Halo Halo / Tiny Tips
Halo Halo
The negative and potentially fatal effects of belonging to a cult are well documented. There are many accounts written by those who escaped from the clutches of a cult. Within a cult subordination to another’s will can result in handing over total life control, including financial assets, essentially being a slave, to whom anything might happen, including sexual abuse, and at worst being forced into mass suicide.
History is littered with individuals who claimed some sort of ‘divine’ right or ‘divine’ spirit to coerce others into providing them with wealth and power, from Indian gurus influencing people in the music industry to American and other evangelists who offer not just ‘afterlife’ but material wealth in the here and now. Just send us twenty dollars or more…
Among Wikipedia definitions of cults is a comparison to ‘miniature totalitarian political systems’. A 2021 piece in Psychology Today says ‘no one joins a cult; they are recruited by systematic social influence processes’ and ‘destructive individuals and cults use deception and undue influence to make people dependent and obedient’. Also, ‘cult leaders are typically malignant narcissists and want people who will be obedient to them’. On vulnerability it says, ‘no one joins a cult voluntarily; they are recruited into it. There is lack of informed consent. Everyone has vulnerabilities’.
The best way to highlight the dangers of cults is to shine a light on them. In late July/early August the BBC ran a two-part documentary on the Jesus Army – Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army. They also ran a piece related to the documentary entitled Investigating one of the UK’s most abusive cults. The effect that membership can have upon an individual’s mental health is highlighted by the comment of an ex-member of the cult: ‘One contributor, Nathan, “despite struggling to come to terms with the fact he was groomed and sexually assaulted, admitted he would likely return to the Jesus Army if it reopened”’. A documented aspect of cults is the sexual abuse that takes place within them: ‘About one in six was sexually abused, according to a review of the damages claims of some 600 individuals’.
Around the same time The Guardian ran an article called The rise and fall of the British cult that hid in plain sight. It’s a long piece by an ex-member of the Jesus Army, a woman who, when quite young, was forced into the Jesus Army by her ‘normal’ family joining it. She echoes Nathan’s comment by explaining that the reason people stay in cults is due to ‘the thought of leaving a domestic relationship, with the additional anguish of abandoning one’s family, friends, money, job, and support system, along with the inherent threat of going to hell’.
The only ‘hell’ that exists is the current social system which encourages predation on people who are alienated from their fellow human beings because capitalism encourages the pursuit of wealth and power by whatever means possible.
DC
Tiny Tips
The latest Oxfam report which was released at 4th UN Financing for Development meet in Seville, Spain, shows that since 2015 the top 1% people in the world have amassed US$ 33.9 trillion in new wealth which is enough to end annual poverty 22 times over (Scoop Independent News, tinyurl.com/wnuvz977).
In some cases, health professionals perform FGM [Female Genital Mutilation] secretly in exchange for payment, turning the practice into a commercial enterprise (People Daily, tinyurl.com/y6r87av4).
The island is currently facing its worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution. Long and daily power cuts, scarce internet connection, food and medicine shortages, and high prices are the realities of present-day Cuba. Some staple items like beans are nowhere to be found; rice production has declined and much is now imported. Sugar, too, has become an import in Cuba, which, until recently, was the leading sugar exporter in the world. People cannot make ends meet with their meager incomes — a doctor’s monthly salary is approximately $50. Even by conservative World Bank estimates, 72 percent of all Cubans live below the poverty line. Beggars seem to be everywhere, with the African community descendant from slavery being the most economically victimized (Consortium News, tinyurl.com/yz79ehpd).
The entire political and intellectual machinery of the French ruling class is now moving in this direction. That includes the miserable little left, led by the Socialist Party, who bark at us from morning to night. They don’t realize that they’re participating in a broader establishment strategy: acting as the left-wing auxiliary of the right. They live in a dreamworld, wanting France to be like Germany, with a grand coalition of the centre: Social Democrats who are indistinguishable from liberals, Greens who are always clamouring for war. These people are doing the work of dividing us every day while pretending to be for unity(Portside, tinyurl.com/bdhu5j3y).
One recent survey discovered that 70 percent of Americans are the most financially stressed that they have ever been in their entire lives. That figure alone tells us that we have a major economic crisis on our hands. The cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have been, and most of the country is just barely scraping by from month to month. Anyone that attempts to deny this is simply not living in reality (Zero Hedge, tinyurl.com/278fbh2h).
Donald Trump styled himself as a populist, ‘anti-establishment’ president. But look at what he has actually done in office, and you see he’s a status-quo politician with nothing to offer working Americans (Jacobin, tinyurl.com/2un8bscn).
Will voters finally stop both blaming politicians for their troubles and depending on them to end them? Will voters—and non-voters—transform themselves into people who act for themselves, in their own interests, instead of allowing others to act for them? That would be what social change looks like. The survival of the human race may well depend upon it (The Brooklyn Rail, tinyurl.com/2fbznuja).
(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)
Next article: Material World – Standing by your trained killers ⮞