Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, Stanley McChrystal, Michael Flynn, Charles Flynn, Lloyd Austin, Keith Kellogg, David Patraeus, 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, Michael Hastings, Rand Corporation, Council on Foreign Relations, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Iraq, Afghanistan, Phoenix Program, MK-ULTRA, ARTICHOKE, Special Access Program, enhanced interrogation methods, hackers, cyberwar, Cult of the Dead Cow, ARGs, alternate reality games, FBI Anon, QAnon, Project Serpo, open source intelligence, Pizzagate, Anthony Weiner, Erik Prince, Project Veritas, COVID response, January 6th, Defeat Disinformation, Peter Thiel, Palantir, Cambridge Analytica, SCL Group, Steve Bannon, Knights of Malta, Saint John's Eve, July 23, Dog Days of Summer, Joe Biden, Obama administration
Reinventive Institutions are a feature of societies where conventional social structures are broken. In those groups, “members have come to terms with their own personal decision that, due to their flaws and limitations, they are in need of improvement, of ‘self-actualization'”.
That is the core examination contained in the article: “Reinventing the Self: NXIVM’s Promises, Secrets, and Lies”, by Susan Raine, a Professor from the Department of Sociology, MacEwan University, Canada.
Professor Raine utilizes Susie Scott’s ‘reinventive institution’ thesis, one that was built upon the earlier Erving Goffman’s concept of the ‘total institution’.
Raine attempts to situate NXIVM within this cultural milieu of the reinventive institutions, and examine its “structure, the nature of interpersonal relationships, and the promises that the movement and its founder, Keith Raniere, made”.
From the outset, she reminds us that “reinventive institutions incorporate structures of power that render them far from benign”. (more...)
The International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation published recently a Special Issue: NXIVM & Scientology. It’s packed with useful information for anyone interested in the fight against these cult-like organizations. People like the readers of the Frank Report.
I wrote a review of an important article by Professor Stephen Kent on the comparison between NXIVM and Scientology, but there’s plenty more in that issue that is relevant to us.
One such case is an article with the very long title of “Preventing Predatory Alienation by High-Control Groups: The Application of Human Trafficking Laws to Groups Popularly Known as Cults, and Proposed Changes to Laws Regarding Federal Immigration, State Child Marriage, and Undue Influence“. The article was written by Professor Robin Boyle-Laisure, a teacher of Legal Writing and a full-time member of St. John’s University School of Law, in Jamaica, NY.
Professor Boyle’s article examines how the human trafficking legislation is used in the fight against ‘High-Control Groups’, and she looks at state legislations that can help in the struggle.
“There are no laws that protect people from cults and high-control groups”, she initially clarifies, “because such entities are not legally recognized in the United States.”
This fact would partially account for the difficulty in fighting these organizations in civil and criminal court. But, Professor Boyle, argues, it so happens that “when religious or business organizations cross the line into criminal or civil wrongdoing, our American legal system can provide justice, broadly defined.” (more...)
In the fall of 1982, a money manager named Harold Levin got a phone call that would change his life. A lawyer representing Leslie H. Wexner, the founder and CEO of the women’s apparel retailer The Limited, said Wexner was looking for a financial adviser. Would Levin be interested? Levin most certainly was. In Columbus, Ohio, where Levin lived, Wexner was a legend. Wexner grew The Limited from a single Columbus store into a global retail empire that included mall fixtures Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, and Bath & Body Works.
Levin landed the job after six months of grueling interviews. He wasn’t making Masters of the Universe money—Wexner paid a salary of $250,000 a year—but it was enough for Levin to move his family into a 6,000-square-foot house across the street from Wexner in Bexley, Columbus’s most exclusive suburb. By 1986, Wexner ranked sixth on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, with a net worth estimated at $1.4 billion. “In New York, I had bankers constantly taking me out to dinner,” Levin told me. Once, the manager of the Regency Hotel arranged a private tour of Le Bernardin. “The kitchen was so clean, you could eat off the floor,” Levin remembered. Wexner entrusted Levin with increasingly ambitious projects. Starting in the mid-1980s, Levin purchased thousands of acres of farmland in New Albany (population 414) on the outskirts of Columbus, where Wexner planned to build his very own town modeled on an 18th-century Georgian village. “Les sent me to Richmond, Virginia, to look at architecture he wanted to copy,” Levin said.
On one of Levin’s trips to New York in 1989, Wexner asked him to meet a brilliant young financier who wanted to pitch an investment opportunity.
Levin had never heard of the man, Jeffrey Epstein, which was odd. After working for Wexner for seven years, Levin knew virtually every player on Wall Street (a few months earlier, Levin says, he met with arbitrageur Ivan Boesky). Levin’s skepticism was confirmed as soon as he arrived at Epstein’s Madison Avenue office. There were no visible signs of a trading operation; just Epstein sitting behind a desk that didn’t even have a computer. “Epstein was trying to explain a currency trade he wanted to do. I have an MBA from Ohio State, and I didn’t understand a word the man said,” Levin recalled. Levin went back to Columbus and reported that Epstein was a fraud. “I told Les, ‘Stay away from him,’ ” Levin remembered. Wexner agreed not to do the trade.
Levin was shocked when Epstein showed up in Columbus a few months later and announced Wexner had put him in charge of his finances. Levin tried to protest but says Wexner wouldn’t take his calls. Levin couldn’t stand having Epstein as a boss. “He was an asshole. The most arrogant person I ever met,” Levin recalled. A few months later, Levin quit. (more...)
As Americans consider the aftermath of the Jan. 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol and contemporary struggles over voting reform in Congress and at the Supreme Court, many wonder about the fate of our democratic republic. The principles Americans are supposed to hold dear — voting rights, equality, freedom — appear imperiled.
But Americans’ commitment to democratic participation has always been contested. Even during World War II, as the United States mobilized to defeat Nazi Germany and portrayed itself as an “arsenal of democracy,” Americans remained divided about who deserved to be treated as a full citizen. In an era when restrictive nationalist and authoritarian movements took power across Europe and Asia, even explicit appeals to Nazism attracted adherents in the United States.
Remembering the history of American Nazis is important because it shows us that great threats to our institutions come not only from outside, but from inside the republic itself. (more...)
Students, faculty, staff and alumni are demanding that the University of Toronto address what they say is a toxic culture within the faculty of music that allows sexual harassment and other misconduct to continue unchecked.
In open letters published online, those connected to the school also say the issues include harassment, racism, discrimination and censorship and that many were fearful to speak up until now.
At the end of last month, a group of students put up a "clothesline" installation on campus meant to air the school's "dirty laundry." Messages were hung up on coloured paper, including experiences of sexual harassment within the faculty of music.
Faculty members, students and unions have sent several letters to the school's administration expressing concern over the way it's been handling complaints.
"We absolutely need change ... because this has been going on for decades. Enough is enough," said Ness Wong, president of the Faculty of Music Undergraduate Association (FMUA). (more...)
At a time where the human body is the most profitable product to exploit, Healt Freedom 101 holds a vision to support families in safeguarding informed consent and overcoming medical tyranny so you can know your right, protect your family, and maintain your authority.
