Where in the World Is Doug Philips (Who Is a Tool)? Part 8

[refugee]

Amen, @elsiedindin.

What frustrates me most is the families we know still living this—raising their daughters to be helpmeets and suspicious of education for boys and girls alike. Because, you see, the problem is not the toxic theology, but that Phillips the Tool &co. simply didn’t do it right.

They are firm in their beliefs. Naysayers (voices of reason) get shut out as “bad influences.”

Aargh.

 

[ViolaSebastian]

13 hours ago, AnnaSofia said:

A surprise gift from Doug:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlISIcpHX1O/?taken-by=hannahsnow23

 

To Hannah, that is.

Glad to know he was thinking of his wife on this, the week of their 25th anniversary. 

[MamaJunebug]

2 hours ago, elsiedindin said:

One thing I learned from it all was the importance of not punching down. Far better to mock the rich con artist drunk on his own narcissism than the struggling families who suffered the fallout.

I hope that’s what I’ll do in future, and that I haven’t done it in the past. But I might be guilty. It’s an important point, though. “Punching down” is most likely, by far, to drive the cult member further into her isolationist, us-v-them, Leader-worshipping frame of mind.  

[Hane]

Poor Beall. She’s been demoted from a Commander’s Wife to a Martha.

[MamaJunebug]

14 hours ago, AnnaSofia said:

A surprise gift from Doug:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlISIcpHX1O/?taken-by=hannahsnow23

 

To Hannah, that is.

Can he *get* more derivative? 

Talk about a vanity piece ... fir the producer. 

[AnnaSofia]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

As for the girls, I refuse to snark.  At least #sewingtreble has a creative skill and puts it to use.  Is she the daughter that is also "taking courses"?  

And she has a J.O.B. outside the home, something that was literally unthinkable when she was growing up in that household. That is NOT an exaggeration.  Literally unthinkable.

Yep, sewingtreble/Faith has referenced "school" and "going to class", so I hold out hope that she was/is attending some sort of actual brick and mortar institution.

I actually like her. I can see how she might come off as insufferable or self centered, but really, for an attractive 18 year old girl on Instagram, hers is nothing. She's had an actual job since she was 16 or so, goes to school, puts a lot of time and effort into creating her outfits (often from inexpensive/thrifted materials), and generally comes off as pretty friendly/personable (she's much more goofy/unaffected than I was expecting in her Instagram story vids).

I side-eye Liberty more, because her lifestyle seems to exist thanks to Operation Meatball donations (the other girls go months without involvement these days), and I remain dubious of OM's actual benefit to veterans. That said, I don't blame any of the girls for their father's sins, they were born into VF, and all still minors during the Fall of the Tool.

I'm curious about Jubilee, since her IG is private. I sort of assume she's also working and/or going to school, because her participation in Operation Meatball has been all but nil in the past several months. She does pop up occasionally on Faith, Beall, and Kelcie's accounts, so she's still in Denver with the family.

[Howl]

Which daughter said that "I just found out I'm going to move" a month or so ago?

[Anonymousguest]

39 minutes ago, Howl said:

Which daughter said that "I just found out I'm going to move" a month or so ago?

That was Faith/sewingtreble

[MamaJunebug]

Denver, no longer Durango? (I’m behind and can’t stand reading back too far ... Tool overload.)

[AnnaSofia]

1 hour ago, MamaJunebug said:

Denver, no longer Durango? (I’m behind and can’t stand reading back too far ... Tool overload.)

Gah, my bad. I meant to say Durango.

[Petronella]

5 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

I hope that’s what I’ll do in future, and that I haven’t done it in the past. But I might be guilty. It’s an important point, though. “Punching down” is most likely, by far, to drive the cult member further into her isolationist, us-v-them, Leader-worshipping frame of mind.  

Who do you mean has been “punched down”? Do you mean Beall? Because it can be well argued that she was a co-perpetrator with Doug, not a victim, or co-perpetrator alongside being also a victim.

There’s a similar discussion in the Jill Rodrigues threads, about at what point one holds fundie children accountable for the teachings and actions that they perpetuate. The same can be wondered about oppressed fundie wives who have risen to leadership roles.

[AnnaSofia]

I've always considered Beall an actor in her own right when it comes to VF, not to mention some of the mean girl shit she allegedly pulled at Bourne Christian Assembly, and toward Lourdes when the allegations began to come out. She's not responsible for nearly the destruction that Doug is, but she sure threw herself behind it when it suited her and paid her bills.

Granted, I don't know much about her family history and upbringing, maybe there's more damage there than I realize. I've always thought something must have been something a bit broken inside for Doug seem appealing in the first place, and men like Doug certainly zone in on things like that. That said, Beall had a lot going for her when she married Doug. I don't like to throw around the word "priviledge", but it would seem that she had it on a lot of levels; educated, healthy, white, cis, young, and conventionally attractive. Most importantly, it doesn't seem that she was raised fundy.

When it comes to someone like say, Kelly Bradrick, I don't think she ever had much of a chance. I know Scotty Brown wasn't quite as hardline when Kelly was little, but for the most part, she was raised with a strict set of values, held up as one of the very public faces of the stay at home daughter movement, married off young-ish, immediately pregnant, and by the time her marriage came crashing down, she had 6 small children, no education, and very limited options. Compared to that, Beall made a fairly conscious choice to embrace, and profit from, a fundamentalist ideology. One that hurts a lot of people.
 
My limited sympathy mostly rests on the fact that she's "paying" more than the husband who rightly should be. I'm sure Dougie thinks he's suffering the world's greatest injustice, having to constantly change his name due to the "call out culture" he hates so much, but the reality is  he can bail on his wife, 8 children, and former ministry, abscond to Europe with his VF funded camera equipment, and be knee deep in 20 something burlesque dancers faster than you can say "Doug Phillips is a rapist tool".

Beall doesn't really have that option. She's left to raise their remaining minor children, and somehow piece together a living doing work considerably less fun than "retro cinematographer". Her daughters can throw their hair up in victory rolls, pose with some elderly vets, immediately be pronounced the cutest thing ever and receive tons of validation (even build whole identities on the basis of it), but it doesn't work like that for 50 something women. Beall isn't being held accountable for what she did, per se, she's getting screwed because that's simply what society likes to do to women of a certain age. I do think that part really sucks.

[MamaJunebug]

5 hours ago, Petronella said:

Who do you mean has been “punched down”? Do you mean Beall? Because it can be well argued that she was a co-perpetrator with Doug, not a victim, or co-perpetrator alongside being also a victim.

There’s a similar discussion in the Jill Rodrigues threads, about at what point one holds fundie children accountable for the teachings and actions that they perpetuate. The same can be wondered about oppressed fundie wives who have risen to leadership roles.

I’m talking about my interaction with extremists overall, in response to what @elsiedindin wrote about mocking the “rich con artist drunk on his own narcissism”& not mocking the struggling followers. 

Beall certainly was in the “rich con” group while the VF cult thrived.  That she continues to write as though she’s in a functional, loving marriage with the conscience-free cinematographer tells me that she’s learned nothing and, were VF to resurrect (Rufus forbid!), she’d go back to being its First Lady in less than a heartbeat. 

[refugee]

On 7/19/2018 at 3:29 PM, Petronella said:

Who do you mean has been “punched down”? Do you mean Beall? Because it can be well argued that she was a co-perpetrator with Doug, not a victim, or co-perpetrator alongside being also a victim.

There’s a similar discussion in the Jill Rodrigues threads, about at what point one holds fundie children accountable for the teachings and actions that they perpetuate. The same can be wondered about oppressed fundie wives who have risen to leadership roles.

I see @MamaJunebug already answered this, but yes, “punching down” was originally mentioned in connection to the followers who bought the poison VF was selling and swallowed it down, buying the dream with hard-earned cash, together with VF’s overpriced, poor-quality catalog items,CDs, expensive conferences (we could never afford to go, but we knew other families who sacrificed more than we were able to, to scrape the money together). The only people who could really make it work were the ones with professional salaries (doctor, lawyer, engineer, CPA, successful entrepreneur), and they subtly shamed the other families that struggled to make ends meet.

They sold a dream and a promise, iced with an oversized helping of fear, elitism, and us-vs-them thinking. It was full-blown Gnosticism, and I still can’t believe we bought into it. It was a very powerful message to those struggling with anxiety, though.

I can’t blame the people who were mesmerized by DP the Tool (reinforced by HSLDA and their fear-mongering and “mentoring”), even as I keep coming back to kick myself on occasion. Although I have no patience these days for those I know who are *still* trying to make his hateful teachings work.

[Petronella]

3 hours ago, refugee said:

I see @MamaJunebug already answered this, but yes, “punching down” was originally mentioned in connection to the followers who bought the poison VF was selling and swallowed it down, buying the dream with hard-earned cash, together with VF’s overpriced, poor-quality catalog items,CDs, expensive conferences (we could never afford to go, but we knew other families who sacrificed more than we were able to, to scrape the money together). The only people who could really make it work were the ones with professional salaries (doctor, lawyer, engineer, CPA, successful entrepreneur), and they subtly shamed the other families that struggled to make ends meet.

Thanks for clarifying. I agree with that sentiment.

I was confused because one of the posts about this was in response to (and quoting, I think) a post criticising Beall. So I just wasn’t certain what was meant. Thanks!

[MamaJunebug]

@refugee wrote, in part:

“The only people who could really make it work were the oneswith professional salaries (doctor, lawyer, engineer, CPA, successful entrepreneur), and they subtly shamed the other families that struggled to make ends meet.”

May I ask about how they’d do this? I don’t doubt for a minute that there was such behavior. I remembered in a flash the two  women who talked to me at the Maxwells’ sales table before the Maxshow a few years back. I’d said my kids were considering homeschooling. Onebif the women  said earnestly, “[The Maxwells] are wonderful; they never put you down.” The women were both wearing very clean, tidy, pantsuits from probably the late 1980’s to mid-1990’s, and The year was ca. 2010 (Christina was on the way but had not been announced yet).

So, yeah, shame; I can believe it. I’m just curious about how it went down.

[nokidsmom]

On 7/19/2018 at 11:23 PM, MamaJunebug said:

Beall certainly was in the “rich con” group while the VF cult thrived.  That she continues to write as though she’s in a functional, loving marriage with the conscience-free cinematographer tells me that she’s learned nothing and, were VF to resurrect (Rufus forbid!), she’d go back to being its First Lady in less than a heartbeat. 

To the bolded: the glory days of VF were also the glory days for Beall, no doubt about that.  My belief, and this is my personal belief only, is that on some level she wishes it all back, the situation with Lourdes, the entire fall of VF, notwithstanding.  She's hanging on to her marriage because to to acknowledge it really is over is to acknowledge the reality of her situation which is not all that great.   I think if she was to be really honest with herself, she would realize what she gave her life to a real Tool, did harm alongside him, cut herself off from family, has several kids that still need raising and she has practically no work record to rely on as far as supporting herself and her kids.  It could change if she wanted to but she would have to do the hard work to get there.  Not sure she does.  But I can't help but think that all this fuss over being 50, is really trying to avoid fully dealing with her life.

ETA: I think she's so used to making excuses for DPIAT that even when he's off playing "cinematographer" (what a load of BS) and cavorting with burlesque dancers, she's hoping he will come to his senses, return and make it all the same again.  When instead she should divorce his sorry ass.

[dripcurl]

Well, in the past 24 hours when Faith wasn’t finding bad guys getting eaten by dinosaurs therapeutic (hopefully a big eff you to her dad???) she was hocking a shit ton of her old vintage wear, including... fluffy bedroom slippers.

[Lisafer]

On 7/20/2018 at 9:57 PM, refugee said:

I see @MamaJunebug already answered this, but yes, “punching down” was originally mentioned in connection to the followers who bought the poison VF was selling and swallowed it down, buying the dream with hard-earned cash, together with VF’s overpriced, poor-quality catalog items,CDs, expensive conferences (we could never afford to go, but we knew other families who sacrificed more than we were able to, to scrape the money together). The only people who could really make it work were the ones with professional salaries (doctor, lawyer, engineer, CPA, successful entrepreneur), and they subtly shamed the other families that struggled to make ends meet.

They sold a dream and a promise, iced with an oversized helping of fear, elitism, and us-vs-them thinking. It was full-blown Gnosticism, and I still can’t believe we bought into it. It was a very powerful message to those struggling with anxiety, though.

I can’t blame the people who were mesmerized by DP the Tool (reinforced by HSLDA and their fear-mongering and “mentoring”), even as I keep coming back to kick myself on occasion. Although I have no patience these days for those I know who are *still* trying to make his hateful teachings work.

I always think of Vision Forum the way I think of cults, and that way it's easier to understand why people get sucked in. A charismatic leader, a promise of a better life...the people who followed Jim Jones and David Koresh were people just like everybody else, with hopes and fears that were used against them by unscrupulous men. 

I can't work up much in the way of sympathy for Beall, though. I know some posters come at it from a different perspective and are able to feel sorry for her. But she was complicit in hurting so many people, and she hasn't apologized that I know of, so I feel like she can lie in the bed she made. 

[Pecansforeveryone]

Beall was a college educated woman and not raised fundie. Did Doug the Tool ever endorse child or wife beating? With as much dirt as has come out on Doug, I haven't heard allegations of domestic violence. (I obviously don't what went on behind closed doors.) It's just that based on what I do know from FJ posters, I have relatively little reason to view Beall as a helpless victim.

[AnnaSofia]

On 7/25/2018 at 11:12 PM, dripcurl said:

Well, in the past 24 hours when Faith wasn’t finding bad guys getting eaten by dinosaurs therapeutic (hopefully a big eff you to her dad???) she was hocking a shit ton of her old vintage wear, including... fluffy bedroom slippers.

I was a little grossed out at the condition of that blue dress with the underarm perspiration stains. I love vintage, and I'm a lifelong haunter of thrift shops, so I'm not terribly squeamish about used clothing, but something in that condition would easily hit my "trash it" pile if I were sorting things for sale. I know she said that they (and the other stains on the skirt) aren't noticeable when worn, but what are you supposed to do if you need to raise your arms? It looks fine in a posed photo, but not so much for actual use.

Beall and her vague posting...

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlxntS1gS-V/?taken-by=myfirstyearat50

I assume the move is one of the "three major transitions", any guesses on the other two?

[DomWackTroll]

Misty water-colored memories of BRADRICK!, Phil? Can it be that it was all so simple (minded) then? Or has time rewritten every line lie? 

 

[dripcurl]

So, I somehow did not realize Vision Forum was active in some capacity??? Does Doug just post random shit on FB for kicks? I saw the Q+A blogpost of Beall’s this last January (thanks to this cool thing called Google that Annie Maxwell told me about) basically stating that the Facebook is now their for family’s musings and VF will not have a reboot.

 

It just strikes me as odd (what else can you expect from Doug though) that he still has internet presence as himself under the VF name but is also using 2 new extremely private Instagrams with a completely new persona doing film and promoting. If “Phil”’s endeavors are successful as time goes on, does be plan on eventually marrying the two identities and begin a systematic harvesting of leghumpers from Doug’s old fanbase to buy into his new works? I doubt that Reformed Quiverfull fundies will fangirl over trans burlesque dancers, however I’d love it if they did. 

 

Also, fun fact: Last night I had a dream that Bradrick! was marrying a girl I know who’s family is heavily involved in the local arm of the VF aftermath. To pinch myself I thoroughly scoured social media my new friend Google just to be sure. My search results informed that Bradrick!’s realty office was only 13 minutes away (from where I was working at least). 

[MamaJunebug]

Ay, @dripcurl, a dream featuring BRADRICK! ????

I’m sorry that happened and am wishing you a b-i-g SWEET Dreams for tonight!!!!!!

[Columbia]

It baffles me too, but I have no trouble seeing him try to come roaring back in a year or so, playing the “King David was a sinner too” card à la Tullian Tchividjian and Mark Driscoll. Maybe even better if he talks about how he got sadly sucked into a seedy world of burlesque dancers and European parties and now he understands an even greater need for Biblical femininity and patriarchal leadership. There are probably enough people out there who would love to see him back, especially if it could improve their social standing by cozying up to him. None of his buddies (Baucham, Botkin) publically called him out when VF hit the fan the first time. I don’t think they’d do it if he came back.