Gosh, I am actually going to do a post on the Mahablog, and of course, I am using the same name I use when I do my frequent comments. I love Maha’s site, so I hope my posting a topic will be an alright addition. As far as I’m concerned, few can ever live up to Maha’s abilities, so I won’t even try that. Well, here goes, and remember what Maha said, ‘be nice.”

Shortly after 9/11, I asked the question: “How could Osama Bin Laden persuade followers to do such atrocities?”

I found an answer to that question in the book entitled ‘ War and Anti-War’ written in 1993 by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. On pages 167-168, the Tofflers discuss what they call ‘ Six Wrenches That Twist The Mind’. Here’s my brief paraphrased list of these wrenches, i.e., the tools used by smart ‘war’ propagandists:
1] feed your followers a steady diet of ‘atrocity stories’
2] inflate the stakes ['everything you hold dear is at risk]
3] demonize and/or dehumanize the opponent
4] polarize [you are either with us or against us]
5] claim divine sanction [God is on our side]
6] meta-propagandize by discrediting anything and everything coming from the other side

Whew, I think we all know, after 9/11, just how powerful these six wrenches can be in twisting minds!