Tribune of myself ~ Ezra
@steelcitybeans
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Survivor (and destroyer 😈) of a political cult called the "Committee to Reconstitute the CPUSA" aka "Red Guards." Editor @ the Hub maoistcultexposed @proton .me
Joined December 2021
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I know I'm forgetting something, but here it is...
The website exposing the Red Guards / CR-CPUSA is live! Tons of info previously not public anywhere else, so we can finally get the true story out there and have our voices heard ✊
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Any time a video of the CR-CPUSA May 1 march pops up, I remember my friend, a young woman bedridden by Covid. Every breath was agony. She was forced to drive to Austin to march anyway, because leadership wanted highest numbers. The way she pleaded not to go broke my heart.
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Cosmopod invited me to talk about my cult experience and thoughts on the CR-CPUSA. They were such kind and empathetic hosts, I really appreciate it. Looking forward to greater research and discussion about the problem of abusive organizations masquerading as revolutionary.
New Episode! We join Esra from Ex- Red Guards and CR-CPUSA for a discussion on the organization, its inside workings and the ways the left should relate to cults
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Cult leadership prioritized form over essence and clout over people's lives and well being. When people reuse their propaganda to promote Maoism, it's a disservice to Maoism. I don't mean to dunk on the original poster, just call to investigate image sources before using.
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Marxists concerned about "fed behavior" and wrecking revolutionary organizations, should consider how the inability to think dialectically about sciences like cultic studies, instead discarding the whole thing as "anticommunist" without truly investigating it, contributes to
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Someone recently mentioned they heard Jared Roark had a rosary with Chairman Gonzalo on it, and I was like haha what
I just found a photo of Jared's Maoism/Gonzalo shrine... bottom left.
Sometimes it strikes me how absurd it is I have to meticulously argue why this was a cult
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Maoists need to be honest in facing vulnerabilities in the ideology that can be exploited to legitimize abuse and manipulation. Here's some quotes from "Combat Liberalism" by Mao that were used in the CR-CPUSA to coerce and control members:
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the growth of these destructive organizations where hundreds of would-be revolutionaries get abused and then the whole thing collapses. How is advocating for building non-abusive organizations anti-communist? Please learn about cults before criticizing.
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PSA please don't quote Gonzalo at me. I was in a Gonzaloist cult for years. Whatever red text blurb you screenshot from Red Sun I probably have memorized 😭 this is my cult research and recovery Twitter and I don't like to argue about ideology on here.
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This is what the people I'm exposing in the CR-CPUSA believe, by the way. So if something ever happens to me, check out Jared Roark and his circle.
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For those who reached out concerned about a group that looked like the Red Guards cult marching in San Francisco, these are an off-shoot of former members, Revolutionary Study Group (Oakland-Berkeley) . They are no longer affiliated with Jared that we're aware of, but
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I've read through a lot of founding documents of various Marxist thru Maoist organizations here and internationally now, and so many criticize the "democratic centralism" of the group they split from as being in reality anti-democratic, purely centralist. But later do the same
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I've received a decent amount of threats and hate mail at this point in response to exposing the cult. My friend just reminded me of a little quote by Mao himself😂"It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation..."
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Exciting news to share... By next weekend, I'll be going live with a website publishing a basic but fairly extensive history of the CR-CPUSA/Red Guards cult, as well as a collection of its internal documents and directives. We're finally getting this information out there!
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Sorry but this is just too funny. We were talking about our experiences in the cr-cpusa and the leader of a completely different cult jumped in to defend himself hahaha
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Me and the comrades getting out of a Maoist cult
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@NYCDSAMemby
This comes across as potentially unethical on behalf of the therapist and kind of creepy for DSA. As a political cult survivor, this would make me wary, since it sounds like the org isn't staying critical of how influence can be exerted over vulnerable people
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I'm working on putting together a basic timeline of events on evolution of the Red Guards movement into the CR-CPUSA. I have some great summations from perspectives of some former members but would like to compile more. DM if you can help! Goal is to share publicly for analysis.
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> be me
> be maoist
> abused for years in cr-cpusa
> realize it's a reactionary organization
> itisrighttorebel.exe
> we throw out the leaders and smash the cult
> ICL's face when the masses are the makers of history
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Website with full expose on the CR-CPUSA / Red Guards / Jared Roark cult, internal documents, and witness testimonies will be going live tomorrow!!! 🥳🥳🥳
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So far it contains: cult's internal documents and directives, explanation of the cult leaders and organization, 1st edition of a complete timeline of the cult's history from Jared Roark to Red Guards to "CR-CPUSA" to the collapse, resources for cult recovery and further study...
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Why revolutionary organizers should be wary of the "International Communist League" (ICL):
The cult, I was in, the CR-CPUSA, was affiliated (and its remnants still are) with an international network of Maoist parties and organizations who recently united under the name "ICL".
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Also there's a special fuckery in having been in a *Marxist* cult because some of the core of the ideology is still true when you get out. Like, my labor power IS being exploited for capital. If I'd been a JW or Moonie I could just throw that whole ideology in the garbage.
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It's happened before, it happened for us, and it will keep happening if we don't study and address this problem.
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Coming soon: more internal documents from the CR-CPUSA that have been sent in by former members (thank you!!) -- "Condemned to Win II" on cult's ideology in 2019 (excerpts pictured) and docs from United Neighborhood Defense Movement, the cult's tenant organizing front.
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This drives me crazy with the ICL. It's not spilling the beans, in fact, these organizations pretending they aren't already publicly linked or their fronts haven't been identified is self-sabotaging-- magical thinking about security. Also it makes you look sketchy.
im sure my PSL and FRSO friends get irritated when i call their fronts fronts but like. i have zero inside knowledge. im not spilling any beans. i just dont get why they even do it this way, they're so obvious—is it PR? I can't ask because they're under demcent discipline!
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Our cult ordered us to come up with and run "Income Generating Projects" which were supposed to function like small businesses. Even at the time I was like "wut. we're against capitalism but now we are supposed to become entrepreneurs?" 😂
I do not miss being in a sect that has never-ending fundraising events like the IMT.
#AreYouACommunist
#IMT
#InternationalMarxistTendency
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Some examples of how ICL members & supporters engage online and how they talk about us victims of abuse from the Gonzaloist movement. If the Revolutionary Study Groups / Revolutionary Student Union is different, y'all should really stop associating with these people
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CR-CPUSA Timeline Updates
+ Jared's anti-Semitic tattoo
+ Jared and Lisa's assaults in NYC
+ Corrections to the really messed up section on Jared's 2020 tirade holding struggle sessions against perceived disobedience-- his wife Lisa and Luis
+ Added nuance to some descriptions
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And the part I'm most excited about (and which needs the most work) is the "Stories & Research" section, for former members to publish their testimonies, own analyses of what happened, related research and criticisms that previously went unheard. If I've been in touch w/ you...
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I'm leaving Twitter now, bye friends! Consider subscribing to the cult exposure website so you don't miss new posts, since we're about to drop some important stuff and the peeps taking over will continue to publish, but I'm not going to be tweeting updates anymore. Peace 💖
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The cult ideology said there was always a "left line" and a "right line" in any situation. But sometimes, everybody is wrong and nobody knows what to do. In that case, "two line struggle" drives people to pick a side prematurely, when what everyone should do is study more first.
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"Part 2 dropped today"
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I've tried to make it clear on the website that I'm not an expert at Marxism or sociology. I'm just someone who was in a position to collect this information and write it up. Read critically, widely, & be careful with strangers posing as authorities online, including me!
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I'll be checking in soon about moving forward with this-- I don't want to publish anything we've talked about until confirming with y'all. I'm going to take a lil break and then I'm excited for phase two of collecting stories and research in a more organized way. Sending love 💕
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I want to write an article analyzing autistic ppl's attraction/vulnerability to radical ideologies & high control groups with practical tips for staying clear headed when special interest overlaps with belief system, need for structure vs abusive control etc. Anyone wanna collab?
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For my Maoist followers, Maoistroad published about the CR-CPUSA cult website raising it as a point for debate in the international communist movement. Appreciate them helping take the ICL to task on this.
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While my work is steeped in my Maoist background, I intend to reach a wider audience with the website than just Maoists so I keep the focus on basic facts. I've given Gonzaloism a bigger benefit of the doubt that your average person would, but my current position so far is this
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A narcissist in leadership will wreck your org as bad as a fed. Rather than paranoia (also destructive), judge by the fruits of actions. Is the culture of the org producing burnout? Are people put in harm's way? Is democracy stifled? Does political education actually happen?
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I just learned this term "leftist trainspotting" which I gather is a hobby around discussing the latest leftist orgs split or collapse, because it happens so often?? 😭
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Things not to do if you don't want to be seen as a cult leader: search "[your name] cult" and then blow up on former cult members talking about their experiences, defending the manipulation tactics used against them.
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Cult recovery pro tip: start weightlifting. The psychological boost seeing yourself in the mirror pumping iron really helps with the feeling strong and in control again and not like a victim. Doesn't have to be heavy just grab some lil dumbbells and raise em over your head 😈💪
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Better photo - cr-cpusa/Red Guards cult activity in Austin. If you're in Austin and see yellow on red with a long ass slogan (Usually ICL slogans), steer clear, they may seem super friendly and like that have revolutionary politics, but it's an abusive organization.
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FYI: here's a more recent photo of Jared Roark who is still seeking to recruit people to his cult in Austin.
The eyes of a man required by his work to have a public profile pic knowing it's going up on our website 😂
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So it turns out the CR-CPUSA was documented in Peruvian news, far more than it ever was in US news, and monitored by a Peruvian terrorist watch NGO (!!)😳
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Former CPUSA member calling out stifled democracy and leaders' coercion of members. "When your organizing just feels like misery, it's time to change course" 🔥
PSA: I have left CPUSA. This is the statement I wrote to my chapter on the subject. It is the first and last I will be saying on this front.
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I keep getting sidetracked putting this timeline together by uncovering weird rabbit holes like Chris (second in command of the cult) previously being the organizer of a vegan hot dog eating contest.
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Laughing my ass off that they used my pfp for this thinking it's a self portrait when it's actually making fun of how Chris and the other cult leaders hunch inside writing polemics just like this new article of theirs while the real revolutionary movement goes on without them
Lmao how long that take u to write Jared or Chris?
all this big talk and u guys have done and amounted to nothing
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Spending holidays with my beautiful family, not having to write a single article or self criticism, enjoying life without guilt or shame, in my finally post-surgery gender-affirmed body, writing poetry and painting again, has been my best revenge against the cult to date 💖
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still linking to Struggle Sessions which was commandeered and now exposes the cult cracks me up. I emailed them last year about updating or at least providing a footnote with context if they are going to keep providing links to CR-CPUSA websites 🙃
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Does anybody feel like giving the "Red Guards" Wikipedia page a thorough overhaul? It's a mess 😂
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My appeal to Maoists and other organizers is: you wouldn't (I hope) support an organization that investigated Jonestown and gave it their seal of approval, calling for its victims to return to Jim Jones' leadership. So proceed with caution with the ICL.
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Thank you Dr. Lalich for all your support and work exposing and educating about these destructive groups!
Another cult just like the one I was in, the DWP. Thanks to ex-members speaking out & raising awareness.
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Survivors of the Center for Political Innovation (Caleb Maupin) are exposing it as an abusive cult. Grooming, sexual, and financial abuse of teenagers and young women, charismatic relationship under the guise of "communist discipline":
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The longer I'm away from the cult, the more it seems like a bad dream, and almost becomes difficult to understand why I acted in ways I did. Like it's hard to fathom that mind I had, which completely lacked the ability to consider leaving. Thoughts you physically couldn't think.
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It's hard not to believe these types aren't purposefully out to make a bad reputation for Maoism, but I think many are just teenagers. This person claims to have been at what would be an ICL conference tho. Weird.
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@redgangbb
Check out the "Defining Terms" section on the "Expose" page. I give the analogy that just as some sects of Christianity like Jehovah's Witnesses can be a cult without Christianity generally being an abusive ideology, the cult was Maoist without that disparaging Maoism as a whole
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Update! I'm helping put together one last big infodump on the website this week, & then I'm going to be stepping back to focus on continuing to rebuild my life. The website email will be monitored by other comrades who will be able to post any more testimonies we receive
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Sharing this article by the author of the "Pigheadism" piece, a former Red Guards Kansas City member. These are pretty great guidelines for engaging safely in organizing!
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When I first learned about maoism I tried it out at my job, & a big part of what won me over to the cult was that it worked-- Our efforts got rid our abusive boss. Pic related, is stupid flyer cult produced to "help" our efforts. Workers found it bizarre and threw in trash lol
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Lmao tell us how you really feel about exposing abusers in your movement's ranks. Peep the reposts for who to avoid 🤡
[Exclusiva] El PCm denuncia a un grupo de chivatos y colaboradores de la policía en los Estados Unidos con un comunicado público.
"Contra los traidores, chivatos y agentes de la policía en el movimiento comunista de los EEUU"
#internacional
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@guayaguala
Maoists will be like "It's right to rebel" and then when the masses rebel they call them wreckers and harass and shame them. I was not a "party member" in the cult. I was literally one of the "masses" organized into and then abused in their "army."
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Representatives from the ICL spent weeks in the US interviewing former CR-CPUSA members about our experiences and we handed over to them all the internal documents and evidence we had of abuse, revisionist politics, and insane directives.
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@quautlatas
@orbrealm
I try not to theorize beyond what I have evidence for, but I feel like if the state did actually find out inside information, just letting it continue doing its thing rather than intervening *would* be a legitimate smart strategy. Just let the rganization do all the work for you
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OMG y'all please stop! We have asked you several times now to stop using old propaganda from the CR-CPUSA cult, like this graffiti picture. I have asked RSG members in private about this myself! This stuff is painful to see pop up, and it's confusing and concerning you use it.
Join us Wednesday as we read a text from the CPI Maoist which discusses why we can’t build a revolutionary movement through elections.
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We can't address recurring issues like organizations dissolving or becoming cults if we aren't even on the same page that the basis for a party that aims to be the "general staff" of the proletariat can't be a people with little organizing experience or even life experience.
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"To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization."
Used to prevent people from talking to each other about criticisms of leadership and realizing we were all suffering the same abuse. Like union busting!
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"We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party."
Where elsewhere Mao calls criticism a "gift," the cult rejected the "gift line" and upheld the "weapon" interpretation, which justified using criticism to break people down.
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One thought-terminating cliche in the cult was "tailing the masses." When outsiders, or "the masses," accurately criticized the cult and its actions, if you agreed, you were "tailing" them. This helped prevent members from grasping reality and considering opposing views.
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Update! We have several more CR-CPUSA member testimonies in the works, as well as testimony from a former member of PCB-FV, the affiliated Gonzalist group in Brazil. Very excited to get these out! If you would like to submit something, we can publish anything that's ready to go-
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The more I research about the origins of the CR-CPUSA, the more I am astonished by how each Maoist org has formed by criticizing all the stuff the former Maoist org did, and then in a couple years has completely reversed its politics and started doing the same thing, often worse.
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Like "cult" I think "love bombing" is a term ppl make assumptions about when they hear it unfortunately and might not realize it covers their experience. With the cr-cpusa I didn't feel "love" bombed so much as attention-bombed and included-bombed...
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We were devastated when the ICL then failed to send us any further word and instead published this article stating their support for the cult and urging us to reunite with it, with our abusers:
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"Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline."
Self-explanatory. Obeying orders is communist. Expressing criticism or disagreement is "demanding special consideration."
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@guayaguala
Even if that experience HAD turned me into an anti-communist, I would think reasonable Marxists would want to criticize the organization that appeared to, under the guise of Marxism, convert revolutionaries into anti-communists, instead of focusing on the victim of that process
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Just stumbled on this blog a former member of the International Marxist Tendency has been putting a lot of work into for years to expose it as a cult and recount their experiences. Just starting to dig into it but looks interesting!
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Recovering from a cult is like waking up after getting blackout drunk. Where am I? What did I do? Why do I have two copies of Clausewitz' "On War"??
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Gonzaloists: you're a snitch and red baiting for posting about the links between Brazilian front groups and the party!
Brazilian Gonzaloist newspaper:
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Ask, am I approaching this set of ideas with a conscious and critical attitude? Am I looking at it dialectically, or do I view it as completely "correct" or "incorrect"? Are there potential problems in what is being proposed? How does this inform & differ from current conditions?
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Retaliation is highly unlikely given their small numbers versus how many of us are posting stuff like the above so that it they do anything they'd likely get caught, they wouldn't risk it. But this is want to happen to former members who speak out about what they did to us
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@GMomurder
"If you read a statement written by people mostly on the outside of the internal organization and cult abuse, and ignore all the testimonies and evidence released by victims of abuse in the cult, you'll find it wasn't a cult!"
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Members of this international organization helped train up our leaders early on, and we received directives from them, but we didn't initially assume this meant they needed to be implicated in our org becoming a cult. Now, there's sufficient reason to be at least wary.
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It's easy to get tunnel vision with what you know best, I feel negligent in not more thoroughly studying the testimonies and work produced by comrades in other political cults. Trying to take up serious and comparative study now. Currently reading:
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It's really trippy reading the testimonies of prisoners from the 1950s describing the exact same experience I had in a cult 70 years later which sought to revive those practices. I like "An experienced prisoner"-- captures the bizarre expertise you felt in your indoctrination
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I appreciate those who reached out privately in good faith to share concerns about my post looking to talk with people who may have had similar cult experiences with the Gonzaloist group in Brazil. A followup post was recommended to explain my methods and goals better.
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Some of y'all really haven't broken with old ideas and it shows
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"to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them"
We were expected to snitch on each other all the time. Can't share your concerns about the leader because they'll report what you say to the leader. Everyone hiding what they actually think for fear of being reported
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"To indulge in personal attacks... instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views"
Yet "struggle" against a leader's incorrect view is a farce when the meeting is you versus a block of people supporting the leader, and after you lose you're punished
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Received another UNDM related document: Jared's lecture on his new position on gentrification. Will be posting soon. Jared: "I want you to throw out your petty bourgeois ideas of what a neighborhood is right now". Tag ur petty bourgeois idea of a neighborhood
😂
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Despite knowing everything it knows now, the ICL continues to publish propaganda from the CR-CPUSA's handful of remaining members, and call for other US Maoist groups to repair the "split."
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First draft of the CR-CPUSA timeline just went out for review (finally!) It's massive and there's still so much that needs to be added 😭 - if I missed you and you want to help review/contribute (former members of CR groups only at this time, please), DM me your email address!
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What happened in early 2010s that young people in the US started trying to form Maoist organizations? Was there always an underlying thread leftover from RIM? Did people just stumble on it again from learning stuff like the Panthers liked Mao? It don't have a clear answer yet.
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***NEW PAGE & POST!!***
Published a new page on the CR-CPUSA cult's tenant organizing front, United Neighborhood Defense Movement, with internal documents and former members' testimonies:
Related post:
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Interesting-- "The O" (see
@alexandraistein
for more), DWP (see
@Janja_Lalich
) and CR-CPUSA all collapsed in part b/c their leaders went to prison or out of the country, giving burned out members an opportunity to talk about what was really going on.
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Here's some things I look for when getting involved in an organization. These are not even based around making sure it's not a cult, but making sure it's an organization that won't waste my time and effort, that shows competency to serve the people and progress towards goals:
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