It's just amazing what a group of skilled and determined manipulators can get people to buy into, isn't it? Just check into some of what the Moonies or Scientologists fall for for years and even generations.
I don't think the worst of them are necessarily shut down. Despite the obvious profit motive, I remain convinced that it takes a true fanatic to carry on this kind of scam. It's very personal, ya' know? There are so many other, better ways to get piles of money if that's all you're after. Drug running, for example, can be very lucrative and no more harmful. But it would be inconsistant w/ these people's dogma.
But people like the ones who run these programs aren't after money by any means. They're after something else. They actually think they're the good guys; nobel martyrs, even. If you shut down a program, they just regroup and carry on in another place w/ another name and, sometimes, w/ a slightly different structure. Rumors persist that Miller Newton still has a small following working the Program on just a few kids at a time out of small apartments somewhere in the Clearwater area.
I did sort things out w/ my dad almost 20 years ago. Thank God and thank you for asking. The rest of the family, though, are what Dad used to call "professional acoholics"; aka devoted practitioners of Stepcraft. I can't get along w/ them on any level unless I were willing to accept the AA philosophy as Gospel. But I have a great family of my own, so I can't complain.
In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war who can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
--Sun Tzu (author of The Art of War
