> >double-plus untrue. i refer you to the "musti affair' in italy,
> >involving the 'bambini di satan,' documentation brought to you
> >by our good friend(s) luther blissett:
> >
> >http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/199803/msg00108.html
>
> I wrote: "Nonetheless, we ought to remember that the _Satanist day-care
> panic_ is a particularly _American_ phenomenon, even though the
> fetishization of the 'child' has taken place in other rich nations as well,
> sometimes triggering moral panics of various kinds (out of analyses of
> which Jim Heartfield, in part, makes a living)." If you didn't cut off the
> sentence in the middle, you'd see I mentioned the moral panics of various
> kinds elsewhere. Have there been _Satanist *day-care* panics_ outside the
> USA? If you can find me one, I'll stand corrected.
and you went on to say: 'For this reason, as soon as I heard stories of the "ritual abuses" at day care centers, I immediately thought: "Only in America! It's scary that anyone could actually believe such things!"' which leads me to conclude, if indeed your restrictive emphasis on *day-care* centers was the focus of your argument, that the allegations would be quite believable if they were made about institutions other than *day-care* centers.
btw, since i have your attention: how about those pomos?
> The Musti Affair is
> interesting, and in case Jim H is reading, I post the gist of it here, but
> the affair has nothing to do with day care workers accused of practicing
> "ritual abuses" on children. I think that the "satanic day care scares"
> are particularly American in that Americans seem more ambivalent of
> socializing child care than Europeans are. Americans are in fact more
> backward than Europeans in providing social services in general. Yoshie
>
> ***** 1. What Is The Musti Affair?
glad you found it 'interesting' enough to quote the first paragraph of the URL i pointed out, as if maybe to suggest that you were previously aware of it. true, it doesn't in- volve *day-care* centers, but if you didn't cut off the narrative in the middle, LBOers would have read:
> In 1996 the three defendants (the cult leader Marco Dimitri
> and his fellows Piergiorgio Bonora and Gennaro Luongo) were
> arrested and charged with child rape, satanic ritual abuse
> and even human sacrifice.
and the luthers, being the sharp bunch they are, go on to relate the musti affair very directly to specific aspects of the italian political-cultural scene--much as you have sought to do, albeit far less wittily, with america.
basically, if your thesis was indeed limited to *day-care* centers, it's trivial and uninteresting; however, if (as i believe) it wasn't, you're wrong.
now how about those pomos?
cheers, t