It's not exactly brainwashed, but effectively the same. It's more of a cognitive dissonance, whereby they hold a very rigid, authoritarian world view -- as George lakoff describes, which begins in the family setting with 'strict father' (or strict mother!) who is always right, and one is conditioned to obey and not question. In my family, as with many strict families, when the child asks "But WHY? Why should I be punished for that?", the answer that's swatted back is "Because I said so, that's why! Now go to your room until I tell you you can come out!" ... (This of course in contrast to more open-style parenting models, whereby the parent actually tries to explain to the child why, in a way the child actually understands, and can process and maybe even learn a valuable lesson.

The operating rules get burned into the neurology, and this is now the default trajectory in life, unless one encounters a significant interrupter which causes a complete breakdown of those opearting rules, enabling a new one to emerge. (This is what happened to me in college, with various hairline cracks along the way)

But left unchallenged, the self-preservation instinct governs, and thus anything presented that is in conflict with the world view is shut out. It MUST be shut out, or else there is a chance it will CRACK the fortification that allows no other counter-view in.

This is also connected to and indicative of the lower-brain functionality of the reptillian brain -- one of the oldest parts of your brain in evolution (What?! Evolution?!! God wash your mouth out with soap!)... Reptillian brain filters very simply, for threats, and then governs responses in 2 categories, fight or flight. As we all know, the brain then stimulates production of adrenalin, which flows to the area of the body that needs incredible burts of strength, to ward off the threat, if the brain says "FIGHT"... and if the brain says FLIGHT, then it delivers that adrenalin to the needed body parts to RUN -- thrusting power into the muscles etc.

The GOP has done a tremendous amount of resrarch on all of this, in the decades of think tank funding to understand all facets of comunications and influence-messaging.

It isn't just an instinct that they follow in engaging FEAR in the population. It's a explicit strategy... and we see it all the time. But the physiology behind it is generally not seen or known. That is: When the brain is in near constant states of adrenalin flow, the brain CANNOT engage in more thoughtful examination. This is why the more developed side of our brain, the mammalian brain, is more activated in progressive minded independent people vs in right wing authoritarians.

Two factors contribute: (1) The heightened flow of adrenaline is designed to power down areas of the brain and body functions, so as to enable the boosted delivery of pwer to the ares under threat. So, the really dark GOP communication strategists KNOW that by keeping people in an aroused state of fear, it prevents them from thinking. This is good when you don't want someone thinking, because they might just pierce the veil you are so elaborately setting up to cloak their understanding of "reality".

At the same time, just like any muscle, when you don't use certain muscles, they atrophy from lack of use. And it takes practice to build it back up again.

This partially explains why the GOP authoritarian die-hards don't "use their brains!!!" in the way we expect them to.

All of this is by design at the Rove/Cheney/Karen Hughes level. At the Bush/TonySNow/Hannity/Oreilly/Rush level, it's just recipes for how they need to behave and talk to the masses. They have n o idea the underlying mechanics of all of this stuff. Nor should they NEED to know.

It works regardless if they understand it or not.

Thus, in the end, the authoritarian world view is generally maintained, due to intense fortification throigh calcification growing up, conditioned to operate from that world view.

And so when there are pieces of information which WE view as "slam dunk" -- incontrovertible -- like -- obvious video footage of Bush saying on TV "There is no connection between Saddam and 9/11", even though we believe that should obviosuly break open that myth and put it to rest, it doesn't necessarily. And that's where the cognitice dissonance comes in... which Stephen Colbert physically performs for us when he plugs his ears and shouts out "la la la la la la la la la la la la la"... He's blocking out all that sensory data so that it doesn't have a chance to crack the fortification.

Because their reptillian brains, at milliseconds speed, detect when "stuff that make sense" is coming to threaten their world view. And they sense it... And when they can't fight it -- with Hannity-fed bullshit talking points, they have no choice but flight -- and that is the sensation of plugging the ears and shouting non-sensically so as to distract their own brains from encountering the data. Because the data is a threat. And the adrenalin flow is, in this case, sending blockers to ensure those ideas are not processed. The self-preservation instinct KNOWS that IF the "makes sense" stuff gets through? Then that's it, it will crack open the obsolete world view and that's likely to explode it completely.

So out of self-preservation, they prevent that data from being processed.

And even when we think "Jeeez, Lousie! Have you ever considered that maybe you would be BETTER OFF with a new world view , or better off knowing the truthe of the situation, vs a subservient unquestioning believer? have you??"

The answer is: way underneath, operating at the most basic level of the brain, "I'm Scared!"... "I can't afford to take the risk and find out. I must be strong and fight because otjherwise I might be forced to acknowledge that I was wrong about 1001 things. And if I admit I was wrong, I will not be able to function. I would sooner explode than admit I was wrong and you were right. Only weak people do that! And I must, at all times, tell myself I am strong."

Does that sound like Bush?

Well it is.

He's as conditioned as the GOP base is. Which is why he plays his role to the bitter end. At the edn of the day, he's too scared to contemplate what would happen if he were to admit he was wrong. So he doesn't.

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Sorry for the long winded answer. The problem is the progressive left is very unscchooled in all of this, which is why Lakoff understands that the Right has had a 40 year advantage... And they've refined their understandings and their processes and their execution of messaging -- which is why they can still kick our asses, even when we have the data -- AND THE ABSOLUTE DIRECT VIDEO -- on our side.

Okay... I guess I'll just cave :) Yes, brainwashing. But that was the longer version that decodes how and why it happens.

Yeah, I think that makes sense Quicksite. While a person's own words may condemn them, sometimes people need things explained in the absolute most crystal clear ways to drive the point home. But I also think that even with that added narration, true die hards won't get the picture. They're akin to the brainwashed, and it's tragic.

I so love juxtaposition of before/after video, WITHOUT COMMENT. I've always found it very potent -- to remove the middle man in conveying opinion about, for example, the disaster we see in the sequences compiled herein. ... Now, all of that said: I would love to see you, Josh, help make more sense of all of this stuff, even way way after the fact, as it is in this case, for people like my parents and brothers -- all well-educated, yet Bush-lovers to the end. When I zoom way out, and hold all of the knowledge I know in my head, both from real time back then during the runup, as well as all of the 100% corroborating pieces of evidence that have taken 4 years to come out, for general consumption by the public at large, I still see, even in this compilation, the dots not fully connected for those who continue to confuse the idea that Saddam was evil, yet had nothing to do with 9/11.

I suppose, in the end, there is nothing short of having a Receiving Line at the White House, and having 10 million Americans, or however many it may be, who despite all the clarifications, STILL believe Saddam was somehow connected with 9/11 (thanks to the orchestrated efforts of Hannity et al and the think tank strategists), funnel down the procession line, and have 30 seconds, each, face to face and one-on-one with Bush, telling them directly "I want you to know, despite all the confusion you've heard, Saddam Hussein had no role in at all, or any connection whatsoever, with the attacks of 9/11, do you understand that?..." in order to dispel the grand deception they carried out, with major players like Tenet and Powell breaking down all last barriers to public acceptance of the falsehood that enabled the pre-emptive attack on Iraq.

Still? I would love to see a 2nd version of this wonderful compilation... and at the appropriate points, freeze frame, and key-in with text "Right here, George Bush used information, allegedly from the CIA, to imply that Iraq was building up a nuclear capability, and that he'd be seeking to strike the U.S. with nuclear missiles, once the program was far enough along. THIS WAS A LIE... and we know that now because the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, is now telling us this."

(unfreeze the tape, show Tenet speaking on the current day Meet the Press, then freeze again). Show text: "Right here, this is where the then-Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, admitted that there was no such evidence of this kind at all, and that he nevertheless approved that language being used in that speech given by President Bush, in order to rally American citizen support for the idea of going after Saddam, despite the fact that bin Laden was still on the run --AND despite the fact that they all knew Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and had no nuclear weapons program.

I would love to be able to send a clip compilation like THAT to my family, and have it play "quote without comment". No discussion. Just available and unassailable.

Anyone who may be reading this: Does this make sense?