A Victim of “Sexual Abuse” Witchhunt

(Letters)

Roslindale, Mass.
23 February 2017

Dear Comrades,

The article about the victimized young women in Texas [“San Antonio Four: Latina Lesbians Exonerated” (WV No. 1105, 10 February)] reminded me of another victim of that era of witchhunting, a young gay man of Pittsfield in western Massachusetts, Bernard Baran, who left school at 16, became a child care worker and was accused of child molestation and convicted in 1985 in a monstrously fraudulent prosecution conducted by a vindictive prosecutorial team which included the Democratic district attorney. Baran was the first of the child care workers to be prosecuted in what was to be an era of hysterical victimization of innocent people. He was sentenced to three life sentences and ended up spending 22 years in horrific imprisonment which included repeated rapes and beatings and medical treatments that were performed sadistically. He was released on bond in 2006 and died suddenly in 2014 of causes no doubt related to his years of imprisonment. He spent almost half of his short life behind bars. Even after his conviction was set aside by the courts, liberal Democratic darling and then Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley refused to expunge his criminal record when it was in her power to do so. In 1989 the chief prosecutor was nominated as associate justice for the Massachusetts Superior Court by Michael Dukakis where he still serves. One of the lessons of this tragic story is that Democrats as well as Republicans are united in service to the interests of the capitalist class in whipping up day care hysteria in an attempt to scare parents into keeping mom at home raising the kids and performing unpaid labor all her adult life, cooking, cleaning and caring for children, her life diminished into performing menial tasks in the context of the nuclear family, so valuable to the ruling class in fostering low social consciousness, conservative social attitudes and obedient children. The tragic brief life of this man must be remembered by the working class.

A WV reader

WV replies: We thank our reader for highlighting the case of this victim of the “sexual abuse” witchhunt. At the time, we denounced the reactionary nationwide campaign against childcare workers in “Children, Sex, State Witchhunters: The Uses of Abuse” (Women and Revolution No. 29, Spring 1985).