On December 4, 1783, at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, General George Washington formally bade his officers farewell.
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A Farewell to Arms
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Jean-Baptiste Say
There is no security of property, where a despotic authority can possess itself of the property of the subject against his consent. Neither is there such security, where the consent is merely nominal and delusive.
Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Chapter XIV.
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Cold War Ends
On December 3, 1989, the leaders of the two world superpowers, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, declared an end to the Cold War, at a summit in Malta. A little over two years later not only had the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union was itself dissolved.
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Tucker Carlson
Terrifying the population is what our government does best, and most avidly. Officials regularly gin up irrational fears about COVID, or “white supremacy,” or Vladimir Putin — or a dozen other topics as part of a pretty obvious control strategy. It’s not as if these people mind scaring you; they want to scare you. And they do it every day.
Tucker Carlson, Tucker on X, Ep. 42 (November 29, 2023).
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Monroe Doctrine
On December 2, 1823, U.S. President James Monroe delivered a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. The policy became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
Though a much-discussed principle of American foreign policy, it was undermined by the Spanish-American War and proved a dead letter as the U. S. entered World War I.
“This is about accountability, and about transparency,” said Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), at yesterday’s House Oversight Committee’s bipartisan press conference on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP’s) — “about holding the Deep State to task for their refusal to declassify information that the American people need to know, that Congress needs to know.”
He paints the same picture of the UAP/UFO issue that has been rumored about for nearly 80 years: “Foreign objects are buzzing around in our airspace, and Joe Biden’s over 30 generals have not only been silent on the issue, but have yet to play ball with Congress.”
The tenor of the presser was summarized early by host Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.): “It is unacceptable that any mid-level, unelected bureaucrat staffers can tell members of Congress that we are not allowed to access information about UAP’s.”
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has pushed a disclosure procedure on the order of The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, but these representatives scorned that notion, arguing there remains too much secrecy surrounding the 1963 event in Dallas.
“So, whether it’s little green men, American technology, or worse — technology from the CCP — we need to know,” insists Rep. Ogles.
“I think the American people have a simple question,” Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) hazarded, “which is ‘if none of this exists, if this is all false, why, at every turn, are there people trying to stop the transparency and the disclosure? Why are folks who are in charge of committees, whether they are in the House or in the Senate, opposed to this disclosure?’ And it’s that point alone that piques the interest.”
Indeed it does.
It’s time for the people to find out.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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George Orwell
The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. Scattered about London there were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So completely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from the roof of Victory Mansions you could see all four of them simultaneously. They were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one.
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), p. 6.
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1824’s “Stolen Election”
On December 1, 1824, with neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson receiving a majority of votes in the Electoral College, the United States House of Representatives was given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The House selected Adams. Jackson and his supporters felt deeply aggrieved, and immediately set about preparing for the next election, which Jackson won handily. Jacksonian supporters referred to the election of 1824 as “the Stolen Election,” in no small part because Jackson had received more popular votes — though the popular vote never had or was intended to have any constitutional play in determining the election of the United States President.
In 1834 on this date, slavery was abolished in Britain’s Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa, in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
“Many people insist that governments aren’t involved in censorship,” tweeted Michael Shellenberger on Tuesday, “but they are. And now, a whistleblower has come forward with an explosive new trove of documents, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook Files in scale and importance.”
Because much of recent years’ censorship has occurred on corporate-owned-and-run social media platforms, like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (now X), some have claimed “it’s not censorship” and, because private, is immune to legal prosecution. This quasi-libertarian argument was most vociferously marshaled by leftists and centrists, who’ve found in the libertarian “private property is sacred” ideal a handy excuse for the censorship they love.
They love it because of what they hate: Fox News, most specifically, and alternative media based on podcasting and vlogging platforms, more generally. These media outlets have bucked the foreign policy establishment as well as the new racism of Critical Race Theory, and official narratives about COVID.
So they must be squelched — as “disinformation.”
This is all made more clear in what Shellenberger calls “The CTIL Files.”
The leaked documents “describe the activities of an ‘anti-disinformation’ group called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League,” which “officially began as the volunteer project of data scientists and defense and intelligence veterans but whose tactics over time appear to have been absorbed into multiple official projects, including those of the Department of Homeland Security.’’
While government operatives and contractors organized, at first, to avoid constitutional and legislative limitations to conducting propaganda and psychological warfare against Americans, the plan was, from the beginning (says the source), “to become part of the federal government.”
In the end, “the military and intelligence agencies” got involved, along with “civil society organizations and commercial media.” Methods used include burner phones, plausible deniability, and “sock puppet accounts and other offensive techniques.”
You can watch today’s hearing (10:00 AM EST) of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, featuring Shellenberger, Rupa Subramanya, and Matt Taibbi.
Tell me what you think.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Miguel Cardona
Um, as, uh, I think it was President Reagan said, “We’re from the Government; we’re here to help.”
Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education, Western Governors Association, Nov. 8, 2023. For context, see Snopes.com.