EPISODE 104: The Saint and the Death Squads

History on Fire

Daniele Bolelli

Society & Culture

4.8 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2024

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I’d like you to picture some of the most awful human beings you could possibly imagine… genocidal maniacs, torturers, child rapists. Got the picture? Ok. Now I’d like you to imagine if you can conceive of any circumstances in which not only you wouldn’t do everything in your power to stop them, but you would actually support them. Can you think of any scenario that would warrant you supporting people like that? Can you picture yourself fighting hard to make sure they have millions of dollars and supplies to carry out their activities? Keep your answer in mind for the remainder of this series.

This is a story about what happened in El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s, and the role that democratic as well as republican administrations played in this tale. As much as humanly possible, I’ll try to let the facts speak for themselves and not inject too much of my own commentary. It’s not always going to be easy since it’s an intensely emotional subject. In a larger sense, this tale is a microcosm of the Cold War itself. It’s a disturbing, unsettling story about starving peasants and impossible choices. It’s about President Carter’s words weighed against his actions. It’s about the US government’s efforts to cover up the murders of four American churchwomen. And it’s about the heroism of one man, Oscar Romero, willingly sacrificing himself to shine a light into the darkness.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to episode 104 of History on Fire.
0:04.0	104, wow I can believe it has been over a hundred episode, every month at least one episode for the past long time many years now. Well this is exciting. I'm
0:17.2	excited for today's episode also because it's a theme that I've been wanting to
0:21.0	cover for a long time and I kind of had to get over my own reservations about it because it's a heavy one.
0:28.0	I will span both in this episode and the next.
0:32.0	But in any case, I won't give too much away right now
0:34.8	you'll be checking it out soon. Before we got going I want to give a huge
0:40.0	thank you to the people who have been supporting my work on Patreon and on substock.
0:46.4	You guys are the main reason why history on fire continues to exist.
0:51.6	Even the entry level is $5 a month and in addition to having my undying
0:56.9	thanks for keeping my work going. You also get bonus episodes. Every month I
1:02.4	release at least one short episode,
1:04.6	typically anywhere between 15 to 45 minutes or so, that is exclusive to people who support on Pet and Substock. And speaking of patron, I want to give a shout
1:16.3	out to the folks who support at the highest possible level of donations that would be Mark
1:21.0	Chang, Chimim-Moxam, Charsa, Charcoc course when Justin Bourne.
1:25.0	If you want to join these brave band of heroes, even at the basic entry level of five bucks a month,
1:31.0	you can either check on patreon
1:33.1	com forward slash history on fire or you can check under my name under
1:38.0	the Niele Boley my substock I published the same content in both places so either one is fine.
1:45.0	I also started the YouTube channel and that I publish original content quite a bit.
1:51.0	We have done so far quite a few videos that are much shorter in nature
1:57.1	compared to my long-form episodes. They are anywhere from like five to 25 minutes, but they have visuals.
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