No, no evidence of any "tunnels" at the McMartin Preschool
Fri, 07 Apr 2000 17:37:15
"Fredric L. Rice" <frice@raids.org>

> Fredric L,
> Thanks for your answer. But I still can't get hold
> of the whole picture - why did anyone belive it in
> the first place?

It gets complicated but the United States has a major problem in that it is heavily populated with right-wing extremist Christians that honestly believe that the end of the world is near -- an ending that's in accord with the Christian Bible.

To meet that end, such events as were described in the McMartin Preschool fiasco would have to be common. The notion that there's a world-wide Satanic conspiracy that reaches into every corner of law enforcement and victimizes millions of children would be a requirement for these people's end-of-the-world religious beliefs.

So there are a great many Christians in America that start with a preconceived notion; namely that there is a massive Satanic conspiracy and that upwards of 300,000 babies are ritually birthed, murdered, and then eaten in the United States. Said believers even contrive elaborate explanations on why there are no bones (the Satanic conspiracy includes every mortitan and funeral home, including mobile crematoriums.)

So they start with a belief and then go looking for evidence. Since they can't find evidence, they are left having to manufacture it. This problem becomes compounded when there are politicians and police officers that buy into the so-called "Satanic Panic." There are also political realities. When enough voters in a populace believe something unevidenced, they'll not vote for a politician that doesn't cater so that unevidenced notion.

The organization that sprung up around these freakishly bizarre McMartin allegations is called "Believe the Children." Their goal was to make Americans believe claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse regardless of the fact that there's no evidence ___because___ there's no evidence. Since ipso facto SRA is real and there's a massive world-wide Satanic conspiracy (needed to coincide with their end-of-the-world religious beliefs) the reason why there'sno evidence is because the perps are very good at hiding it and becase law enforcement, teachers, and half the American populace is involved.

"Believe the Children" was successful for a time and managed to get treated seriously by people - general populace as well as law enforcement and government. The idea that _evidence_ for any of the impossible claims being made was utterly lacking was dicarded as something that would surface eventually.

America goes through systematic "Satanic Panics," as did many European countries. When tied to freakishly bizarre beliefs in the validity and reality of the Cristian mythologies, juxtapositioned with the profound lack of education, intelligence, and reason among America's populace, and we end up with a McMartin every now and then -- or an O. J. Simpson, come to that.