Virginia Straightlings

[Anonymous]

The kids from NOVA were a bunch of spoiled rich kids "gone bad" and most of them had no qualms about stabbing each other in the back to advance themselves in the program. Fuck them all.

[Antigen]

Fuck em? Why? I'm interested in your/their story.

Some folks think The Riddler actually ran Straight "the right way", that it's not such a bad program or concept if done "right". And people seem pretty convinced that he's doing an outstanding job w/ these schools.

I find that extremely hard to believe. I believe, whole-heartedly, that his intentions were and are good, he's a smart and compassionate man and dedicated to his cause. But I think he's operating from a faulty premis.

So far, I've heard from a good many people who experienced Straight under his charge. Nobody seriously disputes that Riddle vastly reduced the more extreme types of abuse that pervaded the organization under Virgil. People who rode out the transition seem to rather like the guy, and who can blame them? But people who never knew Virgil or lived under his regime seem to feel differently. Their basis for comparisson is the more commonly accepted reality and the Program is, at it's core, abusive, coercive and fundamentally wrong by that objective standard, no matter who's running it or how pure their intentions.

I think Riddel is doing essentially the same thing w/ the school system. There are those two young men who tried to speak out about some of the district's policies and who received some pretty damned heavy handed, vindictive retribution for it.

So I'd like to hear more about that from NOVA vets and from The Riddeler's public school alumni. Who knows? Maybe, one day, the Riddeler himself will be willing to weigh in on these questions.

If All it takes is an infinite number of monkeys with type writers, then how come there's no Shakespeare coming out of AOL?
-- Anonymous

[Anonymous]

Fuck em? Why? I'm interested in your/their story.

Ok, fine then. Get their story & then fuck 'em.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-01-23 07:40:00, Anonymous wrote:

"The kids from NOVA were a bunch of spoiled rich kids "gone bad" and most of them had no qualms about stabbing each other in the back to advance themselves in the program. Fuck them all. "

I agree, I hated them all, I'm sure I hate you too, and you hate me. Let's get together and fist fight sometime, I'm sure that would benefit us both equally, and I would not do it to benefit you for the interest of "healing" or any shit like that, I would do it for the purely selfish reason that it might really make me feel a lot better or at the very least kill me. The injuries from fist fighting myself are mounting, perhaps a blow from you would knock me out for good.

I think you will find wisdom and meaning in a favorite saying of mine: The only good Straightling is a dead Straightling

I'd like to play ping pong nuclear warheads with old Trolly Greeves. Hey Trolly Greeves! Wanna get together and lay down some ping pong serving and smack-backing? May the loser be engulfed in the eternal heat of a thousand nuclear warheads!!!!! DIE STRAIGHTLING DIE!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

A bunch of dickheads, the lot of them.

[Anonymous]

There are quite a few that I'd personally take great pleasure in killing.

[Antigen]

On 2006-01-23 08:08:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

Fuck em? Why? I'm interested in your/their story.

Ok, fine then. Get their story & then fuck 'em."

I must admit this is an intriguing prospect. I would think, though, that I'd fuck em first, maybe in the process of getting the story. Definitely a fun idea. But, alas, I'm bound by a solemn vow to a good old friend and can only dream.  :wink:

Forgive, O Lord, my little joke on Thee and I'll  forgive Thy great big one on me.
--Robert Frost, American poet

[Anonymous]

What say we start with some of the staff members from that place. We could get a list going on this thread...who did YOU hate the most?

[Anonymous]

I really don't hate any of them. Except Leslie Murden should wipe that self-satisfied look off her face, if she still has it on, from "saving" all kinds of "addicts and alcoholics". She took part in child abuse at Straight, Inc. and possibly afterward as it seems to be her career interest. Really if I could I would ring her up and see if she ever figured anything out and if she could help us in any kind of incident/information gathering that would be necessary for the record and possibly otherwise useful. But really I would want to have some psychological back-up. It is easy to snap into the abuse/victim role you had before. I think it is a well-known psychological phenomenon. People do it with their families, so everyone kind of knows what I am talking about, and it would stand to reason that people who were in a cult have a similar problem.

I would really like to see all kinds of former staffers showing up at protests and talking to reporters about what went on. I believe it is possible that they were as hurt by Straight, or more so. You can see how it felt to Rich Bradbury and Jen Loar to wake up and realize that they had been a pawn in a terrible scene of child abuse. What a nightmare, I think we all feel guilty and ashamed enough of what we did in there on our phases. And don't try to say how great you were, or less abusive than anyone else. It was the day in day out hatred I got from other phasers, or else just the fact they didn't cop me out when I was getting abused on first phase, that really helped out a lot in my own personal damage from straight. We were all sorry sucker zombie machines, no more or less guilty. If some shithead staffer was abusing people, and you did not take your newcomers home that night and cop them all out, you are in some way responsible for subjecting those people to that abuse, if things ever got worse for one of your former newcomers. We were kids and I can easily forgive all that, I'm just saying, that's all. It gets annoying for people to say they really weren't that bad when everyone was bad and guilty, that is how Straight, Incorporated ran and stayed alive. Everyone abusing each other.

It's not like I have an interest in rounding up former staffers, but on a person to person level, maybe they should get their lights clocked just a bit, if only for the healing to the former victim of theirs that would probably happen if the victim got the chance to clock them; just once, to humiliate them in public or give them a bloody nose or something would say to the victim that yes, they can succeed now at taking down someone who once victimized them. I neither condone nor participate in fist fighting or clocking or anything, I just like to present alternative points of view. I have less than no use for former staffers who come around and try to tell me that so and so staffer was really a good guy. It's pathetic. I think we can all agree that when those staffers were doing to us what they were doing, they were shitheads and child abusers. No doubt about it. They were suckers and soulless brainwash victims, I can take that point of view, but they were not, at that time at least, "good guys".

[Anonymous]

And don't try to say how great you were, or less abusive than anyone else. It was the day in day out hatred I got from other phasers, or else just the fact they didn't cop me out when I was getting abused on first phase, that really helped out a lot in my own personal damage from straight. We were all sorry sucker zombie machines, no more or less guilty. If some shithead staffer was abusing people, and you did not take your newcomers home that night and cop them all out, you are in some way responsible for subjecting those people to that abuse, if things ever got worse for one of your former newcomers.

NO more or less guilty? That's certainly debatable. There were some that were much worse than others -- and I'm speaking of both phasers and staff here.

[Antigen]

I agree w/ every bit of what you're saying (Posted: 2006-01-23 11:40:00   in case someone's posting right about..... now!)

I do think most of the staff got fucked far harder than the rest of us. I can't really say that about the truely sadistic ones who never really bought in (Virgil). But the ones who believed in the program and who toughed out all the bullshit for the sole purpose of bringing some kindness into the mix, of eliminating the fucked up shit, of improving the program? Oh yeah. They got fucked harder than anybody.

Can you even imagine? Now, you're all grown up. You run into the grown up version of some kid who, because you thought it was good for them, you personally ordered to be bounced around the inside of a timeout room for a matter of days and nights without sleep? And now you know, you can't possibly not know at least on some level, how your very kindness and courage made you among the more exquisite tools of destruction. It would be like waking up from a nighmare here you're puverizing some bad guy in pure self defense, doing a good job of it, gloating a little then finding that you've been sleep walking and you're really well nigh half past killing someone you love.

How does one live with that? I'm glad I don't know.

But it's a cautionary tale. You're right about our collective and individual guilt, too.

But not completely. You missed one very important thing. Yeah, we all did, willingly or not, play into it. But I think we all also found ways to resist and subvert as often as we could and, once in awhile, it even worked. Those are the times I remember fondly. When, after eating and dishing more bullshit than I ever wanted to know was possible, I spent some of my cred to get Charlotte to a doctor. She had kidney problems. I knew that because her mom, herself, subverted the open meeting ground rules by telling the whole damned room how vitally important it was for her to use the bathroom frequently and thoroughly. I'm sure she got reemed a new one for that. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall. She was like a miniature version one of those old antibellum steel magnolias; about 4' nothin, polite and pettite, but as immovable as any linebacker mentally once she'd reached resolve about any damned thing.

Though they done me wrong and I them, I just can't entirely hate these people. Even those I really rather disliked then and would probably dislike even more now, I'd still like to talk to them and find out what they think of the whole thing all these years later.

I'd really like to have an occasional, purely intellectual and cordial public conversation w/ Mel Riddile over the basic methods and techniques he's used in both the Program and the school system. See, I think he's about the biggest tool of all. I don't know if it's more intellectual curiosity or a desire to try and turn him, but I really am thoroughly interested lately in finding out wtf he thought he was doing and what he makes of it all these days.

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself
--Jimmy Carter

_________________
Drug war POW  
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82
Why I Live at the PO

[Antigen]

One thing, though. Mel Riddile doesn't get to cry foul and run away over the course language and disturbing topic matter. It is not possible for any of us to do to him the kind of real damage he had done to some of his critics merely by posting on the net or picketting his place of employment.

Talking about it is not obscene and shouldn't be threatening to a mature, intellectually honest adult. I think maybe silence on the topic probably is, though.

One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.
--Thomas Brackett Reed

[Anonymous]

On 2006-01-23 12:28:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

And don't try to say how great you were, or less abusive than anyone else. It was the day in day out hatred I got from other phasers, or else just the fact they didn't cop me out when I was getting abused on first phase, that really helped out a lot in my own personal damage from straight. We were all sorry sucker zombie machines, no more or less guilty. If some shithead staffer was abusing people, and you did not take your newcomers home that night and cop them all out, you are in some way responsible for subjecting those people to that abuse, if things ever got worse for one of your former newcomers.

NO more or less guilty? That's certainly debatable. There were some that were much worse than others -- and I'm speaking of both phasers and staff here. "

I can kind of agree with you here, there was some REALLY twisted stuff.

As for the rest of all the intimidation and control we ALL participated in to one degree or another, it bugs me to have people here saying "I wasn't all that bad" or getting down on someone who was maybe more loud and a mean yelling fifth phaser, as opposed to someone who was just hateful and manipulative with their newcomers, or even nice to their newcomers but still definitely brainwashing them. All of the "good" phasers and staff were still playing Straight's game if they were in there playing the game at all, and that game contributed to everyone's injuries in Straight. That's all.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-01-23 13:19:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2006-01-23 12:28:00, Anonymous wrote:


"

And don't try to say how great you were, or less abusive than anyone else. It was the day in day out hatred I got from other phasers, or else just the fact they didn't cop me out when I was getting abused on first phase, that really helped out a lot in my own personal damage from straight. We were all sorry sucker zombie machines, no more or less guilty. If some shithead staffer was abusing people, and you did not take your newcomers home that night and cop them all out, you are in some way responsible for subjecting those people to that abuse, if things ever got worse for one of your former newcomers.

NO more or less guilty? That's certainly debatable. There were some that were much worse than others -- and I'm speaking of both phasers and staff here. "

I can kind of agree with you here, there was some REALLY twisted stuff.



As for the rest of all the intimidation and control we ALL participated in to one degree or another, it bugs me to have people here saying "I wasn't all that bad" or getting down on someone who was maybe more loud and a mean yelling fifth phaser, as opposed to someone who was just hateful and manipulative with their newcomers, or even nice to their newcomers but still definitely brainwashing them. All of the "good" phasers and staff were still playing Straight's game if they were in there playing the game at all, and that game contributed to everyone's injuries in Straight. That's all.



"

Gotta agree with you both, to a point.....but I firmly believe that execs like Miller Newton and board members like Sembler have much much more to answer for than even the most abusive Sr. Staff.  I think anyone who accepted monetary compensation for being a Staff member is guilty above and beyond anyone who was just a phaser.  True, we perpetuaated the abuse machine ourselves, but the Execs and Staff I think are much more responsible for the damage that was  done.  Hang 'em high, I say.

[Antigen]

See now, I see it from entirely the opposite angle. What difference does it make who was more or less guilty than anybody else? And how do we ever settle that argument? What would constitute emperical proof? And then, getting back to the point, what would be the point?

There's an old saying about Communism. A Communist is someone who's read Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. A Capitalis is someone who's understood them. Same difference between people people who support and, in some way, impliment the program and those who oppose it; we understand it and they don't. And coercion and punishment, even in the limited capacity we actually have to impose it (relative to theirs to dish it back), is not an effective long term behavior modifier, is it?

How can we get some of them to understand and more of the people around them to notice that they don't? The only way I know to do that is to get them to say what they really think right out before God and everybody. Just let them be their inimitable selves. Talk w/ yer feet, chilins.

No school at all is better than a bad school.  Nothing else in the child's environment is capable of such systematic destruction.
--George Dennison