rigorousintuition.ca

Going through a doctoral literature review ... found this from 2001.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>British police discover more child abuse horror on internet.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>By Jeremy Laurance Health Editor. <br>21 February 2001<br>The Independent - London<br>1 <br>English<br><br>A FURTHER insight into the extent of child abuse and exploitation published on the internet was revealed yesterday when British detectives said they were trying to close a website showing pictures of a man eating a dismembered baby. <br><br>Scotland Yard is liaising with the FBI in the US to close the website, based in California, which has been linked with the ritual abuse of children. Last night the website was still accessible. <br><br>The discovery of the site comes just a week after seven British men were jailed for their involvement in the Wonderland paedophile ring. <br><br>While this site was not specifically uncovered by Operation Cathedral which investigated the ring, British detectives are currently at the forefront of efforts to close it down. A second website showing similar scenes of sadistic and ritualistic abuse has been successfully shut. <br><br>The existence of the websites was revealed by two patients at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies based in London's Harley Street and run by Valerie Sinason, a psychotherapist who specialises in the treatment of adult survivors of child abuse. <br><br>Dr Sinason has attracted controversy in the past over her claims that some children are abused in Satanic rituals involving ceremonies and animal or human sacrifice. She submitted a report on her claims, based on the treatment of 51 patients, to the health department last July, which funded her research. Other researchers have disputed her claims. Professor Jean La Fontaine, who carried out a separate study also funded by the health department, found no evidence of ritual abuse. <br><br>The Metropolitan Police have provided an officer to work with Dr Sinason's clinic for half a day a month to investigate claims of abuse made by patients. Detective Inspector Clive Driscoll, a specialist in paedophile crimes, said he was working with colleagues in America to track the origin of the picture of the man eating the baby. The website, which acknowledges that the act pictured "is unlikely to be legal under any jurisdiction" says it received the pictures from an anonymous source but they were "probably taken in Hong Kong or Japan". <br><br>Mr Driscoll said: "The pictures are awful. It is your worst nightmare unfolding in front of you. I took them to a very senior forensic pathologist - a man I have a lot of faith in - and he looked me in the eye and said: `These are the pictures I hoped I would never see.' For me it's a murder scene because I don't know how that child died. That is why I have got massive concern about it and I think something should be done about it." <br><br>Dr Sinason said: "I heard accounts of the websites from two different survivors of abuse who didn't know each other. It is a further sign that if you want to do anything bizarre you will get away with it because no one will believe it or speak about it." <br> <p></p><i></i>

"It is a further sign that if you want to do anything bizarre you will get away with it because no one will believe it or speak about it."<br><br>I listen to the folks on DU lament that they cannot bring their friends and family members to believe the election was stolen, or 911 was MIHOP, and I think yeah, well try this. <br><br>I know there are videos out there, I know we could prove all of this stuff if we could get our hands on them, but that's illegal, and I would not want to see them myself.<br><br>Sick bastards videotaped or filmed a lot of it, even the mc/lab stuff.<br><br>It's a terrible dilemma.<br><br>What we need is the ra/mc equivalent of the Abu Grhraib photos. And then a press with the * to publish them. Yeah, right. <p></p><i></i>

Doing this literature review is quite fasinating. The denialist position is effectively immunised against reality. <br><br>They feed off one another - "there is no empirical evidence for ritual abuse anywere" has become the accepted position but it is a blatantly false statement. After all, we have ritual abuse convictions, perpetrator confessions, ritual abuse porn. Five minutes of research pulls the denialist position down.<br><br>The only "evidence" against ritual abuse is that <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>it cannot exist.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> The denialists insist on a worldview that precludes paedophilic sadism. They refuse to share a space with either survivors or perpetrators. <br><br>If a survivor has memories, the memories are false. If the memories are corroborated, they are a shared delusion. If a child discloses, they were coached. If someone believes them, they are insane. <br><br>If a perpetrator confesses ... if there is forensic evidence ... if there are photos ... if there are convictions ... *fingers in the ears* I can't hear you I can't hear you I can't year you. <br><br>Valerie Sinason gives an incredible account as to how she realised that ritual abue existed. Have a read at:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.valeriesinason.com/VS%20talks%20to%20GG.htm">www.valeriesinason.com/VS...o%20GG.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>

This quote of Sinason's is so tragically true: "It is a further sign that if you want to do anything bizarre you will get away with it because no one will believe it or speak about it." <br> <p></p><i></i>

The "baby eating" incident is probably the same set of pictures that were floating around a few years ago in the stileproject/rotten.com set. They were simulated for an art project.<br><br>hxxp://www.arminm.com/baby_cannibal.htm<br><br>Also, let's just note that the existence of simulated child murder does not make factual child murders any less plausible, even though that is our gut reaction sometimes. <p></p><i></i>

Yeah, I just dug up the Zhu Yu angle. Nice.<br><br>Actual child porn commonly shows elements of ritual abuse - electrocution, uniforms, masks and so on. Wonder why they catch the downloaders but not the manufacturers? It's estimated to be a $5 billion industry in the US alone. <p></p><i></i>

Thanks for the link to Sinason. Is vicarious trauma what we are dealing with? Does it really cause so much pain to simply "know" that something is happening?<br><br>Valerie says she understands now when some colleagues don't want to know, and that "there are reasons for that."<br>I understand some of it certainly, but my feeling is for the reactions to be so strong, we are tapping into people's basic survival defenses. As someone who has generally not experienced a healthy connection or dependency on an institution, community, family or social structure, maybe this is what I'm missing. Does the very idea that your community contains humans who are capable of such activities threaten your relationship to all its institutions and therefore your survival? There is the Holocaust, and people seem to accept that, what makes ra different?<br>We acknowledge that all kinds of horrible crime goes on, why is ra different?<br><br>Is it that people would have to lower their opinion of human beings in general that is such a threat? If so why, when we have these other examples? Is it because it involves children and parents of those children? <br><br>If we could pinpoint the 'threat', could we find a way to deal with it? Is there a way to gently guide people through the grief, or a way to present a new world view, encompassing ra, that is not quite as much of a shock?<br><br>Sorry for all the questions, just thinking out loud. <p></p><i></i>

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>> Is vicarious trauma what we are dealing with? Does it really cause so much pain to simply "know" that something is happening?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Yes. Yes yes yes yes. Yes. Horrible. <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>> I understand some of it certainly, but my feeling is for the reactions to be so strong, we are tapping into people's basic survival defenses.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>And I think we really have to think politically about that, about how to get around it. The very knowledge of this crime is toxic, it generates powerful and unconscious defense mechanisms in the observer. People without the reflexivity to challenge these responses and actually consider this situation from other points of view are the ones that drive the denialist discourse.<br><br>If you want to undertake a thorough analysis, it’s not enough to simply reflect on your own frameworks and processes, you have to be able to consider completely different positions – in this case, you need to try and empathise with a torture victim, or, worse, a perpetrator. That’s exactly what the denialists are working so hard to avoid.<br><br>I’ve read denialist accounts of Sinason in which the fact that her first ritual abuse client was mentally disabled is the ‘reason’ why the clients disclosures of torture are self-evidently false … and the fact that she would be so stupid as to believe a woman with a psychological handicap is further proof of her professional incompetence. <br><br>The denialists can use any logic to support their position – they cast around for any form of reasoning at all, no matter how tangential or situational or contradictory – but the only “evidence” that they will accept from us must be empirical, have been through a court of law, AND resulted in a conviction … at which point, the denialist claims that the perpetrator/s have been wrongly imprisoned BECAUSE they have been convicted of ritual absue. <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>> Does the very idea that your community contains humans who are capable of such activities threaten your relationship to all its institutions and therefore your survival?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Absolutely. The conflict is ontological – ritual abuse may be relatively rare in comparison to garden variety child abuse, but the level of the atrocity inflates its significance to the point that its very existence can challenge people’s basic understandings of law, order, safety and civilization. <br><br>That is what denialists object to, and that is what they “punish” us for – bringing this crime to their attention causes them pain, and they lash out at the source of that pain – us.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>> Is there a way to gently guide people through the grief, or a way to present a new world view, encompassing ra, that is not quite as much of a shock?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>I think there is. I think we have to consider that “ritual abuse” may have been framed wrong from the start, because it emphasizes the religious/spiritual aspects of torture, which is the WORST aspect of torture. All torture employs an ideology, all torture takes place within ritual – look at Abu Ghirard, with toilets choked with Korans, menstrual blood painted on the cheeks of prisoners to break their connection with Allah.<br><br>We may need to think about rebadging the crime into something more focused, and better located within debates on human rights – something like “child torture”. I don’t believe that the cult aspects of this crime are the most salient, and it confronts the media/police with alien ideologies that they simply refuse to believe in. It is the "Satanic" angle that our detractors use against us the most effectively. <p></p><i></i>

(sorry about no italics, I can't get the ez buttons to display, among other problems...quoting you here)<br><br>"We may need to think about rebadging the crime into something more focused, and better located within debates on human rights – something like “child torture”. I don’t believe that the cult aspects of this crime are the most salient, and it confronts the media/police with alien ideologies that they simply refuse to believe in. It is the "Satanic" angle that our detractors use against us the most effectively."<br><br>Yes, I feel the same way about the belief systems, they are important but are distracting. I use this change in language all the time. My bio for the general public does not mention ra or mc, but does talk about organized crime and torture.<br><br>When I recently presented to the students at a local U., I used the terms "child torture in the private sphere" for ra, and "tax-funded child torture" for mc. Once I got into the content, I got specific. <br><br>I find if I say "mind control" it has a similar effect, people immediately think "whacko" and "aliens". So I often have to start out talking about medical and behavioral experimentation.<br><br>A lot of us working to expose this stuff are aware of the language pitfalls. Also, I think it is empowering for victims to label it in terms of humans rights, this is systematic torture, and slavery for that matter, by both private and government groups.<br><br>I'm not certain how a change in language will work over the long haul however, as perp protectors and others will see through it rather quickly.<br><br>I think it may be important to somehow try to distinguish between those who actively deny, such as writing papers about Sinason, and ordinary folks who are genuinely shocked and need help getting over it. Those who actively deny may have more at stake than their worldview. <p></p><i></i>

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>> Yes, I feel the same way about the belief systems, they are important but are distracting.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>Symbolism is used by perpetrators because it is evocative – it is effective ina psychoactive way – and this is precisely what sparks the denial mechanism of the denialists. I think it has to be avoided at all costs in the public sphere if we are to get anywhere. <br><br>I mirror Jeanne and Linda at Persons Against RAT in talking about “non-political torture” and “torture by non-state actors”. <br><br>This discourse is less ambiguous in Australia because we don’t have a history (that I know of!) of government-funded child experimentation. We have evidence of MC experimentation on Australian adults (we had a Royal Commission into it!) and there are some tangential stories floating around about kids, but they aren’t as substantiated as MC in the US. <br><br>We also cant’ discount that the act of inflicting pain on others has a ‘natural’ structure to it. Talk to anyone working in domestic violence, child abuse and so on – perpetrators use the same phrases, enact the same techniques, although they don’t know one another and have never been coached. Torture seems the same regardless of when and where it is inflicted, because human beings follow a specific neurological pattern of word and action when they decide to hurt others. <br><br>On this basis, I question the “Satanic conspiracy” theory – I think it is as naïve as our denialist friends. Both are trying to keep their worlds ‘clean’ by rejecting the perpetrators as someone alien to human nature. One denies that they exist, the other segregates them into a separate, undifferentiated mass.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>> I'm not certain how a change in language will work over the long haul however, as perp protectors and others will see through it rather quickly.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Which is why we need to respond quickly as well – the survivor community has to start coordinating better. How could we have let ‘recovered memory’ dominate the debate like this, when it has nothing to do with the lived reality of survivors? <br><br>The vast majority of survivors that I’ve met have always known about their torture - they went into therapy to deal with it, and their detractors claim that the therapy created the memories! Now even our supporters claim that psychological treatment of RA survivors "contaminates" them ... how ridiculous.<br><br>Two decades of hot air on ‘recovered memories’ … which is a ‘false memory syndrome’ all of its own! What a waste of time. The survivor movement has been so fragmented – we need an international organization that jumps on this sort of bullshit when it is printed. The more material we create, the more articles and letters and websites we write, the more momentum we gain. <p></p><i></i>

"This discourse is less ambiguous in Australia because we don’t have a history (that I know of!) of government-funded child experimentation."<br><br>I would be very, very surprised if that were the case.<br><br>"Torture seems the same regardless of when and where it is inflicted, because human beings follow a specific neurological pattern of word and action when they decide to hurt others."<br><br>I think that is often the case, however, there is an expertise that has been developed, and what was done in Iraq is evidence of it. <br><br>"Both are trying to keep their worlds ‘clean’ by rejecting the perpetrators as someone alien to human nature. One denies that they exist, the other segregates them into a separate, undifferentiated mass."<br><br>That is true of reactions to many types of crime, labeling it "inhuman", when in fact it is all too human, and if we do not own that, we cannot adequately address it. <br>I don't know about a satanic conspiracy either, but there is plenty of evidence of networking and coordination between local groups. And people who are stunned by the current political situation are being led to ra through research into conspiracies (like this board here <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> , so I wouldn't want to discourage that. But maybe that's aside from your point.<br><br>"How could we have let ‘recovered memory’ dominate the debate like this, when it has nothing to do with the lived reality of survivors?"<br><br>I think I've posted before here on this topic. I personally have no doubt the false memory debate was an intentional op to shut down discovery of ra and more importantly mc, there's just too much evidence for it. Dovetail that with the public's need to deny, and you have an effective program. The survivor movement was blind-sided, but we've had time now to develop science-based rebuttals. I don't think it is wise to sidestep the memory issue. In my experience, the majority of ra survivors have DID, which means they were not aware of their experiences. The way to deal with it is to lose the terms 'repression' (which is inaccurate anyway, a strawman) and 'forgetting' and reframe it as dissociation. But in presenting ra, one need not dwell on it, keeping the focus on the crime, the torture by non-state actors.<br><br>"The survivor movement has been so fragmented – we need an international organization that jumps on this sort of bullshit when it is printed. The more material we create, the more articles and letters and websites we write, the more momentum we gain."<br><br>I agree, we are fragmented! <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> and for so many just getting by everyday is hard enough as you well know. And even among the activists, as with any other issue, there are politics and infighting (and I am incensed by it.)<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"This discourse is less ambiguous in Australia because we don’t have a history (that I know of!) of government-funded child experimentation."<br><br>I would be very, very surprised if that were the case.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>I don't discount it, but it's not a common feature of ritual abuse testimony from Australian survivors.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>> I think that is often the case, however, there is an expertise that has been developed, and what was done in Iraq is evidence of it.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>I don't <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>necessarily</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> see the overlap between Abu Ghirard and RA as evidence of shared expertise. <br><br>When you look at historical torture, regardless of where it occurs, there is a common vocabulary that repeats itself over and over again. Whether its RA, domestic violence or political torture, the stuff that we saw from Abu Ghirard - faeces, sexual humiliation and electrocution - are mainstays. <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>I don't know about a satanic conspiracy either, but there is plenty of evidence of networking and coordination between local groups.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Absolutely. We moved states to get away from them in Victoria and they just passed her on to the offenders up here. They are certainly internationally networked - I know they've used offshore servers to host the porn they've made of her. <br><br>But I'd like to shift the emphasis somewhat, because the networks are operational (eg the mafia and organised crime) rather then being 'causal' (eg world domination, the NWO).<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>I don't think it is wise to sidestep the memory issue.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>Agreed. There has been so much work done on disassociation. <p></p><i></i>