"sharky" <sharky818@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<zCiEc.173591$3x.80366@attbi_s54>...
> "gandow" <gandow@dialogzentrum.de> wrote in message
> news:1088524035.650814@elch.in-berlin.de...
> > PRESS RELEASE June 29, 2004
> >
> > This is a press release of the
> > European-American Citizens Committee
> > for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA (EACC)
> >
> > 2004 Leipzig Human Rights Award
> >
> > Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer
> >
> > Following the 2003 ceremony and celebration, as has been our
> > custom each of the past four years since the Leipzig Human Rights
> > Award began, the committee met and selected from among a slate of
> > nominees the recipient of the next year?s award. The committee
> > selected for 2004 Doctor Margaret Thaler Singer.
> >
> > Not long afterward, Dr. Singer became ill, and after a five-month
> > hospitalization, on November 23, 2003, she passed away.
>
> Mann dieser Preis hat es wirklich in sich. Die ersten "Preistraeger"
> verloren nur ihren Job (Vivien) oder mussten ihre politische Karriere
> beenden (Bluem), der erste gar will von dem Preis und den Propagandisten gar
> nichts mehr wissen (Minton). Nun sterben die Leute bereits weg, wenn man
> ihnen den "Preis" angedenkt.
>
> > Also following the Leipzig ceremony and committee meeting, on
> > June 15, 2003, Robert Vaughn Young, an award nominee and
> > supporter, died.
>
> Und noch einer, dieser "Preis" ist ja wirklich gefaehrlich.
>
> > On July 24, 2003 we lost our own dear Committee member, Dr.
> > Claire Champollion.
>
> Wie die Fliegen, das "Kommittee" sollet da aber mal nachdenklich werden.
>
> > On November 4, 2003, the world lost Herbert Rosedale,
>
> Uebertreib mal nicht, wenn Euch die Hetzer und Propagandisten wegsterben,
> dann ist das nicht unbedingt ein Verlust fuer die Welt.
>
> > And then we all lost Margaret Singer.
>
> Mir fehlt sie nicht, und ich kenne eine Menge andere Leute, denen sie auch
> nicht fehlt. Damit ist die Aussage wohl falsch.
>
> >
> > As our Charter and our name state, we are a transatlantic
> > organization that focuses principally on.....
>
> Lass mich das mal richtigstellen:
>
> ...der Diffamierung Andersdenkender und der Verbreitung von Hass- und
> Propagandaluegen..
>
> So stimmt es dann.
>
> >
> > Each of our past award recipients has been targeted by
> > Scientology as an "SP"
>
> Irgendeinen Beleg fuer die Behauptung?
>
> > We also decided not to hold a celebration this
> > year.
>
> Wenn Euch die "Preistraeger" und Kommitteemitglieder reihenweise umfallen,
> ist das wirklich kein Grund zum Feiern, das kann man verstehen.
>
> > We cannot control when someone dies or we will die, ...
>
> Ich waere aber dennoch vorsichtig wem ihr den naechsten Preis verleihen
> wollt. Der aussichtsreichste Kandidat (so amerikafeindlich wie Gandow)
> Saddam Hussein koennte Euch auch ausfallen. Also seid vorsichtig.

Check this out, Sharky. The Leipziger have a tendency to support
unprofessionals.

Barbara Schwarz
copied from the www.religiousfreedomwatch.org
Pamela Lichtenwalner (continued)
Who was Margaret Bridget Singer?
Margaret Singer was a psychologist whose theories of so-called "cultic
coercive persuasion" have been discredited by her own profession. The
American Psychological Association (APA) rejected these theories as
lacking scientific foundation. Several courts have forbidden Singer
to testify as an expert on these theories because, as one court
stated, "her coercive persuasion theory did not represent a meaningful
concept."

The APA formally dismissed Singer's ideas in the 1980s after she and
her associates from the American Family Foundation (AFF) (an
anti-religious hate-group) had formed a task force within the APA on
"deceptive and indirect methods of persuasion and control." This task
force submitted its report to the Board of Social and Ethical
Responsibility for Psychology of the APA.

The Board rejected the task force's report in May of 1987. The APA
stated that "in general, the report lacks the scientific rigor and
evenhanded critical approach needed for APA imprimatur." The APA
requested that the task force members not imply that the APA in any
way supported the positions they had put forward in their report.

Prior to its rejection of Singer's report, the APA had already
endorsed a position contrary to Singer's "coercive persuasion" theory
in an amicus brief before the California Supreme Court in Molko v.
Holy Spirit Association for the unification of World Christianity.

The forward of the amicus brief contained a stinging comment that
forecast the repudiation the APA would later deal to Singer: "[the]
APA believes that this commitment to advancing the appropriate use of
psychological testimony in the courts carries with it the concomitant
duty to be vigilant against those who would use purportedly expert
testimony lacking scientific and methodological rigor."

Blind to this lack of support from her colleagues, Singer continued to
sell her services as an "expert" witness and was permitted to testify
in the case of Kropinsky v. World Plan Executive Council. However, in
August of 1988, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals overturned
the case, citing the lack of acceptance of Singer's theories:
"Kropinski failed to provide any evidence that Dr. Singer's particular
theory, namely that techniques of thought reform may be effective in
the absence of physical threats or coercion, has a significant
following in the scientific community, let alone general acceptance."

In 1989, Singer's status received another blow in the decision of the
Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeal of California in the case of
Robin George v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness of
California. Singer was hired to testify that Robin George had been
"brainwashed" into joining the Krishna movement. The appellate court
dismissed her testimony, finding it to have been merely an attempt to
bolster a civil litigant's attempt to collect damages: "... Robin's
brainwashing theory of false imprisonment is no more than an attempt
to premise tort liability on religious practices the Georges find
objectionable. Such a result is simply inconsistent with the First
Amendment."

In 1990, U.S., in United States v. Fishman, District Court Judge D.
Lowell Jensen rejected Singer's theories and those of her sociologist
colleague, Richard Ofshe. He prohibited both Singer and Ofshe from
testifying about "thought reform" as expert witnesses.

In 1991, in the case of Patrick Ryan v. Maharishi Yogi, the U.S.
District Court in D.C. applying a looser standard than the Fishman
case, still found that Singer's theories lacked acceptance in the
scientific community.

Instead of attempting to compile scientific evidence to support their
theories (or adopting theories that could stand up to the rigors of
scientific inquiry) Singer and Ofshe then took the novel approach of
suing the APA and the ASA for having rejected their theories and
respected scientists for having criticized their shoddy research
methods. Singer and Ofshe complained that the defendants had
conspired to deny them employment as paid expert witnesses in the
anti-religious community. Judge Lawrence Mc Kenna dismissed their
complaint as "absurd".

Undaunted, Singer and Ofshe filed a similar case in California. This
complaint was stricken by Judge James R. Lambden under California's
anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statute.

Singer was an advisory board member of the old Cult Awareness Network
(CAN) until it went bankrupt in the face of a $1.8 million civil
judgment for the deprogramming of a member of the Pentecostal Church.
She was also an advisory board member of the AFF. Both groups have
relied on her discredited theories of "brainwashing" and "coercive
persuasion" to lend an air of respectability to their attacks against
minority religions. While this theory initially gained some
popularity among civil litigants in the 1970s and 1980s who were
seeking large damages awards for their voluntary participation in
religious activity, the theories were unable to withstand scientific
inquiry.

As Professor Harry Cox, Professor of Divinity at Harvard University
observed, "the term 'brainwashing' has no respectable standing in
scientific or psychiatric circles, and is used almost entirely to
describe a process by which somebody arrived at convictions that I do
not agree with." John T. Biremans: The Odyssey of New Religions
Today).

Dick Anthony has compiled an excellent study of the scientific
literature debunking Singer's theories (and those of her colleagues in
the anti-religious business). Singer bases her work on what she claims
to be the results of studies into the treatment of prisoners of war
during the Korean conflict. Anthony shows that the entire Korean
brainwashing scare was without substance and was merely a political
campaign concocted to perpetuate the anti-Communist hysteria of the
McCarthy era.

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