# Hill Mole > Hill Mole is Chris Abraham's serialized confession novel, written in installments from 2005 to 2022 against an espionage backdrop in Washington, DC. This file holds the full text of all 309 entries, oldest first. The text is © Chris Abraham; quote with attribution and a link to the entry. ## I Was Merely a Dupe and a Fool. May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/i_was_merely_a.html No matter how independent you believe yourself, you are always part of some greater plan. Especially in Washington, where the fabric of intrigue is so tightly woven there is no such thing as a civilian. Even those in the private sector do their part, although this is mostly in the form of the unwitting dupe or incidental fool. It took me over fourteen years to realize that I have been both an unwitting dupe and an incidental fool time and time again. Luckily—until now—I had always been both unwitting and incidental. This time, however, I was merely a dupe and a fool. [Listen] ## Inside the Beltway May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/inside_the_belt.html I have been working in the private sector in Washington, DC, for eleven years. Never have I been an employee of the government nor have I worked in the military. The closest thing I have ever had to a security clearance is the light review the Secret Service made in order to let me work as a contractor to the Treasury Department. [Listen Chapter 2-8] ## According to Plan May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/according_to_pl.html The fool believes that plan is consensual. That one need choose to be part of this rarified cloth. Quite the contrary. One is part of the plan whether or not one is fully involved. Only those needing to know need know. The others are merely players—extras—who need know nothing. And there is a lot of cash spent on making sure that this is the case. But sometimes, this doesn’t quite go according to plan. [Listen Chapter 2-8] ## Adult Concerns May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/adult_concerns.html Whose plan, I cannot tell you exactly. Certainly not what I believe my plan to be. Someone I knew to be spooky and in the world of intrigue once told me that the entire infrastructure was designed to prevent widespread panic. That the world was a very dangerous place. The majority of military funds and resources are solely dedicated to calm us. To keep us children from being scared to sleep at night. To remain quiet and happy in a very dangerous world. In much the same way that parents are supposed to spare the child these adult concerns. We really don’t want to know. [Listen Chapter 2-8] ## Privy to the Patterns May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/privy_to_the_pa.html But for some reason, I began to know. I began to become privy to the patterns. I started to see the threads that made up the fabric. I began to notice that dad was scared too. That this was a consensual drunken pub crawl. [Listen Chapter 2-8] ## Drunken Pub Crawl May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/drunken_pub_cra.html You know what a pub crawl is I am sure. It is a night of debauchery when a group of friends plan to get together to go from bar to bar, from pub to pub, to drink through the night. The earlier in the night, it’s a lot of fun, but as the night wears on, as everybody gets a little tight, things get a lot more challenging. People keep drinking of course, but after a stay, it becomes important to move on to the next bar. [Listen Chapter 2-8] ## Crawling Forward Together May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/crawling_forwar.html At some point during the night, people can barely walk straight. The only way to keep moving forward is to make sure all the crawlers are still together and still moving towards the next bar. And crawler not accounted for could break the entire outing into pieces. When a great big crawl is organized, there isn’t anything that will keep the crawl from moving forward and there isn’t anything that the organizers won’t do to keep it going, for to fail is not acceptable. [Listen Chapter 2-8] ## The Blimp May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/the_blimp.html There is a blimp that swims above the city as if the beltway—our circle road—where the nose bleed seating of the city. It is new and clean and white and it is called the security blimp. We don’t quite know what the blimp does or is for but it is still for our security. [Listen Chapter 2-8] ## Bike Messenger May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/bike_messenger.html Since I have lived here in the city, the boundaries have become closer and closer. Constricting. When I was in college in the District, I took a job as a bike messenger for WEx and hustled packages around the city on a bike. I took the job for fun but the fax was suffocating the industry. Even before the email attachment was a glimmer, bike messengering as a career was dying. I was strong and fearless and smart. I was good at the job. I had carte blanche in my DC. I would carelessly hustle from the big K Street firms in a last minute five o’clock dash to the Hill to score life-and-death legal and government time-stamps. Sometimes, I would be required to skulk through the deepest darkest recesses of the Capitol to retrieve heavy GPO publications. [Listen Chapter 9-14] ## Pre-Internet in a Big Way May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/preinternet_in.html When I was a courier in Washington, it was pre-Internet in a big way. Since lawyers are always doing shit last-minute, I would end up shooting across the city on my bike with just minutes left (after flirting with the hot receptionist), only to reach the maw of a heavy dun-colored Official Time Stamping machine seconds before it was put to bed. I made it every time, too, because there was nothing to impede me. The city was open. It’s called “vulnerable” now. These days, I can’t imagine being able to get anywhere or anytime as a bike courier. The security between me and that machine would be both daunting and amazingly time-consuming—if not impossible. [Listen Chapter 9-14] ## Washington Summers May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/washington_summ.html Since I was concurrently a student at a private college, the hours on the bike were very freeing for me. They were liberating. The city was open and gleamed from all the marble. And although there were simple metal detectors, this was really just gate-keeping. Couriers have notoriously bad reps as potheads and criminals. Part of the reason became evident as I stood next to these sprung-steel lifers as Senate guards routinely pulled pocket knives and ornate wooden or glass pipes out of their beat up courier bags. No shit. Were these guys apprehended and sent to Gitmo? No. Their shit was confiscated and they were allowed to make their delivery. And they lost their treasured gear, which was enough of a lesson. That’s it. [Listen Chapter 9-14] ## Capitol Hill was Open Door May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/washington_capi.html In all honesty, you could easily move from building to building on the Hill, from the Capitol to the Senate and House office buildings. Of course, the White House has always had the doors closed save official business and formal tours, but the Capitol and the surrounding buildings have always been open buildings. The people therein—the Senators, Congressmen, and their staff—were always just down the street. I could drop off packages then shoot into the Capitol cafeteria for some grub and some air conditioning before returning to the swampy mug of the Washington summers. [Listen Chapter 9-14] ## Security Eats Away May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/security_eats_a.html I wonder how much time all of this security eats away from the limited business that couriers have any more. It must be a real investment now, to get in and out of building. Even office buildings maintain security and the ability to enter at-will seems to be well in the past. [Listen Chapter 9-14] ## Insidious Security Model May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/insidious_secur.html And I always wonder how insidious the security model is. How intimate it is in my community. How close am I to someone who is keeping his or her eyes open? [Listen Chapter 9-14] ## Buddy in the Business May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/buddy_is_in_the.html My buddy is in the business. He tells me stories about his days in training. A majority of the training revolves around making yourself inconspicuous. How to work a crowd or the traffic without arousing suspicion. And I mean really working the crowd, as in casing the joint, checking for unfriendlies, listening in on conversations, and looking out for people who have probably received very similar training without getting too many false-positives. ## False-Positives May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/false-positives.html The last year has been maddening for me. I have been part of something larger, of that I am sure. Or I believe I am sure. There is always the concern of the false-positives. ## In Washington Nobody is Truly Private Sector May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/in_washington_n.html As I said before, in Washington nobody is truly private sector. Those fully awake have top secret clearance. They have the character and discretion to be able to see the big picture. I like to think of the big picture in much the same way I understood submarine-making. I once loved the daughter of a nurse. Before she was a nurse, she worked for Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, as a worker. Her job was manual labor and she built or assembled part of a nuclear submarine. In order to ensure security—national and also the security of the workers—management would not make it clear what each machinist or assembler would be producing. They would receive their part through a hole in the wall and then, when finished with their little part of the process, place their finished piece into another hole in the wall. Over the course of an entire career, it was essential that nobody ever really know where their part played in what ended up being a typhoon class nuclear submarine. ## Spies are Everywhere May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/spies_are_every.html The reason is simple. Spies are everywhere and if the simple worker knew what he was making and how to replicate the process, then he would endanger himself, his family, and the security of the United States of America. So, to protect the simple man from becoming a traitor, unwittingly or otherwise, or from being tortured or killed, this Byzantine process of double-blinded mazes existed in a large, secure, factory in Connecticut. ## Emergent Systems May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/emergent_system.html Emergent systems are pretty fascinating. So are hives. Some believe that the human being is an emergent system—a hive if you will—of specialized cells that have chosen to propagate their particular brand of DNA sexually. This theory believes that every organism is essentially a suit of armor for a set of genes. That evolution is a hit-or-miss improvement process by which each suit of armor becomes better suited to its environment for its sole purpose, which is to survive. ## We Have Outsourced Evolution to Culture May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/we_have_outsour.html Others believe that we have achieved a new level of sophistication in this evolution. This is to say, we have become unsatisfied with the progress of our evolution and we have taken this process into our own hands. We have outsourced evolution to culture. We have emerged from the primordial soup into becoming sophisticated organisms who are in the process of taking further and further steps towards evolving not as a species but as a culture. Using technology and communications, we become more and more interconnected. And this interconnectedness does not require awareness by any of the participants. The system of culture does not require the participant to be awake, merely present. ## Bee Hives and Ant Colonies May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/bee_hives_and_a.html In emergent systems such as bee hives or ant colonies, there used to be a perception that the queen of the colony held a leadership role and that all the workers were drones. This anthropomorphizing of these simple animals would seem to be obvious, but only recently did scientists become aware that there isn’t a single member of this animal community that is aware of the plan of the hive or of the colony. Each member has a small job with several variables. The variables include density of population, wealth of resources, and the activities of the surrounding members. For example, if an ant intends to leave the colony to forage and it intercepts many other ants that are already returning with food, the ant might change its task because resource requirements have already been met by other ants. ## Hives Cannot be Controlled Outright May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/hives_cannot_be.html Systems like bee hives and ant colonies cannot be controlled outright. They can be redirected, manipulated, and shaped over time, but they cannot be ordered because there isn’t a strong general awareness that the culture responds to command and control. ## Washington was Planned May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/washington_was.html I do not receive orders in the morning when I wake up. Neither do you. Yes, you have a schedule, but that schedule in most cases was made by you to respond to your needs of the day. Your manager at work might assign tasks to you, but you probably do not have your entire life mapped out. You probably don’t have an exact strategy for your day, for your week, and for your year. If you’re smart, you are planning for retirement. If you’re smart, you have some semblance of goals for your life, but you probably are spending most of your time responding to the environment around you. You rarely receive a note underneath your door every morning that maps out your day. I know I don’t. Actors know every line. They’re directed by directors who have considered where, when, and how lines will be delivered. You and I are not being directed by a director, but we are still part of a system that can easily be recognized. As a community, as a township, and as a city, as a nation. Washington, DC, is different. Washington is a planned city. From the radial patterns of the avenues, to the manicured grounds of the Capitol. Washington was planned. ## Washington is Rife with Intrigue May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/washington_is_r.html One day I became aware how planned Washington had become. I became aware that Washington is rife with intrigue and that whether I wanted to or not, I was part of this little Passion play. ## Gaunt and Exhausted May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/gaunt_and_exhau.html W came in from Dulles on Saturday. He flew in from Berlin and he looked a little gaunt and exhausted. The first thing he did when I entered my pad was ask to take a shower. I rummaged for a clean towel and pointed him to the bath. ## All Bezel and Links May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/all_bezel_and_l.html I could hear the shower and smell the steam come under the door. W’s watch on the table gleamed. It was a big watch. It was a stainless steel dive watch, all bezel and links. I have always wanted a watch like that. So I picked it up, all bezel and shiny links. And I played with it, feeling its heft and workmanship. I played with the crown and it came off in my hand, trailed by a heavy black filament. I pulled it away and the filament sprung the crown back into the case. It was fine but it was heavy and it fed in and out of the case easily. I looked up quickly at the door and the shower and the steam. The door opened although the shower was on and only a few minutes had passed. W emerged from the steam. I started and almost dropped the watch as I returned it to the table. He looked at me and must have seen me fumble. “Chris, do you have any shampoo I can borrow?” he asked. “Sure. Let me grab it from my bathroom.” ## In One Deft Motion May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/in_one_deft_mot.html He moved smoothly over to the table to collect his watch. In one deft motion, he unclasped the bracelet and returned it to his wrist. I swear that he screwed down the crown. He never met my eyes or ever looked at the watch. I passed him at the table and went to fetch the shampoo from my bathroom. When I returned, I dropped the bottle into his hand and he turned and returned to the shower ## Shower Gel in the Bathroom May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/shower_gel_in_t.html I remembered having left shower gel in the bathroom. I was certain that I had also provided the guest bathroom with several bottles of hotel shampoo and conditioner. Did he overlook these? Did I? In my last-minute notice of his arrival, did I space on it? It has been known to happen. The sweetness of the shower as the steam rose in the bathroom sure smelled of shampoo or at least soap. ## I Was a Haole May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/i_was_a_haole.html When I was in my first year of all boys Catholic school, I noticed that there were army men all over campus every Thursday. I started at St. Louis when I was entering the 7th grade. Until then, I attended public school. Public elementary school in Hawaii was something the entire country could admire. I had plenty of sunshine, air, and support from an assortment of tiny Japanese schoolteachers. On the other hand, public schools in Hawaii are some of the worst in many neighborhoods once the hormones start cutting in. There was no way in hell that I was going to go to public school after 6th grade in Hawaii. I was a haole. I was a white kid in Hawaii and although I became a kama’aina over time, I was never perfectly part of the fabric of Hawaii. At best, I was a patch. At best, I was an embellishment. At worst, I was believed to be a tear. I worked furiously to make sure that I was not going to go to the Intermediate school I was supposed to attend, which was Central. Central is where all the Mokes and Titas went to school. ## Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/junior_reserve.html So I worked hard and got into a little Catholic school and when I got there I had to wear a uniform aloha shirt with slacks and dress shoes. For the next six years, I had to wear a similar uniform. Every Thursday, it was the day that the members of the JROTC cadets would wear their uniforms to school. I always considered it rather queer that this was the case. In most cases, the uniform was pretty standard. Envelope hat and class A uniforms. Dress shows, socks. When I reached 9th grade, I realized that there were three choices one could make and the choices were to become a band geek, a jock, or a cadet. I decided to become a cadet and joined the JROTC. ## Class A’s on Thursdays May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/class_as_on_thu.html The reason why we had to wear our Class A uniforms on Thursday is because on Thursday we would move to the football field en masse in order to practice our parade drills. From the start, we were privates. From the start, we were taught how to hold a wooden rifle and how to dress right and how to get into formation. We trained on how to polish brass, how to salute our superiors, and how to fire .22 rimfire target rifles in our very own firing range. I daresay that we might have been pretty rare in our school because we had our own firing range. I don’t hear about very many people who had a rifle team in their school, although this is American and I am pretty sure that it couldn’t be that rare either. ## Being a Young Cadet May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/being_a_young_c.html As I became more accustomed to the feel of being a young cadet, I also became more accustomed to the different classes in the corps. There were a number of folks who dressed differently on Thursdays. These folks wore shiny leather boots. These folks wore black felt berets with insignias on the front in school colors, red and blue. ## I Want to Be An Airborne Ranger May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/i_want_to_be_an.html Charlie was older. He was one of the coolest kids in the school. He was respected both in JROTC as well as in the school. He was pretty bad ass. He was a junior the year I met him. The first Thursday I saw him come into class was a dressed differently than everyone else. He wore the same class As that the rest of us wore but there were several important distinctions. He wore jump boots and a black beret. The boots were old and looked cracked but there was a rich shine on the toe. The pants were bloused into the boots, showing off the tall sides, the endless zigzagging laces. The boots were old but well cared for and lustrous. There glinted like opals. His hair was short off his brown head. His face was set in a permanent grin. A shit-eating grin. But not that of a fool as his eyes were cruel. He was never cruel with me but he was stern. He cheeks were broad and set high. On this head he wore a felt beret rakishly. A military crest in our school colors was stitched into the peak. It was formed to his head and when he was indoors, he doffed beret and rolled it, stored it under the epaulette of his shirt. The shirt that showed he was a Ranger. He was a Saint Louis Ranger. He was member of the Ranger club and this club earned the right to wear jump boots and a black beret. ## Exit, Stage Left May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/exit_stage_left.html I quickly left the rifle team and joined the Rangers club. ## A Code of Silence May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/a_code_of_silen.html The Rangers turned out to be much more than a simple club. The Rangers were a secret society with a code of honor that was effectively a code of silence. Every Ranger was told of the awful things that could and would befall the Ranger who broke the code. This defilement was the thing of legend. These defilements were legendary and strictly adhered to because each of us held a secret that could not only get us kicked out of school but could also have the Ranger program disbanded and have our Sergeant Major—the man who held all of this together—fired and have the JROTC program disbanded and probably even ruin the reputation of the entire school. Were this secret to ever come out in the school paper or—heaven forbid—in the Advertiser or Star Bulletin, the jig was up. ## Us Cadets May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/us_cadets.html The funny thing about our secret was that we kept it both because of what telling the truth could have done to us but also because we really could only share it with each other because who the hell else would believe us? And honestly, who really wanted to be friends with anyone else in school after the kind of intense experience shared between us kids? Us cadets? So we didn’t talk about it. ## A Fresh Clip of Ammo into the Chamber May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/a_fresh_clip_of.html We didn’t talk about the fact that every other weekend, we Rotsee Rangers were for hire. We were hired out by the US National Guard and the US Army Reserves. We were sometimes taken by Force Recon Reserves of the US Marines. Mostly we were hired as OPFOR soldiers for war games, rife with M-16s and M-60s, rife with Alice Packs and field jackets, rife with web gear and L flashlights, rife with cammie paint and canvas pouches designed for 30-round clips. We would bring home a standard form for a field trip to our parents. A form that when signed allowed their fourteen year old son to be issued a 100-percept operational NATO weapon. A weapon that could (and was) fed real armor-piercing rounds. A weapon that was rendered a training aid simply (and only) by affixing a screw-in fuck me red blank adaptor to the tip of the barrel, right onto the flash suppressor. And the 30-round banana clips that we bought at the surplus store didn’t require any adaptation before loading in the shiny brass blanks. We would stuff our cargo pockets full of blanks and bring them home with us. We would get home and we would buy 30-round clips from the surplus store and we taped two of them together so that the clip protruded low from the gun, so that there was always fresh ammo on the gun. So that all you needed to do to reload was to grab the clip, turn the clip upside-down, and load a fresh clip of ammo into the chamber. ## Spetsnaz-Trained Special Forces Operatives May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/spetsnaz-traine.html We were the kids who would only wear slash-pocket jungle greens and the odd jungle patterns experimented with during Vietnam. Vietnam was the last war but we were looking towards central and south America for our inspiration. Even so, it was always towards the USSR that we were looking. And that was the story we were given. That was the story given to us as our cover story. Our cover story was as follows: we teens were not in fact just two teams of five children. We ten or so Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets were in fact Spetsnaz-trained special forces operatives. Yes, of course we are young teens, but we are told that the Soviets have found that raising operatives from the cradle is the way to go. So, we are kids dropped well behind the lines expressly in order to disrupt the supply chain of the United States government military. The supply channel to the front. So, we would find ourselves time and time again in the jungle, covered in mud and sweet-smelling sweat. We would be caked in cammie face paint. I would sit there hungry, with my nerves jangling. On edge but strangely serene. I could feel the weight of my gun. I could feel the weight of the pack. I could feel the weight of the assault rifle in the palm of my hand. I felt a little sick with excitement. I felt sick with my excitement quite a lot, every weekend. ## Hazing May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/hazing.html One of the stories I remember was about how a Ranger, one before us, was caught during an ambush. How this boy was caught by the enemy and how he was strung up in his underwear, lashed to a tree, in the forest and left. Riot cuffs and all. ## A Bite to Eat at Zack’s May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/a_bite_to_eat_a.html I went to Zack’s for a bite to eat because I was hungry and especially thirsty. I don’t like to think of myself as a drunk, but lately, in spite of my daily runs, I have been drinking quite a lot these days. Most of it has been a way to get out of the apartment and a lot of it has been to get out of myself. The strange things happening as of late have really put the kind of pressure on me that have made me want to get outside myself and get outside of the house. Things have been getting way too weird. What does all of this mean? ## Zack’s is Small and Dark May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/zacks_is_small.html Zack’s is small and dark and people knew me from the neighborhood. And I drank bottles of Bud. And I wanted to smoke some cigarettes. And of course, I usually do. So, after I pulled the documents onto the USB dongle on my keychain I took some time off and dropped by Zack’s for some pick up pool, maybe a burger, and some bottles of Bud. ## Situational and Locational Drinking May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/situational_and.html My taste in beer—and drinks in general—has a lot to do with places and situations. Unlike most people as snobby as me who will really make a fuss until they can be appeased with the appropriate Belgian lager or single malt whisky, I am a situational drinker. I have always been a situational drinker and situations define what kind of fellow I am. Not pretend to be, but really am. At Zack’s I am a man. I smoke Camels and play pool. I hang out with the guys and hit on the girls. I eat blue cheese burgers and drink amber bottles of Bud. Bud bottle. Other places I order a Stella Artois or a Red Stripe; a Yuengling or even a Newcastle Brown Ale. And I will always try the local offering if the place brews its own. I do that in everything and I guess I can be a bit of Chameleon. That said, since I have lived in the same place and with the same people for over five years, I believe that people don’t perceive me as such. If a chameleon spent five years the color of argyle socks, one would probably consider that lizard to be argyle—or preppy at least. ## The Chameleon About Me May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/the_chameleon_a.html For those who pay attention, there is still a lot of the chameleon about me. Even in subtle things, things that tip people off in the most unfortunate ways. ## Ceding My Food Choice May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/ceding_my_food.html When I am out to dinner with a group and cede my food choice to others, people sometimes misplace me as someone who needs to assert myself, someone who has no opinion or someone weak in his ability to make choices. Quite the contrary. In fact, I cede as many of the inconsequential choices as possible to the people around me. This has always allowed me to have a more authentic experience of the world around me. Especially when I was traveling and abroad most of the time. Who am I to choose the cheese in France or the pasta in Italy? Who am I to choose the cuisine in Katmandu? And the tastes of others even in one’s hometown can readily say more about at person that anything else. Growing up in Hawaii where oh so many of the people have really finicky diets, I became very sensitive to the selective diets of those around me. The vegetarians, the lactose intolerant, the vegans, the pescavegetarians, the people with peanut allergies. ## A Spidey Sense May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/a_spidey_sense.html I am surprised how many people don’t have this sensitivity. I am always surprised how many people are not just insensitive to feelings but really just deadened. Deadened to subtlety and nuance. Zero empathy. I really believe that I have a Spidey sense, that I have a real sixth sense. My friends Jana and Carrie both say that God has me on a tight leash, but there are so many times that I wish I could either retard or remove that aspect of myself. As I said before, this sense really served me well when I traveled alone through many lands as a traveling photographer. I carried around ten grand worth of photo equipment on my back throughout the world and never had an issue with my security. I live in the gentlest, loving, supportive and beautiful world you can imagine. I can nary believe that there are such awful things in ubiquity going on not only across the globe but literally across the street. I am far from naïve. And although I am over six-feet tall and well over 250 pound soaking wet, I don’t think that this is the only explanation for my safety: my size. ## Fucking Haole May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/fucking_haole.html Growing up in Hawaii, I had to fight quite a lot. There was of course the normal fight for alpha which any young man must endure, but add to this that I was effectively a minority. I was a haole, a Caucasian, who attended a private school. I was a “fucking haole” and in a school system that actually supported an emergent “kill haole day”—usually on the last day of school, but no always—I learned how to be a scrapper. Scrapping is of course not the only way to make sure that there is peace. In many situations, it is essential pick and choose your battles and wars. And there were rules of engagement. All that anybody ever wanted was to be acknowledged. I learned that the best defense was a good offense which has worked every time. I call it my street rules of engagement. ## City Rules of Engagement May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/city_rules_of_e.html The city rules of engagement revolve around very primal notions of acknowledgement. As I mentioned before, I am the favorite person to both fuck with as well as to fear. I am almost 6'4” and well over 250 pounds most of the time. And I am just big and strong-looking. Whenever I am in an environment I am not familiar with—especially at night—I always make sure that I keep my hands in my pockets. People are never sure what your hands have a hold of. Hands that are out of sight on the street could possibly be holding a weapon. Secondly, I always walk either with purpose and direction, or with insouciance and carelessness. Thirdly, and most importantly, I always make eye contact. And when eye contact is made, it is essential to either raise your eyebrows or to nod your head. The best outcome is a, “hey” or “what’s up” followed by a nod or an eyebrow raise. If this isn’t returned, it is important to raise your personal alert level or orange because as we know from day to day life, the way someone treats you rarely has anything to do with you, it has more to do with him. So, in this case, he might just be pissed, bitter, hurt, wounded, intoxicated, or possessed. He might be a psychopath or he might be so absorbed in his own thoughts (or in the best case, scared shit of you) that he’ll just fade into the night. If someone passes me and I don’t get an acknowledgment, I put up my guard and take evasive action. Evasive action might be stopping in a store or a bar or someplace open, or it might take the form of taking a turn into another road and doubling back. There have been times when I have done this after my hackles rise and I am under heightened alert when I am “surprised” to see my middle-of-the-night acquaintance turned around and walking on my previous vector as if to follow me, as I wait in the shadows. I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but I also do the same thing if I feel like I am being followed. I will double back, I will recede into the shadows and there have been a number of times when intentionally or otherwise, I have caught the alleged tail turn the corner, look around quizzically, and then, baffled, move on. I can only assume that this was motivated by their desire to keep me, dark and bulky, in their radar, but I have been known to go to a little bit of trouble to shake what I perceive as a tail. Primarily for the amusement. Much of my life is fueled by amusement, and being able to put into practice techniques and skills that I learned as a Rotsee Ranger just amuses the hell out of me on my way home. Equally, these techniques are important to practice, to hone, and to keep. When you’re drunk, American, alone, and a traveler and it’s well after midnight in Saint Petersburg or Katmandu, this sort of diligence is not only sane (as opposed to what you’re thinking which is, “my lord is this boy paranoid”) but it is smart. Especially in light of the constant ten-thousand dollar necklace I have until late always brought along. ## Fire Can Lick Behind These Eyes May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/fire_can_lick_b.html I guess after all of that training even though it’s been about twenty years ago, I do believe I was trained well to smell a tail, to smell someone who’s got evil on his mind. To feel out someone’s intent, and to hide all of that savviness behind the sweetest, most mild exterior you could ever imagine. But fire can lick behind these eyes; a growl can pass these lips. ## Photographers are Allowed to Look Deeply May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/photographers_a.html W once told me that considering how hard I look—and how shamelessly—I had better always remain a photographer. Photographers are allowed to look. To look deeply. And they are almost always excused for that. As a shooter and as a writer, I have also been given the kind of liberty that I would have taken anyway. Being good looking has worked in my advantage as well. It is funny to see. Although people openly try to warn me against being so open, against being so warm, against being so accepting, people don’t really fuck with me. I mean, I have not been burnt outside my comfort zone. There must be a good balance here. ## Emerson’s Invisible Eye May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/emersonians_inv.html Being both an only child and the son of a photographer, I have always looked at the world more as something that is as it is no matter what instead of the world and the people around me being something and someone that is constantly being influenced and essentially changed in a very real way by every action that I made. This is why I think it very fine for photojournalists to be Emersonian’s invisible eyes, going around and exploring the world but not influencing the natural occurrences of the world. A little like being a scientist not wanting to influence an experiment or an anthropologist not wanting to push the primitive into the modern through the force of will. Like these nobles, the photojournalist’s essential mission is to capture history real time. To share the beauty and the horrors of the world. No, journalistically, let the image speak the thousand words. To give Powerbars and chocolate and bottles of water to starving Sudanese is actually a disservice. The photojournalist is in fact the farthest thing from being inhumane. The photojournalist is more heroic than the soldier. The photojournalist is able to collect the most bold of truths. It is not inhumane for the photographer to ignore the suffering of man or beast. In fact, the photographer, the photojournalist is passionately engaged. The blowback comes from the intimacy and success of these images. The blowback comes from being with the poachers who are netting Orangutans for zoos and medicine, the blowback comes from being with the warlords as they intercept UN and NGO supplies, only to force the people deeper and deeper into starvation. All for an image. And that isn’t the only step. The largest step that needs to be considered is how much trust the shooter must build in order to be allowed deep into the bush with the poachers or behind enemy lines with the rebels. ## Some Really Fucked Up Stuff May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/some_really_fuc.html This all goes back to me being an only child, a photographer, and the son of a photographer. Without a camera, I look too hard, without a camera, I am conspicuous. Without a camera, I am a sitting duck. But without a camera I am really beginning to learn how it feels not to have that fucking thing between be and the world. Now I know how *my* actions have reactions around me. I, myself, felt like Emerson’s giant invisible floating eye. And that wasn’t the only lesson. The final lesson is how vulnerable I am and can be to the ripples of the people around me. And how, maybe unawares, I have been an unwitting participant in some really nasty shit. Some really fucked up stuff. ## An Easy Mark May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/an_easy_mark.html At least nobody has died. At least I haven’t had to kill anybody. At least nobody has tried to kill me. And if they had wanted to, I would have been an easy mark. ## Ants Don’t Exist as Individuals May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/ants_dont_exist.html The funny thing about ants is they don’t exist as individuals. I don’t mean to go into some sort of community diatribe about the people. The ant colony is competitive, self-serving, self-sustaining, and has a much longer life than any of the ants individually. Although the ant lives for a very short time, the typical ant colony lives for decades. A young colony acts exuberant and youthful while an elder colony is more careful and circumspect. Throughout the course of human history, it has been the family that has existed this way. Surely not the country, or nation-state, which is affectation. Like the ant colony, the large blood family has a much longer life than does a family member. It also has many more resources and resilience. ## Buy All Your Clothes from the Gap May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/buy_all_your_cl.html I try to dress just about as normally as possible. I guess I would like to be one of the preppiest men in the room. If possible. It isn’t easy in Washington. But in my crowd it is. My secret is that is that I host one of the most counter-cultural web sites on the Internet. I also edit one of the most counter-cultural web sites on the Internet. My only saving grace is that I don’t write the most counter-cultural content on the Internet. But I don’t know if that is really the point. I have though long and hard about this. I believe that one of the reasons I don’t have my name anywhere on the site (if I can help is) is because I know that authorship is just one part of what the net-effect of publishing is. I like to think of what I do as altruistic. What I do is give voice to those who don’t have a way to reach a large audience. And I do: the site that I have been working on, slowly and surely, for over five years. And after all of that time, I find myself with thousands of readers reading a site that I am not willing to stand next to, to stand behind. It is because my agenda has always been to see what happens. Maybe I should have been a scientist because I like to mix chemicals, like a chemist, and see what happens as a result. Then introduce something else and see what the outcome is. ## Influencing the Experiment’s Outcome May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/influencing_the.html Honestly, after years of this kind of science, I realize that no matter what care I take, I cannot avoid influencing the experiment’s outcome and I cannot avoid being influenced. Over time I have seen everything come through the open submission of the web site. Some of it so mad, that I cannot believe it myself. Starting with 9-11, the level of madness on the site has gone into the stratosphere. And I am sure that I have played a part in allowing so much of the madness into the main stream. ## There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/there_is_no_suc.html I talk about memetics. I talk about the meme. I talk about how culture is dangerous and not only easily influenced but also easily corrupted. By corruption, I don’t mean only political scandal or business shenanigans, but also the integrity of the cultural code base. Where are the checks and balances for popular culture? The arm of the law and its lawyers are for sure the error correctors of this cultural codebase, but only legally. And only rationally. When it comes to popular culture it is much harder to check for errors and corruption. Because there is always desire of change and progress. Because in the world of entertainment, stasis is boring. But influence is influence in much the same way that there is no such thing as a free lunch. ## Crack-Addled Lab Rat May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/crack-addled_la.html Through all of this movement and change and even though I fancy myself a flexible man, I find myself clinging to too many things which kill me again and again. Like the crack-addled lab rat returning again and again to the charged vending chute, I can clearly see myself engaging in addictive and painful behaviors. Simply put, were I able to simply avoid the drug and the voltage all would be well. To blame either is not only fruitless, not only a lie, but a hunger to self-destruct. The story is always the same with these lab rats: they end up killing themselves. The crack and the charge, blameless. Is the situation a stacked deck? Of course! Were there neither crack nor charge, there would be no experiment. Shall I blame the sadistic scientists for their cruel imagination? What is the use? Shall I blame the coca and the cooking process for the crack? Or the machinist shop for milling and assembling this self-service electrical chair? Or even the graduate student who plugged in the contraption to the wall and fed the rats and kept them and finally, one-by-one placed them into the cage? Why blame them? The drug was not alone. There were other options besides. There was the dribble bottle of water, the dish of pellets, the rough cuts of carrot and cheese, even a soft place to sleep, were sleep or food ever compelling. Surely blameless is this scam, this set-up! I mean, come on! Surely the scientist, the graduate student, and the machinist have been able to make it through similar shenanigans. Here they are in their work smocks, healthy and happy, successful and true, exemplars of their places in society. Here I am, the simple rat, living high on the hog, kept well and watered. Fed. There will always be temptations and traps, there will always be the promise of treasure, the windfall. To choose the crack and to suffer not only the sting of the charge (a perfectly good warning sign if ever there was one) but also the association of the two as one, now that’s my fault, now isn’t it? The euphoria of the drug is the charge; the pain of the current grounded through me begins to feel heavenly. Soon, who even needs the crack? Soon, I am flying on the juice flowing from the wall. The mind can always conjure its own mood enhancers to bridge the gap. And the rest is history. The only thing to come out of any of this is whether or not I turned myself—I mean the rat—into an electrocuted masochistic crack ho or a well-fed, well rested white lab rat. We never hear about the white lab rat that said no. Not sexy. The University publicists never cotton to that data. Addiction is where it’s at, man. The weakness of the flesh sells, gets picked up not only in the Journal Science but in the Times! I want to hear the story about the rat that just said no. I want to be that rat. I want to make Nancy Reagan proud with my own personal policy of “just say no” as opposed to just say when. ## No Longer Amused with Clever May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/no_longer_amuse.html I am no longer even amused with clever. Clever never did anyone any good save perhaps the writers of The Simpson’s. Cleverness earns nothing more than acknowledgement. Even intelligence is rarely rewarded fully. Smarts and reliability get all the rewards. Small amounts of money made over time supersede the windfall. The ant ends up using the grasshopper as winter food stock. That’s what ants do. They build homes, they repair homes, they forage for food, they even kill food, they bring it home, and they store much more of it than needed until they hunger. Then they dispose of the refuse and tidy up only to repeat. ## Doctor, Lawyer, CEO, Politician, Priest, Teacher, Capitalist, Investment Banker May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/doctor_lawyer_c.html So, it makes a lot of sense to me now why even bad big families are important. To allow groups to grow in power and influence. The family is ideal because if one strategizes well, one can cover all the bases: doctor, lawyer, CEO, politician, priest, teacher, capitalist, investment banker—and entire community within itself-contained and bonded by blood. ## Fancying Myself So Clever May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/fancying_myself.html After fancying myself so clever and after getting a pretty good handle on what everything is not, I want to embrace everything that is, as in the way it seems. I can work with that. There are stable metrics and if-then clauses that are simple and effective. The things that I was seeing require special light and squinted eyes. Like in pointillism—or better yet in painting by Dali—things are not as they seem, but it is much easier if they were, for sure. For everyone. I have an even better comparison. In my experience behind the curtain, what people see is like abstract expressionism. Most people look at it and say the obvious, “my n-year-old can do that” or “what kind of idiot spent how much on that?” Well, the truth is even better than fiction. That’s actually what you’re supposed to think. I remember when my buddy W used to work at the World Bank and even at the UN. He used to roll his eyes and curse the chaff that worked in the offices around him. Such bureaucrats, such dolts, he said. And when I worked at the treasury, I felt the same way. This paper-pushing, this red-tape—all of this stuff is essential to the conservative nature of government. Structures have to be created and adhered to. What few people know and what everyone wants to believe—and it is true!—is that there is a small cadre of hyper-vigilant, hyper-aware, hyper-intelligent, and hyper-loyal people throughout the system. Considering how expensive and how expansive the government is, there are so few people actually making the big decisions that you would shit yourself to know. And they really aren’t the ones you would assume, either. Almost never. Okay, maybe Clinton was different, but in general, never. ## Myself, My New Wife, and My Future Children May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/myself_my_new_w.html My life is so much better now that I am buying what I am being sold. The chaos of my life can easily be contained within myself, my new wife, and my future children. We can be crazy, but I really don’t want to ever consider any of the fun mind games I did before. Honestly, outside of myself, my family, and maybe my community (I can’t really be my neighbor’s keeper—and who knows, if I did have a brother, could I even be his? Would I want to? Would I care?) All the rest is hubris. All the rest is wasted breath and wasted life. Let someone else man the barricades! Let someone else be part of this or that social experiment, I am certainly not going to trust my children to a fucking experiment, be it school or drugs or any of it. ## Sour Grapes May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/sour_grapes.html Of course, you might think that I am bitter. Sour grapes. Well, a little, and only because I wish I were less clever. Curiosity killed the cat. I wish I bought into this much earlier. I would have had a ten year jump on making babies! On chasing my wife around the bed, practicing and then perfecting the art of makin’ em. All the kinds of simple things that are possible because all of this wonderful, mostly-invisible, active armor that surrounds us at great expense and with great success. ## To Quell Unrest and to Avoid Widespread Panic May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/to_quell_unrest.html “You don’t want to know” and “most intelligence and operations work is spent to quell unrest and to avoid widespread panic” and two of the first things I am going to forget. I have been working like a madman trying to, to no avail. The next thing I want to forget is that we are the children of America and our government is our parents. And it is their job to aggressively and brutally save and protect us. And they have been doing a fantastic job until 9/11. What I want to forget is that I know that these days I have come to know that it is not just the children who are scared of the dark or what’s under the bed, but the parents are as well. I would like to forget that the most. ## Nobody Gives a Fuck May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/nobody_gives_a.html Sometimes it is impossible to get outside your own head. Trees for the forest. Hindsight these days is not merely 20/20 but is 20/10. As I become older, things become more clear. And it seems like my life is going to become a giant allegory. An example to whom? This is why I am writing this all out. The most important warning I aspire to offer from these words is to stay asleep. I used to warn others that once you push the velvet of the other, the velvet of the other pushes back. Once you become an initiate, you have to work through the entire course. And I conned my way into a program that I really couldn’t handle. Into a life that I couldn’t handle in the first place. A life I was ill-suited to embrace and live. And that was before I saw the patterns. Way before I saw what was really going on. And now I want to go back to bed. I want to just get into the place where the most difficult part of my life has to deal with the 401k plan, with keeping up with Jones’, with paying down the taxes, and killing the debt. With making sure the kids get into the right school, and all the other shit I was so resentful about. That I was trying to be above, trying to avoid as I avoided life for something better. For some arcane inside information, for some background stuff. Life happens when you are keeping your options open. The truth is that it is essential to make some choices and do something while you are trying to figure out what you want to do. What do you want to do? Make some beautiful mistakes. It’s not like your permanent record. This isn’t high school. Nobody gives a fuck. ## Quite Talented May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/quite_talented.html I have known L for well over five years. His watercolors are all over the walls of my apartment. He really is quite talented. ## Dosed on Acid May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/dosed_on_acid.html I remembered the night that W, R, and I dosed on acid is the night W sort of let me in on his secret and I didn’t understand what he meant for what’s coming up on ten years. We were down on the mall at the odd beginning of the high when all the leaves of the tree suddenly become an undulating spin of Mandelbrot fractals. I stood there exposed. I stood there with my mouth agape and my arms hung limp by my side. Not only was I vulnerable but I was exposed. W came up to me and clapped me on the back and I started walking with him. ## All the Shapes and Colors Around Me May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/all_the_shapes.html “You like to look and that’s fine, but if you’re going to look that hard at something or someone, you really should have a camera in your hand,” he said, “because although there is no harm in looking, there is harm in looking suspicious.” We walked further and although I tried to look less obvious in my hungry desire to devour all the shapes and colors around me, it was to no avail. “There is nothing wrong in walking around with an expensive camera dangling around your neck. You can look all you want—you don’t even have to take a single picture—but without the camera or a reporter’s notebook or a sketch pad, you are threatening. People don’t know what to make out of you.” ## People Recognize Patterns May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/people_recogniz.html We found a bench to sit on. R was still pretty far down the walk. It was cold and as W talked, I could see the steam swirling from his mouth. I could see the math in the vapor. “Even if we were sitting here on the bench. Together, we can sit shamelessly and pass the time looking and talking. If I were here alone, I would need to have a newspaper with me. I could of course sit for hours looking, with the paper folded on my lap or in my fist and that would be fine, but without the newspaper I am conspicuous and threatening. People recognize patterns. It is this talent that has allowed us to get where we are now, not the other stuff. We call this pattern recognition many things, but one of the things is creativity. True creativity is not just making something pretty. It is recognizing, revealing, and displaying lost patterns. A single adult male spending hours by himself people watching without any other activity, be it a paper, a radio, a notebook, or a camera, is a little creepy and quite possibly will draw attention to himself.” ## Pervert or Kidnapper May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/pervert_or_kidn.html I could feel W looking at the side of my face and I could tell he was thinking. I was trying to pay attention, but I was looking at the clouds swirl from my mouth as I breathed. “If it makes more sense to you,” W said after a while, “it is akin to sitting just outside of a playground and not having a kid of your own. Without a kid or a wife, the first thing you must be is a pervert or a kidnapper. What other reason is there for a grown man to spend his afternoon watching children at the park? There isn’t. Not to the parents and not to the cops.” W sighed. We watched as R slowly approached us. R was still out of earshot. ## Hiding in Plain Sight May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/hiding_in_plain.html “So, it is not only about dressing like everyone else and looking like everyone else but it is also about choices, about not setting off an alarm in people’s minds.” He stood up and started to walk away towards R, slowed down, and then turned towards me. “The best place to hide anything, you know Chris, is in plain sight.” ## Exactly the Opposite May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/exactly_the_opp.html And that was a long time ago. And that was a lesson lost. And that is a most important lesson. Because in plain site is where everything is hidden. The corporate chart turned on its head. Privates with remote controls hidden in their pockets controlling the arrogant blustering of the General. To quote R, a college chum, “everything is exactly the opposite of how I thought it to be.” ## The Lovers My Lovers Have Had May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/the_lovers_my_l.html I have never gotten a satisfying answer as to how many lovers my lovers have had. I discovered much later that most women have a shocking past. Most modern women have been with way more partners than their male counterparts. It would be dizzying. It first became obvious to me when I was living with B. She talked about the long tracts of her youth when she dated no one and pleasured herself with a vibrator from Good Vibrations. I asked a few more questions and discovered that this alone time, this time all by herself, being on her own, also included quite a few one night stands. So meaningless that they were never even considered to have broken this celibacy. I learned later that when a woman tells a man that she hasn’t dated anyone since a vigorous breakup twelve months ago, this has nothing to do with sex. She has had sex since the breakup; she just hasn’t called it dating and doesn’t consider it antithesis to her time alone. She would never call it playing the field or really enjoying being single—which is most certainly different than not dating or being along—but would prefer to misrepresent the situation, or better yet, compartmentalize the experience as being purely physiological. Mechanical, essential. And women have been informed enough. ## Change Isn’t Always Good May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/change_isnt_alw.html My friends have been suggesting that I see a therapist. My mother has been asking me about that medicine I had been on. I am certain that I haven’t been quite myself lately. And I am becoming more certain that I am rapidly changing. Change isn’t always good. My change most certainly isn’t very fine at all. ## It Takes a Village to Raise a Holy Man May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/it_takes_a_vill.html Aldous Huxley wrote Doors of Perception as he rationalized his addictions and his madness. But he did have a point of which I am becoming more and more aware: the most successful members of our modern world have the tightest reducing valves. Huh? Well, Aldous had the insight that the brain is not a projector but rather a receiver capable of intercepting and interpreting a full spectrum of light much broader than the visible, for example. Able to receive waves much wider and narrower than just the audible. To Huxley, the Mind is able to perceive the Universe as it is but the brain is the reducing valve. The brain is the filter that allows man to fend for himself. The farther from Grace and seeing God, the more apt you are to thrive in our world. And although we might innately be superhuman in our ability to sense and know, there is really negligible benefit to realizing any one of these superpowers. The superman is useless in the world; the superman is in fact a liability against which society has built active armor. But the man who is able to loosen the reducing valve—to open the strong filter—and whose mind is capable of comprehending the maddening assault of the universe is amazingly valuable as long as someone’s got your back. According to Huxley, it takes a village to raise a holy man. Holy men are very important portals to the other, but are useless when it comes to living life. ## I Do My Kegels May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/i_do_my_kegels.html And so although I have a capable mind hungry to comprehend the static, I now realize that it is essential to strengthen up my brain. To do my Kegels to strengthen the brain’s perceptual sphincter muscles. It sucks to be so sensitive to such extraneous crap. In the beginning it was curiosity. I knew there was something else. I knew that the glimpses I had into something else was very real. To me, it was like solving a puzzle. It was truly a game that required the tools with which I was born which was the ability to recognize patterns, make associations, and notice changes in systems. In other words, I will always notice when you have had a haircut or bought new glasses. Not just the change but the exact reason for the change down to if you have clipped your fingernails the night before. Noticing a manicure is child’s play for me. I want to train to be oblivious. I want to go bumbling around like a regular guy. ## Bumbling Around May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/bumbling_around.html I want to go bumbling around like a regular man. Like a regular human. Bumbling around is the legacy of being in the sentient world. ## Swirling Balls of Energy and Light May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/swirling_balls.html I believe in God. I believe in the Other. I believe that the world as we know it is a construct of our desires. That the world that we experience with our senses is completely illusory. Again, reducing valve cinched tight. What is there is swirling balls of energy and light we recognize as Aunt Matilda and Uncle Bruce. I said before that the mind is a filter but it is also a projector. We perceive the swirling balls of light as kin, but our minds project the recognized patterns conveniently onto the world all around us. This explains why we don’t acutely notice aging in those around us so much as we are constantly projecting and no longer seeing. Thankfully. Otherwise we would never spend time with all the ugly aging people around us. ## ID and Passport May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/id_and_passport.html My old friend told me that when he was returning from Iraq he couldn’t really visit our friends in Europe. He wasn’t himself. He had an entirely different identity provided for him by the Government. His military ID and Passport had a different name. It would have been too confusing to meet our friends in Europe. How would he explain this fully-realized cover story? It was better for him to control his environment, control the people he knows, keeping away from the people he’s known. The day I became privy to this I wondered. I wondered how many cover stories there really were all around me. I was afraid to ask, really. Since everyone is from somewhere else, how much do we really know about anyone else? I mean, I know about lying to the ladies at the bar about your name and what you do, but this is a much larger issue. To be issued an entirely different life that you have to keep weeded and watered. A dangerous life spawned to protect your family and your friends. ## False Name May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/false_name.html There are men in the world who are given papers, fully accredited and fully legal, that do not reflect their given name. M becomes J. And that is who he is. And he has to make his travel plans so as to avoid cities and countries where he might run into friends and family. “I wanted to visit S, her husband, and her new baby, but I couldn’t,” M told me once. She lived in Brussels and he was free from his last tactical operation and had some time to travel, but couldn’t visit her because he was not M but was J. And national security could not condone this intentional stress on the fabric of reality. Better safe than sorry, as they say. ## Only Your Failures May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/only_your_failu.html We sat in a dive bar in Alexandria. It was in a basement off of King Street and the entire bar was decorated in business cards. I looked around and all the people in there wanted to fuck, but until then they wanted to drink and talk shit. “The intelligence community comes to these bars,” he said, “and they just come and since they are normal men and women, they drink and are lonely and sad and have so many secrets.” There is such a weakness in the psychology of discretion and loneliness wherein the general truth is, “nobody knows of your successes but only your failures.” ## Full of Pride and Hunger May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/full_of_pride_a.html These are men and women who are full of pride and hunger, who need to be part of community and in relationship. They are as desperate and sad as I am, but with better stories. The kind of stories that can always get you laid if that’s what you want. But they want more. They have the vow of secrecy; they have the world on their shoulders. They are noble men who are painted into a patriotic corner. ## Catch-22 May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/catch-22.html The most telling thing that M ever told me reflected this sadness. There are two. M is a Romantic man, a man with soul and genius. He told me once that there is such a focus on letting him and his team know that there are many formal structures for therapy and support. The catch is, any attempt at reaching out for help in dealing with stress, depression, and feelings of being disconnected and living a lie is dealt with suspicion and worse. If an elite operator reaches out for help, be it a counselor or a psychologist, that man is labeled broken and his career is fucked. So the smart men and women who live on the frontlines of the war against terror have to stuff their hurt, their stress, their feelings of meaninglessness, their existential crises, and just suck it up soldier, complete the mission. But of course in this community, it isn’t just three or four years of being an on-the-front soldier, but it is a lifetime of innuendo, of subterfuge, of half-truths, of cover stories, and so forth. So these folks do what men and women do from the beginning of time. They go to bars, they go to whores, they get laid, they get soused, and they self-medicate to the best of their ability. ## Memory of a Simpler Time and a Better Woman May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/memory_of_a_sim.html I never understood what strip bars where all about and so I started going to some. The bars I went to were more like cafes on the road and most of their clients were truckers and traveling salesmen. After buying a meal and having a drink, I watched the girls, some of whom were very beautiful—or at least very sexy, very compelling. I grabbed myself a lap dance from a woman I found very lovely. I asked her for another and another and then it clicked for me. What I was getting was a sexual simulacrum. She moved against me. I was not allowed to touch, of course, but she moved against me, touching her body to mine, stroking my face with her hair, breathing warm breath into my face. I smelled her hair, her perfume. I was slowly intoxicated in the booth. Whenever she moved her breasts and her neck and face close to mine, she talked to me like a lover, she made lover noises, she was mine. She did something that even some lovers had never accomplished. She hypnotized me into a state of acceptance that I was back home, in my lover’s arms, in her embrace, able to access not just her but her body, her mind, her soul. Like a song or scent that evokes the memory of a simpler time and a better woman, this dancer—whom I know was a single mother who needed to commute an hour each way to be there, as we had had this talk too—was able to—in her seduction, in her soft cooing of sweet nothing and breathy feelings of pleasure being with me—bring me to a place of feeling not just like a stud, but like a man: respected and desired. And there is really no price that I can place on that sense of acceptance. It is a feeling so strong that it overwhelmed the obvious artifice of the experience. The lie. The simulacrum. ## The Suggestion of the Thing is the Thing May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/the_suggestion.html And the suggestion of the thing is the thing. The idea of the thing is the thing. To say “I once owned a Triumph sports car and know a lot about the Triumph sports car” is as meaningless—and as real as “I used to own.” ## The World’s Baby’s Daddy May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/the_worlds_baby.html The British were heavy-handed in the way they colonized the world. The British approached world politics as a bridegroom, each colony the bride. This polygamist attitude of many wives to one husband resulted over the course of history in a lot of very bitter ex wives. America, on the other hand, is the world’s Baby’s Daddy and not the world’s husband, like the British form of colonization. ## Mutates Base Constructs May 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/mutates_base_co.html Powerful influence is oftentimes unperceivable because it mutates base constructs—the institutional memory—so that the evolution isn’t realized or remembered. For this reason, it is important to rigorously log the process and audit the system before the influence begins. This is most important because after the catalyst is introduced, there will appear to be systemic changes that are complex and wide-ranging. These broad shifts can be blamed more easily on the natural process or a natural course than on what they really are, which is the pandemic resulting from the catalytic ground zero. Although it is very difficult to discover the ground zero of an epidemic of TB or AIDS, it is even more challenging to track the infection patterns within a culture that can include any number of important though dissimilar organs of transmission. The track back is even more complex because as the effect expands and becomes more diffuse, the direct attribution will become corrupt and there will be examples of plagiarizing and faux sui generis. Although impossible to track and maddening to account for, the more often there are these thefts the better, because it is only through this sort of ownership of idea by the culture itself that the memory can be universally erased. In some cases, it requires a generation, as in the case of albums, rotary phones, and Betamax, but in other cases it may require only weeks, if not fewer. ## The Sea is a Mean Bitch May 18, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/the_sea_is_a_me.html I am a city-dweller. I mean, I did grow up in Hawaii and I was a diver, but that was a long time ago. I am not that guy anymore. A few years ago I was on the crew of a working sailboat. Actually, there were only the three of us, W, Otto Helm, and me. It took months to sail from Acapulco Yacht Club to Marina del Rey. Man, the sea! She is such a bitch. She must be a mom and not a wife because she teaches hard but never chastises. ## She Seems Gentle But it is Life or Death May 18, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/she_seems_gentl.html The sea, she can be very remedial in her lessons when you are sailing. She also protects fools and drunks and I am most certainly a fool at the very least. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction and Karma is direct, reciprocity is king on the sea. When I am tempted to be willful and push myself past either my abilities or my energy, I always either hurt myself or break something onboard. This is not a joke. She seems gentle—the sea always does—but it is life or death. ## Spotting Enemy May 18, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/spotting_enemy.html When I was being trained in target acquisition I was told that movement is key. The best way to acquire a target to defend a perimeter is to sit still and look into the distance at nothing in particular. The mind gets really nutty when you don’t choose something to look at. We are truly pattern recognition machines. So, after hours of just looking “out there” into the in between place, even the slightest movement that breaks the fabric of “what is out there” will attract your eye. Nine times out of ten its enemy. ## Silent Movement May 18, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/silent_movement.html You won’t believe me when I tell you this but silent movement training feels like ninja training. Trying to move wraith-like through the forest isn’t easy. Try it. BDUs and jungle boots. The only advantage is the ten minutes of jumping up and down before deployment to find and tape down rattlies. After that, it is all about avoiding the particular pattern recognition machine known as enemy. ## Kung Fu Movies May 18, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/kung_fu_movies.html The training is similar to what you see in a Kung Fu movie. Sensei, who in this case was Team Leader, stood in the dappled forested training area with a blindfold on and dared us to get past undetected. Actually, the most effective way to get through is to move forward like you would imagine someone walking through a mine field would: kind of crouched down, loose-limbed, slowly toeing forward. It works. Waiting for the wind at least masks the snaps and crackles. How else are you going to garrotte someone? I mean, how else? ## Taking Evasive Maneuvers May 18, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/taking_evasive.html At night walking back from Zack’s or the Metro, I am highly attuned to my environment. Whenever I feel a breech in my perimeter, I tend towards taking evasive action. This sounds really insane to say out loud. If I hear heals tap tap tapping behind me, I generally don’t escalate, but there are always people that don’t understand that personal space after 9PM is a lot different than it is on a Sunday at the market. If you are a man coming up on a woman, move to the other side of the street, buster. And if you breach my perimeter, I am likely to take action to lose you. I will double-back, I will disappear into an alley, I will turn the table and follow you for a while. It is all fun, but it is also as serious as a heart attack. An ounce of prevention and all that rot. ## Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo May 18, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/cuckoo_cuckoo_c.html Wow, all this really does sound insane to say out loud. ## The Painter May 19, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/the_painter.html W told me that if you’re going to really look—even stare—you need to find an excuse. For me it is the camera but others have their own foil. Then there is The Painter. He has the best cover ever. Unlike making images with a camera, which takes about 1/250th-of-a-second, The Painter’s renderings take closer to 250-minutes. Plenty of time to stakeout just about anything or anyone. We have such a painter on the Hill and I suspect him of being a spy. ## Phony Francophone Lecher May 19, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/phony_francopho.html There was a guy at Starbucks today who was checking out Interns from behind too-small shades and a francophone magazine. Others sometimes feign reading a book or the paper. Incidentally, the guy at Starbucks turned his head. Never turn your head. ## If You’re Going to Fuck Them, Make It Feel Good May 19, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/if_youre_going.html The way the Intelligence community is set up is not the way you would think. To quote my fairy godmother, “there is no terrorist as frightening as a panic-stricken public.” Hearts and minds, hearts and minds. That’s what it’s all about. It works in seduction as well. I have personal experience. I used to tell women how men were seducing them, I felt it my duty to blow away the smoke from the lies and deceit surrounding getting laid. I quickly realized that it was a zero-sum game. Women don’t want to be confronted with these things. Every time I divulged, women were angry, but angry at me. Women know that there is something rotten going on, but if you’re going to fuck them, make it feel good. And that is not only physically. Far from it: it includes avoiding feelings of shame and, if worst comes to worst, the need to be blameless, the blame landing straight on that awful, awful man. ## Dirty Hippy Backpacker Cum Spy May 23, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/dirty_hippy_bac.html Think about it. The reason why tourists and backpacker are constantly being harassed and jailed by foreign powers is because they actually are spies. Or, rather, spies and operations officers (operators) dress like dirty hippy backpackers and dorky yokel tourists in order to elude detection while abroad. I would say that just about everyone who has been taken by a foreign government is guilty. The official State Department story is one part spin, one part redirection, and a big lung full of smoke. These days when even Delta Force wears board shorts and flip flops, James Bond might have a better survival rate than a fit long-haired backpacking hippy. ## A Backpack, Hiking Boots, Secret Pockets, Pouch Pockets May 23, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/a_backpack_hiki.html Incidentally, one of the reasons why the entire world is peopled with operatives, operators, soldiers, special forces, recon, and spies dressed like eco-tourists and dirty trustafarian hippy backpackers is purely practical: you get to wear the same gear as the Lurps. Effectively, jungle boots, jungle “day” packs, water, cameras, “guide books,” notebooks, tropical fatigues from LL Bean. Thanks primarily to R.E.I., the typical tourist is better provisioned than a Navy S.E.A.L. ## Joe Average May 23, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/joe_average.html Very much unlike the man of mystery aesthetic favored by Hollywood in its spies and operatives, the real field operations officer is Joe Average. The average heights of an American male is five feet and nine-point-one inches. For a man that height, the ideal weight is around 150-pounds. Dark hair, dark eyes. Neither hairy nor bald. Just a guy. The average weight of an American is 180-pounds. That dull-looking guy next to you on the metro who you never noticed—the one who you assume has a really dull life and works middle-management in software? Well, he is a spy and has top secret clearance, can kill you with his hands and has been trained in evasive driving techniques. Don’t be envious because his wife doesn’t even know what he really does and she fancies him a bore too. ## All The Operators I Know Are Average Height May 23, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/all_the_operato.html I am a big guy and tall too. All of my friends are pretty average. 40-regular kind of guys. Off the rack. The kind of guys who can share jeans with their girlfriends. Even the two I know to be trained killers. These two can do surprising things like get me in a fireman’s carry or beat me in a fist fight. I am a big guy. ## Bar Spies May 23, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/05/bar_spies.html If you want to spot a spy, you have to see him work the bar when he’s drinking. Even though your garden-variety spy is only 5-foot-9 and 150-pounds, he gets laid a lot. Women are attracted to fearlessness. Spies are unable to hold their liquor enough to mask this sex-appeal. If he is seriously popular with the ladies and hasn’t obvious power, wealth, or beauty, bet he’s a spy. ## Pecking Order Amongst Spies June 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/06/pecking_order_a.html The one thing you can be sure of is that cops don’t like private dicks, soldiers hate mercenaries, and government-sponsored spies will not tolerate private-interest entities taking on Intelligence gathering. The common thread between all of the above is that cops, soldiers, and spies are generally doing their work for God and Country. PIs, Mercs, and spies-for-hire are doing it for cold hard cash. At best, this resentment is noble; at worse, it is riddled with envy: of infinite resources, freedom, lifestyle, and glamor. ## The Motivation Behind Becoming a Government-Sponsored Spy June 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/06/the_motivation.html Find me a government-sponsored American Intelligence Officer, Operations Officer, or Black Ops Operator who doesn’t have an amazing collection of spy novels and spy fiction loading down a bookshelf somewhere in his home and I will show you a spy who is willing to go on the free and open market. It is true: they all wanted to be James Bond growing up. ## We Both Wanted to be James Bond June 13, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/06/we_both_want_to.html I too wanted to be James Bond growing up. Sadly, for me it was escapist and a way of basing the success of the competition I have with my best friend, W. Our competition is simple: every year since our freshman year of college, we have constantly strived to attain the most James Bond skill possible. W and I both started early. He lived in Monrovia, Liberia, as a child. I lived in Hawaii. W became a polyglot, learning flawless German; I received extensive training in guerilla warfare. W lived in Guatemala, East Berlin, and Africa, and I played it safe in gentler Western Europe. I learned how to hob-nob and W learned how to live on nothing, nowhere, with no one. It was really a draw until a few years ago when W’s life was shot unto orbit while my life is easily contained by Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. ## Cover, Concealment, and Camouflage July 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/cover_concealme.html When it comes to methods of hiding secrets, camouflage is under-appreciated. Camouflage is the art of hiding in plain site. In my experience, what you don’t see is always more secure than something you can’t see or can’t touch but know it’s there. If you know there is something there somewhere, you can easily develop a search and recovery strategy. If you know where something is but its access it restricted, it is simple to develop a break-in strategy. The human mind is brilliant in recognizing patterns, but where pattern is not perceived, there is nothing. The human mind cannot see what it cannot see; or rather, the mind cannot perceive what it cannot recognize. ## Hiding in Plain Sight July 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/hiding_in_plain_1.html The reason why everything of value isn’t simply camouflaged is because of spycraft. There is an entire trillion dollar industry—the military-industrial complex—designed to find patterns where none exist. With the advent of technologies that include IR for people-finding, quantum computers for data-finding, and deep cover Intelligence operators—moles—for people-finding, using pure camouflage takes monstrous balls-of-steel. That said, camouflage—hiding in plain site—is still the most secure method for hiding the most precious of possession. A perfect example can be readily found in the arcane world of Freemasonry. All the secrets of Freemasonry are hidden in plain site. Simply obfuscated into a dark, damp, dusty corner of a world peopled by harmless octogenarians. Simply brilliant. ## The Most Important Skill in Hunting is Patience July 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/the_most_import.html After buying the long rifle, the suit of camouflage, the flight to Tanzania, the guide, and the license; after acquiring the training, the marksmanship, the permits, and the experience; after all of that, the hunt is nothing if you are not willing to have the patience to wait for the perfect, clear, kill. ## The Most Important Skill for a Sniper is Patience July 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/the_most_import_1.html After being issued the long rifle, the suit of camouflage; after acquiring the training, the marksmanship, and the experience; after being delivered to the drop zone and left behind; after all of that, the mission is nothing if the sniper is not willing to have the patience to wait for the perfect, clear, kill. ## The Most Important Skill in Spying is Patience July 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/the_most_import_2.html After securing the clearance, the cover, the back story, the reputation, and the position; after acquiring the training, the trust, the reputation, and the experience; after all of that, the mole is nothing if he is not willing to have the patience to wait for the perfect opportunity. For the mole, opportunity knocks but once. ## Cap Hill Camo July 5, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/cap_hill_camo.html A Ghillie suit is ideal camouflage for a sniper and tan BDUs are suited for the desert. The Hill also has a suit of clothes best suited for invisibility in plain sight. The most appropriate camouflage for not standing out in the Nation’s Capitol is a pair of khakis, a blue button-down, a white undershirt, a pair of penny loafers, blue socks, a yellow tie, a black or brown belt, and a blue blazer with gold buttons. Actually, if you’re on a budget, anything from the GAP, and if you’re financed, buy everything from Brooks Brothers, sailing and golf-supply stores. Casual wear in Washington is just a variation on the theme. Remove the button down and replace it with a polo shirt—Lacoste is the current favorite but Ralph Lauren is always acceptable—dark colors during the Winter months and surprisingly bright colors during the summer, including pink and Carolina blue, to be worn over a white crew neck undershirt. Options include trading out the leather belt for a cloth web belt and the khaki pants for a pair of golf shorts. Hair should be maintained above the collar, over the ears, parted on the side, and natural—highlights and coloring are frowned upon. The face should be clean-shaven. Glasses are acceptable—reading-glasses even preferable—but sunglasses need to be conservative and not sporty or wrap-around. Dark, wrap-around, sporty shades are a sure sign of a background in law-enforcement or a history of rigorous training in Fort Bragg or San Diego. Timepieces should be analog and not any variation of G-Shock or rubber-banded dive watch. Dive watches can have stainless or leather bands. Breitling-type watches are currently very popular. If a digital watch is preferred, make sure it is a commercial runner’s, cyclist’s, or diver’s watch, although it is important that there be a familiarization not just with running, biking, or diving but with the recreational communities of running, biking, or diving. ## All This Stuff July 5, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/all_this_stuff.html It has occurred to me that I really don’t know why I am going on about all of this stuff. ## Don’t I Know You? July 22, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/dont_i_know_you.html Every deep cover operative fears four little words, “don’t I know you?” The world is small and no matter what you do—even identity reassignment surgery—you’re bound to run into someone who recognizes you from a previous life. The Soviets did it right when they built moles from the cradle. The West does something equally brilliant which is to recruit mid-career. Get someone who is already a pillar of the community and then work on him. ## Be Discreet in All Things, and So Render it Unnecessary to be Mysterious July 25, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/be_discreet_in.html As I have said before, if it appears impossible that you possess something priceless or are in fact the steward of valuable secrets, you will be forever safe from scrutiny. Arthur Wellesley said it best, “Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious.” Mystery might make an accountant sexy but it will make a mole dead. ## The Panopticon Has Cataracts July 25, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/the_panopticon.html We have always heard that the biggest rats in the former Soviet Union were the babushkas. These old biddies had but one task: to keep their eyes and ears open for dissent. In general, the fat, the ugly, and the old are invisible. Because they’re harmless. When a woman is old, there is very little use left for her. When you make her useful, she is cheaper to maintain and certainly more loyal and bold than any ornate system of CCTV cameras could ever be. Better yet, when the population suspects that the fat, the ugly, and the old might be informing, there is nowhere to hide because the fat, the ugly, and the old are shamefully ubiquitous. The results enjoyed by the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union was astounding, especially in the realm of self-policing and impulse control. ## Technology is 30-Years Ahead of Now July 26, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/technology_is_3.html Thirty-years-ago military intelligence possessed technology that is just wowing us right now. Google Maps is a fine example because spy satellites were already able to read a license plate back in the 70s. There isn’t a makeable cypher that cannot be broken or a pattern that cannot be recognized by some skunkworks black box or another. Keeping secrets and, more importantly, communicating secrets, is no longer about making a better lock box—technology can now easily shoot the padlock right off—it is about ensuring targetlessness. If there is no target for technology to snipe, then this guileless gangster will just sit there twiddling its thumbs. ## Pyrite July 27, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/pyrite.html In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy has to choose the true cup. The chalice that Christ drank from at the Last Supper is one of a hundred sundry cups of all shapes, sizes, materials, designs, and quality. All are poisoned save the true cup which instead offers restorative powers of healing and immortality. With hundreds of choices, which cup to choose? A room of pyrite with but a cobble of gold. Most modern techniques of discernment spend time, energy, and blunt force to prove the false. Recognizing the true cup, the real gold, or the important message is truly an art. A dying art. An art that very few possess. In the end, Indy knew Christ and so could easily and safely choose the true cup. Indy didn’t waste his time looking over each and every ornate cup, each cup more Kingly than the next. He chose the modest cup owned by a carpenter to be used at a table of his friends. He knew the answer before he asked the question, so to speak. Kurt Vonnegut said, “The only way to tell a good painting from a bad painting is to look at a million paintings.” I say that the only way to tell shit from shinola is to wade through a lot of crap. This is one profession where experience, not expertise, counts in spades. ## Doctors Have Been Known to Lose Patients July 27, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/07/doctors_have_be.html In spycraft, there is no better recruit than a doctor. Since he has plenty of money and no time, the only way to secure a doc is through extortion. A doctor’s discretion belies quite a lot of indiscretion. Even when there’s so much to lose. Reputations are very fragile. Just blame hubris and a god complex. Why do doctors make such brilliant spies? Doctors can compartmentalize their lives better than anyone. What a doctor does in a fit of passion away from his family has nothing at all to do with his wife (although it is more commonly a fit of boredom, opportunity, desperation, or frustration). A total disconnect. Along with this impenetrable bifurcation, you have a spy who can make himself scarce at a whim and then blame the hospital. Good for both illicit affairs and covert ops. It would never be suspicious to anyone—friends, family, even neighbors—for a doctor to noisily open his garage at one AM and drive off, gone until morning. I met an old married couple. Ira, the husband, was a retired surgeon. After chatting for a while, Ruth, his wife, looked seriously at me and said, “if you ever consider marrying a doctor, remember this: you will never know whether that phone call is the hospital or a mistress.” The usefulness of docs never ceases to amaze me. They never sleep, they’re self-disciplined, self-motivated, they are discrete, and their entire community trusts—and confides—in them. What’s more, docs are generally disgruntled and bored even with their spicy other woman. Many doctors are exceptionally flattered when you offer intrigue into their sad, boring, bourgeois princehoods. If you land one, he will never get caught. He will never be made. He will be forever loyal (he won’t know how not to). It won’t occur to him to blab his mouth. All the different lives lack any semblance of integration. Even today, the general population trusts their doctor as god. Actually, the best thing about recruiting doctors is that they can make mortal errors. If a doctor loses a patient… well, its been known to happen. ## Infinite Loop and Core Dump August 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/infinite_loop_a.html “Stop struggling,” he said to me when I started hyperventilating, “nobody will know unless you tell. And you can’t tell anyone, you know. What would you tell someone anyway? You really don’t know anything yourself. You haven’t done anything. Yet. And we’re only talking. There’s nothing there there. It’s your mind playing tricks on you. Its spinning into infinite loop. If you don’t pull your shit together, you’re going to have a core dump which is never pretty.” ## Breathing Into A Brown Paper Sack August 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/breathing_into.html The fucker actually gave me a brown paper sack to breath into. I breathed into a sack that vaguely tasted of onion and calmed right down. “It’s a panic attack,” he said finally, “and a really bad sign.” The lights were still low and everything was indistinct except for his eyes which were both calm and cruel. I felt like an ass breathing into a bag but I didn’t like the sound of really bad sign so I wanted to bide my time a little. I knew him pretty well and he is always calm but this was the first time I knew the cruel outside of braggadocio. But here it was and all I had was this motherfucking limp brown paper sack to protect me. ## Wet Pillow August 2, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/wet_pillow.html I sometimes wake up with a feeling of dread, sweaty hair, and a wet pillow. I usually can’t break back into the fog of the dream that did this to me. Sometimes I get a glimpse and don’t like it because there’s no there there. I believe this dream is why I have an irritable bowel and am a nervous-fucking-wreck. I am beginning to wonder if the answer to this dread—this distinct impression that the other shoe is bound to drop and that every day could be my last even though I live a decidedly whitebread plentiful life—is locked securely in the dream. ## Sousveillance and the Sousveiller August 3, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/sousveillance_a.html I feel like I am observing the observers, I am eavesdropping on the eavesdroppers. I am noticing the discretely positioned listening devices, listening posts, and listeners and writing them into this. The inverse of surveillance is sousveillance. More precisely, “it is the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity.” I can no longer help picking out the surveillers in the crowd. I am surveilling the surveillers. Am I a sousveiller? ## A Cigar is Never a Cigar August 5, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/a_cigar_is_neve.html Always assume you’re being hustled. In other words, listen hard after someone prefaces their throw-away banter with, “I’m just a simple man and I don’t know much …” ## Charm is Never Incidental August 5, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/charm_is_never.html If you think that charm is incidental and comes from someone’s personality, spend an entire day being charming. Charm is costly, downright expensive, in terms of time and energy. When someone is charming, look and listen. Is that charm being spent on you or is it for the benefit of a third party? Although it is always a good idea to follow the money, it is even a better idea to follow the attention. With any resource terribly dear such as money, time, or energy, you can learn a lot by figuring out how it is being spent—and where. ## Struggle or Play Dead August 5, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/struggle_or_pla.html From quicksand to being held underwater by the enemy, it is always best not to struggle after an initial “testing of your restraints.” Strength is precious. So is air. If your enemy is superior you must win with guile. Going limp actually works. The moment your body moves in an unpredictable fashion, you have an opportunity for escape. It takes more discipline than most can muster to go limp while someone is throttling you and holding you underwater but it just might pay off. You really had better kill your tormentor the moment he relaxes, though, because you can only try this once. ## The Wives I Fuck in Dark Motel Rooms August 6, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/the_wives_i_fuc.html When I feel like I have completely lost control of my life I find that seducing and taking or dismissing a lover makes me feel like I have control. Being caught in a web of obligation and responsibility pins my wild spirit to the wax board. I can glimpse my brazen spirit when a woman risks everything, break vows, and shames her husband just to fuck me. Getting, keeping, collecting, making, and preserving my own secrets—my own interests—makes me feel like my master. My reputation is my own to keep—or to ruin—and not theirs. My secrets—the wives I fuck in dark motel rooms, bellies as exposed to harm as family and career—take power away from them. I can commit suicide rather than being murdered. ## Star-Nosed Mole (Condylura cristata cristata) August 6, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/star-nosed_mole.html The creature with which I most identify is the star-nosed mole. “This species is usually associated with water, and is regularly found in soft marshy ground along stream borders and wet meadows. It has a preference for damp meadows, marshes and swamps. In Virginia, this subspecies is found in the northern quarter of the state. The star-nosed mole is readily distinguishable by the 22 fleshy appendages surrounding the nose, but it is also known to have a long tail, relatively weak forepaws, and a preference for watery habitats. The total length is 161-191 mm and it has a blackish-brown velvet-like fur coat. The female produces one litter of 3-7 young per year usually from April to June. This species is active both day and night. It is gregarious and perhaps colonial. The burrows are found in marshy or riparian areas, 3-6 cm in height, located 3-60 cm below the surface, often with an underwater entrance. Nests are located above high water flooding level, and composed of dead leaves, straw, and dead grass. This mole does much of it’s foraging underwater using the unusual appendages as sensory ‘feelers.’ The tail of this species becomes inexplicably swollen in the winter and early spring. They are limited by the loss of suitable habitat including moist boggy soil, humus, sandy loam, marshes, and swamps, along streams. This species forages above ground at night. They also forage for food on the stream bottom and feed on aquatic annelids and insects as well as earthworms crustaceans and small fish.” ## Olly Olly Oxen Free August 9, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/olly_olly_oxen.html Moles spend most of their lives waiting for the other shoe to drop. Most have effectively forgotten what they are. Or it has become so muddied with time, that it takes some concentration to look back far enough into a moment meant to be enshrouded. Like looking back for the varsity wrestler as rolls of fat collect around your midsection. Was this ever me? Am I still in there? It is safer for the Mole to forget. It is safer for him to have never known or to no longer have the memory present. In the end, it doesn’t matter. In the end, who would believe him? In the end, a mole has only one handler and no paper trail. In the end, there have been a multitude of moles who have never heard their olly olly oxen free, abandoned into the wilderness, never to hear the reassuring thump from upstairs. ## The Mata Hari Syndrome August 9, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/mata_hari.html Even a relatively low-grade intelligence analyst needs to let his superiors know when, where, and with whom he spends his free time, especially when that when, where, and with whom is with a foreign national. Sadly, there has always been a gaping vulnerability when it comes to indiscriminate fucking. Hook-ups, one-night-stands, hookers, escorts, mistresses, drunken black outs are the kinds dark, nasty, dank secrets where the when, where, and with whom becomes conveniently omitted. This has been a boon for spycraft since the sex trade is sophisticated and impossible-to-track. Furthermore, while the mail order bride might be scrutinized by a handler before the wedding day, the courtship often isn’t. Finally, most of the summer holiday destination service jobs are being filled by beautiful young Eastern European women and most of the nation’s health care service jobs are being filled by Filipinas, Latinas, and Caribbean Islanders. Both industries throw their hands up when, after only a single season, all their girls get married to Americans! Mata Hari is alive-and-well in spycraft. To be sure, even a completely discrete operations officer indulging in some indiscriminate fucking can be a risk to national security. When putting together a dossier on an agent, identifiable marks such as unique tattoos, scars, birthmarks, and so forth can be key when trying to make a target. Like tagging an orca based on its markings, identifiable marks are difficult to erase even after identification reassignment surgery. In this case even the agent who can guarantee that he doesn’t black out (and talk) from too much drink, doesn’t talk in his sleep, and who is shut tight as a trap can reveal plenty just by droppin’ trou and gettin’ nekkid. Spy work is about observation, about analysis, and about connecting the dots. Having a first-person account of identifiable marks can be as valuable as names and coordinates. And that is to say nothing of all the snooping that can be done during sleeping time: wallet, blackberry, cell phone if you keep her out of your pad and basically carte blanche if you invite her back and let her sleep in after you leave in the morning. ## Open Season on Going Through His Shit August 9, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/open_season_on.html Now that I am halfway through thirty, I have to tell you that no matter what misstep you might make when it comes to spying on someone, everyone has already done it and not been a spy. People in love do all kinds of crazy shit to each other every day so no matter what you get caught doing, just play it out as you’re being human, insecure, and hurt before (once bitten, twice shy and all). We people are fucking crazy! Before we went to visit my grandmother-in-law in New York, my wife warned me that grandma would probably rifle through all our stuff while we were-out-and-about as if it were normal and okay. After broaching the subject of spying on your spouse it came out that everyone—man and women alike—has done some really fucked-up shit, oftentimes shamelessly. People are used to it, especially if they are invested in you. Time-tested and brandy-new couples routinely alike check each other’s phone logs and phone bills, they go through each other’s mail, pockets, wallets, purses, gym bags, suit jackets in the closet, caller ID, dressers, under mattresses, even the hamper! I mean, come on! And that’s not including mining data from computers! Even the most sweet-faced and innocent of all my friends has done the most appalling acts of invasion of privacy that I could even have imagined—and I like to think of myself as something, ahem, of an expert in intelligence-gathering. If you ever get caught with your nose in his wallet, you can do one of two things based on how long you have known him. If you just met, tell him that you just wanted to see if he was who he said he was—or how old—and that it was only because you have been hurt before; if you have known each other for a while, just tell him that you were just being a silly girl, were feeling insecure, and have been really hurt before. Whatever you say, tell him (or her) “blah blah blah blah and I have been really hurt before blah blah blah need to learn to trust blah blah blah” and then either tear up or cry if you can. If you play it right, you will simply be dismissed as just another fucking psycho bitch who wants a ring and not made for someone who wants to undermine his government and way of life. ## Serendipity & Coincidence August 10, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/serendipity_coi.html My life is rife with serendipity and coincidence, though I no longer believe them to be either serendipitous or coincidental. I have always hesitated writing my life because the stories seem so manufactured and implausible. They are implausible because they are manufactured. ## Little Kids in Langley Protect National Security August 15, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/little_kids_in.html My friend C grew up in McLean, Virginia, right next to Langley, the home of the Central Intelligence Agency. He told me once that all the kids knew whose dads were CIA and that “you somehow knew that you weren’t supposed to talk about it.” Only in Washington could there be an emergent culture that is so imbued with spycraft that even snot-nosed little kids can keep secrets big and cool enough that they could potentially undermine national security. ## Secrets are Kept Every Day August 17, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/08/secrets_are_kep.html Despite what Poe might say about our conscience always getting the better of us, secrets are effectively kept every day. Generations of families have been able to keep their skeletons safely in the closet without taking an oath of secrecy. ## The iPod as Listening Device November 20, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/11/the_ipod_as_lis.html Spycraft is an entirely different craft in a world wherein everyone carries a camera phone, a video iPod, a Blackberry, and a 7 megapixel camera that is easily smaller than a pack of smokes. Not only can many of these devices capture intelligence on their very own (and the 7+ megapixel cameras are especially useful, but more on that later) but all the other devices can either convey intelligence (the iPod is actually a 512M-60G hard drive) or be rewired with bugs and mics and GPS devices. Who would ever know? All these devices short of the iPod Shuffle have enough extra space in them for a 2006 model listening device/GPS combo. And you would be none the wiser. ## The Best Spy is an Introvert November 21, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/11/the_best_spy_is.html Being a spy is a lot like being an actor. Both stagecraft and spycraft need to find and hold characters. Deeply and without flaw or break.: Stanislavsky method acting. In much the same way a professional actor would do nothing to compromise his role, neither should a spy—especially a mole. Which is to say, addictions to alcohol and other vices are fine just as long as they never come on stage. Most talented actors are painfully introverted. These introverts use their roles as tools for interfacing and coping with a social world. Most extroverted actors are actually celebrities and stars, the same rule applies in spycraft: the ones who talk about it usually aren’t the true performers. The most valuable aspect of introversion in spies and deep-cover-agents, especially moles, is a tendency live quite comfortably alone without being lonely. Counter-agents and counter-spies hunt for the hungry and lonely and many a carefully-laid plan has been foiled by the man who has such a compelling secret, such an invisible sexy dark side, and can’t keep his discretion. Governments can be toppled leveraging just one or more of the seven deadly sins. In this case pride. ## Toppling Governments (And Souls) Using the Seven Deadly Sins November 21, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/11/toppling_govern.html The best way to destroy someone is to appeal to their pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth. Yes, and governments too. Any number of governments, administrations, families, plans, marriages, relationships, and immortal souls have fallen since time immemorial thanks only to the seven deadly sins. So, here’s a refresher course: Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity. Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation. Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires. Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body. Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath. Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness. Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work. I for one am especially vulnerable to pride. In addition to pride, most in Washington are vulnerable to lust, greed, and anger. ## Good Things Come to Those Who Wait December 20, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/12/good_things_com.html Strangely enough, after years of fighting for what I want, I am realizing that it is always better to be patient. Timing is everything. Preserving energy, keeping alert, getting good intelligence, setting up traps, organizing fall back positions, and devising a plan B and plan C are key. Generally there are many opportunities for action. In most cases, there were no moments in history that couldn’t truly be pushed a day. Never allow the pressure of “speak now, or forever hold your peace” bait you to reacting. Take your time, take a breath, take a nap. If it’s not your plan you’re walking into be especially careful. It is impossible to be ambushed if you’re not there. When you feel pressured by time or by situation, remember that you don’t need to do anything. The time constraint is artificial and intentionally fashioned to coerce you to act under duress. Heroism rule one: don’t be a hero. Heroism rule two: act, never react. ## Making Sausage Versus Sausage Making December 28, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/12/making_sausage.html There has always been domestic intelligence gathering. How else do you think we have been able to avoid the true blowback of American global interventionism? The American government has always monitored its citizens in one form or another. Come on, think. Think hard! There is a cadre of very serious, very dangerous, and very patriotic Americans making sure you can sleep safely all night, every night. Since Americans fancy ourselves proud, private, and free, this has always been something artfully denied. Under duress, the powers that be call any notion of a panopticon, or domestic intelligence gathering, of spying on Americans in America by Americans to be paranoid and the rantings of conspiracy theorists. Smart Americans remember that the majority of resources spent in spycraft—especially with regards the issue of domestic surveillance—is spent on protecting us naive and hopeful American citizens as to how sausage is made, what the making of sausage entails, and of what sausage is comprised. Grisly, indeed. ## Constant Peace Through Constant War December 31, 2005 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2005/12/constant_peace.html Orwell wrote, “When war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded.” “War” can of course be replaced by “crime” or “terrorism” domestically. It all preys on fear and insecurity. It’s why a wife might allow her husband to keep guns at hand in a house bursting with children. For security. And when a public official seethes with rage and indignance on TV these days, it’s usually over a leak to the press that makes it impossible to deny and disregard the erosion of the perceived privacies and freedoms of the American people by its stewards, the American Federal Government (and city and state government in the case of crime and terrorism). The rage and indignance shown by the public official is not about this erosion of privacy and freedom but rather the erosion of the perception—of being exposed. ## It Takes Two to Be Discrete November 23, 2006 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2006/11/it_takes_two_to.html My advice to those of you who believe you are having a secret love affair or have had a discrete one night stand: 1) it takes two to tango and if one of you confides with or brags to anyone (guys brag and women confide) it isn’t a secret 2) if your secret love affair or one-night-stand also involves infidelity, you aren’t merely keeping a secret, you’re being a liar; furthermore, you are also the target of one or more interested parties. It is much easier keeping a secret, being discrete, or maintaining privacy if you keep below the radar; keeping below the radar is easier when you’re unattached because there is little interest in either outcome or eventuality. ## It Takes Two to Keep a Secret November 23, 2006 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2006/11/it_takes_two_to_1.html When you are cheating on a spouse or significant other, you are lying to someone, being private from someone—someone who knows you even better in some cases than you know yourself. When one maintains discretion, when one maintains privacy, it is essential to spend as much energy as possible avoiding attention or from bringing attention to yourself. Once you’re under scrutiny, human nature makes it nearly impossible to remain discrete, to keep the secret, to keep on message, to maintain believability, and to keep from contradicting yourself or paint yourself into a corner. ## How to Cheat on Your Spouse or Significant Other November 23, 2006 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2006/11/how_to_cheat_on.html As long as you can 1) guarantee that your partner is as discrete as you are and doesn’t brag, have an agenda, or confide in friends 2) guarantee your spouse or SO trusts you so completely that you will never be scrutinized or targeted 3) and guarantee that your cover story is plausible and absolutely simple to maintain, you’re golden. Then and only then would I recommend it. Being a sociopath wouldn’t hurt, either. Remember: the lie, the privacy, and the discrete nature of the affair hinges on your weakest link: your lover. Don’t assume that pillow talk and postcoital promises are worth anything. Come on, soldier, you’re smarter than that! ## Stay Home on New Year’s Eve December 31, 2006 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2006/12/stay_home_on_ne.html Too many perfectly normal, God-fearing, men have become unglued over new years, whether in celebration or in fortification. Either way, there is generally too much to drink and a rarefied environment of sentimentality. Sometimes the sentiment is regret, other times, joy. Both can get you killed. The mixture of losing time or being with those you love can make even the most hardened operative melancholy. The most common feeling is a self-loathing firmly attached to a life of deceit. The thoughts could be, “here I am, with the woman I love, and she knows nothing at all about me—who I really am—and I think I will take this time to reveal myself to her;” or, it could be, “here I am, alone in the world, unmarried and unmarriageable—I have nothing and no one, what do I have to lose? Fuck it.” Both are self-destructive and invariably result in an unacceptable security risk. Better leave New Years to the fools and the amateurs. Remember, you’ll never lose your wife and family if you just stay home and act like an old fart, unable to stay awake until the ball drops; you’ll never find a wife if you’re out and about getting pissed while being pissed. In both cases, your career, family, health, life, the lives of the men and women with whom you work, and national security are better served if you just stay in on New Year’s Eve. ## Upon Moving to Berlin May 1, 2008 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2008/05/upon_moving_to.html I felt cornered and unsafe in Washington. The pavement felt hot and everything seemed like it was falling apart. Most people I knew I felt like I didn’t know. The others had moved away. After all that has happened, I gladly took an opportunity to sublet an apartment in Berlin. W made all the arrangements. W friend moved me into his former apartment. I never really thought about it, but I am here as a direct result of W’s time and energy and I am beholden to him. Of course, I speak no German and have never had any passion or dream to move to Germany. That said, moving here does satiate a lifetime desire to expatriate to Europe. The vision was Paris, but Berlin is said to be the new Paris, the new New York, the new San Francisco. I guess I moved from one Nation’s Capital to another, Bundeshauptstadt. From my first impression, Berlin might well be as saturated in international intrigue as it was twenty years ago. It rings of subtext and safe houses. It smells of statecraft and spycraft. All underground railroads seem to lead to Berlin. They call it multiculti but I think that maybe Berlin is a safehouse all its own. It really doesn’t matter. The city is civilized and safe, the people are generous, and all the trains still run on time. Below the surface, however, there is something going on. I just received my residency papers and I will be required to perform 300 hours of language training and 50 hours of German integration training. At the end of the day, I think the secret to becoming a Berliner is to receive the 300 plus 50 hours gladly and with a certain amount of civic and national pride. Otherwise, I fear, to not gladly integrate can result in some prejudice from both the government and her people. ## Public Relations is Newspeak for Propaganda May 5, 2008 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2008/05/public_relation.html While the record book like to say that public relations as a concept and profession hails from just after the turn of the last century, it wasn’t until World War Two that propaganda had become a worthless garbage word, replaced by public relations by Edward Bernays. Not only was propaganda associated with Hitler’s Nazi Germany but it was also the term associated with communist imperialism. A Minister of Propaganda was generally perceived as both evil and nefarious. While undoubtedly effective in grooming culture and the populace and in crowd control, the perceived methods of a Ministry of Propaganda were considered cruel, manipulative, and the antithesis of American liberty and freedom. In 1952, Bernays published Public Relations following-up to his 1928 book, Propaganda. Essentially, Bernays was able to rebrand and relaunch a military and wartime word associated with oppression into something that was perceived as being transparent and friendly—and opportunity for organizations, governments, and corporations to be able to better expose themselves to their members, citizens, and customers. Before Propaganda became public relations, there were advertising, marketing, and publicity firms. It wasn’t until the work in psychoanalysis by Bernays’ uncle, Sigmund Freud, became popularized and utilized in professional communications and propaganda that modern propaganda was born. Or, at least, until public relations because a more acceptable euphemism for such a tarnished word. Today, of course, even PR is considered tarnished and sleazy. PR is popularly called “spin” and the entire industry has been painted as using manipulative, calculating, and lethal campaign strategies on behalf of their clients. As a term, PR has been replaced by marketing and communications. Even so—and whatever it may be called or labeled—public relations works, whether used in wartime or in times of peace; to placate a populace or to encourage consumerism; or to repair the reputation of an entire country or just as a way of removing the egg off of the face of a indiscreet CEO. In fact, if used judiciously and long-term, PR can and does groom entire cultures towards destinations both known and unknown, the consequences of which can often be anticipated and mostly planned for. No doubt that PR is a compelling industry and effective whether or not anyone believes in it any more. Actually, the less people are guarded against the effect of messaging, communications, the media, PR, marketing, advertising, publicity, and sales (and they are beginning to collaborate more and more), the more effective these tools and methods become. To quote Baudelaire, la plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas! Or, in English, the devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist! ## When Business Intelligence and Spycraft Meet May 10, 2008 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2008/05/when_business_i.html I have to admit that my work does sound intriguing, especially when you live in a city rife with spies and spycraft. I tell most people I am a business man who does business. When that isn’t enough, I tell people I am in PR. I am lucky enough to have my own “virtual” company, can keep my own hours, have almost thirty employees spread around the world. When I share this, which isn’t very often, it confounds people—which is why I mostly keep it to myself. Sometime, after a few drinks or during dinner parties that are falling into dullness (or, if I am just feeling playful) I take my simple PR work further and discuss some aspects of my work that can ring of intrigue: online intelligence and operations. Simply put, this means that clients hire me to create, groom, improve, or repair their online persona. Usually, most companies use online monitoring to track the course of their online brand perception, that’s all. My company has a rapid response operations component that is brilliant at engaging negative discussion online and either diluting it so completely that it effectively disappears or by doing a little bit of Judo and turning the negative attack into a net-positive. This all comes down to aggressive hearts and minds outreach and persuasion and needs to happen shamelessly, powerfully, professionally, and expertly. Needless to say, the sort of clients who are not only interested in this sort of work but who can also pay our fees are the sort of clients who get a lot of attention anyway. Funnily enough, I always attract the attention of people who one might fancy being spies assigned to me on a reconnaissance detail. You know, just to make sure I am who and what I say I am, which is to say just a humble PR consultant who focuses exclusively on influencing, guiding, and responding to online conversation. Half a year ago I took a client who is an oligarch and a businessman—or, rather, he was. This work was intriguing even to me as my job was to remove his brushes with International courts and his scrapes with the leaders of his former Soviet Union. This was no easy game because while I am very good at what I do with online brand reputation management and repair (I am a cleaner), I knew that my work was being countermanded both by a communications team in Russia and by a wide assortment of articles and post in the Russian press that made it a constant challenge to both gain ground and hold it in the search engines. At the end of the day, however, my client disappeared under suspicious circumstances. While there is no confirmation that there was foul play—I mean, this could be a publicity stunt—the contract has broken and the operation has been decommissioned. You know what they say … you’re not in the big league until you have a client disappeared! ## How well do you really know someone? December 14, 2008 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2008/12/how_well_do_you.html After spending time and effort trying to clear my mind of what I know and what I assume I know. It is a deceptively confounding exercise because most of what we know about someone is based on what we’re told and what we have personally experienced. And, of those two, what we’re told is totally unreliable and what we experience is only partially reliable. Only partly reliable, you ask? Our minds are unreliable pattern recognition engines. We perceive incompletely through our senses and our mind, in its dislike for ambiguity, always draws in the missing bits. What data does my mind use to finish its sketch? Well, it uses my situational understanding of things. If I trust someone or am in love, my mind tends to dot all of my I’s with hearts and assume good intent, whether or not this is rational or provable. It is in fact possible to actively encourage people to trust you, if you’re a mole. There are two ways, one is through active participation and the other is through invisibility. Invisibility is the easiest, but still a little tricky. It requires that you’re actively dull, unassuming while still being present and pleasant enough not to be the target of conjecture as to why you’re so reclusive. Actively encouraging people to trust you is necessary if you’re going to ever integrate or ingratiate yourself into the community-at-large. A mole lives in the land of the sociopath and will quickly start being able to identify certain pathologies in social situations. However, that’s neither here nor there. And by actively encouraging, I don’t mean getting people to like you. No, what is required is consistency, simplicity, repetition, routine, accessibility, affirmation, and mirroring. Like I said before, the mind is a pattern-recognition machine. For example, our eyes are better at registering erratic movement than they are at noticing detail. This is to assure we will neither miss spotting prey nor predator. Our brain masks out any visual data it can account for based on past experience so it can focus its resources on something important. This is true for all the physical senses. What’s more, this is true for all the emotional senses as well. We humans are a dizzyingly complex array of senses and nerve endings. We do not have the capacity to respond to everything all at once. The body constantly takes a inventory of its systems, both physically and mentally, and only flags on the abnormal or titillating. It is too easy to become invisible to even the closest people in your life. It is frighteningly simple. Become predictable, a creature of habit, a man of few words, reassuring, loving, and routine. The only man our culture considers dangerous is the unpredictable man. While this advice may be good for becoming the most trusted fellow in your community it is great for picking up on the people who have become completely invisible to you. Beware of the invisible men and women in your life—and they are everywhere in their sameness, plainness, in their age and sadness, in their difference or in their incompatibility. By working hard to notice everything and training your mind to break its lethargy and current assumptions, you will become more able to enhance your situational awareness. You will also become more attune at breaking your senses of some of their inconvenient shorthand. This is only partially useful because then there is emotional perception. Listen to the people around you anew. Realize that you only ever know them for what they tell you, what you infer, what you assume, and what your personal experience with them has been in the past, all of which is completely unreliable. Most of which is the direct result of your brain brazenly sketching in the parts of your maps of these people based on some sort of impression you have of them from your interactions and personal feelings towards them: boss, love, mistress, wife, employee, staff, service worker, mother, child, etc. The image that I find useful is the training exercise used to train rapid response teams to react to hostage situations. Under a hail or noise and in a busy hostile environment the shooter is required to quickly discern the hostage takers from the hostages. This exercise is used to develop perception, reaction, and response under fire. Since the difference between hostage and terrorist isn’t always clear, it is important to cue on more than just dress, color, posture, or movement. It is important to train your senses to make fewer assumptions and to spend a couple extra hundreds of a second to verify the target as friendly or foe before holding or squeezing off that round. When it comes to getting made or making someone it comes down to whether or not you’re willing to spend that extra little amount of time verifying. To quote Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but Verify.” ## Making a Spy in a Poor Multicultural City is Tough December 21, 2008 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2008/12/making_a_spy_in.html Berlin is known as the “poor but sexy” city, according to Mayor Klaus Wowereit. Berlin’s unemployment rate is 17.20%, which is astounding. Berlin is also multicultural, drawing people from around Europe and the world. It is probably one of the more difficult environments to make a spy. Making an intelligence operator requires recognizing patterns and this is easiest in homogenous cultures. It’s a snap in Washington, where everyone is pretty much defined on what they do and where they work. In Washington, and much of the United States, people are pretty routine. It is pretty unlikely that upstanding citizens will vary from this routine very much in their course of their daily lives, especially when their livelihoods depend on it. Berlin, however, is a city rife with artists, musicians, opportunists, and the unemployed. Even those Berliners who have good, reputable, jobs enjoy quite a lot of vacation and flexibility. To make it even harder, traveling around Berlin, Germany, and around the world is relatively cheap due to subsidized public transport and discount airlines. Of course, added complexity comes from the richness of immigrant, expatriate, and tourist culture. The variety of languages spoken on a daily basis is dizzying. Berlin is an international, heterogeneous, city plop in the middle of one of the most homogenous countries on the planet. Even Germans are confounded since they’re only good at discerning “German” and “not German.” Sometimes, this is really all that is important, even when non-German are natural citizens of Germany. If you’re not ethnically German, you’ll probably never be accepted as German. Whatever the case may be, this holds little bearing in Berlin where difference is not simply tolerated but celebrated. When it comes to coercion and blackmail, Berlin is tough. One cannot gain control over another operator simply by threatening to expose dirty laundry. While that may work in the rest of Germany, in Berlin, with its culture of exploration and experimentation, most of the usual secrets and fetishes are not simply embraced but promoted. In Berlin, prostitution is legal, drugs are not a high priority, infidelity is uncommon but no reason for panic—most Berliners never marry and have children with more than one partner, which is pretty normal and accepted. And, when it comes to antisocial activities, residents of Berlin are pretty low key. In a city with high unemployment but also generous social services, breaking with the generous-but-strict laws is neither amusing nor rewarding. Generally speaking, the only Berliners who are considered to be a menace are the skinheads and white supremacists and they’re easy to identify—they fly their own flag, if you will, and are covered in tattoos—and generally politically and commercially unimportant and uninteresting. It will be interesting to see if I will be better able to tune my pattern recognition machine and maybe develop some better filters and more discernment. Until then, I am going to err on the side of flagging false positives—I would much prefer to be a little paranoid than getting even one false negative, that’s for certain. ## Spies are Everywhere May 24, 2009 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2009/05/spies_are_every_1.html We think that spies are exotic. We believe that spies are as rare as they are in the movies. That maybe there are around ten or so. James Bond, 007, and maybe a few more. Truth is, there aren’t nearly enough but there still quite a few. There are upwards of 10,000 FBI agents domestically, 10,000 CIA operations officers worldwide, and who knows how many more operators there are in the DIA, NRO, NSA, Secret Service, ATF, and JSOC. Let’s assume there are upwards of 50,000 operators in just the United States—well, that’s quite a lot. And I am not including, of course, any of their support staff, the eyes in the sky, the men and women who are the men and women behind these men and women. I am just saying that while there are not nearly enough men and women to protect every man and woman, there are still more than you’d think, especially in areas as dense in intrigue as Washington, DC. A dear friend, a friend of mine for over sixteen years, is one of the 10,000 I mentioned above, and he told me that one could “make” a spy in most of the lobbies of most of the hotels in Washington. Someone on a tail, someone learning how to tail, or someone who is simply a secondary or tertiary backup. No, they’re not always out to get you and they’re oftentimes not authorized to use deadly force—they don’t have a license to kill—but they’re out there, even in the day of video cameras and technology and listening devices, online analysts and field operatives are still the most reliable way. And, let me remind you that I am not even including the men and women who are spying, looking, and listening on behalf of other countries and private interests. ## Spies Can Be More Couch Potato Than Action Hero July 6, 2009 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2009/07/spies_can_be_mo.html Even if you’re in military intelligence, the life of a spy is generally more couch potato than action hero. In order for a spy to be able to keep up with the sudden spurts of athleticism, coordination, and strength, a lot of training is required. Unlike cats, who seem to keep up their muscle tone no matter how terrifically they laze in sunbeams, secret agents require rather a lot of attention. Thankfully, for cover’s sake, the private club with its cigars and drams of scotch, have been popularly replaced with athletic clubs, and late night drinking binges have been replaced by early to bed in order to fit in weekend mileage for upcoming races and marathons. In fact, in the last 20-years, keeping up enough training to maintain the fitness required to be able to quickly run down someone and take him out with a well-placed bullet while still being able to maintain breath discipline is now possible. Here in DC, keeping in practice with small arms and long weapons is a snap, even if you’re deep, well away from being able to drop into the range under the HQ. While DC gun laws are still pretty strict, Virginia is a veritable wonderland for gun enthusiasts. Enthusiast, not freak. If you drop by the range even a few times a week, it’s just good fun and healthy sport—burning off a little steam, a relaxing and cathartic pastime. That said, since there is very little oversight in the world of moles and since moles very rarely are actually given orders, self-discipline is essential; even so, spy spread is not uncommon. In many ways, spycraft is an intellectual endeavor, requiring succinct writing and analytical skills. Journaling and observation. When a spy gets a little heavy, one can easily make excuses, “I’ll blend in better if I am a little softer, just like everyone else,” or, “I might have gained some weight but I am still strong and can kick your ass.” Like every man getting older and fatter. At the end of the day, however, training is essential because when the time comes when you’re activated as an operational asset, wouldn’t it be a pity to have a stroke or a heart attack in the middle of a maneuver. That’s why I have recently returned to roads around my apartment; that’s why I have recently picked up a new pair of Nike Pegasus running shoes; and that’s why I have been keeping a journal of my mileage, my blood pressure, and my weight. I have spent my entire life awaiting an opportunity to die for my country—Lord knows I don’t want to keel over dead of my own neglect well before I have an opportunity to serve. ## Hapless Fools are Decoys December 16, 2010 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2010/12/hapless_fools_a.html One of the best tells that you’re going to be taken to the cleaners is if a man starts his conversation with, “I’m a simple man, and I don’t know much, but…” That “but” is going to be the most expensive three letters you’ve ever heard. You’re done. The biggest advantage anyone can have in his favor is to be underestimated. Beware the modest, self-effacing man in politics. To quote Baudelaire, “the devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist.” In the same way that a mother has taught her child that there are levels and volumes of voices appropriate to each situation—the inside voice and the outside voice, for example—men in politics have their private and public voices as well. And, as we have learned from the released American diplomatic cables, they can be quite contrary. Another thing we’ve learned from the released cables is that American operatives and diplomats are far from ignorant cowboys in the same way that the Middle East subjects of many of those cables are not primitive and stuck in the 16th century either. When you become lulled into a feeling of calm and safety by someone you perceive as a hapless fool, someone you can easily best in your spycraft, in your operations work, think again. Try to get as contextual as you can. Try to figure out whether someone so gullible or naive would have been able to attain such a position as to be interacting with you; additionally, would a man without guile be able to survive in a position such as this even with handlers and support and family and so forth? Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were both well-educated and well-tested men. Decoys as hapless fools, indeed. Even Bill Clinton was even more cunning than his sweet Bubba demeanor conveyed. In many ways, we’ll never know how fierce Jimmy Carter was, though I daresay one doesn’t get stuff done by being nice and gracious only. Want to know what the best chaff ever is to make sure that someone underestimates your power and influence? Start your bio off with “… was a peanut farmer in Georgia.” That’ll get them every time. ## Wearing Down June 19, 2011 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2011/06/wearing_down_an.html No matter how complete the training, the weakest link in the equation when it comes to covert operations and spycraft is the psyche. Such a ticking time bomb, no matter how many trials. The more elite the agent, the more canny. While you may strip down a man to check for lacerations and bruising, it’s harder to know what’s inside the mind. Not all men are like a blade, becoming stronger and more flexible after heating, hammering, folding, heating, hammering, and cooling. The same level of tempering has different effects on different weapons. The heroism of war is tragic and each hero is flawed. Testing mettle is an art. Too little and your tool fails to reveal its brittleness, too much and it becomes brittle from abuse. ## Your Spy is Never Who You Think by Design March 29, 2012 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2012/03/your_spy_is_nev.html The good news is that the most intelligent and capable students in school are the best spies by happenstance rather than by design. In the modern world, intelligence and academic prowess are not only reviled but abused and often isolated, no matter how supportive and enriching their family life may well be. Being handsome or pretty does not effectively inoculate the young genius from deep feelings of rejection, isolation, and self-pity. At this point, no matter how grand the acquisition, no matter how advanced the degree, no matter how beautiful the spouse, and no matter how prestigious the position, these men and women are both ripe for service and almost impossible to detect. They’re a triple threat: visually-, intellectually-, and culturally-appealing. Perfect spies. ## Bribery, Blackmail, and Coercion July 19, 2013 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2013/07/bribery_blackma.html Forget God when you decide to do something that you’d be embarrassed about if your spouse, children, family, and friends were to find out. God will judge you when you’re dead but if you can be judged my man for your proclivities and behaviors, then maybe you’re important, right, powerful, or promising enough to blackmail, to extort, to coerce. In the modern world of information, money is generally the least interesting ransom. If you’ve ever wondered why the U.S. Secret Service doesn’t care about all the terrible things you’ll admit to, they only care about those things you’re so detached from that you’d rather lie to yourself than just get it off of your chest, consider stopping, and then move on (metanoia!). It’s because our secrets are our sickness, it’s because our secrets are our vulnerabilities. These lies and secrets and denials add up like a pile of the M-80s of legend that have the equivalent bang of a quarter stick of dynamite: soon enough, there’s enough gunpowder piled up to blow up someone’s entire Jenga life. And these men and women who keep too many glass balls in the air would do anything to anyone, including betrayal and treason. Assume all brothels, sensual massage parlors, champagne rooms, and even the lavs at nightclubs and bars, have eyes in them. Assume that anything that drops right in your lap without requiring quite a lot of discrete pursuit is not only a honeypot but a setup. We live in the age of Jeffrey Epstein, where every single too good to be true opportunity is a Kodak moment that, at some crucial point, at some point in the future, if and when you become critical, essential, strategic, tactical, rich, connected, or powerful, those dusty digital files will be dug up and you’ll be at the mercy of someone or someones who are very much willing to blow up your entire world simply to get what they want, even if your entire life is only worth a very small and inconsequential throw away part of a greater plan. That’s how bribery, blackmail, and coercion works—and the only cure is doing a controlled demolition of your own life before anyone else has an opportunity to do it for you. ## Even Spies Are Recruited By Headhunters November 12, 2015 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2015/11/even_spies_are.html In the movies, spies are tapped. It’s like a secret society. Like Skull and Bones. In the real world, you apply online. Then, after you apply, enough time passes that you forget. Then you receive an email asking you to take a two-hour test at home. Then you hit submit and enough time passes that you forget. Then, you might get an email inviting you to their tony recruitment center out near Dulles. Or, rather, where to park your car near a bus stop. And, to leave all your electronics in your car before you wait for the bus. Then you jump on a bus with fifty other people from around the country. Then you wait in a room, then another room. Then you wait and read magazines and watch TV. Then they invite you in. Did I mention that everyone who works at recruitment are smoking hot? Did I mention that the digs are accented in gold. That the digs are far from the austere Brutalism so omnipresent in downtown DC. Then you’re called in with everyone. They play a movie about the OSS, the history of spycraft in America, and then ask you if anyone has been asking about you at the hotel, at the front desk. And if there are snoops, this is no joke: let them know. Who knows. There was a girl in the waiting room who was tearing articles from magazines. I am sure I should have reported her. I am sure she was a plant. I bet the snoops at the hotel were plants as well. I bet we’ve been under the lens since well before planting it in this room, watching movies, listening to who you can tell (your wife) and who you can’t (everyone else) and how, if you aren’t married, you’ll probably marry someone in the same business. Like how celebrities marry other celebrities. And they tell you how to avoid gotchas when you meet someone at a party, how to not tell anyone you’re being recruited into this world and to not lie or be too specific. With my luck, they say, you’ll tell someone you’re interviewing at The World Bank and the person you’re chatting with knows the recruiter there and would be happy to put a good word in. Be as boring as possible, they tell you, of be totally vague, they say, and then change the subject. To turn it around on them, make it about them, ask them about their life. People love talking about themselves (who else is going to really know what you’re going through who doesn’t have clearance? Nobody, really). You’ll get low balled on salary but offered three hours of personal training every week, as much language study as you can eat, and any degree you’re willing to pursue. Also, an excellent retirement plan, a terrific credit union (Northwest Federal), and the opportunity to possible make the ultimate sacrifice for your country and your fellow citizens. They lost me on the low ball offer because I live in DC and Washington’s stupid expensive and there are companies that are willing to pay a lot more for my unique skill set. ## You’ve got to be kidding me May 29, 2019 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2019/05/youve_got_to_be.html People are losing their shit all around me and the only real evidence of tyranny or treason comes in the form of media reports, he said she said, and no end of tweets and retweets. Even the most basic of warnings, “there’s nothing to fear but fear itself,” has no effect on the immobilizing panic that has stricken most of the people in my life, in my world. The men and women who I have depended on to be the smartest, most sane, touchstones of my life have shown such hate, impatience, resentment, and susceptibility to even the least plausible of propaganda. People have become so addled with fear that they have become as vulnerable to the worst of the 80s propaganda as they are the worst of 80s fashion. While we only call them our adversary, pundits accuse Russia of invading us, attacking us, and even doing something compared to parachuting commandos into Washington and onto the White House lawn. The same with North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran; Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. To say nothing of the sudden conversion of normal Americans who have suddenly and domestically been painted as either Communists or Nazis. Even worse, maybe, is that it’s perfectly OK to dismiss our neighbors and fellow Americans as deplorable others who are not merely lost causes but dangerous, unpredictable, and irredeemable. Unlike the McCarthyism of the late 40s and 50s, today’s anticommunism witch hunt is being led by the left instead of the right—an irony and history and obvious misdirection that everyone but I—or very few—are willing or able to recognize. ## And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars May 30, 2019 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2019/05/and_ye_shall_he.html For how much of everything you know do you have first-hand knowledge? When I get spun up on existential fear, I try to remember landing in Russia in transit to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport. It was 1990 and we were only there long enough, was it, to swap the crew and to fuel up. I was catching a bargain charter from Germany to Nepal by way of Munich on the heels of the first days of Operation Desert Storm. While I flew over the still Soviet Union, there were entire fields of aircraft carcasses. I was on that flight instead of in my seminars at university because the moment the West waged war on Islam and the Middle East everyone canceled their holidays to anywhere even vaguely Oriental, including trips to Nepal. Their loss was my gain. From the desolate land seen from 30,000 feet to the ancient airfield and ramshackle refueling station, it occurred to me that maybe the Soviet Union was a paper tiger, about as threatening to the safety of the United States as Idaho or Wyoming. I remembered thinking about how ravaged the CCCP was after losing 26 million Soviet citizens and 11 million soldiers during and as the direct result of World War II. And that’s after 20 million Soviets died at the hands of Joseph Stalin. How many adult men could be manifested towards fighting the cold war after so many of the most virile young and middle-aged men were killed during the 30s through the 40s? Compare that to the modest, by comparison, 418,500 American lives that were lost. Half a million lives are no joke, surely, by anybody’s measure; however, 46 million Russian lives lost during the Soviet Empire is an order of magnitude greater. Is that 110 times more Russians dead than Americans? Before the war, the USSR had a population of 190 million to America’s 130 million. Today, in comparison, America has a population that is double that of Russia without its satellite countries. 144.5 million Russians in 2017, compared to 327 million Americans. More women than men and a true post-war population growth failure. Russia never recovered after World War II and yet we spent the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s shitting our pants and spending like literal drunken sailors on literal aircraft carriers over the threat of Communism, a land war, proxy wars, Soviet moles and spies, and the existential threat of thermonuclear war. To me, the plausibility of Russia ever being enough of a present threat to drive America into the froths we found ourselves in during McCarthyism reminds me of an out-of-context Matthew 24:6, “you will hear about wars and reports of wars. Don’t be alarmed.” While Matthew meant actual wars; to me, rumors of wars are not enough proof to me that there were or are actual wars behind them. I’ve felt this way long before watching The Fog of War or Wag the Dog. Way back on a desolate Siberian airfield I already felt that way. At only 20 years of age. Russia is an empty country filled with people who are as over war as their German and Japanese—and sometimes British—counterparts. To this day, I conflate Matthew 24:6 with FDR’s “so, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance,” resulting in a mash-up such as “you will hear rumors of war but the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It’s sort of my mantra, a reminder to my busy busy brain, that I intersperse with “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” ## Loneliness kills June 3, 2019 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2019/06/loneliness_kill.html Supposedly, loneliness kills middle-aged men as readily as does heart disease or cancer. While the sad lonely man who lives alone is the most obvious version, men can have feelings of loneliness even when surrounded by family. There are different forms of loneliness. Camaraderie is often readily accessible when you’re growing up if you’re the least interested in having mates. Of doing the minimum amount of work required to be a good friend. Or to at least be compelling, amusing, or simply around. While there are conditions, attitudes, and fears that make it hard for some to make themselves open and vulnerable to friendships, given half an attempt and some shared interests—or even just proximity such as living in the same neighborhood, attending the same school, or even drinking at the same bar or lifting at the same gym—friends happen. It’s generally pretty simple and passively rewarding. It’s just the way life is. Easily taken for granted. What is loneliness? Is it being alone? Is it being with someone who treats you in such a way where you feel even lonelier than if you were flying solo? Is it the state of not having anyone to look out for you, make sure you’re healthy, and keep you safe? Or is it more about invisibility or losing personal agency? People can, and do, become invisible. When you live a discrete life where you’re trained to feel comfortable alone, to feel safer and more self-reliant alone, when being alone makes you feel more self-reliant, ruggedly-independent, then it’s hard to of and when alone by choice becomes left alone becomes isolation becomes loneliness. Snipers and forward observers are alone and with a mission. So are some field agents. So many spies are extremely well compartmentalized. Some were hardwired to bifurcate at a minimum; others were trained and conditioned. I know sundry sociopaths and psychopaths and even they crave attention, at least, even if they never necessarily feel suicidal levels of loneliness. However, I bet that enough boredom might very well make even a sociopath suicidal. And by suicide, I don’t mean topping yourself with a side-by-side in the mouth; rather, a slow-but-sure descent into madness, sadness, and despair, stemming from loneliness. Of even having the thought, “who would care whether I even lived or died—I mean, really.” That kind of existential hopelessness that makes every cell of the body and all the hormones to desperately hunger for rest, in pursuit of entropy. ## I don’t know if sharpshooting has anything to do with the eyes June 12, 2019 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2019/06/i_dont_know_if.html Most of the best shooters I know, across all platforms and shooting sports, wear glasses. Too many of them need coke bottle glasses to even get around even when they’re ringing steel at a couple of thousand yards or never missing a pigeon streaking across the sky with the sweep of the barrel of an over-under shotgun. It really can’t just be the eyeballs, the optic nerves. It can’t be. It’s gotta be some Yoda shit. I’m a pistol guy. It’s my platform. I aim, breathe, press, and fire. I keep my focus on the front sight and the target blurs into the distance and the rear notch, also out of focus, cups the lined-up sight line, most of it out of focus (the front sight isn’t anywhere near the bullseye down range) and yet I have gotten to the point where I can shoot through an entire 17+1 and end up with a single ragged hole. There’s really no way that I have ever focused my eyes on the paper target down range and the stock sights I use are just imprecise guides. What really happens—what really must happen—is some form of magic involving an amalgam of years of familiarity and experience, muscle memory, yes, of course, but also something maybe much more basic, much more primal. Science has proven that when you drive a car or truck, a boat and even a tractor-trailer or commercial jet, the physical body energetically grows and expands to encompass and become aware of what’s happening to the greater vehicle as though it was a direct extension of their own body. I’ve felt it happen. Take a second: so have you. From your childhood bike to the U-Haul truck you could weave through downtown traffic and back right up to exactly where you need it. I think shooting works the same way. And I’m only including the mortals—the rest of us—not the trick shooters who can break the laws of physics, it almost seems. The trick and sharpshooters are swimming through some sort of otherworldly time-space alternate reality. I have seen guys in the field make amazing shots, again and again. Against distant targets and moving targets alike. I’ve seen ground forces tag aircraft and helios with high powered rifles. While some did very well have optics and science and even apps that take the Coriolis effect into consideration, that wasn’t most of them. A few very elites were popping distant heads using only irons and just a second of their day, virtually an afterthought. But, when’s all said and done, even after you’ve installed the best aftermarket trigger or the nicest fluff and buff trigger job, and have meditated and PT’d your resting heart rate to the 40s or 50s and have become mindful and centered, you still need to take the shot and send that 147 grain projectile thousand of meters—or wherever it needs to go—on your own, through those eyeglasses, and the fact that it hits steel every time is a damn miracle that can’t rightly be proven with experience, technology, science, optics, and talent. To me, there’s some of The Force about it, still quite a lot of magic. ## False Name June 16, 2019 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2019/06/false_name_1.html The Company guys tell me that the pickle pusses at the Pickle Factory assign false names, backgrounds, and papers to field agents without any input at all save the obvious backgrounds of each particular asset at that moment. I’m also told that each field agent keeps and maintains the same alias for the lifetime of their career, unlike in the movies. Not all intelligence agencies do it this way. Defense intelligence lets their assets make up their own names and lets them choose their own back story, within reason. There are a few rules of thumb, however. The name should be racially and culturally apropos and the background story should be limited to an adjacent city or state. So, I was born in Jersey, spent some time in Manhattan, moved to Hawaii, and then spent the rest of my life in DC and Virginia, with a couple years in Berlin and Portland. By this age, if I started a false name, would I go Northeast, Hawaii, West Coast, or play it safe by sticking with the Mid-Atlantic, where I’ve mostly been since 1988. And what name would I choose? I have friends who always choose their false names based on obscure Generals from the Austro-Hungarian Empire from some time between 1867 and 1918. By sticking to Austria-Hungary, their false names can mostly avoid recognition by even the sort of geeks who watch all the war docs the History Channel has to offer. But they sometimes play into German Generals from WWI and WW2 and are sometimes questions at Western European border crossings and they have the banter down pretty well and I like to imagine they handle it exactly the way Fletch probably world. That said, all of the false names and backgrounds they bring to the field must be approved—they are all reviewed by the home office. I’m told, thanks to either the terrible education system endemic to America or the general sense of humor pervasive in the DIA, none of the obscure names of European war Generals have ever been rejected. I guess even spies and operators need to have their fun. What’s the harm. ## Little Grey Men June 17, 2019 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2019/06/little_grey_men.html As a man, if you’re between 5-foot-eight and maybe six-foot and between 135-200 pounds and have never been described as particularly handsome or beautiful—not ugly, that’s a problem, too—but probably more like that generic guy who is on the track or soccer team, the guy who gets a date for prom but who would never make King—then you might be the perfect spy field operative. Just put your studies first and be blessed with at least a 130 IQ—more is better to a point—and some common sense, some situational awareness, and the gift of physicality—and be so average and normal and mediocre-looking that you have a God-given cloak of invisibility—and you’re most of the way there. Think Cameron Frye instead of Ferris Bueller; actually, Ferris would be fine as a spy if he weren’t so attention-seeking because let’s be honest, Bueller was way more personality than prowess or beauty. What every intelligence agency really wants for field officers is the little grey man. Smart, clever, possibly brilliant, but blessed with natural invisibility. Neither handsome nor ugly, neither well-dressed (with the strange exception of the homeless, who are de facto invisible because while you recognize their existence, you still avert your eyes and tend to not really look at them unless they’re sleeping on your stoop) nor especially unkempt (think Charlie Brown and not Schroeder or Pig-Pen—and for heaven’s sake, not Linus van Pelt—good grief!). The grey man isn’t exclusive to spycraft anymore. Anyone smart who carries a gun concealed—even legally—aspires to not telegraph “I’m carrying a pistol on my right hip at 4-o’clock under my shirt in an inside the waistband holster” in exactly the same way that anyone who is undercover doesn’t want to telegraph “narc” or “spy” or “Fed” or “cop.” While I’m no CIA Chief of Disguise, Jonna Mendez, everyone knows how to ID 80% of the kind of civilian American guy who legally carries a pistol concealed. Loose unbuttoned overshirt (they call it a cover garment), some form of cargo shorts or pants, some form of a tactical boot in tan or black, a thick leather or nylon gun belt, and probably a SUUNTO CORE watch, tacticool shades, and then there’s the undershirt with the Punisher skull logo. Paracord bracelets. A bag with molle or a velcro patch with a flag. And there are some nice khaki trousers out there but beware of buying anything from 5.11 Tactical except maybe your underwear. Even as an operator or as an assassin, the only thing more obvious than a 5.11 wardrobe is wearing an actual tuxedo. Instead, buy all your tacticool gear at REI or Patagonia instead. The only difference between the sort of tacticool kit that shows your hand and an invisible wardrobe that turns you invisible is the label. Cover your performancewear with North Face labels and, all of a sudden, you’re a weak and harmless vegan hippy. Here in DC, invisible is button-down Oxfords, khakis, blue blazers, Oxford shoes or penny loafers, jeans, New Balance sneakers, and even surprisingly elite college and law school sweatshirts. Dime-a-dozen. And a pair of eyeglasses, even with plain glass lenses, can obfuscate intent and easily obscure where you’re looking and what you’re looking—or that you’re looking in the first place. Hell, when Washingtonians are off the clock, they pretty much only wear North Face and Patagonia with dibs and dabs of sports team, university, grad school, professional school, home town, and maybe the firm they work for (Booz, Deloitte, Ernst, Accenture). That said, it’s a fine line, right, because, in too many cases as has come to light in the last decade, the Central Intelligence Agency oftentimes DBA Booz, Deloitte, Ernst, and Accenture, so maybe don’t push your luck, if I were you. Sure, every spy of stage, screen, and story comes straight from the SAS or the Navy Seals. Even James Bond is a Veteran of Her Queen’s Royal Navy. With broad backs, tall statures, and the bolt-upright esprit de corps beat into a man through training, you and everyone else can spot a military man at a million miles. Add to that a series of very unfortunate tattoos that come with the job and the thousand-yard stare that follows you home from active duty, vets and soldiers are terrible spies and are often used as operators that tap into tradecraft and spycraft instead of being actual spies and intelligence officers. For example, James Bond is an assassin. While it’s an ugly word, assassin, why else would he otherwise need a license to kill? Bond’s an operator. He does wet work. ## It’s all fancy dress June 10, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/its_all_fancy_d.html After years of just spending time, sometimes I wonder if ever I was anyone of note. There were so many hints, though the thing we humans are exceptionally good at is noticing patterns. Or maybe just seeing patterns. Our pattern recognition isn’t necessarily a reliable narrator, though, so who even really knows whether I’ve been tapped, whether I am on some sort of quadruple-secret reserve retainer. There’s no evidence, anyway. Not even in my own mind to my own self. I don’t have a handler. I don’t spend lonely nights on my shortwave transcribing number stations of perusing the classifieds or personals of the local broadsheet in search of secret messages. I neither drop nor do I pick. It occurs to me all the time that I am a simple, non-elite, lonely, civilian with absolute zero intrigue, neither an unwitting dupe nor even anyone’s fool. To wit, I spend half a year collaborating with the only shadowy Muscovites in the history of the world who just happened to only be ambitious young cryptocurrency entrepreneurs. Even earnest and surprisingly threatening accusations of being a stooge for Putin or a Russian agent couldn’t be further from the truth. If I were to ignore the patterns that I both see and hear all around me and through the persistent friendships of the people around me who have known me for as long as 25-years and no shorter than 15-years. The Moldovan immigrant American who I call my fairy godmother (in ode to Mother Night), the Elliot School privateer diplomat free spirit who is always available by phone, except when he’s not, and the son of a handsome, fit, native son of McLean who is like a brother (they are all my brothers) who has never had much of a believable job and has never explicitly ever denied being a secret agent (though I guess I have never asked). Though, if I were to think about all of it soberly and after a very restful night of sleep, I guess they could just be best friends instead of government-sponsored handlers. That makes much more sense. So, the only two actual indicators that I am a spy are the clever little things that I have bought and issued to myself: the pistols and rifle and the camouflaged boonie caps and kit bags and operator wristwatches. It’s all fancy dress. What a fool I’ve been. What a fool I am. ## Police have almost limitless freedom June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/police_have_alm.html Black lives matter. And the police have almost limitless freedom to do whatever they can to defend their lives, to reduce their exposure to harm or injury, including deadly force—and not as a last option behind an array of non-lethal options. Modern American policing doesn’t even think about winging anyone or shooting anyone in the arm or leg. If you’re an officer and someone comes at you with a gun, a knife, or a noodle, your job is to empty your personal weapon into the center mass of the attacker until the threat is neutralized. ## A double-O license to kill June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/a_doubleo_licen.html I am a permitted concealed gun carrier as licensed by the local Sheriff. I had to go through CCW training with a local firearms trainer that I trained with at the NRA HQ’s range. What combined superpowers do I have as an American with a modern interpretation of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution supporting him, with the support of the Law of Virginia, and with the laws and responsibilities conferred by the Arlington County Sheriff’s Department’s Concealed Carry permit, are many and actually proffer a conditional double-O license to kill. ## You will be extremely discreet with your gun carry June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/you_will_be_ext.html When my firearms instructor told me how to engage while concealed carrying a personal firearm (at that point, I carried a Gen 3 Glock 23 in .40 S&W, a very formidable firearm often used by law enforcement), she told me that, legally, first of all, that it’s completely illegal to ever let anyone around me know that I am carrying a firearm. That the CCW permit is, itself, an explicit agreement between the County, the State, and every State with reciprocity, that you will be extremely discreet with your gun carry. One of the biggest issues is with “printing.” Printing is the visible panty line or visible nipples of gun carry. People solve it a couple of ways: getting a smaller gun, getting a holster that can conceal your pistol as deeply and completely, or off-body in a bag or purse, or it is often solved through clothing choices. People in the space call them garments, which I personally find amusing. Who calls their clothing “garments?” Things like loose overshirts or blazers or jackets or loose button-downs. ## Nobody really uses the holsters or rigs you would think June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/nobody_really_u.html Nobody really uses the holsters or rigs you would think. Nobody really uses shoulder holsters of the sort you’ve seen on Miami Vice or other cop shows from the 80s or 90s. I mean, you can get them, and they’re cool and are a useful way of carrying a service pistol under a jacket or suit jacket or blazer with the added benefit of having space under the arm opposite the holster to store a couple-few spare magazines (never clips) as a counterbalance. Most concealed carriers choose an inside-the-waistband (IWB) holster. There are so many types, made of leather, horsehide, Kydex, nylon, polymer, Cordura, and a lot of other materials, including hybrid, which includes a combination of a large oval of horsehide riveted to a form-fitted Kydex holster. Most IWB holsters have some form of way to anchor the holster to the pant or belt, usually belt loops, snaps, and clips. Some ride high on the hip, some lie deeply canted, and some are surprisingly deep in the pants, under the beltline, called deep carry. And they’re carried in different places on the belt, IWB: most popular is at the four or five-o’clock position (where the 12-o’clock position is right at the belt buckle, 3 o’clock is at the side, and 6-o’clock is the small of the back. Amongst some very skinny and flat-tummied concealed carriers, people sometimes choose to appendix carry, which is carrying your gun either in the waistband or in an IWB holster tucked in at the 1-o’clock position, which is called AIWB, and playfully called MOD (muzzle on dick) carry. ## It’s perfectly permissible to draw my firearm and shoot someone June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/its_perfectly_p.html I was instructed by my firearm instructor that the law doesn’t allow me to brandish my firearm or threaten people with my pistol but it’s perfectly permissible to draw my firearm and shoot someone if I feel physically threatened for my life. This can include the threat of being beaten up, the threat of a knife, the threat of very aggressive and threatening verbal abuse of the person is right there in your personal space, right there in your face like a drill instructor in your face. It’s within reason to push that person away from you with your weak hand and then shoot them with your pistol. ## As many shots as is required but not one more June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/as_many_shots_a.html While it’s illegal to brandish or threaten someone with your gun to keep them away or scare them off, it isn’t illegal to shoot someone who makes you feel like your life is under mortal threat to only fire for center mass, never to “wing” or injure, always to incapacitate or neutralize. Additionally, it’s legal for the gun owner in his home or with a concealed carry permit out and about, to keep on shooting at someone who is threatening their life again and again until that attacker is on the ground and not moving, then stop. “As many shots as is required but not one more.” ## I’ll probably, legally, shoot you to death June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/ill_probably_le.html You decide to grab me by the collar and shake me, making me feel like things are just going to escalate from here? I’ll probably, legally, shoot you to death. If you mug me, even without a gun or knife, just with words and intimidation, you’ll get my bullets instead of my wallet. If you just don’t like the cut of my jib and you decide to have a little poke at me for sport because that’s how you predate? I’ll shoot you the moment you get within 7 yards of me. And 21-feet, I was trained, is my bubble. That’s even further than social distancing which is only two yards, six feet. It’s called the 21 Foot Rule: “by the time an individual determines a deadly threat, draws his firearm, and places two shots, an attacker has closed up to 21-feet between them.” Which reinforces a gun carrier’s idea that one should have their firearm drawn and ready if they’re approaching with a weapon, even a knife or any weapon, even fists if you’re small, old, a woman, or vulnerable. Even though you might surely end up arrested for shooting someone with a pipe or a golf club or even a knife, people console (and empower or enable) themselves with sayings like “it’s better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six.” ## If you shoot someone, kill them June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/if_you_shoot_so.html The moment that you start to explore the message boards about carry culture you learn a bunch of things: If you shoot someone, kill them. Because if they survive, they will sue you in civil court. If you shoot someone, only shoot them in what’s called center mass. Center mass is, generally-speaking, the chest. About the size of a paper plate, at the center of the chest. Where all the vital organs are. The biggest, easiest, place to shoot where all the targets are vital towards supporting life. The goal is not to kill, the goal is to stop them from continuing the attack or assault. Since there’s not a bullet known⁠—even shotgun blasts, high-caliber bullets, or shotgun slugs that will physically throw anyone off their feet and into the wall behind them. That’s physically impossible. While shooting someone in the chest again and again for as long as the attack continues is barbaric, it also doesn’t often always stop a committed attacker. Shock and pain don’t set in immediately. ## It really is indefensible if you shoot someone in the head June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/it_really_is_in.html One of the reasons why my shooting instructor told me to always shoot center mass (as opposed to shooting anyone in the head) is because it really is indefensible if you shoot someone in the head or if you “finish someone off” with a “cap to the head” like a mafia assassin or wetwork operator. When it comes to that “only shoot until the threat is neutralized” it’s important to always take into consideration how the shooting will be perceived and that the shooting is never perceived as sociopathic, premeditated, brutal, or in bad faith. That the shooting was both plausibly and probably a defensive act result based on a real-time spot-decision based on a calculus of survival and a real feeling of personal threat to one’s life. As a result, you actually don’t need to already be beat-up or stabbed or attacked or raped or shot (or see an actual bowie knife or Colt .44 Magnum), but it doesn’t hurt. But, you don’t even need to have hands-on you because the moment hands are on you, your firearm can be taken and used against you or you can lose the mobility required to defend yourself. So, in the world of personal defense, there’s no requirement of parity: it’s not gun versus gun, knife versus knife, fist versus fist. ## Never to telegraph that you’re carrying June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/never_to_telegr.html Your concealed carry firearm trainer instructs you never to telegraph to any assailant that you’re carrying a firearm until the moment you draw and shoot. Even legally, if you are a concealed carry holder and you break your pistol from its little home in your well-worn inside-the-waistband holster and draw the gun to your shooting position, your only job, you’re told, is to point and shoot, as best you can, at center-mass, directly into the chest cavity of the attacker. No back and forth witty banter or “you’d better calm down because I’m armed” as it’s believed that once an attacker knows you have a gun, the more likely that attacker will take that gun away from you, you dope, while you’re brandishing is or holding it on the target. Why? ## Someone with a pistol has only a fraction of a second of fire superiority June 13, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/someone_with_a.html They probably think that your hesitation is the unwillingness or inability to actually pull that trigger at all; also, there are a hundred ways to take a gun away from someone without getting yourself shot. If you can reach a gun before the shooter shoots, you can bat it away; or, if you’re a bit away, you can run towards them at an angle or in a zigzag or you can throw something like a jacket or a bike or anything to confuse or disrupt the person firing. Someone with a pistol has only a fraction of a second of fire superiority. There are three or four things that come between you and shooting someone after you draw: fear, indecision, being overwhelmed, or just chickening out (not committing). Also, your gun can jam, you can have your gun on safe with a manual safety, your gun may not have a round racked, or your pistol may be out of battery. But it’s usually mental. Oh, and the number X reason why you can’t end up defending yourself with a firearm: deciding not to carry that day. ## Never video record yourself defending your home with deadly force June 14, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/06/never_video_rec.html There are a lot of 2A lawyers and consultants all over YouTube and the message boards. They give advice on how to explicitly protect oneself against being thrown into jail or sued out of existence. They tell you not to put a camera on your gun or use a bodycam or a CCTV when you’re defending your home from a burglar, robber, or home invader. You need to allow your lawyer the latitude and room to spin Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Grown narratives. You can⁠—and should⁠—call 911 and let the 911 operator be on the call during your home defense, but never “1st person shooter” it because then it makes it look too much like a video game or a murder movie or a POV fetish object or even premeditation. Give your lawyer some rope to hang the home invader⁠—and that’s not by videotaping it. You need plausible deniability because there are Very Smart People trying (AUSAs) working hard enough to make their name in the Anti-Gun community by using you as an exemplar. ## 50 is when men retire from a life of adventure August 12, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/08/50_is_when_men.html Being an aging man of action over 50 is paradoxical. First, 50’s old. 40’s old, even. 50’s ancient. That said, once in, you’re never really ever out. While the U.S. Army, for example, has raised the mandatory retirement age for active-duty soldiers to age 62, from age 55, the service has always been an up-or-out organization. Not that I’m a soldier—nor have I ever been one. But, as long as you have your wits about you, can keep a secret, have neither betrayed nor broken trust, and can be useful, you’re never quite off the table. As long as you’re useful. I don’t know if I am useful. If I were useful, I would surely know by now. Waiting for Godot. Keeping busy. Hurry up and wait. My dad used to tell me one of the credos he remembered from Parris Island: “Don’t run if you can walk. Don’t walk if you can stand. Don’t stand if you can sit.” And, I think he added, “Don’t sit if you can lie down, and don’t stay awake if you can sleep.” While this is some of the best of advice I have ever received (except for when he taught me to punch with my elbows and, when I fell, to always tuck and roll), it really only benefits someone who is going through boot camp or the extreme duress of military deployment or if you’re burning your candle at both ends. If you’re not constantly being required to hump it double-time, with a full ruck, in the dust, and under a hot sun, then that advice will just get you fat, make you weak, and it’ll put you at the very edge of ruin. Sometimes, in the sedentary world of modern, Western, urban, college-educated, men, Lou Holtz’s quote should surely be inverted to be “Don’t sit if you can stand. Don’t stand if you can walk. Don’t walk if you can run.” ## The Smith–Mundt Act is Dead September 3, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/the_smithmundt.html For decades, an anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government from propagandizing its own people, domestically. America celebrated the 4th of July weekend of 2013 by gutting the Smith-Mundt Act into the hollowed-out Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. While it is surely framed as just dealing with the Voice of America (VOA) and restrictions they have when it comes to broadcasting domestically, there are much greater ramifications. What happens when America attains perfect global hegemony? It’s time to work on Herself. It’s the era in America when the tools of hearts and minds warfare are turned on ourselves. I guess they’ll call it something similar to ’exporting democracy,’ probably something like ’restoring American norms and values.’ Mark my words. ## False equivalence is a rhetorical device September 4, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/false_equivalen.html So, here’s a definition of ‘false equivalence’ I lazily found online and we’ll see what it says and also whether there’s some English the spin of the definition that reveals if the definition already comes with baggage. Things such as “science is logical, religion is anachronistic and God is an imaginary sky daddy.” Let’s see what we find. Who owns the heart and mind of the phrase false equivalence? Wikipedia: “False equivalence is a logical fallacy in which an equivalence is drawn between two subjects based on flawed or false reasoning. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency. A colloquial expression of false equivalency is “comparing apples and oranges.” Thomas Patterson of the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University, “False equivalencies are developing on a grand scale as a result of relentlessly negative news. If everything and everyone is portrayed negatively, there’s a leveling effect that opens the door to charlatans. The press historically has helped citizens recognize the difference between the earnest politician and the pretender. Today’s news coverage blurs the distinction.” One of the false equivalence that Wikipedia uses is: “both Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler have mustaches, but that does not make them the same” and “The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is no more harmful than when your neighbor drips some oil on the ground when changing his car’s oil.” Those are very clear. It’s less clear to me when I readily compare the violence perpetuated by the extreme left, in the form of so-called Antifa with the extreme right, in the form of, let’s say, activist militias. To me, true believers—not the faithful, necessarily—are almost always dangerous and disruptive to entire systems. And, since they’re so passionate and zealous about the changes that they desire to massage into reality, they’re almost always willing to follow the most dangerous tenet, as beautifully written and spoken by Malcolm X: “We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” To me, this amazing line in the sand can easily be adopted by any extremists because the above quote can be adopted by the left as easily as it can the right, the strong black descendant of slavery as readily as it can be used to fuel the passions of white men who march through town calling “you will not replace us” in unison. Everyone has their own narrative and, as I always say, nobody sees Hitler in their own reflection in a mirror—not even Hitler. ## When people use the rhetorical riposte September 5, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/when_people_use.html Apples are, indeed, apples and oranges are, indeed, also oranges; however, when people use the rhetorical riposte false equivalence in the wild, they often actually compare Ambrosias to Winesaps or Valencias to Jaffas: types of apples to types of apples and varieties of oranges to varieties of oranges. But, it’s like sports teams: nobody ever compares baseball to football or soccer to basketball, they compare the Yankees to the Red Sox or the Ravens to the 49ers. I’ll accept someone saying whatever I am sharing a false equivalence whenever it is, but if I compare agitators from the extreme left and rabble-rouser from the right as being both agents provocateur, this is not a logical fallacy, it’s a bona fide, logical, and sound comparison. ## So don’t be afraid to let them show your true colors September 5, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/so_dont_be_afra.html When someone shows their true colors by revealing their true allegiances—especially when intellectually or professionally signifying as being neutral, rational, or non-partisan—the first thing that comes to mind is “I don’t think that [phrase] means what you think it means,” paraphrasing Inigo Montoya’s quip in the perennial favorite swashbuckling romantic comedic film, The Princess Bride. While that might not make sense, initially, I guess you need to be in my head, because the next two things I think of, in parallel, are: are you a true believer, a believer in absolutisms and blacks and whites; or, are you a rhetorician, a debater, who knows how to use the phrase, “false equivalency,” to nuke the conversation through an attempt to completely dismiss and discredit a previously made comparison. ## Godwin’s rule of Trump analogies September 5, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/godwins_rule_of.html Summarily shutting down discussions with depth charge comments that quickly invalidate another’s argument must work quite a lot, be it by winning the conversation with a fatal hit; or, more likely, just because the rhetorician believes he has one based on the soundness of his burn, drops his mic, and leaves the encounter. There are quite a few of these. Whataboutism is a cousin of this method. According to Wikipedia: “Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.” Ironically, it’s mostly used as a foil against conversations the debater dislikes the ramifications of. The most popular line of whataboutism is every variation of, “Trump did this and is a horrible person” with the counterargument being, “but Obama did that same thing during his two terms” and the reply, no matter whether there is proof, evidence, or proper refutation, whataboutism has become the de facto version of “I’m covering my ears like a kid. When your words mean nothing, I go la la la.” But dressed in academic gowns. And it’s extremely popular during the Trump presidency because, over the course of at least the first administration, Godwin’s rule of Hitler analogies has evolved to include Godwin’s rule of Trump analogies. Everything has become a binary between “the right side of history” and whatever Trump and the Trump base believe in or cares about. It’s an either/or. ## I am an oddball because I have never lived in a concrete world September 5, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/i_am_an_oddball.html My entire life has been super-saturated and over-inflated with magical realism, with there being zero conflict between intellectualism, science, logic, the big bang, the ever-expanding Universe, the symphony of science, and the literal existence of a living God, a spiritual reality, life before and after death, and everything and anything in-between. So, I am an oddball, someone who grew up watching Cosmos with Carl Sagan and NOVA on PBS and reading about relativity and being obsessed with Albert Einstein and knowing the taxonomic ranks of the animals of the world, recognizing that Hawaii, where I am from, Oahu, Honolulu, is both a global epicenter of science, technology, astronomy, marine science, anthropology, and whatnot, while still being a magical island that has never just given lip service to the reality of ghosts, gods, spirits, channeling, palm-reading, worship, respect for Madame Pele, our Goddess of Fire, and also respecting our God Maui, the god of the wind and sea. All these things live together. So, it’s really hard for me to ever really choose the kind of sides that ever dismiss anyone’s lifestyle, anyone’s beliefs, including third gender Hawaiians and the entire spectrum of people—including society’s most terrible. As long as they don’t impinge on other people’s liberties, rights, and lifestyles. To the point where I would fight for the right of Nazis to be able to have a parade down Main Street—that’s what the First Amendment is all about, to me. Though, in 2020, it seems like I am alone in this. ## Shame and humiliation are only a short-game September 5, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/shame_and_humil.html This is an attempt at processing these feelings. Shame and humiliation are only a short-game. Shaming and humiliating people into complicity just drives people underground. You don’t ever win hearts and minds with shame and humiliation, you just ensure that you’ll end up living in a world where all of those things that you’ve driven out may appear to be gone but are actually thriving, unabated, on the DL, on the down-low. The left, the Democrats, and the extremist radicals may see the success of their furious wars against white supremacy, against our “never my president” President, and against intolerance and bigotry; however, when the carpet bombings are complete and the B-52s are ridden hard and put away wet, they’d really better check all the tunnels because America is the least likely country to ever be shamed into doing anything outside of temporary appeasement. I am sure the American Revolutionaries were the most passive-aggressive opposition force that the Red Coats ever had to deal with. Acting all Loyal and Obedient to the King by day and conspiring to overthrow the English in the pubs at night. I don’t think Americans give much more than just lip service to the right side of history. You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after we’ve tried everything else. ## The shy Trump factor will get Donald Trump handily reëlected in November September 7, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/the_shy_trump_f.html “The shy Tory factor is a name given by British opinion polling companies to a phenomenon first observed by psephologists in the early 1990s.” The shy Trump factor is the same phenomenon but with regards to Donald J. Trump in mid-2020. Either way, “these polling companies observed that the share of the electoral vote won by the Conservative Party (known colloquially as the ‘Tories’) was significantly higher than the equivalent share in opinion polls. The accepted explanation was that so-called ‘shy Tories’ were voting Conservative after telling pollsters they would not. The general elections held in 1992 and 2015 are examples where it has dramatically affected the overall result but has also been discussed in other elections where the Conservatives did unexpectedly well. It has also been applied to the success of the Republican Party in the United States” and will result in the reëlection of Donald Trump in November 2020. ## Trump is a terrible authoritarian autocrat September 8, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/trump_is_a_terr.html Ever since Donald J. Trump was elected American President in 2016—and during Trump’s entire presidential campaign—the single biggest reason why one must not ever elect Donald Trump into the White House is because he’s Hitler and—before long—all Jews, immigrants, minorities, undocumented workers, refugees, LGBTTQQIAAP, and probably Chinese-Americans—would soon all be either in camps or being led into gas chambers or the direst of prisons or gulags. This hasn’t actually happened at all. In any way that can be substantiated and this is a problem for the upcoming November 3rd, 2020, Presidential election because when you run a campaign that guarantees a Trump-led American holocaust and it doesn’t come, then there’s a pretty good chance that anything less than a complete redux of Nazi Germany writ large and led by authoritarian Donald Trump and his nefarious autocrats, people tend to breathe a sign of relief. Of course, what will happen now, is that the narrative will remain the same but it’ll be reframed as, “Trump didn’t enact his final solution during his first term because he wanted to be reëlected . . . just wait until his second term in office! He’ll take off his gloves and finally enact all of his totalitarian, authoritarian, and autocratic plans the moment everyone is fooled into voting for him. The moment he’s reinaugurated on January 20, 2021, he will release the winged monkeys and the purge will begin.” Or something like that. So, I am pretty afraid that this cognitive dissonance—occurring when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them—will collapse the unstable, extremely-fragile, house of cards, that has been built by the Democrats on a foundation that needs Trump to not simply be a bunga bunga Berlusconi or a vainglorious Mussolini but a fully-committed Hitler. Here’s the thing: Trump has never been or will ever be a true believer, an ideologue: he doesn’t believe in anything at all ever except wealth and power—probably only attention and the approval of his father—and that’s a nothing burger when it comes to ever becoming anything close to the True Antichrist. If Americans feel like they’re being gas lighted (gas lit?), they’ll respond very aggressively against that, and this might very well drive American voters into the arms of Innocuous Hitler, Lame Hitler, Gelded Hitler. They will dismiss the entire anti-Trump, anyone but Trump, Trump is not my President, Resist, why not Biden, campaign as being a Godwin’s law (or Godwin’s rule of Hitler analogies) done on a National Political Stage: “The theory that as any presidential discussion progresses, it becomes inevitable that Trump will eventually be compared to Adolf Hitler, regardless of the original topic.” While the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, CNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the second-tier mainstream media outlets will get rich on DNC, Biden/Harris, and Super-PAC money, I wouldn’t put too much money on the chance of the Biden/Harris ticket winning this Fall. Americans really hate hypocrisy and hate being lied to and while Trump lies constantly and without cessation, he’s completely transparent about it, making him strangely transparent and authentic. He is what he is, alas. Americans always prefer flawed transparent than they like a savvy city slicker. While I don’t wish this on anyone—I don’t like either candidate at all—I call a Trump victory that will, oddly enough, be more definite than winning by strategic electoral votes, possibly even winning the popular vote. ## Blowback, unintended consequences, unwanted side-effects, suffered repercussions September 9, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/blowback_uninte.html While blowback is a term originating from within the American Intelligence community, denoting the unintended consequences, unwanted side-effects, or suffered repercussions of a covert operation that fall back on those responsible for the aforementioned operations, it can be used everywhere, about everything. I especially like using it when discussing the unintended consequences of doing good in the world, the unwanted side-effects of progress and international development, and the unforgivable suffered repercussions of trying to change—nay, save!—the world. I dare you to come up with any world-changing invention, technology, or game-changer, and I will show you the price one will need to pay, the very dear price, of disrupting the very complex equilibrium that life on earth maintains in ways that our human ape brains can hardly remotely begin to understand. In my experience, do-gooders are only ever half-right. They do do. ## Manufacture of consent defined September 9, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/manufacture_of.html 1. A phrase originally coined in 1922 by the American journalist Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) to refer to the management of public opinion, which he felt was necessary for democracy to flourish, since he felt that public opinion was an irrational force. 2. For Herman and Chomsky, the acceptance of government policies by people in the USA on the basis of the partial picture of issues offered by the mass media, denying them access to alternative views which would lead them to oppose such policies. They present this as a propaganda model in which the mass media select material in relation to the values of those in power. 3. The concept found in Gramsci and Althusserian Marxism, in which the dominant class sustains its hegemony through engineering assent: see also ideological state apparatus. 4. (sociology) The notion associated with functionalism that society is dependent upon the engineering of a consensus: see also consensus; legitimation. 5. An allusion to the concept of ‘the engineering of consent’ defined in 1947, by the Austrian-American public relations pioneer Edward Bernays (1891–1995), as the art of manipulating people without them being aware of it. Bernays, a nephew of Freud, argued that people can be enticed to want things that they do not need if these are linked to their unconscious desires, a notion pursued by Dichter, the ‘father of motivation’. Via Oxford Reference ## West coast fires are false flag ecoterrorism September 15, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/west_coast_fire.html I have never seen anyone more apoplectic than environmentalists and young millennials who believe that global warming is an existential threat that, near-term, will result in an extinction-level event. True believers will do anything in order to change public opinion; and, when it comes to preventing the forthcoming apocalyptic sixth extinction, caused by man, there’s no price too dear to pay even if that means spurring on the actual sixth extinction in the short term in order to prevent the actual apocalypse. Short-term suffering for long-term gain. The old sacrifice a few to save many logic; however, in practice, killing one person—even if the outcome does save millions—is really only actually appealing to psychopaths. Psychopaths and radicalized true believers. I am not remotely inventive when it comes to this diagnosis, this analysis. Michael Crichton wrote a #1 bestseller about this back in 2004, selling 1.5 million copies. The novel, State of Fear, is about an eco-terrorist plot of mass murder to publicize the danger of global warming: sacrifice a few to save many. It’s a perfect playbook, though instead of fire the novel chooses water; and, instead of wildfires razing the rural second homes of rich liberals and the primary homes of Trump voters, something else happens (the book came out a long time ago and I forget what happened and to whom). With this plan, you get to shove it to both the rich (class war) and also to Trump (not my president). It’s a perfect plan even though the psychopaths hate to get their hands dirty and the radicalized true believers don’t know how to start a fire. Luckily, anarcho-syndicalist Antifa rebels are always happy to get their wilding on. Everyone’s happy! That is until the unintended consequences work themselves out and make themselves known, resulting in the sort of blowback that sacrifices a few to save nobody and nothing because all their worst nightmares come to fruition: a second term for Trump. Because most Americans are not environmentalists. Most Americans are not true believers. Most Americans are not psychopaths. Most Americans don’t become radicalized. And most Americans don’t think past their next payday. ## COVID testing or COVID distribution centers September 27, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/covid_testing_o.html In all of my years I have never experienced proactive testing for disease premature to showing symptoms. How did SARS-CoV-2, known as Coronavirus or Novel Coronavirus or even COVID-19, so quickly and readily infect the entire world—especially the United States—within months across all cities and states, almost concurrently? And, why, when social distancing and self-isolation and self-quarantine are de rigueur, visiting COVID-19 testing centers for prophylactic test not only seem antithetical to safety protocol but contradictory. A complete contraindication of the social and safety prescription given us, the population, from the beginning: stay home. I will now write and share two theories of COVID testing centers as COVID distribution centers: a rational, science-based, theory of unnecessary potential contraction of COVID-19 and an irrational, improbably, conspiracy theory of Coronavirus testing centers as Coronavirus distribution centers. ## A rational theory of COVID testing centers as COVID distribution centers September 27, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/a_rational_theo.html While I do believe that the COVID testing centers maintain rigorous levels of sanitation and sanitization against contagion, doing everything possible to prevent cross-contamination and from anyone coming and going to and from the Coronavirus testing center either infecting or becoming infected. That said, so were the virologists and scientists at The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well. Let’s say every one of the hundreds of testing centers across the United States, both public and private facilities, both clinics and hospitals, both curbside and otherwise, are all able to maintain all the measures rigorously, the links in their endless chains equally strong, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, no matter the improbability. Even then, there’s no accounting for how people act between the time they leave their homes and when they queue up in an orderly, socially-distanced, and properly-bemasked way. I guess an exception to the rule are the people who have mandated requirements to get tested in order to work or attend school. All I can think of is my JROTC days. Yes, when we were doing drills and marching and showing off to our parents and Sergeant Major, we were spit-polished, definitions of esprit de corps, and in lockstep: we were the definition of law and order. However, the moment before we moved to joining a parade as a unit as well as the moment after, we were the definition of chaos. In the same way, being a good Coronavirus citizen is a bit Eddie Haskell: when people are watching you, you’re charming and a rule-follower; however, the moment no one’s watching, you’re a slave to your id, towards one’s more basic nature. The effect is to really encourage the sort of mixing that would not happen at all if we were to just all have stayed put. Not just stay put on the days you’re not getting your Coronavirus test but all the time. Another thing, that seems extremely obvious to me, is why would one go out of their way to cross paths with diverse peoples from near and far for nothing more than knowing whether or not you have Coronavirus antibodies? A very simple personal risk analysis and risk assessment exercise for one’s personal health versus the ability of your village, town, city, state, region, and country to better do predictions, many of them self-fulfilling prophecies. Personally, I have never gotten a test and never plan to get a test. ## Conspiracy theory of COVID testing centers as COVID distribution centers September 29, 2020 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2020/09/conspiracy_theo.html What if the Novel Coronavirus testing centers were, initially, COVID-19 distribution centers? What if those nasally-invasive, brain-tickling, cotton swabs were inserting SARS-CoV-2 samples deep into the sinus cavities of the sundry men, women, and children who swarmed to check to see if they had been infected by the so-called Wuhan virus? How quickly can the organic distribution of a new virus actually spread? Can the virus spread so completely, naturally, across the 3.797 million square miles that make up the United States, to say nothing of the entire globe—even taking into account that a virus will typically spread exponentially at first? In addition to the natural mixing that happens when one goes out of their way to come into proximity of other people who fear that they may have become sick or exposed to the Coronavirus. It doesn’t matter at all whether the answers to these questions are yes or no, it only matters that these questions have been and will be asked. Because, in every movie about bioterrorism, there are always selfless, earnest, and passionate activists who expose themselves to some hemorrhagic fever or other before jumping on commercial airliners, trains, cars, with the goal of being sick and being contagious en route to their highly-populated targets, and then, when in the middle of City Center, going to a concert, theater, mall, or park to spend their time contagiously before their symptoms and sickness overtake them and they succumb to their illness. The story of a bioterrorist or anti-overpopulation extremist or even someone who is committed to realizing a so-called New World Order in the form of a one-world global government—globalism—sacrificing their own lives en masse in order to do the hard work to protect the future of humanity as well as the environment and some future human suffering from devastating environmental collapse and in order to prevent The Sixth Extinction has become and has been a trope in its commonness since at least the 70s. A play like that would be too obvious. Certainly by the Chinese or in any form of false-flag, self-inflicted, wound. ## Trump’s Atrocities Were Never Actualities January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/trumps_atrociti.html I’ll be honest: if Trump had actually done any of the terrible things that he was accused of, for real, I’m sure all of us would have stood against him; however, this was all a simulacrum to manifest the kind is 60s civil rights and anti-Vietnam fervor to gin up Americans into an easy-to-manipulate and weaponize lather; and, for that, the Left was the Baddie, not the Businessman (and that’s extremely rare, in a world wherein they tend to exploit like mofos). The good guys outbadded the bad guys. ## J’existe January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/jexiste.html You know how most people are appalled by the idea of people making fun of them or mocking them behind their backs? I’m terrified that people aren’t making fun of or mocking me behind my back. That’s my brand, I’m I right? “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” ## The Burble and Pop of Distant Fireworks January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/the_burble_and.html I was asleep when the massive ack ack of fireworks started in Washington, 5 miles away, but they woke me up but were muted enough that I couldn’t tell what was going on from bed. So I thought maybe it was something weird happening in my apartment until I finally recognized the patter and then identified the big finale as I’ve attended a million DC fireworks displays. But, at first, I was freaking out: what was breaking, what was leaking, what was glitching, were these my last moments in earth? Phew! ## President of Half the Country January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/president_of_ha.html Biden won. Biden’s the 46th President. Half the country doesn’t believe this. Why? Example, what about “not my president,” “never Trump,” and “Clinton won!”?  Same thing. Different POV. Same passion. Different side. Open your eyes. Everyone thinks they’re right, have the path, know the truth, have the facts; also, noöne seems to see this in the mirror, either. Human flaw. I never believed that Gore lost or George W. Bush was a legitimate President (still don’t). Life and politics, am I right? ## Othering January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/othering.html “Othering” refers to the process whereby an individual or groups of people attribute negative characteristics to other individuals or groups of people that set them apart as representing that which is opposite to them. ## The Double Standard January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/the_double_stan.html A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same. It is often used to describe treatment whereby one group is given more latitude than another. A double-standard arises when two or more people, groups, organizations, circumstances, or events are treated differently even though they should be treated the same way. Margaret Eichler, author of The Double Standard: A Feminist Critique of Feminist Social Science, explains that a double standard “implies that two things which are the same are measured by different standards”. Applying different principles to similar situations may or may not indicate a double standard. To distinguish between the application of a double standard and a valid application of different standards toward circumstances that only appear to be the same, several factors must be examined. One is the sameness of those circumstances—what are the parallels between those circumstances, and in what ways do they differ? Another is the philosophy or belief system informing which principles should be applied to those circumstances. Different standards can be applied to situations that appear similar based on a qualifying truth or fact that, upon closer examination, renders those situations distinct (i.e. a physical reality, a moral obligation etc.). However, if similar-looking situations have been treated according to different principles and there is no truth, fact or principle that distinguishes those situations, then a double standard has been applied. If correctly identified, a double standard is viewed negatively as it usually indicates the presence of hypocritical, biased and/or unfair attitudes leading to unjust behaviors. ## μετάνοια January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/metanoia.html Metanoia, a transliteration of the Greek μετάνοια, means after-thought or beyond-thought, with meta meaning “after” or “beyond” and nous meaning “mind”. It’s commonly understood as “a transformative change of heart; especially: a spiritual conversion.” ## How Atrocious Was January Sixth Actually? January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/how_atrocious_w.html They keep adding atrocities that happened on the sixth. IMHO, Edelman is busy writing stuff that happened as fast as they can and then testing to see if the American public will buy it. It takes some time. Or maybe Hill & Knowlton. ## Censorship is Other People January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/censorship_is_o.html I hope there aren’t any unintended consequences (blowback) associated with censoring the president. All the million things that Americans were willing to do to silence and banish Trump are all now precedent! Weee! The next four years will be really easy for everyone now that the bar has been set solidly in the “it’s not tyranny if it’s used to kill Trump and his supporters” camp. Fun times. ## Molehill January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/molehill.html Making a Mountain out of a Molehill Meaning Definition: Making a small, unimportant issue into a big problem. If someone makes a mountain out of a molehill, he is taking a little problem and turning into something much bigger and more problematic than it actually is. This phrase is used to tell someone that he or she is overreacting. ## Traumatizationability January 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/traumatizationa.html I can’t believe, after the last 4 years, that anyone had any traumatizationability left. It all couldn’t have been so bad if we’re not all in gulags and everyone’s not completely numb. I consider that a win! ## Is right wing radicalization a recruitment or a seduction? January 26, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/is_right_wing_r.html “Recruiting by radicalized right wing extremist white supremacists” is probably less intentionally tapping or recruitment than it is just exposure. Subversive messaging is always cooler and more fun and lower common denominator than the haughty braggadocio of condescending nerds who keep on hating on cops and guns and freedom and liberty and deplorables and who call Jesus sky daddy and say things like “clutching their guns and Bibles” and who call their race racist, their way of life white supremacy, and their traditional values intolerant, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-woman (which may all be true but insulting someone will not ever convert them, unless that wasn’t obvious to you yet). So, what now? ## How about this as a baseless Novel Coronavirus theory? January 26, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/how_about_this.html I should write a novel about such a thing but make it happen in the future so nobody figures out that I am actually talking about this particular global pandemic: America released Novel Coronavirus to the world, blaming China, and then acting like they were the worst affected in the entire world as a redirection bluff? “I mean, how could America have done it? Look, they’re the most terribly affected, it couldn’t have been their plan!” A perfect crime! And there didn’t need to be any actual infections, just ginned-up PCR tests with way too many cycles, resulting in extreme amounts of viral fragment amplification, thus a universal perception of hockey-stick levels of infection spread. And, with a little “lies, damn lies, and statistics” tomfoolery, it’s easy to roll all chronic, season, natural, and pneumonia-associated flues and respiratory diseases, including natural deaths from age and sickness and the confluence of comorbidities and poor health, into the official lists of COVID-19-related deaths, numbering in the hundreds of thousands! “But what about flu season?” “Well, there wasn’t one,” one would answer, “because of all the masks and social distancing and the shelter in place and the quarantining. Only COVID deaths”. Tada! ## Our secrets are our sickness January 27, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/01/our_secrets_are.html As Jean Paul Sartre reminded us, we are our choices, “nous sommes nos choix.” At 13 I realized, in 1983, that privacy is only ever possible if no one cares at all about your business. Everyone should tell their kids: live your life as though spied upon by snitches. And if you’re nasty, own it. Since actual spies use your secrets against you for leverage, then it’s a thing. The truth always comes out; also, they almost never come out in your best interest or favor. Our secrets are our sickness. In PR, they call it living as though everything you do is constantly plastered onto the Jumbotron during the Big Game, the Superbowl. Deceit and hypocrisy are never a winning combination for a life well-lived. ## Killing Fox News to save the soul of America from itself February 6, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/02/killing_fox_new.html There’s a difference between Fox News dying from general free market popularity failure and it being systematically dismantled or gelded or boycotted into submission or death. However, I guess both are fair game, I guess; though the second choice could surely paint Fox a martyr and the coup de grâce could be painted as an anti-first amendment tyranny. It’s really all about optics. I mean, Trump’s loss has been terrible for news revenue on all platforms across both sides of the aisle. Via On the Media and the lovely Bob Garfield in their most openly paternalistic episode they’ve ever dropped. It’s amazing. Bravo! And all to protect America and Americans from ourselves. ## Can one spend a country out of systemic racism? February 8, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/02/can_one_spend_a.html How does one spend enough money to undo systemic anything if there just isn’t any will outside of the choir and the choir is already passionately anti-racist? Also, what’s the chance that using too much stick and not enough carrot might result in a racism that’s so deeply set that it’s untreatable, resistant to any and all treatments. Which actually gets worse and worse the more it’s treated—out of spite, maybe. And, worse, what happens when these folks, who react this way, number 80+ million of your own fellow citizens. How does one grapple with that? Can one spend any amount of money to cure that? What’re the therapies one can develop to solve that one? ## With no evidence February 8, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/02/with_no_evidenc.html “With no evidence” is the thing that people need to say every single time when it comes to fraud in the election; however, there is and was and will be tons of evidence, according to the people who constantly scream “stolen election!”. The people who cry, “stop avoiding audits for simple recounts.” So, is that why people need to say “baseless” and “with no evidence” so often? Bases on the Shaggy philosophy of “wasn’t me?” Or was it Joseph Goebbels? “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” ## Can you dismantle the master’s home with reparations February 8, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/02/can_you_dismant.html How can we, as a country, spend enough money to solve institutional and systemic racism, no matter how much money and resources are spent. No matter how many programs. Unless you’re talking reparations, of course. In which case, that money can’t be nannied. One needs to give the money and allow humans to be humans. Anything else would be the worst kind of paternalism. And if 2% of America’s budget will be budgeted to dismantling systemic racism against American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS), but will be spent on programs instead of cash gifts to Black Americans, then how will that look? Institutional, federal, American-wide affirmative action? I mean, I am into it. But it needs to be cradle to grave rather than simply plucking out a few folks. It needs to be comprehensive, maybe, but it can’t be all My Fair Lady because ADOS have their own culture and their own way of learning, of living, of family, if life, and “reparations” can just be an assimilation campaign in sheep’s clothing. Also, hasn’t America spent trillions of dollars on (bad) social and inner-city programs? Like Section 8 housing, etc? That’s been happening in one way or another in America since the 60s and 70s and it has not taken people out of poverty as much as it very well should have. Maybe if America’s terrible social system could be more focused on ADOS, then that might work better instead of furthering enslaving people, as it does to the poor, currently. So, maybe that would help… until the day it goes before the Supreme Court and is considered Unconstitutional the way it has and had been with regards to affirmative action. It’s such an intense complex minefield. Goddess bless! ## Should America open its borders like other countries? April 12, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/04/should_america.html You’ll hate my answer: I don’t think that a lot of the countries from Mexico on down could make the EU-type union of open-border states’ strict requirements. The EU is not an open borders thing. They can be strict and they are often very harsh. Ask Greece! Even the Schengen Area has extremely strict borders and Visas against outsiders. Europe’s not open borders, either. The EU can be quite an arse. See how they allow floods of Syrian and Middle Eastern and Western Asian and North African immigrants to die? It’s because you’re either IN the EU’s gated community or you’re not. In addition, Not all States are as equal as others. There are garbage EU states that are being handled with extreme toughness as they owe money and are under strict austerity measures. The EU is copying the US… we’re a bunch of little countries who have coalesced into a larger corpus, the United States of America. I guarantee opening borders would still result in some countries having boots on their necks and other countries with the boots, just like the World Bank and the IMF plays now. And the UN. I don’t know, what do you think? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. At the end of the day, opening the borders with the rest of North and South America will mean that America and Canada and maybe Brazil and Argentine would become bullies with legal dominion over their neighbors in ways they cannot now achieve while everyone is still mostly independent. Blowback—the law of unintended consequences—is a bitch. It always bites the hand that feeds it. ## Nobody at all actually cares about raping or pillaging April 12, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/04/nobody_at_all_a.html When you become close to a soldier, they’ll stop talking about peacekeeping and they’ll admit to you that their only job is killing enemy. So, nobody really cares or feels bad about any of it, they just want to appease the rioters until they run out of steam and go away. The strange appeasement that politicians and national corporations, as well as state and local government, have towards riots, protests, encampments, and free zones is only playing the waiting game. Everything comes to pass. All trends and fads eventually fade out, even though they’re often cyclical. So, they just need to go to ground and wait out the tornado, the fire, the hurricane, the riots, the looting, and the civil disobedience until everything returns to normal. “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the Federal, State, and local authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news, or instructions. This station (optional—insert station call sign) serves the area. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.” ## Nobody gets killed over expired tags or a broken taillight April 19, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/04/nobody_gets_kil.html Nobody gets shot for the reason they were pulled over, only for what happens after the police lights come on. It’s the escalation, it’s the evasion, it’s the erratic behavior, and it’s the not following directions and orders. It’s also about tone, what you say, and defiance. Maybe all those things should be added to the talk as well. Because complying while calling the cop a pig and making squealing sounds isn’t in the spirit of being deferential, respectful, or compliant. ## Going to war to save Afghani women April 20, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/04/going_to_war_to.html You know what happens when you invade a country and destabilize it over the course of twenty years? Widows, orphans, women, mothers, and children suffer, more so when they’re branded American sympathizers. This is what’s called the most abusive of marriages, America in Afghanistan. There will be blood… on our hands, like usual. ## Ceci n’est pas une pipe May 13, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/05/ceci_nest_pas_u.html I guess my being one of all of my friends group who doesn’t think that January 6th was remotely an insurrection (no guns, first of all—America’s not much of a velvet revolution kind of country!), I am officially a wack-a-doodle. Like those kooky old Republicans who called 1/6 basically an unruly tour or just another day at Disney. ## Don’t come at someone panicking head on May 26, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/05/dont_come_at_so.html Now that I come to think of it, it was stupid for me to be such a contrarian during Trump’s administration. Never approach someone in the middle of a panic attack head-on, even if you’re trying to calm them down or lighten their load. As a PADI Divemaster, I was trained never to approach a panicked scuba diver face-on because they will most likely rip off my mask and tear out my second stage and we’ll both drown. And, even if I weren’t a trained Divemaster, everyone always shoots the messenger. Every time. I was all the shot all the time. If that panicked diver threatens to bolt to the surface, risking decompression sickness (the bends) or a lung overexpansion injury, you’re supposed to stay beyond arm’s length and look at the eyes and look for panic. Try to calm from over an arm’s length. Then, if they look like they’re going to bolt, come around the back and grab their tank tightly to prevent them from ascending too quickly, risking injury. But, be sure to keep your hoses and mask and self away from flailing arms and hands. ## When a coup isn’t, what is it? May 27, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/05/when_a_coup_isn.html Was January 6th an actual coup d’état or was it less high treason and more high theater? Less coup d’état and more coup de grâce against Trump and the Republicans? I would be much more convinced if there were one gun, one bomb, one rocket, one Molotov, or one RPG leading les misérables. Not secreted discovered ones but this coup d’état was less armed than a bank robbery. Who coups unarmed? Republicans just aren’t velvet revolutionaries. Also, we’re in the most armed county in the world and the coup was committed by the biggest gun ownership demo. It doesn’t pass even a cursory smell test. It happened, it was something, but was it a coup d’état? When it comes to a coup, nonlethal weapons and unused weapons and concealed weapons people assume rioters had and weapons (guns and bombs) that cops found later elsewhere are Schrödinger’s guns. ## Germans made Hitler; Americans make Trump July 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/germans_made_hi.html They’re symptoms not causes. It’s not just to not blame the Germans and the Americans. Don’t let them off the hook. Hitler might have been a true believer but Trump’s probably not. A people feel a certain way, there’s a resulting mass hysteria, and then there’s a “hole in the market for a strong leader guru” and that spot finds someone: Hitler, Reagan, Trump, Áder, Bolsonaro, etc. For example: Pence. The man’s an actual Nazi but the moment he “betrayed” the base, he was quickly relegated to the noose and, weirdly, embraced by the anti trumpers, who are like, “they wanted to hang him (pearl clutch)!” I mean, a minute earlier, and since he’s been a Indiana politician, the left has always wanted to hang Pence. One needs to remember 2015-2021 as a Telenovela. ## Is anti-racism anti-assimilation July 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/is_antiracism_a.html I do see anti-racism as a mandatory step in the American experiment. Question, though: is antiracism also anti-assimilation? I perceive the movement as a deconstruction—a rejection—of the American dream cultural consensus reality. As, by definition, racist, white supremacist, and anti-Black. Am on the right path? ## If anti-racism rejects default culture what’s embraced instead? July 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/if_antiracism_r.html But it also means you won’t fit into school or the meritocracy or university or into business or into genteel society or polite society or even out of jail. ## Whatever happened to code-switching? July 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/whatever_happen.html I remember when code switching was a thing. When one was encouraged to both speak the culture of the lingua franca as well as maintaining and growing and building one’s own culture. I guess there needs to be an entire FUBU subculture built and maintained, separate but equal. I guess there already is, right? ## Raising a Trump flag or poster isn’t about Donald Trump anymore July 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/raising_a_trump.html Raising a Trump flag is intentionally chosen because it triggers people, it’s defiant, it is bombastic, and it’s basically as audacious as the swastika or the battle flag of the confederacy or even the American flag to some people or the don’t tread on me snake. Signifiers. ## Trump is just the pupu platter July 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/trump_is_just_t.html Trump is just the pupu platter for what’s to come, whether or not Trump falls dead tomorrow. I’m pretty sure some sort of civil war or white cultural bloodbath will happen either way. Trump is just a best case scenario warning for things to come. He’s a harbinger he’s not the doom itself. ## Useful idiots July 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/useful_idiots.html In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by the cause’s leaders. The term was originally used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. The term has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is unsubstantiated. The phrase useful idiot has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but he is not documented as ever having used the phrase. In a 1987 article for The New York Times, American journalist William Safire investigated the origin of the term, noting that a senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress had been unable to find the phrase in Lenin’s works and concluding that in the absence of new evidence, the term could not be attributed to Lenin.[3][4] Similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary in defining useful idiot says: “The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union”. The term appeared in a June 1948 New York Times article on contemporary Italian politics (“Communist shift is seen in Europe”), citing the centrist social democratic Italian paper L’Umanità. L’Umanità wrote that left-wing social democrats, who had entered into a popular front with the Italian Communist Party during the 1948 elections, would be given the option to either merge with the Communists or leave the alliance. The term was later used in a 1955 article in the American Federation of Labor News-Reporter to refer to Italians who supported Communist causes. Time first used the phrase in January 1958, writing that some Italian Christian Democrats considered social activist Danilo Dolci a “useful idiot” for Communist causes. It has since recurred in that periodical’s articles. A similar term, useful innocents, appears in a 1946 Reader’s Digest article titled “Yugoslavia’s Tragic Lesson to the World”, written by Bogdan Raditsa. Raditsa had served the Yugoslav government-in-exile during World War II, supported Josip Broz Tito’s partisans (though not a Communist himself) and briefly served in Tito’s new Yugoslav government before leaving for New York. “In the Serbo-Croat language”, says Raditsa, “the communists have a phrase for true democrats who consent to collaborate with them for [the sake of] ‘democracy’. It is Korisne Budale, or Useful Innocents.” In his 1947 book, Planned Chaos, Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises writes that the term useful innocents was used by Communists for liberals, whom von Mises describes as “confused and misguided sympathizers”. In 1959, Congressman Ed Derwinski of Illinois entered an editorial by the Chicago Daily Calumet into the Congressional record, referring to Americans who traveled to the Soviet Union to promote peace as “what Lenin calls useful idiots in the Communist game”. In 1961, American journalist Frank Gibney wrote that Lenin had coined the phrase useful idiot. Gibney wrote that the phrase was a good description of “Communist follower[s]” from Jean-Paul Sartre to left-wing socialists in Japan to members of the Chilean Popular Front. In a speech in 1965, Spruille Braden, an American diplomat who was stationed in a number of Latin American countries during the 1930s and 1940s and was later a lobbyist for the United Fruit Company, said the term was used by Joseph Stalin to refer to what Braden called “countless innocent although well-intentioned sentimentalists or idealists” who aided the Soviet agenda. Writing in The New York Times in 1987, William Safire discussed the increasing use of the term useful idiot against “anybody insufficiently anti-Communist in the view of the phrase’s user”, including Congressmen who supported the anti-Contras Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Dutch socialists. After President Ronald Reagan concluded negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, conservative political leader Howard Phillips declared Reagan a “useful idiot for Soviet propaganda.” ## The only reason to go offworld is for remittance money July 7, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/the_only_reason_to_go_offworld_is_for_sick_remittance_money.html Getting a job offworld will be analogous to getting a job on an oil drilling platform. You only ever do anything like that for either the money, for remittance for your family, or for science. Colonize other worlds? Spread humanity into the stars? Living anywhere else besides another earth will suck as much as living in a submarine. Ever meet a submariner? They’re a different species. At best, like living in a antarctic research center. Ever seen their stir-crazy? How badly they want to return stateside? Or to Argentina or Australia? Or, ever meet a Seaman or Sailor stuck on a warship for months and months. That’s what offworlding will be like. Only deplorables will be sent to space. It’ll be like when your parents tell you your old dog lives upstate on a nice farm. “We sent them to a better place with such better opportunities,” will be code for either depopulation or deportation. ## January 6th was the worst American Reichstag Fire ever July 8, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/january_6th_was_the_worst_american_reichstag_fire_ever.html January 6th is the worst Reichstag Fire event anyone could have concocted. “Wanted to hang the Vice President,” “tried to kill Nancy Pelosi?” Really? Super-lame. Not even a little Capitol fire. Just insurrectionists doing selfies and making Facebook Lives, Instagrams, and TikToks. In a country rife with black battle rifles, “there were guns back in the hotel room,” doesn’t really cut it. Nowadays, people actually believe that it was a truly armed insurrection and that 5 cops were killed in cold blood. The only person killed in cold blood was an “insurrectionist” herself. Social engineering FTW! ## History is always subjective July 9, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/history_is_alwa.html Every single bit history is subjective, edited, intentional, and has a purpose transcending simple knowledge-sharing. Written by people and stitched together by a history of record council of Nicaea, if you will. With a goal. An endgame. Bring a people together, tear them apart; unite them, sow strife; realign culture, integrate cultures, or dissolve one. Don’t play coy ## Folks know that guns are for killing humans July 9, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/folks_know_that.html Do homicides include suicides? Do they include legal defensive shootings? Or do they only include intentional gun killings? I think most gun owners know what their guns are intentionally made to do and have come to understand when and why they would use them. I wonder if any of this would dissuade people who never thought guns were for hunting or shooting sports in the first place. That’s why solid studies like this don’t catch: “of course guns are for defending oneself using lethal force, duh.” So, people who are in that space only see more gun crime obviously requiring more guns with which to defend themselves. Any mention of defunding police sells more guns. I’ve been following this since Gabby Giffords was shot. Her shooting sold every single Glock 19 in America. It’s a crazy paradox. It’s a fighting fire with fire mentality. ## Loutish German soccer hooligans singing soccer shanties. July 12, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/07/loutish_german.html I lived in Berlin for a year before I was at Hauptbahnhof right at the perfect time to realize that not all Germans were urbane, sophisticated, extremely cultured, and even painfully lovely. There were suburban German hooligans everywhere with their milk crates filled with pilsner on the S and U being all loutish and singing soccer shanties. ## Aegrescit medendo August 10, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/aegrescit_meden.html My Army LTC friend told me that Vietnam and Afghanistan were totally winnable but the cost to both the soldiers, the enemy, and civilians was too dear for public and world opinion to stomach. To win would require the sort of razing that crimes on humanity are made of. Same thing with America’s out-of-control street crime and gang violence. Even saying “gang violence” rings of racism. Any solution is untenable. To be that guy who quotes Virgil, “The remedy is worse than the disease.” ## It’s a terrible time to be a climate activist August 13, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/its_a_terrible.html It’s a terrible time to be a climate activist because the threat of dying today from COVID-19 takes the wind out of the sails of dying tomorrow. People might even live harder, faster, dirtier, smoggier, make more babies, do more travel, buy faster cars just to celebrate being alive. Alan Furst said “live today, for tomorrow we die” and not “conserve today, for we might die in thirty years.” It’s a really hard sell to a country that fails every marshmallow test ever invented. ## Stop using girls and women as political props August 14, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/stop_using_girl.html You know who you’ve never heard a peep about in the last 20 years? How well the women and girls were doing. Now, it’s a ubiquitous talking point. If I were a cynical man, I’d think this was a political strategy. Do it for the women, do it for the girls. Afghanistan never became 60s Tehran in the last 20 years. This feels like a gambit. Color me suspicious. ## Are you actually pro free speech and pro democracy? August 14, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/are_you_actuall.html If you’re pro free speech but want to punch Nazis marching through your Main Street then maybe you’re a hypocrite. Who decides what’s poison? Who decides? Fighting book banning cannot only work if you get to fight the banning of just your books. Using the excuse of needing to dismantle the patriarchy isn’t a good enough reason if you’re pro free speech. You don’t have to be pro free speech or liberty, you can say that civil rights and social justice trumps freedom, liberty, and freedom of speech, but be honest about it. There are surely extremists the world over, including Christians, who put their Bible ahead of freedom, liberty, egalitarianism, or free speech, so you don’t have to pretend that you’re pro free speech. You don’t even have to say that you’re actually pro-democracy. Why? Because democracy is a neutral medium. What the most people vote for goes. That doesn’t remotely guarantee enlightenment, humanist, liberal, socially just, values. So many despotisms who have been liberated of their despot (through American interventionism) have used their democracy to vote in an extremist Mullah. True story. Has happened a bunch. So, if you want to leverage some good old fashioned Cultural Revolutionary tough love until we reach some sort of progressive utopia, just be a lot more open, honest, transparent, and truthful as to your wants and needs. Be honest, freedom of speech and democracy never turns out right because of the entire popularity thing. Right? Life is exactly like high school and nothing’s ever changed. Same world. You’ll really just need to make us with extreme prejudice, by any means necessary. ## Germany is always either extremely Fascist or Antifaschistische August 14, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/germany_is_alwa.html I lived in Berlin from 2008-2011 and the exact thing that made them extremely vulnerable to Fascism is the same quality that makes them hard-core Antifaschistische as well. Knowing what’s “right” and “wrong” and their painfully innocent trust of their government and brands they’re still extreme nationalists but realize they can only fetishize their cities, not their country, so they do that. They fetishize their Siemens and their Bayers, they exhibit their superiority through moral virtue instead of their occult metaphysical obsession with Nature so, like any other way too homogenous culture, or addict, they just glom on to another addiction. The Berlin I lived in was so actively contrite over Nazism that there were anti-Nazi docs on TV every day and restrictions of depictions everywhere. The problem is that once Germany feel like it earned its way out of die Hundehütte, it’ll have no more fucks to give. It was happening when I was there back in 2008-2011 in the South. Rebuilding cities to pre-war, spec, erasing WW2, returning to the 15th-19th century if you’ll remember your history, it wasn’t only Jews but also anyone who was inconsistent with the German concept of itself, which is really inspired by a German Romantic and Naturphilosophie movement conceit of self which is really amusing. This next time, maybe not about European Jews but surely about Muslims and immigrants and North Africans and Syrians and even, possibly Romanians and Eastern Europeans and Slavs and Africans. Who knows. Nazis who become anti-Nazis with such vigor are always to not be trusted. ## Nazis and Wokies Sitting in a Tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G August 14, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/nazis_and_wokie.html It’s not just the Nazis who love to wag their fingers at the woke left. The woke left loves all this finger waving at the Nazis. The difference between you and me, probably, is that you have a coded right and wrong and I am stateless. To me, right and wrong are 100% POV, relative, and often related to power structures and grand agendas. Any tyrant, to me, is a Nazi. Not just white guys. To me, there can be African Nazis and there can be South Asian Nazis and Southeast Asian Nazis and there can be Pacific Islander Nazis and Mongolian Nazis and Middle Eastern Nazis (House of Saud), and Latin American Nazis. Also, Communist Nazis (Nationalsozialismus), etc. Who gets to choose what is right and what is wrong? Who is right or wrong? Who the good Nazis are (are there good Nazis? The Nazis you know are better than the Nazis you don’t?) The difference is that you believe that YOU get to choose. That you’re the beneficiary of the Book of Good and Bad. As I said, things that were forbidden only yesterday are beyond reproach today. Black Trans Women are Holy now (yes!) but for how long? Forever? This strict concept of what’s absolutely good or bad can quickly be coöpted by the same people “you” ruled against the last time ’round. Right now, the terrorists are domestic white men; next time ’round it’s Mexicans, Muslims, Blacks, Jews, Gays. It’s extremely easy for Very Powerful Tools and Very Powerful Weapons to be used against the Maker. The Patriot Act was a huge mistake. The Laws passed after 9/11 were inexcusable. I guess I need to pop this in here as a de facto cliche trope: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” If you carry a gun for your own safety beware of knowing how to protect yourself from having it taken away from you and used again you. I am a gun owner and it’s never easy to prevent an attacker from disarming you and shooting your own face off. It takes a lot of training and an insane amount of understanding as to the gravity of engaging in deadly force. ## Déjà Afghanistan August 15, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/deja_afghanista.html Déjà vu “When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.” —Rudyard Kipling ## Graveyard of empires August 15, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/graveyard_of_em.html America didn’t go to Afghanistan to help women and girls or to bolster some liberal democratic government. America invaded Afghanistan in knee-jerk response to 9/11 and to hunt down Osama bin Laden. An invaded Afghani people who have suffered invader after invader simply adapts, appeases, profits, trains, grins, bears it, and waits until coffers drain and public support wanes. Then, count the money, inventory assets and spoils, then revert until the next empire forgets historical precedent. ## Train thy enemy August 15, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/train_thy_enemy.html Those 300,000 Afghani soldiers weren’t our allies, they were just learning how to be better soldiers against imperial invaders for the next time a superpower forgets history and decides to again attempt to tame the Graveyard of Empires™ (Last time, got training by both Spetsnaz and the Green Berets. This time, the Navy Seals!) That’ll show the next invading army! ## NPR Warhawks August 15, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/npr_warhawks.html Gobsmacked as to how pro-Afghanistan war NPR News correspondents are this morning. The so-called liberal elite mainstream media is extremely pro-war today. It kind of breaks my brain. Warhawks for days! ## Darkness Will Engulf the World! August 16, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/darkness_will_e.html If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the last ten years have been a game of ECLIPSE: find terrible, existentially threatening, naturally occurring phenomena and convince Stupid People that A) they are responsible for them and B) that the Smart People can save them. ## How will the Taliban fly the left behind Blackhawks? August 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/how_will_the_ta.html Just ask all the helio pilots we trained of those 300,000 US-military-trained soldiers who now fight for the Mujahedin. They know how to fly planes, too, and they know how to service them. Or, they can take the billions of dollars and hire Academi consultants and trainers. Or, maybe, just ask their Pakistani friends to be their pilots. ## Look at how women in Afghanistan are treated! Outrageous! August 23, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/look_at_how_wom.html Yes, it’s outrageous. Appalling. I’m also outraged that we actually thought we could change their radical and radicalized fundamentalist culture with drones, bombs, troops, and occupation. Let’s invade and bomb Saudi now. I wonder how many of the 71k civilians who died during our war were girls and women? How did Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, etc, become women-friendly Westernized nations from the 1920s-1970s? And, how did they go from skirts and uncovered hair to fundamentalist Muslim countries? How do we get back there without the body count? Is our aggression against the Middle East exacerbating Islamic fundamentalism? Is Western imperialism a positive influence or is it perceived as the tip of the spear known as religious war, Christendom versus Islam? ## Still Saving Pagan Babies in 2021 August 24, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/still_saving_pa.html It’s pretty easy to reframe America’s uninvited invasion, occupation, and nation-building of Afghanistan. In order to prove just how imperial our having been in Afghanistan for the last 20-years, rebuilding the country in our own image, is, please do the following thought experiment. Please release your imagination and walk with me for a bit… Just replace George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden with Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Christopher Columbus, and Pope Alexander VI; replace US Armed Forces with conquistadors; and replace Afghanis—women, girls, boys, elders—with Aztecs, Mayans, Amerindians, Mapuche people; then, replace soul-savings, civilizing, modernizing, and enculturating, with…. the same words. Does that make more sense as to why supporting the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in order to save them from themselves is perfectly analogous to supporting the British colonization of the Americas in order to modernize and civilize the American Indians? A reminder, we were at war with Afghanistan during which at least 240,000 Afghans have died, many of them civilians—over the last 20-years; and, how many of those Afghans were women and girls? ## America could win the Afghan war with crimes against humanity August 27, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/america_could_h.html We only “lost” because we didn’t have the nerve to win. “Winning” would require all the war crimes and crimes against humanity. We could have nuked, razed, decimated, and counter-terrorized our way into winning the war in Afghanistan. We could have pulled an Israel, a Russia. Those countries always punish terrorist acts against their people with punishing blows way out of proportion to the damage done. Shock and awe, every time. To the point of putting the fear of God even into fundamentalist Muslim jihadis. Even them. Plus, of course, no will, no buy-in, and no way to define success. What do you think? Plus, we invaded them. The only real way to win that type of war is to move in. Did we want to move in? It all came down to saving Muslim ladies and girls. No war has been won with that slogan. No, not even Nazi Germany. America didn’t fight the Western front to save those people in the camps and America didn’t fight the Eastern front to prevent Japan from their war crimes against the Chinese and Pacific Islanders. “There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.”—Sun Tzu ## Biden blames Trump for Not Getting Marines Killed? August 27, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/biden_blames_tr.html So confounded. I don’t understand anything. I don’t know how saying Trump prevented the deaths of servicemen by making a deal with the Taliban is “blame” because it sounds like Trump protected the lives of servicemen rather than losing 12 in two suicide bombings. That’s a pretty heavy spin. “I blame Trump for not getting any Marines killed during his administration” sounds pretty weak. I don’t understand anything. So confused. ## To Tell the Afghanistan Truth August 28, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/08/to_tell_the_afg.html There was/is a game show called To Tell the Truth. You have to choose which contestant is the actual person the moderator describes. I think of Afghanistan like this. Who is Afghanistan? The rural tribes? The city intellectuals? The American-supported Government? The Taliban? Everyone’s saying “it’s their Afghanistan” and “we’re Afghanistan” but I think they all are. How does that game work? Who wins? Who can win? How can it be win, win? Non-zero sum? It’s aiming to be a zero-sum game, methinks. ## Donald Trump was the worst Adolf Hitler ever September 1, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/donald_trump_wa.html Trump was the worst literally Adolf Hitler in history. I’m just a watcher. I know Trump said terrible things every day but it’s more about the doing than the fearing, fretting, or the existential threat. No death camps, no pogroms, no journalists in reëducation camps, no killing fields, no yellow stars, no mobs disappearing people, no assassinations, no public beheading, no crucifixions, no public killings, no arms chopped off, no public burnings, and no more mass incarceration than normal, vanilla, everyday, America crimes against humanity. Nothing except pride protests and defiant protests and not my president protests and pussy hat protests and rioters released and autonomy zones and favela encampments. Trump sucked as the worst person in the world. He was all talk. I mean, Jan 6th was really disappointing for being literal Hitler! I mean, not even one single rifle, bomb, or even a fire or a Molotov cocktail. ## Red, blue, black, brown, yellow, red, pink, rainbow September 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/red_blue_black.html If blue only knew how little red ever thinks of black, brown, yellow, red, pink, or rainbow folks they would be amazed, insulted, and appalled. ## Did America completely brain drain Afghanistan? September 6, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/did_america_com.html Serious question: did America completely brain drain Afghanistan with our exfil of all the pro-democracy citizens who collaborated during the US occupation? So, will the result be a dearth of classically liberal democratic vision? Will the country now be bereft of their enlightenment egalitarians? Their social justice class? Are there only fundamentalist extremists left? What’s the story, morning glory? Shadow governing from self-imposed exile? ## Too early to be grateful September 6, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/too_early_to_be.html I guess it’s too early to be grateful for those 20-years. I mean, most of the region never even had any of that. It’s hard to be grateful at all when everything you’ve built is stolen from you, though. That’s too true after floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, as well. Any devastation, really. Also, after a family member is taken from you. Any life-rocking loss, grief, trauma. ## Dear illogical talking heads on the brink of two decades post-9/1 September 6, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/dear_illogical.html Dear illogical talking heads on the brink of two decades post-9/11: don’t you think that radical islamic militants might be less likely to commit terrorist acts on American soil now that we’re defeated and have left? When I’m occupied and being peppered with missiles and bombs by traumatic drones and aviation, I’m more likely to resort to asymmetric warfare that includes destination terrorism. Not the other way around. Actually attacking us on our soil would be unproductive. We’re vengeful. ## Repent sinner September 10, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/repent_sinner.html Twelve times this morning, on only NPR, 9/11 was compared to and conflated with January 6th. I can predict where all of this is going. It’s going inwards. America will be the next Afghanistan, methinks. Repent sinner (and, by sinner, I mean, probably, Trumpers of any stripe). Rural and mountain people as the new Taliban, I’m afraid. It’s happening, people… Repent, repent! ## Authoritarianism for public safety is still authoritarianism September 10, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/auahoritarianis.html Thought experiment: authoritarianism for public safety is still authoritarianism, especially since “keeping you safe” is a most excellent way for authoritarians to enact authoritarianism. It’s a perfect system. Who doesn’t want to feel—and be—safer? Who doesn’t want to protect widows and orphans? Monsters! It’s genius! I mean, theoretically. ## Nobody cares about climate change nearly enough September 15, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/nobody_cares_ab.html I still don’t think anyone personally cares enough to actually do anything that would require extreme personal sacrifice, the kind the Brits and the Americans suffered during the world wars, domestically. Sacrificing products, services, cars, tires, nylon, meat, petrol/gas, etc, etc. To sacrifice travel, flying, tourism, vacations. An enforced global pandemic could barely shut down and quarantine people. Plus, rich people always cheat a lot on pleb rules, restrictions, and laws. ## When “Nazi!” is no longer a kill shot September 18, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/when_nazi_is_no.html I don’t know if “Nazi,” “white supremacist,” or “literally Hitler” bothers or shames the right anymore. That’s why they’re actually calling themselves “pureblood” for having not received the coronavirus vaccine. What do you do when your insults become empowerments? What is the next step? The next move. When calling someone a Nazi only receives an eye roll? Yikes. ## Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide September 19, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/09/nowhere_to_run.html All that public venom and vitriol that everyone spat gladly from 2016-2021 will most assuredly all bite us in our collective asses. Ask appeals court nominee Jennifer Sung about her confirmation hearing. All will always be revealed and used against you with extreme prejudice. It’s inevitable. ## Yelling fire in a crowded theater October 3, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/10/yelling_fire_in.html When you use “you’re not allowed to yell fire in a theater” in response to my talking about constitutional rights such as the right to guns and free speech, please also remember that you’re not allowed to shoot anyone in a theater either. There’s no restriction to anyone yelling fire in a theater; however, if you do so, you’ll probably be arrested, indicted, and prosecuted. But, when it comes to the Constitution, Rights do not come with get out of jail free cards if you break the law, commit a crime, initiate a stampede, assault someone, shoot someone, or commit murder. So, apples and oranges. Just in case that’s your angle of attack. Most people will back down because it sounds logical, but it’s not. Try something else. ## Friends feeding frenzy October 7, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/10/friends_feeding.html It’s been interesting watching more than a few of my smartest friends (some of the brightest people in the world) on all sides fall head over heels for so much mob mentality. Watching them close their nictitating membrane and initiate an ocular rotation then join feeding frenzies I’m always surprised to see them caught up in, roiling in the turbulent bloody waters. It’s fascinating. It’s troubling. It’s maddening. It’s frustrating. None of you guys, of course! You’re fine. You’re all to smart to get baited into anything like that! Heavens no! ## Ivermectin October 7, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/10/ivermectin.html I am not on team Ivermectin but every time a smart person like a doctor or scientist who knows better calls a human medicine only a horse dewormer, they lose public trust. It’s way too sketch. It’s so suspicious. Only idiots ever thought that Ivermectin was only a horse dewormer. I assume everyone who called Ivermectin a horse dewormer (which it is, but not remotely only one) was stupid. Unless it was really clear that there were eye-rolls, humor, and snark. Otherwise, idiot. Oh well, I am just sharing. Whether or not it is actually an effective COVID-19 therapy is immaterial, it’s just not merely a horse dewormer the same way that Alprazolam isn’t a treatment for car and dog anxiety. Yikes, you chowderheads! ## Don’t ever let the people think for themselves October 10, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/10/dont_ever_let_t.html Didn’t the 2018 algorithm Facebook update empower users’ shares over media shares, in response to users’ request to see their friends’ timelines? So, basically, empowering users is, basically, radicalization because you can’t rely on folks’ unfettered, unfiltered, perceptions, beliefs, hopes, dreams, and subjective truths and facts. Am I close? Is that what happened? ## It’s the invisible hand October 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/10/its_the_invisib.html The price increase of animal protein couldn’t be social engineering, it surely must be purely invisible-hand economic. This isn’t a so-called “nudge” towards plant-based nutrition through putting animal products financially out of reach of most people. That’s ludicrous… and brilliant! Same with fossil fuels: it’s the market, stupid. The inflation’s temporary. Issues of trade and logistics only. Chill? ## The Press is doing a Lazarus October 30, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/10/the_press_is_do.html So, let me get this straight: print, radio, and television has a plan to protect its narrative hegemony by censoring social media and internet platforms? Makes sense to me. Monopoly say what? Totally a monopolist thing to do: discredit, undermine, demonize, and destroy the competition using the laws and tools of the government to repress and suppress unapproved or countermanding narratives. Sounds like it’ll totally work. ## The progressive pendulum is swinging right November 2, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/the_progressive.html I feel like the long con perpetrated on the fine people who protested Floyd will be way more police rather than defund the police. Why? Because Americans lose all their fucks if they feel unsafe, insecure—or inconvenienced, even. There’s going to be some extremely conservative blowback to the perceived lawlessness that happened in the form of protests, riots, and tent cities. There will even be marijuana blowback. Mark my words. America’s a pendulum. Trump’s presidency was just the tip of the iceberg. All my little coal mine canaries are going from progressive poster children to NIMBY law and order voters. There will be blood. It’ll be a bloodbath. ## Eat me, Drake equation November 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/eat_me_drake_eq.html Any time I wonder if there is life in the universe, I just look in the mirror. I am proof that there is life in the universe; you are proof that there is life in the universe. We’re of the universe. To believe anything less is to verge on geocentrism. The universe isn’t apart from us humans; nature isn’t apart from us humans, either. Anything else is earthling supremacy. Are you an earthling supremacist? . ## The hill they’re willing to die on November 4, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/the_hill_theyre.html If America was ever truly vulnerable to actual “civil war,” I thought that the straw that broke the camel’s back would be gun confiscation but it actually might be vaccine mandates. I have never seen more people on that side of the aisle who are willing to die on that hill. Vaccine mandates might just be the hill they’re truly willing to die on. ## A lifetime on the hips November 8, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/a_lifetime_on_t.html Any time or any place that an intellectual or elite calls a salt-of-the-earth American a Rube, it will be discovered and shared by Oppo. There’s no safe space for contempt, not even on podcasts. Fair warning. It’s a “moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” situation. And those add up and always blow back during the elections. And the Right does monitor everything the Left does. They have more stomach for that than the Left has for monitoring the Right, including churches, AM talk and forums. ## Critical race theory November 8, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/critical_race_t.html Even dumb hicks know that CRT is a lens through which history is interpreted and taught in school and not actually something that is actually taught in school. Any clever parry that “Virginia does not teach CRT in K-12 public schools.” It comes across as sneaky and sus. Even dumb hicks can see through that rhetorical sleight of hand. It’s too clever by half. ## Gun v fist November 11, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/gun_v_fist.html In US self defense law, there’s no expectation that you can’t defend yourself with deadly force or a firearm even if you’ve defending yourself from a beating using fists and kicks. There are places in the world where there’s a requirement of proportionality, but not in most American States. You can fire on someone who’s coming at you with their fists. You don’t need to put down your firearm if it’s fisticuffs and get into your boxing stance. You can use a gun to stop yourself from getting beat up. ## Dear activists November 11, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/dear_activists.html it’s a dangerous blind spot to assume that your vision of the future is anyone else’s. I see a future of diminishing returns as people tire of being accused of bigotry, racism, sexism, jingoism, and xenophobia. Beware the date and time when they, instead, embrace their bigotry, racism, sexism, jingoism, and xenophobia. It always starts with “no matter what I say or do, you’re going to say that about me anyway, so I might as well…” That’ll be a scary day. Sometimes I wonder if that has been the goal the entire time? It’s amazing what you can make your enemy do if you bait them for long enough. Taunting always eventually results in some form of (filmed and posted) violence. If that’s the case, then slow-clap. Nefarious but genius. Long cons are the best cons. ## Justifiable homicide November 20, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/justifiable_hom.html A homicide is justifiable when committed in self-defense by one who reasonably believes that he is in imminent danger of losing his life or receiving great bodily harm and that the killing is necessary to save himself from that danger or when committed for the purpose of preventing a violent or forcible felony involving danger to life or of great bodily harm by one who reasonably believes that such an offense is about to be committed and that such action is necessary for its prevention. The circumstances must be sufficient to excite the fear of a reasonable person that there would be serious danger to his own life or person if he attempted to prevent the felony without the killing. ## Redeeming your enemy’s heroes November 20, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/redeeming_your.html The good thing about panopticon citizen journalism and the ubiquitous filming of altercations is that the footage is proof of what happened so it’s almost impossible to manipulate the truth or influence outcome with testimony; however, the terrible thing about panopticon citizen journalism and the ubiquitous filming of altercations is that the footage is proof of what happened so it’s almost impossible to manipulate the truth or influence outcome with testimony. When things are political, the actual truth cuts both ways. It doesn’t only redeem your heroes and damn your enemies but it redeems everyone’s heroes and damns everyone’s enemies. ## The state of American vigilantism November 22, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/the_state_of_am.html Assuming Americans are anti-vigilantism might be wrong-thinking. America has been fed a diet of pro- vigilantism on film, television, novels, and video games since forever. I don’t know if Americans are even remotely anti-vigilante. Be careful. How are Americans programmed on this really? Be honest. ## Nerds are never really cool even if they’re the elected leaders November 26, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/11/nerds_are_never.html High School National Merit Scholars may have full control of the PA and the paper but that doesn’t mean they have any real power in the school. School cool runs in different rivers than student government or GPA. Same thing with real life. Nerds only think they lead. It is so annoying when they realize that life is just like high school because college isn’t like the real world or high school. When they realize how often they’re being defied or ignored, they can often become very insistent, even heavy-handed, which just makes thing even worse. ## Noble lie December 3, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/12/noble_lie.html In politics, a noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly propagated by an elite to maintain social harmony or to advance an agenda. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as described in the Republic. ## The Trauma Wars December 14, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/12/the_trauma_wars.html When you live in an immigrant nation like the United States, every family has its own stories of extreme trauma and suffering. That’s mostly why people used to come to America. Not just to become richer but to escape every version of trauma imaginable. It’s extremely hard to win the Trauma Wars when America is a traumatized country with epigenetic trauma out the wazoo. ## Everything dies baby that’s a fact December 21, 2021 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2021/12/everything_dies.html While 1,500 Americans passed of COVID-19 today, we tend to forget we’re mortal beings and that 7,123 die in America every single day of every single year, year in and year out, for perspective and proportion. ## Actual weapons systems are 30 years in the future January 10, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/actual_weapons.html I just assume that kinetic weapons are secretly all 30 years in the future. Back on the 80s, my TRW Uncle from Los Angeles showed me his practical surface to air particle beam weapons. The 80s! Not theoretical but actual. 1986. I mean, they were beam weapons and they were pulsed because otherwise it would just cut through whereas when they pulse, they were catastrophic. That’s 35 years ago. And that’s for real. He gave me a TRW promotional pamphlet at the time. Wow, right? ## How climate mitigation will actually work January 13, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/how_climate_mit.html You want to know what humans will do to mitigate a global climate collapse? As little as humanly possible. You know how climate change will be mitigated? A climate-related Thanos event. That’ll take care of the mitigation. Unlike Thanos, that population collapse will not be sudden atomization, it’ll be extremely gnarly and obviously directly impact the most vulnerable and raze equatorial and southern hemispheric land masses with extreme ferocity. Yikes. ## The Hague January 25, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/the_hague.html We live in a world where being accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court is more of a badge of courage than in international damnation because there’s effectively zero enforcement if you’re either a superpower or under the protection of one. And it kind of paints you as the sort of monster you really don’t want to fuck with. ## Booster Shot January 25, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/booster_shot.html Would I be too cynical if I suggested that the entire military buildup of US troops in Central and Eastern Europe is just a works program to boost and bolster the economy? ## Nikita Khrushchev’s Cold War The Musical January 26, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/nikita_khrushch.html I hope Vladimir Putin is being extremely well compensated by the USA for his role in the upcoming revival of “Nikita Khrushchev’s Cold War The Musical.” The first one was a farce too. ## Embargoes and Sanction January 27, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/embargoes_and_s.html We’re putting the boot on the neck of Russia the same way we put our boot on the necks of Germany and Japan, baiting them into war. Best way to start a war? Embargoes and sanctions. Then you can blame them for attacking Pearl Harbor, if you will. It’ll be fun to see how Russia behaves as we tighten the sanction noose. ## Wrong speech January 28, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/wrong_speech.html There’s right speech and there’s wrong speech. Right speech should be protected and amplified and codified; wrong speech, on the other hand, wrong speech needs to be suppressed and cauterized—and is always obviously objectively bad!—before infecting, like cancer, like plagues! Of course, the issue might be that this is how the Stalinists, the Maoists, and even the retro-cool Stasi Ossis! This is authoritarian-think. It’s pretty trendy right now. Dead sexy. Cold War Chic. ## Maus January 29, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/maus.html People who read Maus realize that not every holocaust will look the same and that every holocaust starts uniquely, subtly, organically, and pretty benignly, generally initiated by people you admire and trust. It’s not a switch. It’s a cool pot of water sitting on a low flame. It happens right under your nose, especially if and when you’re being willfully ignorant and actively blind. ## Spotify 451 January 30, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/01/spotify_451.html Class action boycott against Spotify over Joe Rogan? Tyranny! That’s why we have senators and electoral college and why America is a Republic: to avoid this sort of mob mentality. That said, very amusing to watch. Anything that brings more attention to folks actually watching and listening to anything red labeled as “dangerous misinformation and disinformation that will kill people” is pretty important to keep accessible and available. Historically, one should search out and quickly buy, read, and preserve the sort of history, literature, essays, interviews, and autobiographies that the authorities want to keep you from. Fahrenheit 451-level fun. I can’t believe I get to see it with my own eyes! This is great. And they’re blaming “public health” and “your own safety” and “to protect you” for it—which is classic dystopian schtick. This is priceless! I don’t care about Joe Rogan, per se, as I’m not even a regular listener, but this is happening all over YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, so my interest is more Jungian, more about Rogan as archetype. As the face of the oppression. Here’s the thing: I fancy the tyrants don’t even see their tyranny when they look in the mirror. They are doing this, as far as they’re concerned, honestly and selflessly paternalistically sacrificing themselves at the altar of saving us from ourselves. Because it looks like, to them, that we’re trying to kill ourselves and them with our selfishness about the masks and the vaccines and the pseudoscience and the horse worm protocols. They’re willing to break all the freedoms because there are lives at stake and we people are apparently both suicidal and okay with manslaughter. I get it but it’s not okay. It’s wrong. ## Americans immune to being called Nazis February 1, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/americans_immun.html I never thought that the United States would ever become culturally immune to being called racist or Nazi or White Supremacist or Hitler but I think I was wrong. I think I am seeing Ronald Reagan-level Teflon against these ubiquitous accusations and refrains. Scares me. ## Covid modalities February 1, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/covid_modalitie.html I finally see that there are two dominant modalities in the USA and never the twain shall meet: folks who believe that COVID is the worst thing in the world and folks who think it isn’t remotely the worst thing in the world. They just don’t understand each other: COVID kills children, says one site; pish posh says the other. No comprehension. They’re both completely mutually appalled. ## Do I really think that Russia isn’t a bad actor? February 12, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/do_i_really_thi.html Do I actually think that Russia isn’t actually a bad actor that needs to be handled with a leader, Putin, who needs to me muzzled by the west? I do believe that, yes. With all my heart. I have since 1991 when I flew over Russia heading to Nepal and then in 1996 when I spent a lot of time in Saint Petersburg. Russia has always been a poor, under-resourced peasant nation with a few modern cities. Especially during the cold war and all the way back to tsarist Russia. First of all, we’ve had our boot on the neck of Russia since at least 2014, with a necklace of intimidating Western military bases and missile silos surrounding it as if Canada and Mexico had their missiles pointed at the USA. Sphere of influence disrespect. Also, I’ve been in international consulting for 20 years and work with Russians all the time. Tech Bros from Moscow, hot consultants from Moscow, loads of people. Hell I even have friends in Tehran. America is a liar. I’m always more likely to trust our so-called enemies. America needs to convince me it’s not lying about war. They’ve lied a million times since the Gulf of Tonkin. The USA is a liar that might tell the truth. Baseline. Iraq, Afghanistan, Contras, Yemen, Syria, Iran. Jesus! Globally, we’re the worst! Thank God we have nukes, good geographical placement, and the dollar. Otherwise, we’d have been actually spanked a million times. With crimes against humanity, with war crimes, war criminals. The reason we haven’t is because we’re untouchable. ## How fucked is Germany right now? February 12, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/how_fucked_is_g.html Dumping coal and nukes in their transition to renewables and getting stuck with Russian gas in a time when gas couldn’t be more expensive and “war is imminent with Russia” over Ukraine with only the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines the only leverage that Biden has to work with, which would fuck Germany even more. Herr Olaf Scholz, dust off the nukes if you know what’s good for you. Plus, German ## Not even one dirty bomb in 72 years is suspicious February 14, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/not_even_one_di.html When it comes to nuclear threat and even the true existential threat from the former Soviet Union, when nothing happens or has happened or had happened, then I always assume it was just staged for publicity. For power, manipulated, and control. Not even one good nuclear attack or dirty bomb in the last 72 years is extremely suspicious. ## I’m not remotely an enemy of Russia or Putin February 17, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/im_not_remotely.html I think he’s been amazingly restrained. We’re the baddies. He’s been amazingly patient and exceedingly clear where his line in the sand is. And we’re in a glass house with our incessant war crimes since at least 2001. Putin’s an amateur. A little polonium sushi versus two AGM-114 Hellfire on every Predator drone. And how America has killed more civilians with our economic sanctions than ever with guns and bombs and missiles. Putin is smart: Russia’s a biosphere and it’s self sufficient now because we’ve been playing these games against Russia for long enough for Putin to adapt. Right now, America is impotent. Putin has all of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe by the balls over natural gas. It’s a perfect storm and if we’re not careful, Putin will humiliate us publicly and it’ll be impossible to recover our face. I like when that happens. A shamed America is a less violent America. Vietnam did a number on us and we were too shell shocked to war monger for a good twenty years, twenty five years. With the humiliation of the Afghanistan retreat added to the public spanking we’ll probably soon get, coordinated, from China and Russia, it’ll be really interesting to see what the future holds with regards to American hegemony. ## The slave would rise in rebellion February 19, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/tthe_slave_woul.html “But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth.” —Callicles ## Consensus reality generators February 20, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/consensus_reali.html Listening to an old Art Bell radio show and they discussed TV and movies as consensus reality generators, especially science fiction and speculative fiction and even news reporting. So fascinating as a concept and as a conceit. Love it! ## These are the buds of the socialist spring February 22, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/these_are_the_b.html “One spring morning, amidst the piles of dead peasants at the Kharkiv market, an infant suckled the breast of its mother, whose face was a lifeless gray. Passersby had seen this before . . . that precise scene, the tiny mouth, the last drops of milk, the cold nipple. The Ukrainians had a term for this. They said to themselves, quietly, as they passed: ‘These are the buds of the socialist spring.’ ” ## Are we the world, are we the children? February 28, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/02/are_we_the_worl.html The level of shameless we are the world propaganda is so rich, thick, endless, and uncritical of itself that it’s stressing even me out and I’m probably a nihilist and nonplussed by most global behavior. My only constant is being profoundly anti-war but also being profoundly anti “liberal democracy by force” as well. It’s a direct analog to a sort of 11th century Crusades, just replacing Rome with America (fuck yeah?). It’s crazy-making to me. I’m not listening to the news anymore. Yikes! ## Vainglory March 2, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/03/vainglory.html Putin will go to the mat, whatever that looks like. Words like “humiliate” and “glory” always end up in the official announcements in English on Pravda and Tass. To these organs, the West, funded by the USA, has slowly disrespected the verbal agreement that was made in 1997 over NATO never expanding beyond former East Germany. I wish more people knew that Putin doesn’t see any part of this invasion the way anyone in the West seems to. Now that he’s invaded Ukraine, no matter the reason, Putin has relinquished any moral high ground. Even so, nobody believes Putin can be shamed back into compliance; instead, humiliation can truly result not only in escalation but in a nuclear war. Putin plans to go to the mat on this. I know some people know what’s actually happening, from the Russian perspective, however, it’s not remotely part of the official narrative. The popular story. In Putin’s reality, he’s a very patient man who finally had to put his foot down. That he was fully baited, since 1997, into doing this. And he will never back down. So this is going to be extremely dangerous. In this scenario, Putin’s 1940 Japan, Ukraine’s Pearl Harbor, and the USA and Europe have slowly put a noose around Russia’s neck. That’s what Putin thinks is happening here and painting him as simply a vainglorious madman is extremely good for propaganda but if it’s what people really think in the Pentagon at in Brussels, then that’s terrible intel. ## Slavs don’t grok articles in English March 2, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/03/slavs_dont_grok.html You can tell if the messaging is coming from Ukraine or Russia because all the articles will be missing from Russian sentences. No matter how smart the Ukrainian or Russian, they really just can’t figure out the Articles. Neither can the Poles, either. The entire region can’t sort out English Articles. All the rest are written by Team America Propaganda Inc or Five Eyes Storytellers LTD. Look for the articles. Ask Fox Mulder. It’s not “FOLLOW THE MONEY” anymore it’s “FOLLOW THE ARTICLES!” ## Killing’s come a long way since 1945 March 20, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/03/killings_come_a.html The technologies to kill efficiently has come a long way since 1945. Nukes exist. Biologicals can be targeted to DNA. Satellites exist. Subs are better. There are jets now. Helicopters now. Drones now. Smart bombs. Not even the AR or AK existed in 1945. So much potential death! ## Dear Powers-that-Be May 1, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/dear_powersthat.html : if you really need to rely this much on suppression, moderation, censorship, and dismissing everything as misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theory, then it’s because you’ve completely lost the trust and control of your people, your culture, your narrative, and your leadership. ## Free speech isn’t equitable speech May 3, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/free_speech_isn.html Free speech is not necessarily equitable speech. What people want seems to be equatable speech. Who gets to choose? Nina? Until I meet an actual Philosopher King or King Solomon, then equity is just thumbs on scales. It’s basically Cyrano. It’s basically bias dressed up as equity. The power is in who gets to choose whose voice is worthy of amplifying and whose voice is worth suppressing. That’s what equity is. That’s equality for authoritarians. Egalitarianism for folks who are afraid of losing control of their own power, or perceived power. The old tail wagging to dog schtick. ## Decriminalize crime May 5, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/decriminalize_c.html I figured it out: decriminalize crime! That’s what folks want. Or, redefine what crime is and what criminal is. if you can strike down crimes and make formerly illegal things legal–or, not illegal–then there will, indeed, be fewer criminals and fewer people in jail. I’m into it. Let’s try this and see what happens. I’m a glass-half-full, prison-half-empty kind of guy. ## Ukraine brainwashing May 5, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/ukraine_brainwa.html Are the Russian people brainwashed? Are the European people brainwashed? Are we, the American people, brainwashed? All the above? ## Populist democracy versus constitutional republic May 7, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/populist_democr.html I finally get why leftists are so frustrated with fighting conservatives in the elections: the left believes they live in a populist democracy and the right realizes it lives in a constitutional republic. Popular votes mean almost nothing in the American system of government. ## Sacrifice for the collective May 9, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/sacrifice_for_t.html In America, “sacrifice for the collective” hasn’t been an American virtue since the 30s—not even during war, including WW2. We were extremely isolationist and extremely reticent, and waiting until the 11:59th (23:59th) hour. More of a “greed is good” ethos. ## Chest seals in your go bag May 10, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/chest_seals_in.html I was recently reading about the Spanish Civil War and the sexy, heroic, fraternal, liberals were decimated by the fascist nationalists but they always thought they were the most righteous and most deserving to win and on the right side of history until they were completely crushed into cinder. 100% of the people I know who have chest seals in their go bags are on the right. Just saying. ## Disinformation Governance Board May 11, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/disinformation.html The new organization is not called “anti-disinformation” or “counter-disinformation,” it’s just called the Disinformation Governance Board. Does that mean disinformation producer or disinformation reducer? ## Gun crimes always drive gun sales in America May 29, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/05/gun_crimes_alwa.html An increase in gun crime always drives gun sales and applications for carry permits in America rather than driving gun restrictions or gun bans. Unintended consequences gone wild. First aware of this in the wake of the shooting of Gabby Giffords in 2011. I was driving cross-country and checked all the gun stores and everyone was out of Glock 19s, the weapon the shooter used. Plus, lawsuits end up in courts that result in gun prohibitions being loosened. Every time. ## Twenty percent of Americans trust their government June 2, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/06/twenty_percent.html 80% of Americans would rather be Brazil than Australia; also, none of those countries have any real “natural rights granted by God not to be infringed,” only rights granted to them by their governments only when convenient. Fair weather friends. 400 million guns, most of those ARs. This is a dangerous game since only 20% of all Americans say they trust the government as of 2020. Which means 8 out of 10 do not. Hillbilly Americans are not an outlier no matter what the New Yorker experiences from within their bubble. ## Total retribution June 2, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/06/total_retributi.html I honestly think that most Republican activism against Democrats is just to get back at them for constantly going for their guns and ammo. Totally retribution. ## Ashli Babbitt June 9, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/06/ashli_babbitt.html My question is is why does the January 6 narrative insist backwards and forwards that 5 people were killed on the Capitol? One casual scratch at that and it’s only Ashli Babbitt. What’s the compulsion? To prove that people will believe anything they’re told? And people do believe it, too. Even with a Washington Post article saying otherwise. I’m amazed by the human mind and the human mob mentality, even though it’s always on display. ## America’s fragile democracy June 9, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/06/americas_fragil.html Authoritarianism is the only way anyone can keep the pendulum from swinging. A painful majority of Americans don’t currently agree with the current arch of history. That shows in laws, the court, elections. Do you want to blow America up to prevent that? I think you surely do? When folks say “democracy is fragile” I believe that means “our plans are fragile” rather than American republican representative democracy (where the chips fall where they may) is fragile. That democracy isn’t fragile. But that durable democracy does include presidents like Trump and justices like Kavanaugh, which is #notmyamerica which means that sort of democracy is as fragile as hell unless America implements authoritarianism. Then, America’s democracy will be fucked but the liberal vision for America will be as sound as a pound. Amen. ## Fighting firearms with firearms June 11, 2022 | https://hillmole.com/archives/2022/06/fighting_firear.html Simple NLP: the more the news says “bad people mass shooting with high-capacity rifles” the more people hear “I need to buy a gun but not a pistol or shotgun or hunting rifle, I need to buy a high-capacity firearm with high capacity magazines in order to defend against a dangerous world requiring sustained firepower and possibly multiple assailants.” To quote Frank Luntz, “it’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”