By my count, the New York Times has published at least 20 articles, columns, videos, podcasts, or other “content” on the glories of Gloria Steinem since her death September 2. The latest is entitled “Keep Lighting the Torches That Gloria Steinem Lit.” You’d think they would eventually run out of ass-kissing cliches, but the supply has clearly not yet been exhausted. Bathe for long enough in this hagiographical whirlpool, and you’ll find plenty of analysis of things like her “glamour” and clothing choices — “the bell bottoms, hip-slung belts and bodysuits were merely weapons in her battle,” we’re told — but I can find not a single mention anywhere of Steinem’s formative contribution to perhaps the most absurd, calamitous mass-hysteria outbreak in modern American history. Namely the starring role she once played in the “Satanic ritual abuse” craze, which I documented at some length earlier this week.
Part of my research entailed trying to track down an original version of the Steinem-contrived Ms. Magazine cover story of January/February 1993, which purported to relay an anonymous woman’s first-hand account of extreme early childhood sex torture — perpetrated on her by a secret Satanic cult when she was just four or five years old. The cover art is easy enough to find, but the article’s full text proved a bit trickier. Luckily enough, I discovered a full copy had been preserved, of all places, by the Montana state legislature. What’s the backstory there, you ask? How did this triumph of “feminist” journalism wind up in Montana government repositories? Good question! Glad you asked.
Other materials in the archival packet reveal the bone-chilling article was submitted via mail to State Representative Marjorie Fisher (D) on February 4, 1993. The big explosive issue of Ms. Magazine had just come out, and its infant decapitation cult novella scenes were causing a bit of a national splash. Montana lawmakers had already taken interest in the alleged “Satanic ritual sex abuse” sweeping the land with impunity, and a public hearing was in the works.
So to aid their investigation, the Steinem-engineered horror story was enclosed in a letter sent by someone named Randall E. “Randy” Mills, who described himself as a longtime reporter for numerous well-reputed Montana newspapers, as well as a longtime operative/staffer for various well-regarded Montana elected officials. His employment at the time was said to be “writer/researcher” for the Montana branch of the AFL-CIO — though he contradictorily added that he’d been unable to work for the past two years, due to his newly-surfaced memories of savage child sex abuse, as well as the “traumatic” levels of therapy he’d been undergoing to cope. My educated guess: the latter was likely the more proximate cause of whatever troubles were bedeviling Randy. After submission of the letter, he traveled to the State Capitol on March 3, 1993 to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee himself. There, he insisted to the gathered lawmakers that among other things, he “once was a very functioning person.” Until…