The Power of the Pointed Finger

[Pamela Troy]

The alleged crimes came to light in August when a 26-year-old woman approached police with the suppressed memories of years of abuse at the hand of her father, uncles and grandfather. Rawstory 11/12/09

Darrel Wayne Mohler has been charged with raping two children in Missouri more than 20 years ago. His arrest Friday came a day after he told The Associated Press that the alleged child abuse by his relatives was "unspeakable"…

"I can't think of words that would put this in perspective. I find it repulsive if it's true," Mohler said Thursday of his family members' charges. AP 11/14/09

When I first encountered this article the other day on Rawstory, I looked hard at the date. I honestly thought for a moment that, through some bizarre Internet glitch, a story from the 1980s or ‘90s had been posted accidentally.

There are all the usual elements.

Lurid accusations of sex with children?

Check.

The term “ritual abuse?”

Check.

The term “suppressed memories?”

Check.

Carefully worded comments from law enforcement strongly implying the presumption of guilt while at the same time hinting at an utter dearth of evidence beyond the bare accusation?

Check.

The names, pictures, and perp-walks of the accused being published so everyone can spit on them, revile them, emote, beat their chests, and invoke castration and other creative methods of punishment?

Check.

A witness or relative who publicly expressed some level of doubt about the accusations is added to the list of suspects?

Check.

It’s possible that, in the course of searching the 55-acre property they’re currently digging up, the sheriff’s department did, in fact, find the dead bodies of people the accused have murdered. It’s possible that a physical examination of the primary accuser has resulted in evidence that, yes, she did become pregnant at the age of eleven by one of these men and was forced to have an abortion. It’s possible that little glass jars filled with written accounts of the abuse have been found, and will be shown to have actually been buried for over a decade, and will lead investigators to more solid evidence of guilt.

Until we learn this has all happened, is it really too much to ask that we refrain from an orgy of righteous hatred towards the accused? Is it really too much to ask that the names and photographs of the accused not be plastered all over the media under the heading “alleged child molesters?"

Because if -- if -- this follows the pattern of similar cases from the hey-day of the McMartin Preschool /Michelle Remembers /Lauren Stratford era, the sheriff’s department will, in a couple of weeks, declare themselves “puzzled” at not finding any murder victims or even glass jars filled with verifiable accounts of ritual abuse. And in a few weeks the case may fizzle out into a lot of nervous mumbling from law enforcement.

If the entire case turns out to be an embarrassing, gaseous bust for the sheriff’s department, chances are the pictures, names and vindication of these men will not be published with quite the same blast of trumpets.

[bertman]

1. Thank you, Pamela Troy, for a very rational request. Rec.

[Political Heretic]

2. Well observed.

[snagglepuss]

3. K & R

[mntleo2]

4. I need to talk about this repressed memory stuff ...

...the problem is that the wingnuts are the only ones I usually get to talk with about it. Repressed memories decimated my family 25 years ago ~ and it was recently used AGAIN to take away my grandchild, who the State "owns" like a chattel, even though there was no proof the child had anything but excellent care.

Thank-you Dear for bringing this up in a progressive forum. The original accusations were not even against me 25 years ago.

However the wingnuts are the ones taking this up as an issue ~ when thousands of kids are taken without even any Constitutional considerations. CPS can make accusations and although you will have them on your record for the rest of your life, there is *no* way to refute them, there is no say. None.

I am in grief and so is the little girl they suddenly took without her even saying good-bye when I was the only mother she ever knew for the 1rst 4 years of her life and her mother wanted me to take her. The mother was tricked into giving up her parental rights with empty promises of me taking custody. A 25 year old sex abuse case not involving the care giver that used repressed memory therapy is what they used to take her so they could make even more money off her little body.

There is an adoption bill signed into law in 1996 that took away any Constitutional rights, and it also rewards CPS for taking kids, about $6000.00 every time they move them. This is on top of the child support and SSI they also collect per kid. And then even more when they are adopted out ~ especially alot of money for non-family adopters ~ around $10,000.00 per child per each time they are taken. This is because of a bill called the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) that rewards this money to states. Adoption is big business for strapped DSHS agencies ~ worth billions of dollars. Judges, lawyers, mental health and social services win big every time a child is taken as well.

Here is a video that a broken hearted grandparent made but it entails the taking of kids from parents, relative care givers, foster parents, and candidate adopter families. This link is the 1rst part, there are 2 other parts; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48YF1uEuCUA

Please again thank-you. It has been lonely out here with wingnuts like Hoekstra who are taking up this issue when in fact they are also using kids to further more "tea bag" anger. Anger that is already there about the breaking up of families ~ especially poor and minority families. ASFA is heart breaking and believe me it is not helping thousands of kids at ALL.

Cat In Seattle

[Pamela Troy]

5. One of the things that still appalls me about this

is that more than a few of the people involved seem to consider the literal guilt of the accused a minor issue. The accusations frequently seem to be based less on evidence than on either ideology or personal vindictiveness. Back in the '90s, more than one person informed me, with a satisfied smirk, that cases they'd heard of in which an individual was accused didn't bother them much because "Even if he/she isn't guilty, he/she's an asshole."

i kid you not. They'd say this like they thought it was clever. And moral.

And the recent thread here in which poster after poster took on faith the guilt of the Mohler men because of the accused's religion...

Well. Words fail me.

[mntleo2]

6. REAL Americans Revere the Constitution

... they do *not* decimate it with their witch hunting. And while these so-called "progressives" are smirking, their own rights are taken away. It is incredible to me how many people do not get this.

Sex abuse is a horrible thing, who would not say that. But horrible abuse is also present when the government can come in, make accusations they do not have to back up in court and break up the family simply because they make the decision to do so "in the best interest of the children" when it decimates the kids as much or worse than before they took them.

Here is the one stunning statement made to me about their taking my little one recently: they told me that usually after they get through with families, we are supposed to hate one another. They "do not know what to do with families who have healed ..." I am quoting a CPS worker here who did not know what to so with my family ~ because we had tried to heal ...

I am at the point where I would leave if I could afford it. It is just painful to see a bunch of witch hunting hypocrites who pretend they love their country when in fact they want to ignore its laws for their own vindictive desires. That goes for righties who use the anger ~ and lefties who would just like to pretend that the fear, disgust and anger is just our imagination, it seems.

Sad and disquieting ...

Cat

[truedelphi]

9. This whole business of CPS intervening & then taking away the kid

Whenever any excuse for removal can come up, while meanwhile IGNORING cases where children have been abused, points out the need for reform.

I have watched two individuals I know have their bank accounts depleted as they pay for the "Supervised visits" that allow them to maintain contact with their beloved children while the spouse smirks at how she made a mess of their lives. It has become very common for one spouse or the other to scream "Child abuse" to gain the upper hand.

Meanwhile women who legitimately cry out that their children are molested watch as the rich fathers strip them of the kids, and put them in the looney bin as well. One woman I know of locally - she was deep sixed in the prison system for kidnapping her little girl, and she remained there until the father killed his NEW domestic partner. Then and only then was she believed.

The family court system in this nation is nuts, and it is all too often about those with the money getting to talk and walk, while the poorer partner pays.

[mntleo2]

10. Lots of money in Family Court

...millions of dollars and LOTS of people who get money for their opinions, which is all it usually is used in court ~ opinions based on ...just opinions.

In my state a "consultant" committed suicide after being caught with child pornography and he literally held thousands of families in the palm of his hand while the juvenile courts took everything he said as fact with bated breath. Worse, the courts did not learn damn thing ~ they still do it, just pretending that man was a fluke, when in fact he is the norm for these people who literally bank on these people to back each other up so they can rake in even more dough. CASAs are just rubber stamps for the juvenile court. While CASA are volunteers who are supposed to be advocates for the child in the place of an attorney, the CASA my little one had was willing to turn this baby over to a recently convicted crack dealer and full time addict whose most recent "wife" (read he was her pimp) had ditched her own kids with her parents.

As "just a relative care giver," I am unable to have any voice in court and never had one while the State took this child away for something I never even was accused of myself, and thanks to the ignoring of Constitutional rights where I should at least be able to defend myself, I have no way, and CPS social workers can make accusations without so much as any accountability that i get to live with permanently.

Talk about the power of the pointed finger ...

The saddest part about it is, this little girl will suffer for the rest of her life with detachment issues, and this is somehow "better" for her that CPS lie and twist the truth with impunity without any accountability from the courts, CASA, or the social workers ~ and the people they accuse live with their accusations for the rest of their lives.

But sad to say, only the righties are listening. Progressives aren't even aware of the damage being done to children by the courts. In my state the *only* senator whpo is listening carries a gun with her to work, is anti-choice and well quite frankly a nut on many things. But she IS right on about the corruption of CPS and Family Court. Meanwhile I speak with my legislators, all good progressives, who acted all surprised and refuse to even acknowledge the millions brought in for the breaking up of families that our DSHS accumulates from AFSA alone, that is right there in our state budget and where one of them is actually the House chairperson of Children's Services! She is always "too busy" to return my calls, I wonder why ...

I makes me wonder why I am a Democrat and I am not sure if I can continue being one.
Cat In Seattle (well now I live in Kenmore, a little North of Seattle) ...

[truedelphi]

11. Sorry to hear of your plight. if you lived in SF area in Calfi.

I know of lawyers who would help.

For that matter, I'll check and see if there are people who know people in your neighborhood.

I am sos orry for your plight and that of the child too.

[mntleo2]

12. That would be greatly appreciated!

...there is a group of us who are looking for someone who would even help us get a voice. In OK, the Supreme Court has allowed a class action lawsuit, but it is about the children having a voice, not the adults who care for them, though in a way it is the adults who want to speak for the kids they love. We are about 10 families and just want a voice and a way to defend ourselves.

Thanks so much for the offer. PM me and I will pass it on ...

Love
Cat

[Odin2005]

7. "Repressed memories" is the biggest chunck of Freudian BS ever.

It was proven to be all BS, therapists put false memories in people's heads.

[Odin2005]

8. DUpe.

[Time for change]

13. I'm glad you brought this up

There is a whole fraud industry devoted to stirring these things up. A very large number of these so-called "repressed memory" cases turn out to be based on some so-called expert drudging up "memories" from people that never existed until the expert persuaded to "patient" to "recall" those experiences. The psychologist/author Carol Tavris writes:

In what can only be called an incestuous arrangement, the authors of these books all rely on one another's work as supporting evidence for their own; they all endorse and recommend one another's books to their readers. If one of them comes up with a concocted statistic--such as "more than half of all women are survivors of childhood sexual trauma"--the numbers are traded like baseball cards, reprinted in every book and eventually enshrined as fact. Thus the cycle of misinformation, faulty statistics and invalidated assertions maintains itself.

http://www.skepdic.com/repress.html

[mntleo2]

14. Even tho they have been disproved, DSHS STILL uses it

...believe me I am dealing with it now 25 years later when it tore up my entire family then and it was not even me who was the accused when they used it against me recently to take my little grandchild.

It is beyond disgusting, it is terrifying what the government can do to you simply because they want to especially when it cont6ains the words "sex" and "abuse" in their self-made same sentence ...

Cat In Seattle