FOR MY NEXT TRICK I’LL NEED A VOLUNTEER
Nov. 26th, 2009 12:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogThe film version of Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats hasn’t arrived in Hong Kong yet, but I just recently finished the book, which I highly recommend. It is so jaw-droppingly weird that it’s hard to know how much of it is for real, and how much is simply the recollections of people who believe it’s real.
Of course, those of us who have been paying attention already know that some of it – like the First Earth Battalion, the MK-ULTRA experiments, loud continuous music asentertainment performance art enhanced interrogation torture – is very true.
Now more evidence of the CIA’s interest in out-of-the-box ideas has apparently surfaced: a CIA manual written by magician John Mulholland on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft.
It’s now available on Amazon.com.
Which is very tempting. But the conspiracy theory hobbyist in me can’t help looking at this and wonder if all of this is misdirection in and of itself.
One of the points made in The Men Who Stare At Goats is that whoever spins the story first dictates the narrative, which is why in the long run we look at stories like MK-ULTRA and goat-staring and playing the Barney “I Love You” song to Iraqi prisoners in shipping containers, and we laugh when perhaps maybe we shouldn’t. Is “The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception” the latest example of that tradition?
Maybe. Maybe not. It’s hard to know for sure. Which is the point, really.
Which is why the other thing I can’t help thinking, of course, is this:
If this is what we’re just now learning about what the CIA was doing 50 years ago, what fun things will we be learning 50 years from now about what the US govt has done in Iraq, Iran, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and even on its own home turf in the name of keeping Americans safe from Teh Terrorz?
And will we still be laughing then?
Or am I ruining it?
Oh well. Never mind. I’m still probably going to buy me a copy. And yeah, I’ll probably check out the film too.
Nothing up my sleeve,
This is dF
Of course, those of us who have been paying attention already know that some of it – like the First Earth Battalion, the MK-ULTRA experiments, loud continuous music as
Now more evidence of the CIA’s interest in out-of-the-box ideas has apparently surfaced: a CIA manual written by magician John Mulholland on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft.
It’s now available on Amazon.com.
Which is very tempting. But the conspiracy theory hobbyist in me can’t help looking at this and wonder if all of this is misdirection in and of itself.
One of the points made in The Men Who Stare At Goats is that whoever spins the story first dictates the narrative, which is why in the long run we look at stories like MK-ULTRA and goat-staring and playing the Barney “I Love You” song to Iraqi prisoners in shipping containers, and we laugh when perhaps maybe we shouldn’t. Is “The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception” the latest example of that tradition?
Maybe. Maybe not. It’s hard to know for sure. Which is the point, really.
Which is why the other thing I can’t help thinking, of course, is this:
If this is what we’re just now learning about what the CIA was doing 50 years ago, what fun things will we be learning 50 years from now about what the US govt has done in Iraq, Iran, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and even on its own home turf in the name of keeping Americans safe from Teh Terrorz?
And will we still be laughing then?
Or am I ruining it?
Oh well. Never mind. I’m still probably going to buy me a copy. And yeah, I’ll probably check out the film too.
Nothing up my sleeve,
This is dF
