Is Personal Rapid Transit a Cult?

Not all cults are religious. Kay Miller wrote about a political cult called the "O" in a April 6, 2003 Star Tribune article:

People tend to think of cults as primarily religious, but the O. fits the classic definition with its clandestine structure, charismatic leader and all-controlling environment, said Janja Lalich, author of "Captive Hearts, Captive Minds." Lalich is an assistant sociology professor at California State University-Chico who has studied the O. She considers it a cult.

...and one member of the "O" was Mark Olson's PRT buddy Dean Zimmermann:

Minneapolis City Council Member Dean Zimmermann, who was briefly an O. member, agrees. "People wanted a dramatic change in our society. And this co-op organization with the left-wing dogma exploited that deep, burning desire to transform our society in a way that would make it better for all and not just the privileged.

"We looked to Cuba, which had health care for everyone. We looked to China, which eradicated starvation. We thought we could transform our society and eliminate the chasm between the rich and the poor," Zimmermann said.

Sounds like the stuff Zimmermann says about PRT "transforming the transportation system".

What they did see was an amazingly destructive force as the O. infiltrated existing food co-ops, antiwar and feminist organizations in the 1970s.

"These people were incredibly driven by ideological purity," Cox said. "They believed that to allow the co-ops to be this elite hippie, anarchist thing would detract from their own work. They were fairly ruthless in their desire for business gain."

Although the O. started its own businesses to prepare for the coming revolution, its leaders viewed the growing food co-op movement as an economic opportunity, Cox said. Late one Sunday night in May 1975, O. members armed with iron pipes took over the People's Warehouse, which distributed food to all the co-ops, fomenting Minneapolis' "co-op wars," Cox said. O. members later firebombed an opponent's truck and were believed to have a cache of weapons stored on the South Side of Minneapolis, Cox said.

The O. divided what had been one of the nation's most vibrant co-op communities, leaving it in disarray.

"I know people today who are still bitter about what the C.O. did to them and the co-op movement, and that was 30 years ago," Cox said.

None of the O.'s co-ops survived, Cox said. "The revolution that they wanted to create never happened."

Sounds like what Dean Zimmermann and his fellow PRTistas did to the 5th District Green Party.