Overheard Starbuck

"On the day his father died he heard a man's voice in his head say, 'we got you'. Ignoring, quieting than silencing the voices in his head without pharmaceuticals was a war he fought and won years ago, so it was odd to hear from them again. He said. ' it was the grief talking'. His father had been sick for some time and his death was what one might call a mixed-blessing.

After the funeral he thought about the voices. He thought there could be people in America today -- clubs, groups and even agencies--organized by and for people who get pleasure from the pain and misfortune of others. --'Everywhere you go there's those bothersome others'--his words again. He won't call them 'psychic vampires' because that makes them sound exotic and dispells the idea that feeding off pain and misery was a human if somewhat primitive trait, like the interest in contact sports.

He wondered if sadists could be identified through psychological tests, like the ones given in the military. Perhaps they were recruited by secret organizations or not-for-profit agencies where in the interests of national security they were encouraged to refine then systematize their sadistic world view or aesthetic.

He pictures military-certified sadists during the Cold War being given free-rein, within certain protocols, to explore their impulses while black-budget-funded scientists devised mind-bending and body-breaking materials and machines based on their findings. As techniques and methods--drugs and machines--were perfected, charismatic sadists were hired to 'take it off the reservation': to teach motivational classes to small groups of interested civilians--starting with the family and friends of service personnel living near military bases and government labs with cults, churches, clubs, organizations, peer reviewed papers and award-dinners following within a few years.

Dirty tricks have been an important part of neo-con politics for more than thirty years now; who knows how thick their playbook has gotten or what might routinely be done to individuals not protected by churches, party affiliation or corporate contributions?

He said it bothers him to think in terms of 'we' versus 'you'. That after all this time--in his own head--he's still a 'you'. He was sure he would grow out of it and become one of us by now.

--"Doesn't he know if you're not with us, you're against us? How simple and necessary it is to identify with those in power? ... Is he brain damaged?"