©01 The Media Desk
The parents of the American who was captured fighting for the Taliban have already begun making excuses for him...
"He Was BRAINWASHED!"
Well, no he wasn't.
There is a difference between brainwashing, delusion, and indoctrination. The lines may be fine, and even various shades of gray on a fuzzy background. But the lines are there.
Brainwashing is what is often done to cult members. And yes the Taliban is, or rather, was, a cult in Islam. And while some of their membership may have actually been brainwashed, most were there by choice, the majority of them made a conscious choice to join up. They studied the belief structure of the Talib and decided that was what they wanted to be part of.
The best example the Desk can remember of brainwashing is what was depicted in the movie Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with the BeeGees and Peter Frampton released in 1978. Alice Cooper portrayed Dr. Sun and was in charge warming up the new recruits to the cause.
We get to watch a video of Cooper singing the Beatles song 'Because' (which might warp anybody's brain). But anyway, the 'young minds full of mush' that are being filled with this drivel are all sitting in ranks, in uniform, with headphones on, endlessly listening to the song. To the point that they are doing the motions associated with the song. And doing them better than Mr. Cooper too.
This is classic brainwashing. Or Programming.
Sometimes it is done with sensory deprivation, sometimes over-stimulation, other times they simply starved the victim into accepting it, or beating it into them.
Brainwashing is something that is done to you, after you have another set of beliefs or values in place. The new system is dumped into place over, around, through, the personality and its beliefs that was already part of the person. To the point of even making them a new person.
And it can be very powerful. It can make you into a puppet, fully under control of whoever is pulling the strings. You can be made to do things you wouldn't do otherwise, and after it's over, and you are deprogrammed, you may or may not remember any of it.
Delusion can happen to anybody.
AlGore had talked himself into believing he had inspired 'Love Story' among other things. How deluded can you get?
People have been lying to themselves for years. And once you believe your own lie, it is very simple to lie to everybody else. Some say this explains lawyers and politicians.
Magicians have been practicing this craft for years, offering something that cannot be true to an audience full of willing believers. This is the 'suspension of disbelief' talked about in media classes.
Advertisers do it too.
Is one brand of diet cola actually better than the other? Face it, they are all carbonated water with some food coloring and artificial flavoring and some fake-me-out sugar in it. Objectively they both taste like something you put down to keep cats out of your flowerbed. But the companies spend millions of dollars a month hawking this stuff and trying to make you believe there is a difference. And some people believe it. They know better. If you ask them they tell you they know better. But they still prefer one brand over the other.
We WANT to believe it. We wanted to believe that Doug Henning actually made national landmarks and endangered species animals disappear. And when we heard that he had died of liver cancer, we wondered if it was part of the show or not.
Delusion's very definition could be: willful belief in something demonstrated to be untrue.
Hollywood is the Land of Illusion and sometimes the lines do get blurred, but even there, and in all of California, there is Truth there if you look hard enough for it. But if you WANT to believe in the Magic... or the Act (like professional wrestling)... or the Spin... or whatever it is, go for it.
Just don't hijack any airliners while you're at it.
Most young Catholics go to Catechism for years and years. They learn the prayers, and which statue to leave the candle under, and what the various mysteries are.
If you go into politics in a Socialist country you are very carefully indoctrinated, not brainwashed. The system is all you know. It's what your parents lived under, it's what everybody around you says and does, it's in the paper on TV. It is not brainwashing. If you were born in New Zealand and decided to move to Cuba and join the Party you are making a choice to accept a different way of doing things. You will be sent to class and have to learn the party line. That is not brainwashing.
How much power does indoctrination have?
Well... evidently you can be indoctrinated to the point that you actually believe something somebody whose turban is too tight tells you about seventy virgins and the first table in heaven. And then go and do something directly contrary to everything your own holy book tells you. They are supposed to have been 'religious students'. That's what Taliban means. But for some reason the average foot soldier for the Talib seems to have never read the Quran. Jihad is not supposed to be carried out against unarmed civilians.
There is well documented video of grade school children in the Palestinian areas saying they want to grow up to be suicide bombers. It is what they are being taught is a life's ambition. It is their culture. While it is rather sick and perverse (to us) it is not brainwashing. It's what Yasser Arafat wants them to do.
So the American, the Desk refuses to use his name, made a conscious choice to turn his back on his country. To pursue an ideology that resulted in his taking up arms against his country and its allies. And to get himself stuck in a position to have to face the authorities from his country once the shooting stopped.
That is not brainwashing.
That is Treason.
Article III Section 3 Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.