"the CBA is outspokenly anti-Barford"?

CBA [SW]

Wayne Sayles either has some inside information or is engaging in coiney wishful thinking about the Council for British Archaeology when he gets personal and states categorically:

the CBA is outspokenly anti-Barford

I really do wonder about the source of this "information" published by a Missouri coin dealer on a Washington lobbyist's blog. It all seems a little far removed from CBA headquarters in York. I would say that, unlike certain other heritage professionals' groups in the UK, the CBA is open to arguments from all sides of the ongoing heritage debate, which includes various opinions on artefact hunting and collecting. But my voice is one of many in the broader heritage debate, I doubt the CBA (or anyone else) actually has a standpoint for or against any one individual voice.

We see this time and time again, the insistence with which collectors (coineys and metal detectorists)_ seek group approval, proof that others in the group see things exactly the same way as they do. It's an identity thing, an identity thing of insecure people I would say. The ACCG aims include "To nurture a strong sense of identity among ancient coin collectors and to offer an opportunity for collectors to escape the "Robinson Crusoe Syndrome" of feeling alone in their collecting interests". Obviously this fear of "being alone" is very strong. That is why they constantly try and convince themselves that "nobody" reads an archaeological blog discussing portable antiquity issues ("He has a couple of fans in Botswana and from what I've heard three or four witch doctors in the Amazon rainforest love his blog"). This is why they consider that it so important that not all archaeologists agree with me, I guess they gain some succour that "They probably laugh about him over a glass of sherry at the AIA board meetings" and the PAS never invite me to their Christmas party. Collectors form a monolithic group, when one of their leaders says "jump", they all jump, to a man. Nobody protests, nobody asks why they jump. They all can feel part of a happy family, and woe betide the party member who steps out of line. So nobody does to avoid being rejected by the group. It's all a bit pathetic really.

In contrast to those insecure folk in their bobble hats and camo-uniforms with their time-worn glib mantras and nonsense arguments, there are those in the world who do not think and write the things they  do in order to be seen to be thinking what the whole group does so people will like them. I doubt many people in the latter group will be swayed by the argument, "if you write that, the [XYZ] will not like you, they'll laugh at you". And nor will I. That is just pathetic, Mr Sayles.You carry on blocking out, shouting down, voices of dissent, make yourself and your members who put their trust in you irrelevant to any future real dialogue.