INXS could never have imagined their song’s title might become applicable to a frightening and growing movement.
If it can happen to a woman from a Northern European country, no reason to think it can’t happen in the US. What’s in the human makeup that allows someone to be brainwashed to the point of doing something like this? Is there a way to be made brainwash proof? If there ever is, it would never be used because then we couldn’t be brainwashed into buying crap we don’t need or vote incompetents into office.
Making of Muriel the Suicide Bomber
On the quiet streets of Charleroi, a bleak industrial city in southern Belgium, residents are in a state of shock. Muriel Degauque, a pretty blonde 38-year-old brought up in a modest redbrick house in the shadows of the coal tip, had become the first European female suicide bomber. Her parents, a crane driver and hospital secretary, had known nothing of her violent mission.
On November 9 Degauque detonated explosives she had strapped to her body in an attempt to wipe out a convoy of American soldiers north of Baghdad.
…residents of the social housing complex where Muriel spent her formative years struggled to understand how the little girl who had played with their children had chosen to end her life so brutally in the name of jihad.
Where is Bush mentioned?????
Geez, talk about reading into things. Or do you ALWAYS equate the simple word incompetent with Bush? Why?
And the battle cry of the neocon fools and cowards is “Bush is our god!!!”
Who do you worship Paul?
Paul Theodoropoulos, you’re right. No one was brainwashed into voting for him. He simply stole the election. That’s much simpler.
Amazing how after all this time you lefties are still whining. The story is about a woman in Belgium. Yet somehow Dvorak finds a way to tie in his tired, repetiitive rants on Dubya.
Sour grapes… Boo hoo…
Rob D, how in the heck did John tie this article to W?! John was the one who asked “Where is Bush mentioned”!
What’s amazing is how polarization can turn usually coherent individuals into slavering dogs of the party line. Just looking at these posts that have nothing to do with the subject proves my point quite well.
Here’s one for Mad Magazine:
You know your country is in deep shit when:
1. Somebody mentions “incompetent” and your first thought is that someone is attacking your President.
2. Somebody mentions “brainwash” and your first thought is that someone is maligning your government.
3. Somebody mentions “torture” and your first thought is: what did the Army do this time?
4. You hear an expose that Bush was planning to bomb an anti-US network and your first reaction was to blame the media for not giving your President a break.
Paul, what you fail to NOTICE is that not all people who don’t like Bush, and who attacking…are not Democrats. In fact, the majority of the more vocal are REPUBLICANS.
Figure it out, dude, Bush is an ass, and the Republican party has been taken over by boobs (and they’re bigger than double-D’s)
Paul,
I think the idea that someone is brainwashed depends not on whether they agree with me but on whether they are willing or able to agree with the facts and evidence even if they don’t like it. Thus, I wouldn’t say the Bush voters were brainwashed … just shortsighted ignorant single-issue minded fools. Of course, it’s fair to say that everyone can make a mistake but the second term confirmed this diagnosis for many voters. This is probably the first election where you can give more intellectual credit to the non-voters than to the ones who made an effort to support this now historical embarrassment of a President.
BTW, have you noticed how many people feel they are Presidential material for the next election now that Bush has lowered the bar so dramatically?
But they “both sides ” only run “incompetent” people. this may be why half do not vote. they refuse to vote for the incompetent candidate.
Can you imagine what social services in the US would do if a parent strapped plastic made explosives to his 8 year old daughter to teach her that suicide bombing was an act to strive to? The picture you show is what the Palestinian parents do all the time, in the streets and on their televisions. That is mass brainwashing!
Wow. If the liberals get anymore illogical we’ll have to take away their right to influence national elections.
Wait, already did that. Nevermind.
James Hill,
Your just like my brother-in-law. The right takes away pentions, gives the rich millions back as “tax” breaks and then turns around and sends the lower and middle ecconomic classes to fight a useless war, and still he bends over for the neocons.
BTW if you’re so anti-liberal, are you going to give up intrest deductions, work place safety, Medicare, Medicad, Social Security, Pension Security, Fair wage laws and the like?
Well, I suppose people are getting a little touchy. I don’t think much of the political pov on this site but I didn’t take the brainwashing comment personally. How can one even equate buying products and voting to strapping on explosives to die while murdering others? But hell, I’m over 50 and I’ve lived in California most of my life and after watching the antics of the Manson family and the Symbionese Liberation Army , I know that there are some women whose radar just fixes on evil, wacko guys and there isn’t much more to it than that. As Instapundit asked, with reference to this woman, about the insurgency: “are we now in the Symbionese Liberation Army phase? ” When motorcycles and tattoos won’t do the job, how about Islamic Jihad? Now there’s a way to get the juices going.
Paul,
2. Not off limits, just not as important as the article. Why do you say my comments aren’t related to the article which is about how a seemingly “normal” woman was brainwashed into becoming a killer? I suggested that it could happen here and ways we are brainwashed. Only the last four words were related to politics into which you read what you wanted.
3,4. I have read quite a bit of history. You’re right, there have been a more than a few less than the best presidents. What makes him the worst is that at a time when there are people making real threats to and the technology exists to wipe us out, we have a president who seems (based on his actions) to not understand any subtlies of any issue. This is too limited a space to detail everything, so I’ll just say that I look at his actions and beliefs and place them against what this country is up against at this time. Grandios, neocon imperialism which is creating enemies rather than partners. And, even if the neocon vision were the right path, it’s being implimented incompetently, making everything worse. And that’s just on foreign policy! The man who considers Harriet Meyers and Mike Brown to be the best available for their critical jobs is not a man I trust.
I voted against Bush, not for Kerry.
5. Translation: Discussing my editorializing and your reaction to it is less important, but easier to talk about, than the implications of the article. I wish there were more comments on the article.
Wow. This is my first time breezing by this site. I have never seen such a group of paranoid, oversensitive freaks in my life. That could be because I don’t frequent extreme left of extreme right websites very often.
boo hoo… Someone is picking on Bush… boo hoo…
Holy crap… Why is this country so full of oversensitive twits? The editorial was just stating there is no reason it couldn’t happen in the U.S., and the obvious relation marketing and politics have with brainwashing. Since the actual person in the article to be brainwashed, was brainwashed due to political reasons, there was no need to state the obvious brainwashing religion brings to the table. Bush wasn’t mentioned in the article, at all.
People, grow up. Nobody cares, and Bush probably cares least of all. If he doesn’t care, why do you? Get over it.
I didn’t vote for Kerry, I voted against a religion based government. Oh, and I still didn’t vote for Kerry.