This may be heavy for survivors of abuse.

From: Psychic Dictatorship in the USA, Alex Constantine (Feral House, 1995).

Ray Buckey's Press Corps
and the Tunnels of McMartin

part one

"In preparation for the trial, 389 toddlers were interviewed ­ nearly all of
them described abuse at the preschool, and do to this day. Some 80 percent
had physical symptoms, including blunt force trauma of sexual areas,
scarring, rectal bleeding and sexual diseases."

A fusillade of press reports, OpEd Columns
and television documentaries have dismissed
the McMartin case as a "witch hunt" born of
mass hysteria, coercive therapy, false memories
and greed. Yet all seven jurors attending a
press conference after the second trial raised
heir hands when asked who among them
believed children had been abused at the preschool.
So why the call to public denial from the press?

‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹

After the initial flurry of press coverage of the McMartin Preschool
molestation case, a number of sympathetic reporters and psychiatrists
publicly exonerated Ray Buckey and his co-defendants. This observer's
gallery of "skeptics" also deny that ritual abuse is a social problem.
The argument consistently leads to the lament that the McMartin
allegations were incited by mass hysteria, an ambitious district attorney
and an incompetent child therapist. The hysteria thesis, promoted by a small
group of pedophile defense psychologists, mostly, has appeared in
publications of stature including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco
Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, Harper's, New Yorker,
Newsweek,. The McMartin case was the subject of an Oliver Stone cable
feature.
Media boosters of the defense neglect to acknowledge the most damning
evidence in the McMartin case. Instead, they explain away superficial,
carefully-sifted pieces of the case. In preparation for the trial, 389
toddlers were interviewed ­ nearly all of them described abuse at the
preschool, and do to this day. Some 80 percent had physical symptoms,
including blunt force trauma of sexual areas, scarring, rectal bleeding and
sexual diseases.
Interestingly enough, skeptics of ritual abuse in the public print often
have dubious bona fides themselves. Some even participate secretly in the
pedophile and occult undergrounds, most notably a couple of Los Angeles
writers who have written the only two book available on McMartin, taking
mental health professionals, police, the press and prosecutors to task for
pursuing false allegations of abuse.
The Politics of Child Abuse, by Paul and Shirley Eberle, purports to be
something of a definitive investigation. A blurb for the book exults: "This
has got to be one of the most devastating political detective stories of all
time. The authors smashed open the child abuse witch-hunt so everyone can
see it for what it is ­ the way it really happened, and why. Here is the
amazing story, starting with the first spectacular accusations, the marathon
pre-trial hearing, the endless series of false accusations."
Since the Eberles' first McMartin book appeared in 19896, the Eberles
have achieved national status as child abuse experts. In courts of law their
work is frequently cited, and they lecture widely to receptive audiences.
The Eberles once appeared as featured speakers at a conference held by
Victims of Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL), an organization that feted The politics
of child Abuse as positively revelatory.
But Paul and shirley Eberle can hardly be considered credible reporters.
Blurbs in their own pornographic tabloid, L.A. Star, failed to mention that
in the 1970s the authors once ran an underground tabloid for pedophiles in
Los Angeles, Finger, which delved heavily into sadomasochistic sex, sex with
children and sex acts involving human excrement. Finger contained sexual
drawings by children and pedophile erotica, including "My First Rape," "She
was Only Thirteen," "Sexpot at Five," and "What Happens when Niggers Adopt
White Children." One issue featured a cover photo of two naked adults
reclining amid a pile of inflated dolls. A letter to Finger declaimed: "I'm
a pedophile and I think it's great a man is having sex with his daughter....
Would like to see pics of nude girls making it with their daddy, but realize
its too risky to print."
The book's publisher, Carole Stuart of Lyle Stuart & Co., told Ms.
magazine that the Eberles have been "friends of the family for years."
In The Politics of Child Abuse, the Eberles claimed that since the
McMartin arrests, "we have been barraged with hundreds of sexual abuse
cases, in which many people have been sent to prison for staggeringly long
terms on little or no evidence." That the Eberles themselves remain at large
would seem to contradict the notion that child abuse laws are stringently
over-enforced.
The Eberles attempt to portray every abuser as a victim of the justice
system:

We believe that every molestation case in which there has
been a conviction should be reopened and reviewed. There is
convincing evidence that innocent people have been imprisoned,
that naive juries and judges were unable to believe the defendants
would be brought to trial if no crime had occurred, and defense
attorneys have not been allowed to bring all the pertinent
facts before the public.

Los Angeles attorney Sally Dichter, in a book review, argued that the
Eberles have "nothing to offer to any discipline." The book she lamented,
"is an attempt to vindicate every individual who has been convicted of child
abuse." Considering their credentials as child pornographers, of course the
Eberles, as Dichter discovered, believe "every molestation case in which
there has been a conviction should be reopened and reviewed." Dichter found
this point of view unbelievable: "The Eberles seem intent on convincing the
reader that child abuse never occurs."
The authors "skepticism" of ritual child abuse is shared by Gerald
Larue, professor emeritus of Biblical history and archeology at the
University of Southern California. Larue is one of the principals behind the
Noah's Ark hoax, which culminated in February 1993 with a two-hour CBS
prime-time special, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark, billed by CBS
as a documentary. Scholars immediately denounced it. The network refused to
retract.
Satanism in America, a book that Larue co-wrote, attributed the McMartin
case to a "satanic panic" incited by wild-eyed "religious fanatics,
opportunists and emotionally unstable survivors whose stories simply are not
to be believed" ---­ an agonizing irony given Larue's instigation of the
Noah's Ark hoax. He argues that the "child abuse hysteria sweeping the
country us being fueled by people for whom facts have no meaning. They
invent 'facts.'"