Tom Baugh's response to "Praxis: Musings on Counterintelligence, Cockroaches and Rats."

Tom Baugh and I don't agree on everything, but his response to my post of yesterday is both thoughtful and useful, thus I have given it more prominence here.

Mike, this is probably the most effective and useful practical guide you have ever written in as few words. Several things come to mind (forgive me for my lack of formal terminology and this long comment):

a. Excellent point that getting sucked into hyperbole is one of the easiest and most effective first COINTELPRO steps. It feels good short-term, and is easy to do. It also is a direct feeder into COINTELPRO action plans as the target/victim wants to continue to prove himself as one of the guys. Often, the hyperbole itself is the goal and useful in disruption. I know this to be the case because I have been sucked into the early stages of this myself, but was able to see the warning signs along the way.

b. Your vision of the III Percent, and the accompanying moral compass you just described, as a personal schwerpunkt, is absolutely, in my opinion, the best defense against entrapment or being sucked into wasteful defiance versus planning for the long-term struggle. As an example, conflating handing over a weapon at a traffic stop in today's climate, versus all of the TBD actions for the future climate where the populace's bit has been flipped, requires ignoring the moral compass aspect, ignoring the vastly different roles of local versus national authorities, in addition to avoiding simple common sense recognition of where we are versus where we will be. Very nice.

c. It is no secret that you and I are on different axes when it comes to the true nature of the struggle (that whole white hat/black hat thing), but if there IS a white hat solution possible, it will be YOUR III Percent solution as expressed in your moral compass writings. I am rooting for your solution and hoping that your model of the true struggle is correct, while planning for the alternative.

d. I am not at all concerned about any homegrown fed op. With a moderate amount of prudence, these things can be held at arm's length while still using them as useful recruiting tools or otherwise using their resources to pick up the crumbs that fall off their plates. These official, albeit nefarious, ops are limited to using government employees, sociopaths, or normal people entrapped through mistakes. None of these three groups can be counted on to be highly effective, and some, as I know personally, will often give good people a "wave off" if you watch closely for the signals. An entrapped but otherwise decent guy will look like he wants to vomit, for example, when one probes around the edges of his legend. The sociopath will lose his mind and stray from the script under the same stress, while the government employee will attempt to redirect or call in blockers, knowing that worst case he has the badge in his pocket.

e. Given the above limitations of the genuine feds, I think the greater risk is the foreign intelligence false-flagging as fed ops, perhaps with full naive knowledge and consent of the feds themselves, in order to turn Americans of all kinds against ourselves. The foreign operative, unlike the domestic variety, IS capable of being a serious and effective menace, given the differences in recruiting, compensation and motivations. Long story, but the pattern matches what has been developing recently.

f. Finally, and the most important take-away I think is the avoidance of hypotheticals as you point out. This is a form of brainwashing for a later replacement of values and motivations, and if the government employees performing this work are good at anything, it is this. Deny them this asset, and everything else they have at their disposal meat-wise is absolutely weak.

Thank you for this excellent and timely post.

Tom