By the time I worked for an ex-(religious) cultist counseling and recovery ministry in the eighties, it was already well known that certain coercion techniques used on POWs during the Korean War and in Communist China were adapted and used on victims of religious cults. Most were psychological operations. “Brain washing” and “mind control” are two terms that became well known from this manner of breaking down and controlling people.   

This guest feature suggests how social scientist Alfred D. Biderman‘s list of the coercion techniques could be applied to the COVID-19 lockdowns. Biderman’s original chart, linked below, is also frequently used to help explain what happens in some domestic abuse settings. 

See what you think, and, as in everything, use critical thinking in our brave new world that in many respects, indeed, has left multitudes sensing and experiencing many or most of the elements of coercion described in the Biderman chart: isolated, perception-monopolized (propagandized), exhausted, threatened, powerless, degraded, and at the mercy of shifting demands over even trivial matters.

But of course there are also moments of “occasional indulgence” by the perpetrators. This technique is also known as “trauma bonding“.

When responding to such techniques in any circumstance, as always, the first step of resistance is knowledge.–PBN

“Lockdowns vs Albert Biderman’s chart of coercion” (excerpt)

Source: Lockdowns vs Albert Biderman’s chart of coercion (wickedtruths.org) accessed June 5, 2021

Lockdown (prison term) rules are a 1-on-1 match with Albert Biderman’s chart of coercion [backup]. Biderman’s chart has been in wide use in the military to break the spirit of war prisoners.

[NOTE: click here for Biderman’s original summary of his research that is cited in full at the end of this excerpt. I highly recommend reading the much more detailed ten-page summary particularly as concerns some very specific coercion techniques that are nearly transparently present in today’s political milieu. Biderman also includes information about those for whom the coercion techniques did not work. He writes, “Among the Air Force prisoners pressured for false confessions in North Korea and in Communist China, there are cases of simply incredible heroism, fortitude and attachment to principle in the face of particularly intensive Communist coercion” p.10–PBN]

When we strip away all the euphemisms around lockdowns, it boils down to government mandated torture of the population.

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