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pecuniumI have some. Not so many, and not so many; which can be pushed, as most people. Getting rid of hot button reactions is part of training interrogators.
So the places I have buttons tend to be ones in which I'm not dealing with people directly. Today I discovered I have a newish one.
Someone, elsewhere, used a nom de web to make a gratuitous insult of Guardsmen. My pride (and to some degree, my personal honor) were offended.
_____________________________
Kent State University
Now really, what kind of incident could possibly happen? These Guardsmen (and women) are trained professionals, after all.
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The e-mail attached to that name is bogus.
So it was done, I think, with the intent to offend.
Forget Kent State; as you know it, or as it was (which is more complicated than the mythic imagery, and the protest songs have it. No, the governor should not have deployed the Guard. No, they didn't just open fire into a peaceful crowd. No, it wasn't good, and nobody (save perhaps the actual people who got hit) comes out of it with clean hands. Try to put aside the details of it, while I parse out what irritated/irritates me about this).
This guy grabbed the iconography of Kent State to tar everyone in the Guard as not merely incompetent, but as thugs, who are either incapable of being restrained; or actively taking part in the violent suppression of their fellows.
He did it with a dig that I might not have noticed much (because the incompentent, undertrained Guard is a common trope, and the majority of us having a year in a combat zone [and no small number with more than that; in more than one] seems to be conveniently ignored), save for the screen name.
It was a very clever piece of juxtaposition. By putting that place/incident, against the imputation of poor-training (this was a thread on airport security) he managed to imply a host of possible ills (angry crowd, irked at TSA's treatment, getting a volley of rifle fire, random person, ID'd in panick as, "having a bomb" getting shot... shades of the poor bastard shot as he tried to leave the plane, or any other idiot situation where panic would be expected to be possible) leading to unjustified death.
And that unjustified death being used/useful, to a gov't which wants to make the populace afraid, and more tractable, while showing a "powerful" reaction to intangible enemies.
But that's when I think about what it was which was bubbling in the back of my mind.
In the front I was just pissed off.
So the places I have buttons tend to be ones in which I'm not dealing with people directly. Today I discovered I have a newish one.
Someone, elsewhere, used a nom de web to make a gratuitous insult of Guardsmen. My pride (and to some degree, my personal honor) were offended.
_____________________________
Kent State University
Now really, what kind of incident could possibly happen? These Guardsmen (and women) are trained professionals, after all.
_____________________________
The e-mail attached to that name is bogus.
So it was done, I think, with the intent to offend.
Forget Kent State; as you know it, or as it was (which is more complicated than the mythic imagery, and the protest songs have it. No, the governor should not have deployed the Guard. No, they didn't just open fire into a peaceful crowd. No, it wasn't good, and nobody (save perhaps the actual people who got hit) comes out of it with clean hands. Try to put aside the details of it, while I parse out what irritated/irritates me about this).
This guy grabbed the iconography of Kent State to tar everyone in the Guard as not merely incompetent, but as thugs, who are either incapable of being restrained; or actively taking part in the violent suppression of their fellows.
He did it with a dig that I might not have noticed much (because the incompentent, undertrained Guard is a common trope, and the majority of us having a year in a combat zone [and no small number with more than that; in more than one] seems to be conveniently ignored), save for the screen name.
It was a very clever piece of juxtaposition. By putting that place/incident, against the imputation of poor-training (this was a thread on airport security) he managed to imply a host of possible ills (angry crowd, irked at TSA's treatment, getting a volley of rifle fire, random person, ID'd in panick as, "having a bomb" getting shot... shades of the poor bastard shot as he tried to leave the plane, or any other idiot situation where panic would be expected to be possible) leading to unjustified death.
And that unjustified death being used/useful, to a gov't which wants to make the populace afraid, and more tractable, while showing a "powerful" reaction to intangible enemies.
But that's when I think about what it was which was bubbling in the back of my mind.
In the front I was just pissed off.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 08:36 pm (UTC)My unit, for odd reasons, has better riot training than, probably, any other in the state (about eight hours a year, half of that with LAPD instructors, at the LAPD mock village training site).
But the idea is that the Guard is made up of weekend warriors, fat f belly, slow of mind and so inexperienced they are prone to overreact.
It was that undertone which pushed a button.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 10:10 pm (UTC)The Instructor/Role Players, who are across the table from the students, are the subjects of interrogation.
We look for indica of reactive buttons, and when we see them, we push them. If the student can't learn to let it wash over them, they can't manage to pass the course.
They will get wound up, and lose focus, which leads to missed leads, lost information, incomplete reports, blown rapport, and every other failing which can ruin an interrogation.
Some of it is subtle, some of it is crude.
Example: One of my fellows, when I was a student, was female, and had a knock-out figure. To go with it she had a very nice face and was of a delicate personality.
Her first day in the booth (in a summer session) she was wearing just her t-shirt. Her IRP took one look at her and said, "Nice tits."
I recall, playing a female role, pushing at a students sexism; which showed up by his trying to belittle me. When it failed (he was clumsy at it) I pushed back. It rattled him. So I kept pushing, and he got lost.
That's how we do it.
Some of how we deal with our buttons is to supress reaction, more of it is knowing we have them, and seeing why. If we know why we can defuse the immediate response, which is usually enough to keep them from causing problems.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-08-13 02:05 am (UTC)Sorry you had to see it. Those of us who know jack know that it's unfair.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-13 05:41 pm (UTC)It was one of the few times I've seen the underlying assumptions about it (that the Guard is a bunch of murderous reactionaries, who would be more than willing to supress legitimate dissent) so baldly stated about the present Guard.
Needless to say, that touches a nerve.
TK