A three-part series whose title speaks for itself. The subject is the dark (and crazy) side of US military intelligence.
Part 1, “The Men Who Stare At Goats”:
Psychic powers are one thing (hey, I’m a Witch–and also a pretty good astrologer, Tarot reader and healer), but the military use of them is what’s truly gaga here. These powers don’t work that way!
Part 2, “Funny Torture”:
This episode links “The Men Who Stare At Goats” to the horrors committed by US military interrogators at Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi torture sites. Specifically, the psy-ops. Repetitive, “hooky” songs were the most likely to be used abusively; they didn’t even have to be nasty, heavy-metal or acid-rock type stuff. The composer of the “Sesame Street” song was appalled to learn that his own compositions were being played repeatedly as a form of torture. Who knew that children’s TV music could be used to break down the minds of prisoners?
I can well believe that Avril Lavigne would be used as torture. Nothing like a lethal dose of aural bubblegum to crack a human brain. But New Age music? The stuff of world peace? Why would the US military be interested in that? And who in the military would seek out that, of all things, as a potential weapon?
The Men Who Stare At Goats, that’s who.
Part 3, “Psychic Foot Soldiers”:
How many brains has the US military burned out over the years? It supposedly stopped doing so in 1995. Now the military’s psychic spies have gone into the private sector. Oh great, psychic fucking MERCENARIES! Just what the world needs. These are the psychic equivalent of Economic Hit Men–they are not officially in the government’s employ, only indirectly, under the aegis of the “War on Terror”. Then, Plausible Deniability will finally be complete. There will be no accountability whatsoever for this brand of mental abuse. It will simply happen, and no one will be called on the carpet for it. And if anyone tries to question a psychi-spook, the spook will vanish without warning. Or maybe turn up mysteriously dead, having “fallen or jumped out of a window”. And the public will buy the story that this person was simply insane.
Bent spoons, anyone?
Well, looks like old Terfler and I were ahead of our time afterall.
We spent our time on a compass course at Fort Knox in 1970 staring at and talking to a tiny pine sapling just making its way out of the ground and smoking some pot.
When we realized we’d been there for a long time we hopped up and ran through the course.
We missed the first point. Not being able to find the marker was what occasioned us taking a seat to consider the situation. The sapling just happened to be on the ground between the two of us.
But the weird part of the story is, that even though we missed the first marker, and therefore were unable to retrieve the directions on how to make it to the next waypoint, we did make it to the second waypoint, and every other point that was set on our pre-determined list of sites to visit.
And when we reached the end of the course, we were the second two-man team to finish out of 30 or so teams in our platoon.
Earth First –
Hoo – ha!
Heh…so much for pot being a performance-impairing drug. Did you see this:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_driving.shtml
Seems that you’re better off driving stoned than drunk (not that I recommend either).
Even funnier is the video I once saw in which a test driver on a closed course smoked a spliff, then got behind the wheel. He actually did better on pot than sober, although he was afraid of doing worse. That ol’ pot-paranoia actually improved his performance by making him extra cautious.
Gee, maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched for the IOC to strip Ross Rebagliati of his snowboarding gold for testing positive for pot, after all. Maybe it IS a performance-enhancing substance! At the time, I thought the controversy was dumb, but maybe the traces of pot in his system did give him an edge. LOL.
Just read the basic info listed at the link. Interesting food for thought.
I believe what pot does is change one’s perspective by altering the sensed relationship between consciousness (mental) and one’s body (physical). The psychoactive properties of pot temporarily alters brain chemistry, and therefore alters the normal pathways that are active/sensed in given situations. Hence the awareness that it’s best to drive a little slower.
And I guess there’s the person’s basic physiological reaction to the drug. What creates hyperactive brain activity in one person that might seem like increased acuity may cause another person to becomsy drowsy.
I just watched the second part of the series. I thought the interview segment right at the end with Col. Channon was really interesting. For a moment there was the picture from his field manual with the soldier carrying the lamb, and Channon was going on about using music to calm the enemy and shorten the war. And then I flashed back to a statement made by the other Col. when he described how someone had told him he had to check out that manual when it first came out.
I can picture these lifers sitting around cracking sarcastic jokes about going into a hot landing zone carrying a lamb. To many of those viewing Channon’s manual it would have appeared that Channon had talked his way into a cushy assignment for a time and came up with the idea of the Earth Batallion just to satisfy the upper brass that he’d done something, when in fact they understood the manual to be parody; they felt like they were laughing with Channon at the inside joke he was making about the profession of serving as a warrior.
Whatever Channon’s motivations may have been, he stated that his task had been successful, because it prompted people to think out of the box. And it appears he has no trouble with whatever role he may have had in opening a Pandora’s Box of inhumanity in the psyche of his fellow officers.
Now that you mention it, there are a LOT of anomalous details in there about Channon. For starters: How does a Vietnam vet end up so prosperous that he can live in Hawaii–as a kind of pseudo-guru of vaguely New Age-y concepts, no less? Remember, too, how many other vets are homeless and ridden with PTSD, whereas he is obviously fine and dandy? What stake do you suppose the government has in keeping this guy around in such style? (And, now that he’s been “outed”–how long do you suppose he’ll last before he “suicides” by leaping out a window on LSD?)
He does seem awfully nice at first, and I admit I liked him–until I got a good look into his eyes and saw something there that reminded me of the last time I was directly eye-to-eye with a real, live sociopath. (Who was also initially very likable, BTW.)
And yeah, the fact that peaceful concepts such as those taught at Esalen have been put to such use, is reprehensible. I sure wouldn’t want to be in the line of fire when the Lords of Karma decide to call James Channon (and anyone else who has engaged in psychic abuse) up on the carpet.