DTD № 73:Armed Far-Right Militias, Drugs Lords For Jesus, PTSD and High Control religions,The Kursk Offensive, Changes atop the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Progressive Parenting, Polyamory in Canada

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Secrtions: Far-Right Militias in American, Drug Lords for Jesus, PTSD and High Control Religions, For Paid Subscibers: The Ukrainian Kursk Offensive, Ukrainian President Fires his Top General, Parenting for Progressives, Polyamory gains popularity in Canada

Far Right Militias Assemble!

As the 2024 American Presidential Election enters its final turn ahead of the November 5th election datewith the Republicans nominating the former President Donald Trump, and the Democrats fielding the current Vice President, Kamala Harris, the far right is onthe move across many parts if the United States. They have a preferred candidate in Trump, and they seem prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure that he returns to the Oval Office. As Propublica reports,

“They’re certain that Democrats will try to steal — not for the first time, in their view — the White House from Donald Trump. “The next election won’t be decided at a Ballot Box,” an AP3 leader wrote several months ago in a private Telegram chat. “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.” He has said he is ready to force his way into voting centers if need be, or “whatever it takes.””

Worryingly, some militias like the American Patriots 3% seem. To be cultivating relationships with law enforcement:

“The messages reveal how AP3 leaders have forged alliances with law enforcement around the country and show the ways in which, despite an initial crackdown by social media, they have attracted a new wave of recruits. A change in the political climate has also helped: In a matter of months after Jan. 6, rioters went from pariahs to heroes in the rhetoric of prominent Republican politicians. By the summer of 2021, people were enlisting in AP3, saying that Jan. 6 inspired them to join.
A portrait emerges of a group alternating between focused action and self-destructive chaos and facing a schism over whether political engagement can still address our nation’s problems — or whether violence is the only option. It can be hard to discern the line between bluster and imminent threat in the messages, a perennial struggle for FBI agents who monitor paramilitary groups. But some senior AP3 members grew so alarmed that they quit, scared by the number of people, even high-level leaders, advocating acts of terror.”

No matter who emerges victorious in November, the coming months and years may prove to be as determinate as any of the future direction of the United States. I only hope that no blood is shed

Drug Lords for Jesus

This has got to be the strangest kind of missionary I've e ever heard about! And I've known a lot of missionaries in my time!

“When Brazilian authorities raided the home of Alvaro Malaquias Santa Rosa in 2021, what they found wasn’t your typical drug kingpin’s lair. Surrounding the sizable swimming pool was a large fresco depicting the old city of Jerusalem, complete with armed forces carrying a Star of David flag — and all under a banner with the words “Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Then again, the man better known as Peixao, which translates to Big Fish, is few people’s vision of your typical cocaine trafficker. Reportedly an ordained evangelical pastor, Peixao headed a gang variously known as Army of the Living God, Aaron’s Troop or Bonde da Kabbalah, and it controls a cluster of five favelas — the slums that ring Brazil’s major cities — known as “Complexo de Israel” in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro, home to some 134,000 people.”

“Peixao is part of a growing band of “narco-evangelists” — organized criminals with a strong religious motive who have become a bug, if not a feature, of a strand of Christianity that is sweeping all before it. What began as a peculiarly Brazilian phenomenon has become a global trend of gangsters — and sometimes pastors — using evangelical Christian networks and beliefs to stamp their authority on illicit trades.
Emerging from the Americas and now appearing in Europe, the Philippines, Nigeria and South Africa, today’s narco-evangelists share an increasingly popular strand of Christianity: Pentecostalism. It’s the fastest-growing religion in the world, already with around 650 million followers. A branch of evangelical Protestantism, in recent decades Pentecostalism has become the faith of the world’s poor. In large part, this is because of its particular focus on the Holy Spirit’s role in health and wealth, but there is also the significant lure of the faith’s deep authenticity, rooted in local cultures. Much of this is due to the fact that there is little in the way of authority structures and pastoral oversight. Not only is there no Pentecostal pope, but all you really need to be a preacher is followers.”

The connection between high control religions and Complex PTSD Is deep and multifaceted. Deanna Fraser explains why it's important to talk about it

Deanna Fraser points us towards the detrimental effects on a person who was a member of a High Control Religion, which could be anything from some sects of commonly held religions in the west to participation in an organization commonly referred to as a cult. Whatever the specific group, Fraser points it that there is good reason to think that these high control religions have created the conditions for Complex PTSD, which Fraser notes was unfortunately left out of the most recent DSM, long considered to be the professional guide to the diagnosis of psychological or mental health conditions.

"Because religions rely on an all-powerful Being or Beings who determine Destiny and command total obedience, a person’s self-concept can quickly become entwined with the ideologies of the religion they are raised in. Religions are powerful social systems that can be difficult to extract from an overall view of reality, depending how insular the group culture is, and how strongly a person identifies with the religion. Stone asserts that religious trauma accumulates through years of exposure to messages that destabilize mental health (2013). Ideologies such as the Calvinist concept of “Original Sin” (Wiley, 2002) and “Eternal Conscious Torment” (Spiegel, 2015.) teach that a person is born evil and deserving of a punishment so great in hell that it will never end. The effects produced from fear and shame in connection with these doctrines alone is only beginning to be examined by scholars (Stone, 2013). Because many HCRs use shame as a motivator for good behaviour, the experience of the religion in and of itself is traumatic as shame accumulates over time (Downie, 2022). Furthermore, good behaviour is often policed down to which emotions are appropriate or inappropriate to experience. “Prohibitions against entire categories of emotions can contribute to psychological difficulties, including depression, anxiety, guilt, and addictive or compulsive behaviours. In a similar fashion, the intellectual realm can become restricted, promoting legalistic, black-and-white thinking and difficult with free association, fantasy, creative thought, and problem-solving.”"

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