MM#378--1984 in 2024

Can a work of fiction from 1949 illuminate our present-day challenges with information control?

Join us in our final Mojo Minute of 2024 as we unpack the eerie parallels between George Orwell's dystopian classic, "1984," and modern events, focusing on the contentious Disinformation Governance Board.

This episode invites you to consider Orwell's prophetic warnings as we stand 40 years beyond his imagined timeline, examining how governmental oversight and misinformation intersect in today's political landscape.

Explore the insightful commentary of Daniel McCarthy's "1984 in 2024" article from the Minot Daily News, as we delve into Orwell's ongoing relevance. As we reflect on the implications of the Disinformation Governance Board, draw connections to Orwell's Ministry of Truth, and anticipate changes under new leadership, this episode promises a thought-provoking blend of literature, history, and current affairs.

Join the conversation, as we ponder what Orwell's cautionary tale means for the Western world and how it could shape our future as we look beyond 2024.

Key Points from the Episode:

• Exploring Orwell's prophetic visions in 1984 
• Discussing the Disinformation Governance Board and its implications
• Analyzing the role of the media in shaping narratives today 
• Critiquing the legacy media's approach to recent political events
• Understanding economic reports through the lens of Orwell's Ministry of Plenty 
• Highlighting the power of collective human courage against oppression

Other resources: 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser flourishing life.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Now here's your host, david Kaiser. Hello, I am David, and welcome back to another Mojo Minute, and Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. You know this is the season of Christmas, it is Christmas tide. We are in day seven of Christmas. Now this will be our last Mojo Minute for 2024.

Speaker 2: 0:46

And as I reflected on this past year, this past year of 2024, I've often thought about George Orwell's book 1984. And boy, the parallels are just incredible from that fiction novel. So I'd like to share some of my thoughts as we close out 2024 and how they parallel 1984, the novel and what we can look forward to in the future. Now to begin, I want to share an article I found in, of all places, the Minot Daily News. Folks, the Minot Daily News. Let's go to the article. Americans still read George Orwell's 1984, 75 years after it was first published, on June 8, 1949. At that time, the year 1984 was far in the future. Now it's 40 years in the past, yet our present feels more like Orwell's dystopia than ever.

Speaker 2: 1:54

The novel is set on Airstrip One, a totalitarian version of what is today Britain. Its protagonist is Winston Smith, a censor working in the Ministry of Truth. His job is to alter historical records to conform to whatever the ruling party now decrees. He rewrites history in the very documents on which historians rely. Reality is whatever the party says. It is who could prove otherwise? Surveillance is inescapable. Every screen watches the people who watch it. Even thinking the wrong thoughts is a crime, though the authorities do everything in their power to prevent a thought crime before it happens by manipulating language itself. Quote we're destroying words, scores of them, hundreds of them every day, boasts one of Winston's colleagues who's working on the latest Newspeak dictionary. There will be no more words like excellent or bad, only double plus good or un-good variations on the single base term. Now we just heard about the ministry of truth from Orwell's 1984 fiction novel. Did you know we had such a ministry of truth in reality, However, the Biden administration called it something different.

Speaker 2: 3:27

It was called the Disinformation Governance Board and it was part of the Department of Homeland Security in 2022. We only found out about it in the 2023 budget hearing before the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Now, its stated purpose was officially to coordinate efforts to combat misinformation, malinformation and disinformation that could threaten national security. It was short-lived, however. The board was operational for only about three weeks before being quote, paused due to significant backlash. Now the scope and function officially of the disinformation governing board, aka the Ministry of Truth from 1984, according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the board would have no operational authority or capability. Its role was to collect best practices for dissemination to DHS organizations already tasked with defending against disinformation threats. Okay, he went on to say, the area of focus is that the board would only monitor disinformation spread by foreign states, transnational criminal organizations and during national disasters. Now, rightly so. The board faced intense criticism from civil liberty groups and especially from Republican lawmakers, because this time they actually grew a spine and they acted as a whole cohesive unit. Critics rightly called this the Ministry of Truth, referencing the George Orwell dystopian novel 1984. Now, thankfully, in May 18th of 2022, nina Jankowicz, who was appointed to lead the board, resigned. The DHS subsequently announced that the board had been paused. We don't know the official status of the board now, but, based on all accounting measures, we probably know that the Ministry of truth is somewhere lurking out there, and we hope that only the incoming president, trump, will disassemble this ministry of truth and put it on the ash heap of history.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Let's go back to Daniel McCarthy's great article 1984 in 2024 from, again, the Minot Daily News. Love this newspaper. The 1984 of Orwell's imagination resembled the Soviet Union of his lifetime in many ways, but he intended the book as a warning about what could happen in the West too. The Soviet Union is long gone, yet much of what Orwell feared is coming to pass in the free world today, not under a totalitarian dictatorship, but through the pervasive power of politically correct ideology. 1984 presents a simple picture of a state run by one party. We have competing parties in government, but in effect one ideological party dominates our schools, our media and the federal bureaucracy, as well as much of corporate America, particularly in human resource departments. And what does the party do? It destroys words, it alters books and documents, it surveils us all. In police's opinion, when a dissenter is made to disappear in 1984, he's quote vaporized. Our newspeak word for that today is canceled, is canceled.

Speaker 2: 7:30

Now, speaking of being canceled, one has to reflect upon the legacy media and how they have just shamefully soiled themselves. And we're going to share an article now from the sub stack of Julie Kelly titled Declassify, with Julie Kelly, because Julie has done yeoman's work, intrepid reporter work on the January 6th debacle, the January 6th insurrection as many people have been calling it, and she has a wonderful article out December 26th 2024. I'm going to point you to because, boy, if this doesn't sound like 1984, I'm not sure what does. Let's go to this article titled the Wall Street Journal's Shameful J6 Propagandizing. From promoting the lie about Brian Sidnick's death to swooning over J6 Select Committee, while ignoring new findings about the events of J6, the Wall Street Journal is soiling its once solid reputation. Go into the article. The January 6th narrative continues to crumble amid nearly daily revelations related to, among other things, the shady circumstances surrounding the January 6th quote pipe bomber, the corruption of the January 6th Select Committee and evidence directly contradicting the clearly and carefully fabricated storyline, including who was responsible for delaying the deployment of National Guardsmen that afternoon. Hint, it's not Donald Trump.

Speaker 2: 9:14

A few news and opinion outlets, however, remain stubbornly loyal to the regime-established January 6th propaganda mill. After years of investing ink and clicks to promote the most outlandish and, in some instances, debunked angles of the so-called quote insurrection, these outlets refused to of the most destructive political hoaxes in US history, and the Wall Street Journal is chief among them. Once regarded a conservative paper with a news section largely devoted to the business sector and an editorial page section largely devoted to supporting conservative political causes. The Wall Street Journal currently rivals MSNBC and the Washington Post as the most hysterical J6 propagandist on record, and I can attest to the Wall Street Journal being a conservative paper. For many, many years I've subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and I conservative paper. For many, many years I've subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and I read the editorial page almost daily just to get an idea of where the conservative legacy press was coming from. For the last four years plus, I have been sadly, sadly, disappointed in everything. Let's go back to Julie's article because she'll tell us more.

Speaker 2: 10:52

This latest installation of the Wall Street Journal quote insurrection chronicles follows the long arc of reporting and pontificating that began the day after the Capitol protest itself began the day after the Capitol protest itself, on January 6, 2021,. As the country knew very few details about what actually happened, the Wall Street Journal editorial board called for President Trump to resign or face impeachment. Quote this was an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election. It was also an assault on the legislature from an executive sworn to uphold the laws of the United States. This goes beyond merely refusing to concede defeat. In our view, it crosses a constitutional line that Mr Trump hasn't previously crossed. It is impeachable. End quote. The board, led by the long-term quote conservative commenter Paul Gigot, wrote.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Then the next day, the paper helped fuel the fire that Capitol Police fuel the lie that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sidnick was murdered by Trump supporters with a fire extinguisher a falsehood first reported by, of all folks, the New York Times. The original Wall Street Journal article remained intact, with a one-sentence correction all the way in April 2021, admitting that the DC coroner had concluded Sitnik's died of natural causes. Nonetheless, the paper continued to describe Sitnik as the slain police officer. A few months later, wall Street contributor Karl Rove need I say more? Called the testimony of four police officers featured during the first televised hearing of the January 6th Select Committee. Riveting in how they quote demolish claims by some Republicans that the assault on Congress wasn't very different from a normal tourist visit or a peaceful protest. But video evidence unearthed since that July 2021 hearing contradicts the accounts offered by all four officers under oath. Some testimony could result in perjury charges. This appears to be of no interest to Rove or the Wall Street Journal. Later on, we read the conclusion of Julie Kelly's excellent piece when she writes this.

Speaker 2: 13:30

Even more excusable is the paper's selective ignorance on the abusive treatment of January 6th protesters. One would be hard-pressed to find any mention of how the Biden DOJ weaponized federal law to criminalize political protest, or how the FBI has conducted hundreds of pre-dawn armed raids for even non-violent offenders, or how federal prosecutors seek excessive prison time, including terror enhancements for the J-6ers. Instead, some Wall Street Journal writers now oppose Trump's plans to pardon the wrongly accused and victims of a double standard of justice. Issuing pardons of Jay Sixers, political columnist William Glaston recently opined, would represent a quote misreading of Trump's decisive victory Quote two-thirds of Americans polled by the Washington Post would oppose issuing pardons for people convicted of crimes related to January 6, 2021, an assault on the US Capitol, galston wrote, as if public opinion should dictate how the inarguable abuse of the legal and judicial system must be resolved. It's another shameful example of the Wall Street Journal excusing away the government's political persecution of Trump supporters while continuing to promote nonsensical aspects of January 6th.

Speaker 2: 15:00

What a fall from grace. What a fall of grace. Indeed. It reminds you of 1984's Newspeak, as if it is part of the legacy media, and rather we should start referencing the legacy media as the propaganda press, because it is certainly under the umbrella of the same Newspeak that George Orwell wrote in 1984. George Orwell wrote in 1984. One last quote from Daniel McCarthy's wonderful piece from the Minot Daily News. Going back to the article In the novel, the Ministry of Plenty proclaims nothing but good news about the economy, even as chocolate rations are reduced.

Speaker 2: 15:47

Here and now, economists in step with the party flock to op-ed pages in social media to insist that America is prospering, even as inflation reduces what every shopper can buy at grocery stores. And of course, surveillance is everywhere in 2024 too. Of course surveillance is everywhere in 2024 too. Only the screens that watch us like that in 1984 are the ones that we carry in our pockets. Yes, indeed, we have our own ministry of plenty here in 2024. And it's perfectly analogous to 1984, because we release job numbers every month, only to get them revised, and then only after a couple of years do they come back and say whoops, we have totally missed it and we are off by some 815,000 jobs. How do you make that mistake, holy smokes? How do you make that mistake, holy smokes? How do you make that mistake, perhaps only if on the door it says the ministry of plenty. So, folks, as we close out 2024, let us be mindful that in 1984, we had a surveillance state, we had a ministry of plenty and we had a propaganda press that was dystopian for sure.

Speaker 2: 17:24

24,. Thankfully, the American people rose up and maybe most of them have never read 1984, not sure, but most of them rose up and we elected a president who was not going to buy into the propaganda press, who was persecuted by the legacy media and by the current administration and by the current administration, and we can finally put a period, much like George Orwell put a period in those paragraphs in his fiction novel, we can put a period on this chapter of 2024, for we have lived through in reality, not in fiction. In reality, we have lived through the worst president in US history so long 2024. Thank you for the election, but for the rest of it, we're closing the chapter Because we can never, never end on a sober down note, somber, somber down note. We can never end on a sober down note. We are always optimistic here. So we're going to end by welcoming in 2025. And we're going to welcome it in 2025. By our famous phrase that we now conclude every podcast here with we will always keep fighting the good fight. See you in 2025, folks.

Speaker 1: 18:56

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on you.

Speaker 2: 19:18

Thank you, thank you.