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edited once to fix apostrophes]
Dennis,
The Zirpolo recantation has been recounted by several journalists, like B.A. Robinson. You picked Debbie Nathan to try to discredit Zirpolo's confession. We have to listen to Zirpolo's words verbatim --and ignore the reporters if you like.
It is interesting that you didn't say a word about the Reid technique --the aggressive leading questions: a form of interrogation abuse when used with young kids-- because the objections to the Reid technique are pivotal to my argument. And you didn't say anything about the fact that after the 1980s and 1990s mass hysteria that spread in some countries because of the improper use of the Reid technique on children, the practice has been abandoned. And guess what? SRA has virtually disappeared in the Western world!
This has happened before, Dennis. I know you don't approve the 15th thru 18th centuries witch-hunt. Well, Alonso Salazar, a 17th century skeptic, observed that "There were neither witches nor bewitched in a village until they were talked or written about". In other words, no slanderous accusations about innocent women being witches, no witches at all.
Many of today's SRA skeptics have no intention to deny the existence of child abuse. Quite the contrary: their concern over alleged SRA is motivated on the sad fact that the pursuit of a mythical form of child abuse diverts our resources from the genuine cases.
I will change my strategy in trying to communicate with you, Dennis. Though there have been very decent people at the FMSF such as Ray Hyman and Colin Ross, I agree with you that there are people of notorious histories as well. Loftus still seems a decent person to me however. In the Seattle conference I attended she stated at the end of her presentation that the problem with their approach is that, even if it helped 50 per cent of innocent adults accused, it may hurt the other 50 per cent: those cases of genuine sexual abuse. I heard comments after her presentation that this remark of hers was wise.
Anyway, even if we leave references of the FMSF of people aside, there's a substantial amount of literature like writers with police background that debunk the SRA claims: for example, J. La Fontaine's work along with the work of K.V. Lanning, a FBI specialist of sexual abuse. Also, the result of a large 1994 study in the United States by Goodman, Qin, Bottoms and Shaver concluded about SRA: "no bodies, no bones, no bloodstains, nothing".
So all of these witnessing of satanists "burning all the bodies" and of babies and adults "butchered" and "being forced to watch animal sacrifices" must be delusion, Dennis. Of course, there's ample evidence of pedophile networks producing child pornography. But this doesn't mean involvement in satanic cults. Unfortunately we live in a free-market society. This means that irresponsible journalists make their field day by promoting the myth that there is a linkage between child pornography and SRA. In the past they used this trick to scare people in the US, Britain and Australia.
I am a wikipedian, you know. I would like to quote Antaeus Feldspar, one of my colleagues that debunks the SRA myth. The case of Feldspar is interesting since he had first-hand contact with the reality of sexual abuse and he never, ever denies the reality of sexual abuse. What he denies is the bizarre SRA claims. In a flaming debate with True Believers --I love flamings, you know!:
Antaeus Feldspar wrote:If there is "ample evidence" of such an intersection, then produce it. Nothing less will do. We were told that there was "ample evidence" of the horrors supposedly perpetrated at McMartin, at Fells Acres, at Wenatchee, but there wasn't. People who supposedly ran gigantic worldwide child pornography rings were being convicted despite the fact that not one piece of their alleged product could be located. Don't bleat about how there's "ample evidence" and how anyone who exhibits any skepticism after the big overblown claims of worldwide Satanic conspiracies were shown to be the delusions of alcoholic schizophrenics, abetted by false testimony coerced out of young children by lying to them and threatening them and completely disregarding anything they said of their own free will, is a "denialist". Show it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:43, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
You said you had ample evidence, but what you're presenting instead is just more ample claims -- and you don't even seem to comprehend the difference, which shows that the lesson of the 1980s "global conspiracy of Satanists" theory is completely lost on you, even though you claim to understand all you need to about it. Their ample claims of a global conspiracy translated to vapor, not to ample evidence. I highly recommend that you go read Satan's Silence to remedy these gaps in your understanding. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
"The vast majority of survivor advocates have always had a far more sophisticated understanding of the criminology of extreme deviance and the subcultures of organised paedophilia." No, they just have more intricate delusions on the subject, which are more carefully crafted to survive contact with reality. It's still constructed on an absence of evidence. Are all purported "ritual abuse survivors" responsible for the claims of "an extreme few"? Wrong question to ask. The correct question is, "Since the hysterical pervasive myth of an international Satanic conspiracy of child murder/abuse/pornography rings turned out to be the delusions of mentally ill adults, bolstered by irresponsible investigators who trumpeted 'Believe the children!' but then refused to believe the children until they gave in to investigators' leading questions and generated fantasies which could be slotted in (with appropriate editing) into the theories based on the aforementioned delusions of adults, is there any reason to believe that the version which believes in all the same Satanic child porn rings except not in the conspiracy has any more foundation?" The answer is "no", of course. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:08, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
My red emphasis above.
another Wikipedian that confronts a True Believer wrote:And its clear you are trying to pass nonsense off as fact with all sorts of yet more nonsensical excuses. Does abuse exist? Yes. Does Satanic ritual abuse exist? There's no evidence to support it in the way you are claiming and lots of evidence against. If the things you claim were real, we would already have widespread evidence. This is an encyclopedia, not some blog for you to go around making stuff up. Go play your little conspiracy theory fantasy roleplaying witch hunt games somewhere else. DreamGuy 10:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Antaeus Feldspar confronting a True Believer wrote:You know, wouldn't you look like a complete and total moron if I was a survivor? You know, the real kind, the kind that actually happens, rather than your paranoid coke-dream fantasies that never leave any sort of evidence, or whose evidence will always be, for one reason or another, someplace else where no one can verify that it even exists. "I don't care whether you take my word for it or not, Feldspar." Bullshit. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be trying to apply your carrot and stick. "Believe all the unsupported horror stories I babble out about and you can be a good person like me! Ask to see some evidence and you're an evil denialist who's helping the abuse continue!" Well, guess what? Your "stick" is a piece of straw and your "carrot" is a wilted frond. I've had first-hand contact with the reality of sexual abuse. I know there are abusers out there. I know there are victims out there. I have nothing but contempt for morons like you who play hysteria-crazed games of "let's pretend" based on the delusions of the mentally ill and the shrill hysteria of TV movies. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Despite the findings of a growing body of research (unrelated to FMSF) which would urge skepticism over the SRA claims, people that promote therapy-induced pseudomemories continue to listen to True Believers and exclude critical views. The internet is full of these suckers.
By the way, Dennis: I have sent your book manuscript to a book binder and I will have it leather-bounded this Saturday. I will start reading it by the weekend.
Thanks for sending it to me!