12 Feb. 03 The Bush Administration Cult [Editor's note: Some of the concepts in this essay may appear completely obvious now, but they were not back in Feb. '03.] In 1977, at age twenty-one, I became a card-carrying fanatical follower of a cult. That was a long time ago and I've been out for fifteen years, but lately I've felt like I'm in a bigger and more sinister cult that I can't escape. On the TV this morning Ari Fleisher was hosting a press conference about bombing Iraq. One reporter asked whether Saddam would be more likely to use weapons of mass destruction if he's backed into a corner. Fleisher answered, "America will not be blackmailed." Rhetoric like that makes my skin crawl. Like I said, i was in a cult for ten years. What does he mean by "blackmail"? That somehow rogue states are amassing weapons to blackmail us? Wouldn't it be more like self-defense? Saying "blackmail" is inflammatory double talk to evade the real issues of American aggression. Cult leaders demand total compliance from followers. You do as you're told and don't ask questions. Cult leaders will fill you up with simplistic explanations to manipulate (or at least silence) you. Screaming "blackmail" is as rhetorical as it gets. If followers question anything, they get a big helping of party line rhetoric. Also, the cult leaders are arrogant and dismissive of any dissent. They try to make you feel out of place if you raise an objection. I've seen that with Fleisher, Rumsfeld, Rice, Bush, Cheney - they act like they're right and it's "my way or the highway," the same as an arrogant cult leader. Cults function on the "back and white" - no shades of gray platform. Someone is either "in" the cult or they're an outsider. Everyone outside is basically seen as ignorant or demonic. The Bush Administration seems to have adopted the same sense of judgment. "You're either with us or against us," they constantly remind people. In the cult, if the leaders don't like someone, they label that person a "snake." That's that. In America today notice how many labels the Bush people apply to us ordinary folks and groups they don't like. Applying prejudicial labels is a sure sign that coercion is taking place. Judging and labeling people is also a form of projection. When the cult leaders judge someone else, often they're projecting what's going on inside themselves. In the book, "The Mind Game," by Norman Spinrad, the fictional cult leader John B. Steinhardt keeps everyone in his organization off balance. He has enforcers called "monitors" to make sure everyone is obedient all the time. The monitors keep track of everyone and report deviant behavior to Steinhardt. Although Steinhardt tries to play the part of a benevolent leader, he runs his group by the credo: "Paranoia is the great motivator of subordinates." The same words could just as easily fall from the mouths of any of those men mentioned above. As long as they keep us off balance, they are free to do whatever they want and still portray themselves as our saviors. Another characteristic of a cult is that they believe that the "ends justify the means." In the group I was in, the cult leaders told us to go out and get money anyway we could, even if it meant tricking people to think that we were from some other group besides the Hare Krishnas. They told us that the ends (collecting the money) outweighed any means we had to use. In our brainwashing sessions (classes) we used to ask our gurus, "What if they say 'are you a Hare Krishna?' " and the gurus instructed us to say, "Me? NEVER." The fact that some "karmi" gave money to the cause would outweigh the bad karma of lying. Another tactic of cult leaders is to wrap themselves in religious robes, but it's a thin veneer. The Bush Administration also wraps itself up in the American flag, perhaps to one-up the real Americans who know that freedom of speech is a guaranteed right and diversity of opinion is necessary in a free democratic state. The Bush Administration also tries to chill the free expression of opinion in the international community, belittling and chiding those European countries who decided to stand up for their beliefs and reject Bush's war. If you think about it, why would cult leaders allow rational thought? Their objective is to control people. Members must swear total allegiance to their cult leaders. Cult leaders love to make people feel guilty and frightened. It's all the easier to manipulate people who have no center of balance. Cult leaders only look out for their own interests. They do not care about their followers, except as far as they can exploit them for their own gain. Once cult followers have outlived their usefulness, often they are kicked out or sometimes murdered. The cult I belonged to murdered many people, usually because the leader considered them expendible or a threat. Cult leaders are secretive. They are not looking out for everyone's welfare, only their own. Therefore, they feel entitled to keep their financial dealings secret. They also make decisions based on their own selfish motives. There is nothing about a cult leader's motives that makes them want to act transparently. It's their business and nobody else's. Since 2000, many reporters and commentators have said that the Bush Administration is the most secretive administration ever. I believe this is cult-like and fits perfectly with their overall profile as a cultish group. Also, cults have the potential to turn dangerous. There's always an aura of cruelty and fear. This is a natural result of cutting off doubts without answering them, cutting off your personality and connection to your center in order to please authority figures, and blindly following a charismatic leader. In some cults the leaders gain such control over their followers that they can induce everyone to commit suicide or murder. It is powerful coercion and a brain full of fear and hatred that makes people easy prey for cults. It is horrifying to see our federal "leaders" pouring fear and hatred into people's heads. It's clear what their motives are - they want war. They see a world full of fear and they want everyone to go along with their vision. The doomsday scenario is clearly a cult brainwashing tool. If you think you're facing the end of the world, then you have nowhere to turn except your cult leaders who tell you they know The Way. The gurus in my ex-cult were big proponents of the end of the world. They convinced us that they needed to buy ranches in the country. Once the bombs start to fall, all of us would be saved because we could retreat to these country outposts of safety. Until that time, they wanted members to continue to collect money at the airports. They purposely scared us half to death to get greater control over us. I genuinely believed the end was near and that I had to help them purchase and furnish their eccentric properties. In the same manner, the Bush Administration has everyone completely frightened. And guess what: they have The Answer. Hit them first before they hit us; an answer that will only incite more terrorism. Some could even say that what the Bush Administration is proposing is terrorism, but if you think so, then you make yourself their enemy. Big Brother is watching, same as in a cult. If you're still naive and wondering what dangerous doomsday cult could take over the U.S. government, read up on it. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture by Paul Boyer. The author describes the development and continuing influence of end times prophecy dominant in American Christianity. While the Catholics, Anglicans, Quakers, and other Christian sects have worked for peace, Bush and millions of Americans who follow the fundamentalist right-winged end times wing-nut cult, have pressed for war. Here's the deal with the apocalypse scheduled for approximately sixty years from now: Israel will expand its borders from the Nile to the Euphrates, then the Jews will build a temple in Jerusalem to enshrine the Anti-Christ (possibly the graven image of King George W. Bush - their messiah). But then the Jews will reject the anti-christ and embrace the real Lord Jesus Christ. However, according to prophecy, it will be too late and the anti-christ will wreck havoc on the earth. In a recent interview, Paul Boyer said that the born-agains love the idea of Israel expanding its borders. Unfortunately, they are in total denial about how the story ends. Another frightening cult-like influence is from the PNAC, Project for a New American Century. This group believes that America must establish military dominance in the twenty-first century by fighting three wars simultaneously, and winning, thus proving the extent of America's military strength. The founders of this group include: Donalt Rumsfeld, Daniel Perle, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, and Jeb Bush. They have wanted to fight Iraq for more than a decade, but Iraq is just the first in a list of countries they must defeat in order to attain world domination. Perhaps some non-fundamentalist, non-PNAC people in the Bush Administration believe they're doing the right thing in supporting their fearless leaders. In becoming codependent with the cult mechanism, however, even the non-apocolyptical people take on that vengeful, violent, narcissistic cult leader persona. They are motivated by the hate and fear their leaders generate in them. They do not want peace; they don't even believe peace is possible. The doors of their minds have slammed shut. They're obsessed with their power and they're using it to whip everyone else into war. The more our leaders isolate the U.S., the easier it will be to manipulate us. Think twice before you buy into their World War Three scenario. Look at what's going on and refuse to go along with it. Normally, you can leave a cult simply by walking out the door once you make your mind up to do it. In this case, we have to do the same thing. Simply make up your mind that you reject the cult rhetoric and refuse to get sucked in. If everyone did this, the Bush Impeachment movement would go forward, instead of this unwanted war.

With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House by Esther Kaplan Archetype of the Apocalypse: Divine Vengeance, Terrorism, and the End of the World by Edward F. Edinger A Jungian look at why the apocalyptic worldview is popular with some cultures When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture by Paul Boyer TheocracyWatch.org A site that monitors the rise of the religious right in the Republican party Project for the New American Century (PNAC) neo-conservative D.C. think tank that calls for the establishment of a global American empire and socio-economic Pax Americana at gunpoint. another article about PNAC Further information about PNAC Betrayal of the Spirit, by Nori Muster (University of Illinois Press, 1997) Brainwashing America A Cult Survivor's Handbook, by Nori Muster Pope to Bush: Go Into Iraq and You Go Without God Index of all relevant Bush posts at this site

A Word about Codependence Another thing they taught us in grad school was to recognize codependence. Popular self-help psychology gurus spoke of codependence in the 1970s, then scholars of psychiatry and psychology spent most of the 1980s debating whether it actually existed. You can't see it with your eyes, but you can feel it in your gut when codependence takes over a situation. You will hear phrases like "I guess it's okay, because our leader knows best" and "If the leader says so, then it must be true." Whenever you go along with someone because you want the person to like you, that's codependent. It shows that you will overlook the person's misdeeds because you need their friendship so bad. You enable them to go on with their behavior, because you fail to correct them or walk away, then you must suffer the consequences with them. In mild cases, you may indulge someone's weakness for chocolate, but in extreme situations you may have to overlook a friend's blatantly illegal, immoral, or unethical behavior. For example, suppose you have a dare devil friend who likes to drag race or perpetrate road rage, and you go along for the ride. Your friend has a dangerous addiction and you are hooked into it with him. If he causes an accident, you might feel like it was partly your fault. Codependence can manifest between you and any object of your loyalty. Suppose you are loyal to a particular father figure. You want to look up to that person, but it's too easy to overlook an idol's flaws. If you can't accept the person's flaws, you will go into denial. Once you start a cycle of codependent denial, you will perpetually support and idolize that person. This is detrimental to the person because he will continue his rude behavior until he experience consequences. If there's nobody to tell him to stop, his behavior will just grow worse. The situation also has consequences for you because you will suffer guilt, fear, confusion, and grief when you must overlook the obvious so strenuously. When you must finally look at your idol's clay feet, it can be hard to bear. The same dynamic takes place in organizations, because individuals may idolize the company and put it on a pedestal. This is fine if the company is completely honest and treats its employees with great care. However, the reality is that the bubble of misplaced loyalty pops suddenly and painfully. Even if an employee is completely loyal to a company, there should still be room for basic common sense and a detached perspective. If you notice your company doing something illegal, naturally you should report it in order to correct the company. Trying to show your loyalty by closing your eyes does not help the company or you. The same law of codependence also applies in politics. If a leader starts to act crazy, people should tell him so. If a country starts to act insane, as America has over the last two years, people should look closely and see reality for what it is. Don't idolize a leader simply based on what his country stands for. Old democracies can make mistakes. Instead of making a decision based on trying to get the old democracy to like your country, make your decision based on history and law. Find out specifically what a democracy (and a republic) is supposed to represent. Just as a child may sometimes instruct a parent and benefit the whole family, so younger democracies may set the example for others who waver from the true spirit. That is healthy and everyone will benefit. Related articles: The Cult That's Running the Country by Joseph Wilson, Salon.com A War Policy in Collapse, By James Carroll, Boston Globe, 4 March 2003 index