The Cynical Historian

Real Conspiracies in US History (2019x13)

Air date: Apr 06, 2019

Today, I’m going to talk about some actual American conspiracies, and how they were found out. You’ll notice that none of them were thwarted by conspiracists. None were found out by conspiracists. And none were proven by conspiracists. That is not how investigation works, because you can’t investigate something while denying what you are investigating. So let’s look at the reality of conspiracies in the US, and prove that conspiracy theorists have done nothing but harm to the world. Now this is not exhaustive, but it should be enough to be revealing of the reality of conspiracies and how they are discovered. ------------------------------------------------------------ references: Andrea G. Hunter and Alethea Rollins, “We Made History: Collective Memory and the Legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen,” Journal of Social Issues 71, No. 2 (2015): 264-278. Buckner F. Meton, Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002). https://amzn.to/2RUbGIi Kathryn Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009). https://amzn.to/2unDgjI López, Fernando. The Feathers of Condor: Transnational State Terrorism, Exiles and Civilian Anticommunism in South America. Newcastle, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2016. https://amzn.to/2FW04M9 Marc L. Harris, “The Meaning of Patriot: The Canadian Rebellion and American Republicanism, 1837-1839,” Michigan Historical Review 23, No. 1 (Spring, 1997): 33-69. An archive of the Church Committee, which found many CIA abuses: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/contents.htm FOIAed documentation on MK Ultra: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/search/site/mk%20ultra FOIAed documentation on Operation Condor: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/search/site/operation%20condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia