September 11, 2024 • 51 mins
Adoption is, at heart, an amazing concept. People who'd love nothing more than being part of a family come together and create their own -- no two ways about it: adoption genuinely saves lives. At least, that is, when everything works as planned. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the harrowing, more sinister sides of the adoption industry.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Bull Mission Control Decads. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And we want to
do something very important. At the top of tonight's exploration.
(00:48):
We are talking about adoption, and we want to start
off by saying adoption is an amazing thing. It can
be a profound testament to the noble aspects of the
human experiment. I was reading this old, this old quote
(01:09):
from an amateur wrestler who later became President Abe Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I thought, you're gonna say, Jesse the Body venture though
he didn't become president, he was just a governor.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, well, there's this this concept in an inaugural speech
that Lincoln makes about the better angels of our nature,
and that that quote stays with me. I think it
stays with a lot of us, and adoption is one
of the true, real life examples of how people can
(01:43):
be better than you would imagine them to be.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah, we have several colleagues who have adopted, and we've
kind of followed that trajectory from you know, the all
the paperwork and the craziness that goes into it, and
it really does require a lot of effort, can be
very expensive and time consuming and ultimately disappointing for some
who do not you know, actually get to the to
the final stage. But it's a beautiful thing. Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Several of our colleagues have multiple children that they've adopted
and you know, have raised children all like, all the way,
all the way to adulthood.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
It is just to say that, like it is their child,
you know what I mean, Because we get into this
later in the show, but the idea of what adoption means,
it is a lifelong pursuit simply because you know, it
is giving all of yourself, you know, to a human
being and the same way you would if it were
your own flesh and blood.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And this brings us to an astonishing moment right now.
A lot of us listening along this evening may have
been adopted, right may have adopted children into their families.
It's a win win When it works, people who want
nothing more than to be parents literally are saving the
(03:02):
lives of children who want nothing more than to.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Be part of a family. That's pretty cool, dude. My
cousin is adopted and she's my cousin. It's something that
never crosses my mind. You know, she is family through
and through. There's no like second class nature to that relationship.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So it's crucial that we say all of this at
the very beginning because we are exploring an extremely sensitive subject.
This episode is in no way meant to diminish nor
disparage the beauty in that. We will have a We
will have a future exploration of the foster care system,
(03:40):
which we're going to bracket here. You got to understand,
fellow conspiracy realist, the reason we're talking so positively about
adoption when it works is because sometimes it doesn't. Tonight
we are exploring the dark side of adoption. Here are
(04:07):
the facts, all right. As we were saying earlier, we're
throwing the word adoption around. What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Adoption is when a human being assumes all the responsibilities
of a child that the biological parents would have according
to the laws of wherever you're living, and it is
a bit different than fostering. Maybe we should talk about
the difference between adopting someone legally and then being a
(04:34):
foster parent.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
In the US alone, tens of thousands of children are
adopted each year, and that number becomes particularly impressive once
we understand the regulations around who is allowed to adopt,
along with the emotional and financial aspects of this relationship. Again,
like I mentioned earlier, it is a significant expenditure for
(04:58):
folks that are seeking to to do this kindness, you know,
to another human being. It can take a very long time,
and it can often be riddled with disappointment if things
don't work out, despite the outlay of funds in order
to participate in the process. So it is very significant
in that respect, both emotionally and financially.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And to Matt's earlier point here, the difference between fostering
a human being and adopting a human beings, let's just
get that, get that articulated really quick for sure.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Just I mean fostering is more of a temporary sort
of stop gap measure, whereas adopting is for the long haul.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I think that's the primary difference really to point
to here when you choose to adopt, When when an
adult human being or human beings choose to adopt, it
is that legal taking on of all responsibilities in perpetuity.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Filial responsibilities would be the you know, the the word
for this with a tie on is filial rights and responsibilities.
There are rights included in this as well, which is
historically mission critical. Our pal Jacob Silverman, utter legend from
(06:18):
our alma mater, How Stuff Works, describes adoption as a
lifelong process, and I think that's an exceedingly accurate way
to look at this. It's not it's not an on
and off switch, you know, It's not a one afternoon
in Burma kind of thing. The modern form of adoption
(06:39):
as practiced today did emerge in the United States Go Team,
but versions of this have existed across human culture at
every age of human history. I mean, I was looking
back at the Coda Hamarabi because I'm fun of parties,
and the adoption is mentioned in the first written instance
(07:03):
of law. But adoption was very different in evenings past.
A lot of it was meant to not necessarily create
a family, but more so to to do geo political
(07:25):
or intertribal things like that. One of the big things
was you had to have a male heir, right, you
had to have a little guy to carry it on.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, yeah, and there I think in the news right
now there's information circulating about Japan's only male air has
just become eighteen or something, and it's a huge deal.
And if you can only imagine through all the centuries
when marnarky has prevailed in most parts of the world,
(07:59):
having the you know, the rules that you got to
have a male that takes over everything. It was a
huge deal for a royal family in particular to have
someone in line. And it is weird to think how
people just get kind of could be pushed up through
that system if you did choose to adopt someone from
(08:19):
another you know, close to royal family or something, you know,
something like that, to arrange for another person to take
over once the crown whoever dies.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, that's the thing, you know. I was astonished to
find a while back that some of the emperors of
ancient Rome were on purpose adopted by on purpose, I
mean they were adopted not necessarily to be part of
a family, but to continue some weird dynasty.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well because you could train them. Once you adopt that person,
you can basically make them one of us us right, right, So.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Who is free and who is a slave. In the
Roman Empire, there fame as a cage. Let's remember that.
Sadly though, the adoption of infants, like in the modern evenings,
a lot of times when folks are searching to adopt
a child, they're looking for the youngest human possible. Infant
(09:24):
adoption was kind of rare historically in the ancient empires,
you might see cases where what we'll call a foundling
is taken in raised as a member of the family,
primarily because most people are like working in farms or
(09:46):
agriculture and they want that free labor. Shout out. Also
to show Nolan and I do called ridiculous history, you
can you can check out our brother Matt Frederick on
that with one of my favorite sound cues. Noel, do
you remember we did the story about the orphan train.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Absolutely, I mean, like the well meaning, well intentioned program
in the United States too. On the way I'm going
to say it is gonna sound well mean, but to
round up children with seemingly having no parents and ship
them off to work in farms, to be looked after
by kindly farmer families, again well intentioned. There were abuses.
(10:29):
There was a lack of infrastructure that led to some
issues with kids falling through the cracks, but ultimately, at
the end of the day, there it was at least
a partial success story.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Noble intent better angels of our nature. They also did
auction children. There was auction.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I want to point out another thing that's in popular culture.
It's a story that has been passed down for a
long time where there are two warring factions and some
child is left, you know, in a village or something
that has been raised by the enemy forces of that village,
and there's a child there. One of the warlords or
(11:09):
people end up adopting that child and they become like
an apprentice and then moved up. And that's just a
popular thing that occurs. That doesn't really I don't know
if there is any historical significance to that or I
that is, you know, a tale born of something that
actually happened.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
But I just I know I see that a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
And another example historically speaking is of course Moses from
the Bible, from the Book of Exodus, who is found
as a babe in the Russias or whatever, and adopted
by a powerful family and then ultimately became a pretty important,
powerful political figure.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Let's just say I love it. We also know a
great reference to Moses here, because we also know that
Moses lucked out or was predestined to have an extraordinary
interaction with the world. Because for ages past around this
(12:05):
part of Earth, abandoned kids were often not foundlings. They
were often enslaved, and they actually, in the Roman Empire days,
they formed a significant part of the supply chain of
the Roman Empire's slave industry.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yes, slaves or soldiers, right, I mean, you're automatically conscripted
now again, because of wartime interactions between families that would
get slaughtered and then some children that would be left.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Every horrible thing that you can possibly imagine happening to
someone in this situation did at some point occur. This
is very unclean stuff. But let's look at other empires
civilizations in India and China, they also had ancient adoption practices. Again,
(13:00):
they would seem very different to modern adoption practices because
in a lot of cases in those various civilizations, the
idea was to it was like insurance. The idea was
to guarantee that when you died, correct funeral rites would
(13:22):
be enacted. Someone would continue. Also spoiler alert, a male
heir specifically would be around to do the proper ancestor worship.
Fall of Rome leads to a decline in adoption in
Europe because, shout out to George R. R. Martin, the
(13:43):
dominant cultures that rose from the flotsam and jetsam of
the shipwrecked Roman Empire, those cultures in Europe, they put
so much importance on bloodlines, just like the ancient Egyptians.
Their thing was more incest is okay, you know, let's
(14:06):
keep it in the family.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Oh when you put it like that, ben gives out
a whole nother meaning, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Well, the thing is I'm saying, in contrast to ancient Rome,
and contrast to ancient civilizations in India or China, they
weren't they weren't adopting, they weren't hiring from outside the
network and.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
By design, though, right, I mean, like to your point,
I mean, I was just saying, keeping it in the family
when you start talking about incests just makes it kind
of take on a little extra ick. But certainly the
insular nature of these civilizations and these types of governments
and powerful families. I mean that's well established.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, agreed. Now fast forward. There's a ton of other
stuff that happens. We're here in twenty twenty four. We
are coming to you from the United States. In the US,
the adoption process vary state by state. The laws in
Massachusetts may not be the same as the laws in Mississippi.
(15:06):
If you are adopting children from another country, you have
to abide by the laws and regulations of your child's
birth country, which I think makes sense.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
I don't know, it's sure it does.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
You have to abide by both laws, both sets of laws, right.
Adopting from another country is a whole other thing.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Domestic adoption is the process of assuming the filial rights
and responsibilities for a kid who is in the same
country as you. Foster adoption is I think we're accurate
the way we put it. Foster adoption is not necessarily permanent.
(15:53):
It can evolve into a permanent adoption. International adoption is
when you assume those filial rights and responsibilities for a
kid from a different country, and typically those kids are
going to be in an orphanage. They may be in
foster care, they may have no real family support network.
(16:18):
It's not a mandatory part of the process for adoption,
but most people, the vast majority of families adopting a child,
will work with things we call adoption agencies.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Sure, and we have some friends and colleagues that have
gone through that process as well that we've witnessed. And
it is a lot of red tape, let's just say, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
And many states have their own kind of systems for
that and agencies for that.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yes, And even now in the United States, some of
those let's call them brokers, brokering partners, facilitators, are heavily religious.
They're based in religion. Everybody's got their own spiritual system.
(17:10):
We just have to note that it is really important
to understand that.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well, I think, whatever your views on religion might be,
it's important to acknowledge that there are religious organizations that
at their heart, you know, are out to do good
and to help people.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah. Yeah, well said. And so we're saying there's a long,
at times astonishing history of human beings providing care for
children that might not otherwise get the one thing everyone deserves,
a decent shot at a life well lived. When everything
goes as it should. We bear witness to this fundamental
(17:52):
I'm not sure, something better than beauty. I'm not sure
what the right word is, but this fundamental, noble aspect
of the human experiment. Our question tonight what happens when
things go wrong?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
We'll find out after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Here's where it gets crazy, all right, doesn't always go
as planned?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, Oh of course, I don't know why, guys. I
woke up watching Jim Carrey videos. I had a bit
of a dream about him and some of the some
of the things that he has been talking about over
the past decade when he's you know, going and giving
a speech for an award show and award ceremony or
(18:42):
going on a talk show.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
His kind of zen phase that he's sort of entered, right.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and he's gone now towards a more religious thing
that I just don't know much about. But in that
time period at least he makes this beautiful point about
you know, who is the point of consciousness that believes
he's Jim Carrey and was playing the part of Jim
Carrey and all this stuff. And when you think about
just any of any of us, our identities, the things
we hold dear, the things we believe, the way we
(19:09):
feel about anything. It all is shaped by the human
beings that are around us, the thoughts that enter our brains,
the words that are said to us, the actions that
we observe. And when you take on these responsibilities through adoption,
you are you are taking the responsibility of shaping another consciousness, right,
I mean at the heart of it. And it's it's
(19:32):
as we've said, and Ben, you're just talking about trying
to find the right word for what is that? What
is the how do you describe that process? Is it beautiful?
Is it astonishing? Like? What is that thing? And I
don't have the right word for it. Besides, it's it's
a responsibility. That word responsibility.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
It's all encompassing, is what it is, right, I mean,
it's everything.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You're shaping a life, absolutely, and unless you feel that
weight and you're prepared for that responsibility, as you said,
then it can go very wrong, and it can go
extremely wrong if there are about intentions somewhere along that path.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, what we're saying here is there are ongoing, provable,
egregious problems with aspects of the adoption industry, especially on
a global level. A lot of these issues echo historical
instances of corruption and crime and conspiracy. These unclean things
(20:27):
often continue in the modern day. Let's talk about forced adoption, right,
that's the immediate dark side, right, Like back in the
evenings of the Roman Empire and Indian and Chinese civilizations
and honestly the world over. These kids didn't have a
(20:48):
right to consent, you know what I mean. The parents
didn't have the right to say, hey, it's okay to
adopt my kid. They were murdered in war, you know
what I mean. They were conquered by blood and treasure.
And one of the most I would argue, one of
the most immediately recognizable recent examples of this is in
(21:12):
North America, in the United States, well the anglosphere overall,
arguably in the United States and in Canada, Native American children, right.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Yeah. We talked recently, I think in Strange News about
an update to the story of these Native American schools,
or schools built in order to assimilate Native American children,
and just how many children died under tragic circumstances within
these institutions. For decades, the US government abducted thousands of
(21:44):
Native children and forced them into those boarding schools, where
the goal was to again assimilate them, strip them entirely
of their culture, their language, their customs, and essentially erase
their history entirely. This is a an organized attempt at
cultural erasure. At the peak of this era, there were
(22:06):
more than three hundred and fifty Native American boarding schools
across the United States, and this also took place in
a slightly different arrangement over in Canada.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It's crazy to think about three hundred and fifty different schools.
In my mind, at least when we were first learning
about this, I imagined a dozen, maybe a few dozen
schools that existed, like on the frontiers of wherever the
United States territory was expanding or something. But no, no, no,
this is three hundred and fifty different schools that were
doing the same process.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
That we know about exactly terrifying.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Well, and we've just learned how many of these schools
had literally a makeshift graveyard, or using the word graveyard
is probably overstating it at a site as mass graves
of children that would just basically disappear not only from
their family when they were taken into one of these schools,
(23:01):
but now from all of history, because they died in
whatever circumstance while they're at the school, and now they're.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Just buried, right things, you know, not necessarily someone purposely
murdering these children.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
But not necessarily disease.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Or lack of sanitation, right this. These programs also were
often we don't want to you know, step on any
crosses here, but they were often church led. They were
led by the Christian Church of some doctrine or denomination,
and they occurred in step with a larger push to
(23:43):
encroach upon tribal land through kinetic war, through insidious policies,
and as ever, breaking promises and treaties.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
I mean, if anyone had a chance to see Killers
of the Flower Moon, you see how that assimilation and
was utterly taken advantage of in order to rob these
individuals of their tribal land and their wealth, especially in
areas where that land may have sat upon oil reserves
(24:15):
or other precious mining materials. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah, there's a great there's a great Netflix show I've
been watching recently, and I don't have a lot of
time to watch these things, but it's called Dark Winds.
Have you guys heard of this?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
I saw it advertised. I'd like to check it out.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
It's a banger. I've got to read the books it's
based on. But there's your concept of oil exploration or
resource extraction reminds me of this. It's just it's so
good anyway, a totally different thing. Most people nowadays in
the US know about these sins of the government. However,
(24:56):
you might be. You might be surprised learn there were
weaponized policies and initiatives created not to dance around this
idea of assimilation of forst adoption, but to do it
blatantly up front, on purpose. The Indian Adoption Project would
(25:19):
steal children from native families and purposely place them with
families they considered let's call it white enough, right.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
The thing is they're not orphans, they're not. They have parents,
and the parents were trying to get their kids back,
and in many cases they simply could not because the
system was rigged against them. It reminds me of not
to get too political, it reminds me of what's happening
(25:52):
in recent years with Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I can only imagine it occurred a lot during the
years of the Crusades, where maybe you know Catholic armies
would roam through fine children and then assimilate them.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah, it's it's a scary thing because also these folks,
we have to understand, are making a greater good argument.
They're saying, well, usually we guild the children. Now we're
doing something different.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's like it's less on paper
horrifying than genocide, but kind of has a similar outcome.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Genocide with more steps.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Yeah, it's like psychological genocide in a way. It's it's
very bizarre and unclean, as you would say, Ben.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, so say we all. We also know that in Australia,
which has its own intensely disturbing history with the people
who are already living in Australia for thousands of years,
and as well as in the United Kingdom, similar practices
(27:09):
of forced adoption occurred. Surprising to learn, perhaps that the
practice of forced adoption continued up until the nineteen seventies.
In Britain, we're talking two hundred and fifty thousand mothers
were forced to give up their children, not because they
(27:31):
were criminals, not because they did anything bad, but because
they were not married. They were single moms, and that
meant they could not be moms.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yikes, I think, and it's shown in a couple of places.
You can look it up right now, that the anti
abortion movements within any country will often push rates of
adoption much higher. And it is often based on this
same kind of thing that was happening in Britain.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Where some.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
What would you call it a more sure something was
violated right in the consummation of this child. So adoption
is the correct move, at least so say the prevailing
religious ideals.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Right, yeah, most of these most of these families were
broken up with birth mothers who were under twenty four
and unmarried, and it does appear there was an active
conspiracy to pressure these young people into conforming. Right the
(28:41):
nail that stands out shall be hammered down, and that
the monarchy was doing that. Similar practices occur again in
cultures the world round. This is not a glasshouse situation,
never is. It's a glass planet. Most of the countries
are committing the same sins at some point around the
(29:03):
same time. What sixties nineteen sixties Chile, largely poor young
indigenous women are either forced to give up their biological
children or their children are stolen from them. This is
true right after childbirth. They told the mothers that the
(29:24):
kids died, and they just took the kids and then,
you know, just like in the US, they often sterilized
the birth mothers while they had them on the operating table.
There are so many other cases Argentina as well. We're
not gonna we're not going to explore that tonight, but
please do investigate the dirty war on your own, as
(29:48):
it's called. We have to understand that there are adoption conspiracies.
They are real and they are evil things that leads
us to the next related branch here, not just forced adoption,
but child abduction, human trafficking. We're going to pause for
(30:12):
a word from our sponsors. Please please please consider this
the disclaimer. We are going to talk about again unclean things.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
And we're back. Yeah, let's just rip the band aid off.
Human trafficking. For many families in the West, international adoption
of a child, you know, can feel like a moral act,
you know, a moral imperative. As so often is noted,
the world is absolutely full of children who are not wanted,
(30:53):
are not loved, and do need help. Therefore, the question
kind of naturally arises, why should we create child when
we could save one that already exists, you know, perhaps
orphaned by a neglect, war, you know, living in war zones,
constantly at risk disease, any number of scenarios. What can
(31:16):
we do, as individuals with means to make a positive difference,
especially when it comes to helping a child in need,
rescuing a child, perhaps from a brutal situation. Unfortunately, though,
as often tends to be the case, where there are
good intentions and folks with means, there are often other
folks there to intercept that situation and twist it to
(31:39):
their own despicable ends.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, it's just I again, I hate to say this
because I know our job is to articulate things here,
but I don't have the words in this language to
describe situations where you see human children treated like stray dogs.
(32:04):
And that does happen, and it is an abomination. In
some cases, we may be talking about children who require
medical care that is simply beyond the reach of their
social structure, right or their biological family. And if you
adopt these kids, then you may be able to give
(32:28):
them the care and the treatment that they need. Again,
a noble imperative. There is no argument that in hundreds
of thousands, perhaps millions of cases. Adoptive families make an
enormous and positive difference for the world. However, again, it's
(32:50):
not always the case. You know, what if these children
are adopted by bad faith actors, What if these kids
already have parents, were those biological parents allowed to consent
to this adoption?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well, as we said at the very top of the episode,
if you are choosing to go through the process of
international adoption, you're not only choosing to trust the agency
you're going through from whatever country you're in. You're also
choosing to trust the agency or the group or the
individuals on the other end of this weird bargain that
(33:27):
you're making, and you're trusting that they have good intentions
and they have taken actions that are correct through whatever
system they're operating under and through whatever laws that are
applicable there, and as well as just the moral stuff
like how is this child coming into this situation?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah? What will this child remember? What will they recollect?
And the main thing we have to note here is
that when these conspiracies occur, it's not it's almost never
the adoptive family. They are good faith actors. They are
(34:10):
you know, to your point, Noel, the idea of saying, hey,
why would we make a kid when we can help
one that already exists. We see time and time again
that people run into run into the wrong end of
the conspiracy. Here, there's a guy named David Smullen who
(34:32):
is the director of the Center for Children Law and
Ethics over at Sanford University. Back in nineteen ninety eight,
the Smollen family adopted two children from India sisters, and
later they learned that these children were stolen from their
birth mother. I just I can't imagine the weight of
(34:56):
this tragedy, Like we're saying, nobody, I mean, maybe somebody,
maybe a billionaire or an emperor, adopts children on a whim,
But most people are treating this very seriously. And can
you imagine, you know, can you imagine what happens when
(35:18):
you learn that you have non consensually become the quote
unquote back guy.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That's an intense story. There's an NPR article you can
look up if you would like to to learn more
about this from July two thousand and seven titled an
Adoption Gone Wrong. That is just that's a harrowing tale.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
There.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
There's also something that comes up again and again the
idea of providing a human child with a family rather
than a life in an institution. You can read about,
for instance, certain circumstances during the Cold War, which hasn't
(36:01):
stopped there Like in countries that said AIDS doesn't exist.
Then children who were born with HIV were just raised
in institutions. They did not have the opportunity for the
formative care that fundamentally sort of makes a person a person. Like,
(36:26):
institutions are a bad place for a kid to grow up.
You know, if anybody here who has an office job,
imagine you were born in your office. You never got
to leave your office. You didn't have any parental figures.
You had like a boss, and you had you know,
(36:48):
an HR or something like that, or a bunch of
nuns or a bunch of really cartoonishly pissed off nuns, yeah, or.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Very sweet nuns.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah. Right, you're right, you're right, you're right. I'm being
a jerky you're right, man.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Well, you know, we've certainly talked about situations where the
church can do great good, facilitate great acts of charity
and kindness, and we've also certainly seen the flip side
of that where religious institutions can do great damage and
great harm, and it's great disservices to you know, innocence.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, And when we talk about the dangers being raised
in an institution or a system versus a as our power,
Lauren would say, an actual facts family. We're not just
talking about psychological damage. We're not talking mental or cognitive
challenges alone. We're also talking about clearly traceable physical hazards
(37:53):
for these humans as they develop. You know, you can
read fascinating and intensely disturbing studies of the long term
post traumatic stress disorder, syndrome and related stuff that hits
people who, for instance, grow up as in a persecuted
(38:14):
minority demographic, or people who grow up in institutions. They're
going to have higher rates of heart disease, They're going
to have higher rates of diabetes. It's what we're saying
is that if you have the privilege and the ability
to adopt the kit to save an innocent person from
(38:37):
such a troubling thing, why would you not do it.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Let's jump really quickly, Ben, you found something about this
in particular that they're around or they're an estimated eight
million children growing up in some in some way like
this that you're describing, and that is an estimate from UNSEF,
originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
But this is.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
It's mind boggling to imagine eight million children growing up
in something like at least what's described in the article
you found Ben, that Romanian boarding school of some sort,
where it's just children who have learned to not cry
because their cries are never attended to, so they're just silent,
(39:28):
and then the children grow up that way. Yeah, it's
pretty horrifying.
Speaker 5 (39:35):
Really.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Sometimes it seems that kids being adopted, as you said, Matt,
through these international brokers, maybe maybe products commodities they may
be sold. There is a vast there are multiple networks
of conspirators that spend a great deal of time attempting
(40:01):
to appear legit, attempting to appear like, hey, we're an
Ngo or gong Go and we're helping because we, like you,
want these kids to have a better life. Also, let's
talk economics.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
This is horrible, and I know I don't mean to
downplay the severity of this situation we're describing, but there's
so many parallels to the puppy mills industry that it exists,
and just then applying that to humanity, it's.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Just a whole other.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Level of evil.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, the creatures doing these things do not differentiate between
a human being and a dog.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
That's why it's such a good parallel, Matt, And you're
absolutely right as far as they're concerned, it's just a
business model that's more even probably even more lucrative.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Let's go back briefly to Chile. The provable conspiracy in
Chile involved multiple actors. Now that's the most difficult bar
for proving a genuine conspiracy. Multiple like a multi polar
network of people capable of not just keeping a secret,
(41:18):
but also successfully accomplishing a task. That's it's a very
difficult thing. It doesn't happen all the time. But in
Chile we're talking foster homes, hospitals, hotels, social workers, lawyers, judges,
diplomats all participating. And you can learn more about this
by checking out the NGOs, the institutions that are now
(41:43):
dedicated to helping these abducted children learn more about their past.
The vice president of Connecting Routes, one of these organizations,
while Luis Insulza, he noted that people in groups who
parte anticipated in this criminal enterprise, this trafficking of children
(42:04):
in Chile, they were under the protection of the Chilean state.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
I mean, how much more twisted can you get? Whereas
the body that is meant to protect children, that is
meant to protect citizens is actually colluding, you know, with
bad actors against them. And we're certainly not naive. We
know this kind of stuff happens, you know, where there's
two faced individuals that are part of these governments that
are acting as though they're, you know, there for the
(42:33):
greater good, but in fact they're there for something entirely
different and much more insidious and self serving.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, there's a title for this, at least in the
United States law books, titled adoption deception as like a
specific type of conspiracy and crime that can be committed.
I was just looking at it specifically in Louisiana, guys,
because I was remembering some of these tales of adoption
(43:02):
agencies slash religious groups or at least front facing religious
groups that were that were taking children and abusing them.
And then there's there are multiple instances of popular culture
in television and film that you know, use these stories
as the basis of a fictional story.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
That they're telling.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Yeah, we see it in fiction because the truth exists, right,
because the nonfiction informs the explorations. And this is I
would say the folks creating that fiction are doing a
great service because they are informing the public, right, making
(43:45):
you think twice. When you get a letter from an
organization you've never heard of with an innocuous name, right
and somehow relates to religion, wants a little money from
you might help you adopt a child. There's a magnitude
of crime here and people who in the case of Chile,
(44:08):
around the world, individuals and sometimes other adoption agencies were misled,
like you said, they were victims of adoption deception or
deceived about the the origin of these kids. And let's
focus on the kids. These kids are humans. They grow up,
(44:29):
they have adventures, they live, they fall in love, you know,
and they have their ship and story and so on.
And then imagine you are what's a good age, what's
like a good human age?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Goodness?
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Like adult human?
Speaker 4 (44:45):
Oh I don't know, just say quintessential twenty one?
Speaker 3 (44:48):
All right, Let's say you're twenty one years old, and
then you learn that not only like maybe you already
knew you were a child of adoption, but then you
learn that you're biolog logical parents have been trying to
reach you for twenty years and they've been searching for you,
you know what I mean. That's scary, dude.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Well, it's also like so complicated because it's not the
fault of your adoptive parents, not at all. So then
you're put in the middle where it's like this really
complex range of emotions where you almost like resent your
adoptive parents even though they don't deserve that. And it's
(45:30):
like you even if you know that, it doesn't mean that.
Like I always say, like intellect and feelings are two
very different things, and it would just be such a
mind f you know. You know, yeah, And I couldn't
imagine being put in that situation. I don't know what
I would do or how it would feel. It's just
too fraud you know.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Some boffins over at the United Nations back in twenty
twenty two argued that the entire practice of international adoption
should be discontinued. I'm not sure if I agree with that,
because again, it's a matter of saving lives. But they
said that elite what they call illegal intercuntry adoptions quote
(46:16):
may constitute serious crimes such as genocide or crimes against humanity.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Oh god, I think this is It's the same problem
the Boy Scouts of America faced when they were first founded.
Remember when we talked about that. The big problem they
had is that, just by the nature of the organization
dealing with children, you would get bad actors. Because it
was a voluntary system when you could join in to
(46:44):
be a Scout master, a Scout leader, or local person
in the organization. Just by the nature of the thing,
there would be some people that got into it for
the wrong reasons, or for terrifying reasons, or terrible reasons.
The same thing with some of these agencies and systems
that are being set up. You're going to have some
people who are going to be bad actors. How the
(47:05):
heck do you defend you know, especially if you're talking
about a massive organization, how do you defend it against
something like that?
Speaker 5 (47:14):
I don't know. I don't have the answer.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
I don't know if anyone does. You know, that's the thing.
These conspiracies are real. Do not forget that. We also
keep in front of mind the parents. To your point, Noel,
they're not in on some kind of grift. These are
not kissingers, they're not war criminals, they're not monsters. They
are by and large super good parents. They are They
(47:40):
just are they are.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
But we cannot dismiss some of the other parts of
adoption and foster care that we've seen where there are
abusive relationships on the parents side, and again that is
we have to be able to look at individual cases, right,
and there are many individual cases where the children are
(48:01):
specifically adopted and moved into a system with the abusive
parents that are on some kind of mission of their
own of whatever they're doing.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Right, with very little oversight, even in what we would
call quote unquote developed countries. And that's part of why
we're saving the foster care episode, which candidly is going
to be going to be difficult. Let's end on this
this positive note. There are good parents, right, and every
(48:36):
kid deserves a chance. And if you suspect you are
a loved one, maybe in a situation involving abduction or
trafficking or bad faith actors in the realm of international adoption,
don't hesitate to reach out. Weirdly enough, there are for
most countries that you can imagine there is some sort
(48:59):
of NGO that will attempt to help you. If you
believe an adoption agency in the US or abroad may
be involved in criminal activity, report the agency to law enforcement.
Do not hesitate to do so, because the worst that
will happen is if that agency is legit, they'll have
(49:20):
to provide some paperwork, They'll have to do a couple
extra emails.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
I think that's a very easy cost benefit calculus. Absolutely,
And if you are one of the millions of families
who has adopted a child, if you were one of
the millions of people who grew up in an adoptive family,
please remember you've already made the world a better place.
(49:45):
Thank you for tuning in. This is only the beginning,
as we were saying, of a larger conversation, we would
love to hear from you. Stay tuned for our future
episode on the foster care system, Be safe and reach
out to us online. That's a weird segue for such
a heavy episode.
Speaker 5 (50:05):
Well, yeah, we'd love to hear positive stories.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Yeah, they were right.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
I mean, I think that would be something really nice
to share on one of our listener mail episodes.
Speaker 5 (50:13):
So if you've got a positive.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Story, email us, call us, hit us up on social
media and we'll tell you how to do that.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
That's right. You can find us all over the internet
at the handle of Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist, on Facebook,
where you can join in on the conversation in our
Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy. Also on YouTube
where we have a video content galore for you to enjoy,
and x fka Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we
(50:41):
are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
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When you call in, it's a voicemail system. Give yourself
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It's three minutes. So if you've got more to say
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instead shoot us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive, be aware yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back,
We'd love to hear from you. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Bull Mission Control Decads. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And we want to
do something very important. At the top of tonight's exploration.
(00:48):
We are talking about adoption, and we want to start
off by saying adoption is an amazing thing. It can
be a profound testament to the noble aspects of the
human experiment. I was reading this old, this old quote
(01:09):
from an amateur wrestler who later became President Abe Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I thought, you're gonna say, Jesse the Body venture though
he didn't become president, he was just a governor.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, well, there's this this concept in an inaugural speech
that Lincoln makes about the better angels of our nature,
and that that quote stays with me. I think it
stays with a lot of us, and adoption is one
of the true, real life examples of how people can
(01:43):
be better than you would imagine them to be.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah, we have several colleagues who have adopted, and we've
kind of followed that trajectory from you know, the all
the paperwork and the craziness that goes into it, and
it really does require a lot of effort, can be
very expensive and time consuming and ultimately disappointing for some
who do not you know, actually get to the to
the final stage. But it's a beautiful thing. Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Several of our colleagues have multiple children that they've adopted
and you know, have raised children all like, all the way,
all the way to adulthood.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
It is just to say that, like it is their child,
you know what I mean, Because we get into this
later in the show, but the idea of what adoption means,
it is a lifelong pursuit simply because you know, it
is giving all of yourself, you know, to a human
being and the same way you would if it were
your own flesh and blood.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And this brings us to an astonishing moment right now.
A lot of us listening along this evening may have
been adopted, right may have adopted children into their families.
It's a win win When it works, people who want
nothing more than to be parents literally are saving the
(03:02):
lives of children who want nothing more than to.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Be part of a family. That's pretty cool, dude. My
cousin is adopted and she's my cousin. It's something that
never crosses my mind. You know, she is family through
and through. There's no like second class nature to that relationship.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So it's crucial that we say all of this at
the very beginning because we are exploring an extremely sensitive subject.
This episode is in no way meant to diminish nor
disparage the beauty in that. We will have a We
will have a future exploration of the foster care system,
(03:40):
which we're going to bracket here. You got to understand,
fellow conspiracy realist, the reason we're talking so positively about
adoption when it works is because sometimes it doesn't. Tonight
we are exploring the dark side of adoption. Here are
(04:07):
the facts, all right. As we were saying earlier, we're
throwing the word adoption around. What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Adoption is when a human being assumes all the responsibilities
of a child that the biological parents would have according
to the laws of wherever you're living, and it is
a bit different than fostering. Maybe we should talk about
the difference between adopting someone legally and then being a
(04:34):
foster parent.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
In the US alone, tens of thousands of children are
adopted each year, and that number becomes particularly impressive once
we understand the regulations around who is allowed to adopt,
along with the emotional and financial aspects of this relationship. Again,
like I mentioned earlier, it is a significant expenditure for
(04:58):
folks that are seeking to to do this kindness, you know,
to another human being. It can take a very long time,
and it can often be riddled with disappointment if things
don't work out, despite the outlay of funds in order
to participate in the process. So it is very significant
in that respect, both emotionally and financially.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And to Matt's earlier point here, the difference between fostering
a human being and adopting a human beings, let's just
get that, get that articulated really quick for sure.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Just I mean fostering is more of a temporary sort
of stop gap measure, whereas adopting is for the long haul.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I think that's the primary difference really to point
to here when you choose to adopt, When when an
adult human being or human beings choose to adopt, it
is that legal taking on of all responsibilities in perpetuity.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Filial responsibilities would be the you know, the the word
for this with a tie on is filial rights and responsibilities.
There are rights included in this as well, which is
historically mission critical. Our pal Jacob Silverman, utter legend from
(06:18):
our alma mater, How Stuff Works, describes adoption as a
lifelong process, and I think that's an exceedingly accurate way
to look at this. It's not it's not an on
and off switch, you know, It's not a one afternoon
in Burma kind of thing. The modern form of adoption
(06:39):
as practiced today did emerge in the United States Go Team,
but versions of this have existed across human culture at
every age of human history. I mean, I was looking
back at the Coda Hamarabi because I'm fun of parties,
and the adoption is mentioned in the first written instance
(07:03):
of law. But adoption was very different in evenings past.
A lot of it was meant to not necessarily create
a family, but more so to to do geo political
(07:25):
or intertribal things like that. One of the big things
was you had to have a male heir, right, you
had to have a little guy to carry it on.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, yeah, and there I think in the news right
now there's information circulating about Japan's only male air has
just become eighteen or something, and it's a huge deal.
And if you can only imagine through all the centuries
when marnarky has prevailed in most parts of the world,
(07:59):
having the you know, the rules that you got to
have a male that takes over everything. It was a
huge deal for a royal family in particular to have
someone in line. And it is weird to think how
people just get kind of could be pushed up through
that system if you did choose to adopt someone from
(08:19):
another you know, close to royal family or something, you know,
something like that, to arrange for another person to take
over once the crown whoever dies.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, that's the thing, you know. I was astonished to
find a while back that some of the emperors of
ancient Rome were on purpose adopted by on purpose, I
mean they were adopted not necessarily to be part of
a family, but to continue some weird dynasty.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well because you could train them. Once you adopt that person,
you can basically make them one of us us right, right, So.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Who is free and who is a slave. In the
Roman Empire, there fame as a cage. Let's remember that.
Sadly though, the adoption of infants, like in the modern evenings,
a lot of times when folks are searching to adopt
a child, they're looking for the youngest human possible. Infant
(09:24):
adoption was kind of rare historically in the ancient empires,
you might see cases where what we'll call a foundling
is taken in raised as a member of the family,
primarily because most people are like working in farms or
(09:46):
agriculture and they want that free labor. Shout out. Also
to show Nolan and I do called ridiculous history, you
can you can check out our brother Matt Frederick on
that with one of my favorite sound cues. Noel, do
you remember we did the story about the orphan train.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Absolutely, I mean, like the well meaning, well intentioned program
in the United States too. On the way I'm going
to say it is gonna sound well mean, but to
round up children with seemingly having no parents and ship
them off to work in farms, to be looked after
by kindly farmer families, again well intentioned. There were abuses.
(10:29):
There was a lack of infrastructure that led to some
issues with kids falling through the cracks, but ultimately, at
the end of the day, there it was at least
a partial success story.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Noble intent better angels of our nature. They also did
auction children. There was auction.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I want to point out another thing that's in popular culture.
It's a story that has been passed down for a
long time where there are two warring factions and some
child is left, you know, in a village or something
that has been raised by the enemy forces of that village,
and there's a child there. One of the warlords or
(11:09):
people end up adopting that child and they become like
an apprentice and then moved up. And that's just a
popular thing that occurs. That doesn't really I don't know
if there is any historical significance to that or I
that is, you know, a tale born of something that
actually happened.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
But I just I know I see that a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
And another example historically speaking is of course Moses from
the Bible, from the Book of Exodus, who is found
as a babe in the Russias or whatever, and adopted
by a powerful family and then ultimately became a pretty important,
powerful political figure.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Let's just say I love it. We also know a
great reference to Moses here, because we also know that
Moses lucked out or was predestined to have an extraordinary
interaction with the world. Because for ages past around this
(12:05):
part of Earth, abandoned kids were often not foundlings. They
were often enslaved, and they actually, in the Roman Empire days,
they formed a significant part of the supply chain of
the Roman Empire's slave industry.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yes, slaves or soldiers, right, I mean, you're automatically conscripted
now again, because of wartime interactions between families that would
get slaughtered and then some children that would be left.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Every horrible thing that you can possibly imagine happening to
someone in this situation did at some point occur. This
is very unclean stuff. But let's look at other empires
civilizations in India and China, they also had ancient adoption practices. Again,
(13:00):
they would seem very different to modern adoption practices because
in a lot of cases in those various civilizations, the
idea was to it was like insurance. The idea was
to guarantee that when you died, correct funeral rites would
(13:22):
be enacted. Someone would continue. Also spoiler alert, a male
heir specifically would be around to do the proper ancestor worship.
Fall of Rome leads to a decline in adoption in
Europe because, shout out to George R. R. Martin, the
(13:43):
dominant cultures that rose from the flotsam and jetsam of
the shipwrecked Roman Empire, those cultures in Europe, they put
so much importance on bloodlines, just like the ancient Egyptians.
Their thing was more incest is okay, you know, let's
(14:06):
keep it in the family.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Oh when you put it like that, ben gives out
a whole nother meaning, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Well, the thing is I'm saying, in contrast to ancient Rome,
and contrast to ancient civilizations in India or China, they
weren't they weren't adopting, they weren't hiring from outside the
network and.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
By design, though, right, I mean, like to your point,
I mean, I was just saying, keeping it in the family
when you start talking about incests just makes it kind
of take on a little extra ick. But certainly the
insular nature of these civilizations and these types of governments
and powerful families. I mean that's well established.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, agreed. Now fast forward. There's a ton of other
stuff that happens. We're here in twenty twenty four. We
are coming to you from the United States. In the US,
the adoption process vary state by state. The laws in
Massachusetts may not be the same as the laws in Mississippi.
(15:06):
If you are adopting children from another country, you have
to abide by the laws and regulations of your child's
birth country, which I think makes sense.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
I don't know, it's sure it does.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
You have to abide by both laws, both sets of laws, right.
Adopting from another country is a whole other thing.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Domestic adoption is the process of assuming the filial rights
and responsibilities for a kid who is in the same
country as you. Foster adoption is I think we're accurate
the way we put it. Foster adoption is not necessarily permanent.
(15:53):
It can evolve into a permanent adoption. International adoption is
when you assume those filial rights and responsibilities for a
kid from a different country, and typically those kids are
going to be in an orphanage. They may be in
foster care, they may have no real family support network.
(16:18):
It's not a mandatory part of the process for adoption,
but most people, the vast majority of families adopting a child,
will work with things we call adoption agencies.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Sure, and we have some friends and colleagues that have
gone through that process as well that we've witnessed. And
it is a lot of red tape, let's just say, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
And many states have their own kind of systems for
that and agencies for that.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yes, And even now in the United States, some of
those let's call them brokers, brokering partners, facilitators, are heavily religious.
They're based in religion. Everybody's got their own spiritual system.
(17:10):
We just have to note that it is really important
to understand that.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Well, I think, whatever your views on religion might be,
it's important to acknowledge that there are religious organizations that
at their heart, you know, are out to do good
and to help people.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah. Yeah, well said. And so we're saying there's a long,
at times astonishing history of human beings providing care for
children that might not otherwise get the one thing everyone deserves,
a decent shot at a life well lived. When everything
goes as it should. We bear witness to this fundamental
(17:52):
I'm not sure, something better than beauty. I'm not sure
what the right word is, but this fundamental, noble aspect
of the human experiment. Our question tonight what happens when
things go wrong?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
We'll find out after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Here's where it gets crazy, all right, doesn't always go
as planned?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, Oh of course, I don't know why, guys. I
woke up watching Jim Carrey videos. I had a bit
of a dream about him and some of the some
of the things that he has been talking about over
the past decade when he's you know, going and giving
a speech for an award show and award ceremony or
(18:42):
going on a talk show.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
His kind of zen phase that he's sort of entered, right.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and he's gone now towards a more religious thing
that I just don't know much about. But in that
time period at least he makes this beautiful point about
you know, who is the point of consciousness that believes
he's Jim Carrey and was playing the part of Jim
Carrey and all this stuff. And when you think about
just any of any of us, our identities, the things
we hold dear, the things we believe, the way we
(19:09):
feel about anything. It all is shaped by the human
beings that are around us, the thoughts that enter our brains,
the words that are said to us, the actions that
we observe. And when you take on these responsibilities through adoption,
you are you are taking the responsibility of shaping another consciousness, right,
I mean at the heart of it. And it's it's
(19:32):
as we've said, and Ben, you're just talking about trying
to find the right word for what is that? What
is the how do you describe that process? Is it beautiful?
Is it astonishing? Like? What is that thing? And I
don't have the right word for it. Besides, it's it's
a responsibility. That word responsibility.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
It's all encompassing, is what it is, right, I mean,
it's everything.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You're shaping a life, absolutely, and unless you feel that
weight and you're prepared for that responsibility, as you said,
then it can go very wrong, and it can go
extremely wrong if there are about intentions somewhere along that path.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, what we're saying here is there are ongoing, provable,
egregious problems with aspects of the adoption industry, especially on
a global level. A lot of these issues echo historical
instances of corruption and crime and conspiracy. These unclean things
(20:27):
often continue in the modern day. Let's talk about forced adoption, right,
that's the immediate dark side, right, Like back in the
evenings of the Roman Empire and Indian and Chinese civilizations
and honestly the world over. These kids didn't have a
(20:48):
right to consent, you know what I mean. The parents
didn't have the right to say, hey, it's okay to
adopt my kid. They were murdered in war, you know
what I mean. They were conquered by blood and treasure.
And one of the most I would argue, one of
the most immediately recognizable recent examples of this is in
(21:12):
North America, in the United States, well the anglosphere overall,
arguably in the United States and in Canada, Native American children, right.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Yeah. We talked recently, I think in Strange News about
an update to the story of these Native American schools,
or schools built in order to assimilate Native American children,
and just how many children died under tragic circumstances within
these institutions. For decades, the US government abducted thousands of
(21:44):
Native children and forced them into those boarding schools, where
the goal was to again assimilate them, strip them entirely
of their culture, their language, their customs, and essentially erase
their history entirely. This is a an organized attempt at
cultural erasure. At the peak of this era, there were
(22:06):
more than three hundred and fifty Native American boarding schools
across the United States, and this also took place in
a slightly different arrangement over in Canada.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It's crazy to think about three hundred and fifty different schools.
In my mind, at least when we were first learning
about this, I imagined a dozen, maybe a few dozen
schools that existed, like on the frontiers of wherever the
United States territory was expanding or something. But no, no, no,
this is three hundred and fifty different schools that were
doing the same process.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
That we know about exactly terrifying.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Well, and we've just learned how many of these schools
had literally a makeshift graveyard, or using the word graveyard
is probably overstating it at a site as mass graves
of children that would just basically disappear not only from
their family when they were taken into one of these schools,
(23:01):
but now from all of history, because they died in
whatever circumstance while they're at the school, and now they're.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Just buried, right things, you know, not necessarily someone purposely
murdering these children.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
But not necessarily disease.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Or lack of sanitation, right this. These programs also were
often we don't want to you know, step on any
crosses here, but they were often church led. They were
led by the Christian Church of some doctrine or denomination,
and they occurred in step with a larger push to
(23:43):
encroach upon tribal land through kinetic war, through insidious policies,
and as ever, breaking promises and treaties.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
I mean, if anyone had a chance to see Killers
of the Flower Moon, you see how that assimilation and
was utterly taken advantage of in order to rob these
individuals of their tribal land and their wealth, especially in
areas where that land may have sat upon oil reserves
(24:15):
or other precious mining materials. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah, there's a great there's a great Netflix show I've
been watching recently, and I don't have a lot of
time to watch these things, but it's called Dark Winds.
Have you guys heard of this?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
I saw it advertised. I'd like to check it out.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
It's a banger. I've got to read the books it's
based on. But there's your concept of oil exploration or
resource extraction reminds me of this. It's just it's so
good anyway, a totally different thing. Most people nowadays in
the US know about these sins of the government. However,
(24:56):
you might be. You might be surprised learn there were
weaponized policies and initiatives created not to dance around this
idea of assimilation of forst adoption, but to do it
blatantly up front, on purpose. The Indian Adoption Project would
(25:19):
steal children from native families and purposely place them with
families they considered let's call it white enough, right.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
The thing is they're not orphans, they're not. They have parents,
and the parents were trying to get their kids back,
and in many cases they simply could not because the
system was rigged against them. It reminds me of not
to get too political, it reminds me of what's happening
(25:52):
in recent years with Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I can only imagine it occurred a lot during the
years of the Crusades, where maybe you know Catholic armies
would roam through fine children and then assimilate them.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah, it's it's a scary thing because also these folks,
we have to understand, are making a greater good argument.
They're saying, well, usually we guild the children. Now we're
doing something different.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's like it's less on paper
horrifying than genocide, but kind of has a similar outcome.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Genocide with more steps.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Yeah, it's like psychological genocide in a way. It's it's
very bizarre and unclean, as you would say, Ben.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, so say we all. We also know that in Australia,
which has its own intensely disturbing history with the people
who are already living in Australia for thousands of years,
and as well as in the United Kingdom, similar practices
(27:09):
of forced adoption occurred. Surprising to learn, perhaps that the
practice of forced adoption continued up until the nineteen seventies.
In Britain, we're talking two hundred and fifty thousand mothers
were forced to give up their children, not because they
(27:31):
were criminals, not because they did anything bad, but because
they were not married. They were single moms, and that
meant they could not be moms.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yikes, I think, and it's shown in a couple of places.
You can look it up right now, that the anti
abortion movements within any country will often push rates of
adoption much higher. And it is often based on this
same kind of thing that was happening in Britain.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Where some.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
What would you call it a more sure something was
violated right in the consummation of this child. So adoption
is the correct move, at least so say the prevailing
religious ideals.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Right, yeah, most of these most of these families were
broken up with birth mothers who were under twenty four
and unmarried, and it does appear there was an active
conspiracy to pressure these young people into conforming. Right the
(28:41):
nail that stands out shall be hammered down, and that
the monarchy was doing that. Similar practices occur again in
cultures the world round. This is not a glasshouse situation,
never is. It's a glass planet. Most of the countries
are committing the same sins at some point around the
(29:03):
same time. What sixties nineteen sixties Chile, largely poor young
indigenous women are either forced to give up their biological
children or their children are stolen from them. This is
true right after childbirth. They told the mothers that the
(29:24):
kids died, and they just took the kids and then,
you know, just like in the US, they often sterilized
the birth mothers while they had them on the operating table.
There are so many other cases Argentina as well. We're
not gonna we're not going to explore that tonight, but
please do investigate the dirty war on your own, as
(29:48):
it's called. We have to understand that there are adoption conspiracies.
They are real and they are evil things that leads
us to the next related branch here, not just forced adoption,
but child abduction, human trafficking. We're going to pause for
(30:12):
a word from our sponsors. Please please please consider this
the disclaimer. We are going to talk about again unclean things.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
And we're back. Yeah, let's just rip the band aid off.
Human trafficking. For many families in the West, international adoption
of a child, you know, can feel like a moral act,
you know, a moral imperative. As so often is noted,
the world is absolutely full of children who are not wanted,
(30:53):
are not loved, and do need help. Therefore, the question
kind of naturally arises, why should we create child when
we could save one that already exists, you know, perhaps
orphaned by a neglect, war, you know, living in war zones,
constantly at risk disease, any number of scenarios. What can
(31:16):
we do, as individuals with means to make a positive difference,
especially when it comes to helping a child in need,
rescuing a child, perhaps from a brutal situation. Unfortunately, though,
as often tends to be the case, where there are
good intentions and folks with means, there are often other
folks there to intercept that situation and twist it to
(31:39):
their own despicable ends.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, it's just I again, I hate to say this
because I know our job is to articulate things here,
but I don't have the words in this language to
describe situations where you see human children treated like stray dogs.
(32:04):
And that does happen, and it is an abomination. In
some cases, we may be talking about children who require
medical care that is simply beyond the reach of their
social structure, right or their biological family. And if you
adopt these kids, then you may be able to give
(32:28):
them the care and the treatment that they need. Again,
a noble imperative. There is no argument that in hundreds
of thousands, perhaps millions of cases. Adoptive families make an
enormous and positive difference for the world. However, again, it's
(32:50):
not always the case. You know, what if these children
are adopted by bad faith actors, What if these kids
already have parents, were those biological parents allowed to consent
to this adoption?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well, as we said at the very top of the episode,
if you are choosing to go through the process of
international adoption, you're not only choosing to trust the agency
you're going through from whatever country you're in. You're also
choosing to trust the agency or the group or the
individuals on the other end of this weird bargain that
(33:27):
you're making, and you're trusting that they have good intentions
and they have taken actions that are correct through whatever
system they're operating under and through whatever laws that are
applicable there, and as well as just the moral stuff
like how is this child coming into this situation?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah? What will this child remember? What will they recollect?
And the main thing we have to note here is
that when these conspiracies occur, it's not it's almost never
the adoptive family. They are good faith actors. They are
(34:10):
you know, to your point, Noel, the idea of saying, hey,
why would we make a kid when we can help
one that already exists. We see time and time again
that people run into run into the wrong end of
the conspiracy. Here, there's a guy named David Smullen who
(34:32):
is the director of the Center for Children Law and
Ethics over at Sanford University. Back in nineteen ninety eight,
the Smollen family adopted two children from India sisters, and
later they learned that these children were stolen from their
birth mother. I just I can't imagine the weight of
(34:56):
this tragedy, Like we're saying, nobody, I mean, maybe somebody,
maybe a billionaire or an emperor, adopts children on a whim,
But most people are treating this very seriously. And can
you imagine, you know, can you imagine what happens when
(35:18):
you learn that you have non consensually become the quote
unquote back guy.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That's an intense story. There's an NPR article you can
look up if you would like to to learn more
about this from July two thousand and seven titled an
Adoption Gone Wrong. That is just that's a harrowing tale.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
There.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
There's also something that comes up again and again the
idea of providing a human child with a family rather
than a life in an institution. You can read about,
for instance, certain circumstances during the Cold War, which hasn't
(36:01):
stopped there Like in countries that said AIDS doesn't exist.
Then children who were born with HIV were just raised
in institutions. They did not have the opportunity for the
formative care that fundamentally sort of makes a person a person. Like,
(36:26):
institutions are a bad place for a kid to grow up.
You know, if anybody here who has an office job,
imagine you were born in your office. You never got
to leave your office. You didn't have any parental figures.
You had like a boss, and you had you know,
(36:48):
an HR or something like that, or a bunch of
nuns or a bunch of really cartoonishly pissed off nuns, yeah, or.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Very sweet nuns.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah. Right, you're right, you're right, you're right. I'm being
a jerky you're right, man.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Well, you know, we've certainly talked about situations where the
church can do great good, facilitate great acts of charity
and kindness, and we've also certainly seen the flip side
of that where religious institutions can do great damage and
great harm, and it's great disservices to you know, innocence.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, And when we talk about the dangers being raised
in an institution or a system versus a as our power,
Lauren would say, an actual facts family. We're not just
talking about psychological damage. We're not talking mental or cognitive
challenges alone. We're also talking about clearly traceable physical hazards
(37:53):
for these humans as they develop. You know, you can
read fascinating and intensely disturbing studies of the long term
post traumatic stress disorder, syndrome and related stuff that hits
people who, for instance, grow up as in a persecuted
(38:14):
minority demographic, or people who grow up in institutions. They're
going to have higher rates of heart disease, They're going
to have higher rates of diabetes. It's what we're saying
is that if you have the privilege and the ability
to adopt the kit to save an innocent person from
(38:37):
such a troubling thing, why would you not do it.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Let's jump really quickly, Ben, you found something about this
in particular that they're around or they're an estimated eight
million children growing up in some in some way like
this that you're describing, and that is an estimate from UNSEF,
originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
But this is.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
It's mind boggling to imagine eight million children growing up
in something like at least what's described in the article
you found Ben, that Romanian boarding school of some sort,
where it's just children who have learned to not cry
because their cries are never attended to, so they're just silent,
(39:28):
and then the children grow up that way. Yeah, it's
pretty horrifying.
Speaker 5 (39:35):
Really.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Sometimes it seems that kids being adopted, as you said, Matt,
through these international brokers, maybe maybe products commodities they may
be sold. There is a vast there are multiple networks
of conspirators that spend a great deal of time attempting
(40:01):
to appear legit, attempting to appear like, hey, we're an
Ngo or gong Go and we're helping because we, like you,
want these kids to have a better life. Also, let's
talk economics.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
This is horrible, and I know I don't mean to
downplay the severity of this situation we're describing, but there's
so many parallels to the puppy mills industry that it exists,
and just then applying that to humanity, it's.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Just a whole other.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Level of evil.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, the creatures doing these things do not differentiate between
a human being and a dog.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
That's why it's such a good parallel, Matt, And you're
absolutely right as far as they're concerned, it's just a
business model that's more even probably even more lucrative.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Let's go back briefly to Chile. The provable conspiracy in
Chile involved multiple actors. Now that's the most difficult bar
for proving a genuine conspiracy. Multiple like a multi polar
network of people capable of not just keeping a secret,
(41:18):
but also successfully accomplishing a task. That's it's a very
difficult thing. It doesn't happen all the time. But in
Chile we're talking foster homes, hospitals, hotels, social workers, lawyers, judges,
diplomats all participating. And you can learn more about this
by checking out the NGOs, the institutions that are now
(41:43):
dedicated to helping these abducted children learn more about their past.
The vice president of Connecting Routes, one of these organizations,
while Luis Insulza, he noted that people in groups who
parte anticipated in this criminal enterprise, this trafficking of children
(42:04):
in Chile, they were under the protection of the Chilean state.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
I mean, how much more twisted can you get? Whereas
the body that is meant to protect children, that is
meant to protect citizens is actually colluding, you know, with
bad actors against them. And we're certainly not naive. We
know this kind of stuff happens, you know, where there's
two faced individuals that are part of these governments that
are acting as though they're, you know, there for the
(42:33):
greater good, but in fact they're there for something entirely
different and much more insidious and self serving.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, there's a title for this, at least in the
United States law books, titled adoption deception as like a
specific type of conspiracy and crime that can be committed.
I was just looking at it specifically in Louisiana, guys,
because I was remembering some of these tales of adoption
(43:02):
agencies slash religious groups or at least front facing religious
groups that were that were taking children and abusing them.
And then there's there are multiple instances of popular culture
in television and film that you know, use these stories
as the basis of a fictional story.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
That they're telling.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Yeah, we see it in fiction because the truth exists, right,
because the nonfiction informs the explorations. And this is I
would say the folks creating that fiction are doing a
great service because they are informing the public, right, making
(43:45):
you think twice. When you get a letter from an
organization you've never heard of with an innocuous name, right
and somehow relates to religion, wants a little money from
you might help you adopt a child. There's a magnitude
of crime here and people who in the case of Chile,
(44:08):
around the world, individuals and sometimes other adoption agencies were misled,
like you said, they were victims of adoption deception or
deceived about the the origin of these kids. And let's
focus on the kids. These kids are humans. They grow up,
(44:29):
they have adventures, they live, they fall in love, you know,
and they have their ship and story and so on.
And then imagine you are what's a good age, what's
like a good human age?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Goodness?
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Like adult human?
Speaker 4 (44:45):
Oh I don't know, just say quintessential twenty one?
Speaker 3 (44:48):
All right, Let's say you're twenty one years old, and
then you learn that not only like maybe you already
knew you were a child of adoption, but then you
learn that you're biolog logical parents have been trying to
reach you for twenty years and they've been searching for you,
you know what I mean. That's scary, dude.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Well, it's also like so complicated because it's not the
fault of your adoptive parents, not at all. So then
you're put in the middle where it's like this really
complex range of emotions where you almost like resent your
adoptive parents even though they don't deserve that. And it's
(45:30):
like you even if you know that, it doesn't mean that.
Like I always say, like intellect and feelings are two
very different things, and it would just be such a
mind f you know. You know, yeah, And I couldn't
imagine being put in that situation. I don't know what
I would do or how it would feel. It's just
too fraud you know.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Some boffins over at the United Nations back in twenty
twenty two argued that the entire practice of international adoption
should be discontinued. I'm not sure if I agree with that,
because again, it's a matter of saving lives. But they
said that elite what they call illegal intercuntry adoptions quote
(46:16):
may constitute serious crimes such as genocide or crimes against humanity.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Oh god, I think this is It's the same problem
the Boy Scouts of America faced when they were first founded.
Remember when we talked about that. The big problem they
had is that, just by the nature of the organization
dealing with children, you would get bad actors. Because it
was a voluntary system when you could join in to
(46:44):
be a Scout master, a Scout leader, or local person
in the organization. Just by the nature of the thing,
there would be some people that got into it for
the wrong reasons, or for terrifying reasons, or terrible reasons.
The same thing with some of these agencies and systems
that are being set up. You're going to have some
people who are going to be bad actors. How the
(47:05):
heck do you defend you know, especially if you're talking
about a massive organization, how do you defend it against
something like that?
Speaker 5 (47:14):
I don't know. I don't have the answer.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
I don't know if anyone does. You know, that's the thing.
These conspiracies are real. Do not forget that. We also
keep in front of mind the parents. To your point, Noel,
they're not in on some kind of grift. These are
not kissingers, they're not war criminals, they're not monsters. They
are by and large super good parents. They are They
(47:40):
just are they are.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
But we cannot dismiss some of the other parts of
adoption and foster care that we've seen where there are
abusive relationships on the parents side, and again that is
we have to be able to look at individual cases, right,
and there are many individual cases where the children are
(48:01):
specifically adopted and moved into a system with the abusive
parents that are on some kind of mission of their
own of whatever they're doing.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Right, with very little oversight, even in what we would
call quote unquote developed countries. And that's part of why
we're saving the foster care episode, which candidly is going
to be going to be difficult. Let's end on this
this positive note. There are good parents, right, and every
(48:36):
kid deserves a chance. And if you suspect you are
a loved one, maybe in a situation involving abduction or
trafficking or bad faith actors in the realm of international adoption,
don't hesitate to reach out. Weirdly enough, there are for
most countries that you can imagine there is some sort
(48:59):
of NGO that will attempt to help you. If you
believe an adoption agency in the US or abroad may
be involved in criminal activity, report the agency to law enforcement.
Do not hesitate to do so, because the worst that
will happen is if that agency is legit, they'll have
(49:20):
to provide some paperwork, They'll have to do a couple
extra emails.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
I think that's a very easy cost benefit calculus. Absolutely,
And if you are one of the millions of families
who has adopted a child, if you were one of
the millions of people who grew up in an adoptive family,
please remember you've already made the world a better place.
(49:45):
Thank you for tuning in. This is only the beginning,
as we were saying, of a larger conversation, we would
love to hear from you. Stay tuned for our future
episode on the foster care system, Be safe and reach
out to us online. That's a weird segue for such
a heavy episode.
Speaker 5 (50:05):
Well, yeah, we'd love to hear positive stories.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Yeah, they were right.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
I mean, I think that would be something really nice
to share on one of our listener mail episodes.
Speaker 5 (50:13):
So if you've got a positive.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Story, email us, call us, hit us up on social
media and we'll tell you how to do that.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
That's right. You can find us all over the internet
at the handle of Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist, on Facebook,
where you can join in on the conversation in our
Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy. Also on YouTube
where we have a video content galore for you to enjoy,
and x fka Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we
(50:41):
are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Our phone number is one eight three three std WYTK.
When you call in, it's a voicemail system. Give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know in the message
if we can use your name and message on the air.
It's three minutes. So if you've got more to say
than can fit in a three minute voicemail, why not
instead shoot us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive, be aware yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back,
We'd love to hear from you. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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