If major terrorist groups are economic clubs, it is as easy to say that economic clubs in the U.S. like the Freemasons, the fake paramilitary nuts, nonprofits, racist groups who now call Obama a "racist", chambers of commerce, the Rotary Club, other business networks, religious networks are really the same thing. The below is really about nonprofits and community groups in Anytown...
Professor Berman says that some of the most effective and resilient groups with terrorist links are in some ways economic clubs, run by “radical altruists.” He puts Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban (the United States has tied all three to terrorism) in this category. Some of these militant soldiers of Islam may sometimes commit atrocities. But Professor Berman contends that they genuinely want to help their members. They raise money from foreign governments — or, in the case of the Taliban, by selling opium — and provide social services and jobs to adherents. NYT
What is the catalyst (or mixture) that makes these "economic clubs" go completely haywire other than some of the obvious:
1) They are sometimes latent cults via the route of eventual inbred thinking and/or group think with ingroup/outgroup identification, fanaticism and secret rites;
2) Without turnover or fresh ideas, groups often devolve into a mafia-like structure and are completely parasitic in their own communities and to any outside authority, structure, society;
3) "Altruistic" networks become calcified due to the above mentioned factors and a growing distrust of the outside. The litmus test for becoming accepted will become more polarized, adherents will have to show a higher degree of fanaticism
and sacrifice;
4) Because these "altruistic" economic clubs have higher buy in, they also have to pay out much more solidifying/calcifying bonds.
5) Economic clubs rely less on innovation and acquiring new business in new territory than reaching out to their existing network to extract from their members and to villify outgroups/scapegoats.
Thinking about this a lot and observing what seems to easy an answer, maybe too easy an answer, but I basically think that when traditional and/or governments are weak and corrupt - fail to provide the most basic necessities and infrastructure for their country and communities - these "false altruistic" groups take off and become basically the shadow government. They also have the ability to cross national borders because weak and corrupt governments cannot keep them in check and in their own boundaries. What few checks and balances there were in the form of governance is replaced by tribalism, mafia-like structures.
The real and scary question is whether this has already occurred in the US. With technology and the extravagant wealth that's been created in the past few decades, has government been completely bought out by large multinational business groups? Are what Americans view as traditional terrorist groups even a tangible threat when one pulls back and looks at the real players. Who's controlling or paying off the terrorist false altruistic "economic clubs?"
