The style and humor disguise some key concepts that the article should have made clear.

First, we should all be aware of a nearly inevitable pattern. If people can conceptualize a weapon it will be built. If a weapon is made, it will be used. If weapons are used, they will be used inappropriately. In short, the article indicates, with elegant humor, that we are all doomed in the mid-term to exposure to mind control gases by insidious forces. Pretty funny.

Second, we should unpack the meaning of the author’s terms such as “intelligence community” and “Department of Defense.” He is referring to institutions (with differing levels of formality) of the U.S. military machine, which is officially part of what is called the U.S. government and definitely part of the state (i.e., the combined public and private institutions that control economic and political affairs).

The dangers to which Mr. Weiss alerts us are worsened by the tradition in the United States over the past few hundred years to cede more and more influence to corporate management. As corporations have grown in wealth, sophistication and power over the past few hundred years, they have slowly reconfigured the notion of government of, by and for the people into a reality not of government but of management of the people by a sector with management (i.e., manipulatory) skill sets for the people with power and wealth. Obviously, gassing us all with mind control drugs would appeal to those who stress managerial values over democratic or human values.

Mr. Weiss’s article adds to my gloom about the future of humanity, because it seems certain that these weapons will be developed and be used against people. However, even without these drugs, mind control seems to be progressing quite nicely. By the early 1990s, hip,jaded cynicism in news coverage was already starting to seem too stale to be hip. Despite the staleness, the mode or pose of detached cynicism increasingly dominates our political dialog, helping to dumb us all down almost as much as the Pentagon Air Freshener of the future will. Twenty five years ago, Mr. Weiss’s article would have seemed offensively snotty (although well written,researched and structured)to most readers, including Mr. Weiss and his roommates. Now that sort of brisk snottiness (squeezing in more room for the jaded cynical pose by glossing over the inevitability that these weapons will be used against us by an increasingly fascist state)is not just the norm, it’s the ideal. Mind control marches on.

I hope every news outlet will put this front and center. Thanks for the report.