> I have an article -- hnn.us/article/156791 -- that contends these citizens committees were instrumental in helping form and maintain the liberal-moderate consensus across U.S. politics and society from the 1940s through most of the '60s. And it explains why the record is as incompatible with conspiracy theories as with conventional pluralist models. I'd be delighted for you to comment online or privately, and to share the link.
Conspiracy precludes "personality conflicts, turf battles and disputes"? Has anyone informed the Attorney General?
Seriously, the knee-jerk allergy to "conspiracy theories" - and if a reifying generalization ever demanded conceptual analysis, that one surely does - is as unhelpful as the belief that World Events™ are conjured by a cabal of cigar-smoking, kabbalizing rabbis in a Josefov attic.
The problem with stereotypical conspiracy theories isn't that they are false - although most of them are - but that even when they are true, they are framed in a way that is radically disempowering. But trying to re-frame activities that clearly constitute attempts at what most people would call "conspiracy" as something else is just as unhelpful.
Never, ever, ever lie to the class. And if you want effectively to operationalize that command, construe "lie" as broadly as possible - even at the expense of your intellectual vanity.