20/20 Condemned Our Childhoods to "Shame"

12-15-2000, 07:35 AM

20/20 Condemned Our Childhoods to "Shame"
By Raghunatha Anudasa

>From Raghunatha Anudasa to Michael.pressman@...

Printed by CHAKRA on request of Raghunatha Anudasa

Re:

1) 20/20 Condemned Our Childhoods to "Shame"
2) Exaggeration Undermines Our Story
3) Jagadish: Stalin of Guru-kula
4) Neglect This Letter is to Belittle Feelings of Most
5) Your 3 Video Clips of Me: Do you have more?

Dear Michael Pressman,

Thank you for your concern to both our story and to my reservations
expressed in our telephone conversation.

I will briefly summarize those reservations for your reference.

1) 20/20 Condemned Our Childhoods to "Shame"

Introducing us with your opening title as the "Childhood of Shame"
was to dismiss the 15 to 20 years of our entire childhood as nothing
more then shameful. You may as well have been talking of criminals
and druggies. This reasserts the very negatives that hundreds of us
have spent decades struggling to overcome by tediously building upon
the positives offered in our childhoods of travel, cultural exposure,
religious experience, philosophical insight and extraordinary
friendships. This is not done because of some religious fervor, but
more out of our carefully honed survival skills. We have learned to
take our seeming disadvantages and transform them for maximum
advantage as young men and women of vast life experience: "ISKCON
Youth Veterans." Most of us consider this to be "our story," a story
that your show missed entirely.

This story was missed because you targeted those with only the worse
to say while avoiding those with something positive. As a result, you
slighted us right from your opening title. It is disheartening to say
the least. Once again, those offering to take our cause, do so at our
expense. So many have stone walled and covered up for
their "mistakes" made while "helping" us. I hope you can do better in
spite of the bureaucratic, legal or face saving considerations that
have always complicated people's efforts in making amends with us.

I say this as much for us as 2nd generation Krishna kids as
any "victim" you may cover in the future. See if they want to present
themselves as "shame(ful)" victims before stepping in as their spokes
person to the world.

2) Exaggeration Undermines Our Story

I also question a couple details raised by those on the show. I'm
cautious about this for it can seem uncaring. But I do so because I'm
finding some of our peers exaggerating our story, which only goes to
undermine the credibility for the rest of us. That is unfair to us
all. It's a shame because our story is more horrific then most of the
exaggerations. In fact, your show was an understatement to our
hardships and abuse. That surprised me. The following site is a copy
of my story written about 11 years ago to demonstrate the point.
http://surrealist.org/gurukula/children.html

The first red flag for me was Siddhababa, Ben, saying he was tied to
the tree. The tree he refers to was about 4 to 6 feet around meaning
that the rope would have had to be 12 to 15 feet long-which was
unlikely given that the administration hardly bought toothpaste what
to speak of 15 to 20 feet of extra rope. Beating the girl in the
temple room naked was also highly unlikely, for nudity was strongly
prohibited in the temple room. I'm about 8 years older then those
interviewed. I was 9 and 10 while they where 4 and 5. I therefore
have clearer recollections on most things. Again, I say this as a
word of caution to our peers to be honest in our story. Nothing more,
nothing less. Then we have a cause of both justice as well as truth.

3) Jagadish: Stalin of Guru-kula

And now for Jagadish. Let's say your studio hired a security company
to watch over your place. Let's say the manager of the security
service used those guards to steal from you and molest your employees
for 20 years. Now imagine seeing that same manager saying the
company "didn't know what (it) was doing" because they had poor
security. Jagadish was "the system" Prabhupada put into place to safe
guard us. Jagadish instead bullied parents and children into his
schools to build his own power base within the society far beyond
what Prabhupada intended. We paid the price for his campaign, a
campaign that continues to this day, 35 years later, in your show
that once again gives his skewed account of "Prabhupada." Why not ask
us for our accounts of Prabhupada and guru-kula? I can send you some
of the many essays I 've written.

Providing Jagadish a national forum to make excuses and blaming
others for his crimes was infuriating. Could you think of a greater
insult to Jews then asking Hilter for his opinions on Jewish
concentration camps? And then airing it nationally. Jagadish is the
only common link to all child abuse throughout the movement and may
have the distinction of overseeing more child abuse then anyone else
in the Western world of the last 40 years. It was Jagadish who
pressed for having children separated from their parents. The best
example is in Jagadish's official handbook on gurukula. There he
changes Prabhupada's quote from saying children can stay with parents
to stating children can't. If Prabhupada was indeed so insistent
about separating parents and children, why would Jagadish have to
make such changes? I bring this up to answer points raised on the
show. Other more gruesome controversies would take many pages to
cover whether changing many a "Prabhupada said" or the time he beat
me severely or transferred a number of sexual molesters from one
school to anther.

4) Neglect This Letter is to Belittle Feelings of Most

Last but not least, please don't mistake my "feelings" as that of a
lone "student" as you referred to twice in our telephone
conversation. To do so is to belittle the feelings shared by most
guru-kuli's who watched your show. I hope you can take immediate
steps to demonstrate your concern to these issues. A short follow up
covering the points referred to-above-would be superb. If you need to
hear from more kulis to press the issue with your bosses, please let
me know and I will begin putting together a campaign for this
purpose. I should be able to make a real ruckus for you. Actually,
this letter would make for a sensational article for newspapers, but
thought it fair to work with you as you have extended yourself to us.

5) Your 3 Video Clips of Me: Do you have more?

On a more technical note, it raddled me with a lot of different
feelings to see myself there. In fact, you showed me 3 times in your
clips from Dallas. Just look for the biggest kid from your group
shots, spacing out. That's me. I was also the one bowing down at the
desk. It hit me hard to see. You are one of the few in the world with
any footage from those days and have the only other footage of me
from my childhood. Let me know how I can get copies of the footage
you have of me. Thank you for taking the time to film and save this
rare piece of history.

I look forward to hearing any suggestions or comments you have and
will share your response with all my friends much as I am doing with
this letter. Thank you again for your time and concern both today's
as well as that shown many years ago when your studio first jumped
into the fray in a way no other station would. It was as bold of you
then as it is of you today.

Raghunatha Anudasa John Giuffre

Raghu@... PO Box 1108 Hilo HI 96721 323 969-472 * * * * *

UPDATE

Mr. Pressman said he was going to have a letter of response by next
week so will pass that along when I hear from him.

The Prospectus for ROOPA is done as is the first of six ROOPA Charts.
The Prospectus outlines the activities, goals, time frame and cost
analysis for starting ROOPA as an official organization. We have sent
copies to some prospective sponsors and should be hearing from them
this month. The Prospectus and Chart are available for $20 for
printing and shipping for those who are interested. A laminated color
Chart is $11 and black and white copies are $3 for shipping and .50
cents per copy. I send everything priority mail because of the Hawaii
mail situation

Please respond to my new address: Raghu@.... Sept. Oct. and
much of Nov. mail is yet to be read as I was focusing on the
Prospectus and Chart for the last several weeks. Please mind my
tardiness. I've transferred all AOL correspondence to Outlook which
has scrambled some of the letters so if you don't hear from me within
the month, this maybe why. I'm spending the next week working with
Outlook and should be in LA , in a weeks. Off to Hawaii by months
end. More later. Raghu

© CHAKRA 14-December-2000