They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent by Sarah Kendzior discusses the difference between conspiracy and conspiracy theories. “A conspiracy is an agreement of powerful actors to secretly carry out a plan that protects their own interests”. The mafia is a conspiracy, white-collar crime is another conspiracy. War and espionage rely upon conspiracy. They Knew is a follow-up of Hiding in Plain Sight, which exposed several decades of crime and corruption leading up to our current time.
There are two questions citizens should ask when “their government is carrying out a conspiracy”: 1. “Who knew what and when?“ 2. “Was this crisis predictable and preventable, and if so, who let it happen?” Sarah Kendzior dismisses the common claim by the powerful that “nobody saw it coming”, because those who are “dismissed as nobody” often are those who are “affected by a terrible situation”, and often “warn about it in advance”.
Sarah Kendzior rejects “the false façade of law and order” and finds it “striking how many people who pride themselves on rationality” believe in “a world of protocol and norms and social contracts”. You “can slither around a protocol, and you need trust to cement a social contract”. Most importantly, “trust must be earned”!
Kendzior emphasizes “doing the right thing for its own sake matters”. We owe it to future generations. “Refusal to examine the past sins has broken” the present. There is “no moving on without accountability, and there is no accountability without the truth”. The “truth will not necessarily set” us free, but it may free us “to reexamine the past and avoid repeating its mistakes in the future”.
Sarah Kendziors questions are about “how a government failed to protect its people and then exploited their fears and silenced their dissent”. “Truth was irrelevant, they implied”, and “the people who sought it no match for the machinations of power”, they thought. They knew, but so do we, now. I highly recommend the book.
Related post:
Book Review: Hiding in Plain Sight
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