Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Hack Attack?


All right, before I get going, a little housekeeping: It's the middle of the month, which means a new, exclusive interview is available on The Farm's Subscribers' Section. In this episode, I'm joined by the great Adam Gorightly. He is the author of numerous works, including The Prankster and the Conspiracy, The Shadow Over Santa Susana, James Shelby Downard's Mystical War, Caught in the Crossfire, and the forthcoming work Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks. He's also edited and contributed to a few books as well, including the Historica Discordia and the upcoming project involving James Shelby Downard. Finally, he has contributed to Adam Curtis' most recent documentary, Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World.

As many of your are probably aware, Adam Gorightly is the foremost authority on Kerry Thornley and Discordianism active today. He is also a Discordian and the keeper of their archives, which makes him the perfect candidate for a wide-ranging conversation involving the history of Discordianism and it's enduring legacy. And it's a far-reaching one, to be sure. Besides the influence on the broader counterculture that Adam detailed in The Prankster and the Conspiracy, Discordianism has also has a tremendous influence on neo-Paganism, conspiracy theories, hacker culture, and the rise of the Internet on the whole. 

Adam Gorightly

These are just a few of the Discordian related topics we covered. Also addressed were QAnon, the rise of the alt-right, and a sneak peak at Adam's forthcoming book, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks. Even without delving to deeply, Adam drops one or two UFO-related names many of you are probably not familiar with. 

Adam Gorightly is the latest to join the ever-growing roster of exclusive guests in The Farm's Subscriber's Section. Past guests include Christopher KnowlesRichard B. Spence, Greg Bishop, J. Michael "Doc Future" Bennett, Neil Sanders, and David Metcalfe. Upcoming guests include Walter Bosley and the return of Douglas Valentine to The Farm. Please considering signing up. 


China Hands

All right, with that out of the way, let us move on to parapolitics. It probably goes without saying, but there have been many interesting developments of late. One that should surprise no one who reads this blog regularly is the Biden regime's China policy. 

I've long maintained that one of the principal purposes of the Trump administration was to reorient America foreign policy towards the Great Powers struggle, with a special emphasis on China. This process really into into overdrive in the final months of Trump's administration, with one final push to wind down the Forever Wars in the Middle East. Biden has seamlessly continued course by announcing a winding down of US support in Yemen

And despite the inevitable right wing fear mongering over Biden's China policy, early indications are that it will be even more militant than Trump. Remember Trump's trade war with China, which drew so much ire from the neo-liberal order? Well, it doesn't look like Sleepy Joe plans on ending it anytime soon

Far more eyebrow raising was the recent posture by the Atlantic Council (AC). This particular think tank is at the heart of the Anglo-American neo-liberal order. In particular, the Council has been one of the major proponents of Russiagate. Among others things, it partnered with Facebook to weed out Russia disinformation on social media and has modestly suggested that any political party or movement in Europe and the US that doesn't toe the neo-liberal order line is a tool of Putin.


With Trump out of office, one would think a formal olive branch would be extending East. Instead, a curious document entitled "The Longer Telegram: Towards a New American China Strategy" recently appeared on the AC's official website. Published anonymously, the title is a play on the famed "Long Telegram" issued by diplomat and foreign policy VIP George F. Kennan from Moscow in 1946. While Kennan later disputed his intention with this missive, it is generally credited with laying the foundation for the policy of "containment" in regards to the Soviet Union. It was also a major step towards initiating the Cold War against said Evil Empire, in other words.

George Kennan

With this kind of provocation right in the title, the content is about what one would expect

  • China is the greatest rival to US power in the twenty-first century
  • the US must use all means available to it, including it's control of the world's reserve currency; technology and telecommunications; and military might; to curtail China's rise
  • the US must draw numerous red lines past which the US will "directly intervene"
  • it advocates regime change so that, by 2050 (the year in which China hopes to reach military parity with the US) the nation will be under more "moderate control."
In case one mistakes the Atlantic Council's hawkish stance towards China as showmanship, consider Biden's leading national security advisor regarding China: Ely Ratner. Ratner is the kind of guy who called Trump "weak" on China this past spring. Predictably, Ratner has already been put in charge of policy review concerning China at the Pentagon. The most likely outcome of this review will be for the Pentagon to take a more direct role in containing China, which is in keeping with the Atlantic Council's thoughts on the matter. 

Ratner

Already this is putting Biden on much more militant footing with China than Trump. Despite all the bluster, Trump largely tried to impose his China policy via the Treasury Department. Under Biden, it would seem that the Pentagon is poised to take a more active role. Hence, the reason why the Pentagon is in the midst of freeing up as many combat ready forces as possible in the Middle East for redeployment in the "Great Game." 


Solar Intrigues

But even as the US prepares for a new Cold War with China, TPTB are still floating the ludicrous Russia narrative. The latest whopper comes from a former KGB officer and associate of Alexander Litvinenko, a spook by the name of Yuri Shvets. Yuri helped frame the current narrative concerning the poisoning of Litvinenko while also posing as a source for journalist Craig Unger, who has a special relationship with the Russian narrative. In this case, Shvets alleges that the KGB cultivated Trump for 40 years as an asset. The claims serve as the backdrop for Unger's latest book, American Kompromat

state sponsored conspiracy theory

Talk about red meat for left wing QAnon. Far more interesting is the narrative being framed around the SolarWinds hack. For much of the following rundown, I'm greatly indebted to this fantastic article by Whitney Webb. The attacks appear to have begun in earnest during the fall of 2019, but it was not until spring 2020 that several federal agencies were breached. Among those who have acknowledged breaches are the Departments of Commerce, Energy, and Treasury. There are suspicions that the Departments of Defense and State, along with the Federal Reserve, NASA, and NSA were also affected. Interestingly, the CIA appears to have come out of this fairly unscathed. At least, officially. If so, it would be the only major component of the national security apparatus not compromised. 

Beyond government or quasi-government agencies, numerous corporations were affected as well. They included all of the ten major US telecommunications companies; the top five US accounting firms; major contractors like General Dynamics and Booz Allen Hamilton; and perhaps, most intriguingly, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Microsoft. So yeah, much the entire US "Overworld" is vulnerable, in other words. 

Predictably, the usual suspects have already implicated the Russians. Elsewhere, Trump (much to the ire of the legacy media) blamed China. Naturally, no one has suggested Israel, though Webb certainly makes a compelling case. 

It's also interesting to note that the company at the center of the hack, SolarWinds, is based out of Austin, Texas. And is just so happens that Austin and the surrounding area in central Texas has witnessed a groundswell of tech-related investment in recent years. The impetus for this appears to be the launch of the Army Futures Command in Austin during 2018, which brought in even more dollars for the already growing slew of tech start-up companies there. Also present in Austin are some spooky companies such as Stratfor as well as the heart of Alex Jones' InfoWars empire. So yeah, interesting place for such a pivotal hack to use as a launching point. 

Even more interesting is the recent slew of cyber attack snivelry by the neo-liberal order. Klaus Schwab, founder and head of the World Economic Forum (WEF), has recently suggested that a major cyber attack would make the COVID-19 crisis appear as a "small disturbance in comparison." Energy, transportation, and health services to could brought to a halt in the blink of an eye, along with society at large. Or so the story goes. 

Of course the WEF, along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hosted Event 201 in October 2019. This exercise simulated a global coronavirus outbreak. According to Webb, the WEF ran a similar simulation in 2020, but this one involved a "digital pandemic" brought about by a major cyber attack. Curiously, one of the participants in this simulation, along with VIPs like Schwab and Tony Blair, was Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin

Mishustin is an interesting guy. He assumed the post of prime minister in January 2020, shortly before the COVID situation started making headlines. Previously, he had served as head of the Federal Tax Service, which is somewhat akin to the Russian equivalent of the IRS. He gained a reputation there for his tech savvy approach. Among other things, he utilized digital surveillance to collect data on virtually every transaction in Russia and AI to search for tax evaders. This is in keeping with a reportedly longstanding interest Mishustin has in tech, which stretches back to the 1990s. 

Mikhail Mishustin

He seems like a sound choice to deal with a cyber attack at an executive level. It's understandable why the Russians would want him in his current post and at the WEF's simulated cyber attack. But would the neo-liberal order really want him there if they were planning on laying the blame on Russia? 

This is why I opened with the Biden administration's early moves regarding China. Even with the Russia hysteria at a fever pitch, moves are quietly being made to institutionalize the new Cold War with the PRC.  


Concluding Thoughts

To me it at least, the most intriguing aspect of the SolarWinds hack thus far is the close proximity the company has to the Army Futures Command. The AFC is involved in some interesting work, to put it mildly. This particular command is tasked with not just modernizing the US Army, but specifically for future readiness against peers who have achieved near parity. In other words, the AFC is the command tasked with retooling the Army for the forthcoming Great Powers (China) struggle. 

To achieve this, no stone has been left unturned. The AFC is throwing money at everything from hypersonic missiles to combat robots and even "super soldier" technology. Yes, the latter is increasingly a part of the Great Powers struggle. Not only is China pursuing them, but so to is France.

Army Futures Command insignia

For our purposes here, most intriguing are the AFC's efforts to develop "The Network." While the concept is vague, hypothetically it would be a secure network with "offense and defensive cyber capabilities, using artificial intelligence...". In other words, the AFC is at the forefront of beefing up the Army's cyber attack capabilities. 

So yeah, it's pretty interesting the company at the forefront of the Great Hack of 2020 is based out of Austin, at the heart of the budding tech industry there the AFC is integrating itself with. And given that the AFC is taking the lead in getting the Army on footing for the coming conflict with China, a compelling narrative could thus been spun if TPTB opt to go the Chinese hacker route. 

But it's also interesting that, as noted above, the CIA was comparatively unaffected by the hack. I've been chronicling the ongoing power struggle between the CIA and Pentagon for a while, both in my debut book Strange Tales of the Parapolitical and more recently on this blog. Does the SolarWinds hack belong in that context? There are no such indications thus far, but if the CIA did play a role, it could potentially provide them with glimpse into what their rivals in the Pentagon up to as an added bonus. But this is purely speculation on my part. 

Let us return to Webb to wrap up. She proposes that Microsoft will by the target. Given how widely used Microsoft products are, there's no question such an attack would be devastating to the global economy. Such a scenario would be far worse the downturn brought about by COVID-19, to put it mildly. If you haven't done so already, I'd advice giving Mr. Robot viewing in the near future.  Certainly it seems more and more like a docu-series by the day. 

4 comments:

  1. Great post, and very interesting about the Atlantic Council.The chairman is John Rogers, who has served in the Ford, Reagan, and Bush 41 administrations. In 1994 he joined Goldman Sachs and served 4 different CEOs as Chief of Staff. He made partner in 2000, and has no revenue generating responsibilities. In 2011 he was made 1 of the 11 executives of the firm amongst other titles on the Board of Directors.
    He's married to Deborah Lehr, former senior negotiator in the Clinton administration on Chinese trade policy.

    A 2006 profile in the NY Times said "he doesn't welcome public scrutiny" and hates being photographed.
    His friends compare him to George Smiley of the John Le Carre spy novels, in his ability to gravitate towards seats of power in bureaucracies.

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  2. Thank you for drawing your audience's attention to the Atlantic Council. Which is another CNP style control hustle. Just more genteel and 'credentialled' than your average fascist.

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  3. Recluse...
    Good catch on the Mr Robot viewing suggestion. In addition to Evil Corp, all the real-world players of the "Great Powers" struggle are present in the Mr Robot story line. I did a post on Mr Robot back in 2015, drawing similar analogies to (then) current events.

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  4. Seems the QAnoids are being re-purposed for another round of the Clash of Civilizations. There's no clown like an old clown.
    THE SABMYK NETWORK: HOW A MYSTERIOUS DISINFORMATION NETWORK IS HIJACKING QANON
    https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2021/02/12/the-sabmyk-network-how-a-mysterious-disinformation-network-is-hijacking-qanon/

    ReplyDelete