Short Cuts: Bite-Sized Fiction by B. Wells

Cults are Like Medieval Dragons

            When the Watergate scandal unraveled, and underlying corruption of money laundering exposed, Martha Mitchell did her best to save her husband from not only legal trouble but also political and social disgrace.

Not to be out played, Nixon, a ruthless politician, used all his power to throw her under the bus. He leaked to newspapers that she was alcoholic and emotionally unstable. Her husband, John Mitchell, said she had had a mental crack-up. In these reports, John was painted as the dutiful devoted husband taking care of an emotionally unstable wife. All this was said and done to ‘save the Presidency’. (or aka save Nixon.)

During this time there was a man coined as ‘Deep Throat’ by reporters Bernstein and Woodward, who did his best to point the reporters in the right direction to expose the lies and misuse of governmental powers by Nixon and his team. The reporters kept his identity secret for over thirty years. With what happened to Martha Mitchell I understand why.

I was seventeen when I heard of Martha’s jarring removal from her apartment to a hospital. (At this point in time, it wasn’t stated that she was beaten, kidnapped and drugged. It would take months for that to be revealed and years before it was believed.) I was old enough to understand and experience the cruelty of self-preservation.  Whoever exposed the lie, would be attacked, vilified and defamed. It’s as simple as that.

I had admitted in a previous post, I am a whistleblower. I have taken the knocks, bumps and bruises of being one. I have been told I am a judgmental creep and need to chill out. I’ve also been told long after the dust settled and the lie I pointed to was revealed that I have high integrity. To be honest, that made me laugh. The question becomes, why do it? Why put oneself through the emotional battering of standing for truth when others grasp lies?

 I can only speak from my understanding about the nature of truth and lies.

Let me first dig into lies. What I have discovered is that lies never rest, they irritate until unmasked. People have been known to react violently when a lie is exposed.

So, who and more importantly why shield the lie, engage is all sorts of cover-up behavior? It’s not new. Churches from both real and fringe religions have protected rapist pastors, priests, elders and deacons against prosecution. Board of Directors from prestigious companies to universities, colleges, and media corporations have protected high-level executives against allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. I could list yoga gurus, ballet masters, film directors, producers, talent scouts, coaches, doctors, and attorneys only through a persistent whistleblower finally unearthed a pattern of criminal behavior.

In these instances I wonder is it really about protecting the business? Is what holds the winning card the image of the company?  It is worthwhile to ask the question.

It seems something deeper is going on. I will never be able to reveal the many layers of why people lie, cheat, steal and otherwise behave badly. No one can. But I might offer a tiny chunk of where to look so you can distinguish for yourself. For a moment consider a dragon.

A Medieval European dragon, to be specific. In that tradition dragons hoard gold and virgins, two things with which they can do nothing. A dragon can’t spend gold and what on earth can it do with a virgin?

In Western culture the dragon represents the ever-empty ego seeking greater and greater ways to fill itself because somewhere there is a void. Filled with the hope that the next reward, accomplishment, car, house, dress, or sexual conquest will finally satisfy. But it never does.

The obvious examples of this are cult leaders but honestly I could be talking about leaders from any area of life.

Cult leaders are like dragons. They covet things. Followers mostly. Why? Because followers give them the validation they crave.

Cults engage people that feel lost, forgotten or wounded and want answers. When followers hear a leader answer unanswerable questions, or give them secrets to success it provides a sense of belonging. Some say it was a feeling of coming home. Where the outside world saw them as flawed, here they were accepted. In this moment, the leader asks for loyalty.

If this bond is challenged, through an accusation of impropriety in any form be it embezzlement, sexual misconduct or extortion and the leader is threatened. This is a critical moment for followers. Do they keep their oath, or do they examine any and all evidence and think for themselves?

The most difficult of intellectual pursuits is critical thinking. The purpose of which is to ensure that people are able to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. This is very important in any walk of life where it's vital to be able to construct rational arguments in support of one's ideas. Ah, there’s that tricky word: rational.

Which leads me to truth. Truth can be boring. Truth is like gravity or fresh air, you don’t know how important it is until it’s removed. Winding one’s way to truth takes learning to discern, to question freely and expose a lie or reveal a truth. But doing so grants the observer power. A power not based on how much money or beauty one possesses, a power that can never be lost, taken or stolen.

I often remember Martha Mitchell and how she challenged the cult of Richard M. Nixon. But what she did that really set off Richard Nixon? First, her image was on the covers of Life and Time Magazine in October and November of 1970. These were flattering paintings of a woman that held no office in government, or considered a young Hollywood beauty. Second, and this was the final straw, at a fundraiser for the Republican Party several people pushed him aside to get to Martha. She was the person the crowd wanted to see and talk with. In this photo you can see Nixon held his composure, but didn’t like it. (