Police Surveillance is the Quickest Way to Take the Fun Out of Puppet Making
| Sun Mar. 25, 2007 11:36 AM PDT
My friend was one of the Billionaires for Bush. She worked tirelessly and hardly slept, organizing new ways of getting other students to care about the election looming. Humor is our best strategy, she thought.
So in the spring of 2004 she spent a few evenings in the backyard of an off-campus co-op, twisting chicken wire into a globe, plastering it with paper mache, and painting on green land and blue sea. Bigger than she was, it took the help of a few friends to carry to a rally in front of the university president's office, where she and some Billionaires, dressed ridiculously in furs and cocktail dresses and tuxedos, ferociously smashed it to bits. But chicken wire is hard to smash. The wire cage eventually wound up in the backyard, recycled into an an overflow compost container.
Was she being watched? What if she had a hunch and entertained the thought—well, that would make her crazy. Who would perceive her as dangerous? Who would have the time to watch? Who would even care? If she'd wondered out loud to her doctor—well, that falls under a few diagnoses in the DSM-IV. She would have been sent to the loony bin. And she was. She spent a few weeks in the psych ward and was forced by school officials to take the rest of the semester off. I saw her once, in a group, during visiting hours, and couldn't think of a damn thing to say.
But she would have been right. Today the New York City Police records covering those months were exposed. Jim Dwyer writes in the New York Times, "From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show. They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department's Intelligence Division." They sent daily notes back to New York on forms called DD5s, describing the activists, their meetings, and their plans. My friend's name must be in those piles of paper.
Another Billionaire, Marco Ceglie, told the Times, "It was a running joke that some of the new faces were 25- to 32-year-old males asking, 'First name, last name?' …. Some people didn't care; it bothered me and a couple of other leaders, but we didn't want to make a big stink because we didn't want to look paranoid."
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Comments
I was going to submit this story to digg.com but you changed the
headline so it's not clear what the story is.
Please change it back to this:
"Police Surveillance is the Quickest Way to Take the Fun Out of
Puppet-Making"
Thank you.
I think it is a good policy for all legitmate activist groups to designate one leader to be the specialist on Counter Intelligence Programs or COINTELPRO its better know acronym.
Part of the duties of this leader would be to provide group training on:
1. What COINTELPRO is
2. Techniques the police and FBI use to disrupt peaceful activit groups and programs
3. Provide case histories using well know examples
4. Background on the PATRIOT Act, NORTHCOM, HOMELAND Security, and the new Military Commission Act.
5. A primer on the Bill of Rights amendment to the U.S. constitution
6. Background information and awareness on mercenary groups and their growing influence and potential domestic applications.
7. Development of counter-strategies
Just to name a few.
Greg Burton
"My friend's name must be in those piles of paper."
Was it? Do you even know? I'm sorry, but this is bad journalism. This article is worthless in both facts and interpretation, badly written, and barely coherent.
I understand what the article is trying to accomplish, but it falls short of success.
Submitted by zoopy (not verified) on Mon Mar. 26, 2007 12:56 PM PDT.
I agree. This is journalistically poor. Her name "must be in the files"?
The organization doesn't have pledges of fealty, does it? Do you have to pledge to be funny? Do you have to be only funny against Bush?
I think it's a public organization, so anything you do is open to public scrutiny like walking down the street. Public includes the government, for better or for worse.
This, not paranoia, is the psychologically normal reaction:
http://billionairesforbush.com/index.php
Also from the description of gaslighting in the comment, what happened doesn't match at all. Reality wasn't distorted with the intent to induce psychosis (if so, by whom?). Reality wasn't persistently denied (why would you ask your shrink whether you're being tailed or not?). Etc.
Please encourage the person to come forward with her story. As stated in this blog entry, the story is anonymous.
Psychology is a dilapidated science. For example, if anyone ever says that they think they are being watched, they can receive a psychological diagnosis, even if what the person said was true. In order to change the state of affairs in psychology, we need to present concrete examples of how psychology is a broken science. The perfect example is people who said they were being watched, then were persecuted for having a "psychological diagnosis," and then provably it turned out that they were correct in saying that they were being watched. We need to improve psychology, to reform it.
Perhaps your friend would be interested in contacting the Szasz Foundation. Thomas Szasz is the pioneer in skepticism toward psychology. Perhaps the foundation could help your friend, or use her story to help bring reform to t science. http://www.szasz.com/
There is also a Szasz blog. http://theszaszblog.blogspot.com/
Thank you for publishing this story, and best of luck to your friend.
What I read is here is a bunch of horse-hockey and speculation on your part. You must have been desperate to get traffic to your blog. People don't get put into mental health facilities unless they're a threat to themselves or others. A LOT of paranoid people walk the earth every day that control their anxiety with medication. Personally, I think you're simply a liar.
As far as pyschology being a "broken science", there's a bit of truth and a bit of falsehood in that sentiment. Although I am by no means a psychologist (it's only an interest for me), it seems that one of the biggest stumbling blocks is defining normalcy.
Take, for example, the definition of a delusion: "An unreasonable/patently false/ridiculous or groundless belief which persists despite efforts to persuade the deluded person to the contrary"
The big problem with that definition is that if we were a pessimist or skeptic, we could easily categorize hope, faith, and religious belief as delusions. But, unless you're Dawkins, you'd probably agree that there are plenty of religious people who are mentally healthy, and plenty of people who "have faith" for the impossible (such as a sudden recovery from a serious illness, or the return of a lost love one) who are not seen as mentally ill. On the contrary, these people are often viewed as particularly inspirational and set as an example for the less optimistic of us to follow!
We could say then that sanity is as is defined by the social norms within a particular culture, setting aside eggregrious pathologies with clear physical causes (such as forms of dementia, and probably schizophrenia).
If we want to convince ourselves that definitions of sanity are cultural, think of a "holy roller" or "activist" (memeoid, basically) that you know. Some of their personal sacrifices, committments, sayings, actings, and doings will seem completely irrational! Yet, within their mini-culture, they behaviors are seen as acceptable and rational.
It seems that proto-Christianity had a similar reception among 1st Century Romans. I believe it was the procurator of Judea, Festus (who in the Bible is recorded to be "an intelligent man"), who said to the Apostle Paul (after he had testified concerning his faith) - "Your great learning has driven you mad!"
A psychiatrist I know takes a pragmatic approach to identifying pathologies - if something is causing you distress and/or interfering with you living your life in a way which not is satisfactory to one's own expectations and/or grossly violates cultural norms, it is pathological. I find this approach particularly appealing because it does not canonize a "normal" human being but allows for a great deal of variety in psychological profiles from person to person. It fundamentally acknowledges that some people are more hopeful than others, some are more nervous, some are more impulsive, etc..., and this is not "wrong", per se. Psychological health is a personal matter. It involves integrating/managing these aspects of our personality, or, if this is not desirable, acceptable, or possible, finding a way to change these traits and reintegrate our "new" personality into a whole.
Ultimately, it is a matter of equilibrium, and for some (unfortunately), it can be a tough balancing act. Perhaps certain person's tendencies are not particularly suited for the cultural norm in which they inhabit. The individual may join a "micro-culture" more suited to his or her needs, or may withdraw from social interactions. Perhaps they develop a false front which masks their "true" tendencies (if there is such a thing) and ultimately reject the self. The foremost and the lattermost can certainly be unhealthy choices.
Anyhow, the dilemma of the activist in the article is particularly disconcerting. Not only does this kind of espionage trouble me (are we back to McCarythism? Should we call it McDonaldism? - for Donald Rumsfeld and the fast-food type intelligence our Gov't is collecting, or McPatriotism, for the cheap kind of patriotism that justifies this kind of undemocratic behavior by our Gov't.), it also troubles me! Ever seen "The Majestic"?
These stories of patient's "delusions" turning out to be true I've run across pretty often as the "Gotcha!" of those who oppose the field of psychology. If we are to reform the science, I propose a sort of "scientific method" for identifying and investigating delusions. Even then, just like the scientific method, we are stuck with the trap of Sollipses (sp?). Theoretically, the patients claim that everyone has a small purple pig living in their forehead could be true if all of our purple pig detecting devices (ears, eyes, x-rays, etc.) were flawed in some way and thus had failed so far to see them. This concept that all claims could theoretically be disproven is called falsifiability. As the wikipedia article on the scientific method says, there must ultimately be some sort of consensus on what can reasonably be concluded to be true, "beyond all reasonable doubt", as the legal mantra goes. Perhaps the burden of proof is on the psychologist, especially when the patient may not be able to articulate his beliefs well or provide evidence in favor of his or her "delusion".
In this poor girl's case, however, the information which might vindicate her was not available until much later. The late science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick also believed he was being spied on by the Gov't, particularly the FBI. He claims to have seen his file and the records they kept on him, which reportedly vindicate his belief. His fiction deals extensively with themes of paranoia. Read "A Scanner Darkly" (I haven't read it, but I saw the movie and a documentary on Phillip K. Dick in the special features. The documentary was interesting, the movie was meh - Phillip K. Dick being a legendary science fiction writer, his book is probably vastly superior to the movie).
Another consideration we might take is the source of her "hunch" that she was being spied upon. A "hunch" might originate from highly peripheral sensory information or largely unconcscious thought processes, so it may be impossible or very difficult for a patient to explain their origin. This does not mean, however, that the hunch is unreasonable - just currently unexplainable, and perhaps accurate (or inaccurate)! However, if she had no way of knowing that the Gov't was spying on her (even peripherally) and she suspected it, regardless of whether they were or not, the belief would still be a delusion (although in the case that they actually were, a serendipitously fortunate one!).
I don't think we can rule out the possibility that on some level (perhaps from subtle clues) that perhaps Gov't officials were observing her or the organization to which she belonged, particularly after the globe smashing.
"Was she being watched? What if she had a hunch and entertained the thought ..."
Did she have a hunch, or entertain the thought? Or is this strictly a "what if"? "What if" that's why they put her in the loony bin. Well, is it why?
@digg user
"Maybe the police spys said she was dangerous? Maybe the police lied?"
Maybe the police had nothing to do with this. The author asks "what if" she thought she was being spied on, and concludes she "would have been" right (not "was" right), because she "must have" been one of those spied on. But DID SHE think she was being spied on? Is that why she was institutionalized? No suggestion of anything more than "what if" is given, and readers are reacting as if it were. The author has a responsibility to clarify.
Submitted by watch live tv for free online (not verified) on Mon Mar. 26, 2007 3:45 PM PDT.
Yea Police in recent times readily infiltrate such political groups to try to scope them for information. In Fahrenheit 9/11 (I hate brining up that movie..) they show one such case. But in other cases, like with South American communities - they infiltrate them when theirs political turmoil in those countries and they try to see what the community is thinking and doing here, guessing they want to avoid the community from doing anything within America or something.
Budda Magoo....... You are so far from right, as far as the reasons why people are committed to mental hospitals,against
their will, drugged to oblivion etc etc, having a mental health problem is not always the reason,I could name people that have basically been taken out of circulation and held drugged and confined in a nut house, [One died in about 72] not because they were mad. but because they made life difficult for gov by not standing in line with the sheeple, but pointing to a new way forward,and opening the eyes of far to many people than the gov felt comfortable with.ITS A FACT GEEZ........................................
"Was she being watched? What if she had a hunch and entertained the thought ..."
Did she have a hunch, or entertain the thought? Or is this strictly a "what if"? "What if" that's why they put her in the loony bin. Well, is it why?
