Where is the outrage?

[OverLordd]

I resently had a talk with a friend, and we discussed a friend that got in trouble. It was something minor, and the parents grounded the person in question. No big deal, but then my friend said. "Well locking them up issent the answer." And I said. "ah well you would be suprised how many people think locking kids up is the way to go, there is a muilt billion dollar industry alowing it." and she said. "Well that sucks." And went on with the conversation. We continued to talk and the conversation went on as normal. This talk just undertscored with me the fact that no one cares. Face it. No one cares about these kids. No one cares what happens to them. No one cares who dies, and no one cares about rights, humanity, whatever... God I hate people.

[Anonymous]

Ask the Whitmore Academy parents about the outrage. They are outraged that their children were abused, and they are still fighting through the civil and criminal court systems.
These parents have faced criticism for enrolling their children at Whitmore; for believing Sue Scheff's PURE lies--but these parents have been demanding that the Sudweeks be held accountable for the past 19 months. Yes, there is outrage!

[Anonymous]

Don't derail another thread with the Whitmore topic. Not to minimize it, but OL was not talking about people already familiar with the industry. Perfect strangers are not even interested, much less outraged. And it is a shame.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-06-25 20:09:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

Don't derail another thread with the Whitmore topic. Not to minimize it, but OL was not talking about people already familiar with the industry. Perfect strangers are not even interested, much less outraged. And it is a shame."

 :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :wstupid:  :nworthy:  :nworthy:  :nworthy:  :nworthy:  :nworthy:  :nworthy:

[Anonymous]

You don't know what OL was thinking about. You don't control this topic.

[Anonymous]

OverLord, it's called APATHY, a lack of interest, feeling or caring about things that don't affect a person.
People are apathetic about world hunger, war, orphans--many many things that affect other individuals on an intense basis.
The same with the teen help industry.
But, you care, I care...and MANY MANY people do care about these kids.
That's what matters.

[Anonymous]

I agree, people do care and some have been forced offline (anti-troubled-teen websites) because they cared too much but COULD NOT AFFORD TO FIGHT the SUE HAPPY ASSHOLES OUT THERE.

I would estimate at least 5-10 websites went under or were forced underground.

And yet the bad boys are still there.  The referral companies, transport agents, the sleezebags who profit from locking up kids.

If you want to stop it, you best focus on the gateway to the industry:  Ed Cons and Referral Services.

Federal Regs appear to be a ways off.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-06-25 19:54:00, OverLordd wrote:

"I resently had a talk with a friend, and we discussed a friend that got in trouble. It was something minor, and the parents grounded the person in question. No big deal, but then my friend said. "Well locking them up issent the answer." And I said. "ah well you would be suprised how many people think locking kids up is the way to go, there is a muilt billion dollar industry alowing it." and she said. "Well that sucks." And went on with the conversation. We continued to talk and the conversation went on as normal. This talk just undertscored with me the fact that no one cares. Face it. No one cares about these kids. No one cares what happens to them. No one cares who dies, and no one cares about rights, humanity, whatever... God I hate people."

Grounding kids is good,and you should not beat them or put them in programs.
My dog refused to obey me,and ran after another dog.When I caught up with him,I snatched him by his collar and "escorted" him home with NO SLACK on the chain,and his front feet barely touching the ground.I tied him to a tree with NO SLACK in such a position that he could barely sit down.After 15 minutes,I gave him some slack and isolated him in the back yard until dinner time.
I never raised my voice to him.I never beat him and I never sent him to obedience school.
He lernt his lesson and always obeyed me afterwards.

[Oz girl]

I suspect that 1 reason is that there is absolutely no international exposure. I had very little idea that this industry existed and what i did know was of the wilderness therapy industry. I had imagined it was like some kind of outward bound but with counsellors & therapists who were firm but friendly role models for kids having a few dramas at home!!!!! before I read the stories that kids told I was in principal for wilderness programmes because i imagined that they buily character and that the kids found the experience rewarding. i also was unaware of kids being escorted & imagined that they usually went willingly or were slightly shitty at the prospect of going but usually had an ok time once there!  Wehn i did find out(particularly about the death and injury rate) i was pretty outraged.

I think that another reason may be cultural. The main marketing of a lot of the big companies ( I think of aspen in particular) very much focus on the idea that if your friends kids seem nicer, smarter, less defiant than your own, then yours are in real trouble! One of their marketing videos even has the "therapist" beginning with the statement "It is always worse than you think". In a culture where regulation is seen as a threat to the free market and children are legally defined as both the property of and socially seen as a reflection on their parents this is turning out to be a bit of a recepie for disaster!

I think that the only solution aside from exposure of ugly side of the whole industry & tighter regulation, is for parents to not give in to the temptation of a quick fix! this must be hard when they are made to feel like failures when their kids do not turn out exactly the way their community thinks they should.

[Anonymous]

Its like the injustice that goes on in County Jail.
Once you leave,you stop caring.
Better them than me!

[Anonymous]

Seems our friends across the pond - (the brits) need to stop sending their kids to american owned and operated behavior mod and wilderness therapy programs.

Are there any advocacy groups in UK who are actively trying to stop the influx of British (and others) kids into these programs?

Wasn't there a special on a group of Brit kids sent to a BRAT CAMP in the U.S.?

Was there any public outrage in England?

[Anonymous]

On 2006-06-26 08:07:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Seems our friends across the pond - (the brits) need to stop sending their kids to american owned and operated behavior mod and wilderness therapy programs.



Are there any advocacy groups in UK who are actively trying to stop the influx of British (and others) kids into these programs?



Wasn't there a special on a group of Brit kids sent to a BRAT CAMP in the U.S.?



Was there any public outrage in England?"

http://www.youth-rights-uk.org/

[MightyAardvark]

It's getting bad in the UK too. A fair amount of my time is taken up co-ordinating with other activists trying to get British kids released from these places. On the other hand Britain still has a long way to go before we're looking at the same kind of problem America has.

Where's the outrage?
As an outsider looking in, the lack of emotion regarding this practice in America is pretty predictable. America treats it's young people like criminals on the basis that they are young. Three quarters of America's largest cities have six-ten hour curfews affecting yougn people, schools feels they have the right and moral obligation to invade the personal and private lives of students on a whim, children processed through juvenile court sacrifice many of their rights, supposedly in exhange for a more rehabilitative judicial structure but in fact find themselves frequently on the recieving end of even stiffer penalties than adults charged with the same crime.
The current generation of American young people is the most law abiding generation of Americans since records began and they get treated like shit. Against this backdrop it's not hard to make the leap to warehousing them all.

[Antigen]

I don't think it's so much apathy toward this particular horror. I think the trouble is apathy to and profound ignorance of real life outside of the cubeland -> tv and back again pseudo reality.

Why are parents today utterly at a loss, terrified of the dirty business of loving and guiding their own kids? That's what makes them sitting ducks to any snake oil salesman who comes along.

When you take just a moment to look critically at what the industry offers, it's just ridiculous that anyone would fall for it. The basic offer makes just about as much sense as the Enquirer's Blue Dot or the sageatious advice coming out of Oprah's latest pet life coaching guru or that generous offer you just got from the wealthy Nigerian widow. And yet people fall for this crap? These people? The ones who wouldn't stand a one more tea tax, foreign controlled currency or an excise tax on Whiskey?

That is the root of the problem. And I think that, in hindsight, it's pretty easy to trace how it happened. Just around 100 years ago, most Americans lived rural lifestyles. True enough, that meant that most of them (but not all) took little interest in world affairs and only a cursory interest in classic education. But anybody knew how to live, ya' know? Survival alone in a rural economy requires some sound common sense, a good work ethic and the ability to cultivate and nurture strong social ties.

In any part of the world you may go, it's the same. City people can be compete and utter pricks for life and not suffer much for it. What does it matter? You burn one bridge, there are a thousand others. In a rural setting it doesn't work that way. You burn your neighbor, you may well go cold in winter or without needed help at harvest time.

Most of us are just not learning these life skills anymore. We don't spend time with our elders and learn our histories or the grace of living as only they can teach us. By the time we're raising kids, it's all a mystery and we've been raised ourselves to believe the obscene fallacy that there's a professional product or service for any occasion or trouble.

Now, how do we undo that?

To be an atheist requires strength of mind and goodness of heart found in not one of a thousand.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, critic, journalist, philosopher

_________________
fka ~ Antigen
Drug war POW  
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82
return undef() if /coercion/i;[ This Message was edited by: Eudora on 2006-06-29 07:58 ]