Research, Book, Extremism, QAnon, Covid, Israel, ultra-Orthodox, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters
Letter from the Researcher:
I hope this email finds you and your family safe and healthy. My name is Carlie Cegielski and I am an undergraduate student in my senior year at the University at Albany. Through the school of Criminal Justice Honors program, I have been given the opportunity to conduct my own research, which I invite you to take part in. The goal of my study is to understand the processes of cultic organizations. More specifically, to understand the system of cults, their leaders and how individual's get involved.You will be asked to respond to a series of questions via an anonymous online survey that will take approximately 30 minutes. Prior to beginning the survey there are a few things you should note. I ask that you answer these questions to the best of your ability. If at any point you feel uncomfortable sharing information, there is the option to skip the question or stop the survey altogether. This survey has no intention of collecting any identifiable information, as all information will be completely anonymous, and all information will be held confidential. I urge you not to share any information that may be too descriptive or could potentially be identifiable. If I believe any information could possibly be traced back to any person, it will be excluded from the research.
"I was once an extremist. Now I am not. I was a member of a fundamentalist Bible organization that was homophobic and misogynistic, denied the Holocaust and used psychological terror and manipulation to control its followers. The leader believed in eugenics.
Now I am a retired grandmother living on a farm. How did this happen?
President Biden wants to unite the country by encouraging us to stand in one another's shoes. But standing in the shoes, more likely boots, of one whose views we consider abhorrent and immoral is no easy matter. The first step, if you'll forgive the pun, is to acknowledge our views are equally abhorrent and immoral to them.
During my 15 years in the group, the only "outsider" who made a consistent effort to keep in touch with me was my mother. She wrote letter after letter, though I rarely answered. She had been, after all, offended by the leader from the moment she heard him speak. "Sounds like the Third Reich to me," she said. I didn't understand what she meant. I was only 14.
Being the liberal-minded intellectual that she was, my mother, a secular Jew, never attempted to limit my explorations. She believed the First Amendment applied to everyone, irrespective of age. She learned this lesson at 6, when her progressive father sat her at Sunday dinner and engaged her in lively conversation with his guest, the political activist and socialist, Eugene V. Debs. (My grandfather, William Castleman, owned a press that published The Unionist, the largest labor newspaper in Chicago in 1920.)"
LGBT+ rights group Havruta says it is 'currently gearing up to welcome our impending new members' after a bizarre and factually inaccurate claim."An ultra-Orthodox rabbi has told his followers to avoid getting a Covid vaccine because it can "make them gay".Israeli media reported that Rabbi Daniel Asor, who has amassed a large online following, also claimed inoculation efforts were part of a "global malicious government" trying to "establish a new world order".While his claim of a link between the vaccine and homosexuality is factually incorrect, it also contradicts statements from leading orthodox rabbis who have called on their followers to come forward for a coronavirus jab.According to news outlet Israel Yahom, Mr Asor used a recent sermon to claim: "Any vaccine made using an embryonic substrate, and we have evidence of this, causes opposite tendencies. Vaccines are taken from an embryonic substrate, and they did that here, too, so ... it can cause opposite tendencies," seemingly referring to homosexuality.Responding to his comments, LGBT+ rights group Havruta joked that it was 'currently gearing up to welcome our impending new members'."
"A heavy-metal guitarist, the alleged leader of a Colorado paramilitary training group and two ex-military militia members from Ohio have been charged with allegedly taking part in the riot at the Capitol last week, as the FBI ratchets up its investigation into the role extremist groups played in storming the building.Jon Schaffer, an Indiana musician, turned himself in to the FBI on Sunday afternoon, officials said. On Jan. 6, Schaffer was photographed inside the Capitol, wearing a hat that said "Oath Keepers Lifetime Member." Schaffer founded Iced Earth, a heavy-metal band, and music fans quickly recognized him as the FBI circulated wanted posters with his face on them.Schaffer was charged with six counts, including engaging in an act of physical violence. Authorities said Schaffer was among the rioters who targeted U.S. Capitol Police with bear spray.Also charged in a court filing made public Sunday was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Cripple Creek, Colo. Court papers say that Gieswein is affiliated with an Oath Keepers-related extremist group called the Three Percenters, and that he assaulted federal officers outside the Capitol with bear spray and a baseball bat; "encouraged other rioters as they broke a window of the Capitol building; entered … and then charged through the Capitol building."Gieswein runs a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs, and a patch for that group was visible on a tactical vest he wore during the attack on Congress, an FBI affidavit said.Gieswein gave a media interview in which he echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the affidavit said, and said his message to Congress was 'that they need to get the corrupt politicians out of office. Pelosi, the Clintons … every single one of them, Biden, Kamala.'"
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
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