AwakeEnergyScouter

This could well be. @Eagle94-A1, I didn't have any particular report in mind when I typed that, no. It was just my overall impression of the scandal, but it's quite possible that I'm wrong. I didn't follow the unfolding of the scandal in detail, since it wasn't my old NSO and also didn't think I'd be involved with it. I'd imagine whatever faults someone might find in this characterization, it's almost certainly more accurate than mine, and my point wasn't really so much about re-litigating the details of the scandal but rather that introducing a bunch of side tracks to that the BSA put organizational reputation above taking action to protect children is not taking action to protect children in the future. That also applies to observations about problems with rule of law in some of the posts above. It's non-actionable, especially when it comes to the past. Bad stuff happened. Ok, what are you going to do about it? Conclude that it was too bad, so sad, but there's nothing to be done? Surely not. That's how the scandal happened in the first place. To actually protect children in the future, we need to accept responsibility in the leadership way. By that I mean that you accept the responsibility for cleaning up messes that weren't your fault and apologize while doing it. I doubt anyone here on this forum causally did anything to contribute to the scandal. (If nothing else, odds are in favor of this.) So on a personal level, nobody here has anything to apologize for. But now, every single person in the BSA has an opportunity to do something about this, including the vast majority of people who had no idea, especially not of the scale. And a key part of doing something is looking at what went wrong without being defensive and fixing it. Own the failure, commit to continuous improvement. This could include pointing out that "pillars of the community" can and have committed serious crimes, and that this is exactly why rule of law is so important. The BSA as an organization can't fix weak legal institutions, but the individual voters in it can advocate for strengthening rule of law politically. The rape report and prosecution rates at least in Sweden have gone up quite a bit compared to where they used to be, and that's because people in general started to expect the police to investigate and prosecute rape once people started to realize how common it was, yet rare for perpetrators to be held to account. There was a slow collective WTF reaction. So even those kinds of cultural factors beyond anyone's direct control can change after shared societal experiences like this CSA scandal. This is the nuts and bolts of actually building strong, transparent institutions. Even when you get unfair criticism or even plain made up criticism, getting all defensive as a leader makes you ineffective. Let's face it, part of leadership is always having unfair accusations lobbed at you. In your role as a leader, you can't be responding to every unfair accusation with a point list of why it's unfair. You can complain privately to your spouse and personal friends, but in your role as a leader you need to have a stiff upper lip. And when there are real problems, your job is to fix them whether you caused them or not. YPT is a concrete answer to "what are you going to do about it?" That's constructive. Is there more? Are we all implementing it well enough for it to be effective? Are there potential holes in it? Those are all productive directions to take the scandal. "It was the Illuminati" isn't, especially when people don't agree on whether the Illuminati even exist.

Occam's Razor suggests that the lawsuit was the result of the BSA failing to take appropriate action on rape and other sexual abuse reports to protect scouts from further abuse, much like the Catholic Church's own pedophile shuffling scandal. Alleging the lawsuit is just a malicious attack by groups that include fellow scouts and scouters, but had nothing to do with the fact that 92,700 scouts were sexually abused under the auspices of the BSA, is dividing the scout "sangha" while also declining to accept the BSA's responsibility for allowing pedophiles to continue abusing. This just isn't complicated. Pedophilia is really bad. Covering for pedophiles is therefore also really bad. If you do it, expect people to be very angry when you get caught covering their crimes up, especially the victims. People don't really need any additional reasons to be mad at that point, pedophilia 105% covers it. Leftists definitely didn't make scouter pedophiles rape anyone, or prevent the BSA from filing police reports or proper banning all suspected pedophiles from the organization. Leftists didn't tell abused scouts not to tell their parents. You may be sincere in your belief in this attack, but the BSA was in full control of itself when it comes to dealing with pedophiles. The BSA's karma has ripened. Looking to put the blame outside is just going to create more bad karma that's going to ripen in the future. Please don't sow more seeds of suffering. The good news about karma ripening is that it becomes easier to move into a more meritorious direction, so let's take this opportunity to create bliss instead. The truth is out; we can do our best to help the victims and make sure that we handle any future pedophiles and their crimes right. We have no more reputation to lose. This is how we burn up any remainder of bad karma and prevent more of the same from accumulating. But it starts with not blaming others for the BSA's faults.

You are of course entitled to hold and express this opinion, but now that I understand the context here I feel obliged to point out that expressing it within the container of scouting is throwing culture war bombs within that container. Is this really helpful? Is this a productive place to say this? Scouting is civic, not political. We are building a better world, are we not? And when we say 'better', we don't mean according to any ideology, we mean in the hands-on fix obvious practical problems sense, taking responsibility for the community one lives in kind of way from a perspective of kindness and compassion.

Thank you, @InquisitiveScouter. That's some great context. I read and watched the links and did some searching on some of these terms. This view was almost all new to me, no doubt in large part because of the different political context I came of political age in. These kinds of political narratives always rely on the hearer having had certain experiences for it to feel true. A fair few of the experiences referenced in the long march through the institutions I've never had, nor heard anyone I know complain about. A number of labels are also used in ways I've never seen or heard of them being used before, either. So I would never had made any sense of this 'shadowy forces are attacking the BSA' argument without all this background.

Maybe this is because I'm not US American, but this seems completely out of left field to me. Nothing I've seen or heard anywhere connects to this. Would you be willing to explain more about why you believe this? For example, what makes you say that scouting is a pillar of traditional American society? I don't think anyone in Sweden, including scouts and scouters, sees scouting as a pillar of Swedish society, so it's not clear to me why it would be here. Would you be willing to explain? Who are these activists, exactly? I have never heard of anyone anywhere consider pedophilia anything but morally repugnant.

The more I read about this, the less I feel like I know what's going on. In other words, I will be waiting for the postmortems to decide what I think. It's difficult to get a full picture from these kinds of shorter articles and NSO updates when they only partially overlap in what scouts are saying. I doubt any of the scouts are lying or misrepresenting, but the Finnish scout's mention of that the US scouts had had it worse than the Finnish scouts makes me wonder about the village-to-village differences. The Swedes are hosting cultural dinner exchanges with the Australians while the Americans are suffering and evacuating? Can't quite get clear on the overall picture here. The event could be poorly planned even if some scouts are fine and having a good time, and the event could also have been fairly well planned except for a few impactful planning misses that impacted a minority of scouts very severely. I suspect neither of these is quite what happened, but we shall see. I saw this article from The Korea Times with a pretty long list of problems, mostly the ones already mentioned in other media posted above, and pictures from scouts that definitely don't look good. I am not familiar with the Korea Times, and the tone of this feels a little sensationalistic, but I'm sharing it anyway because Korean media are the most likely to report on the Jamboree as a whole as opposed to a specific contingent. https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=356442

Yelling angrily over something as petty as taking out the trash is definitely a red flag. It's not hitting, but it's certainly inappropriate to go through with if they don't, and very unbecoming for a scout or scouter even if it doesn't violate any specific policy. If I were you, I'd tell someone in a position of doing something about it and/or needing to know of unscoutlike behavior going on. You do have an ethical duty to do something with the red flag, but if you are needed to physically protect scouts the answer isn't for you to be a martyr but for the CO and/or the BSA to either fix it or disband the whole thing. If a single particular person is needed for physical safety, then it's definitely time to just stop. So many things have gone wrong at that point. This unit is just a dumpster fire, huh? It seems you made the right decision not just for you but also your scout.

Both Scouterna and Partiolaiset have posted updates after the US contingent pulled out to reconfirm that their contingents are in good spirits and medically fine, intend on staying, and that camp conditions are improving. https://www-partio-fi.translate.goog/ajankohtaista/jamboree-jatkuu-suunnitellusti/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-scouterna-se.translate.goog/aktuellt/wsj23/uppgifter-om-deltagares-halsotillstand-pa-jamboreen/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

😳😱😞 May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness May they be free from suffering and the root of suffering May they not be separated from the happiness devoid of suffering May the dwell in the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and ignorance

Interestingly, the Finnish contingent is doing fine, and thinks the organizers have been very thoughtful in taking care of everyone. Apparently breakfast is at 5 AM in part to beat the heat. The Swedes are also staying, and mention additional cooling resources the organizing committee has provided such as buses with AC. Sounds like the organizers doing really well, actually. The Swedes' top complaints are special diet food availability and bathroom cleanliness, not related to the heat at all. https://www-hs-fi.translate.goog/kotimaa/art-2000009761311.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true https://www-scouterna-se.translate.goog/aktuellt/wsj23/uppdatering-om-uk-scouts-deltagande-pa-jamboreen/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

Yes, of course, this was the original idea I posted. A lot of attendees have never camped in constant 30°C heat, let alone 34-35°C heat, and when your constant camping problem is cold you don't even realize you need to prepare differently for heat. I can tell you a few stories myself. But Siberia extreme wasn't referring to 35°C at Jamboree in Korea, it was to 50°C somewhere in the Middle East where the US was conducting combat operations, I assume Iraq, and where soldiers could only stay outside for 20 minutes at a time and asphalt was melty, see above. InquisitiveScouter's story sounds like the inverse of "your spit freezes before it hits the ground" to me. Hence the joke.

I feel like they should reconsider. Even better, perhaps it could be a chess game with A/C, or if it must be more physical, the World Cup. ⚽ All joking aside, though, that really is pretty extreme. In terms of what you have to do to adapt, it's Siberia extreme.

That's because 50°C is too hot for human habitation and so no planes will need to fly in that kind of heat. ☠️😳 Actually, just operation of certain electronics starts really suffering whether people live there or not. I worked on a project to ensure even performance both at high and low temperatures, and 50°C was off our chart because it would have been very, very, very hard to find a material to do the whole range from -20°C to +50°C. We stopped at +30°C. In that sense it doesn't surprise me, especially since any older planes would have been engineered at a different time when the max temperatures one could routinely expect were noticably lower. My impression is that the Middle East is only still habitable thanks to A/C, and this story isn't changing my mind. (I'm guessing "the sandbox" is Iraq? Or Kuwait?)

Well, I guess that's something at least. Thanks for replying so I don't have to wonder.

https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=356264 I completely understand how this happened. When there was a crazy 30°C heat wave during Stockholm Marathon some years ago, lots of runners had to drop out because of overheating. You really need to learn heat survival like you do cold survival, even on the everyday stand at a ceremony level, and at least some of the scouts at jamboree won't have faced this challenge at 34°C ever. Our overnight lows in South Texas are the daily highs for my Swedish relatives.

Is the scout doing ok? The adults sound like a train wreck, but how is the poor scout doing?

Of course that was all true, but there wasn't much to respond to in terms of how to right the wrong exactly. Of course it has to be righted, for the reasons you articulated, but the question is how to deal with the situation skillfully so that the right thing really happens. (Bully stops bullying, victim feels welcomed and supported by the whole group.) What response were you expecting?

As it should be. Bullying is not friendly or kind, so it's 100% incompatible with our values and immediately makes it impossible for a pack, den, troop, or patrol to function well. Scouts is the last place anyone should be bullied. Thinking about 5thGenTexan's story about being bullied out of scouts makes me sad every time I think about it. One of the key functions that adults can perform in scouting is this - deal forcefully with bullying so that the victims don't have to. Or don't have to quit.

W H A T??? I'm definitely no authoritarian, and I think this is crazy. It's one thing to ignore conventional dress, hair styling, wearing the uniform or other superficial things, even if they're symbolic. Throwing rocks at other scouts and throwing burning objects into other people's yards is a hard $&-#&$ NO. (I mention this for moral support from someone these leaders might fancy themselves being like.) Asking for scouts not to commit assault and arson is not equivalent to wanting scouts to be ROTC. Not in the slightest. Good for you for being willing to do the right thing for a potential bullying victim! Authority absolutely has to deal with this, and if adults in charge have already failed to do so then it's all the more important that you do. How fortunate that you are there! The reason I think it does matter if the scout is gay is that choosing that word to use as an insult will likely roll right off a straight scout, but could hurt a gay scout in a way it probably wouldn't a straight scout in the long run. Basically, the harm is likely to be worse if the scout is gay. I'm thinking here of my lesbian friend who has had so many homophobic encounters with random people that she gets very stressed any time a stranger deliberately gets close to her. Having stones thrown at you for your sexual orientation compounds with what others do and say in a way that having stones thrown at you for a made-up reason doesn't. In either case, good for you also for making sure that you have all the information you can get, particularly since the adults may or may not be on top of this.

Info: is the scout actually gay? How to address this depends in part on whether it was meant as a general insult or if it was intended to undermine the scout's self-confidence more personally.

@qwazse thanks for the link! That was interesting reading. (Ok, well, frustrating, but that's true of virtually anything to do with gender roles from a long time ago.) It's very interesting that the "boots on the ground" didn't care way back then, either. Seaton doesn't look good to modern eyes, but the anonymous SM who was good with working with all scouts looks perfectly normal. But while BSA didn't actually sue GSUSA then, the official well-regarded leader of the organization clearly didn't want any sisters in scouting. I understand what you're saying, but I think it's more accurate to say that the organization BSA was hostile to female scouts, but not all male scouts and scout leaders were. After all, they had no other scouting organization to be active in, so it was a take it or leave it situation. I would have done the same in their shoes. But the leadership of an organization still speaks for it, so it's also hard to say with a straight face that despite the leader's vehement and consistent opposition to female scouts, BSA didn't take a clear position on female scouts because different people inside the organization had different opinions on it. Similarly, GSUSA has in fact been very exclusionary towards men by policy, even though I'm sure you can find SMs and girl scouts who don't think the policies make sense there as well. It doesn't really make sense to say that GSUSA didn't really sue BSA because not everyone in GSUSA agreed it was proper. Leaders call shots on behalf of the whole organization, for better or for worse.

So BSA was the one who started suing other aligned scouting organizations?

🙄 What happened to brothers and sisters in scouting? Not that I want a lawsuit either, but this suing of the other official Scouting organization in your country is very unseemly IMO. I wish GSUSA hadn't done that.

I've never been to a US jamboree. We stayed with our troops at ours. As long as scouts aren't staring at screens instead of nature and each other, it sounds like you're making it work!

Not nearly as grand as the above, but... Seeing cub scout hike leaders really step into their servant leadership roles for the first time. Checking on how tired and hungry the other scouts are. Encouraging them to keep going.