..

[69]

..

[Antigen]

Wow, this is the first you've come accross this stuff? It is pretty interesting, isn't it? Let me throw a bit of balast into the mix, too.

US and other world powers' interest in these techniques is well known and well documented. And there exist vague ties between the early industry and CIA. Mainly, GHW Bush having been head of CIA and then becoming a strong advocate for Straight, Inc. If you look under my /anonanon/video/ section, you can find Bush the elder doing an Ad Council type promo for Straight, Inc. shot w/ the presidential seal as a backdrop.

However, there's another side to this. All of these techniques are also present in spontaniously formed groups. Street gangs can be compared to these groups in significant ways. Authoritarian family structures can also. The most interesting exchange I ever had on the toppic was with a good friend in Florida who grew up in Haiti. I finally screwed up the courage to tell her all about my weird history one day. These websites and research and such had been taking up so much of my time she thought I was mad at her and wanted to know what was keeping me so damned busy. (well, she wouldn't say 'damn', being a devout Catholic)

So I explained, as best I could. She listened patiently. I thought she was gonna tell me to take a powder or a nap or something. Instead she said "Oh yeah, Zombie". Zombie? What? Language gap, maybe? No, she heard me and understood and then explained how hucksters in the highlands of Haiti, out of the city near the border w/ Dominica (right where Escula Caribe[sp?] is located) do the same damned thing to people. They find people who are in crisis (not hard to do in that part of the world) and they convinve them that they, the "zombie master", are endowed with magical powers, that the mark will surely die or go to hell or a relative will die--whatever strikes the most fearful chord in them will do--and that the only hope for salvation is to do everything exactly as the "zombie master" says.

It's not some kind of weird sci-fi technology. I think it's a systematic implimentation of some of the most messed up ways in which human beings often treat each other.

The inspiration of the Bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it.
--Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

[Troll Control]

On 2006-01-07 08:14:00, Exit Plan wrote:

"Why aren't more people who grew up in the rabid anti-communist era appalled by the very existence of these camps?"

This one is easy.  Just watch the news or follow politics and you will see the answer:

When THEY do it, it's abhorrent, unacceptable, wrong and anti-American.  When WE do it, it's necessary, normal, right and patriotic.

[AtomicAnt]

Why did they come about in the first place? At what point did parents start becoming comfortable with the idea of sending their children off to 'get fixed'? How did the public consiousness shift, to now the child was so at danger of being deadorinjail they had to resort to this awful technique?

This part is easy. The dual income family became the norm during the late 70s and early 80s. Preschool age kids are now in preschool or daycare. Kids spend more waking hours in institutions than at home. It's not a big leap to boarding school.
 
Also, with the rise of dual income families comes the necessity of hiring everything out that used to be done by the family; landscaping, cooking, cleaning, pretty much everything. So, why not hire out fixing the kids?

Finally, therapy (in whatever form) is now pretty normal. When I was kid only 'crazy' people sought out therapy. There was a much bigger stigma associated with mental health issues. Now, it is not uncommon to see counselors and therapists.

This is how I see it, anyway.

[Antigen]

On 2006-01-07 08:14:00, Exit Plan wrote:

I would love some help reconciling a few thoughts about 'programs'.

Well, I can give you may take on this stuff.

Why did they come about in the first place? At what point did parents start becoming comfortable with the idea of sending their children off to 'get fixed'? How did the public consiousness shift, to now the child was so at danger of being deadorinjail they had to resort to this awful technique?

I think that had a whole lot to do w/ the peace/youth movement that grew up in the daze of the Vietnam war more than anything else. And, of course, it was gradual. I'm only 40 and I can remember when teenaged kids almost all had either wealthy parents or part time jobs. Most had a car or regular use of the family car and, when an adult wanted to go do something, it was pretty typical to snag the nearest teenager and have them babysit. It was almost as casual as 'tag, yer it!'

Teenagers were treated almost like adults. No one ever questioned their rights to privacy or expected them to do anything horrible if unsupervised. The #1 date rape drug was then, as it is now, alcohol. But the adults and their parents and grandparents and so on did alcohol. Nothing spooky or scary about it.

But marijuana? Crazy Mexicans and Jazz Mucicians used that stuff to seduce nice white girls!

Then there was the expected wave of heroin addicted returning Vietnam vets who never materialized. Oh, the vets came home, to be sure. Most of them just never looked for a new connect. Heroin, for them, was part of the hell-scene they'd left behind.

It's a really complex question you're asking. You could go at it from another, deeper angle as well and look to the begining of the Industrial Revolution or even further to the various waves of immigration from foreign lands.

But, as to the Synanon based programs specifically (and WWASP and the Seed line are Synanon based) I think it had more to do w/ the Summer of Manson phenomeno I described above (by contrast)

I also wonder, do people start these programs to become millionaires, or do they actually believe they are helping people, like other cults do? Are they just a succesful cult, that happened to make a lot of money (like scientology)? Or are they a business, which adapted cult tactics to save money. Or both?

Almost impossible to say. But I tend to think that, like most cults, most of the people involved believe they're doing good.

Why aren't more people who grew up in the rabid anti-communist era appalled by the very existence of these camps?

Excellent question! Why, indeed! The entire drug war started out as the Harrison Narcotics Act; part and parcel of the New Deal. And yet it's the darling of the extreme right (Religious Reich) and few others. Just one of those things that surpatheth all understanding.

Isn't the very ideal of America individualism and responsibility?

I get some of it, but not nearly enough for me to be satisfied.

I think you're way ahead of the pack already.

/back to reading

That may have something to do with it!  :wink:

Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge.
--Ayn Rand, Russian-born author

_________________
Drug war POW
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82