Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: BROWNIE on March 23, 2007, 11:32:58 AM
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damn, i woke up this morning, first time in 3 days, LOL. Ya'll missed
a great time at the school. Woulda been WAY better with more folks.
The cops and the kids loved us. They were indeed a "captive
audience". In my estimate we talked to at last 150 students combined,
in person. I only talked to maybe 20 myself and Mark did the rest. He
was yappin it up. LOL. Oh yeah, and they said Mel was inside. I heard
one even yell out MEL RIDDILE IS A CHILD ABUSER!!! , LOL, right in
front of the cop that was sittin there, woops. Another one said "he's
Hitler, yep, he's Hitler" According to her, Mel's working on banning
the off-campus lunchtime option and making the seniors who are done
with their classes STAY till 3:45 or something. Normally, for the
past 50 years or whatever, when the seniors are done with their
classes, they can leave. Well, if Mel gets his way, they won't next
year. The kids seemed a bit like RESCUE US PLEASE!!! LOL. Like we
were knights in shining armor or something. I kept telling the kids I
talked with to watch out cuz they could be sent to places like pfc
even if they never did drugs. Not like a make em paranoid thing, just
letting them know that it could happen. Me and Mark stood in front of
the administrators' offices windows for about 10 minutes, like
statues, LOL... if Mel was going to come out, he had the perfect
opportunity then. I guess he was too busy grabbing our BIGASS brown
envelopes out of the kids' hands, cuz he didn't come out. What the
hell is he afraid of? If he came out we'd be HAPPY to talk to him.
Oh well. I'll put up a pic or two later. We couldn't take pics
towards the school cuz of the kids and all, but, we did do a slide
show in front of the TC Williams brick thingy, so at least you can
see the school's name. There wasn't enough hands for holding sign,
takin pic, handing flyer and envelopes,. We needed at least one more
person. Oh well, at least the kids know ALL about Mel now, LOL. I
just can't believe that he would not come out this time. He is not
not taking responsibility and sending a bad message to the kids.
There was one senior 'couple' we talked to about taking a flyer and
they said no, like in a really snobby way, so I told them I hoped
they don't send their kid to a program when they get older, LOL...
Whatever, they were really snobby, and uppity-like. LOL.
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Cheers mate!
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Anybody happen to ask Dr. Riddel what he knew about Paul Bonnaci and when he knew it?
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Riddile didn't come out to talk and answer any questions, but one of the flyer's said "GOOGLE PAUL BISHOP"...
Does that count? :rofl: I can imagine if the kids actually GOOGLE that name, hmmm...
RG
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Anybody happen to ask Dr. Riddel what he knew about Paul Bonnaci and when he knew it
That waz from a friend but I don't think so but i will ask.
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Three Springs Waygookin"]Cheers mate!
1 small step 4 us surviivoes !
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"GOOGLE PAUL BISHOP"...
Does that count? :rofl: I can imagine if the kids actually GOOGLE that name, hmmm...
yup, thats 1 dude but 4 grins, i will ty 4 goin. i wished 2 attend. damn it.
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"Rusty Goat"]Riddile didn't come out to talk and answer any questions, but one of the flyer's said "GOOGLE PAUL BISHOP"...
6,000,000.00 yea right. LOL
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Well, no, not really. If they'd said "Google Paul Bishop Johnny gosch" maybe or "Google Paul Bishop Straight, Inc." But it's such a common name.
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"Antigen's Ghost"]Well, no, not really. If they'd said "Google Paul Bishop Johnny gosch" maybe or "Google Paul Bishop Straight, Inc." But it's such a common nam
I saw that but this protesting is still effective. KHK needs to be shut down.
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Well, no, not really. If they'd said "Google Paul Bishop Johnny gosch" maybe or "Google Paul Bishop Straight, Inc." But it's such a common name.
Ha ha ha. If they can't figure out how to refine a google search Mel's probably drugging the cafeteria food. Somebody should really stop that madman.
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Ginger says "no, not really..." I say whatever..... jeez. It aint like she was there to clarify the issue. Besides, if you look real careful-like, you can, on the links flyer and the Remember Steve Matthews sign, see this: webdiva.org and as you go to that site, you'll see the words Paul Bishop, straight inc, etc etc... so, whatever, like I said. Leadin horses to water aint enough I spose. :roll: :rofl: Hey Ginger, are you ever happy? I mean, come on... we didn't wreck goin to OH last year, you know... :rofl: Gimme a break ma'am... please? :rofl:
So when's that hootenanny comin up anyways?
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Nah, I had enough of Group 20 odd years ago.
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Ok, that was terse. I should explain further. I'm often happy. However, I really don't think the protests the way you're doing them are doing much good. There are better ways to communicate. And it doesn't help matters much at all that no gathering of program vets is ever complete without at least one group confrontation and a termination or three.
Mel Riddile is a very influential character. From all I know and can extrapolate, he's probably very like other educators or execs in this regard; no matter how hurt, angry and fucked up we all may be, no matter how much noise you make outside his door, he probably doesn't understand what he ever did wrong. Most of the parents are like that too. If, instead of going at this like a war we could approach him as level headed adults he might be very effective in working for instead of against us. Take a lesson from Marijuana Policy Project and how they have operated. If they can get Bob Barr as a lobbyist, anything's possible. But you have to behave like credible, reasonable, mature adults to carry that off.
Oh yeah, I forgot, you folks think the legalizers are the lunatics into this mix. Never mind.....
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I saw that but this protesting is still effective. KHK needs to be shut down.
Yes, and PFC and HLA and ASPEN and WWASP, all the members of NATSAP and the myriad pieces of what was once CEDU as well as the public sector gulags like Phoenix House, Eckerd Youth Alternatives, Star Academies and a long, long list of others. Shutting down one franchise location at a time is like playing whack a mole. Might be fun and entertaining at times, but it's a zero sum game.
I'm more interested in the broad conspiracy than in fuckin' w/ any particular individual or branch. Get ready, folks, cause the Bush ppl are on their way out; time for the Dems to take the stage in this ongoing good cop/bad cop tragic comedy. I would imagine they'll take back brands like "the New Freedom Initiative" and "Faith Based and Community Initiatives" We'll be hearing "community policing" mre often than "Citizens On Patrol" (double branding the same damned product... brilliant!)
But we dare not speak of government conspiracy, even though conspiracy is the government's favorite charge to level against us. As de dawg chases his tail....
I honestly would like to hear from the likes of Mel Riddile one day. But if he's not willing, maybe some others who were on the scene at the time might be willing to come forward. I'm trying to work some back channels that way. I dare not even mention any names, though.
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Oh yeah, I forgot, you folks think the legalizers are the lunatics into this mix. Never mind.....
Yeah, what a crazy idea THAT would be... :roll: :rofl: :smokin:
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Ginger says "no, not really..." I say whatever..... jeez. It aint like she was there to clarify the issue. Besides, if you look real careful-like, you can, on the links flyer and the Remember Steve Matthews sign, see this: webdiva.org and as you go to that site, you'll see the words Paul Bishop, straight inc, etc etc... so, whatever, like I said. Leadin horses to water aint enough I spose. :roll: :rofl: Hey Ginger, are you ever happy? I mean, come on... we didn't wreck goin to OH last year, you know... :rofl: Gimme a break ma'am... please? :rofl:
Man... a suggestion to refine a search gets THIS kind of reaction? Wtf?
Maybe this is part of the reason people don't want to get involved?
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Riddile didn't come out to talk and answer any questions, but one of the flyer's said "GOOGLE PAUL BISHOP"...
Does that count? :rofl: I can imagine if the kids actually GOOGLE that name, hmmm...
RG
Are you serious? One of the flyers said Google Paul bishop? Who the fuck? why? god damn man!
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Riddile didn't come out to talk and answer any questions, but one of the flyer's said "GOOGLE PAUL BISHOP"...
Does that count? :rofl: I can imagine if the kids actually GOOGLE that name, hmmm...
RG
Are you serious? One of the flyers said Google Paul bishop? Who the fuck? why? god damn man!
Please notice the sarcasm thank u.
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I saw that but this protesting is still effective. KHK needs to be shut down.
Yes, and PFC and HLA and ASPEN and WWASP, all the members of NATSAP and the myriad pieces of what was once CEDU as well as the public sector gulags like Phoenix House, Eckerd Youth Alternatives, Star Academies and a long, long list of others. Shutting down one franchise location at a time is like playing whack a mole. Might be fun and entertaining at times, but it's a zero sum game.
I'm more interested in the broad conspiracy than in fuckin' w/ any particular individual or branch. Get ready, folks, cause the Bush ppl are on their way out; time for the Dems to take the stage in this ongoing good cop/bad cop tragic comedy. I would imagine they'll take back brands like "the New Freedom Initiative" and "Faith Based and Community Initiatives" We'll be hearing "community policing" mre often than "Citizens On Patrol" (double branding the same damned product... brilliant!)
Dead on, AG! :tup:
It's good to hear from someone who has depth of scope for a change.
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Riddile didn't come out to talk and answer any questions, but one of the flyer's said "GOOGLE PAUL BISHOP"...
Does that count? :rofl: I can imagine if the kids actually GOOGLE that name, hmmm...
RG
Are you serious? One of the flyers said Google Paul bishop? Who the fuck? why? god damn man!
ever since i got the "letter" i just choose no longer to give a fuck. i mean whats the worst that can happen. really. lol fuck it. im callin his ass out along with anyone else. Plus wes already put me out there so if anyones going to i'd rather do it myself. GPB is a long time pedophile and god knows what else.
and just as an extra tid bit.. since the thing at tc, i had some extra traffic but even more interesting in 3 days i have several people come via google (not my url on a flyer) by searching
"mel riddile straight"
"mel riddile suicide"
"mel riddile abuse"
"mel riddile rehab" and a few others. normally i may get one visit a week from someone who searched on ole mel... no one has searched on paul bishop yet cuz well, no one really knew him, and if they did im sure they weren't thrilled about that fact.
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Ok, smart ass! You think you can get away with clicking with terminations just because you're anonymous. Where the hell is your awareness, up your ass? I think you need to look at yourself. I'm sending up a COC that you need a refresher. I just called the 7th stepper working for your isp. You can run but you can't hide!
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Oh yeah, I forgot, you folks think the legalizers are the lunatics into this mix. Never mind.....
Yeah, what a crazy idea THAT would be... :roll: :rofl: :smokin:
Uh, let me know when Charlie Crist signs on as your lobbyist.
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It's good to hear from someone who has depth of scope for a change.
Thanks, man!
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Oh yeah, I forgot, you folks think the legalizers are the lunatics into this mix. Never mind.....
Yeah, what a crazy idea THAT would be... :roll: :rofl: :smokin:
Uh, let me know when Charlie Crist signs on as your lobbyist.
I think you read me wrong; I was being facetious.
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Thanks, man!
You're quite welcome, ghost girl!
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Sorry, thought you were somebody else. ::kiss:: All better?
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That's hot! Please do that again sometime soon.
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::tongue::
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Awesome! It's fun flirting with female women of the girlular variety..
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Man... a suggestion to refine a search gets THIS kind of reaction? Wtf?
Maybe this is part of the reason people don't want to get involved?
Yeah, bummer, man. Where's the support? :-? Actually, these neverending back in group comments are really getting old. This isn't about being in group or anything of the sort. If you'll take some time to notice, nobody on here is in group and most likely hasn't been for over 20 years. Bitch and moan all you want. If you were there with us, you would have noticed that the kids at the school were actually listening and supported the efforts of the two folks who actually showed up. They are the future of this country.
RG
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Yeah, bummer, man. Where's the support? :-? Actually, these neverending back in group comments are really getting old. This isn't about being in group or anything of the sort. If you'll take some time to notice, nobody on here is in group and most likely hasn't been for over 20 years. Bitch and moan all you want. If you were there with us, you would have noticed that the kids at the school were actually listening and supported the efforts of the two folks who actually showed up. They are the future of this country.
Well I'm just saying you could lighten up a bit, all she did was point out the commonality of that name, etc.
As far as the "back in group" stuff goes, I don't know about about all that; I wouldn't have said that to you in any serious way (and wasn't the one who said that on this thread either).
I couldn't agree more- getting through to the kids is just as important (if not more so) as getting through to the parents who put their kids kids into these places. Rock on, Goatie! :lol:
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Ok, I'll give one back for the heavy reply. I guess it was late or maybe lack of sleep or something in the water. I've extended an olive branch to the "ghost" on more than one occasion, not really being sure as to why there's so much bitterness between us. Seems like many years ago, I PO'd some people who never told me I PO'd them off, you know, to my face or something to that effect like a phone call or email or whatever. It's a mystery that only the "ghost" can solve. She has all the answers.
anyways,
Riddile violated my and my sons' civil rights plain and simple. Do people really think that he would listen if he had screwed over so many kids? He's guilty. He got away with a crapload of crimes. He aint innocent and all that "oblivious to the abuse" line I hear from folks. He thinks we deserved all the abuse we got. He's very proud of his work at straight inc. He even got an award from the White House for it. You know, "ghost" doesn't have copies of the email exchanges I've had over the YEARS with Riddile, so maybe she ought to see them. And besides, what difference does it make how "I go about it" if these people will NEVER acknowledge their responsibility in abusing us and violating rights, etc... ? If other ideas are better, then go for it, time's a wastin...
So whoever's pissed off at me for whatever reasons, let me know or forever hold your piece. I'd love to get along with folks if it's possible, and that includes the "ghost" :wink:
RG
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Hmm.. I think this thing about Dr. Riddile being "oblivious" may have started when someone (no talking behind backs, haha) was comparing Dr. Miller Newton and Riddile. The person was expounding upon their varying levels of involvement with the beast known as group (you know, the way that Newton saw Straight as his church or something and not only took part in but relished the abuse going on in there). This person also seemed to believe that they could somehow "get through" to Mel Riddile if they could just get the airtime with him...
Who knows whether or not Riddile would have been receptive or cooperative with this person (after all, they claimed to have known him personally before they were put in the program..etc.) But I will say let's not blame you for getting some word out there to those kids; that was a damned good thing!
PS- I think you meant peace (not piece) there... lol
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I'mnot pissed off at you, Bill. I just dislike you immensely because you're constantly talking shit and starting public confrontations like this here one you're stoking right now.
You know, "ghost" doesn't have copies of the email exchanges I've had over the YEARS with Riddile, so maybe she ought to see them.
Ok, I'll get right on it! I'll just hack into your computer and read everyhing you got, ok? Or maybe you could publish those emails?
Anyway, I do think there's a difference between hands on staff and people like Riddile. I think he was among those execs for whom we had that special rule about cleaning up our language and hiding the rough stuff. I think that's because they needed certain players like him and they needed for those ones to remain clueless, just like other outsiders. I don't think he understands what he has done or what he is doing today by running his schools like Stalinist reeducation camps any more than my dad did your yours.
I don't think you guys did a bad thing at all by getting some information into the hands of his students. I hope a good many of the more serious, freedom minded ones among them will get together and publicly challenge unconstitutional, repressive school policies and practices and I hope they'll hook in with students all over the country in doing the same.
However, that doesn't describe the majority of highschool kids who will engage in something like a protest. Most of them won't crack a book or even read the student conduct code. They just like the idea of dissing an authority figure cause chicks dig it. That's what you might call an adverse side effect and I think it's worth discussing the risk/benefit ratio and other ways of communicating.
One alternative means of communication that I've tried to kick off is what I called the Cassandra Project. I think it was a pretty good idea.
Before I got involved in investigating the Program proper, I was involved as an armchair activist in drug policy. I was stunned, really mind-blown to find so many familiar names--all of the most notorious lunatic drug warriors--directly involved in the program, DFAF and close affiliates. I mean, I knew they were lunatics, and I'd said to myself a hundred times "these turkeys sound just like the fucking parents group!" but I was speaking rhetorically and to myself.
I tried to get Mapinc and a couple of other reform groups to make room and give some focus to DFAF and the Program and to promote our issue. I was stunned and very much demoralized to find that the fuckers got to them first; they refused, flat out, because they'd already jumped on the (coerced)" treatment, not incarceration" bandwaggon, funded and supported in large part by ASAM, on who's board sits none other than Bobby DuPont. See, a fair number of drug policy reform leaders are members of the Stepcraft coven. Seems odd, I know, but there it is.
So I'd like to, one day, see if we can organize a couple of ppl to perform mundane editorial tasks to facilitate an ongoing letter writing campaign as Mapinc has done. (Mapinc is not the same organization as MPP, they don't even like each other much, just to be perfectly clear)
It happens spontaneously sometimes, but not often enough in my view. And it's based pretty much on the Media Awareness Project. http://mapinc.org/ (http://mapinc.org/)
It's pretty simple, really. We just agregate news itmes related to our issue, tack on contact information for the publishers (email addy or url for the editorial dept, for example) and encourage people to spot and send us those articles, read them and respond to them as the spirit moves you. Once that got going strong for mapinc, they found that they also had a stunningly comprehensive history and research resource on the whole drug war story as it evolved. I still use their archive from time to time to verify names, dates and other details when I'm composing letters or silly forum posts.
Anybody interested in discussing this or actually doing this, please take a look around their site and see what you think.
As always, an ye harm none, do as thou will. I'm nobody's leader. What does it matter to anybody if I don't jump on your train? This isn't a competition.
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So what the hell?
Is this thread just gonna die now?
Where the hell is that goddam rusty goat?? :rofl:
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Well what do you think about a letter writing campaign? Here's the last one I wrote to the Post Gazette
Dirty secrets?
Dear Ed,
Please consider for publication:
In today's editorial, Dirty Secrets, Scott Horton is quoted as saying "[the fourteen detainees] were tortured and mistreated, and that fact is classified secret, which just shows you the perversity in which this whole process is traveling." Please allow me to direct your attention to another dirty little open secret. Based on the little bits and pieces of information leaking out of these secret detention camps and an interested layman's understanding of thought reform techniques* I wouldn't trust anything these men have to say.
For the past five and a half years, these men have been subjected to sophisticated methods that in a much shorter period of time can render the subject completely unable to distinguish objective experience from indoctrination. These are not, as most people seem to believe, methods for extracting the truth out of a suspect, but of coercing tailored testimony of and even true belief whatever falsehoods the captors dictate.
I have good reason to believe the people surrounding the smirking chimp (ok, you should probably edit that, I understand) know full well what they are doing.** The more troubling question is why. Why would this administration want to brainwash suspected enemy combatants? I think I'll just put that one on a back shelf in my mind with other troubling questions, like how mere paper passports, all of them, could survive a fire so intense as to melt steel girders and why an alleged attack by Saudi nationals in league w/ Usama Binladen should portend attacks on first Afghanistan and then Binladen's sworn enemy, the secular Communist state of Iraq.
* Wikipedia has an excellent entry on the topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing)
** See http://thestraights.com/gop.htm (http://thestraights.com/gop.htm)
Sincerely,
Ginger McNulty
[snip contact info]
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Well I have no right to interject as I am not involved, but the internet is for people like me who have no right to say anyhing but like to say it anyway...
As a program survivor, what I feel is..payback is payback. Short of putting this guy in jail, or a lawsuit, public shaming is all you have.
I think handing out flyers is great. I am a few years out of highschool mysef but I know if someone handed a flyer like that to me...well it would make a difference in how I see the fella, make a difference in how my parents see the fella(assumng i had "parents as we all know thats not necessarily the case) how the teachers see him..it starts a chain reaction the monster is asked to leave his post. Or at least their is public awareness of what he is and that is a punishment in itself. It may not be the best thing but its a certainly a good thing (as martha stewart would say)
Ive often thught about huntin down the folks at cedu and doing something similar and if i was in better health and a bit braver i most certainly would. The kids that man murdered deserve recognition even if only in this inadequate form
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"Anybody interested in discussing this or actually doing this, please take a look around their site and see what you think.
As always, an ye harm none, do as thou will. I'm nobody's leader. What does it matter to anybody if I don't jump on your train? This isn't a competition."
For what it's worth, thank you Ginger... :oops: I used that emoticon cuz of it's blushing characteristics, :rofl: So anyway, I am glad that we aren't biting each other's heads off. Personally I don't believe I talk shit, but whatever, I'll keep an ear out for the manure spreader, :rofl:
Here you go though, and whack me with a 6x6 if ya want, but, when I go to educate folks about these perpetrators of systematic child abuse for profit, in the back of my mind I always think " I wish Ginger was here". I think that comes from reading all of the writing you've done on the subject of the drug war, etc... and I get all hopeful or something. Hard to describe. When it becomes apparent that you won't be there, I become distraught to varying degrees. If this rubs off on the tones of my posts, well, I'm guilty, :rofl: Please understand that this whole issue is starting to get OLD for me now. A long time ago I was all gung ho about taking on the whole industry, etc... Now that I've bumped heads with current program directors, gotten kids out of harms way, been sued by the owner of WWASP and won, discovered that kids really do like to learn, and a slew of other experiences some bad but far more many good involving educating the public, etc... about this issue, I still "keep the light on for ya" you know... :rofl: I'm not trying to force people to hop on the train, I'm just blowing the horn so loud and long that maybe people are annoyed or whatever. I've recently acquired 3 more "dependents" in my house and jeezoweezo Ginger, it's like a life changing event. Been thinkin about takin a nice relaxin vacation, hence the hootenanny comment earlier. In reality, it aint happenin. No vacation. The last thing I need is to be at odds with fellow survivors, etc. Regardless of if you jump on the train, I'll always admire your take on the industry's issues as a whole. Furthermore, you will always be welcome to at least ride along for a mile or two, :rofl: Somewhere in the vault here are copies of those emails. If I can find them I'll see if I can get them to you somehow. Meanwhile, I'll check out the link you provided.
RG
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Look, that's really nice and I do appreciate the sentiment. I probably would show up if it were a more level headed tone. Seems you're at least half going for retribution and that turns off just the people I want to meet. I'm not interested in punishing anyone. I'm interested in identifying and bringing attention to similarities between Program philosophy and the people running our schools.
It seems to me very clear that the Program, in all of it's manifestations, is just a part of a much broader social engineering operation. It's not just happening in Mel Riddile's schools. He's a national role model.
If you really want to turn some heads, see if you can run an ad in the school newspaper soliciting information about Wilderness/TBS placements and the constitutionality of school policy. If they turn you down raise a stink about it on free speech grounds and run it somewhere near the school or in a local paper or search myspace for the school name. This can work for any school and will illustrate how DFAF lobbied policies (like mandatory fulfillment of their piss fetish, zero tolerance, Peer Counseling, DARE, etc) feed the troubled parent industry, public and private. See, I strongly suspect that, because he doesn't know what he's ever done wrong, he's still doing it. Not as director of a program but by using Program placement as a means of dealing with kids who either crack up or simply reject the repression.
There are two cases of that that made the papers within the last few years. How many others didn't? People are already talking about stupid zero tolerance stories. There's usually a national headline every time there's a slow news week. The most important part of what we all know to the public at large is where these crazy ideas came from and where they're going. Honestly, if it were about what any of these people did to me and mine over 20 and 30 years ago, I wouldn't care to talk or even think much about it. I care about how they're doing things now.
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Also, what happens around these forums is that people communicate, learn and then act. Sometimes it's people looking for insight into their crazy relatives who are about to or who have shipped off their kid. Sometimes it's funding organizations, underwriters, journalists and other types of investigators hooking up with the people they need to talk to.
I'd like for it to be a little more proactive sometimes. The Cassandra Project would be an attempt at that. Who knows, maybe some day some retired politician who's notable for marching in lock step with DFAF will break ranks and sign as a lobbyist for our cause. Come to think of it, I bet Bob Barr knows a LOT about how all this works just from cocktail party chatter over the years. Wonder if we could solicit an opinion from him?
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Yes, why not go for the jugular? who is the "head honcho" of the DFAF?
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Yes, why not go for the jugular? Who is the "head honcho" of the DFAF?
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I suppose Mel and Betty Sembler would be the head hanchos, though Calvina Fay is the current exec director. But there's no rel jugular to go for. The trouble is that Program influence pervades public policy and accepted social practice. The people driving it don't know what they're doing, they think they're saving the world and they have broad public support in what they do.
What's needed here is a whole lot of education.
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What's needed here is a whole lot of education.
Yes, along with a sprinkle of bloodshed here and there.
Come on, you know deep down you'd like to see them fuckin DIE, we all would! :rofl:
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YEAH! Save the "turn the other cheek" shit for bending over and sunday school.
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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=12552 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=12552)
I 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.
*********************************
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=12552 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=12552)
tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc......
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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.
Well said.
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What's needed here is a whole lot of education.
Yes, along with a sprinkle of bloodshed here and there.
Come on, you know deep down you'd like to see them fuckin DIE, we all would! :rofl:
No shit. I've often wished I had snapped Virgil's pencil neck when I had the chance. But I wouldn't do that now because, much fun as it might be and I'd be dining out on in till the cops came, it would eliminate my ability to anything meaningful about stopping the current and next generation of players.
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Ah, you assume you'd get caught; I like to think you wouldn't.
Or maybe it would happen during the upcoming "Bastille Day"; off with their heads!
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tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc......
Finest post in ages, thank you! Much food for thought.
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http://www.holocaust-trc.org/faces.htm (http://www.holocaust-trc.org/faces.htm)
Guest, thanks for that. That's the first I've ever heard of it, I will read up. Is it just me or are the Holocaust education organizations starting to go into a lot more depth about the problem? I've glanced at their offerings briefly in the past. Never was very captivated because it seemed to be limited to "It was really, really horrible and all about antisemitism" and nothing else.
If so, how long before they tar and feather the likes of Mel Sembler and Paul Wolfowitz? Just as I'll take PETA seriously when they start throwing paint on bikers, I'll take the Holocaust educators seriously when they start cleaning their own house of nazis like Sembler and Wolfowitz.
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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...
...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.
*********************************
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=12552 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=12552)
tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc, tic, toc......
Wow! Thanks. Great post. You must type fast. I have alot of ideas but they all flow so fast o'er me that I can never snag them in my nets, though, patient, I be.
I love what you wrote. You have articulated it all so well. You should 'a' seen the scene, as it poured o'er my inner mind; memories of runnin and why...runnin to nowhere though...runnin...yeah.
At one point, as I read your words, I felt my fist close...I saw myself runnin through the front office that one day. I had bolted out of the doctors office, but ran into that fuckin asshole, Tim Kellerher in the front office, and though he didn't exactly set on me to restrain he got in my way, as I was about to head straight out the glass, front doors, the ones I had cleaned many times before, when I'd been on 2nd phase clean-up. My fist closed as I read that. I wished I'd 'a' set on that muther-fucker with my heavy right fist, as I flew on by...I mean I was looking at the sun-lit street when I tore around that corner...
Instead I was dragged off into an intake room by about 7 or 8 5th phasers and severely restrained, for hours on the floor. Anyway my eyes were on the door. Muther-fucker!
Your post was like bein Lost In The Flood. An' I'm a put that on, right now.
...
:skull: ::dove::
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Theodore Parker(1810-1860) "...Transient and Permanent in Christianity"
pirate. out.
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Been trying to formulate a good response to this
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.
There are some differences between characters like Virgil and Riddile, often discussed around here. I believe the people who say Riddile was trying to improve the program. And I believe it's possible that the man actually doesn't understand, to this day, that the overtly abusive practices he found offensive and wrong were not the most harmful or that the very most basic objective of the program--to force people to change their beliefs and personalities against their will--is wrong. Why and how would he know that to be wrong? He's a career educator, that's what they do and they do it more and more invasively and more sneakily all the time. He wins awards at doing that and surrounds himself w/ people who either agree that that makes him a good guy or are students, compelled to kiss his ass. Now that doesn't mean that a good many of those students don't really believe that Principal Mel is their bestest buddy or that the man has never done a good thing for his students.
That's the difference. Everybody who knows Virgil is either brainwashed or they know he's the fucking devil incarnate. Not so w/ Mel. So if you were to gather all the data you have on Mel and take it to his employer they probably wouldn't find it compelling at all. And so he'll continue to be held up as a role model for educators across the land.
They're different kinds of critters and so it makes sense to take a different approach. One thing I know of that Mel has been doing wrong recently has been to forcibly put down orderly dissent among his students. There were two cases of his bullying young kids for disagreeing with school policy that made the papers recently. I also suspect that he's generating those impressive numbers, in part, by railroading a good many kids off of his attendance rolls and into 'alternative' schools. I would imagine a fair number of those kids, if their parents have money, are landing up in Synanon based private programs and his old buddies at DFAF have probably insijuated themselves into the juvenile justice system in Mel's neighborhood just as they have in Florida.
ButI ain't got the proof. I'd love to hear from any of his current students about these current issues.
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AG, have you ever read the ACPS's "Laptop Initiative" fine print? :rofl: Sounds like a combo of Miller, Mel, Heinzelgraf and Pol Pot :rofl: Also, if you wanna talk to the kids, they go down the street at lunch (noonish). One of them was complaining about how Riddile is takin away our off-campus lunch next year... Is that normal at other schools? Or, should it be OK for a kid in a public school to drive or walk to lunch where they choose?
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Well yeah, that is becoming normal for public schools. That's the problem. That's why I kept my kids out of school for so long and why I hate that they gave up and took their places in the prison line.
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N DEED
Mel and Betty Sembler would be the head hanchos, though Calvina Fay is the current exec director. But there's no rel jugular to go for. The trouble is that Program influence pervades public policy and accepted social practice. The people driving it don't know what they're doing, they think they're saving the world and they have broad public support in what they do.
What's needed here is a whole lot of education.
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Thanks pirate and Cassandra. I give homage to my muse: ::bandit::
I've been thinking about that post, and conversations with both C & RG. First I will say that I share C's sentiment: I don't have an interest in punishing anyone. 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. And, truthfully, sometimes I thought I meant it. I was enraged at the combined totals of child abuse I grokked. This isn't small stuff, we weren't spoiled brats, we didn't "deserve" Straight, and the pain so many carry is real. Life with PTSD is hell. Life with missing memories, or a diversion switch that fogs up the mind when memories are sought, to keep one from seeking, another kind of not-heaven. And I suspect that a life spent denying that one is responsible for the pain of many children who were under one's legal guardianship, pushing away and disregarding the increasing buzz surrounding these programs -- I really don't think Mel Riddile is seriously comfortable at the end of the day with his threadbare "I didn't know" response.
Which leads me to another aspect of this entire conundrum: the damage to the human psyche caused by playing the role of the prison guard. Please see The Stanford Prison Experiment for a good distillation. I will also add a compelling New York Times Op Ed article below. I suspect there are long-lasting effects to this role, more especially the more one really does have and use power over other people.
As we fought it out over the last few years over where we drew the line at separating the Blamed from the Unblamed -- overage clients? Junior & Senior staff? Executives and Board members only? -- I think possibly the most reasonable conclusion one could make is that it is hard to say, and possibly one could simply say "Straight corrupts". Society corrupts. Power corrupts. Culture begets culture. How very painful it must be to be red-faced, menacing and popping veins, like Miller Newton in those photos. Whether or not he is conscious of it, he is suffering.
It's not that I think feeling sorry for anyone is going to help them. And I will leave aside my perspectives regarding life and souls and that sort of thing. I'm not really looking for official Reconciliation, either, as has been tried in other places in the world where ghastly and widespread atrocities are simply too much to even begin to set right by picking the perpetrators out of the population for the focus of trial and punishment.
I think the truest reconciliation happens within one's self.
I think one ought to reflect on the gamut of feelings involved in wanting and seeking a resolution and an end to crimes. Just because our society has the ritual of trial and punishment doesn't mean these things actually fix problems. These child abuse cults don't really understand the scope of the crimes they commit.
I guess closure -- well, I just don't like prisons. Then I think, "but why are so many very undeserving people in prison as a consequence of this Drug War, but not Miller Newton, who is, by court findings, a serial child abuser?" Why indeed. Which is why I think resolution is just a long, slow process of social change. Randall Hinton hurt children severely, and I believe he will continue to do so if unchecked by prison at this point. But I dare to sound let's just say "soft", and say that when I look at Randall Hinton's photos I see someone who was brutalized as a young person himself. I won't go into the mires of "if only we could rehabilitate instead of incarcerate," but I'm really not sure what prison accomplishes, except for the right immediate goal of keeping people safe from predators.
Truthfully, is Mel Riddile dangerous on a par with Randall Hinton? I don't have the information to support this necessarily, but considering his harassment of a young man who was once a student at Jeb Stuart H.S., harassment Riddile extended I think at least 100 miles when the student left Jeb Stuart for another school, I do think Riddile misuses his position of power very badly. But his particular brand is more of an authoritarian ideology. That's where you hope the long, slow process of social change kicks in. One might even hope to stoke that change in some way. But when our central complaint is Treating People Wrong, we should give lengthy consideration to how we are going to achieve the end goal of a society freed of Treating People Wrong. That is to say, we don't want to be what we don't like in Straight, not if we think about it.
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.
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.
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.
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 (http://www.geocities.com/surviving_straight_inc/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.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opini ... nniff.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04conniff.html)
Op-Ed Contributor
The Rich Are More Oblivious Than You and Me
THE other day at a Los Angeles race track, a comedian named Eddie Griffin took a meeting with a concrete barrier and left a borrowed bright-red $1.5 million Ferrari Enzo looking like bad origami. Just to be clear, this was a different bright-red $1.5 million Ferrari Enzo from the one a Swedish businessman crumpled up and threw away last year on the Pacific Coast Highway. I mention this only because it’s easy to get confused by the vast and highly repetitious category “Rich and Famous People Acting Like Total Idiots.” Mr. Griffin walked away uninjured, and everybody offered wise counsel about how this wasn’t really such a bad day after all.
So what exactly constitutes a bad day in this rarefied little world? Did the casino owner Steve Wynn cross the mark when he put his elbow through a Picasso he was about to sell for $139 million? Did Mel (“I Own Malibu”) Gibson sense bad-day emanations when he started on a bigoted tirade while seated drunk in the back of a sheriff’s car? And if dumb stuff like this comes so easy to these people, how is it that they’re the ones with all the money?
Modern science has the answer, with a little help from the poet Hilaire Belloc.
Let’s begin with what I call the “Cookie Monster Experiment,” devised to test the hypothesis that power makes people stupid and insensitive — or, as the scientists at the University of California at Berkeley put it, “disinhibited.”
Researchers led by the psychologist Dacher Keltner took groups of three ordinary volunteers and randomly put one of them in charge. Each trio had a half-hour to work through a boring social survey. Then a researcher came in and left a plateful of precisely five cookies. Care to guess which volunteer typically grabbed an extra cookie? The volunteer who had randomly been assigned the power role was also more likely to eat it with his mouth open, spew crumbs on partners and get cookie detritus on his face and on the table.
It reminded the researchers of powerful people they had known in real life. One of them, for instance, had attended meetings with a magazine mogul who ate raw onions and slugged vodka from the bottle, but failed to share these amuse-bouches with his guests. Another had been through an oral exam for his doctorate at which one faculty member not only picked his ear wax, but held it up to dandle lovingly in the light.
As stupid behaviors go, none of this is in a class with slamming somebody else’s Ferrari into a concrete wall. But science advances by tiny steps.
The researchers went on to theorize that getting power causes people to focus so keenly on the potential rewards, like money, sex, public acclaim or an extra chocolate-chip cookie — not necessarily in that order, or frankly, any order at all, but preferably all at once — that they become oblivious to the people around them.
Indeed, the people around them may abet this process, since they are often subordinates intent on keeping the boss happy. So for the boss, it starts to look like a world in which the traffic lights are always green (and damn the pedestrians). Professor Keltner and his fellow researchers describe it as an instance of “approach/inhibition theory” in action: As power increases, it fires up the behavioral approach system and shuts down behavioral inhibition.
And thus the Fast Forward Personality is born and put on the path to the concrete barrier.
The corollary is that as the rich and powerful increasingly focus on potential rewards, powerless types notice the likely costs and become more inhibited. I happen to know the feeling because I once had my own Los Angeles Ferrari experience. It was a bright-red F355 Spider (and with a mere $150,000 sticker price, not exactly top shelf), which I rented for a television documentary about rich people. It came with a $10,000 deductible, and the first time I drove it into a Bel-Air estate, the low-slung front end hit the apron of the driveway with a horrible grating sound that caused my soul to shrink. I proceeded up the driveway at five miles an hour, and everyone in sight turned away thinking, “Rental.”
The bottom line: Without power, people tend to play it safe. Given power, even you and I would soon end up living large and acting like idiots. So pity the rich — and protect yourself. This is where Hilaire Belloc comes in.
He once wrote a poem about a Lord Finchley, who “tried to mend the Electric Light/Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!” Belloc wasn’t tiresomely suggesting that the gentry all deserve a first-hand acquaintance with the third rail, as it were, but merely that they would be smart to depend on hired help. In social psychology terms, disinhibited Fast Forward types need ordinary cautious mortals to remind them that the traffic lights do in fact occasionally turn yellow or even, sometimes, red.
So, Eddie Griffin: next time you borrow a pal’s car, borrow his driver, too. The world will be a safer place for the rest of us.
Richard Conniff is the author of “The Natural History of the Rich.”
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Thanks pirate and Cassandra. I give homage to my muse: ::bandit::
:nworthy:
Truthfully, is Mel Riddile dangerous on a par with Randall Hinton?
Moreso, by far.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
C.S. Lewis, In Freedom
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Moreso, by far.
Probably so, but is he more dangerous than Frank Discussion?
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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 (http://www.geocities.com/surviving_straight_inc/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
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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 is Arnold Trebach. So are all the cops, judges, DAs and other members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. And now, so is Bob Bar. If we could get those kooks to take us seriously, they could use what we've got to take out an entire vital column of the authoritarian structure. (Well, Arnie takes us seriously and LEAP knows we all had a hard time of it, but...)
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But if drugs were legalized would that detract from the coolness factor of being someone who does them? :lol:
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Yup
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So maybe we shouldn't try to have them legalized after all...? :P
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But if drugs were legalized would that detract from the coolness factor of being someone who does them? :lol:
Nah, drugs aren't cool because they're illegal, drugs are cool because they get you high.
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But if drugs were legalized would that detract from the coolness factor of being someone who does them? :lol:
Nah, drugs aren't cool because they're illegal, drugs are cool because they get you high.
Thanks for clarifying that. ::peace:: :tup:
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guest said " 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.
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. "
I aint up on the quote feature, sorry... :rofl:
I am still looking for the email I got from Mel. the drive it was on was trashed before christmas last year due to some major malfunction. As soon as I get that I'll post it so folks can see more into what his "take" is these days. Since doing the activism things, I would imagine his take has not changed and may even be more steadfast in the notion that he was helping kids. At some point, yes, it is stressful thinking about kids still in the program, but if the program is going to continue even after bald face proof is dumped all over the public and the licensing agencies are all "in on it" anyways, then what can people do? A couple people holding signs and calmly discussing issues surrounding these drug warriors past and present seems to go smoothly, at least that's what I've experienced while doing it. One time at khk in Milford, there was a guy in a beat up pickup truck who blasted us with a thick cloud of diesel smoke twice, but other than that, the public seems to enjoy the show so to speak. Besides, it's like pissing in the wind really, and it feels great knowing that the perpetrators of this abuse have to realize that they are not "getting away" free and clear. At least lots of folks will know the truth and hopefully someone with some $$$$$$$$$ will join in and get some education going.
Now, I am sorry if I bother folks with these images and tactics. I don't intend to bother fellow survivors, and after 4 years of trying to get this guy Mel Riddile to lend a hand, it's just not working either the nice way or the meager and quiet protest way. I've only been to the school 2 times, and the 2nd time was because he violated my and my sons' rights. In the back of my mind, I didn't expect him to jump on the bandwagon back in Sept 06. I would have dropped the ideas about protesting anymore since I can't afford to take the time off, etc... but I end up doing it anyways, :rofl: but he came out and made a scene. I have to defend my sons and myself. Program stuff aside, I can see that he is going to get his way regardless of what laws there are out there to protect Americans from this sort of thing. I mean, come on, he didn't write the Consititution, but he is being a dictator (by definition) and I can't just sit there and "let" him. I suppose I should just resign myself to the fact that he will never apologize or face any kind of accountability for his roles throughout his career. He's "untouchable". :(
I hope to be proven wrong about that soon.
RG
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One time at khk in Milford, there was a guy in a beat up pickup truck who blasted us with a thick cloud of diesel smoke twice,
Yeah sorry about that, buddy.. I finally got that damn motor fixed.
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From the thread next door:
Yes, I view the Moral inventory as abusive, b/c for one, "the program" took basica AA principals and twisted them into some kind of entangled neuroses crisis on a daily basis. So therefore, having to then write out " private confessions" over and over again against ones will is inherintly abusive. It wasn't so much the above that made me feel it was completely abusive. It was more that the above combined with having to "go over" those M.I.'s with complete strangers, who then were free to criticize them and basically hold a "mini rap" at the foster home, like they were a staff member. Then if the oldcomer didnt act that way towards you, they then ran the risk of being stood up in group and being "confronted" with being "soft" with newcomers....funny how we never saw anyone get stood up for being "hard" with newcomers isn't now?
That says a great deal right there.
anyway, it is all relative, the whole place, idealogy, the rules, the dogma, the M.I.'s the rational therapy shit, the raps, no privacy, ....etc.... it is and was all a part of "the game".
-warm regards,
-DP
This is about the best description of the MI ritual I've ever seen. I don't think Mel or other educators are much inclined to try and bend their minds on how or why this is fucked up. That's because they heartily approve of things they do themselves, such as Bill Oliver's Peer Counseling and the DARE cop's "confidential concerns box." They love the idea of metal detectors at the school house doors and occasional run throughs w/ drug and bomb sniffing dogs just to remind the little fuckers just how close they live each day to the other side of the line. These same people are making our school systems ever more closely resemble their other pet project, the prison systems. Everybody knows it, it's not a secret or anything. Some grumble a little, most just go along with it.
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Thank you !
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THank you a.g 4 the support ! THATS H U G E !!!!!!!!!!
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Whoah!!
What the FUCK??
Someone just deleted a few posts off of this thread..(they weren't dupes).
WHY????
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Really... What kind of control-freak bullshit is that???????????
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It just happened within the last 10 minutes, so whoever did it is probably reading this RIGHT NOW.
Why the fuck did you delete those posts??
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Good god I need to get back on my "meds" and fast! (Where IS that guy, anyway??)
Those posts were on another goddam thread!! :exclaim: :rofl:
Sorry. :oops:
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::T:: :roll: ::roflmao::
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Figures LOL
I think, I'k gonna cry
"GOD SAVE THE QUEEN:"
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From the thread next door:
Yes, I view the Moral inventory as abusive, b/c for one, "the program" took basica AA principals and twisted them into some kind of entangled neuroses crisis on a daily basis. So therefore, having to then write out " private confessions" over and over again against ones will is inherintly abusive. It wasn't so much the above that made me feel it was completely abusive. It was more that the above combined with having to "go over" those M.I.'s with complete strangers, who then were free to criticize them and basically hold a "mini rap" at the foster home, like they were a staff member. Then if the oldcomer didnt act that way towards you, they then ran the risk of being stood up in group and being "confronted" with being "soft" with newcomers....funny how we never saw anyone get stood up for being "hard" with newcomers isn't now?
That says a great deal right there.
anyway, it is all relative, the whole place, idealogy, the rules, the dogma, the M.I.'s the rational therapy shit, the raps, no privacy, ....etc.... it is and was all a part of "the game".
-warm regards,
-DP
It certainly makes since why they had the whole family write MIs. Siblings had to write them nightly I'd wait til Friday night after open meeting before Saturday sibling rap and write all 7. That was fuckin hard has hell LOL They reviewed them on Saturday though so I had no choice and I always put it off cuz I hated it so!
I threw all mine away but i have some of my moms. Really they were all very negative about her, how she needed to do better at this and that etc. Most of it's total bull shit. I think they had the parents so immersed in trying to work through their "problems" it's no wonder they were clueless about most other things. At least with my mom, they kept her busy to. Course with steve on first phase the whole time what choice did they have, god forbid she start pondering why he'd been in there so long.
She was on the fund raising committee, taught parents to be rap leaders, did hair cuts, was on the speaker bureau, volunteered to work the front desk. She basically lived and breathed straight, for some reason doesn't "recall" never being home when we were in straight. She was never there. Home cooked meals because a thing of the past lol. Of course once they made sure my dad was gone what else was she going to do. Wow a couple revelations just now, I really could do without some for a few days actually. Do any of you go through phases like that? Not much for awhile and then you just keep gettin either memories or info or revelations if you will to the point where you want to PUKE? lol I'm there, ready to lose my cookies, overloaded if you will. Anyway just putting down what was on my mind as I read that post.
Peace,
kelly aka the E to the B
::dove::
and to the guest with the multiple personalities.. it was me, yes me. I deleted your posts and will continue to do so, so don't f' w/ me man! :evil: :flame: :evil:
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Just posting this, cuz. This Einstein guy, i tell ya, he was like a genius or something! LOL The man was SO much more then 'science'. He's written some amazing, non science related, stuff. Had incredible foresight and an obvious understanding of man, the mind and how it all works. And he's an INTP just like me! LOL K does that mean imma genius too? Even if I don't always use spell check? No need to answer that question, I'm also psychic and know what you're going to say! :o :o :o
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. ~Albert Einstein
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She was on the fund raising committee, taught parents to be rap leaders, did hair cuts, was on the speaker bureau, volunteered to work the front desk. She basically lived and breathed straight, for some reason doesn't "recall" never being home when we were in straight. She was never there. Home cooked meals because a thing of the past lol. Of course once they made sure my dad was gone what else was she going to do. Wow a couple revelations just now, I really could do without some for a few days actually. Do any of you go through phases like that? Not much for awhile and then you just keep gettin either memories or info or revelations if you will to the point where you want to PUKE? lol I'm there, ready to lose my cookies, overloaded if you will.
THIS is the thanks that your mom gets for her tireless dedication??? :flame:
Speaking of phases, it sounds like you could have benefitted from going through them yourself! ::nod::
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She was on the fund raising committee, taught parents to be rap leaders, did hair cuts, was on the speaker bureau, volunteered to work the front desk. She basically lived and breathed straight, for some reason doesn't "recall" never being home when we were in straight. She was never there. Home cooked meals because a thing of the past lol. Of course once they made sure my dad was gone what else was she going to do. Wow a couple revelations just now, I really could do without some for a few days actually. Do any of you go through phases like that? Not much for awhile and then you just keep gettin either memories or info or revelations if you will to the point where you want to PUKE? lol I'm there, ready to lose my cookies, overloaded if you will.
THIS is the thanks that your mom gets for her tireless dedication??? :flame:
Speaking of phases, it sounds like you could have benefitted from going through them yourself! ::nod::
*yawn*
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That's it, keep yawning.. and when you finally wake your druggie ass up, you'll find it sitting on FRONT ROW!! :flame:
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That's it, keep yawning.. and when you finally wake your druggie ass up, you'll find it sitting on FRONT ROW!! :flame:
uh huh... my mammy aint got no money, now what's your motivation?
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Motivation is my motivation! :rofl:
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Motivation is my motivation! :rofl:
Gee like i didn't see that one coming, whew im just in STITCHES! :roll:
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Hmm.. sure you did... :roll:
Always have to have the last word, don't you druggie? ::blah::
Don't worry, SIBS can help you with that... ::shhhh::
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Hmm.. sure you did... :roll:
Always have to have the last word, don't you druggie? ::blah::
Don't worry, SIBS can help you with that... ::shhhh::
see ya there, don't for get the medieval torture devices! Around lunch? i'll only have 30 minutes so can you make it short?
k i must sleep now. ill see ya i if wake up. ttfn.
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IF havin the last word gets U hard. U may need some viagria when i'm around.
Always have to have the last word, don't you druggie
Don't worry, SIBS can help you with that... ::shhhh
see ya there, don't for get the medieval torture devices! Around lunch? i'll only have 30 minutes so can you make it short?
k i must sleep now. ill see ya i if wake up. ttfn.
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IF havin the last word gets U hard. U may need some viagria when i'm around.
Always have to have the last word, don't you druggie
Don't worry, SIBS can help you with that... ::shhhh
see ya there, don't for get the medieval torture devices! Around lunch? i'll only have 30 minutes so can you make it short?
k i must sleep now. ill see ya i if wake up. ttfn.
WTF? forget how to quote? lol
and apparently you are the ONLY one suffering from LAST WORD Syndrome these days.
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I disagree.
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I disagree.
well i don't count, i'm battery operated, not my fault, i just keep going and going and going.
-EB
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lol u go girl
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg
diva"]IF havin the last word gets U hard. U may need some viagria when i'm around.
Always have to have the last word, don't you druggie
Don't worry, SIBS can help you with that... ::shhhh
see ya there, don't for get the medieval torture devices! Around lunch? i'll only have 30 minutes so can you make it s
WTF? forget how to quote? lol
and apparently you are the ONLY one suffering from LAST WORD Syndrome these days
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and apparently you are the ONLY one suffering from LAST WORD Syndrome these days
u r correct, especially when some 1 fucks with my friends.
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From the thread next door:
Yes, I view the Moral inventory as abusive, b/c for one, "the program" took basica AA principals and twisted them into some kind of entangled neuroses crisis on a daily basis. So therefore, having to then write out " private confessions" over and over again against ones will is inherintly abusive. It wasn't so much the above that made me feel it was completely abusive. It was more that the above combined with having to "go over" those M.I.'s with complete strangers, who then were free to criticize them and basically hold a "mini rap" at the foster home, like they were a staff member. Then if the oldcomer didnt act that way towards you, they then ran the risk of being stood up in group and being "confronted" with being "soft" with newcomers....funny how we never saw anyone get stood up for being "hard" with newcomers isn't now?
That says a great deal right there.
anyway, it is all relative, the whole place, idealogy, the rules, the dogma, the M.I.'s the rational therapy shit, the raps, no privacy, ....etc.... it is and was all a part of "the game".
-warm regards,
-DP
It certainly makes since why they had the whole family write MIs. Siblings had to write them nightly I'd wait til Friday night after open meeting before Saturday sibling rap and write all 7. That was fuckin hard has hell LOL They reviewed them on Saturday though so I had no choice and I always put it off cuz I hated it so!
I threw all mine away but i have some of my moms. Really they were all very negative about her, how she needed to do better at this and that etc. Most of it's total bull shit. I think they had the parents so immersed in trying to work through their "problems" it's no wonder they were clueless about most other things. At least with my mom, they kept her busy to. Course with steve on first phase the whole time what choice did they have, god forbid she start pondering why he'd been in there so long.
She was on the fund raising committee, taught parents to be rap leaders, did hair cuts, was on the speaker bureau, volunteered to work the front desk. She basically lived and breathed straight, for some reason doesn't "recall" never being home when we were in straight. She was never there. Home cooked meals because a thing of the past lol. Of course once they made sure my dad was gone what else was she going to do. Wow a couple revelations just now, I really could do without some for a few days actually. Do any of you go through phases like that? Not much for awhile and then you just keep gettin either memories or info or revelations if you will to the point where you want to PUKE? lol I'm there, ready to lose my cookies, overloaded if you will. Anyway just putting down what was on my mind as I read that post.
Peace,
kelly aka the E to the B
::dove::
and to the guest with the multiple personalities.. it was me, yes me. I deleted your posts and will continue to do so, so don't f' w/ me man! :evil: :flame: :evil:
Thank you for this post, it is helpful to hear about your experience as a sibling in Straight. What happened if you didn't write the MIs?
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LOL U R A FUNNY BUNNY BUT SOME PPLE READ. R U AGAINST ME OR WITH ME ? I'M VERY CONFUSED.
Yes, I view the Moral inventory as abusive, b/c for one, "the program" took basica AA principals and twisted them into some kind of entangled neuroses crisis on a daily basis. So therefore, having to then write out " private confessions" over and over again against ones will is inherintly abusive. It wasn't so much the above that made me feel it was completely abusive. It was more that the above combined with having to "go over" those M.I.'s with complete strangers, who then were free to criticize them and basically hold a "mini rap" at the foster home, like they were a staff member. Then if the oldcomer didnt act that way towards you, they then ran the risk of being stood up in group and being "confronted" with being "soft" with newcomers....funny how we never saw anyone get stood up for being "hard" with newcomers isn't now?
That says a great deal right there.
anyway, it is all relative, the whole place, idealogy, the rules, the dogma, the M.I.'s the rational therapy shit, the raps, no privacy, ....etc.... it is and was all a part of "the game".
-warm regards,
-DP [/quote]
[/quote]
It certainly makes since why they had the whole family write MIs. Siblings had to write them nightly I'd wait til Friday night after open meeting before Saturday sibling rap and write all 7. That was fuckin hard has hell LOL They reviewed them on Saturday though so I had no choice and I always put it off cuz I hated it so!
I threw all mine away but i have some of my moms. Really they were all very negative about her, how she needed to do better at this and that etc. Most of it's total bull shit. I think they had the parents so immersed in trying to work through their "problems" it's no wonder they were clueless about most other things. At least with my mom, they kept her busy to. Course with steve on first phase the whole time what choice did they have, god forbid she start pondering why he'd been in there so long.
She was on the fund raising committee, taught parents to be rap leaders, did hair cuts, was on the speaker bureau, volunteered to work the front desk. She basically lived and breathed straight, for some reason doesn't "recall" never being home when we were in straight. She was never there. Home cooked meals because a thing of the past lol. Of course once they made sure my dad was gone what else was she going to do. Wow a couple revelations just now, I really could do without some for a few days actually. Do any of you go through phases like that? Not much for awhile and then you just keep gettin either memories or info or revelations if you will to the point where you want to PUKE? lol I'm there, ready to lose my cookies, overloaded if you will. Anyway just putting down what was on my mind as I read that post.
Peace,
kelly aka the E to the B
::dove::
and to the guest with the multiple personalities.. it was me, yes me. I deleted your posts and will continue to do so, so don't f' w/ me man! :evil: :flame: :evil:[/quote]
Thank you for this post, it is helpful to hear about your experience as a sibling in Straight. What happened if you didn't write the MIs?[/quote]