Chiling Similarities to Cults - the five Ds

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Cult Message
Converting new members has little to do with the content of a cult's teaching and everything to do with control of information to silence critical thinking, experts say. Margaret Singer speaks of "the five D's" -- deceit, dependency, debilitation, dread and desensitization -- by which cult members are recruited and transformed. "It's a step-at-a-time seduction, so the person hardly notices they are being changed," says Singer, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. According to Singer, the recruitment ... almost certainly began with "the first D" -- deceit.
...
As part of the indoctrination, cults try to isolate prospects from family and friends who might give alternative opinions. Simple techniques such as sleep deprivation, or psychological or even physical abuse, help reduce resistance to the cult message. Presented often as "consciousness raising," an opposite process actually occurs. The gradual constriction of thoughts and awareness begins to create a cult personality, paving the way for the second and third "D's" -- dependence and debilitation.

The new member hears and sees only what the cult leaders approve. Communication with the outside is cut off. To reinforce the member's group identity, a new name and distinctive clothing may be provided. The fourth "D" -- dread -- comes from fear of the cosmic punishment that members think they would suffer if they offended the cult's leaders. To avoid saying something that might get them punished, members learn not to think thoughts that might slip out as words. "You get the person into a mind frame where they don't know whether they're going to be hugged or slapped," says Ron Burks, an Ohio cult therapist. "You move them gradually to the point where they lose their basic self-esteem. Good-cop bad-cop routine."
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Desensitization -- the fifth "D" -- grows naturally out of an us-against-them attitude. By accepting that the cult is good and the rest of the world is evil, cult members have no guilt about their actions.

The Oregonian, Nov 9, 2001

The subject: the similarity of cult indoctrination to - in the article - al Qaeda techniques. But I think you could substitute Bush and the right wing media for al Qaeda quite easily ...

http://www.rickross.com/reference/alqaeda/alqaeda25.html

[Homer12]

1. Republicans do it well dont they?