Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
How do you introduce conspiracy reality to young learners in an age-appropriate way? Good question. To help us answer it, today Connor Boyack joins us once again to discuss the latest installment in the Tuttle Twins series: The Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies. By introducing documentable history from Operation Mockingbird to the Gulf of Tonkin to the Great Reset in a simple and easily understandable way, this book helps adolescents as they begin questioning authority, seeking truth, and learning to speak truth to power.
Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Rumble / Download the mp4
SHOW NOTES:
Interview 1843 – Daniele Ganser Exposes The Ruthless Empire
Teaching Children About Liberty – #SolutionsWatch
Teaching Children About History – #SolutionsWatch
Been reading Tuttle Twins books with my eight year old daughter every night for over two years. She also knows how to pick a fake cloud. All this said, she is engrossed in the YouTube matrix with all it’s superficiality. We often turn the unhelpful into productive through talking points. Can anyone recommend edgy video content that would help to train and awaken the next generation?
Hedge110, any of Joe Plummers books would be suitable for a youth.
Here is Joe’s AI-CG animation that seems benign for a young person.
https://youtu.be/Rkykg1s08t0?si=PMIS3j-agtV6x3_x
Thanks generalbottlewasher for the recommendation. I watched it with my daughter. She certainly got the message about the two worlds but it didn’t engage at the same level as other YouTubers. I think that is the objective – to awaken the hearts and minds of the next generation (before disneyzonflix does).
I just received this book on Monday. I am in the process of reading it myself now. It put a smile on my face to see you put out this episode today, James! I love the synchronicity of this universe.
I also ordered the set of kids books for my 7 year old granddaughter a couple of months ago. However, she struggles with reading (I’m not sure how they teach reading in school these days and unfortunately she has been pretty much raised on an iPad.) and doesn’t find the books too easy to understand so gets bored with them easily. I live a few states away so I don’t have as much personal interaction with her as I’d like. Although, her older sister is 23, just graduated from college, and recently started working as a reporter for a local news station in her home state. I think sharing these books with her may be an excellent idea.
As usual I appreciate all of the work you regularly share with us, James.
Great idea, bringing forward a book that lays out these documentable conspiracies, there by breaking the first lie that “America has never had a conspiracy”. Once you establish that there are conspiracies, it is indeed a lot easier to imagine and spot new conspiracies.
On a side note, Alex Jones is a GREAT example of a lifetime actor, a man who got his credibility early on pointing out true conspiracies, but then, once he had an audience, he switched gears and became a 100% Zionist asset…”ChiComs” anyone? Not only is he a great example of a Zionist gate keepers, corralling millions of would be foot soldiers in the war against the NWO, but he is also a great example of a controlled asset. Like with the “Sandy Hook”, psyop. Jones was sued on what is OBVIOUSLY a freedom of speech issue, Jones not buying the state’s account of what happened at Sandy-Hook, a likely false-flag event, which the Zionists made an example of him.
That is how the operations work, the Zionists control ALL aspects of the psyop/trial, so it produces the outcome they desire, both in establishing a precedence AND in public perception. Just like with John Kerry, “he was ready with attorneys if the election was stolen”, IT WAS STOLLEN, but he did nothing, ALL theater. So too was the situation with Sandy Hook, a show trial that would fall apart if Jones was a real defendant, but he is not. Like Trump, his legal woes are just for show, you can bet your life that Jones got a fat pay check for his acting in that play. Those who have worked for Jones on his show, say it is filled with Mossad and IDF personnel, not surprising.
Had to break this comment up into two )
We see this again and again, little theatrical presentations meant to teach the masses how the world works.
Even now with the Israeli attacks on Palestine, we see these articles about students or teachers with milk-toast objections to Israel’s actions, getting black balled or fired from their jobs. These people, I would wager, are actors putting forward this mild rebuke of Israel, with the full intent of lowering the bar as to what constitutes “anti-semitism”. Establishing two sets of laws, ones for the Jews and ones for the goy. And the consequences of criticizing the chosen people.
During the scamdemic there was a video that was making the rounds about this college age white male at a Costco, he was not wearing a mask. He was being aggressively ridiculed by the mask wearers all around him. He did not push back like a man, but instead pleaded for understanding, that he “had asthma and could not wear the mask”. Point being, this video was being used to train the population to police itself. IF YOU SEE IN SOCIAL MEDIA, IT IS BECAUSE THEY WANT YOU TO SEE IT, period, no exceptions. In China when they started to have riots, the powers that be turned off the phones, just like in Maui, Palestine and January 6th (I read an interview from one of the Jan 6th protesters that said “their phones stopped working as they approached the Congress building”, fools were walking into a trap).
No matter how pervasive/insidious/manipulative you think their propaganda is in media, entertainment, education… your perceptions fall far short.
This part of my comment should have been posted first, sorry: Great idea, bringing forward a book that lays out these documentable conspiracies, there by breaking the first lie that “America has never had a conspiracy”. Once you establish that there are conspiracies, it is indeed a lot easier to imagine and spot new conspiracies.
On a side note, Alex Jones is a GREAT example of a lifetime actor, a man who got his credibility early on pointing out true conspiracies, but then, once he had an audience, he switched gears and became a 100% Zionist asset…”ChiComs” anyone? Not only is he a great example of a Zionist gate keepers, corralling millions of would be foot soldiers in the war against the NWO, but he is also a great example of a controlled asset. Like with the “Sandy Hook”, psyop. Jones was sued on what is OBVIOUSLY a freedom of speech issue, Jones not buying the state’s account of what happened at Sandy-Hook, a likely false-flag event, which the Zionists made an example of him.
That is how the operations work, the Zionists control ALL aspects of the psyop/trial, so it produces the outcome they desire, both in establishing a precedence AND in public perception. Just like with John Kerry, “he was ready with attorneys if the election was stolen”, IT WAS STOLLEN, but he did nothing, ALL theater. So too was the situation with Sandy Hook, a show trial that would fall apart if Jones was a real defendant, but he is not. Like Trump, his legal woes are just for show, you can bet your life that Jones got a fat pay check for his acting in that play. Those who have worked for Jones on his show, say it is filled with Mossad and IDF personnel, not surprising.
How does this work? These two guys are members of the House and they both are Zionist dual Citizens destroying our nation.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-has-never-let-us-down-longtime-desantis-ally-flips-ron-over-jewish-issues
https://twitter.com/VoteRandyFine/status/1716824764181008527
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israeli-military-uniform-capitol-hill/
This is the world’s entire problem. These people are not honoring their oath they should be HUNG! That is the penalty for treason against the oath of office. I presume that every member of the House and the Senate for the last 100 years are criminals.
Valuedcustomer says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation. This is a preview, your comment will be visible after it has been approved.
10/26/2023 at 8:49 am
Is this not censorship as well? The reason I dont spend much time here anymore.
I think multiple links go into auto moderation. I’ve had it happen before and also long comments.
One thing I’m confident in is that JC is an idealist and his only rule is that there’s no name calling and stuff like that.
But your other point about the obsequiousness of American politicians to the Zionists and their wars is rather revolting and should be considered treason. It certainly puts our country and citizens at risk. But the rule of law and the spirit of the law is dead in this country, at least in the legal system and in the state itself.
The citizens are sitting ducks at the mercy of the insane who have the access to nuclear weapons and don’t give a single f’k about us.
For me being the descendant of a Chickasaw Chief that signed treaties with the criminals that founded this nation. I am excited to see these same folk get betrayed the same way they betrayed us. By their masters the Zionist this time. I am smiling while they attack each other.
I have told many people that when we owned the land we were the enemy. Now they have stolen everything and they have become their own enemy. They are now eating each other so to speak. Wonder how this will turn out?
If there was a god these people would have never been allowed to hurt so many innocent people.
Yep, What we have been trained to believe is not so!
The Rothschild Bankers created Zionism to use the real Jews as their pawns. Old Wealth is easily hidden in Trusts with names that can not be traced. The Rothschilds and the Rockefellers are much richer than Bazo or Musk, so they have many times the power to manipulate governments.
The Oligarchs have corrupted our system of government to the point where it works against the people, not for the people, as we have been trained to believe.
Indeed, Zionist Israeli Citizens in Congress pretending to represent Americans is in the open now. Are we ready to liquidate this Corporate Government which has sold out to the World Bankers? Yep, that means no more Government hands outs, but that is all going to end very soon anyhow.
Americans have NO IDEA the lengths to which our government, even down to the state level work for the betterment of Israel, often in spite of how it harms Americans.
If a new weapon technology comes out that is better than what Israel has, America has to pay to upgrade Israel’s weapons.
Throughout America, states buy up crap Israel bonds to always prop up Israeli currency at the cost of what is good for states.
OMG and in trade, trade deals are only allowed if the other party also trades with Israel and within those deals, the party that always benefits is Israel, NOT America.
If America was lead by truly “American firsters” (and I DO NOT MEAN THAT fake patriot TRUMP), America would be by far the most prosperous nation on Earth. We have everything and the brains to make it happen. But those same forces that have made Israel the primary benefactor of America’s prowess in all things, have been working for decades to undermine this once great nation (great up until the first world war, it has been down hill ever since) and turn us into a vassal state of Israel, useless eaters who they wish to get rid of.
Actually the empire started during the Spanish American war.
Have you read the senate hearings on the Philippines during the time.
I think they are all just slaves to some crime they committed and it is being held against them.
The first thing the House did after electing a new Speaker was Tell fake chews to Genocide the Palestinians like they did the Native Americans here.
Wonder if the Crimes against Native Americans will ever stop?
I would say crimes against humanity, Americans who fought and died in war after war for the globalists are just as much victims are anyone. Americans have been tricked into war time and time again, always blood for others, rarely for ourselves.
“Native American” Indians were no saints, they murdered, enslaved and conquered like everyone else. It is only a crime when Europeans do it.
Indeed, is it not also true that some Native American tribes (and/or individuals) were guilty of similar barbarism just like other humans including but not limited to Europeans?
It seems that the anti-European narrative functions to destroy the old to make way for the new that is every bit if not more evil than the former. Or perhaps the same evil persists, just the players change.
Thanks for mentioning that though. Good to learn both sides to history and actually listen and come to ones own conclusions rather than believing a ready made narrative.
This is not to say that it was justified to come and steal from Natives here in America or kill the Buffalo. I disagree with genocide and theft of land, even if the population is barbaric. On the other hand, I’m glad to be here in the US and don’t feel like I owe anyone anything by just existing.
Not arguing with anyone just sharing my thoughts. It’s hard to communicate tone in writing.
I would say that there is a great difference between those who follow orders and those who do what they find is just.
Even if the actions of both are the same, the one who is not following orders is having the possibility of taking part in moral action. Which will in the end depend on the action itself.
While those who are following orders are immoral by definition.
NOTHING going on here!
The “trusted” Catholic Club of Rome ESG mafia contractor :[“You’re So Vain”] broke in when I wasn’t home and stole my life’s work in film & video and high school report cards:
https://www.ehs.com/
“About the same reading level…” Excepting Dennis Kucinich. He, “read it.”
I say that we as parents to children below the age of around 8 should do our best to protect those young minds from anything to do with the world of any kind of political thinking. It is way too dangerous, potentially disturbing healthy development. Far from equipping an individual with the information to help them see the truth and be part of the change. More likely to damage an individual. Children already “grow up” too fast, They need this time to play with friends, off the screen – real play. If once a sence of individuality emerges and said individual chooses to look at the wicked world of adult psychos then sure but 5 year old being educated about this kind of stuff is wrong in my book
In ‘Tuttle Twins and the Search for Atlas’, my daughter did not agree that Atlas (the Strongman at the circus) should get paid more and receive better treatment than the clowns. Her view was that it wasn’t ‘fair’. This led to an ongoing grapple with the question, “What is fair?”.
Is it fair that obe is pulling more load (I assume Atlas idms soing so) and getting paid the same as eceryone else?
Hey mkey, not sure who ‘obe’ is but I reckon he should get paid more if he ‘pulls more weight’. However, my daughter at 6 had already been indoctrinated to think the everyone should get the same regardless of effort. The job of the parent is to challenge this thinking through discourse.
obe=one
That’s what I get when typing on hese blasted mobile devices.
Have you considered smashing the TV and maybe block much of the internet via custom DNS? They can’t get to kids if they can’t get to kids.
Thanks mkey. No tellyourvision since 2016. Daughter doesn’t access the Internet as such. Just curated access to YouTube. Custom DNS does sound like an interesting option for when she does get on the WWW.
I will definitely be ordering a few copies of this book for my family (hard-core normies) to read.
Two can fight at this game!
They aim their ‘misinformation’ at youth because they are generally very impressionable.
But we can aim our conspiracy ‘information’ at them too.
It’s a pity he didn’t want to include 9/11 head on in the book, as a conspiracy.
Because if he is waiting for declassified documents to be released (a la Operation Northwoods) it just ain’t going to happen (at least not in our lifetime).
We already have more than enough proof it was a false flag conspiracy.
At 14 min 17 secs into this interview the book “True Conspiracies” is opened to the page titled “A New PEAL HARBOR” and the first sentence reads “Americans were stunned as the horrific events of September 11, 2011 unfolded.”
Everyone in this audience knows that the Events took place in 2001, not 2011. Indeed, most know it so well that they likely didn’t even notice the misprint (I did because I projected my computer screen onto a 58 inch screen).
Anyway, if he is printing a book on “True Conspiracies” with only that which can not be easily refuted (nothing is irrefutable, the CIA refutes the Truth everyday), you might want to at least get the date of the Events Right.
“At 14 min 17 secs into this interview the book “True Conspiracies” is opened to the page titled “A New PEAL HARBOR” and the first sentence reads “Americans were stunned as the horrific events of September 11, 2011 unfolded.”
Anyway, if he is printing a book on “True Conspiracies” with only that which can not be easily refuted (nothing is irrefutable, the CIA refutes the Truth everyday), you might want to at least get the date of the Events Right.”
Anyway, if you are making a comment here about the typo in the book you might want to at least notice that it is Connor himself who brings the typo to our attention. He also states who first notified him about it after it was published. 🙁
I recall back in the early 2000’s about the time I got Fiber-optics connected to my home because I lived between two major military bases in WA (the military is the first to get all the good stuff).
Anyway, I was gathering an on-line following and was using a quote I had found from former President Woodrow Wilson from 1919 which went something like “I regret that I have sold my Country into slavery” (He had signed The Federal Reserve Act in 1913).
I was harassed at the time by email claiming that the Quote was false so I stopped using it only to find out after further research that a black and white video “was” available with then President Wilson speaking the words I had been quoting.
Yep, the bastards (I am assuming CIA in this case) will not only deny the Truth but often times condemn you for speaking it or even printing it should you acquire a big enough audience.
Just now, I could not find the 1919 video which I likely would have saved, but I have had a number of computer cashes since those days and have had to start over many times. None the less below is a link to an article that is available near the top of a Google Search which says that Woodrow Wilson had a Stroke in 1919 (which nobody knew about) and he was just a figurehead until his term was up in 1921. Apparently this is what “they” want to teach the kids.
https://lib.arizona.edu/hsl/materials/collections/secret-illness/wilson
Of coarse, I have to ask, why would they do this? And, as it turns out, I have a Theory that is two fold.
First of all the Oligarchs that pay these brainless hacks in these Think Tanks wanted to be able to discredit anything President Wilson Said after 1919 (when he appears to have figured out he was deceived). Yep, I know James Corbett could find that black and white video in a minute, and so can a lot of others with a following, so why not have something out there on the top of a Google search for when the average Joe tries to do his own research.
Second, perhaps the Oligarchs caused Wilson to have a Stroke after he got behind a Podium and was filmed speaking those words, and they made him just a figurehead for the rest of his term.
At least they didn’t hire 8 hit-men to blow his head off in broad daylight like they they did to JFK in 1963.
I few thoughts come to mind:
Most adults (agewise) I would need to show these books would be offended that I gave them a children’s book to try to educate them.
It is very sad that we depend on children to fix this shithole we built. They deserve better.
I find it strange how Connor thinks like a normie in several regards. For example, the military analogy. Anyone who has been introduced to concepts of liberty should find the concept of an army going to “theatre of war” despicable. Or so I would think.
Thank you, James, for yet another episode with Connor Boyack. Merci, Connor, for your superior series of scholarly counterculture young adult manuals designed to navigate the convoluted adult world of incessant cradle to grave establishment mierda de torro.
Currently in my 8th decade, I have a vague memory of being a child once. However, I do recall my friends and I spending a great deal of time riding our bikes, playing kick the can, enjoying fishing and water sports by the Sacramento River. Television had not come to our neighborhood. We entertained ourselves with library material, comic books, and radio plays – “Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows! HEHEHEHHE!” In grammar school my favorite subject was recess.
Connor, regarding 911, I can understand the reluctance to dive deeper as Mossad knows when you are sleeping. Knows when you’re awake. And your home address. That said, I imagined a provocative exchange between the twins on the subject:
Emily: Gosh, Ethan, I just read the NIST report on 911. What a crock.
Ethan: I know. What a bunch of debile dissimulators. How can they expect anyone to believe that nonsense. Especially after the report by the University of Alaska Fairbanks on the collapse of WTC7?
Emily: I’ve watched the collapse the north and south towers. It has to be as obvious as the hollow point blasting JFK’s brains out of the backseat that there were charges planted prior for both buildings to collapse at near free fall speed into their foundations.
Ethan: There appears to be plenty of evidence it was military grade thermite. And the Israeli art students?! Dancing Israelis?! C’mon! Silverstein sure cleaned up on that deal.
Emily: And a “plane” hitting the budget analyst offices at the Pentagon! My my, what a coincidence. By the way, where’s the plane?! Did you see a plane?!
Ethan: What a joke. Fox and the Pinocchio media sure worked overtime selling that fairytale!
Emily: Not to mention the flurry of United and American Airline shorts the day prior. More than six times normal. Talk about red flags.
Ethan: Hilarious, the “Muslim” hijacker flying a Boeing 757 into the Pentagon. Who but someone with recent brain damage could believe such a thing?!
Hope you don’t mind, Connor. I’ve provided the twins with temporary personality transplants. When they wake up they won’t remember a thing.
You’ve filled a previously overlooked niche with the Tuttle Twins. May they live long and fruitful lives. You and your patient, supportive wife as well.
“Emily: I’ve watched the collapse the north and south towers. It has to be as obvious as the hollow point blasting JFK’s brains out of the backseat that there were charges planted prior for both buildings to collapse at near free fall speed into their foundations.
Ethan: There appears to be plenty of evidence it was military grade thermite…”
A scientific paper published in 2009 introduced to the world the discovery of nano-thermite chips in the WTC dust. Two of the authors of the paper were Steven Jones and Niels Harrit.
Harrit made it abundantly clear at the 9/11 Toronto Hearings in 2011 that nano-thermite is an incendiary. In fact, he mentions that is an incendiary, no less than four times in his speech.
He finished his Toronto speech with the following statement:
“But the fact is regarding World Trade Center we do not know the nature of the explosives being used. Let me stress that.”
OneKnightErrant you are behind the times (and so is Connor Boyack).
We’ve come a long long way since the 2009 nano-thermite discovery and the 9/11 Toronto Hearings in 2011. That is now old school.
Hans Pommer turned the 9/11 conspiracy world upside down in 2016 with his ground-breaking research into miniature thermonuclear devices.
I have some clients (gardening and house-cleaning) that have one daughter who was going to private school. I wanted to give her a set of the Tuttle Twins books (the elementary set), but I thought that since she was about 10 (on the older end for the books – she is a voracious reader and was already reading much bigger books) if I donated the set of books to her school, they wouldn’t just get put on the shelf and forgotten after one quick read, and more children would have the opportunity to read them, so about three years ago, I tried to donate a set to this private school.
When they got back to me (left a message), the lady said they couldn’t accept the books because they were too political. This is a “conservative” private school. They didn’t go along with masking requirements during “covid.” But they would not accept a set of Tuttle Twins books. 🙁
In February of 2020, I offered our local public (very small, rural) library a set of Tuttle Twins books. Because they had refused some very nice (non-mainstream) books I offered them about 10 years ago, I kind of expected them to turn down the Tuttle Twins books too. They wanted to review them, and amazingly, the person they delegated to review them was someone I know who had homeschooled for a while and who also probably leans libertarian. It took until July and I had to kind of “pester” them, but I was pleasantly surprised that they did accept the donation. 🙂 I checked on them since then (to make sure they hadn’t been removed or sold in a library book sale) and they were still there, although they hadn’t been checked out much. I hoped they would feature them in some special way, but I guess that was wishful thinking.
I also donated a set to a nanny I know, and she has gotten at least one family hooked on Tuttle Twins, despite the parents’ liberal-leaning perspective. 🙂
Ooh, ooh!! Are you going to show the meme from a couple or three Halloween’s back that said, “For Halloween this year, I’m going to give away memory sticks filled with conspiracy theories. ”
What’s not to love about that? Hoot!! Be sure to just include snacks so they’re not sure who it came from, and have plenty to munch on while watching/listening. Hide it all in little hallo bags.
Now to hear your ideas.
Thanks James, I found this interview very interesting. Your guest can be counted among the few who answer what they have been asked!
With Christmas rolling closer and closer, I think The Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies can fit neatly, now.
The price point is fair and confrontable.
This is a simple gift to the family household of relatives and friends.
ha!…I’m laughing to myself…
This will help offset the damage that I have done to my own credibility over the years as a “conspiracy theorist” with friends and family.
The book serves as an “authority” which says that HRS is not crazy.
confrontable not sure if a typo, but still very fitting.
The book that proves you are not “off with the fairies” HomeRemedySupply. Interesting that conspiracy theories / facts are mainstreaming and ‘cool’ now. You were just an early adopter!
HEDGE110 says:
“Interesting that conspiracy theories / facts are mainstreaming and ‘cool’ now.“
You make a very important marketing point!
We need to milk this ‘fad sentiment’ for all its worth.
HEDGE110,
How are things down under where everything is upside down?
Hi HomeRemedySupply. Things are great over here in Australia. On the local level, noticing a lot more people on my street are engaging with each other – free horticulture workshops, Christmas Street Party and people saying hello to each other whilst on their walk.
In fact, our one car broke down whilst my wife was driving. My neighbours volunteered to pick my family up and get them home. They are a beautiful Sikh family and we are Christians (non-Church going at present). He is a taxi driver and when I tried to offer money he refused. He said to me, “I know if it was my family you would have done the same”. His comment will stay with me.
My hope is that as a community, we will be stronger when the next fear-mongering circus drives into town!
BUMP
Community Anecdote – Solid gold
Hear hear.
HEDGE,
Sidenote:
I was very surprised that Sydney and other parts of Australia ran this 2 minute Fox video clip around Oct 18th…
Dallas reviews adding fluoride to its drinking water
https://www.news.com.au/world/dallas-reviews-adding-fluoride-to-its-drinking-water/video/eb46c81a71f81c6c0012aee83cf6d6f9
After 10 years of persistence, we are in the thick of battle right now on the Fluoride fight.
Regina can be seen in the back during the clip. Regina knows how to do it…she has been an activist even since the early 60’s fighting the U.N. and has been personally involved with some big names…she and I talk almost daily. She is getting things choreographed.
HomeRemedySupply, the people that can ‘take on a fight’ are precious indeed (Go Regina!). Blatant spraying of the skies in Sydney each week and no-one utters a word. Same story with fluoride (except for parts of Queensland which have fought the fight for decades).
I am so so grateful for this kind of thing, and have just bought the 12 books for 5-11 year olds after watching this. I will probably buy the True Conspiracies one too if I can find a UK outlet, to give to a few grown-ups that I know. Thanks to Connor, and to James for spreading the word.
This is definitely going under the tree this year! Thank you for bringing it to our attention. I have a little conspiracy theorist that would love this. I’d love suggestions on any cartoons or GooTube videos aimed at children as well.
Now that it’s been said out loud, I’m looking for resources on how one would dodge the draft. The word needs to get out quickly IMHO.
Interesting timing for me. I just got a newsletter from The School of Thought about a new project they are launching Nov 6: https://theconspiracytest.org/
Have you guys heard of this? They also support Critical Thinking, have sites that talk about biases and fallacies and how to be rational but this one seems different (especially given who is one of the founders of that school – the guy from DDG)
Mr. Boyack`s effort with these book series are generally commendable I think.
Their strength definitely lays in creating/ presenting an easy “in” into the conspiracy world and meta politics for a younger audiences than usually would be exposed to such material, unfortunately – and as to his credit as he also acknowledges openly in this interview-, with the focus on “easily” accesible format their main weakness being an unavoidable superficiality, a thorough investigation of each of the 20 topics of his book could (and should) have (and has) of course filled volumes on their own.
But as long as they are meant/recognized as simply – as he puts it “a simple summary to send you on your own intellectual journey”, this is of course ok.
Unfortunately I must say I cannot square this proclaimed sober -and laudible- approach with his other book ” guide to modern villains ” that he refers to in the interview.
-Firstly with all due respect and no offense to american readers, in general I think that purely factually his books are bought/found helpful mainly by anglo-american audiences, not (continental) europeans, is that correct?
What makes me think that is that the format of simplicity in combination with emphasis on drawings resembling comic-book style is interestingly in my experience something uniquely appealing to the former, while often may seem a bit culturally strange to the latter.
-Secondly -in the same vein and with the same due respect and no offense- making an entire book where the whole premise of/idea behind is a collection of “villains” or as he puts it “bad dudes” is something that seems to really exemplify a rather typical american historical mind-set/ national self-image and politics:
Seemingly a tendency to divide the world and conflicts into a simple struggle of “bad guys” against “good guys” (and America and its leaders interestingly hardly ever or even never belonging to the former), in other words a rather predominant less-than-great introspection and nuance.
Unfortunately what additionally appears to contribute to this and -as some american historians like f.ex Mark Weber, director of the Institut for Historical Review (http://www.ihr.org/) also point out frequently- may actually be the main reason behind that mind-set is that war and large scale international conflicts for Americans historically actually have never taken place/being experienced by them in their own country, but only far away in foreign countries and of which they in addition unfortunately -due to as it seems cultural isolation and usually less-than-greatness of language skills- often know relatively little about.
War/conflict thus appears often to be approached more like something between a sports game and super hero comic book and nothing like the actual real life extremely nuanced horror it is inevitably for those countries/people having experienced it in/on their homes first hand for generations.
The culmination of this historical mind set seems to be- coming back to Mr. Boyack`s “guide to modern villains”- the popular narrative/historiography of WW2 and especially their (seemingly very popular) extremely negative depiction of the german chancellor Adolf Hitler while at the same time I wonder if an objective observer could perhaps justifieably also wonder if the irony may not be that exactly this typical anglo-american picture of Hitler and controversial figures like him as illustration of “everything that is/can be wrong with a human” actually end up paradoxically perfectly illustrating “everything that is/can be wrong with american historiography” and its mind-set?
Which hopefully somewhat fairly maybe could be summarized as 4 major points:
-how do i put this non-offendingly…?-
1. Little-bit-less-than-greatness of lingual abilities regarding the country talked about (thus inability of resarching/reading any original documentary evidence/grasping and cultural nuances of speech/word/expressions).
2. Non-entire-optimal-ness of holistic knowledge/experience about the culture and greater history/context of said country.
3. Slightly-less-than-greatness of self-reflection while sometimes rather greatness in finger-pointing at others (countries/leaders) .
4. Sometimes rather sweeping/ less-than-in-depth black (“Bad Guys”) and white (“Good Guys”) narratives instead of nuanced objective historiography.
And apologies, this american-historiography-critical rant will continue below..
If we purely factually examine -hopefully fairly- Mr Boyack`s “guide to modern villains” chapter about Hitler as example (though almost fully exchangeable, same applies to Mussolini, Castro, Nicholas the second, etc…)
1. Mr Boyack does not understand nor has ever tried to learn even the most basics of german language, correct?
2. His greater overarching knowledge about Germany`s 2000 plus years of lived history and relations in peace and war to other countries is minuscule at best (do I f.ex. assume correctly that basic questions as “Who was the first german king” or “How long did the First Reich last?” would not be able to be answered?), while his actual personal experience with the culture/country/people of these times is absolut zero (he never learned language/ customs nor has lived there for even a short time), correct?
3. He employs an entire chapter to defame/ accuse the german chancellor and gullible german people, while interestingly using not even one paragraph/page to equally look at his own country`s contemporary leader (FDR) `s or the american people`s WW2 behaviour`s flaws/crimes/gullability, correct?
(Given the abundance of primary evidence like f.ex. official british, french, polish and american documents and extensive Forrestal/Kennedy/Churchill testimony
-http://ihr.org/other/RooseveltBritishCollusion-
rather pointing to FDR actually being the main instigator of WW2 and its horrors, as also in detail summarized by former president Herbert Hoover in his book “Freedom Betrayed”, a rather truly strange omission..?)
4. The evidence he presents are exclusively taken out of repeated second hand collections/opinions/interpretations by others, he himself has done no original research and most fascinatingly of all seems not to have attempted to even search for or present even one (1) single evidence point or one (1) eye-witness or voice representing the other -defendant- side, correct?
(As f.ex. if interested: documents on Hitler`s 1933-37 multiple -all rejected- proposals for german and all-europewide total de-militarization and 25 year peace plan -resulting in jewish luminary Gertrude Stein`s nomination of him for the Nobel Peace Prize-, his 1938-45 more than twenty (20) -all rejected- peace offers to Poland and the Allies, FDR`s and his representative Bullitts`s deceitful campaign at least since 1936 to reject all Hitlers peace offers and fair diplomatic solutions with Poland)
If so, I am sorry, but could this not indeed be seen as indeed paradoxically actually checking all the boxes of “everything that is wrong with american historiography”?
And most of all Mr Boyack does this all while proclaiming to encourage critical thinking and writing these books to teach youngsters to examine independantly all “official government/historical narratives”?
While he -as anyone of us- is of course totally free to have and publish his own opinion/conviction about history, if it is based on research methods that do not adhere to even a minimal standard of objective scientific/historiographical investigation, what has this to do with “critical thinking”, “objective search for truth” or the pedagogical teaching thereof?
Sorry if this comment sounds too negative, all just my personal opinion/experience and could of course be wrong…
As said, in general his efforts to make conspiratorial/critical thinking easily available to young people is of course commendable.
Sorry, how did this post ever get so long…
Good points about examining “official government/historical narratives” and attempting to analyze them critically.
No human being is free from bias though and every parent, even a good parent will imprint some conditioning on their children.
Analyzing history in depth is probably impossible for a young child and would be more easily done as a teenager.
Eventually children become their own independent selves with their own minds and biases.
I would presume that a good parent would encourage their child to develop their own capacity to reason and research on their own and come to their own conclusions. This is probably more appropriate for young teens and young adults IMO.
I gave my students (16 – 17 year olds) a list of ‘true conspiracies’ very similar to the ones outlined by the author, and asked each of them to research and produce a short presentation to the class. Not sure whether it convinced them but at least introduced them to Operation Paperclip, Gulf of Tonkin, Tuskegee etc.
That’s cool. I remember when a teacher of mine had us write a paper defending a position we disagreed with and support it with evidence. I thought this was annoying but in retrospect, it was done to each us to look at actual evidence and come to our own conclusions. I wish I could thank my old teacher now. He was great.
I think teaching young people how to think for themselves and rigorously evaluate evidence is important.
Lots of great input here! For teaching kids about conspiracies though: I just got sent a link to this (apparently freshly minted and just out substack):
https://flyovervalley.substack.com. I was skeptical at first since it has literally just come into being but after the first couple of stories I’m in. Nice balance between telling a story a kid would like and tweaking this woke nonsense to laugh at or discuss with your kids. So check it out.
(And Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!)