Don Corleone needs his consigliere; "Pops" Jong-Il needed da 4 Star G just like his dad needed him; and all the great dictatorships and gangster bosses throughout history have needed a Number 2 to act as chief sycophant, hatchet-person and heir presumptive. As an Irish comrade of mine mentions, a Power Couple is generally a force to be reckoned with. Conversely, a Great Leader who doesn't have an "offsider" will generally have all the underlings busy jockeying for the job. "Every heavenly body gotta have its moons", as Riki Nadir put it.
So watch out for that dynamic happening in your group or organisation.
A bouquet of Martian fire flowers to my comrade G. B. for his insight here.
Were you thinking about the Process Church of the Final Judgement? I think it's the robe Max von Sydow is wearing in the still from "Flash Gordon"....the Processians were founded by two ex-Scientologists, Mary Anne and Robert DeGrimston who went right back on the left-hand path. They worshipped Jehovah, Satan and Christ, and while Robert was the spiritual leader, Mary Anne was a dictator of sorts in the day-to-day management of the group. my point in bringing them up is that sometimes the Great Leader is two people, which means of course that the issue of sucessorship is up in the air....in the case of the Process Church, Mary Anne dumped Robert, the group became more like a regular church, and now they are the Best Friends Animal Society (!), a non-profit animal welfare group.
ReplyDeleteOn Scientology I would say that Miscavage hijacked the church away from Hubbard - the plan after Ron's death was to have the Broekers and some other key members operating Scientology through committee, with no single leader. David Miscavage warped those links because he oversaw communication between Hubbard on his ranch and the church bureaucracy....he is a successful Himmler, Slappy Miscavage.
My knowledge of the Process Church is sadly lacking, although the "Best Friends Animal Society" is the best transformation I've heard of since the Revolutionary Communist Party became SPIKED magazine.
ReplyDeleteThe power couple that I was thinking of were John Rees and Lindsay German who used to run things in the British Socialist Workers Party. But of course in Scientology you had Mary Sue Hubbard running the Guardian's Office and giving Ron "plausible deniability" for Operation Snow Right.