>>> "Steve Perry" <sperry at usinternet.com> 11/17/99 11:41AM >>>
So the question, at least as formulated by Charles, comes
down to why the satanic ritual abuse crowd deserves
dismissal and the militia crowd does not. well, one fairly
basic answer suggests itself: The basic premise of the
ritual abuse hysteria--"recovered memory" and the alleged
mechanism of "repression" that underwrites it--appears to
be wholly groundless, while the basic premise of the
militia mentality--that american government as a whole
is anti-democratic and serves priorities that run counter
to their interests--is not. also, as a practical matter,
i believe (and i think alex cockburn believes) that many
of the people attracted to this basic premise of the
militias are poorly educated, not evil, and are worthy
of the attention and wooing of the left. regarding the
satanic ritual abuse question, there is much that may
be usefully unpacked, as katha, maureen and others have
suggested--but i think everyone agrees that that is a
more complicated matter and that no one's interests would
have been served by genuflecting to the groundless legal
prosecutions that stemmed from it.
(((((((((((
Charles: I see what you mean. Perhaps, Katha and Maureen will further unpack all this. Making the analogy may take some more steps.
However, even at this point, it seems clear that no one's interest would be served by genuflecting to the groundless militia military maneuvers either. The notion that the federal government was about to crack down on the average militia type person ( who has a sort of Ronald Reagan cowboy, anti- "govment" mentality) was about as groundless and fantastic as the idea that Ronald Reagan went to Washington to reduce the size or repressive nature of big "gov'ment". In other words, the militia types being anti-repressive government is like the foxes guarding the chicken coop. If there are going to be concentration camps in America, militia types will be the prison guards, not the inmates.
CB