THE REVISED BOY SCOUT MANUAL.

AuthorWalker, Jesse
PositionBOOK - William Burroughs' "The Revised Boy Scout Manual" - Brief article - Book review

"You construct fake news broadcasts on video camera," the revolutionary handbook advises. "For the pictures you can use old footage. Mexico City will do for a riot in Saigon and vice versa....Nobody knows the difference." You don't even have to conceal the fakery. "In fact, you can advertise the fact that you are writing news in advance and trying to make it happen by techniques anybody can use. And that makes you NEWS. And a TV personality as well, if you play it right."

It sounds like a sardonic guide to modern info-warfare, but it's from a satire written nearly 50 years ago. The Revised Boy Scout Manual was composed circa 1970 by the Beat novelist and counterculture wizard-figure William Burroughs; parts have appeared here and there since then, but Ohio State University Press has only now made the full text available for the first time.

This is the ayahuasca trip of guerrilla guidebooks. At one point it suggests that revolutionaries release wild leopards--"they would eat the CIA...

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