Lionel Nation

RIP Gary McHenry: A Eulogium

A most learned denizen of #LionelNation wrote as follows. It is a commonplace of espionage novels from the lurid and fanciful to the dark and serious that intelligence agencies run counterintelligence disinformation campaigns against competitor nations and enemies, even against friends.  And everything we know about actual intelligence services supports these fictional stories.  It is well known also that the quality of information that the agencies obtain from many sources ranges from the highly informative to the ludicrous.  And the sources are rewarded or not rewarded accordingly.  All reports and purloined documents, expensive or not, are viewed with deep suspicion, and especially if they are timely or relevant.  As one of John Le Carré’s protagonists says, “topicality is always suspect.”  Information is similarly suspect if it has been solicited.  The prudent spy knows that a source will be tempted to tell him what he wants to know, regardless of whether it resembles reality or not.  In short, spies trust no one, especially their sources, as there is a fair chance that they are either counterespionage agents, fortune seekers, or downright charlatans and fantasists.  Further, the bosses of these spies are skeptical of their own agents, knowing that an agent may be tempted to show success where there is none or where there is even disinformation.  The deception campaigns run by the British in WW2 are celebrated, as are the exploits of Mossad. They were successful, not by being gullible, but by persuading their enemies to be gullible. It is no mean feat. In addition to “considering the source”, intelligence agencies are at pains to evaluate the materials presented as to their content.  Do they seem plausible?  Do they contradict other verified information? Is their significance inflated?  Are they “chickenfeed” or the “Crown Jewels”*.  If the source is suspect, could the information still be of quality or vice versa?  The spymaster’s lot is not an ‘appy one. So it is very strange that the recent “dossier” of “information” about President-elect Trump was passed around so many people as if it had been cleared to the highest level by the top of the Department of Central Intelligence and now was fit for secure and confidential dissemination to those who “need to know”.  No.  It somehow came into the hands of John McCain, MI6, CIA, FBI, private parties, President Obama himself, newspapers, and website proprietors and God knows who else.  Has anything like this ever happened to any piece of intelligence that was regarded as sensitive or important?  No. That is not the way things happen.  John McCain himself said that it somehow came into his possession, source undisclosed, and he felt it was his civic duty to pass it on to the FBI.  Any intelligence agency worth its salt would have sent it back with a firm, “no thanks, we do not accept unsourced, unverified materials from anyone not vetted by the agency.  We advise you to destroy all copies of this document as it could be used by our adversaries to subvert our political system. We also advise you not to accept any materials claiming to be sensitive or concerning the country’s defense and to advise the source to bring the material directly to us.” What did happen, according to his own testimony, is that John McCain took it upon himself to accept this information like he was some sort of volunteer spook, and read it and pass it on to the FBI.  The very fact that he is a publicly known antagonist of Donald Trump should have cautioned any prudent man not to traffic in potentially damaging and potentially false information about a political adversary. Could it be a trap?  Did he imagine himself some septuagenarian James Bond? And then there is t[...]

This is the long goodbye. The adios. The toodle-oo. To the MSM, party pols and pusillanimous posturing — not to mention excessive alliteration. Trump is the catalyst. The revolutionary cofactor. You’ll see. reluctantly perhaps. Agonist of Antiestablishment Agitprop. Reporting for duty.  In response, I suppose, to their parent’s 60’s libertinism, many vocal millennials have become suffocatingly moralistic, minus a religious basis for it.  Condemnation of sinful acts has extended to sinful speech, and from there to sinful thoughts, to sinful attitudes, to sinful predispositions, to sinful unconscious urges, to sinfulness of skin color, mostly white.  Original sin has returned with a vengeance.  Millennials seek to out-Jesus Jesus, while denying Jesus.  And there is no Adam and Eve to blame it on.  And certainly no redemption.  How shall we be saved from all our sins millennials? What about a new medievalism?  Let’s see.  Bring back delation (look it up). An inquisition would be good; oh sorry we have that in the universities and schools.  We just need to extend it into society at large.  And now I see we have a new asceticism.  Danish wooly socks=xenophobia.  Who would have thought it? So let’s put on the hair shirt, or no shirt and get that good old suffering going.  Well, that’s all very well, but it’s just not good enough to wash away our guilty stains.  Look, let’s try indulgences.  Those really worked. Don’t worry about a backlash.  We’re very capable of doing that ourselves. (A LionelNation denizen)

Myopic modern day liberalism never scared the imperialists. And why should it? The corporate state and statism are the enemies. The infantilized alt-left with its preoccupation with social issues of no consequence like multiculturalism and diversity and transgender bathrooms subverted the argument. It’s not politics. It challenges nothing of consequence. Not neoliberalism, imperialism, globalism, nada. They are the party of not-Trump. They’re defined in the inverse. Corporatocracy, the military and prison industrial complexes remain sacrosanct, inviolate and unchallenged. This is a non-party, a non-movement. A slumgullion of SJWs and societal castoffs, bitchy and whiny trolls doubling as the party and ideological vanguards. Donald Trump poses an existential threat not to them but to the right. They’ve missed the point completely. Intellectuals and liberal panjandrums all but abandoned the chance for mass traction initiatives to help and assist women — feminism is all but dead. The election of the first black POTUS served as a symbolic simulacrum for advance in civil rights. He was the perfect cover for Wall Street ghouls and warmonger imperialists. But don’t blame Barry. Just as you don’t blame Olivier for Hamlet; he’s but the actor handed a script. America is sliding into a new level of McCarthyism wherein alternative and foreign media are victimized. Left, alternative and the now dread “pro-Russian” media vectors are under attack. Cue taps. The left is moribund, necrotic and dying on the vine. And the right is in no better shape. There are no sides, no parties, no directions. The illusion of the left-right paradigm.

ODNI Statement on Declassified Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections Utter and absolute horseshit (and I’m being kind). As is my wont, I read the entire document. I’m still shaking. From laughter. Please tell me that I wrote the intelligence report.  That I’m making everything up. I could tolerate my own incipient insanity rather that have to believe that the peace and freedom of the world is in the hands of the people who say they accept this document as intelligence.    I. Proem/Prolegomenon Good God! The mother of own goals. And by the way, there is nothing, I repeat nothing here that a college student with access to the internet couldn’t tell you. A sophomore student. Conclusory, base.   II. A paean to RT. If you wanted to create a marketing campaign for RT that would highlight their capabilities and the quality of their news reporting and opinion journalism you could not have done any better. I don’t care if you hired the best that Madison Ave. had to offer. This is tops. I have to hand it to the authors of this document. They may be shitty spies, but they have a future in marketing. RT may be calling them with job offers. By pointing out what brilliant propagandists the Russian are, they, well, er, pointed out that the Russians are brilliant propagandists, so there. Putin is giving the boys a New Year’s bonus.   III. If you thought HTC couldn’t be more execrable. If you wanted to make Hillary Clinton look like a execrable candidate whom the Russians saw through long ago you could not do better than give the job to these guys.   IV. An indictment of US opinion formation. If you wanted to negatively compare the propaganda competencies of the US government with the Russian government, this is the doc for you. It’s more in line of the indictment.    V. Maxwell Smart reconstituted. If you wanted to parade your skills as a competent spook you would be advised to bleach bit the hard drive this was saved on. You would never live it down if somebody got a copy of it. Don’t put this on your resume.   VI. Why was this ever published? If I were a CEO who commissioned a consultant to provide me with a competent assessment of my competition’s capabilities, and this is what they provided me with, I would terminate the consultant, ask for my money back, refuse to pay any future bills and possibly sue them.   I say all of this with “High Confidence.”   Now, what in the hell were they thinking? Is this what we shovel out billions of dollars for? I wonder if any of the pols that have been panting for this smoking gun are wondering now if it is not a smoking turd? But knowing pols, they will start slinging poo, as is their wont.   And were are the 18 agencies? I only see three here. And did these other 15 do their own research and investigation or did those agency heads just read the report and go “Uh huh. Very nice. But I’m not signing it.” We can do better than this. I think. I hope.   Plus. A eulogium for Mr. Hentoff and false accusations of dyed locks inter alia.   

They were the voice of a generation. Imagine what that must feel like. Hillary forced to watch yet another inauguration she was promised by the Gods. It must be horrible though I can’t exactly sympathize. The thought of her being at the helm is more than a tender mind can handle. Look at what’s been said anent the imaginary and illusive Russian hack. The constant refrain of contamination and attack without so much as a shred and ort of evidence. Details, details, m’boy. Enjoy. Or not. It’s your call. 

“Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?” M. CICERONIS TULLI ORATIO IN L. CATILINAM PRIMA What has happened here is rather obvious. It’s been slow, incremental, glacial. The public’s habituated, humiliated and chastened. Slapped and cajoled, conned and convinced . . . told that news isn’t to be true or real or even factual. Shite happens, Sparky. What are you getting upset over? What’s the big deal? Perhaps it’s a generational thing. We dinosaurs remember a time when the idea of a Cronkite getting shitfaced on New Year’s Eve whilst simultaneously pierced made our souls quiver and quake. And throw in the horrid Washington Compost for good measure. No, this isn’t an accident or happenstance. It’s deliberate, targeted and by design. Enjoy.