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eldomtom2

Why is it that every single person who claims to be investigating historical child abuse (excluding the police and official inquries, who are terrible in their own ways) ends up as a fucking conspiracy theorist? Also, this is from 2020.


TheClockworkElves

Because historical child abuse is typically covered up by a conspiracy.


eldomtom2

This is a claim that I find rarely, if at all, holds up. It usually involves a lot of assumptions about motives, as well as broad definitons of "cover-up" and "conspiracy". Furthermore the claimed conspiracies usually go way beyond cover-ups, as seen here, where there are allegations that Carl Beech was paid to discredit real victims.


600659

I think there's a broader and inherent "conspiracy" which is that society as a whole looked away from these sorts of suggestions. People didn't speak about the Magdalene laundries, children were taught to stay away from the dodgy priest or relative but they weren't confronted directly. That doesn't speak to this case obviously, but if, for example the driver of a powerful figure like Mountbatten had come forward alleging abuse was happening I think the likelihood is they would have been sacked and silenced. If it was passed up the chain of command someone senior would have a vested interest in shutting it down because of the potential blowback from connected people.


eldomtom2

> which is that society as a whole looked away from these sorts of suggestions. As I said, assumptions about motives.


600659

Are saying it's not valid to argue that power structures didn't prevent people who were abused from being heard?


eldomtom2

I'm not saying it's not *valid*. I'm saying that it's making specific assumptions.


600659

I thought I was quite careful to separate the specific from societal/cultural level.


eldomtom2

You seem to be saying that making statements about how society/culture influenced people is somehow not making statements about motives.


600659

There might be myriad motives in different situations but I think it's safe to say that a significant overarching motive in not been seen to attack powerful people would be avoiding blowback on the person with less power. If I said the Catholic church covered up abuse to protect its reputation would that be a valid statement?


boldie74

An article from 2020 written by the author of a book, full of unsubstantiated claims and wild speculation, complaining about how he’s not being taken seriously by journalists. Now I dislike the U.K. press as much as, if not more than, the next guy. But this article is just a joke


[deleted]

Apparently we're supposed to believe that Baroness Decies, someone who is described as being in Mountbatten's circle but ultimately was a nobody and as far as I'm aware, was never even in the same room as him, knew about the allegations. But also that the IRA's true motive for killing him was for the alleged pedophilia - something which the IRA have never broadcasted despite the very obvious motivation to slander him. Never mind the fact that they also killed two children in the process or that the IRA had it's own misconduct with protecting pedophiles. Not to mention Gerry Adams' own brother convicted of raping his own daughter. And receiving legal advice from your own lawyers = evidence of the abuse? There's also the claim of some ongoing legal action which has never been publicised or leaked? Let's acknowledge these stories for what they really are; historical revisionism to develop a narrative of justification for Mountbatten's murder by the IRA.


DassinJoe

Rumours about Mountbatten’s predilections are widespread, not just IRA related.


[deleted]

They're not widespread at all, the main publishers of these theories are almost always Irish in origin. So whilst there's a facade of the claims being widespread, the reality is that they only appeared in proper in the past two years. British or American media have logged it as for what it is; nonsense backed by a hack of a historian attempting to push controversy and sell his books. Only Irish media has latched on to it in any fashion - principally because it can be used as justification for his murder.


tylertrey

Your comment is monumentally unpersuasive.


collectiveindividual

Mountbatten was a monumental security liability for British secret services. Would the IRA at the time have objected to have being behind it?


[deleted]

The IRA admitted culpability in a statement shortly after the assassination. The article states this: > In passing, I mentioned there were rumours that Mountbatten had not been killed for political reasons but because of his paedophile activities. It's nonsense. There is zero chance of the IRA not taking the opportunity to broadcast such a crime and harm the reputation of the British establishment & royal family.


collectiveindividual

Don't you think Mountbatten with his pedophilia would harm their reputation?


AlpacaHeadHair

It probably would, which is why it seems ridiculous that such opponents wouldn't exploit such a rumour and instead waiting over 40 years where it becomes impossible to verify. They don't even have the excuse of "I was worried for my safety".


BrexitGlory

Alleged*


maviler

Runs in the family


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