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WHEN A PERSON LEARNS CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS, THEY REALIZE CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE INVOKED BY PEOPLE IN POWER, AND ARE NOT JUST THEORIES, BUT IN FACT, TRUTH
CONSPIRACY: With the advances in technology, the government is using its vast resources to track citizens.
THE TRUTH: In 2016, government agencies sent 49,868 requests for user data to Facebook, 27,850 to Google, and 9,076 to Apple, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (the EFF), a major nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world and advises the public on matters of internet privacy.
CONSPIRACY: The CIA was testing LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs on Americans in a top-secret experiment on behavior modification.
THE TRUTH: The program was known as MK-ULTRA, and it was real.
CONSPIRACY: Tuskegee Syphilis Study
THE TRUTH: Conducted between 1932 and 1972, it observed the natural progression of syphilis in black men in rural Alabama. Unfortunately, this was not known to those involved in the study – they thought they were receiving free health care from the government.
CONSPIRACY: For decades, tobacco companies buried evidence that smoking is deadly.
THE TRUTH: At the beginning of the 1950s, research was showing an indisputable statistical link between smoking and lung cancer, but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that Philip Morris even admitted that smoking could cause cancer.
CONSPIRACY: Operation Paperclip: the American Government brought Nazi Scientists to the US
THE TRUTH: After World War II, the United States created a secret Joint Intelligence Objective Agency in which they brought more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians – many of whom had direct ties to the Nazi Party – to work for the government. Known as Operation Paperclip, its primary focus was for the U.S. to gain an advantage in the Cold War.
CONSPIRACY: Bohemian Grove’s gloried-in rituals; where all those rich Republicans go and stand naked against redwood trees
THE TRUTH: Every July, some of the “richest and most powerful men in the world” head to Bohemian Grove, a 2,700-acre campground in California to engage in a series of hush-hush ceremonies including costumes, theatre, and music. It may or may not include former U.S. presidents, oil tycoons, and other business, and where planning for the Manhattan Project took place, leading to the creation of the atom bomb.
CONSPIRACY: The Dalai Lama is a CIA agent.
THE TRUTH: According to declassified intelligence documents, he earned $180,000 in connection with the CIA’s funding of the Tibetan Resistance to the tune of $1.7 million per year.
CONSPIRACY: The FBI was spying on John Lennon.
THE TRUTH: Like many counter-culture heroes, Lennon was considered a threat: “Anti-war songs, like “Give Peace a Chance” didn’t exactly endear former Beatle John Lennon to the Nixon administration,” NPR reported. “In 1971, the FBI put Lennon under surveillance, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him a year later.” In 1957, John Lennon and Paul McCartney met at a party in Woolton. Just yards away from their meeting place was the grave of Eleanor Rigby.
CONSPIRACY: The Gulf of Tonkin incident on August 2, 1964, was faked to provoke American support for the Vietnam War.
THE TRUTH: Declassified intelligence documents have revealed the Maddox had provided support for South Vietnamese attacks on a nearby island and the North Vietnamese were responding in kind, according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
CONSPIRACY: Human Tissue Collected for Atomic Bomb Tests
THE TRUTH: In the 1950s, the U.S. government secretly collected human tissue – primarily from cadavers, without permission from next of kin. The purpose was to monitor the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests. More than 1,500 samples (many of them babies) were gathered around the world.
CONSPIRACY: Bayer Medicine Causes AIDS
THE TRUTH: In the mid-1980s, pharmaceutical company Bayer discovered that their blood-clotting medicine for hemophiliacs carried a high risk of transmitting AIDS.
THERE ARE MANY MORE CONSPIRACY THEORIES DEBUNKED BY CRITICAL THINKERS.
Kristeen Irigoyen-Hernandez
Human Rights Advocate, Researcher/Chronological Archivist and member in good standing with the Constitution First Amendment Press Association (CFAPA.org)
Kristeen Irigoyen-Hernandez aka Lady2Soothe Follow @OurVoicesEcho
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