Someone from blackwaterusa.com is lurking me. Please tell me that's not *the* BlackWater, cuz I'll be pulling my blog down with the quickness and leaving the country! Oh, right...

[BethCA66]

20. Yup. It's someone from Black Water. Lovely. But they call themselves The US Training Center

http://www.ustraining.com/new/index.asp

[neebob]

24. I'm sure Blackwater has bigger fish to fry ...

er, I mean train than you, dear. :)

[BethCA66]

25. Yeah. See? I'm all twitchy now. Thanks for talking me down!

[TornadoTN]

19. Meh, probably just want to get her in on the ground floor of the magic underwear market

Religion.........

[tanyev]

21. I guess they're watching DU too, now.

:hi:

Hi! Hope you learn something!

[BethCA66]

22. Maybe I'm confused, but are you saying they weren't before?

I made a Prop 8 video critical of the Mormon church that was on YouTube. Someone from DU linked to that video. (I thank you!) Do you think they haven't lurked DU before today? That I brought the Mo to DU? That this is the first time Mormonism has been discussed here? Pfft.

And I know I'll eventually be outed; that was something I thought about long and hard before I started criticizing them.

My question to you is: What should I learn from this experience? That it's better to be silent than to be a critic? Silence = complicity sometimes.

[BethCA66]

23. Okay -- I think I totally misread that. I'm sorry.

If you're greeting ldschurch.org, then yes, I do hope they learn something.

Sincerest apologies!

[tanyev]

27. Yeah, I was greeting the lds-ers.

They probably were watching DU already, but for sure they are now because they followed you here. Good job! :toast:

[BethCA66]

29. Again, I apologize! I am a Philly hot head!

[tanyev]

30. No worries. I could have been more clear in my initial post.

And it was rude of me to welcome LDS spies before I welcomed you. :hi:

[BethCA66]

33. :-*

[Hissyspit]

Oops. I just accidentally unrec'd you.

Sorry 'bout that. I was just randomly clicking away. Bad habit.

[BethCA66]

38. Haha! 'Tis cool. 'Tis cool.

[Hissyspit]

34. dupe

[pleah]

36. Welcome! This is going to be fun!

:evilgrin:

[BethCA66]

39. Thank you! Yeah, let's see what type of shitstorm this will be!

[TexasObserver]

41. Big Love

[BethCA66]

43. ::SNORT::

[BethCA66]

44. I don't know if I'm allowed to revive an old thread & blogwhore, but I wanted to let you know that

Saturday is "Lamanite" Day on my blog. Please help me celebrate almost 180 years of LDS racism! Watch me get ferociously trolled!

And in case you guys didn't see my message to you, thanks for the welcome and for the support!