On December 27, 1657, a group of English citizens in Flushing, New York, who were not themselves Quakers, signed a petition protesting the persecution of Quakers. This “Flushing Remonstrance” is an eloquent statement of the principle of religious liberty, and is widely regarded as a forerunner to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The petition was delivered to Director-General of New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant.
Taibbi offered a droll retort: “They must think us unambitious, if our ‘sole aim’ is to discredit the FBI. After all, a whole range of government agencies discredit themselves in the #TwitterFiles. Why stop with one?”
Indeed. The federal government is full of rogue, anti-constitutional cabals.
Elon Musk’s Twitter Files release of behind-the-scenes Twitter deliberations over which political news stories and Twitter accounts to trounce upon, and what medical information to declare as “misinformation” and which to allow, yielded more than just the influence of J. Edgar Hoover’s legacy outfit.
“The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”
Twitter employees referred to these other outfits as “OGA” — for “Other Government Agenies.”
There were so many that Twitter “executives lost track.”
The vastness of the operation boggles the mind. “The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm.”
It is worth remembering that the lore of the Deep State includes the controversial but rarely-mentioned “Operation Mockingbird,” whereby the CIA fostered paid mouthpieces (disinformation agents) throughout the media, back in the Sixties.
Now we have uncovered an operation that dwarfs this by several orders of magnitude.
Certainly, the behavior of the FBI and these OGAs has had an effect: they directed public opinion during the pandemic and in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.
Will & Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization: The Age of Napoleon (1975), Ch. IV: The Convention: September 21, 1792 – October 26, 1795, Part V: The Reign of Terror: September 17, 1793 – July 28, 1794, § 4: The Revolution Eats Its Children.
Henry Lee III’s eulogy to George Washington in Congress declared the former general and president to be “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Washington had died on December 14th, 1799, and Lee’s eulogy took place twelve days later.
Paul is all a-twitter about Christmas. Scratch that: he’s all about Twitter. But on Rumble:
As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. . . . he will refuse to believe it . . . That’s the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.
Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov, 1983 interview, as quoted in “38 years ago, a KGB defector chillingly predicted modern America” (July 18, 2018), Big Think.
Picture credit: Yuri Bezmenov — “Original publication: “Black is Beautiful, Communism is Not.” ISBN 0-935090-18-5
On Christmas Day in 1776, George Washington and the Continental Army crossed the Delaware River at night to attack, the next day, the Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey.
United States President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans on Christmas Day in 1868.
A series of unofficial truces occurred across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas in 1914. The image, at top, illustrates the event: “British and German Soldiers Arm-in-Arm Exchanging Headgear: A Christmas Truce between Opposing Trenches” with a sub caption explaining “Saxons and Anglo-Saxons fraternising on the field of battle at the season of peace and goodwill: Officers and men from the German and British trenches meet and greet one another — A German officer photographing a group of foes and friends.” Originally published in The Illustrated London News, January 9, 1915.
Paul Jacob re-caps the biggest story of the week, the Twitter Files:
Mass travel by air made possible by the Jet Age may prove to be more significant to world destiny than the atom bomb. For there can be no atom bomb more powerful than the air tourist, charged with curiosity, enthusiasm and good will, who can roam the four corners of the world, meeting in friendship and understanding the people of other nations and races.
Juan Trippe, The Pan Am Story (1958), p. 8.
On December 24, 1973, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act was passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to elect their own local government.