Update [2005-2-24 3:3:21 by hopesprings]: - wanted to get more attention here from insomniacs because I need the input for future research. So have changed this name again. Last time, promise.
It might be the full moon but I just can't seem to get happy tonight, or off DKos...obsessed is what I am today. Anyone else feel like that?
ANWAY, I started a comment on Crazy Moderate's diary about indoctrination (it's pretty powerful diary, I'm not great at links but do read it).. and it got so long, it started to work in thoughts I've been incorporating into an article/diary about the same subject Crazy Moderate was talking about: Indoctrination.
My thesis (nearly a year in the making, not original I know, but perhaps with an original perspective) is that neoconservatism - as it is being disseminated throughout America, that is - is about a hair's breath away from being as much a CULT as Reverend Moon's.
Stay with me after the fold, OK?
(a PS on Rev. Moon - he gives millions - perhaps thousand - hundreds? - of millions - to republican candidates every year. The sweet ol' round-faced messiah gave GWB $250,000 to help pay for GW's "humble" little inauguration balls. Awww. Sweet gesture, huh? There's more on the Moon/Neocon connection - stuff that the fundamentalists wouldn't like - that is, if they still believe in Jesus - but that's out of my current scope of research and off topic. And frankly, a little too tinfoil hat for many people to Grok.)
So here's the point of all this: my never posted overlong response to Crazy Moderate's heartfelt (I pray, I pray you're not a troll, you aren't are you?) plea to help him/her get over 30 years of conservative ideology.
Here's my answer:
"Crazy", it is not your fault. Repeat that phrase over and over. As if you were a rape victim, a child abuse victim, a victim of domestic violence. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. Forgive yourself, let go, and move on to a new life where light shines where there was once only darkness. Understand that it will be a long, painful, rocky transition from your former ideology to a more reason-based one. You will have flashbacks (or what cult exit counselors call 'floating.')
There is an excellent, vaild, and emotionally powerful reason you are having a hard time getting rid of your "indoctrination". And that's precisely because it IS just that: indoctrination.
You need to accept that you have been a victim. Your whole life, you have been exposed to mind control techniques that are nearly (not entirely, hence you wouldn't be here on your own) the same as the ones cults use. And once you start studying the dynamics of mind control (and our gov't has since WWII), the scariest thing about it is: IT IS FRIGHTENINGLY EASY TO PULL OFF and IT WORKS.
I'm working on a footnoted/sourced diary/article (in between work and stopping every hour or two to check on world events here at Kos - bad addiction) about the connection between cults and neocon-ism. I've got to be on a plane this weekend so maybe I'll finish it then. Maybe not. But the long and the short of it is, the methods cults use to "brainwash" members (it isn't technically brainwashing, but let's call it that for now) are the same methods you've been brought up with. There are two important differences, however - one, this admin is working to destroy (and doing pretty well, mind you) and two, they are attempting to destroy in a round about way with fear.
Those are: 1) Access to contrary information and 2) Freedom to interact with the outside world.
Let's take number two first: We are still free to use our passports and get on planes. We can go to Iraq, Syria, Ireland, Switzerland, Indonesia, Japan. There, potentially, we can stand back and see our great nation with a bit more neutrality. A bit more distance. There's nothing like living in a foreign country for a time to force you to accept that you ARE an American, and to ponder what that really means to you. To ponder your place in the world, your life's mission...it is a powerful experience. For me, it motivated me to study my country's history, social history, and to look at the "quintessentially American" characteristics I have. It helped me sort out my own identity It's a crime more Americans don't avail themselves of this option. Face it, we are an isolationist nation at heart.
Add to our isolationist tendencies, however, the new fact that many Americans will never travel abroad now, for fear of terrorism. I travel a lot for my work and love to go to new places (I spent 3 weeks in the Egyptian desert and loved so many things about its culture and people - of course that was long before 9-11 and the polarization of us and the Arab world)...but I confess, it makes me nervous sometimes to have an American passport. I spent some time in Italy last summer and was thankful that, when I spoke my intermediate but functional Italian, I wasn't immediately pegged as American. They confuse us with Brits, Australians, Kiwis, etc. (everyone thought I was Australian because I had a good tan). How horrible to be afraid to admit your nationality. I am SO proud of the history of this great nation and what it has meant to the world since 1776. I am not, however, proud of its current behavior internationally.
Back to the cult analogy. The first point in which neoconservatism is not (yet) a cult, is because technically: we still have access to a broad range of (often contrary) information. We have the internet. We can get international newspapers, talk to our international pals on the phone, watch BBC news on Satellite...etc. But this whole propagannon/scripted press conference, you know the whole Bush "bubble" (to quote another Kossack) thing. These people are aware that freedom of information means freedom to disagree. They clearly don't want disagreement. So the lies, the Gannongate, the Rathergate, the Plame stuff, the faux news and faux reporters - are all techniques that are bringing us periously close to being cut off from outside information sources. And if that happens, we are as close to being in a cult as Scientologists are.
My final advice to the suffering CrazyModerate is for him/her to allow a slow re-entry into society. Not everything the cult taught you was false, but the WAY in which it taught it to you was a lie. If you are to have those opinions, you ought to be allowed to have them without the myriad of manipulative techniques they used to give them to you. Start fresh and don't be afraid to formulate original opinions.
ORIGINAL OPINIONS. Opinions that differ from the accepted norm. That's the key. THAT's what is disallowed in any cult. And that is, I believe, what DKos and blogging is all about.
Hopefully if this is recieved reasonaby well I will continue with the full out cult analogy diary. If not I will continue it just for myself. Cause again, in researching mind control, the thing that got me the most was HOW EASY IT IS TO ACCOMPLISH. And how THE SMARTEST, MOST SENSITIVE PEOPLE are often the most vulnerable.
Brrrr...
