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How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

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Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#21
post #18
post #9

I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to potentially launch further attacks. Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".

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Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#22
post #13

Brainwashed? If that is brainwashing, then it seems like there's brainwashing everywhere you look. For example: - http://www.foxnews.com/ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbBfrKsVqY

It sounds more like de-brainwashing to me. If those soldiers go in with this perfect idea of America, how we can do no wrong, and how everything we do is justified, then turning that on its head seems more like...rational thinking.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#23

Corollary: sales techniques are often a form of brainwashing. I mean this seriously.

It's mental violence. You're exploiting human nature to impact their free will. Perhaps part of "being an adult" is shouldering the responsibility of propping up your own illusory free will, I can't say.

So is blind indocrination to "obey" (or be drugged) in grade school?

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#24
post #9

I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to potentially launch further attacks. Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".

Also did the communists do a bad job...

Compare West and East Germany. Compare North and South Korea. Compare Mainland China and Taiwan. And once you've done those comparisons ask yourself about what kind of job the communists have done. Many millions dead. Many more millions in poverty. That's the job they've done.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#25
post #22
post #13

Brainwashed? If that is brainwashing, then it seems like there's brainwashing everywhere you look. For example: - http://www.foxnews.com/ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbBfrKsVqY

It sounds more like de-brainwashing to me. If those soldiers go in with this perfect idea of America, how we can do no wrong, and how everything we do is justified, then turning that on its head seems more like...rational thinking.

If an opinion is being slowly but inexorably pushed on you from all sides by your captor over a long period of time, as part of an explicitly designed program of of propagandizing, it's brainwashing, regardless of the opinion's merit!

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#26
post #9

I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to potentially launch further attacks. Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".

America was in almost no way the aggressor.

North Korea Invades South Korea on June 25th 1950. The UN, for probably the first,last, and only time, takes military action (at American behest and because the Russian's were boycotting the UN) led by a US General and primarily American troops. This force and the South Korean Army repel the North Koreans and drive into North Korea (which was suppose to hold open elections but didn't as part of unification), the Chinese enter the way as the UN forces approached (but did not cross) the Chinese boarder.

EDIT: This is not to say that the UN forces crossing the 38th Parallel was the best idea or that they were not happy to occupy North Korea or that they didn't have ambitions to do so from the outset , but aggressor is really a misleading term when they did not fire the first shot.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#27
post #9

I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to potentially launch further attacks. Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".

Let me give you a tl;dr: the North Koreans started it by rolling over into South Korea, McAuthur went too close to the Yalu in the counter attack, Chinese entered the war, Truman fires McAuthur. Stalement ensues, borders preserved, Kim Jong Un has ex-girlfriend executed. The communists of the 50s were busy starving their own people in great leaps forwards, in the 60s they innovated on that with a cultural revolution;…

I love the rationalization people have to use to explain China's economic success. If what Deng brought was capitalism, then Obama is an anarcho-libertarian.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#28

If an American POW comes back to the US and says the US was the aggressor in the Korean War, he does not have an opinion, he has been "brainwashed". What kind of mental gymnastics do I have to perform to think this way. It's about a step removed from saying someone who denies Jesus Is Lord has been possessed by a demon. Or the same thing really.

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Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#29
post #9

I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to potentially launch further attacks. Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".

Also did the communists do a bad job... Compare West and East Germany. Compare North and South Korea. Compare Mainland China and Taiwan. And once you've done those comparisons ask yourself about what kind of job the communists have done. Many millions dead. Many more millions in poverty. That's the job they've done.

What about comparing mainland and Taiwan? I don't think there exists an obvious conclusion from this comparison if you look at status quo. If you are judging based on the situation before 2000s, I agree with you that there is an obvious conclusion.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#30
post #13

Brainwashed? If that is brainwashing, then it seems like there's brainwashing everywhere you look. For example: - http://www.foxnews.com/ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbBfrKsVqY

There's no such thing as brainwashing. It was a piece of propaganda to use against the Communists during the Korean War, and the fantasy of a bunch of shadowy government agencies that only seem to be able to poison a bunch of people or get them high during brainwashing experiments.
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