Is the GOP a "Kooky Cult" or a "Crime Syndicate"?

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

As it is true of individuals, it is also true of groups: they are what they do! The GOP, like any other group or any individual is defined by what it has done over the years. I am of the opinion that most of what the GOP has "accomplished" has been harmful to American society over all and to individuals in specific cases. This includes the GOP's apparent disdain for the environment, its horrific record with respect to any "class" that is not fabulously wealthy. By its many acts and as many omissions, the GOP has created the ruling elite.

I have often called the GOP a "kooky cult, possibly a crime syndicate". Following are The defining characteristics of a cult according to Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.

• The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
• Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
• Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
• The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
• The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
• The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society. The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
• The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
• The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
• The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group.
• They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.
--Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.

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Jean-Paul Sartre vs the Pod People

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

'Mormanism' is a cult which believes Joseph Smith is a prophet! But believing Joseph Smith a prohet is no 'kookier' than any number of unquestioned shibbboleths and ideology that define the GOP just as many articles of 'faith' and/or superstitions define most if not all the world's religions. And the world's kooky cults!

By any definition, Christianity is, likewise, a cult just as it was considered to be by 'free Romans' during the long Roman Empire. Rome, especially during the post-Republican period was full of cults to include, prominently, various flavors of Mithraism. The Christians were just one of possibly hundreds of kooky cults of various persuasions, convictions and delusions.

Today it is not only Mitt Romney who is a cultist!

The GOP has seemingly deified Ronald Reagan! The GOP rank and file still worship Reagan's economic legacy, though it is, in fact, a sorry tail of inequities, slow growth, the 'export' of American industries, and recession/depression. In practice, the GOP clearly loathes any education which insists upon rigorous, skeptical science, objective inquiry, logic and/or empirical observation. All of those things threaten both cults --Christianity as well as the cult of Republicans.

Not all groups that could in one way or another be defined sociologically as cults are necessarily destructive. For instance, not every group requires its members to cut off normal contact with friends and family.

To be fair, cults are not always evil, kooky or destructive! But I am hard-pressed to name an entirely benevolent 'cult' offhand. In fact, I defend a persons right to be a 'cult-member' for so long as he/she does not harm others, commit or try to justify crimes in the name of the name of the cult, or, in any other way, deny the right of others to believe as they choose. I am tempted to write that most cults, however, are intolerant of dissent and, if not intolerant, may 'persuade' but in ugly, overly aggressive manners.

That said, I am of the opinion that cultism of any sort is 'anti-freedom'. A cult seems to me to be the ulitmate Faustian bargain in which an individual surrenders or concedes his/her individualty (soul?) to the larger social group. Just as a member of any 'armed force' or military surrenders his/her autonomy, a cult-member may no longer act autonomously.

“Existence Precedes Essence”: How May One be Free Today?

It was Jean-Paul Sartre's slogan—“existence precedes essence”—which defined 'existentialism'. With this phrase, Sartre made the point that it may be impossible to define or describe precisely what it means to be 'human'. It was, rather, a matter that is defined in the act of living itself. The human being may be alone in this respect, the inanimate world being the result of universal 'laws of physics' or 'evolution' in which 'essential properties' seem to be fixed from without, by forces exterior to the individual. Hence, Satre's famous declaration: "A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself".

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The GOP is Not a Political Party; It's a Crime Syndicate and Kooky Cult

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The International Cultic Studies Association lists the defining characteristics of a 'cult'. I fully agree with the 'list' and also the assertion that the GOP meets most of several atttributes, perhaps all characteristics that define the word 'cult'.

Here is the list as 'published':

1. The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
2. The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
3. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
4. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

5. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members’ participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, [torture,] lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
6. The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

It has always been my belief --stated often on this blog, FB, 'The Opinion', NPR, and various other forums on the internet --that the GOP is not a political party. Rather, it has characteristics of kooky cults and an organized crime syndicates.

Someone posted recently that the two parties (Dems and Gops) are indistinguisable from one another. That's just not true and, if the media had done its job, that pernicious meme might not have taken root as it most certainly has! Clearly --it was the GOP which planted it and only the GOP has benefited from it.

The occupation movement has targeted the 'ruling elite' of just one percent! That they are a 'ruling elite' and that they amount to no more than one percent of the total population is the obvious result of GOP policies favoring their base and their base is, in fact, the increasingly tiny but powerful ruling elite.

I have many issues with the Democratic party but being GOP-lite is not one of them. For all their faults, 'being as bad as the GOP' is NOT among them. I can cite three essential and defining characteristics that distinguish Democrats from the cult of GOPism:

• EVERY Dem has presided over greater GDP and JOB GROWTH than has ANY Republican Prez since 1900;
• EVERY GOP 'tax cut' has been followed by a recession/depression.
• EVERY GOP TAX CUT has resulted in the transfer of wealth UPWARD to a 'ruling elite' which is now just ONE PERCENT of the total population.

Those fact are at the core of the Occupation Movement! A corollary is this: EVERY recession/depression since 1900 has occurred during a GOP administration and as a result of GOP policy.

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