Short documentary explores The Power of Nonsense used by political leaders to brainwash a society

"A successful induction by a destructive cult displaces a person's former identity and replaces it with a new one. That new identity may not be one that the person would have freely chosen under her own volition." - Steven Hassan



Nothing is unusual about office holders, political parties and agency bureaucracies taking liberties with facts, when they frame their case and sell their policies and programs. But how many people look upon this process as one designed, not to persuade you; but to indoctrinate you into accepting causes that are not in your own self interest. The techniques of agenda shaping and peer pressure guiding is sophisticated and Sub-Rosa in intent. According to Margaret Thaler Singer, Thought Reform is not a mysterious process. It is the systematic application of psychological and social influence techniques in an organized programmatic way within a constructed and managed environments. The goal is to produce specific attitudinal and behavioral changes. The changes occur incrementally without its being patently visible to those undergoing the process that their attitudes and behavior are being changed a step at a time according to the plan of those directing the program.



The Six Conditions for Thought Reform are:



1) Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how she or he is being changed a step at a time.



2) Control the person s social and/or physical environment; especially control the person s time.



3) Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person.



4) Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person s former social identity.



5) Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group s ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviors.



6) Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order.



Since Singer claims that techniques to achieve power through mind control are readily comprehended, the key inquiry is to understand the reason why the general public is so unaware of the assault upon their thought process? The factual historic record leads one to conclude that the limited and select group of participants that seek and attain positions of influence, share one crucial trait. Namely, a desire to preach their adherence to the Will of the People ; while they exhort democratic rule, their actions conform to governance by the privileged few. Citing the significance of 1984 we find the answer: Orwell reasoned that if a government could control all media and communication, meanwhile forcing citizens to speak in a politically- controlled jargon, this would blunt independent thinking. If thought could be controlled, then rebellious actions against a regime could be prevented. Because of the nature of lust for power, moral means to achieve political objectives becomes irrelevant; thus, the motive to conceal real intentions from the citizens. The Sub-Rosa character of the elites is not who they are, but the actual hidden goals they achieve with their policies and control of the State.



Singer concludes: Orwell s genius centered on seeing how language, not physical force would be used to manipulate minds. In fact the growing evidence in the behavioral sciences is that a smiling Big Brother has greater power to influence thought and decision-making that a visibly threatening person.