Political Conspiracies in America

Description

American conspiracy theorists in their own words

Conspiracy theories have been a part of the American experience since colonial times. There is a rich literature on conspiracies involving, among others, Masons, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, financiers, Communists, and internationalists. Although many conspiracy theories appear irrational, an exaggerated fear of a conspiracy sometimes proves to be well founded. This anthology provides students with documents relating to some of the more important and interesting conspiracy theories in American history and politics, some based on reality, many chiefly on paranoia. It provides a fascinating look at a persistent and at times troubling aspect of democratic society.

Contents
Introduction

Section 1. Conspiracy in a New Nation
Section 2. Conspiracy in an Age of Democracy
Section 3. Conspiracy in a Divided Nation
Section 4. Conspiracy in the Industrial Age through the New Deal
Section 5. Conspiracy in the Cold War Era
Section 6. Conspiracy in Contemporary America

For Further Reading
Index

Sujets

• Social History
• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Histoire
• General officer
• Politics
• History of the Americas
• General
• United States

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253027832
• Langue: English

Extrait

POLITICAL CONSPIRACIES IN AMERICA
POLITICAL CONSPIRACIES IN AMERICA
A Reader
Edited by Donald T. Critchlow, John Korasick, and Matthew C. Sherman
Indiana Iniversity Press BLOOMINGTON | INDIANAPOLIS
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© 2008 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in anyform or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopying and recording, or by any information storageand retrieval system, without permission in writing from thepublisher. The Association of American University Presses’Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exceptionto this prohibition.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Political conspiracies in America: a reader / edited by Donald T. Critchlow, John Korasick, and Matthew C. Sherman.       p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN-13: 978-0-253-35079-4 (cloth: alk. paper)   ISBN-13: 978-0-253-21964-0 (paper: alk. paper) 1. Conspiracies —United States—History—Sources. 2. United States—Politics and government—Sources. I. Critchlow, Donald T., date II. Korasick, John. III. Sherman, Matthew C.
  E183.P65 2008
  364.1’300973—dc22
2007038024
1  2  3  4  5  13  12  11  10  09  08
C ONTENTS
Introduction
Section 1. Conspiracy in a New Nation
Section 2. Conspiracy in an Age of Democracy
Section 3. Conspiracy in a Divided Nation
Section 4. Conspiracy in the Industrial Agethrough the New Deal
Section 5. Conspiracy in the Cold War Era
Section 6. Conspiracy in Contemporary America
For Further Reading
Index
I NTRODUCTION
Democratic governance in the United States is premised on the belief that thepolitical universe is rational and that an open society is essential to the preservationof democracy. Free speech and a free press help to protect democracyfrom subversive agents who would seek to usurp power and destroy the system.Democracies strike a careful balance in protecting rights essential to politicaldissent while instituting anti-subversive measures necessary to preservedemocratic society itself. Although this balance has not always been maintained,ultimately democratic government rests on the trust of the people intheir public officials. Fear of conspiracy manifests mistrust in political leadershipand in its ability to maintain order because it has been corrupted bysubversive forces. Given the continued persistence of alleged conspiracies inAmerican history, from the colonies’ first settlement until today, the Americandemocratic regime has shown remarkable endurance.
Political conspiracy is a secret and illegal agreement to undertake unlawfulor wrongful acts to affect the political system. The Plot of Brutus and hisbrother-in-law Cassius to assassinate Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BCE , wasa conspiracy. In American history, the Aaron Burr conspiracy (1805–07) involveda plot to remove the western territories and the Louisiana Purchasefrom the United States. The plot by financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk tocorner the gold market, based on inside information provided by PresidentUlysses Grant’s brother-in-law Abel Corbin and Assistant Secretary of theTreasury General Daniel Butterfield in 1869, was a financial conspiracy involvingpeople high in government. In the twentieth century, the infiltrationof Soviet spies into the U.S. government during the Franklin Roosevelt administrationwas a political conspiracy conducted behind closed doors withinthe Kremlin to illegally obtain American secrets.
While these and other examples can be found throughout history, mostpolitical conspiracies have been imagined. Those who promulgate such conspiraciespresent a fantastic view of the world in which a small group of menand women, operating secretly, can dictate world events with improbable exactitude.Conspiracy theorists believe that the “hidden history” behind suchconspiracies is revealed only through close study and deciphering of apparentlyrandom events. Having attained this knowledge, conspiracy theoristsbelieve they have an obligation to warn their fellow citizens of the dark, subversive forces operating in secret. They employ a conspiracy language that allowsideological groups to convey shared worldviews. When an Americanconspiracist speaks disparagingly of “Rome” or “the New World Order” or“the Bilderbergers,” for example, those who share the speaker’s political outlookunderstand the full implications of the reference. As such, the languageof conspiracy encapsulates larger presumptions about the world and how itoperates, and code words become a tool to rally followers and to gain new recruitsto specific political positions on both ends of the political spectrum.
In this way there is at times but a thin line between irrational and rationalfears. Indeed, the extent of conspiratorial fears within the history of westerndemocracies, especially the United States, seems to belie political rationality.Conspiratorial fears were evident among the first settlers in New England, thePuritans and the Pilgrims, in their conviction that high officials in the Churchof England were intent on betraying the Protestant Reformation and returningto the practices and theology of Roman Catholicism, with its promotionof idolatry, superstition, ignorance, and hierarchical corruption. Fears of conspiracyabounded throughout colonial America, as seen in relations with NativeAmericans, the Salem witch trials, repression of religious dissent, and relationswith the mother country. Historian Bernard Bailyn, in The IdeologicalOrigins of the American Revolution, argued that the fear of a conspiracy—onethat reached into the highest circles of the king’s court—to subvert the libertiesof a free people was central to the ideology of the American revolutionaries.As such, rational Enlightenment thought combined with an irrational fearof conspiracy to produce American republican ideology.
Conspiracy plays other roles in politics as well. Conspiratorial worldviews,for those who subscribe to them, have extrinsic value by rationalizing theworld, even though these worldviews might be intrinsically irrational. Furthermore,to have value, conspiracy beliefs must appear to be substantiated.Thus conspiracists spend an inordinate amount of time discovering and mastering“evidence” to substantiate their views. This allows conspiracy believersto present themselves as scholars of a different sort, autodidacts who knowbetter than the experts. In this way, conspiracy offers a mechanism for citizensto acquire and sort confusing and complex political, economic, and socialinformation into a carefully filtered construction of the world. Conspiracyprovides a narrative for understanding how the world is ordered. At thesame time, conspiracy enhances the self-esteem of the believer by imparting“secret” and “hidden” knowledge that the rest of the polity does not know. Asa result, believers in conspiracy find power, but of a certain type: subversivepower. It expresses, quite often, the desire of the weak or those seeking furtherpower to exert power through their unique knowledge and understandingof the world. Further, conspiracy provides a bonding experience for believers,a sense of community of shared intimate and personal information. This community experience is especially important in times of social change,when conspiracy theories seem to become most prominent. And, finally,among its myriad of roles, conspiracy theories allow people to isolate “others,”those groups or people who are categorized as unhealthy or corrupting influenceson the general population.
Because a conspiracy theory voices discontent with the established politicalorder and helps bond true believers through their shared subversiveknowledge, it can appear more intense—and operationally useful—when adominant political regime is experiencing change. During periods when theestablished political order comes under attack, conspiracy theories can obtaingreater acceptability among some political leaders and elements of the electorate.In such situations, both those defending the established regime andthose challenging the established order may subscribe to such theories. Americanpolitical history is replete with examples of the relationship betweenregime change and the projection of conspiracy. As the Federalist Party enteredinto a decline that led to the triumph of the Jeffersonian Democratic-Re-publicans,archconservatives within the party, led by New England ministerssuch as Timothy Dwight and Jedidiah Morse, drew upon an anti-Enlightenmentliterature found in revolutionary France and England revealing a Masonicconspiracy of the Bavarian Illuminati. In the 1820s, anti-Anglo financialconspiracies emerged as the political order again underwent change, givingrise to Jacksonian democracy. Anti-Masonic tendencies found expression inthe Whig Party that rose to challenge the Democratic Party. And in the volatilepolitics of the 1850s, political conspiracies abounded, focusing on nati