Mind Laundry
I have a nice framed picture taken that shows the Beatles in a Florida gym with a young man named Cassius Clay, who was training to challenge Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title. This picture was autographed by Muhammad Ali. Few people could imagine, at the time, what was to come. What I find interesting is the response of a number of rigid, right-wing people from that era.
On February 25, 1964, Cassius shocked the world by TKOing Liston. The next day, he told the press that he had joined the Nation of Islam, and taken the name Cassius X. About a week later, due to an internal struggle in the NOI, he was given the named Muhammad Ali by the NOI's leader. In response, the "experts" opined that the "Black Muslims" had "brainwashed" the young champion. This was when I first became aware of the concept.
Earlier in the month, the Beatles had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Like millions of other kids across the country, my siblings and I were watching. The older generation largely viewed them as a fad that would soon fade. While the group would evolve, they didn't vanish quicker than you could say "Bay City Rollers." And thus, the christian right-wing leaders determined the group was a Soviet-controlled plot to brainwash American youth.
Being young, I relied on my older brothers to explain the concept of "brainwashing" to me, so that I could understand the hatred directed at Ali. They explained that Ali had been taught by Malcolm X, a man both brothers considered to be a a good and important figure. And that "brainwashing" was something the Chinese and North Korean did to American POWs in war.
Now, I loved Ali and the Beatles. I was convinced they hadn't brainwashed me, because I've always had a dirty mind. As a response to Watergate, there were investigations that documented how US intelligence had tried to master the process of brainwashing, though without good results. As a young adult, I would sample some of the substances that were used in brainwashing experiments, but to no avail -- I still have a filthy mind. But, in the words of Randle McMurphy, "At least I tried."
I came to suspect that people could not be "brainwashed" until I witnessed the rise in influence of groups such as the Moral Majority," which was neither. Yet the growth in technology, which allowed a vulnerable television audience to join these cults, got me to reconsider. I knew that the evil guru Charles Manson was said to have brainwashed his followers, by isolating and drugging them, and that the media had described thm as "hypnotized zombies." Were groups like the Moral Majority be a prelude to something far worse? Might an evil guru exploit advances in technology to create an army of hypnotized zombies?
Watching some of the Trump supporters on the news in the last week, I found the answer.
= new reply since forum marked as read
A more select clientele, AKA putting the victim under the hoods.
Like the Monty Python sketch where a writer comes up with funniest joke ever written and everyone who sees it dies laughing, the “money trumps peace” crowd has weaponized words. That’s why they demonize the Other. That’s why they hate themselves.
Frantz Fanon understood the importance of words, ideas, and expression — and the limitations there on — on who we think we are, what we can talk about and how we create our future.
“At first glance it seems strange that the attitude of the anti-Semite can be equated with that of the negrophobe. It was my philosophy teacher from the Antilles who reminded me one day: “When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you.” And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe.”
― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Those without ideas are not only disadvantaged. Fanon saw that 60 years ago. Today those who don’t think don’t even know they’re on the menu.
