Oct. 11, 2013

“Holocaust deniers have managed to receive, in recent years, a respectful hearing on college campuses and elsewhere, despite the existence of mountains of firsthand and corroborated traumatic memories of the Holocaust provided by many thousands of survivors – memories that don’t have to be recovered because they are all too vividly, and all too persistently, remembered.

“Holocaust deniers began to achieve their victory over memory even before efforts were made to establish the new category of ‘recovered memory.’ If recovered memory remains unchallenged as a new form of memory, then one can only guess how much more vulnerable to doubt and manipulation legitimate memory will become.”

– From “The Monster In the Mists” by Walter Reich in the New York Times (May 15, 1994)

Nov. 18, 2015

“Readers who want a deeper look at how young children’s accounts of CSA (child sexual abuse) were discredited in the same time frame of the (Roman Catholic) clergy CSA scandal should read Ross Cheit’s 2014 book ‘Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology and the Sexual Abuse of Children’….

– From “ ‘Spotlight’ Gets A Lot Right” by Colleen Friend in the Chronicle of Social Change (Nov. 15)

Whoa.

The clergy sex abuse scandal at the center of the just-released newsroom drama “Spotlight” had nothing to do with the “satanic ritual abuse” moral panic so earnestly if unpersuasively denied by Professor Cheit.

Clergy abuse was all too real, and the evidence proved undeniable; abuse in day cares was a fantasy produced by undertrained and overreaching therapists. Tragically, the children’s accounts that were “discredited” were their original denials that they had experienced abuse.

Worth noting: Dr. Friend is former director of Stuart House in Santa Monica, Calif., a child abuse treatment center opened to accommodate the tidal wave of (mostly imaginary) abuse cases spawned by McMartin.

June 3, 2017

How did prosecutors let go ‘16 psychotic, baby-killing pedophiles’?

“An early indicator of the bizarre and fickle nature of the [Little Rascals] prosecution was that in all, 23 Edenton residents were named by the children (via counseling) as having engaged in essentially the same abominable acts as those indicted.

“Yet the county DA’s office arbitrarily pared the case to seven, leaving, one assumes, 16 psychotic, baby-killing pedophiles to walk freely on the streets of their small city….”

– From “A ‘Frontline’ documentary on child abuse hysteria shows how good TV can be” by Brian Lambert in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press (May 27, 1997)

Among the lucky 16: the mayor and sheriff.

Dec. 14, 2011

Among the leaders of the Committee for Support of the Edenton Seven was Doug Wiik, whose own Breezy Point Day School in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, had just been cleared of similar abuse accusations. I asked him to compare the two cases.

“I remember that Barbara Fleischman, a dear friend who had moved to North Carolina from Bucks County, called to let me know that the child abuse contagion had reared its head in Edenton.

“Having been deeply affected by my personal experience, I felt the need to reach out. I read about Raymond Lawrence’s formation of the Edenton Seven committee, and after several discussions with him and Dee Swain (a fuel dealer in Washington, N.C.) I was truly inspired to do what I could. I was gratified to find individuals who would fight the injustice being perpetrated upon the Kellys.

“The eventual outcome in Little Rascals was the correct one, but the damage done to many individuals was enormous. We all have a list of heroes in our lives, and Bob Kelly and Dawn Wilson certainly were added to mine. Both stood firm in speaking truth to a community that lacked leadership in politics and law enforcement….

“The Edenton case and my own were just two of many produced by the 1980s culture. It happened in Salem 300 years ago, and it will happen again some day.

“So why did my child care business survive, when so many others didn’t?

“We had the exact same claims of horrors perpetrated against children. We had the same media coverage that initially proclaimed ʻChildren don’t lie.ʼ We had the same overzealous child abuse investigators from the county Department of Children and Youth Services. We had the identical mass hysteria.

“But we also had leadership! District Attorney Alan Rubenstein was a seeker of justice, not political gain. He conducted a long, expensive criminal investigation, one that branded the parents’ and children’s claims as false and reckless.

“I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention my employees and our parent community, who all knew nothing had happened at Breezy Point. They went on camera, wrote letters to editors and participated in several large meetings answering all questions about our school.

“My experience lasted five or six years, caused lots of heartache and did much financial damage. However, Breezy Point Day School still opens at 7 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. every day and is still filled with several hundred happy children, parents and staff.

“It’s a shame Bob and Betsy Kelly chose Edenton, North Carolina, to open a child care business and not Bucks County, Pennsylvania.”

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Later this week I’ll post excerpts from the DA’s 1990 investigative report, along with a few of his recollections (he’s now a judge).