Reads on the private spy industry aka Oops I missed week 9

Note: In 2020, I’m writing 52 blog posts, one per week, released on Mondays or so…except when I’m not: I missed week 9!

Hey there, apologies, I missed another week of my blog. However, last week’s oops post draws together an excerpt from Saint Augustine, Rachmaninoff, and Pussy Riot, so despite its oopsident status you might enjoy it—and this one commenting on a tepid New York Times article published today.

Generic bad guy, dressed as if for wedding, walks around looking stern

A New York Times article reminds me of me and everyone else

The piece, “Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups,” should be the stimulus of an article by me, though what makes near as much sense is to list related links under bolded subheads, as I’m about to do below. Sure, weaving the threads into a story would most excellently impart knowledge; however, I have lesson planning and grading to do this weekend, since I’m substitute teaching for a stint of a few weeks.

I investigated and reported on private spies for years, namely Stratfor but not just them, Erik Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos heads the Department of Education under which I teach, plus I’m quite informed about coronavirus, including here in Seattle, as I’ll be posting about on my blog asap, and finally I’m very aware of what Seattle Public Schools’ flimsy response to COVID-19 actually looks like on the ground. These topics, which may seem disparate, really do tie together…basically: fuck you, kill the poor first as well as all other humans plants and animals, and don’t hyperlink solutions because then people feel bad since their

  • ‘already living my best life’
  • ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks; I already know everything, and need no one to tell me anything ever since I’m da best’
  • ‘I throw a fit if someone uses an unfamiliar word: I don’t know what that means

bubbles are punctured. But I can say it in more thorough, cited, and academic-except-upside-down language. Probably as an opinion piece so the most difficult thing maybe happens: my hyperlinks to solutions/answers stay in.

There are many other reasons why I’m well-positioned to write about the material in the NYT article. What I don’t have these days is a commissioning editor. I could make a list of freelance pitch recipients for some of my readers to consider pinging, recommending they commission me? Just an idea…

Regardless, sure, I’ll spit out freelance pitches (yet again!) to the usual suspects in the corporate and corporate-imitating media, using the New York Times piece as a news peg (sadly, major events including wars and genocides are not considered news pegs, but corporate articles, as major news events, are)… but if any of you out there in our coronavirus world might be able to expedite things by connecting me with a commissioning editor, I might not backstab you and your antisocial friends, on behalf of the prosocial worldwide, for at least a few weeks! (I’m such a good businessman!)

The private spy industry

Cartoon for MAD Magazine’s Spy vs Spy

The short version of what activists need to know: if you take on some corporation or state, it’s not just them who will come at you in return, nor also the opposing activists who disagree or are simply envious of you since you manage to get out of bed and do something, but also the private mercenaries they hire, private spies who are professionals at defeating activists and laughing as they make I-refuse-to-read-outside-my-comfort-zone activists chase their own tails till extinction. These are ex-spy agency people, ex-special forces people, ex-supercop people, whoever gets off via a contract to hurt more massively than usual those who help themselves and others and refuse to comply. Don’t forget, these enemies will use the Duchin formula (see below) against you or already have, and your plan countering that is…?

Here are some reads on the private spy industry:

DEA Plan to Kill Narcos, by me at WhoWhatWhy, 17 July 2013

El Chapo Arrested—Why Now? by me at WhoWhatWhy, 24 Feb 2014

The Counterinsurgency War On—and Inside—Our Borders by me at WhoWhatWhy, 16 July 2014

Will Mexico’s Oil Give the U.S. Another Excuse for Covert Intervention? by me at WhoWhatWhy, 9 March 2015

Related generally, the book Green Is the New Red by Will Potter, 2011

The intelligence mafia, by Heather Marsh, 27 November 2010

Divide and conquer: unpacking Stratfor’s rise to power by Steve Horn at Mintpress News, 25 July 2013

How to win the media war against grassroots activists by Steve Horn at Mintpress News, 29 July 2013 … Standfirst from that one, on the Duchin formula:

The playbook: isolate the radicals, “cultivate” the idealists and “educate” them into becoming realists. Then co-opt the realists.

Free Jeremy Hammond, the whistleblowing hacker who exfiltrated more than five million emails from Stratfor and is now doing extra time behind bars for resisting the federal grand jury into all that computer-y hacktivism/transparency stuff. Also Twin Trouble, Jeremy’s podcast from confinement (really!) with his twin Jason Hammond, known for his antifascist, antiracist successes.

Transcript of whistleblowing panel censored by Oxford Union, by Heather Marsh, 31 May 2018 (See also my documentation of that censorship at The Public and Boing Boing, both in May/June 2018.)

Pull quote from that transcript:

security for them means immunity from criminal prosecution, not just for their actions against so-called enemies but against anyone. The current CIA head talks about a bureaucracy that slows down the CIA – that bureaucracy is our human rights and that is how they see our lives – as bureaucracy. If they kill too many of us at once they have to fill out a form. And that slows them down. Pompeo wants ‘agile’ assassins. He wants killers who ‘fail fast and break things’, as if they were writing stupid apps instead of murdering children. He wants ‘disruptive’ terrorism. And their security is the freedom to do this with impunity and in secrecy.

And who is this nation they want security for? The US were supposedly enemies with Syria and allies with Canada when they were abducting Canadians to be tortured in Assad’s prisons. Their allegiances change at the drop of a hat and they all have each other’s secrets anyway. That is the whole point of their industry. The entire supranational intelligence community has access to each other’s secrets – they need security from the rest of us finding out. And their nation is anyone with enough money to pay them, corporations or states. You had Erik Prince speaking here a while back, the crown prince of mercenary contractors. He made his fortune at the top ranks of US military and intelligence and then contracted all that information to supposedly US enemy China. I believe David Shedd is also now in international private practice. Their nations are whoever can pay. We didn’t really need the US Patriot Act to tell us our intelligence agencies may be allies but the people in our states are certainly not their allies.

This is not national security. It is certainly not security for my nation. My nation consists of the caregivers of communities and the environment all over the world. They aren’t spying on corporations and telling communities what corporations are up to, they are spying on communities and selling that information to corporations. The victims of Jeffrey Epstein, all the victims whose abusers are protected by official secrets and taxpayer funded NDA’s, none of these victims are part of their nation. Their nation is the international intelligence community and the politicians and corporations who can afford to pay them. This is not national security. It is a mafia protection racket available to the highest bidder.

Erik Prince

A billionaire connected with Trump and also a lot of dead bodies killed especially illegally and unethically in exchange for dolla dolla bill.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1236437533908590594

Democracy Now topic tag for Erik Prince, though there’s probably a lot better out there, maybe try an “Erik Prince” site:aljazeera.com Google search for starters.

Betsy DeVos

Articles, other involving the head of the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos, Erik Prince’s sister, linked by Rachel Anne Levy, a writer, teacher, and education activist in Virginia

I would also try searching “Betsy DeVos” site:democracynow.org on Google. Democracy Now doesn’t seem to have a tag for Betsy DeVos the way they do for her brother.

And now back to me…and Jaco

I wonder if people benefit from these shorter oops posts as they might the longer, less improvisatory ones. What’s your reaction? Is it Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry or maybe even real?

Anyway, if anyone who knows a commissioning editor with access to a large audience, I’ll write all this up into a ‘tell a story’ format, an article that looks mostly like hard news but the publisher can put in the opinion section, with more thoroughness and whatnot than this post, but until then, I’m working on my forthcoming COVID-19 blog post, another blog post concluding my USian escapes the bubble series about my Summer 2019 adventure to British Columbia, and lesson planning + grading.

Meanwhile, gonna listen to the late jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, who died far too early, in 1987, essentially as a result of what got diagnosed as manic depression, or better put, the lack of effective support for him and everyone else on this planet. Below, two videos that transmit, much like classified information, some transmutation into good moods for me and you.

Bassist Jerry Jemmott interviews Jaco Pastorius in the 1985 Jaco Pastorius Bass Guitar Instructional Video, Modern Electric Bass
“Three Views of a Secret” composed by Jaco Pastorius and released in 1981. Not sure when this live performance is from. Story behind the song by The Music Aficionado
“Liberty City” composed by Jaco Pastorius and released in 1981. This version from his 1981 live ‘birthday concert’

Creative Commons License

This blog post, Reads on the private spy industry aka oops I missed week 9, by Douglas Lucas, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (human-readable summary of license). The license is based on a work at this URL: https://douglaslucas.com/blog/2020/03/07/oops-i-missed-week-9/ You can view the full license (the legal code aka the legalese) here. For learning more about Creative Commons, I suggest this article and the Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions. Seeking permissions beyond the scope of this license, or want to correspond with me about this post otherwise? Please email me: dal@riseup.net.

Oops I missed week 8

Note: In 2020, I’m writing 52 blog posts, one per week, released on Mondays or so…except when I’m not: I missed week 8!

Sorry! I missed last week’s post! Here’s something of a placeholder post for week 8, to apologize and self-flagellate in sackcloth!

Carlo Crivelli’s painting, late 15th century, likely of St. Augustine (Source; More)

Years ago, when I read primary source excerpts of St. Augustine, contextualized by WT Jones, I always liked reading them, for whatever reasons…

Woe be upon me for missing last week’s post!

At least I didn’t fling stolen pears at hogs—as in his Confessions, written in Latin around 400 a.d., St. Augustine described doing in his youth (or, well, he flung stolen pears to hogs):

A pear tree there was near our vineyard, laden with fruit, tempting neither for colour nor taste. To shake and rob this, some lewd young fellows of us went, late one night (having according to our pestilent custom prolonged our sports in the streets till then), and took huge loads, not for our eating, but to fling to the very hogs, having only tasted them. And this, but to do what we liked only, because it was misliked. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity upon in the bottom of the bottomless pit. Now, behold, let my heart tell Thee what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to ill, but the ill itself. It was foul, and I loved it

Purify my soul! Etc etc ad nauseam! What is there that can bring back faith in my blog? Perhaps this a cappella choral composition by one of my favorite classical composers (vies only with JS Bach for first place in my pantheon), the All-Night Vigil (sometimes incorrectly called the Vespers) by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It premiered during this month, 95 years ago, in Moscow…

Then there’s the Pussy Riot take, part of which incorporates a motif from the Rachmaninoff. In February 2012, Pussy Riot performed their song in a cathedral and got arrested and later convicted of “hooliganism based on religious hatred,” but they also made an ethics landmark in Russia, spread their effective message, and won fans around the world. I’ll be seeing the band here in Seattle later this month (update 7 March 2020: well, coronavirus). An edited video for their song, “Mother of God, Chase Putin Away,” subtitled in English and drawing upon the February 2012 performance, below (more info):

Wow, now I really feel better (no more unnecessary, stupid patriarchal/perfectionist guilt/shame/etc), and hopefully you do too. Happy first day of meteorological spring to those like me in the northern hemisphere, and happy first day of meteorological autumn to those in the southern hemisphere!

Creative Commons License

This blog post, Oops I missed week 8, by Douglas Lucas, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (human-readable summary of license). The license is based on a work at this URL: https://douglaslucas.com/blog/2020/03/01/oops-i-missed-week-8/ You can view the full license (the legal code aka the legalese) here. For learning more about Creative Commons, I suggest this article and the Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions. Seeking permissions beyond the scope of this license, or want to correspond with me about this post otherwise? Please email me: dal@riseup.net.

Oops I missed week 3

Note: In 2020, I’m writing 52 blog posts, one per week, to be self-published every Monday or so. Here’s last week’s, the third of 52. Life had me busy, so I skipped week 3 because…

Hey there! I missed last week’s blog post, the third of 2020, because my refrigerators fell on me, I had to swing by GN-z11 to pick up some power converters, and my zebras ate my computer. Don’t fire me?

GN-z11: The most distant galaxy in the observable universe

Anywayz, now I’m back, in your galaxy, and my week 4 post is forthcoming today.

Creative Commons License

This blog post, Oops I missed week 3, by Douglas Lucas, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (human-readable summary of license). The license is based on a work at this URL: https://douglaslucas.com/blog/2020/01/27/oops-missed-week-3. You can view the full license (the legal code aka the legalese) here. For learning more about Creative Commons, I suggest this article and the Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions. Seeking permissions beyond the scope of this license, or want to correspond with me about this post otherwise? Please email me: dal@riseup.net.