PREVENTIVE WAR 'THE SUPREME CRIME By Noam CHOMSKY
Iraq: invasion that will live in infamy
SEPTEMBER 2002 was marked by three events of considerable importance,
closely related. The United States, the most powerful state in history,
announced a new national security strategy asserting that it will
maintain global hegemony permanently. Any challenge will be blocked by
force, the dimension in which the US reigns supreme. At the same time,
the war drums began to beat to mobilise the population for an invasion
of Iraq. And the campaign opened for the mid-term congressional
elections, which would determine whether the administration would be
able to carry forward its radical international and domestic agenda.
The new "imperial grand strategy", as it was termed at once by John
Ikenberry writing in the leading establishment journal, presents the US
as "a revisionist state seeking to parlay its momentary advantages into
a world order in which it runs the show", a unipolar world in which "no
state or coalition could ever challenge it as global leader, protector,
and enforcer" (1). These policies are fraught with danger even for the
US itself, Ikenberry warned, joining many others in the foreign policy
elite.
What is to be protected is US power and the interests it represents,
not the world, which vigorously opposed the concept. Within a few
months studies revealed that fear of the US had reached remarkable
heights, along with distrust of the political leadership. An
international Gallup poll in December, which was barely noticed in the
US, found almost no support for Washington's announced plans for a war
in Iraq carried out unilaterally by America and its allies - in effect,
the US-United Kingdom coalition.
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The Battle for your MIND by Dick Sutphen
The Birth of Conversion
CONVERSION is a "nice" word for BRAINWASHING . . . and any study of brainwashing has to begin with a study of Christian revivalism in eighteenth century America. Apparently, Jonathan Edwards accidentally discovered the techniques during a religious crusade in 1735 in Northampton, Massachusetts. By inducing guilt and acute apprehension and by increasing the tension, the "sinners" attending his revival meetings would break down and completely submit. Technically, what Edwards was doing was creating conditions that wipe the brain slate clean so that the mind accepts new programming. The problem was that the new input was negative. He would tell them, "You're a sinner! You're destined for hell!" As a result, one person committed suicide and another attempted suicide. And the neighbors of the suicidal converts related that they, too, were affected so deeply that, although they had found "eternal salvation," they were obsessed with a diabolical temptation to end their own lives. Once a preacher, cult leader, manipulator or authority figure creates the brain phase to wipe the brain-slate clean, his subjects are wide open. New input, in the form of suggestion, can be substituted for their previous ideas. Because Edwards didn't turn his message positive until the end of the revival, many accepted the negative suggestions and acted, or desired to act, upon them. Charles J. Finney was another Christian revivalist who used the same techniques four years later in mass religious conversions in New York. The techniques are still being used today by Christian revivalists, cults, human-potential trainings, some business rallies, and the United States Armed Services . . . to name just a few. Let me point out here that I don't think most revivalist preachers realize or know they are using brainwashing techniques. Edwards simply stumbled upon a technique that really worked, and others copied it and have continued to copy it for over two hundred years. And the more sophisticated our knowledge and technology become, the more effective the conversion. I feel strongly that this is one of the major reasons for the increasing rise in Christian fundamentalism, especially the televised variety, while most of the orthodox religions are declining.
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