Posted by long time exer on August 09, 2011 at 11:48:28
In Reply to: Re: atf, one size does not fit all posted by Skep on August 08, 2011 at 14:40:18:
I was watching Dr. Drew last night. He did a special on the FLDS and Warren Jeffs. I do believe that there are people within any cult that do savor deviancies that are introduced, but I also believe the vast majority did not. Jeffs did not only molest children but he opened that box to many other of his most depraved desires. Drew described him as not simply a narcissist, but as a sociopath. I believe that is what David Berg was as well. He was incapable of empathy regarding what he was doing to people that he targeted for use and abuse and he had no empathy for the pain that he caused others, including his own children, grandchildren. He was a predator and he used religion to feed his sick desires with no remorse for what it cost his victims- both the ones he directly impacted and the ones that were impacted as doctrine was introduced and practiced widespread. Others followed suit and still others did not and they were relinquished to the outer circles and/or they left the family or were drawn in and dealt with and it eventually killed them.
Drew was talking about the women in FLDS whose children were abused and wondering how they could stand by and let their children be abused and then he pointed out that many of them had been abused and that looking at what they did not do in light of their own victimization was just too painful. I think people in a tightly controlled environment are capable of doing a lot of horrible things if intro'd the way they are in a closed society. Some savor the deviancies and others comply from a Stockholm Syndrome sort of perspective and others manage to get to the outer circles when there are eventually outer circles to get to, and dissociate from the madness within. In a sense, Berg took victimized people (many) and schooled them to be perpetrators. If those same people were free to go home to another society at night they would have been horrified. But there was sytematic programming and breaking down of people, separations, humiliations, etc to gain compliance and a tightly controlled environment. When the control became less tight, more people were leaving.
In any case, the damage from that compliance is huge and needs to be acknowledged and some people just can't do that. Some avoid to survive and it will continue eating at people that do so. Discussing what Sara did to put a child to sleep (as directed by Berg and as DONE by Sara)is difficult to look at. Whether a person was on a far flung field or in Berg's household, after getting out and away from the cult, that part of the equation- why didn't I say something while in? Why didn't I run to police and protect those children? That is very complicated. Some did report what occurred but this reporting went to a dead end because even with lit in hand, authorities had no recourse without location, names of those involved etc. I have to wonder, though, why there was no successful coordinated event to bring down TF leadership and break up the sick system because there was an international police system in place to eventually catch and prosecute them and eventually the names and enough info were known to do so. They did this to Alamo, to Jeffs, but why did TF leadership and main perps get off without that orchestrated effort to stop them? I am guessing it was the sexual FFing element that kept hands off of them. Maybe too many well known people in high places who were in their proverbial little black books? Even with elaborate security systems in place, plus funds to "flee" on a second's notice, there was enough documented to do something.