Where in the World Is Doug Philips (Who Is a Tool)? Part 6: With the Gyrating Flesh

[MamaJunebug]

@Jellybean:  disturbing, deeply disturbing. No BEC at all.

Of course he wore a band on his hitchin’ finger whilst being photo-opped amongst the poor, exploited innocents — he’d be questioned otherwise. 

Speaking of white “saviors,”  Jenny and Matt Chancey oughta be in on this. It’s their bread & butter! I wonder why they’re not.

[hoipolloi]

 

Quote

Even the vestiges of Kipling and British imperialism were absent from the landscape. 

70 years after the end of the Raj -- gee, Dougie, ya think? 

That blog entry is an utterly revolting piece of shite, considering DPIART's history. It takes a special kind of vileness to produce stuff like that after the things Doug Phillips has perpetrated, which, by the way, were NOT "méfaits" but rather "méchancetés" or "mauvaises actions" [wickednesses or evil acts]. 

 

 

[Marian the Librarian]

Dougie's closing paragraph in French, Google-translated into English: 

"Our lives do not belong to us. We are connected to each other, past and present, every wrongdoing or act of kindness, we build our future."

Somebody pinch me before the rarefied profundity makes me faint.

[Quinquagenarian]

He has quoted that line before. He's quite smitten with it. This maudlin piece of his writing is manure.  His need to dance and descriptions of embracing boys (and girls) was almost too much to read.  One of my questions to him on this the anniversary of his being undone by his abuse of Lourdes Torres, is why all the conviction, passion and devotion to these poor people thousands of miles away from the daughters and sons HE sired and who are living in their own Ganges between Durango and San Antonio?  He CANNOT simply do what he is supposed to --- be a father. He's got to gallivant and film and wax poetic and be the center of someone's attention even if its that of his own camera lens.  His remarks are also notably devoid of any spiritual reference, much less an acknowledgment of the Divine.  He sounds like a humanist now.  Whoever it was that used the description of a Shape Shifter. Right. You. Are.  Like a snake and a snake oil salesman all in one. Pheawt   I spit on him.

[dripcurl]

Happy Tooloween! I've lurked off and on for a few years now. I remember exactly where I was and how I found out, someone that has been discussed on here a while back called me ASAP and told me about the resignation and exposed secrets. I followed the events pretty closely over the next year, including the victim's marriage and divorce. Beall and a couple of the daughters used to follow me on instagram oddly enough just last year, I followed them first and there was never any evidence of Doug anywhere. Recently I stalked Beall's Turning 50 page. Last night my mom and I were discussing the possibilites for Beall if she dropped his ass 4 years ago. 

Has a mass book burning of Vision Forum materials been discussed on here ever? It might be fun to throw So Much More in the firepit tonight. Seems appropriate.

[Palimpsest]

On 10/28/2017 at 4:05 PM, VodouDoll said:

God, if I were Elizabeth and Anna Sophia B I'd be so pissed. What could they have accomplished if not for their stupid needy father falling under Doug's sway?

I'll argue that Doug fell under Botkin's sway.  Well, Botkin and others like him.  VF took a lot of ideas from Rushdooney and Chalcedon, R.L. Dabney, Eric Wallace, and so on.  

Botkin probably believes what he preaches.  Doug was almost certainly faking it when you look at him today.

Seriously though, Botkin has been in deep since Doug was knee-high to a grasshopper.  He was converted to the Great Commission way back in the 60s by this guy:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McCotter

McCotter was is a contemporary of Gothard and just as evil.  Botkin was teaching the whole SAHD bullshit when he was in New Zealand with McCotter long before VF was founded.

If I were Liberty, Jubilee, Faith or Virginia I'd be really pissed with Botkin.  And with their Dad.

ETA:  I'm dismayed to say I got the tense wrong above.  McCotter is still alive.  I was hoping he was already rotting in hell.

[Palimpsest]

13 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

"Our lives do not belong to us. We are connected to each other, past and present, every wrongdoing or act of kindness, we build our future."

It sounds familiar.  I think he's quoting someone else.  Jean-Michel Guenassia, peut-être.

[Marian the Librarian]

17 hours ago, Quinquagenarian said:

He has quoted that line before. He's quite smitten with it. This maudlin piece of his writing is manure.  His need to dance and descriptions of embracing boys (and girls) was almost too much to read.  One of my questions to him on this the anniversary of his being undone by his abuse of Lourdes Torres, is why all the conviction, passion and devotion to these poor people thousands of miles away from the daughters and sons HE sired and who are living in their own Ganges between Durango and San Antonio?  He CANNOT simply do what he is supposed to --- be a father. He's got to gallivant and film and wax poetic and be the center of someone's attention even if its that of his own camera lens.  His remarks are also notably devoid of any spiritual reference, much less an acknowledgment of the Divine.  He sounds like a humanist now.  Whoever it was that used the description of a Shape Shifter. Right. You. Are.  Like a snake and a snake oil salesman all in one. Pheawt   I spit on him.

This is one of the best posts I've ever seen on FJ.

[Quinquagenarian]

4 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

This is one of the best posts I've ever seen on FJ.

Why thank you!  I consider that vey high praise from an esteemed FJer such as you, friend!

[barnacles]

I have to admit, I always knew Doug was a tool, and by tool I meant a clinically narcissist cult leader, but damned if I didn't at least think he was a sincere tool.  I hated so much of what he stood for, but I at least genuinely thought he believed the stuff he was spewing out, even if he didn't hold himself and his inner circle to the strict standards he applied to everyone else.  At the time of tool o'ween, I had been checking the VF and VFM pages frequently, expecting some sort of announcement.  His blog had been relatively quiet, the conferences and trip to Greece barely got any air time, when in previous years they had all been blogged ad nauseum, his dad's death seemed like an afterthought, etc.  I was waiting for a going out of business notice, so the affair genuinely caught me by surprise.  I thought at minimum he was at least a family man.  Nope.  Lies.  Everything was a lie.  The standards he held over peoples necks like the sword of Damocles...he never believed one word of it.  He ruined peoples marriages, careers, finances, their entire lives over this stuff, and it was all an act.  It's like every year I am further taken aback at the depths of his true depravity.

 

Side note:  What confirmation do we have that Beall is also a horrible person?  I know we have Jen F's accounts, but that's Jen.  I know Lourdes said she sent her vaguely threatening emails, but there's been several things Beall has posted that sounded very similar to Doug's tone, and I know people close to them have said he's hidden behind her "skirt" more than once.  Have I missed anything?  I'm not trying to vindicate Beall, and it's very likely after years of being married to the tool, her tone could be almost identical to his naturally, but it may be worth keeping an open mind that some of the bad things Beall has supposedly done, may have been Doug in disguise.  I put nothing past a narc.

[Howl]

First, Beall truly loves her children and is a devoted mom.  Beyond all reason, she may very well still love her husband. 

Here's the deal, though.  Although Doug may have only been wearing the Vision as a tailored suit, all indications are that Beall truly bought into it.  She may still hold to those beliefs and if she does, she will NEVER divorce Doug.  Whichever, this is the result. 

• Numerous grown children with zip college education. 
• Intelligent, talented grown daughters still living at home #SA(H)D, who may not be aspiring to anything more than getting married and starting families, because girls. 
• A fifty-year-old woman with an absentee spouse and zero work history; did Doug ever pay into Social Security?
• Left being the center of the family while the father of her children is off "finding himself" after selling everyone else on hard-core patriarchy. 

Does she still hew to patriarchal beliefs?  How does she reconcile her current beliefs with her current situation?  Are the kids left living in a state of suspended cognitive dissonance?  

[Hane]

Beall=Serena Joy of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” That is all.

[Quinquagenarian]

She did teach in Texas for the few years between William & Mary and marriage to DPIARBT.  Think it was a Christian or independent school. Think she was also fluent in Spanish at least.  Would take some pride-swallowing but maybe once the kiddos have all flown she can at least do something with that.  DPIARBT, sadly, alienated her, it seems absolutely, from her family so the resource question seems legit.  His family appears to have regard for her and it could be that those kids are all going to have to help support "Mama Beall" in her dotage.  I agree that she likely bought into the sociology they were peddling more than DPIARBT but I also think there was a lot of it that she excepted herself from....one of the few anecdotes of Jen's that I believe was the account of Beall telling her "We don't actually DO all this...." or some such.  What would be great would be for one of the kids (Justice?) to just be normal and enter/engage with regular society (not Euro Burlesque Time Travelling people) and provide a pathway for Beall and some of the other kids to also enter it and for Beall to re-enter it. DPIARBT has quite the hold on her though. Now, could someone crank up Diana Ross & the Supremes and play "You Keep Me Hanging On" while you finish reading this post.

[Howl]

Loved me some Diana Ross back in the day!  Still do, when I hear it. 

*heads off to YouTube to listen to some DR & the Supremes*

 

1 hour ago, Quinquagenarian said:

What would be great would be for one of the kids (Justice?) to just be normal and enter/engage with regular society

Well, the oldest son was on a fishing boat in Alaska for the summer.  That's real world experience right there! 

[smittykins]

How about the Vanilla Fudge version?

 

[Corntree]

10 hours ago, barnacles said:

I have to admit, I always knew Doug was a tool, and by tool I meant a clinically narcissist cult leader, but damned if I didn't at least think he was a sincere tool.

I've been wanting to say this. He always came across as totally sincere to me in his blog. The Lourdes situation and the fall of VF floored me. Just a few weeks ago, I was looking at some of his archived blog posts and he still comes across to me as a man who truly believes what he's saying. And beyond the fundie stuff, he also used to speak often and lovingly of his wife and children. And now he's dropped the fundie stuff (which is good) AND his wife and kids (which is not good). And of course we know that stuff was going on with Lourdes while he was still coming across as a devoted Christian and family man. So he was clearly already fucked up, though I still feel like he really held those fundie beliefs at some point in the past (even if he was an elitist shit about it). I guess it's hard for me to imagine someone doing everything he did just for power. It seems to me like there are easier ways to get power, I guess. But some people are very good liars and like to play games. At any rate, when the Lourdes stuff came out he either decided to stop pretending or he stopped suppressing the person he wanted to be and now he's a different Doug (except for the ego and flair for the dramatic). And I'd be fine with him being a humanist or something now, but he's got pseudonyms and he's apparently not trying to make up for his past wrongs and he's ditched his wife and kids to be a hero/filmer of pretty women elsewhere. I guess he wanted to completely remove himself from the life he had been living. And perhaps being a devoted husband and father came out of his fundie beliefs, so when he dropped the fundie stuff his family got dropped too. And maybe he finds being with them (esp. Beall) a lot too constricting and a bad reminder of who he doesn't want to be anymore. Though that's assuming he wasn't flat-out lying about everything for years. (As I said, I'd honestly find something other than, "It was all a lie the whole time" easier to accept.) Regardless, it's still a shitty situation.

[barnacles]

12 minutes ago, Corntree said:

I've been wanting to say this. He always came across as totally sincere to me in his blog. The Lourdes situation and the fall of VF floored me. Just a few weeks ago, I was looking at some of his archived blog posts and he still comes across to me as a man who truly believes what he's saying. And beyond the fundie stuff, he also used to speak often and lovingly of his wife and children. And now he's dropped the fundie stuff (which is good) AND his wife and kids (which is not good). And of course we know that stuff was going on with Lourdes while he was still coming across as a devoted Christian and family man. So he was clearly already fucked up, though I still feel like he really held those fundie beliefs at some point in the past (even if he was an elitist shit about it). I guess it's hard for me to imagine someone doing everything he did just for power. It seems to me like there are easier ways to get power, I guess. But some people are very good liars and like to play games. At any rate, when the Lourdes stuff came out he either decided to stop pretending or he stopped suppressing the person he wanted to be and now he's a different Doug (except for the ego and flair for the dramatic). And I'd be fine with him being a humanist or something now, but he's got pseudonyms and he's apparently not trying to make up for his past wrongs and he's ditched his wife and kids to be a hero/filmer of pretty women elsewhere. I guess he wanted to completely remove himself from the life he had been living. And perhaps being a devoted husband and father came out of his fundie beliefs, so when he dropped the fundie stuff his family got dropped too. And maybe he finds being with them (esp. Beall) a lot too constricting and a bad reminder of who he doesn't want to be anymore. Though that's assuming he wasn't flat-out lying about everything for years. (As I said, I'd honestly find something other than, "It was all a lie the whole time" easier to accept.) Regardless, it's still a shitty situation.

This is how I see it as having played out:  Doug always idolized his father, and his father was extremely well connected in conservative/dominionist circles.  Doug learned how to thrive in that culture by watching his father, and probably went ahead and embodied his father's beliefs just out of default, similar to the kid who goes to med school because every man in his family for the past five generations had been a doctor.  It was an expectation that no one ever really questioned.  Doug learned how to work that system for money and power, and it was so easy because he already had his father's connections working for him. 

Unfortunately, It's hard to sustain second hand beliefs over a long period of time, even if you had intended to do so in the beginning.  Eventually the real Doug was exposed for the world to see.  Of course, his downfall has got to be excruciating for a narc like him to endure, but I bet in some ways it was a relief for him.  He can drop the act, the expectations, and unfortunately the family.

I'd love to know the story he has given flo and all the other burlesque babes.  Surely they have to find his constantly changing pseudonyms sketchy.

[Howl]

Excellent reflections, @Corntree and @barnacles.  I suspect it's a bit of all of those things.  Maybe because he was "successful" (ego stoke and $$$$$) with VF and Boerne Christian Assembly, he continued to perfect the role, but there were these other things that were squirreled away.   It's obvious from VF -- documenting the manly adventures, cosplay, film making, his daughters' 40s glam thing -- that he has a big thing for the performing arts.  Preaching and conference talks are also performing arts, are they not?

It's sad that he seems incapable of insight, remorse for those he has damaged or any type of honest self reflection.  If he was capable of those things, he'd be able to lead his children away from the damaging aspects of extreme fundamentalism and patriarchy. 

I'll bet that he thinks he's a victim. 

[dripcurl]

I am about 2 years behind on DPIAT, and didn't have the time/energy to really catch up until tonight. I found his website, and I am so disturbed about the sex trafficking documentary; hypocrisy is an understatement. Elitist tone aside, I am so creeped out that he was allowed to be so close to such vulnerable kids. I read the About page, and how his new agency will basically connect people internationally. Between the alarming proximity to a sex trafficking ring, and his penchant for hanging around burlesque performers, it seems like his "agency" could double as a cover for a sex tourism service. I do not say this to trivialize the situation of the victims in India, nor do I consider being burlesque performance, stripping, etc equilavent to prostitution and I do not equate sex work between consenting adults with human trafficking. Why can't he just go away?

[Palimpsest]

Doug is also an attorney who worked for HSLDA before starting VF.  Perhaps he found lawyering dull - but it is a field that is close to the performing arts.  Grandstanding is Doug's modus operandi.

When the Tool fell off the scaffold of his own erection creation at VF, Mike Farris of HSLDA couldn't distance himself fast enough from Doug.  Libby Anne took on the hypocrisy in this old but excellent article.   Farris has some interesting insights into Doug, whether we believe that HSLDA held him and the Patriarchy at a distance or not.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2014/04/michael-farris-patriarchy-and-doug-phillips-an-expose.html

[CyborgKin]

Beall is still making up hashtags

Dougie why does cinemaofwonder.com say "Powered by cinemaofwonder.com"???

 

-this post is powered by freejinger.org

[Quinquagenarian]

19 hours ago, Howl said:

Well, the oldest son was on a fishing boat in Alaska for the summer.  That's real world experience right there! 

No big deal but Justice is the second oldest son and that's to whom I was referring. ;-)

13 hours ago, Corntree said:

I've been wanting to say this. He always came across as totally sincere to me in his blog. The Lourdes situation and the fall of VF floored me.

Did you "know" him through his blog or were you ever around him in person? I ask because I can see him being far more believable from afar and just from reading what he wrote and even maybe watching his oh-so-choreographed video or audio or public performances. But being around him, to me, was quite illuminating to someone with even half a smeller that something was not right. Call it Cray-Dar maybe!  It went into Hiroshima mode for me whenever I was around him and that was a long long time ago.

[formergothardite]

I have a tendency to believe that most of these mega-religious leaders dont' really believe most of the shit they are selling. These people have found a way to attain glory and they can put on a good, very believable show. 

[Quinquagenarian]

57 minutes ago, CyborgKin said:

Powered by cinemaofwonder.com"???

"I've Got The Power" song comes to mind

[Howl]

38 minutes ago, Quinquagenarian said:

No big deal but Justice is the second oldest son and that's to whom I was referring. ;-)

Thanks for clarifying.  Is the oldest the one who just got married?  Which one is the triathlete?

52 minutes ago, Quinquagenarian said:

But being around him, to me, was quite illuminating to someone with even half a smeller that something was not right. Call it Cray-Dar maybe!  It went into Hiroshima mode for me whenever I was around him and that was a long long time ago.

Thanks for sharing your insights on experiencing his Doug-ness in person.  I've seen a few comments over the years from people who met him even briefly and came away with the same impression -- something just wasn't right and they were immediately turned off.  If you were around him on more than a passing basis, could you clarify more aspects of his personality if you feel comfortable doing so?  Was he -- Too friendly? Arrogant?  Just weird?  Was there a certain type of person who was more likely to fall under his spell?  Did men and women respond to him differently?  Was he uncomfortably/red flag touchy-feely?