But some Florida survivors kept track of Miller Newton, and when they found out he was teaching at a community college they went over and gave the school the information from the lawsuits about Miller Newton's abuse of children. He lost his job there, they kicked him out. I think that's a good thing.
To argue the same thing is not appropriate in the case of Mel Riddile is to go along with the lie that it was the
extremes of incarceration in Miller Newton's case (4, 5, 13-year program terms for some "clients") and the
extremes of physical abuse (broken bones, slamming kids to the floor) that are the sole focus of the concern, although the extremes did win several major lawsuits.
That IS where this issue gets complicated, and I know many here understand because they have had to understand, for themselves, that is not
just the physical abuse they suffered, but the abuse others suffered, the abuse they were coerced to commit on others, and the painful, unwitnessed excoriation of their minds and hearts.
And I have heard enough survivor stories to know that absolutely and without any reservation, children were
encouraged to
torture other children, and that terrible terrible inexcusable things happened
in the time period when Mel Riddile was there and there is absolutely no excuse for his claims to ignorance of these matters.
I get a little more than offended at the lie that Mel Riddile knew nothing of these things. He most certainly did. I personally remember during my tenure there, days and days of chairs crashing, children dragged to the floor and put in "flesh restraints", and, in fact, these "flesh restraints" were carried out BY children, at the behest of staff,
all the time. Yes, at the behest and with the full knowledge of staff. In fact I don't remember any incidents in which it was
not clients restraining other clients. It happened day after day, and it happened for years while Mel Riddile was there, and this was a known and common practice, to have children restrain other children, and yet this
fact was also denied in the public media by lying executive staff members. I have not heard much discussion of this aspect, and I want to get right to the point and say that the children who were restraining the others were themselves being
abused by this role. They were coerced. Many survivors have spoken of the life-damaging effects of not only themselves being hurt, but of hurting other people.
I think it is entirely appropriate to bring Mel Riddile's knowing participation in these institutional practices to light in the present day. I think it is a right and good action.
I also think high schoolers can handle difficult subjects, and one as difficult as child abuse unredressed. To parse a protesters motives with respect to whether or not they intend education, a specific purpose such as shutting down KHK, or retribution is going a bit too far. If these protests are handled in the manner of civil disobedience, distributing factual and educational information, well, the intentions of the people participating is to make known in a civil fashion their varied and probably complex grievances. Certainly to have people who feel so impassioned, and tirelessly so, about addressing our shared concerns as to prepare by obtaining permits and printing out materials, and then taking a long drive and dedicating a period of time to the civil action, says something about the realness and the bigness of what happened in Straight. If it isn't over for people, it isn't over, and there is a
reason for that. It IS that significant, and remains so.
I also think there is nothing wrong with discussing whether and how it is appropriate to stage a protest that will necessarily involve a significant proportion of young people (as witnesses to the protest). But I think here is an opportunity to reveal to young people something they might have missed: the truth about the politics in this country, and the truth about the history of this country. Things as they stand are quite urgent, and I think it is an important history lesson to discuss the prevalent sensational as well as intrinsic and hidden abuses of an institution that was praised by and for which funds were raised by no less than the Congress of this country.
Nevertheless, a boy died recently in "flesh restraints" at a facility in Maryland. These deaths are happening all over. This is nothing short of a national shame and a national tragedy. Children are
kidnapped at the behest of their parents all the time for the purpose of getting them into "programs" and "schools", as though it's just the
keeping and the
hiding part of any other kidnapping not done at the behest of the parents that people find problematic. As though perfectly reasonable people don't find themselves imaging with horror the
moment of being kidnapped, and how that could obviously cause a child pain and lasting trauma. It is that very trauma that opens the child to manipulation and coercion - witness Elizabeth Smart.
So I am saying that these things are happening all over and I have an empathy for all of the situations the children are in that sometimes eventually they come to the internet to talk about. In that respect, it would be I think a better use of time to be civilly active in different and broader ways. For example, to immediately set about requesting that lawmakers draft laws prohibiting the practice of kidnapping for hire for any reason, such that parents could be held criminally accountable for their participation in traumatizing a young person.
I think all of these things are worthy of discussion, and share the respect already stated toward certain people here, as well as some of the difficulties in personal interactions, but myself being a participant in the same and having found no lasting grudge but rather just a certain space being offered, in both directions, I think we are reading the same book, so to speak, but not necessarily on the same page.
My deepest concerns of late, however, are covered well in this particular thread regarding the enculturation of the Germans to the Nazis by unprotested gradual degrees:
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=12552I don't think it is insignificant to have Mel Riddile in the position he is in, at all. I think Cassandra's concern with the broader picture is accurate and relevant. I think that not only are high schoolers are capable of approaching the subjects that surround Straight, Inc. and the Drug War and Civil and Human Rights, but that they are also an important audience to reach. Perhaps if there had been a protest at my own H.S. alma mater to disseminate information about Straight, I would have been spared that trial. But for the information presented to have accomplished the objective of truly educating people about the practices of behavior mod/mind control programs to the end that parents not put their kids in such a program, or to call for the closing down of one of these programs, it would have had to be more than what had already been shown on one of the hour news shows in the early '80s, which at least one of my parents had seen prior to my own incarceration in Straight. In fact, I think there is actually a certain glamour to the rigidity and severity of the aspects of Straight shown on that news show: spare bedrooms, no television, American flag in the Group Room -- I think these things can be an enticement to parents with a certain attitude towards child rearing, discipline and so forth.
So it is really a bigger issue than even the Drug War. It's big. Behavior Mod covers aspects of parents' unhappiness for and wishes for their children beyond concerns about drug and alcohol abuse -- witness the schools that "treat" defiance, eating disorders, and so on. And we have to get to the roots of it, and it is maybe not something that people can understand just by flyers handed out at protests.
Parents and families did the same in Ireland to their girl children when they sent them to the Laundries. It was a national, hidden tragedy.
So when I think about what should be addressed at any protest, it's child abuse, it's Human Rights, it's Child Rights that aren't even on the books but should be, it's Civil Rights, it's about the necessity of third-party oversight, and it's about changing the whole way people think about "treating" and "changing" other people. It is about the cruelty of "reeducation". It's about showing the rhymes of Now and History. (See referenced thread for credit to Cassandra's introduction of "rhyming".)
But finally and certainly, there is the desperately pitiable act of trying to convince an abuser to stop hurting people, a tyrant to stop tyrannizing. It doesn't work that way. Whether or not Riddile is ever brought to trial for his very real and significant position of being in charge and therefore very responsible for child abuse, trials do serve beyond the end result of finding someone "guilty" or "not guilty" the purpose of the community saying "No!" to actions which they find intolerable. Mel Riddile is
supported in his denial of the truth by the ignorance or silence of the society he lives in. Yes, those found "Guilty!" are an example to the rest. But right now, I'm not sure everyone understands what we are really saying "No!" to. It's all the specific, personal, damaging instances of child abuse which survivors have suffered. It's the denial of human and civil rights, and perhaps most difficult, it is very much about thought reform, mind control, secret government agendas, behavior modification -- these things can be done with a smile and a lollipop and a quick flash to a blind-folded prisoner in Abu Graib. It's happening all over, within and without the walls. I tremble.
And I don't think Mel Riddile should be allowed to work with children, I think the practices he condoned and allowed in Straight and the damage done to young people by those practices are that significant. I think people should say "No!" to him.
I tremble, but as a survivor of abusive practices in a closed institution, I can provide firsthand information about the effects of torture and mind control and Groupthink and the ease with which a closed society can come to see abuse and denial of rights as normal, acceptable, and necessary. This is about living through something terrible, and then coming to an age of political maturity in which the best thing a person can do with that history is to understand it and speak about it, in whatever way they do.
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My deepest concerns of late, however, are covered well in this particular thread regarding the enculturation of the Germans to the Nazis by unprotested gradual degrees:
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=12552tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc......
