Every anti-program project, protest or idea has failed. Why?

[Anonymous]

The typical life cycle for a fornits poster seems to be like this. They find fornits and start remembering way back when they were in a program that sucked. They naturally get angry and realize what happened was wrong. They vent and post about what happened. Then they decide to 'do something about it'. They try for a little while and nothing happens. Then they disappear, never to be heard from again.
There' s a long list of wannabe activists who have made there way through here, making grandiose claims about their intentions and what they will do to stop programs. Usually the more grand the claims the quicker they seem to vanish. I don't mean to harp on survivors only, probably more of these types of people are just regular people who never went to a program and are just outraged by a news article they read or something, or a family member of a survivor.

Why does this happen so much? Do they get disillusioned with fornits? Do they realize their efforts are fruitless?
Why is it that every attempt to organize an anti-program movement, in any way, has resulted in complete and utter failure?

[Antigen]

Um, it's not. Bunch of programs have been shut down. There's an ongoing (into it's third year now) Government Accountability Office investigation. There are a couple of movies out and more and more references popping up in mainstream culture.

I suppose it depends on what you're after. If you wanted to see fire bombing raids a la Waco, well, I'm glad you're not getting what you want. What I would like to see is our culture recognize and soundly reject the very notion of thought reform. It'll take some time. But I honestly think we'll get there or at least pretty near there.

[blombrowski]

Your point is so demonstrably false it's kind of absurd.

While correlation does not imply causation, let's take a look at some of the relatively well organized "campaigns" and the results so far:

Anti-WWASP and the various other anti-wwasp websites - Less than half it's size at it's peak
Kat Whitehead - Mission Moutain School closed
Closethayernow - Thayer closed
Family Foundation School Truth Campaign - enrollment down from 260 to 170
Hiddlen Lake Academy - on the brink of closing

There are numerous other examples, but a well focused, well organized campaign against a program has had success in closing or downsizing a school or set of programs.

The key is persistence.  If nothing else, parents who would have picked program x will choose program y if there's enough red flags raised about program x.  Unfortunately, then we're just playing whack-a-mole.

[Ursus]

The typical life cycle for a fornits poster seems to be like this. They find fornits and start remembering way back when they were in a program that sucked. They naturally get angry and realize what happened was wrong. They vent and post about what happened. Then they decide to 'do something about it'. They try for a little while and nothing happens. Then they disappear, never to be heard from again.
There' s a long list of wannabe activists who have made there way through here, making grandiose claims about their intentions and what they will do to stop programs. Usually the more grand the claims the quicker they seem to vanish. I don't mean to harp on survivors only, probably more of these types of people are just regular people who never went to a program and are just outraged by a news article they read or something, or a family member of a survivor.

Why does this happen so much? Do they get disillusioned with fornits? Do they realize their efforts are fruitless?

LOL. You're seeing it all wrong. Or is that the obfuscation you're trying to accomplish?  

What exactly reads as "fail" for you when someone comes on here, posts a bit, and then gets on (or doesn't) with other of their life's endeavors, pleasures, and responsibilities? What remains is their story, their efforts. What remains is many folks' stories and efforts. The database builds, for others to learn and gain insight from. How is this "fruitless?"

Why is it that every attempt to organize an anti-program movement, in any way, has resulted in complete and utter failure?

While correlation does not imply causation, let's take a look at some of the relatively well organized "campaigns" and the results so far:

Anti-WWASP and the various other anti-wwasp websites - Less than half it's size at it's peak
Kat Whitehead - Mission Moutain School closed
Closethayernow - Thayer closed
Family Foundation School Truth Campaign - enrollment down from 260 to 170
Hiddlen Lake Academy - on the brink of closing

There are numerous other examples, but a well focused, well organized campaign against a program has had success in closing or downsizing a school or set of programs.

Some more examples of program closures in the recent past, which followed on the heels of anti-program activity:

Pathway Family Center
Darrington Academy
Tranquility Bay
White Rock Academy

[Ursus]

Accoring to recent residents....it still totally sucks to be there.
Still uses "humiliation Therapy" ect.

I like to call it "Shame and Blame."

Sorta like "Shake and Bake."  

[Anonymous]

The economy is slow, enrollment is down. People will want to take credit for this, whether they had anything to do with it or not. Evolution in the marketplace of programs is taking place, old programs are being replaced by new and more innovative programs. Enrollment will pick up as the economy improves, and parents will choose the best programs out there and will naturally avoid the seemingly primitive choice. But then there will always be parents like Pam who manage to find the worst programs despite all the information on the internet. Overall I'd say the number of kids subjected to programs will continue to increase, although the type of programs might change over time.

[ajax13]

No doubt guest, people are lining up to take credit for the economy being slow.  In fact it's hard to know who is responsible with so many taking credit for the economic decline.  Great post.

[RobertBruce]

The economy is slow, enrollment is down. People will want to take credit for this, whether they had anything to do with it or not. Evolution in the marketplace of programs is taking place, old programs are being replaced by new and more innovative programs. Enrollment will pick up as the economy improves, and parents will choose the best programs out there and will naturally avoid the seemingly primitive choice. But then there will always be parents like Pam who manage to find the worst programs despite all the information on the internet. Overall I'd say the number of kids subjected to programs will continue to increase, although the type of programs might change over time.

I personally cannot attest to movements against other programs, but HLA being exposed and shut down started long before the down turn in the economy. We forced the GAO to do their job, we forced licensure upon them, we began a viral campaign letting ed cons all over the country know what was really going on there, and members of fornits were knee deep in the law suit. About the only thing we didnt do was start the fire.

There has been a downward trend in this industry for years, it is slowing and thankfully dying. Although it is because of the actions of posters on fornits and other such places, the program owners and those who support child abuse, have only themselves to blame.

[psy]

Well.  To take one program as an example:  Bechmark's enrollment was in the toilet a whole year before the economy turned to shit. I doubt they would have sued me if I didn't have anything to do with that.  After suing me, they ended up in an even worse situation, having to pay both my lawyers and their own.  That probably ended up being 500-750k.  That's the cost (for them) of about 20+ student enrollments.  There are lots of similar stories about programs all over.  Whether you want to believe it or are too depressed to, speaking out against these places and setting up websites does work.  Benchmark claimed in the lawsuit their enrollment went from 65/year to around 16/year.  I doubt they'll survive much longer, even after changing their name to "Benchmark Transitions".  Look at the number of other schools (Thayer, etc) that have changed names as well (and shut down).  Negative publicity *does* hurt them.  The wouldn't sue or even respond at all if it didn't.

I can list off about 25+ programs that have shut down this year.  Sure the economy had something to do with speeding up the process, but they wouldn't be in a bad situation in the first place if it weren't for people speaking out, the GAO's reports, websites like ISAC, the posters on Fornits and their activities outside fornits, etc.  This isn't even to mention that programs were shutting down before the economy went belly up.  Fornits itself might not do much directly in the scheme of things but a lot of projects are started here and a lot of ideas are sparked.  Without that spark nothing would go anywhere.

I see two possibilities here.  Either you're on the anti-program side and are just beaten up and depressed, or you're a program supporter who is here to convince others that resistance is futile.  Either way, you're wrong.  If hope fails you, you should still fight.  Not necessarily because you see a possibility of "winning" (that exists), but because it's the right thing to do and every kid that's kept out of a program helps.  Better than the shame of giving up and figuring out later you had them to the wall when you did.  Now that they're weakened is the time to strike hardest.

[Anonymous]

The people who post here only care about the one program they were in. They will wait years, and even decades until their program finally closes, after which they promptly declare victory and close up shop. Meanwhile they tend to ignore the hundreds of new programs that opened up in the meantime. Fornits is an exercise in selfishness mixed with a healthy dose of futility.

[Antigen]

Now that you mention it, the PFC story is a wonderful example of how completely off base the OP really is. Let me give yunz a little background.

Moves against PFC started way, way back in the early days of Fornits. One of the first one man protests was a nifty idea by a dude who had been in Straight, Cinci. before the name change to PFC. All he did was make up a flyer with some interesting facts and inconvenient questions, printed it out on orange paper with the headline "Halloween Saving Pac" and just stuck them on windshields near the building during an open meeting. At the same time, Bill and Shelby had already started documenting everything about the organization and relentlessly pestering various authorities to earn their damned paychecks along with the occasional in person visit. This continued on when Deprogrammed, who is local to the area, started organizing semi-regular protests and then WDTony picked up the banner. He and his merry crew of lovable misfits not only shut down the Milford location (I had a blast both times I attended those protests) but followed them across state lines and kept after them till the entire outfit finally went under. This along with continued "back stage" efforts by Bill and Shelby and who knows what else that I haven't been privy to.

Here's the really interesting part of it all and why the Fornits experiment still fascinates me. ISAC started out as an alternative to SAFETY because we couldn't get along or agree on much of anything. Deprogrammed and Tony have had their head butting and run ins just about non stop. CAFETY and various Fornisticators have viewed one another with loathing and suspicion since the beginning. There has been no organized, concerted effort. It's all been individuals doing what they choose, how they think it ought to be done and of their own volition. The only thing Fornits had to do with any of this has been to cause certain key words to turn up in a google search so that all these very different thinking people could find one another and play off of one another's efforts.

Why post to Fornits? I dunno. Not my call. I guess because people find some value in it. If not, why then by all means  :boycott:

[psy]

The people who post here only care about the one program they were in. They will wait years, and even decades until their program finally closes, after which they promptly declare victory and close up shop. Meanwhile they tend to ignore the hundreds of new programs that opened up in the meantime. Fornits is an exercise in selfishness mixed with a healthy dose of futility.

I used the example since i'm familiar with it and personally visited to check out the enrollment decline.  I have no intention of "closing up shop" once Benchmark closes.  Yes, new programs open, and the same thing will happen to them as happened to the old ones.  Just because you can't see the end doesn't mean it's a never-ending battle, and even if it was it would still be worth fighting.  Even if the result was just to keep a single kid out of a program it would be worth it.  Thankfully, the results are a lot better than that, even if you're too depressed or tired to admit it.  You want to give up... go ahead.  It's your choice, but don't try to make yourself feel better in you inaction by claiming no good ever comes out of fighting programs.

[Anonymous]

The people who post here only care about the one program they were in. They will wait years, and even decades until their program finally closes, after which they promptly declare victory and close up shop. Meanwhile they tend to ignore the hundreds of new programs that opened up in the meantime. Fornits is an exercise in selfishness mixed with a healthy dose of futility.

I used the example since i'm familiar with it and personally visited to check out the enrollment decline.  I have no intention of "closing up shop" once Benchmark closes.  Yes, new programs open, and the same thing will happen to them as happened to the old ones.  Just because you can't see the end doesn't mean it's a never-ending battle, and even if it was it would still be worth fighting.  Even if the result was just to keep a single kid out of a program it would be worth it.  Thankfully, the results are a lot better than that, even if you're too depressed or tired to admit it.  You want to give up... go ahead.  It's your choice, but don't try to make yourself feel better in you inaction by claiming no good ever comes out of fighting programs.

Like many people on fornits you make too many assumptions about who you are talking to. Give up? I love fornits, as I know it hampers the anti program cause rather than help it. You are your own worst enemy. Why does this please me? Because I know programs save lives, whether you know it or not. What makes me feel better about myself is knowing that you will continue to keep fornits online and discredit yourselves using your own funds. That makes me smile from ear to ear.

[psy]

Like many people on fornits you make too many assumptions about who you are talking to. Give up? I love fornits, as I know it hampers the anti program cause rather than help it. You are your own worst enemy. Why does this please me? Because I know programs save lives, whether you know it or not. What makes me feel better about myself is knowing that you will continue to keep fornits online and discredit yourselves using your own funds. That makes me smile from ear to ear.

Well then you make your motivations very clear.  You're pro program and are trying to convince people to stop posting here.  If Fornits really did what you claim (hurt the "anti-program cause"), you wouldn't bother trying to dissuade us.  You'd probably donate!

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte

[Anonymous]

"Well then you make your motivations very clear. You're pro program and are trying to convince people to stop posting here.  "

You continue to make assumptions, this time about my motivations, and somehow you managed to get it wrong. Read what I wrote again and you might realize how ridiculous your accusation of me 'trying to convince people to stop posting here' really is.  I love fornits! I wish you and everyone else would post more often. We have the same interest, the continuation of fornits existence. The only difference is that I better understand the impression on the average person after viewing fornits for the first time. You don't.

"You're pro program and are trying to convince people to stop posting here.  If Fornits really did what you claim (hurt the "anti-program cause"), you wouldn't bother trying to dissuade us."

That's why I started a thread that provokes discussion, right? Keep up the good work, psy.

"If Fornits really did what you claim (hurt the "anti-program cause"), you wouldn't bother trying to dissuade us.  You'd probably donate!"

Lucky for me you publicize your funding status on the bottom of the page. If you were about to go offline, I might have to donate then. But I'm sure you have plenty of suckers from your own side lined up to take care of that.


"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Now you get it!