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Someone (perhaps on a Q-Thread back in the early days) recommended the book Rape of the Mind published in 1956, a time when North Korean brainwashing of captured U.S. soldiers was making headlines.

It's an inportant book but I should have taken notes while reading it. So, I'm forced to use the dreaded wiki for a summary of its contents:

The book explains how scientific brainwashing is done and argues that "hardly anyone can resist."

"Fear and continual pressure are known to create a menticidal hypnosis. The conscious part of the personality no longer takes part in the automatic confessions. The brainwashee lives in a trance, repeating the record grooved into him by somebody else."

Sound like anyone you know? I noticed early on in this s-show (sorry Bigg Red) how people would gleefully and uncritically parrot statistics they had read or heard regarding the 'rona. It must be fun to feel like an expert.

We on this thread know people are not safe in (once) free societies from this form of brainwashing. We've watched it happen in real time!

The author warns that people must guard against the creeping intrusion into their minds by technology, bureaucracy, prejudice, and mass delusion--in 1956.

Oops! Too late.

It's been going on longer than the last 18 months but man has it ramped up! I'm amazed when people reveal how blind they are to it.

Social media may have replaced the kommissars but the message is the same: "Are you going to believe me or your own lying eyes?"

The author warns that people must guard against the creeping intrusion into their minds by technology, bureaucracy, prejudice, and mass delusion—in 1956.

Oops! Too late.

I’m just appalled when older people (who haven’t been overly influenced by the smartphone culture, whether or not they own one) reveal that they leave their Boob Tubes on practically 24/7. They say they hardly ever “watch” it, though, and common excuses are “It makes the house feel less empty” and “I need the background noise to sleep at night.” And then they wonder why they are so anxious and high-strung, not realizing they’ve been subliminally brainwashed by the idiot box around the clock! Get a white noise generator, fer cryin’ out loud! Excuse my racism, lol

So glad to not have had one in my house at all in this century, and to *never* have had one in any of my bedrooms over the years!