I think there are two main side effects to brainwashing.
There's almost always some trauma. And it's almost entirely perceptual. I got stuck thinking about this last night for a long time. I didn't mean to be shocking, but I think I did shock the shit out of our gracious radio hosts last night when I said I was Sammie's oldcomer. I just thought that, w/ very limited time and another caller holding the line, that was the quickest, most efficient way to explain that I was in there and when. I just didn't want to spend the entire hour rehashing, again and again, that yes, it was indeed horrible and obscene and bizarre. I dearly want to try and move the public discussion from the freak show aspect of it on to the point of why in the hell that shoud matter to anybody.
But I think I missed the mark. And so I'll keep on slinging ideas at the wall and see if I can find either a clever turn of a phrase or two or a longer string of words that's engaging enough to hold someone's attention long enough to get the point accross.
So there's this perception of trauma. If you--who had not had 10 years of involvement w/ the Seed--got slammed to the floor and held down or wittnessed that happening to others, that was truely frightening and traumatic. I didn't see it that way. Not that I thought it was good or right or that whoever was on the bottom of the dogpile that day deserved it or anything. I just knew there was no prevailing against the insanity and that, eventually, we'd all get out. Bruises and broken bones heal. They really and truely did NOT want anybody dying on their shift. There was a limit to how far Staff would let things go. It was all theatre. There was no real danger. I believed it and it kept me sane, or so I thought.
So I wasn't really scared of any external threat. My sincere apologies to everyone I didn't 'see' getting hurt.
The other side of it is much more difficult to explain, even to ppl who were there. It's all about what the process compels us to do
to ourselves.
I can only remember about two moments in all the time I was in there when I was accutely and terrifyingly aware of this other side of the process.
One was when they stood up a girl who'd split for a couple of months. As they played out their predictable, Program scripted lines complete w/ tears and drama and all that, it became clear to me (I think to all of us) that they had forced this girl to have an abortion. That shocked me! Until that moment, I honestly thought that something like forced abortion was out of bounds; that staff would never dare go there, that if a girl turned up pregnant, it was an automatic ticket out. Like suicide, a permanent solution to a temporary problem (yeah, I had considered both).
As this horrifying reality dawned on me, I flashed back to just before my sister went into the Seed. And the pieces fell into place like some fucked up puzzle; the day in the hospital, the tears and all that. I think I split for the second time not long after that.
That was still about what
they could do to
us, though. Thick as a brick, maybe it was a survival tactic, but I
still didn't clue in on how
I was changing; not till Bobby R's marathon. Long story short, I got called on in a fairly typical come down rap and I delivered my lines as convincingly as I had to. I yelled at Bobby for being defiant because he kept swaying and making the kids who were marathoning him sort of prop him up while staring at the back of the wall. Not that I was actually mad at him or anything. Just that, well, that's what you had to do to get by. You had to put on a convincing act. Again, my apologies to anyone who took anything I said or did in there as sincere. I honestly thought we were mostly all on the same page and those who meant it, well, they were just pathetic and no concern of mine.
Next, Bobby's sister got called on. As soon as she started talking, Bobby's whole posture and demeanor changed. He got anxious and excited and... well, animated. He was searching w/ his eyes trying to find the source of his sister's voice
and he could not find it! Still makes me cry today, damn it! All in a moment, I realized that 1) this kid had had enough, he was broken, damaged, unaware of his surroundings, 2) that
it really didn't matter, they were not going to let up, he went back up the stairs w/ much "assistance" and the beating continued.
Then horrifying reality hit me like a boot to the head. I should break ranks, bolt for a phone (the office? no, out the door, over the fence and to the lumber yard next door) and call an abulance or his parents or any damned body before these crazy bastards killed Bobby. Was anybody else noticing? If I made a move, would it start a mass revolt or would they all just tackle me? I didn't know and, much to my shame, didn't have the guts to find out. Instead, I was relieved when Staff called for another song and it was just asif nothing had ever happened, except for one thing. I was fucking getting out of that place and away from those crazy people.
That's the real danger of therapeutic community or LGA style "therapy". It's fucking powerfully
effective! Not the least bit theraputic or conducive to community building. But it damned sure
works!
And it wasn't just a few of us, it didn't work on only the weak or sadistic or any such thing. It works pretty effectively on so many that the rare sane person who sees it happening and is not changed by it always comes off as the lunatic.
Inside those warehouses and foster homes, we got a potent, geared up, intense dose of something. But it works the same way in the general population. And most of us came to accept, for a time, behavior so far out of line w/ the rest of society that we have a hard time even convincing anyone that it happened. A lot of ppl have even remarked that, till they hooked up w/ other eye wittnesses, they weren't entirely sure themselves that it actually happened.
No social proof, no discussion, no one in sight acknowledging or even registering w/ facial expressions or other gestures that anything bad had happened. That's SO much more powerful than most people understand.
So that makes us different. Just that fact that, whether you ever sat yourself down with yourself and tried to figure it out, all of us have something in common w/ old Germans that most Americans can't fathom; even in the very moment when they're cheering on the ATF on live national TV fire bombing children in a weird little compound located closer to the bombastic Büsh kid's pretend ranch than the ranch is to the recenly incorporated 'town' of Crawford, Texas.
But is it really damage? Or is it education? Since I can't undo it, I just prefer to think of it as education. And I try to use what I've learned to sort of innoculate my kids against it and, for Christ's sake, to get the word out to as many others as will listen.
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
--Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor
_________________
Drug war POW
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82
