The North Florida Survival Group teaches “patriots” of all ages to handle weapons and survive in the wild. Its goal is to defend “our Constitution against all enemy threats.” Brian Blanco/Reuters
Inside a storefront Chinese restaurant in upstate New York, neon light from a multicolored window sign glowed on the face of an extremist plotting mass murder. He had been seeking backing for his attack and, at this small establishment in Scotia, was meeting with a man who had agreed to take part in his scheme to build a radiation device, a weapon of mass destruction that would slowly and painfully kill anyone who walked near it.
"Everything with respiration would be dead by morning,'' the man who devised the attack told his confederate in tortured English. "How much sweeter could there be than a big stack of smelly bodies?"
But there would be no attack. The purported accomplice at Ming's Flavor restaurant in June 2012 was an FBI informant, and the discussion had been recorded. In the months that followed, another man joined the plot. Finally, in June 2013, with the conspirators hard at work on their ghastly weapon, armed FBI agents swooped in, storming a warehouse in Schaghticoke and arresting them.
Their names were Glen and Eric.
Clearly, these were not the typical "Islamic terrorists" described in the boogeyman stories of American politicians who exploit fear for votes. Glendon Crawford, the industrial mechanic who conceived the plan, has all the panache of a Macy's shoe salesman; Eric Feight, a software engineer who helped build the device, looks like a less impish version of Kurt Vonnegut. But their harmless appearance belies their beliefs—Crawford was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and the plot he hatched with Feight involved killing scores of Muslims, as well as officials at the governor's mansion in Albany, New York and at the White House.
They and untold thousands like them are the extremists who hide among us, the right-wing militants who, since 2002, have killed more people in the United States than jihadis have. In that time, according to New America, a Washington think tank, Islamists launched nine attacks that murdered 45, while the right-wing extremists struck 18 times, leaving 48 dead.
These Americans thrive on hate and conspiracy theories, many fed to them by politicians and commentators who blithely blather about government concentration camps and impending martial law and plans to seize guns and other dystopian gibberish, apparently unaware there are people listening who don't know it's all lies. These extremists turn to violence—against minorities, non-Christians, abortion providers, government officials—in what they believe is a fight to save America. And that potential for violence is escalating every day. (Sounds like Trump's base.)
"Law enforcement agencies in the United States consider anti-government violent extremists, not radicalized Muslims, to be the most severe threat of political violence that they face," the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security reported this past June, based on surveys of 382 law enforcement groups.
"OK. Well I think islam is a unique religion (actually a way of life),"
Unarguably there are good and bad people, moderates and extremes, guidelines and strict "way of life" rules in every cult, religion, whatever you want to call them.
Surely you know Muslims who hate the Taliban way of life as much as many Christians hate David Miscavige's Scientology outfit.
Tom Cruise as you know is one of the best known of Miscavige's cult members
Scientology Whistleblower Tells All, Admits to Secretly Recording Tom Cruise
Some say that the word "cult" or "sect" is a pejorative label used to discriminate against "new religious movements."
However, it seems disingenuous to ignore the historical significance and modern day applications of the word cult or sect.
Today many controversial groups that have been called cults or sects are seeking to either eliminate that description or ignore it.
Some academics with close ties to such groups have become little more than apologists, labeling the word "cult" a "four letter word."
These apologists often prefer the supposedly politically correct title "new religious movement" (NRM).
But historically cults have always been with us and they continue to be a part of the world today.
The word cult can be broadly defined as "formal religious veneration," "a system of religious beliefs and its body of adherents," "a religion regarded as 'unorthodox or spurious,'" "great devotion to a person or idea" as well as "persons united by devotion or allegiance to an artistic or intellectual movement or figure."
These general definitions could potentially include everything from Barbie doll collectors to so-called "Trekkies" and die-hard Elvis fans.
But the most salient concern to the general public, law enforcement and government officials today regarding groups called "cults" is what potential they might represent to do harm.
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who once taught at Harvard Medical School, wrote a paper titled Cult Formation .. http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing1.html .. in the early 1980s. He delineated three primary characteristics, which are the most common features shared by destructive cults.
1. A charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.
2. A process [of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as] coercive persuasion or thought reform [commonly called "brainwashing"].
The culmination of this process can be seen by members of the group often doing things that are not in their own best interest, but consistently in the best interest of the group and its leader.
3. Economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie.
The destructiveness of groups called cults varies by degree, from labour violations, child abuse, medical neglect to, in some extreme and isolated situations, calls for violence or mass suicide .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown .
Some groups that were once seen as "cults" have historically evolved to become generally regarded as religions. Power devolved from a single leader to a broader church government and such groups ceased to be seen as simply personality-driven and defined by a single individual. For example the Seventh-day Adventists .. http://www.adventist.org.uk/ , once led by Ellen White, or the Mormons church founded by Joseph Smith.
Some groups may not fit the definition of a cult, but may pose potential risks for participants. Here are 10 warning signs of a potentially unsafe group or leader.
• Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
• No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
• No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.
• Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
• There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
• Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
• There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader.
• Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
• The group/leader is always right.
• The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.
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