Dervaes: Urban Hippy Armstrongite Cultists In News Again

NY Daily News: ‘Doomsday Preppers’ looks at grim survivalist world

 
Armstrongism's much mocked urban hippy family is in the news again.  National Geographic is premiering a new 10 part series starting this week about " Doomsday Preppers" and our very own urban preppers, the Dervaes family is included. 

Armstrognism has always had a fringe element that secretly prepared for the end times.  They stored food, bought guns, and some even moved to remote locations in order to be away from civilization as much as possible.  It was conspiracy theories of Gary North in the late 70's, it was The Protocols of Zion, it was Visions of Fatima, the Illuminati, and the myriad of failed prophecies by Herbert Armstrong, Gerald Waterhouse and Rod Meredith that scared the crap out of members.

The Dervaes family has been in the news a lot over the years.  It's like they prostitute themselves out for the next news reporter or interview.  What most of these reporters don't realize is that these people are not just mere urban homesteaders, they are the result of aberrant religious teaching of an American doomsday cult.

Herbert Armstrong, Gerald Waterhouse, Dean Blackwell, and others spent seven decades of delivering earth shattering scenarios on how the world was coming to an end, because God was going to punish the United States and the British Commonwealth nations.

Literal reading of Bible scriptures has distorted these people with all kinds of doom and gloom scenarios.  The Dervaes family did not set out to be urban homesteaders that would be plastered all over the Internet and news media.  They set out over 25 years ago to prepare to lower their standard of living and to separate themselves from the world.  When the end comes (or a major natural disaster) and the cities are in chaos, power is down, grocery stores are depleted, money is worthless, then these people will be taking care of themselves and those they have chosen to part of their inner circle.  For the Dervaes it will be those that subscribe to the tenants of pre-1986 Armstrongism.

The other thing that the Dervaes hope from all this media prostitution, is that they will have a chance to get the "true gospel" message out at sometime in the future.  After the Dervaes started becoming 'famous'  Jules took down his Armstrongism pages and moved them elsewhere.  While people looked at them as sustainability  nutcases, they did not want the added baggage of being accused of being religious nutcases too.  All of that will change when bad things start to happen and Jules finds a platform to preach again.

Lord spare us!

The problem is, an aberrant dingbat religion is 100% behind their activities.

Check out Silenced for more on the story:  COG Nuts on Doomsday Preppers





Urban Hippy Armstrongites Still Causing Controversy

"Dingbat Dervaes" Urban Homesteaders Continue to be Mocked By Pasadenans

Extreme Armstrongism: "Urban Homesteaders' Threaten To Sue

Wikipedia also keeps alive the religions connection of the Dervaes. Jules Dervaes

ht: Jace

"Dingbat Dervaes" Urban Homesteaders Continue to be Mocked By Pasadenans

Movie: Home Grown Revolution

Once more the craziness that Armstrongism brings out in people is exposed for all the world to see!

Jules Dervaes continues to be mocked after his recent spate of threats against anyone using the name "Urban Homesteaders".  Dervaes was a former Pasadena WCG employee who went off the deep end and spent a year or more picketing and protesting the Worldwide Church of God.

He and his family moved into a small bungalow off or Orange Grove Blvd where they started doing back year farming, using bicycles to power their mixers and blenders and taking only one shower a week to save on water.

Larry Wilson from the Pasadena Star News rips the family a new one over their stupid legal challenges:

Larry Wilson: Legal Dirt of Pasadena's Farming Dervaes Family

I've never darkened the Dervaes family door, although I may be the only Southern California journalist not to have paid a visit to the farm in the city that Jules Dervaes and his daughters and son have made both an agricultural and media phenomenon. Living (almost) off the grid, pedaling a stationary bike to run the Mixmaster when a farmhand feels like a smoothie, showering but once a week to keep the water bill down - doesn't matter that the story's been done, over and over. It's a great story.

And now, it's a creepy one, because of a weird linguistic power grab.

Though the term "urban homestead" has been around the formerly wild West at least since the halcyon working-hippie days of the Whole Earth Catalog four decades ago, the Dervaes are attempting to copyright it, along with "urban homesteading," claiming sole right to be able to use those words. Or at least to use them without the stupid "R" in a circle that signifies English that had been part of the commonweal is now owned by some joker or another. (An affectation you don't have to use, by the way. "Rose Parade" is a copyrighted term, for instance. The TofR uses the "R" to keep its claim live; the rest of us don't have to.)

After the family succeeded in intimidating Facebook into shutting down others using the term, the wonderfully droll Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly reports a new Facebook site, Take Back Urban Home-steading(s), is fighting against what he terms the "dingbat Dervaes." I just went there and found almost 2,000 "friends." Typical comment: "I am deeply disappointed that these folks, whom I previously admired, are causing so much grief for people who have been using the phrase for years."

The Dervaes apparently have resorted to bullying tactics and bullied Facebook into taking down other "Urban Homesteader" site.  One person the Dervaes succeeded in getting kicked off of Facebook has started a new page to protest the "dingbat Dervaes".

 Take Back Urban Home-steading(s) 

This page has evolved into an organic expression of the urban homesteading community and our quest for keeping the words which define who we are as a movement and community germane to all of us. In a real way we're advocating for one another; we're discussing, networking, organizing for change, creating events, and expanding our vast and original knowledge of urban homesteading. We're finding new formats in spreading the word that we ARE urban homestead, and that nobody can copyright our identity, which belongs to all of us.

The Derveas family has recently trademarked the terms "Urban Homestead" and "Urban Homesteading." These terms can no longer be used in facebook page titles, or on blogs or otherwise for profit. If you use the term not for profit you must use the trademark symbol and "specifically identify products or services from the Dervaes Institute." They add that it would be "proper to use generic e=terms such as "modern homesteading." They have had facebook pages with the terms Urban Homestead and Urban Homesteading in the name shut down without notifying those pages first. Please join this group to show that UH is not a brand or company, but a grassroots community and lifestyle. 

There are  loads of other links on this Facebook page (above) from people challenging the Dervaes.

Extreme Armstrongism: "Urban Homesteaders' Threaten To Sue

The Pasadena headquarters of the Worldwide Church of God has always attracted and produced really weird people.  Over the years we have had loads of picketers protesting in front of the Hall of Ad, men and women on arriving proclaiming they were apostles or that they were Elijah with a message to the church, and members who go off the deep end, like a lady who came up to me at church one Saturday proclaiming she had snakes in her head that were eating her brain away.

Our most enduring and longest active protester/picketer was Jules Dervaes.  He used to be an employee of the Landscaping Department in Pasadena.  Something ticked him off and he started protesting the church by parking his van outside the property boundaries. The van would be moved to different locations, in front of the Hall of Ad, on St. John behind the auditorium and down by the tennis courts on Del Mar.

 

He would haul his family out to picket with signs.  You could tell his wife and kids hated it.  His wife later left him because of all the nuttiness. Like a true Armstrognite he refused medical treatment for his kids, kept strict legalistic rule sin his life and his kids and other silliness.

Jules also later proclaimed that Gerald Flurry, cult leader of the Philadelphia Church of God, had stolen his writings and incorporated them in to Malachi's Message.

Jules web site is chocked full of visions and messages to those who are part of the various splinter cults of the COG.  Crazy stuff! The HiddenYears    Some of the web sites out there compare him to David Koresch in regards to his radical religious views.

Jules is also noted for his garden in the back of his house over off of Orange Grove close to Fair Oaks.  He has made his land behind the house into an 'urgan garden'. They do everything organically and supply local restaurants with fresh produce and have sent things to Oprah for television shots.

Here is an article from The Telegraph in the UK  The Dervaeses of Pasadena: Poster Family for Greener Living

For some reason Jules has decided that he owns the legal right to use the term 'urban homstead' and is now out threatening legal action against all ho use it.
Various articles about the use of the name are here:

Getting Pecked

LA Times: Who Is the True Urban Homesteader?

Dervaes Institute Seeks to Shed Light on Trademark Rumors


Because of his silly threats about using the name he is now starting to get a backlash:

Urban Homestead, Urban Homestead, Urban Homestead
Urban Homesteader. Urban Homesteader, Urban Homesteader