Paleo Retiree writes:
Ed Jagels, the tough-on-crime Bakersfield D.A. who threw a lot of innocent people in prison
I loved this well-done, labor-of-love, low-budget 2008 doc about child-abuse accusations in Bakersfield, California in the 1980s. The accusations all — let me repeat that: ALL — turned out to be false. Nonetheless, many of them resulted in innocent people spending years in prison, and many of them also blew apart families and friendships. The episode has also turned out to be historically important. It was the first in what became a long string of absurd, “believe the children!” cases that defined the era as much as its pop music and politics did.
Don Hardy and Dana Nachman’s movie doesn’t focus much on the big picture — on giving context, or on setting the stage, or on venturing explanations. For that you’ll need to look at a book, or maybe just read this excellent Wikipedia entry. What it zooms in on instead is the local and the particular: on the experience of the people who lived through the craziness, and on the repercussions of the trials and imprisonments. It’s also a neat look at Bakersfield — a town that kept re-electing its D.A. even after it became evident how wrong he’d been — as well as an immersion in a bizarre, not-so-long-ago period in American history when Satanic-abuse fantasies and recovered-memory zaniness were the order of the day. WTF was all that about?
The movie also got me wondering: Is the fanaticism about diversity, anti-racism and tolerance that we’re presently enduring a related form of shared nuttiness? And why does America put itself through periodic episodes of quasi-religious frenzy?
More
- The reporter Debbie Nathan did heroic work covering the Satanic-abuse scandals. Here’s her terrific book about the cases.
- Wikipedia’s summary of the Bakersfield case is a good one.
- An interview with the filmmakers.
- A look at the career of Bakersfield D.A. Ed Jagels.
- The film is available on Netflix — though, sadly, only as a DVD. Or you could buy a copy from Amazon.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
It’s all a time honored tradition. We were founded by religious zanies and we keep going back to our roots periodically. We must keep our ancestors’ ghosts happy.
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Most plausible explanation I’ve run across yet.
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Someone ought to mention the very good Capturing the Friedmans: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342172/
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That’s one I need to catch up with, tks for the reminder.
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I was in elementary school at the time and I remember the hysteria well. We were taught to constantly be on the lookout for kidnappers. My parents would watch the news every night, and it seemed like they covered the McMartin trial for months. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I thought this HBO movie was pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Indictment-McMartin-Trial-Henry-Thomas/dp/B0079ZWUN4
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Tks, didn’t know about that one. Must have been weird to be a kid during that stretch. Was it ever finally explicitly explained to you that none of it had really happened? I’m surprised by the number of people I run into who are unaware that there was no basis — as in ZERO basis — for any of it. Many people seem to think, well, maybe the public outcry was a little overdone, but there must have been something going on …
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Talk about hysteria. This period make McCarthyism look like a calm, reasoned, fairminded episode. I mean, say what you will, there were actually commies in the Government, whereas all this crap was just totally false. A shameful period in our history.
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After all the assemblies, in-class films and lectures, and other “stranger danger” warnings, nah, I don’t think a single teacher ever said later, “Hey, sorry about putting the fear of God into you, but that was all bullshit.”
I wanna say around high school (although it could’ve been much later) I came across an L.A. Times magazine cover story on how the whole recovered memories thing was nonsense. Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who teaches at my undergrad alma mater, was one of the key people who debunked “recovered” memories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Loftus
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Just checked out Elizabeth Loftus. A genuine hero…
“Loftus has been insulted by a prosecutor, attacked by an airplane passenger who recognized her received hate mail and death threats, and has had to have protection from security guards while giving invited addresses.”
These people are stark, raving mad. And yes, their tactics do seem familiar, same as our PC/Antifa “friends
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This reminds me: I was abused by satanists when I was 5. Liked it.
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And there’s the Fells Acres case in Massachusetts about which Dorothy Rabinowitz did such excellent work. The good prosecutors have still not owned up.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003341640657862.html
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