BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)

Subject: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:08 AM

Just listened to something disturbing on ABC RN, Books & Radio, audio on demand for 4 weeks after the event available, transcript to come.

First Earth Battalion, Black Ops and PsyOps, Non-Lethal Weapons (Sticky Foam, Taser Guns, Bees attacking the troops sprayed with pheromones, Muhammad Hologram over Baghdad..., playing the Barney song to Arab combatants in Iraq, walking thru walls), ... High Weirdness in the US Military similar to 1960 B Grade Movies & Dr Who...

Sometimes crazy people are not to be found only on the outside, but the inside. People are basically nutty.

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This page will self destruct after a while.... no ... seriously they change it on a regular basis...

Jon Ronson and The Men Who Stare At Goats

On Books & Writing this week, tales from the weirdest possible corners of the American military, in Jon Ronson's new book The Men Who Stare At Goats.

Two years ago, English author and journalist Jon Ronson published Them: Adventures With Extremists, a tour of some of the most 'out-there' political (including the Bushes), religious and para-military groups on the world's fringes. It was full of conspiracies and bizarre people, it proved the 'truth is stranger than fiction' maxim and it was impossible to imagine stories getting any more odd.

In his latest book, The Men Who Stare At Goats, Jon Ronson shows that there is no limit to the world's weirdnesses. This time the bizarre folk don't live on the fringes, but reside in the US military. These are tales of anxiety in the Pentagon post-Vietnam. They describe a military machine that had lost its way but is now turning to mysticism and the paranormal to find a new path. It's a tale of soldiers who passionately want to walk through walls, who use songs by Barney The Purple Dinosaur to break the will of prisoners and who think they can kill goats, simply by staring at them.

Publications:
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Author: Jon Ronson
Publisher: Picador, 2004
ISBN 0-330-43526-4   

Them: Adventures With Extremists
Author: Jon Ronson
Publisher: Picador, 2002
ISBN 0-330-37546-6   

Further information:
Jon Ronson

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And some people wonder why non-USA citizens get a bit worried from time to time...

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:14 AM

BTW, I'm not making this up you know....

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Peace
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:16 AM

Yeah, and? Something strange about that IYO?

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:19 AM

Canadian, are you Brucie? Well I live about as far away as you can get on this earth from them.... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Peace
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:23 AM

I was quite relieved to see it wasn't about Canucks or Scots. Whew. Figured it had to be us or Aussies. What a surprise.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: mack/misophist
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:30 AM

I've never known any goats socially. People tell me, though, that if you stare at them, they butt you in the head. Seems self limiting.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:32 AM

where is Esmerelda? off kicking butt?

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:33 AM

not that i have anything against a man who stares at goats, there's room for all sorts.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:05 AM

This has been seen on television in a three part series on Channel 4 in the UK. It's all very weird and half-assed, as one would expect from the military.

None of this is new. The idea of subliminal suggestions, which is only one the them many ways they've tried to mess with the mind, has been used in advertising since the 30s. If you've never read Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders" now may be the time. He was a visionary on the subject.

But back to the poor goats...on the show they had the man who was supposedly the one who could perform this rather nasty piece of work, and on camera, he did his best to make a couple of hamsters (these were his PETS mind you) so uncomfortable that they first wanted to do anything to get out of the cage, and then, so it seemed, and so he insisted, one of them died.

Goats and hamsters. I can think of a certain ape-like fella in Washington it might be time to try this on. He far more deserves this kind of treatment than the poor critters do.

..xx..e

PS-Not really. I'm a pacifist, so even Mr B is on my "Do not break unless in an emergency" list.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:19 AM

Yes, Jon Ronson says it seems to have been created by people who as kids were inspired by 1960's B grade SF movies... :-)

I like the General who kept trying to walk thru walls - he believed that since matter is just tiny atoms with LOTS of empty space between them, if you can just concentrate hard enough...... I was a kid once too...

But billions of dollars of the US "Black Ops" program has been spent on this - and supposedly the US soldiers in Iraq are carrying secret little bits of arcane plastic that can cause extreme pain and projected fear...

Oh Hello Nurse Ratched! Time for my little blue pill again is it?

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:22 AM

forget staring at them...

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:24 AM

i heard about this on BBC Radio 4, there was an american army captain who was convinced he could walk through walls, he obviously couldn't], he made several unsucsesful attemtps at walking through his office wall, but just ended up breaking his nose.

In the UK we put people like that in special hospitals, in the USA the give them a high ranking job in the army, no wonder the world is in such a fucking mess.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:36 AM

While staring at goats etc may be funny, governments that fund this stuff cross a line.. This military/psychic stuff is reminiscent of the Nazi's interest in the supernatural (the swastika being an ancient Hindu symbol). and what fantasy does it fulfil in government/military leaders who want to become supernaturally powerful?

here is an axcerpt from Ronson's book..

training super soldiers with psychic powers

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:52 AM

here's some more..

Psychic Soldier Writes Book About Psy-Ops Warfare

Air Force explores psychic teleportation

nazi mysticism

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 02:20 AM

and here's what wikipedia says about George W's secret society.

Skull & Bones - list of US intelligence community members

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 09:49 AM

Not just the Americans:

World War 2 unleashed on the world a torrent of Clairvoyance, in 1941, Stalin's psychic advisor, Wolf Messing, told of the death of Hitler an the defeat of Germany. and in Germany at the Nazi High Command, a Pendulum Institute was set up to try to detect boats and other weapons by pendulum dowsing.

When news of this reached London, a young Naval Intelligence Commander named Ian Fleming - later to create James Bond - leaked a story that Britain had its own pendulum swingers who were producing much better results. The Germans were dismayed, particularly as they were losing many U-boats at that time.

It was in the Cold War, however, that psychic spying really took off. Propaganda in those years makes it harder to separate fact from fiction, but the Communist Bloc was undoubtedly ahead of the west. It poured thousands - some say millions - into mind-power programmes.

Deadly Experiments.

The spending produced some unpleasant results, such as the ability to kill frogs by mentally stopping their hearts - the specialty of a St Petersburg psychic, Nina Kulagina. The ultimate goal, according to Dr Milan Ryzl, a Czech biochemist who defected to the US in 1967, and who had visited Soviet psychic labs, was thought control.

Dr Nikolai E. Khokhlov, a KGB assassin who defected in 1954, had a more alarming story to tell. The KGB were dabbling with 'psychotronic' weaponry - the psychic destruction of missiles, the blinding of radar systems and the disruption of computer electronics. In one experiment, he claimed, the had successfully succeeded in breaking a person's spine by psychotronic energy.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: sledge
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:52 AM

Aggresive use of Barney the dinosaur songs, thats inhuman ;-)

sledge

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 11:27 AM

When I see goats grazing to right and left
I like to think some mans been staring at them


(I think Robert Frost said that)

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Peace
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:46 PM

The use of senders and receivers is not as 'out there' as it might seem. Helluva way to transmit information without fear of an intercept. Finding the senders and receivers might take some doing, however.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:59 PM

'Round these parts, pardner, we'd take a long, hard look at anybody starin' at goats. Here in Idaho goat rustlin' is a hangin' offense, an' we don't need no jury when we find some lowdown owlhoot usin' a runnin' iron to change a brand on a cabro.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:26 PM

So what's wrong with staring at goats? It's all part of courtship!

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Nerd
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:30 PM

The US and USSR both experimented with "remote viewing," which is essentially psychic recon. A lot of governments have spent a lot of money on this kind of thing...

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Joybell
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:54 PM

Thanks, Foolestroupe. I heard the tail-end of that broadcast. Our mad cockatoo had the radio with him for company and I went to see why he was muttering, "Funny thing that!", "La, La La!" "Take that! Silly old bugger!" "La, La, La!"
Now I can follow up the whole thing. Cheery-bye, (new sign-off I'm trying out) Joy

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: jaze
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:56 PM

Billions of dollars spent on this? Instead of Health Care, Education, Social Security..... This is an area where surely both sides of us can come together. Stop government bullshit!

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 06:19 PM

Yeah, let's stop all Govt waste like space flight too! Who cares that in a few billion years our sun will explode wiping out all life on earth and unless we get out into space the human race will be extinct?

Radio, computing, radar, flight, transistors, and a whole lot of other things were considered sheer lunacy to be pursuing at one time, but good things did come of them. Bad things too, but ultimately, it the the humans who make decisions about these things that cause the results.

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Peace
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 06:42 PM

Neat name for a new rock group, dontcha think?

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 07:06 PM

it doesn't grab me immediately - but then no one does these days

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: Nemesis
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:36 PM

I thought the wall walking colonel had a great name :
Albert Stubblebine III :)

Subject: RE: BS: The men who stare at goats (ABC RN)
From: dianavan
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:22 AM

weelittledrummer - goats grazing? They prefer leaves and shrubs don't they? There used to be some wild goats where I lived and I never saw them eating grass. Never saw the domestic goat eat grass either. Loved the roses and fruit trees, though.

d