Lecture renversée

Basically, what I will do in this page is to explain my methodology or how I come to make a decision about the thousands of pieces of information that I am subject to, as it is also the case for the billions of other citizens throughout the world. It is really simple in fact. Others have used it in the past and based on it their careers as reporters, researchers, intelligence analysts, etc. Among others, Edward R. Murrow, Paul Manning, Mae Brussell, Dave Emory, John Loftus, Russ Baker have used it for their work. Let’s see more about it. Few people know that 95% of all the intelligence is available from « open » source, i.e. that it is available in the public domain, and that the other 5% is classified. It can be published in books, newspapers, magazines, it can be presented in broadcasts, radio or television, it can be shown in conferences, presentations, lectures, conventions, it can be made available through the printed information officially published by the government, etc. So there is no need in fact to possess any classified information at all to know how the world works and the five Ws. The problem, is that virtually nobody takes advantage of this vast amount of information. It is literally comparable to a gold mine not exploited, untouched. Once we realize that almost everything that we learn about the world is available in the public domain, all that remains to do is to go and look. But what should we choose and retain from the thousands and thousands of different books, newpaper articles, radio and television shows, etc? In effect, in the end, we will have to decide what to focus our attention on and what should be tossed aside.

That’s where what I call « reverse reading » comes along. Reverse reading is a mental technique that allows the individual to read events not in their logical order from cause to effect, but rather to analyse the effect as the expression of a cause. In English, it means that we have to analyse the results of an action to understand the intention that was invested in it, and through that, then understand who could, in all probabilities, be at the source of this action, to benefit from it. To give a concrete example, let’s say there is a boycott campaign against a store that sells fruit in your neighbourhood, officially organized for whatever pretext one can imagine. The boycott evidently causes consumers to go shopping elsewhere, sales are going down and bankruptcy maybe in sight for the store in the near future. The usual reading of something like that translates on the ground by a denunciation of the people organizing the boycott campaign and by putting the blame on them. But things are rarely that simple in this world. The individuals organizing the boycott maybe only middlemen for somebody behind them who would benefit from the boycott, like for example a competitor in the neighbourhood that also sells fruit.

To sum things up, it is by looking at the results of an action that one can figure out the intention, and through the intention, then one can guess a few of the possible individuals, groups or institutions who would be likely to benefit from it. This methodology is similar to a police investigation. First you look for clues, evidence, and then you try to identify who could have a motive for a particular action and the network involved, if there is one. It is a method of reverse reading that leads the individual from the result, through the intention, to the cause and to the people at its genesis. That’s how public domain information should be read. In open source intelligence, there is almost, if not even, more information between the lines and in the margins than on the official lines themselves. By asking yourselves « who benefits », you are likely to know and understand almost everything there is to know about the world and human societies.