Americans Protest NATO'S War in Yugoslavia -- June 5, 1999
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"Our modern revelation may be a depressing revelation, but at least it is a demythologizing revelation. If the world is terrible, at least we know that our fathers were fools to think otherwise, and that everything they believed and cherished was a lie, or at best superstition" (Hilary Putnam, Human Face, p.136).
"If we believe in the creative effect of contact and collision, connection and exchange, then we require a medium, a way of writing which will live with the impact and conflict of communication between ideas" (Myerson, Rhetoric, Reason and Society, 1994:4).
From: Jocelyn Demers
Date: 4/26/01
Time: 12:50:49 AM
Remote Name: 130.68.236.55
After viewing The Indictment it is clear how a Witch hunt may take form and be executed. Ira Riener was a politician hoping to be elected Attorney General. Public Opinion poles revealed that his voter's number one concern was child abuse. Judy Johnson, who later proved to suffer from acute paranoid scizophrenia, accuses the McMartins and it seems as though Riener and the Children's Institute International used the McMartins to capitolize on fame and publicity. The leader of Children's Institute International was not even a licensed social worker. The Prosecution never checked their sources and the credibility of their witnesses. It is outrageous how the McMartins were treated not only by the public but also by the correctional system. It is also outrageous that the judges let the prosecution get away with in the court room. It is unfortunate that the lives of the McMartins will never be the same. The grandmother said at one point in the film that in this country if you are accused you are guilty...and that is exactly how they were treated. Raymond was the main target in the witch hunt and an easy one. He was wierd, or at least that is the way the film depicted him. Reiner's witch hunt might have failed, but portions of the general public still don't buy into the verdicts of the McMartin trials, and thier lives will never be the same. Who is to say that this couldn't happen to any of us some day...might we be targets in a witch hunt as well.