A couple of years ago I was very often in the grips of a rage that rose up powerfully when I began to confront things that had happened to me and also from hearing other survivors' stories. Newly, there were the words of other survivors sharing the same and more extreme stories of abuse as well as similar feelings, which for years I had felt but also repressed as immaterial, regarding the destruction of identity in Straight. I gained by shared storytelling a better compassion for my own history re Straight. I was mourning and raging not just for my own history, but for so many others' too. It never felt right to join in the RTP cult's "Psychic Experiment" to blast Miller Newton with hate rays or whatever. But before that we had our thread "Die Straight Stalag" mit Drugdoplh HitTroll, thank god for fun like that.
Just look at all the shit that has hit Miller Newton since the two psychic experiments went down. Trust me on this one,
RTC-sponsored psychic attacks are more effective, and more fun, than a dozen court-orders and five hundred protests and twenty-three candlelight vigils
combined. Not only do they help bring about what we in the mindfuck-erasure industry refer to as 'closure' for the participants, they also help settle the score with the perpetrators of some pretty heinous crimes. A win-win situation all the way around, if you ask me, but I am somewhat biased regarding this particular subject. Sorry you couldn't make it, but I understand your feelings and respect them. Maybe you'll change your mind and join us for the next one, should that ever happen. Right now the
RTC heirarchy is pretty busy trying to contain some alien demon-gods that escaped during a recent Invocation. (Pretty beastly fuckers, too, I told the fucking acolytes to make sure the rum was strong enough to pacify the
loa, but they just wouldn't listen.........)
So I'm just not comfortable with the image of the two protestors standing outside Riddile's office windows. I don't condone that as a tactic. It is harassing in nature, and serves I am afraid to actually hinder the Utmost Intention. It's just kind of a menacing, harassing thing to do. And while I think that any person has the right to engage in civil protest by their own fashion, I think others are right to consider the further, ultimate, desired goals, and want to disagree with methods and means. This is, after all, our shared concern.
Personally, I
am OK with the idea of protesters calling attention to Mel's crimes, I don't think a perpetrator of systematic child abuse should be in a position of authority over children, and I think a little public awareness of Mel's crimes is a good thing. Also, I wanted to show some support for RG and ISAAC, since they helped a buddy of mine when he was thinking some evil thoughts about himself and was considering checking out early. It's selfish, but I want him to stick around a bit longer. Sometimes his skewed insight on the world, and our situation as survivors of institutional child abuse, has kept me from doing the same thing.
I really don't see where there is any comparison between two people, one of whom is an admitted "kook who wants to legalize drugs" (hint: it's the one who isn't RG) standing outside a child abuser's place of employment and publicly calling for him to account for his crimes and anything that we were subjected to at Straight. I really don't. I'm not offended at the comparison, I just don't see how this makes us into "the thing we are fighting against".
That being said, I know RG deals with the painful issue of institutional child abuse all the time. Just like volunteers at a deadly disaster can become emotionally overwhelmed by what they witness so directly, I suspect people deeply involved in this issue can get PTSD from the constant reminder that adults are still hurting children in programs all over, and from the weight of the feeling of personal responsibility to save them by ending these institutions now. This isn't sentimentalities, children really are very, very badly hurt and abused, to this day. I know RG feels that in his heart, and if he might get overblown or go about things in a certain way, I tend to overlook it because I know he is driven by heart intentions. I have respect for the passion driving those so dedicated. Possibly I am not staring in Riddile's office window myself simply because it all became too much. I can't bear it. Whereas, RG and ISAC do bear it continuously.
Yeah, it takes a special breed to be involved with this issue to the degree that many of the activists are. I damn sure couldn't do it, it reminds me too much of the shit I went through. Plus, I'm a kook who wants to legalize drugs, and I don't want to discredit those guys by my presence, the whole guilt-by-association thing, so I just do my punk-ass, self-gratifying, guerilla-style tactics of calling Mell a child abuser in front of his school, passing out info packs to his students, disrupting services at Miller Newton's "church", leaving prayer requests for his victims on his door (he claims to be a priest, so what the fuck....), braking for kids who are fleeing abusive rehabs, posting Miller Newton's phone # on the internet, and taking drugs with other survivors whenever possible, and appropriate. Maybe for me it's about never letting those assholes forget, reminding them that we didn't just curl up into JAILSINSTITUTIONSANDDEATH when we "made a decision" to reject the brainwashing that they worked so hard to instill in us. Maybe it is about me gettingjuvenile kicks from calling Virgil in the middle of the night and demanding an apology from him. I really don't care what the motivation is, if I feel inclined to continue, I will.
I just want to direct people's attention to the idea that there are many histories of social movements: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, ending apartheid, getting Nestle infant formulas out of Africa, securing the right of disaffected classes of people to vote, and so on. There's going along, and there's not going along anymore, there's lots of ideas about how to go about effecting social change, achieving "closure" and "justice", ending institutions that perpetuate cruelty, and so on. Personally, I think what really gets a whole lot of people to join in sympathy for any particular issue is a message from the heart and for the heart. Let's say there was no AIDS Quilt, and those involved gathered instead to bang on pots and pans. Appropriate to drum the Gestapo out of town? Yes. A good idea for getting the public at large to not only take notice but join in sympathy with the cause? Probably really not, the AIDS Quilt much more properly evokes awe for the scope of loss and the idea of grief and remembrance for victims as individuals. In short, beauty and art are the way to the human heart. And as the prevailing ideologies of institutional child abuse lack at their foundations proper respect and true human goodness, perhaps to counter them we ought to lead by example in a very opposite direction.
The AIDS quilt didn't do nearly as much as the fags from ACT UP outing queer politicians and making a nuisance of themselves in public and in the media. Marin Luther King got killed by a redneck paid by the Feds, and Jesus got nailed to a couple of 2" x 4"s. Pick any Messiah you like, don't mind me, but don't ask me to play martyr with the moral high ground as the only reward. I want some good ol' fashioned righteous retribution, by any means necessary, with my tea. I wanna see the fuckers who fucked with me ruined, which is why Miller Newton has provided me with so many peals of laughter and hysterical streaks of joy as of late. Payback's a bitch, and Miller is starting to be called to account for his sins. Sure, it's just a droip in the bucket compared to what it should be, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun to watch. It'll be fun dancing on his grave, too.
Thank you for the beautiful "Survivor's Shrine in Remembrance of former Straight, Inc. clients who are no longer with us due to suicide and other causes."
(http://www.geocities.com/surviving_stra ... /index.htm) You gave our shared grief voice and tangible reality so eloquently.
Your shared stories here and in other places have been a gift, too, and I mean that to include all survivors of all programs.
I raise a toast to continued dialogue, to the mighty conquering strength of the human heart and soul, and to all the brave survivors who, having once been lost, now endure through great storms on their way home again.
Yeah, that was cool. Mad thanks and love to all you guys that participated in the memorial service, I mean that, you guys and gals did a great service to survivors of Straight and Straightism.
I raise my bong to continued dialogue, and I thank you for your insight and eloquent comments.
Peace,
RTP2k3
