I see no one has mentioned so far in this thread that the term "brainwashing" originated in Chinese ( 洗腦 in the original language), and originated as an internal practice in China after seizure of power in China by the Communist Party of China.
I'll paste in here part of the history of the term from Chinese Wikipedia, which has some interesting differences from the parallel article in English Wikipedia:
If you actually want to have a discussion of those differences then you're going to need to point them out yourself instead of dumping a homework assignment in everyone's lap since:
1) I don't read Chinese, and I doubt I'm alone here when it comes to that
2) Google translate is far from perfect, and unless the differences are clear to someone who merely gets the gist of the Chinese article they probably won't come across
It's amazing how easily one can translate something these days instead of complain about having to read Chinese (http://translate.google.com/):
People [edit] The People's Republic of China since the founding of the ruling Communist Party of China, early through art, propaganda's "no new China without the Communist Party," "stability overrides everything" and other slogans, considered by some to be "brainwashed" behavior. Chinese Communist Party controls the media, civil society without freedom of opinion, but also through education, partial rendering methods such as modern history "positive ideological propaganda" has also been considered to be brainwashed behavior. Some have commented that the PRC during the Cultural Revolution massive and continuous education communist propaganda campaign, obviously brainwashing behavior; when opponents of the CPC will be treated as people designated as "class enemies," these people forcibly impose "Labour transformation "(labor camps)," thought reform ", power and violence, so that the whole community lost almost everyone free will to think independently. [12]
People's Republic of China Central Television, the official television media, is accused of playing the part of the existence of "brainwashing" refers to a Chinese young scholars CCTV braids play through indoctrination autocracy, to create personality I was poisoned the atmosphere of freedom and democracy to China, there brainwashing significance, and CCTV "News Network" selective "glossy", such as "propaganda network." [13] [14] However, the Chinese Communist Party and its supporters do not agree with these criticisms.
English "brainwash" means "brainwashed" by the Chinese "brainwashing" translated from the word; in the late 1950s along the Korean War, American soldiers were captured after the People's Liberation Army, day and night to accept the idea of transformation of the Chinese Communist Party, were rescued after back to the U.S., even speak good words to help the Chinese Communist Party, then the U.S. correspondent Edward Hunter to use the term to describe the matter brainwash.
All this does for me is raise the question: why, if it's so easy, wasn't the translation posted to begin with? Keep in mind that the user who dropped that untranslated brick on us has massive karma so that low-effort post is now parked at the top of the thread.
Getting a little too meta here but your original comment was only: "If you actually want to have a discussion of those differences then you're going to need to point them out yourself instead of dumping a homework assignment in everyone's lap" but then you changed it to indicate you didn't think a Google translation was good enough.
He probably didn't post a translation because he knows most of us can either use Google translate or can read Chinese. That doesn't bother me and it shouldn't bother you.
I posted the translation because I think some people (including myself) need help reading Chinese and because I don't see value in bitching about someone copying and pasting Chinese. It's not homework. It's just Chinese.
I don't know what you thought you read but I did not at any point edit the post you replied to. If that's what you're getting worked up over then you can calm down now because it was just a mistake and I'm not trying to manipulate the discussion to make you look bad.
I'll paste in here part of the history of the term from Chinese Wikipedia, which has some interesting differences from the parallel article in English Wikipedia:
中华人民共和国[编辑] 中華人民共和國執政黨中國共產黨成立以來，早期通過文藝、宣傳提出的「沒有共產黨就沒有新中國」、「穩定壓倒一切」等口號，被一些人認為是“洗腦”行為。中國共產黨操控媒體、民間沒有輿論自由，又透過教育，局部呈現現代歷史等方式進行“正面意識形態宣傳”也被認為屬於洗腦行為。有評論指，中华人民共和国文革時期大規模和連續的共產主義宣傳教育運動，明顯是洗腦行為；當時中共將視為反對者的人民劃定為「階級敵人」、將這些人強行施以「勞動改造」（勞改）、「思想改造」，強權和暴力使整個社會幾乎所有人都失去了獨立思考的自由意志。 [12]
中华人民共和国官方電視媒體中國中央電視台，被指責所播放的部分內容存在「洗腦」，有中國年輕學者指央視透過辮子戲灌輸皇權專制，打造奴才人格，是毒化了中國走向自由民主的氛圍，存在洗腦意義，而央視的《新聞聯播》選擇性「報喜不報憂」，像是「宣傳聯播」。 [13][14]但中國共產黨及其支持者並不認同這些批評。
英文「brainwash」意指「洗腦」，由中文「洗腦」一詞翻譯而來；沿於上世紀1950年代的韓戰，美國士兵被中国人民解放军俘虜之後，日夜接受中国共产党的思想改造，獲救之後回到美國，竟然幫中国共產黨講好話，於是美國記者Edward Hunter就用brainwash一詞來描述此事。[15][16]