Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones => Topic started by: GregFL on June 09, 2002, 04:49:00 PM
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The whole Industry, especially cedu is in the stone age. The proverbial stone age is equivelent to the 60 human potential movement EST, Lifespring, Synanon run without guidence from mental health professionsls who respect the human rights and dignity of the kids and families they serve. The closed system mentality is kin to scientology i.e. we are the way, the truth, and you will be our robot. What we say is right and you must follow - never lead, dialouge, complain or ask for change and you wil suffer the consequences - Isolation and removal of your right to see, communicate with and , yes, Love your family. Staff are the most brainwashed. Cedu is bringing in clinicians and therapists and PRETENDING that they have a voice. They do not. They are a TOKEN. Fight for your right to open communication, open visits, and never go to a Cedu transition program. Cedu, in general is designed to regress children and families so they can suck as much money as possible out of the powerless trusting infant within us all. They have the opportunity to do good work, but they choose instead control and tyranny over empowerment. Kids Die because they are not allowed a voice.
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:evil: Sad but true, not only the students in which whom are a part of the emoitional grownth programs (not with professional personal), the employees also are brainwashed into thinking that they are helping others while the company continues to take advantage of their knowledge.
Signed,
Unknown
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I am a graduate of Rocky Mountain Academy, one of the Cedu schools. Nearly 10 years after graduation, I continue to credit the school with saving my life and with providing me the training to build a meaningful and satisfying life.
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I had never heard of RMA before. I think most of the past participants of Synanon based programs have spread out in society, some worse off, some still going strong. I think many other past participants have died as a result of their treatment. Mind control is a very dangerous thing to introduce to kids, and anybody.
Aqua Fortis
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:skull: Sutdents are abused at schools like CEDU and it Musted be stopped please help me to stop this. my email address is memebrat59@yahoo.com if you are an ex-inmate andwant this abuse stopped Please contact me.
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:scared: There is really no way to shut these places down in Idaho. I have contacted everyone from CPS to the Residential Treatmen Center Licensing authority in Boise Idaho that inspects These facilities. Boulder Creek Academy and RMA and NWA - all of the CEDU and Brown Schools drug 85 percent of the teens with various psychotropics to keep them compliant while they undergo psychological games and double-binds, verbal abuse, shunning, peer abuse by putting children in charge of children. Their schools settled out of court for killing a child in a restraint. They put a kid on a work assignment and broke his arm fighting him, an escort hired by RMA was charged with drugging and raping a girl. There was a riot at Northwest Academy - many were hurt. CPS found that it was triggered by unfair and harsh conditions imposed on children. Now Boulder Creek Academy and all the others have therapists. I found out first hand that the staff listenes through doors to clinical sessions. They deliberately keep ethical standards out of reach and hidden from the staff - but the inspectors see them. The workshops require sleep deprivation and "therapy' by people with no credentials or even college education, involving thigs like yelling names kids were called and literally having staff pretend they are having sex on kids while saying they like it. Kids go into PTSD episodes and then are punished for "acting out" with weeks of forced isolation and doing writing assignments that are turned down as not good enough until the kid is about to break. Hospitalizations from "breaks" are common at BCA - And BCA is being used as a cheaper alternitive to the mental hospital - hell is a substitute for medical treatmen now. So bullied kids are often pared with sociopaths and the dorms harbor secret nightly terrorizing and humiliation for the more sensitive children. This is the tip of the iceberg from me - a staff who was around this place for 20 years trying to change it. It will never change until the state Idaho)is sued or somehow held accountable for total neglegence. An RMA child hung himself in his dorm - Why didn't they listen to him. Because they were too busy yelling fuck you - Yes, This is the "Therapy" I saw around that time. Get after Jim Puitt at the State licensing board in Boise Idaho - I guarentee,he and health and welfare will do nothing - even though they heard about it all and were there for the riots. The Attorney General wouldn't even talk about it - Neither would the Govenor. Idaho is not Famous for Potatoes it is famous for protecting backward ideas and backward businesses and keeping them deregulated - free to torture.
:wave:
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Dear RMA Grad,
You should be proud of that accomplishment. The few who make it should be congratulated. I would not, ever, attempt to take away the work you have done. I would simply say, don't credit them with saving your life. YOU DID IT. Most kids that I have followed weren't so empowered. When there, I saw a few remarkable successes like you, and I admired them so much. But' when push came to shove, it was them, their resiliency, their power, their tenacity and their work independent of program that did it. The research proves this see http://www.talkingcure.com (http://www.talkingcure.com)
for the results of 40 years of university research on what works in therapy and with various populations. They even have a section on "what works with teens." The researh showa that most kids get worse from programs and camps. I could credit scientology and other cults with my rescue. In the end, many years later, I reflect back and realise that they just provided a warped belief system for me to adopt and live by. While I was there, I grew up and chose other options than substances and risky behavior. Finding a career or going to college or getting married or having a child is usually what gave us purpose and the incentive to change. For some, me included, cults pulled us out of reality long enough for us to grow up. But this is because I entered voluntarily. The research shows success is most often related to voluntary participation. Please validate yourself. But remember those who never "buy in" can end up back on drugs, hanging from a rope, dead in a car or just wandering with no direction, waiting for that tray of food that never comes. I saw 3 recent grads in rags, hungry without work, smoking a bong in a cold old building, I saw another on a city street corner holding a sign "hard times, anything will help." Three are dead one hung himself, two others died in a car. You did your work and grew in spite of them - You probably had one or two good staff mentors - they do exist. I am happy for you, and kids I saw who did the same, but don't forget those who have fallen. I hope, in the future, we see more like you who were empowered rather than torn down.
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What a great site, Roy. Thanks for pointing it out.
Woops! Found a bug.
"Alcohol Treatment Works (and saves money too)!
You think the field would be beyond the basics by this point in history. And yet, the fundamentals continue to be debated. Most notoriously, does treatment work? Well, Holder, Cisler, Longabaugh, Stout, Treno, and Zweben (2000) reported 3 year follow up results on Porject MATCH--the most sophisticated study to date on treating problem drinkers. You will recall, in this study, researchers tried to match client characteristics to treatment modalities. The bad news is that it didn't work--the matching that is. The good news is that all treatments worked about equally well. Moreover, in this study, the authors report that at 3 years, all three approaches studied (CBT, 12-step, and MET) resulted in substantial reductions in medical costs!"
http://www.talkingcure.com/archive/substancearchive.htm (http://www.talkingcure.com/archive/substancearchive.htm)
Yes, technically true. All methods worked equally well. Omitted from the press releases, though, was that all methods included in the study worked equally as well as NO treatment whatsoever, and sometimes not even that good!
See http://www.peele.net/lib/projmach.html (http://www.peele.net/lib/projmach.html)
If we choose to violate the rights of the innocent in order to discover and act against the guilty, then we have transformed our country into a police state and abandoned one of the fundamental tenants of a free society. In order to win the war on drugs, we must not sacrifice the life of the Constitution in the battle.
--US District Judge H. Lee Sarokin
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
American drug war P.O.W.
10/80 - 10/82
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
Anonymity Anonymous
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:smile: Good stuff. Thanks for pointing that out. It sure doesn't surprise me.
GO TO THE NEXT PAGE
[ This Message was edited by: Roy on 2003-10-17 09:37 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Roy on 2003-10-17 09:38 ]
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"Strength and Beauty Come From Us, Not From Tyranny."
Words seen on a fountain in downtown Portland
R
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The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology says people would do better in outpatient treatment for Drug/ Alch ABUSE /ADDICTION
What's the Difference in Outcome between Residential and Day Treatment? NOT Much!
Researchers Guydish et al. report a follow-up of their earlier study, reporting the outcome of treatment in day and residential treatment at 12 and 18 months after termination.
The results? Well, other than cost, improvement among residential clients was not significantly different from those in day treatment. Indeed, with regard to drug use, there was no difference for the more extensive and expensive treatment option! It's time for the old tradition of thinking that drug and alcohol clients must first go to residential treatment in order to be successful to go the way of the horse and buggy and Edsel!
Guydish, J. et al. (1999). A randomized trial comparing day and residential drug abuse treatment: 18 month outcomes. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67(3), 428-434.
From The Institute for the Study of Therapuitic Change website: talingcure.com
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Roy, do you know anything about the diagnostic proceedure for these studies?
I know the vast majority of the kids in The Seed and Straight never had anything close to a hard addiction. Many didn't even use drugs at all. Most who did weren't having problems with their drug use so much as their parents, schoolpeople and others had a problem with it. So they had legal problems or school problems or family problems. But no drug problems.
And I know that a lot of people who get forced into treatment either by the courts of their employers or licensing boards also don't have drug problems to begin with. They generally have legal problems, sometimes money problems, but no significant drug problems.
Rush Limbaugh is a good example of that, I think. Though it's tempting to snicker and say "Well now! That `splains a lot!" But really, reagardless of what anyone thinks of the views he's paid to promote, I don't think anyone would argue that he was functioning at a less than competent, even excellent, level of competency. Would you?
I think the "drug epidemic" is largely a myth. Seems to make about as much sense to me as attibuting disasterous flooding to the presence of Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) then going about a decades long, world wide mission to stamp out (DHMO) whenever and wherever we find it by whatever means necessary!
Now, that's not to say that no one ever has a serious problem attributable to addiction or to compulive drug use (whether fitting anyone's favorite definition of addiction or not) I know some do, I've seen it. But I've also seen it come and go like a bad case of adolescent acne.
No telling what went on in the mind of the afflicted user to bring about the change or what kind of external influences they found helpful, unless of course we ask them. And as long as this activity that is of such great concern and interest to so many remains illegal, we can't really expect anyone to speak candidly about it, can we?
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't.
-- Anonymous
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Yeah. It is largely myth, especially when you consider the epidemic of psychotropics and other perscription drugs that are recommended by media, doctors, pharm companies, the government and the consumer market culture.
I tend to agree on government and regulation as a social ill - I would only add that the whole of military - economic - police - regulatory - and political systems are all parts of the same thing, and even if you get rid of government and regulation you still have a big mess of conflicting values, interests, agendas,, ideas and ideologies-religions (political viewpoints) at war with each other. There you have it. The answer.
So you have the answer - everyone thinks they have the answer - and all of the answers are different.
What we all have to come to terms with is that it all just is. It all is a "grand play." and "BS" The fun thing to do is to poke fun at all of it and laugh while you try to make things a little better for a few people you feel deserve it. That is what we are all doing here.
As for plowshares, there are ways to use them to teach others who they can and cannot screw with -CEDU has one up their ass right now. :smokin:
Quote
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Diagnostic Criteria for addiction generally follow the notion of "continued abuse despite serious consequences." This is up for interpertation of the clinician - who is almost always getting money following the diagnosis and treatment.
See the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Americal Psychological Association AKA, (DSM IV).
This manual is full of (shit - oops) so called "mental llnesses", and their characteristics, symptoms and consequences.
We therapists are supposed to believe in it.
Actually, most of us see it as a political attempt to make all mental illness medical, and assign psychiatrists and psychologists as the experts on treating these "illnesses." As is demonstrated in talkingcure.com, we are simply labeling personal, situational, cultural and environmental differences and resources as "problems."
My belief is that these are not actually or necessarily "problems," but differences, and the real problem is a society that wants everyone to be the "same", "normal" "in the middle of the bell curve."
In reality, people are unique in many different ways and oftentimes these differences represent strengths, creativity and diversity that are quite beautiful - but our culture wants to label them sick and make money off of treating the ,so called, sickness. Some sicknesses exist, many do not.
The fact is this: When people become uncomfortable with who they are, they adapt into what they desire to be.
My first question is not to ask what does society want, but to ask the client what he or she wants to be or become or remain.
The point is that we choose and we live with our choice. or change again. We evolve. My job is to help people do that when they want to.
Some people will want to drink or smoke pot and they will have positive or negative consequences or both. Some people will get in way over their heads with hard drugs such as opiates, barbituates et al. They may want to be assiated in a controlled or community support environment.
As has been said, drug treatment has a low rate of success - because success is a voluntary and personal will / tenacity issue. The cure is the will and power and choice of the addicted person.
In short, diagnostics are dumb. They are worth little more than enforcing a social/ cultural norm and collecting money for treatment. Psychotropic drugs, similarly can be helpful. They can also be used for similar evil.
Pick your therapist / "treatment" carefully and remember that you, not the therapist, are the real physician - I am just a mentor.
Therefore, regarding diagnoses, see DSM IV, and notice that it is largely full of crap
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So then we're assuming that the studies cited in the JCCP write up are probably using these same diagnostic methods?
And do you think there's a growing shift among therapist toward thinking the way you do? In other words, are they worth trying to pursued with reason or do you think the industry is largely the enemy and we have to appeal to the tax payors who are essentially paying for their own persecution?
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another; shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement
Thomas Jefferson
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Well,
Yes I would say that in many cases people are paying for their own persecution and the persecution of their kids.
I wouldn't, however, say that this is always the case. And though the goverment is often the advocate of conformity and norming people to the status quo, the private psychiatric community, doctors and lawyers and particularly psychiatrists are, in my view, the worst culprits.
This medical private sector is, as much as we would like to deny, the pupet and tool of goverment - via lobbyists and PACs that represent private sector interests to the governmrnt.
So, in my opinnion, the medical, psychological and pharm. establishment works together to enslave and control the free-will of the people. The media also plays into the hands of what I call "government, by business, for business and of business."
In other words, there are a lot of "good guys" and they are usually the ones that are not tied into big corporate money, government grants and contacts. Saying that my collegues are "mostly" against DIAGNOSES AS LEGITIMATE would be true. But to say that most would be willing to lose the money that they make by accepting this to satisfy payors such as insurance companys, hospitals, physicians and government agencies would be innacurate - greed is the order of the day even in my industry. More accurately, there are a few good guys, maverics and whistle-blowers like Miller and Duncan at talkingcure, but most sell out to the dark side - so any assertion of "most" appropriately rebel against the tyranny of medical diagnoses of personal or cultural difference would be clearly an overstatement. Hope that helps.
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On 2003-10-31 13:36:00, Antibody? wrote:
greed is the order of the day even in my industry. More accurately, there are a few good guys, maverics and whistle-blowers like Miller and Duncan at talkingcure, but most sell out to the dark side - so any assertion of "most" appropriately rebel against the tyranny of medical diagnoses of personal or cultural difference would be clearly an overstatement. Hope that helps.
I think I understand what you're saying, but I wouldn't put it just so. Greed? Or survival? I remember your and your wife(?)'s first posts here. And I believe the story. You stayed in the business, even did what you had to do to keep a job at a very abusive institution, in order to intervene as much as you could to soften the blow where you could. That's not greed. The problem, in my view, is not that we all need money to survive. The problem is that we have given control of the market in healthcare (along with a lot of other areas of industry and social concerns) over to government.
That's what I think we have to correct. At the end of any scenario involving government is some kind of coercion. Any area of our lives where coercion is inapropriate is no business of government. If enough of us quit sending our money to D.C. and to state capitals and quit complying with their mandates, the rest would only have to agree that these refusenicks are not proper targets for prosecution.
Homeschool is self regulating. The school board is not going to have illiterate useless people living in their homes forever if they don't have a working education policy.
--Sisterbluerose
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Ginger,
I can't disagree with you on this point. I hope there is some way we can break free. I wish we could get government out of industry's pockets and industry out of goverment pockets.
With government, we are regulating nothing. Policical action and influence are the same here as they were in the former (and current) Soviet Union. Business pays off police, regulatory and social agencies to get monopolies and to steal money or gouge citizens, customers, taxpayers and pentioners. The only difference is that, here, they (Business and Government) do it through channels that have been minipulated, put in place, and made legal by our legislators.
Lobbies, political fund raisers and Political Action Comitties have become legal bribery and pay off agencies. And, this is why we have a 5-6 trillion Dollar National Debt. They found a way to make sure the debt is paid off long after they are dead and gone by the hardship of future generations - what could be more corrupt than that? Yet, this is the essence of government, industry and politics - corruption. I could not agree more.
Now how do we go about getting rid of this monster government-military-industrial-matrix we live under? We could starve them, but they could starve us first - or put us in jail for tax evasion. How do we get enough people to participate? There are not many mavericks left out there.
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Well, I think we had just about the best strategy ever back around the mid 1700's. The whole coup, for the most part, was carried out in the press and in the communities. People came to accept as fact that the Crown wasn't doing much for them and that if they kept asking for any more in return for nothing, eventually something would have to be done about them. The dialog kept on going till all peaceful means of redress had been exhausted. When the people were ready to put their foot down, they up and did.
I think it's the same thing here. Every time someone makes a crack about government inefficacy or corruption or whatever, it gets less and less rhetorical. When enough people are really seriously ready to accept that it's no joke, well you just can't make 300 Million Americans do what they don't want to do, can you?
I am sick unto death of obscure English towns that exist seemingly for the sole accommodation of these so-called limerick writers -- and even sicker of their residents, all of whom suffer from physical deformities and spend their time dismembering relatives at fancy dress balls.
--Editor of the Limerick Times
(Limerick, Ireland)
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I'm 100% with you - lat's GO
"WHAT WE DO IN LIFE ECHOES IN ETERNITY"
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Ok, then how about let's take a turn at focusing the message for awhile.
How about this for starters. People who want to obsess on controling the consensual activities of others ought to do it on their own dime. Not a penny more in public funding for forced treatment.
(or, simply, forced treatment = Stalinist reeducation)
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of it's victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those that torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock
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Thank you Ginger, I love That Quote. I can assure you that I would like to put a stop to CEDU getting State School IEP funding to keep kids there. They don't even follow State or federal guidelines per non-abusive practices, employee treatment and supplying past employees with their personnel records.
Why? Because everyone from local Bonner and Boundary and Kootenai (Shawn Keough) and Ada (Boise) county State Legislators, Idaho Regional Treatment Center Licensing Child Peotective Services (in Sandpoint Idaho), The Idaho State Attorney General, and Idaho Govenor Kempthorpe in Boise, are all afraid of being sued by CEDU. They all watch out for their own asses and the local district attorneys recieve complaints all the time and do nothing. They won't even investigate. Yes, Governmant is a waste.
We need to get people to complain about them, to all of them - especially the Govener, His Wife and the Attorney General about All those agencies that sit on their asses and live off our tax dollars whole children are imprisoned and abused.
I did it a long time ago - no one even replied. Now let's see if anybody else has the balls to go after them. It will Take more than just me.
Antibody?
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Past Articles on CEDU - before The Death of the kid at their ON TRACK facility due to restraint
SPOKESMAN-REVIEW Newsfiles on Rocky Mountain Academy (1994-1999)
Tuesday, July 19, 1994
BOY HANGS HIMSELF IN DORMITORY
Section: THE HANDLE - Page: B3
Author: Kevin Keating Staff writer
A 16-year-old Rocky Mountain Academy student hanged himself in a dorm at the private school
Friday, authorities said.
The boy, who was from Richardson, Texas, was found by another student at the secluded Boundary
County school. The boy's name was not released.
He apparently tied a belt to a pipe on an overhead sprinkler system and hanged himself, said
Boundary County Sheriff Bruce Whittaker. He was found about 7:30 p.m.
Staff at the school for troubled teens tried to revive the boy and called for an ambulance. Whittaker
said the teenager was pronounced dead a short time later at Boundary County Community Hospital.
The death is still under investigation. Several reports said the boy may have been taking medication
for manic depression. Authorities would not comment on any details until the investigation is
complete. Richard Geiger, program administrator at Rocky Mountain Academy declined to comment Monday.
The private school specializes in teens who have had trouble at home or are drug and alcohol
abusers.
About 140 students, ages 13 to 18, are enrolled at the school, which commands a tuition of more
than $3,500 a month.
Students who have attended the school in the past include Barbara Walters' daughter and Roseanne
Arnold's two daughters.
All content © 1994 SPOKESMAN-REVIEW and may not be republished without permission.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Monday, June 3, 1996
A 6-FOOT-5-INCH PERSUADER
`INTERVENTION SPECIALIST' WILL RETRIEVE
REBELLIOUS TEENS, TAKE THEM TO PROGRAMS
Section: MAIN NEWS
Page: A1
Author: By Julie Titone Staff writer
Illustration: Color photo
Caption: Armstrong
When parents are at the end of their ropes, they call Richard Armstrong to lasso their troubled teenagers and get
them to a camp or school.
He's an intervention specialist.
Part counselor and part detective, Armstrong and others like him are hired to get kids safely into programs where
they can be helped.
``One boy - we literally had to carry him out of the house,'' Armstrong recalls. ``At the car, he was crying. By the
airplane, he could walk. By the time we got him to the wilderness program, he gave us a hug and says, `I can do
that'''- meaning, he could handle going into the program.
Sometimes called ``transport agents,'' intervention specialists are not kiddie kidnappers. So say the consultants
who help parents find programs for their teens.
``It's not four big guys in black with handcuffs,'' says consultant Linda Shaffer of Sandpoint.
Some may rely too much on physical control, she acknowledges, because they don't know how to defuse tense
situations with words alone.
In most states, Armstrong contends, children can be taken against their will at their parents' request until they are
18. In Washington, only law officers can take someone over age 13 by force.
But police usually look the other way, Armstrong says. They are relieved that parents are dealing with the
problem.
Nine out of 10 times, parents take their kids to an emotional growth school or camp.
That's ideal, Shaffer says. ``But some are convinced it would be almost impossible without wrestling around on
the front lawn, without a scene at the airport.''
Armstrong can wrestle if need be. He's a solid 6 feet 5, studied self-defense and will restrain a teen who's hurting
himself or threatening someone.
Mostly, Armstrong talks. Mostly, the kids listen.
``I tell them, `I know you don't like this situation. I do understand. I'm a parent, and parents can make mistakes,
but you need to get a grip.'''
Armstrong, 46, has two daughters. He lives in the North Idaho woods, where he settled in 1979 after doing ``a lot
of Jack London things,'' such as mining in central Idaho and salmon fishing in Alaska.
In 1982, he was hired as a counselor for Rocky Mountain Academy. He stayed for seven years before working
with another wilderness program.
Then he went to work for himself.
``In 1990, no one else was doing intervention,'' he says. ``The only options then were to have them arrested or put
them in a hospital.''
Armstrong calls his business Boundary Lines, for the county where he lives and the limits that teenagers need.
He has retrieved kids from all over the United States as well as from Canada, Italy and Japan.
Armstrong will quote individual estimates for his services but won't cite an average figure. Costs vary a lot, he
says, depending on how long a job takes and whether he needs help.
Intervention specialists charge up to $65 per hour plus expenses, say education consultants.
Consultant Lon Woodbury recalls one who ``extracted'' a girl from a crack house where her boyfriend was the
ringleader.
``The police were talking about putting on bulletproof vests and storming the place,'' Woodbury says. ``He
managed to get her before things exploded and charged $5,000 - which, considering the skills required and risks
taken, wasn't an overcharge.''
But there are jobs Armstrong won't take.
``I don't go into strangers' houses and grab kids. That's dangerous. That's stupidity,'' he says. ``It's different if the
cops go first, if the parents are there.''
Armstrong is wary if parents don't want to be involved. One or both should be there to explain what's happening,
he says.
``Parents need to tell the child they are concerned about their well-being, to say `Richard is here to assist you in
getting there safely.'''
He counts on people to be upfront about what's going on in the family.
``Sometimes parents lie to me or forget to say something. So on the morning I'm going to their home to help with
their 17-year-old, they say, `By the way, my son got picked up last week on an illegal weapons charge.' ... What
was that, now, an Uzi?''
Armstrong describes his work as emotionally charged.
``When I do one of these high-intensity things, it takes me a while to recover.
``It's a tough time. It's a tough time for the kid.''
All content © 1996 SPOKESMAN-REVIEW and may not be republished without permission.
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Thursday, June 13, 1996
WILDERNESS SCHOOLS NEED SELF-POLICING
Section: THE REGION
Page: B6
Author: D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board
Column: Our view
Wilderness therapy programs have had their successes.
For example, sweethearts Lee Cunningham and Anna Seymour of Bonner County, Idaho, owe much to the
Rocky Mountain Academy in neighboring Boundary County for helping them turn their lives around. Said
Lee: ``If it wasn't for that school, there's no telling where I would be. I learned a very good work ethic. I learned
what true friendship is about.''
Yet, a cloud hangs over such programs.
Four teenagers have died in the past five years while participating in survival-type therapy. Employees of a
Utah program will stand trial this year on charges involving the death of a 16-year-old during a desert outing
in 1994. The teen died from a perforated ulcer after allegedly being deprived of food, shelter and clothing.
Nearer home, a North Idahoan could face trial this summer on charges - including assault, deviant sexual
conduct and criminal endangerment - stemming from his operation of a ``behavioral growth school'' at
Anaconda, Mont.
Of course, managers of Inland Northwest wilderness schools don't like being lumped together with
controversial programs. Yet, they have themselves to blame for the problem. Few rules guide them. And they've
been reluctant to police themselves.
The rapidly growing industry would be wise to submit to a voluntary accreditation program - before an
incident attracts bureaucrats and cumbersome regulations. Some already do seek approval from organizations
such as the National Association for Legal Support of Alternative Schools.
Desperate parents should have an independent source to consult about a therapy program before they
refinance homes or raid college funds to pay the hefty tuitions. They deserve an assurance that their little
monsters won't be harmed, or worse.
These therapy programs fill an important niche for parents dealing with uncontrollable youngsters. Youths
from all over the country are flocking to some 20 regional programs to learn how to get along, how to stay off
drugs, how to study, how to know themselves.
In the process, the therapy programs have given the Inland Northwest an important economic boost. CEDU
Inc., which runs four programs for troubled teens in Boundary County, alone employs 280 people.
Now, however, Idaho has no rules for programs in which children stay nine weeks or less. Washington has
stricter licensing requirements but also many exemptions, including ones for boarding schools and seasonal
programs that last less than three months.
There's too much room for mischief.
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Wednesday, April 1, 1998
SUIT SAYS SCHOOLS FOR TROUBLED TEENS SET STAGE FOR
ABUSE
STATE REPORT SAYS ALLEGATIONS BY FORMER STUDENTS ARE
VALID
Section: THE HANDLE
Page: B1
Author: By Kevin Keating Staff writer
The parent company for three pricey schools for troubled teens near Bonners Ferry is being sued by two
former students for fraud, racketeering and battery.
The suit was filed in District Court on Tuesday. It alleges that Rocky Mountain Academy, Northwest
Academy, Ascent and their California-based parent company, CEDU Educational Services Inc., grossly
overcharge parents, and have ill-trained staff who verbally and physically abuse students.
Alleged abuses include one student's arm being broken by a counselor and several students being
punished by sitting on stools in the cold for as long as two days.
School officials referred questions to their attorney, David Wohlgemuth. He said he had not seen the
complaint and could not comment on it.
The lawsuit claims the schools' counselors are paid based on how long they keep students enrolled.
Counselors receive bonus pay if they can persuade parents to transfer their children into other schools or
programs run by the company, according to the lawsuit.
Programs can cost from $6,800 a month to $16,000 for a six-week outdoor course.
Much of the lawsuit stems from information parents and lawyers received about the school after a student
riot in January 1997. Five people were injured, including students and school staff members in Bonners
Ferry.
Boundary County law enforcement was called in to quell the riot. It launched an investigation of the school,
but no charges were filed. The riot was not reported to Idaho health and welfare officials. But after reading
about the melee in the newspaper, state Child Protective Services officials launched an investigation of
Northwest Academy, a rustic outdoor program.
``It is our belief that the cause of the riot was the result of frustration by students over mistreatment by a
number of staff towards these children,'' said a health and welfare report. The report is included in the
lawsuit.
CEDU charged former student Kevin Accomazzo's parents $30 to drive their son to the hospital after a
school counselor restrained and broke the teenager's arm, the complaint said.
According to reports by health and welfare officials - included in the lawsuit - the counselor grabbed
Accomazzo and put him in a bear hug to stop him from leaving a room. He wrestled the teen to the ground,
and they both heard a ``snap.''
In their report, health officials said the counselor laid on top of Accomazzo for 10 to 15 minutes before
sending someone for medical help. After the teen's arm was put in a cast, the doctor ordered him not to lift
anything heavier than a pencil.
But Accomazzo was put back to work at the camp, chipping ice, shoveling snow and hauling pots of water,
according to the lawsuit. His arm failed to heal properly. It had to be rebroken and a plate surgically
implanted, the lawsuit said. Weeks after the surgery, Accomazzo was forced to sleep in a damp, unheated
tent.
``It is our opinion that this injury should never have occurred,'' the report by health and welfare officials
stated. They recommended Accomazzo be pulled from the school and the counselor ``should not ... work
with children in any capacity at CEDU.''
Accomazzo's broken arm was not reported to state health and welfare officials as is required by law.
The school has a consultant, Rich Donavon, to make sure it complies with state requirements. Donavon, the
former director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, claimed the broken arm was an accident and
didn't need to be reported.
``During the previous two years we have made it clear to the administrators of CEDU, including consultant
Rich Donavon, that any suspicious injury needs to be reported,'' the health and welfare report said.
``Injuries such as that experienced by Kevin Accomazzo clearly should have been reported, along with the
findings from a medical examination.''
The school was also chastised by health officials for making students sit on stools in the cold as
punishment. Some students were allegedly placed on the stools for as long as two days. ``Allegations
regarding abuse and neglect by specific employees of Northwest Academy are found to be valid,'' the
health and welfare report said. A copy of the report was sent to state officials who license the academy.
Accomazzo and his parents also claim they were bilked for thousands of dollars. The Accomazzos paid
$16,000 for a six-week outdoor program called Ascent.
In addition to tuition, the family was charged $60 to $80 a month for laundry, and $40 for their son's ride to
the dentist. A van typically took six students to Sandpoint for a dental visit, a 30-mile ride. All the students
were charged $40 for the trip, according to the lawsuit.
``These charges are exorbitant,'' said the lawsuit filed by local attorneys Steve Very and Todd Reed, who
also is a deputy prosecutor for Boundary County. They asked a judge to bar CEDU from continuing to bill
parents for ``unconscionable'' sums of money and sending out false billing statements.
Claims made by Stanton Lewis, another former student who filed suit, are similar to those of Accomazzo.
The lawsuit alleges CEDU has breached its contract by not providing the education that was promised.
The CEDU program is one of the largest employers in Bonners Ferry. Some famous troubled teens have
attended the program, including children of Barbara Walters and Roseanne Barr.
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Sunday, September 5, 1999
TROUBLED HOMES
ACADEMIES FOR WAYWARD YOUTHS HAVE THEIR OWN
PROBLEMS WITH RULES
Section: MAIN NEWS
Page: A1
Author: BY SUSAN DRUMHELLER STAFF WRITER
Illustration: Color Photo
Caption: SHELTERED LIFE. During a break in classes, the boys at Elk Mountain Academy play a game of
volleyball on the court in front of the school building. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review
Parents across the nation spend thousands of dollars to send their misbehaving teenagers to private
behavioral schools in North Idaho.
Ironically, some of those programs seem to have a hard time following the rules.
Just months after vowing not to increase their numbers at Elk Mountain Academy, owners Carl and Loretta
Olding have asked the county to allow the school to house up to 12 more students at their woodsy campus
below Scotchman's Peak.
And now, county and state officials are investigating Glacier Mountain Inc., a group home north of
Sandpoint that may be violating the terms of its group home license and county code.
Another group home for youths has expanded from Bonners Ferry to Sagle, Idaho, but doesn't have a
foster care license with the state for either facility, or a special use permit with Bonner County to operate a
school.
Neighbors of Elk Mountain Academy keep watch as that school now seeks approval for up to 36 students.
The teenagers at Elk Mountain come from all over, but primarily from California. Their parents pay $3,375 a
month to straighten them out and keep them from bad influences.
It's a family model facility, where up to eight boys live in each residence with house parents, some of whom
raise their own small children there, too. The biggest structure on campus, the Achievement House, has
living facilities on the top floor, classrooms on the second floor, and a gymnasium and wood shop on the
ground floor.
Students help build the buildings, as well as the Oldings' new garage/ guest house at their private residence
on the Hope Peninsula.
To make the students feel more at home, the Oldings hauled in tons of sand for a beach volleyball court -
perhaps the only beach volleyball court in the Cabinet Mountains.
These are not dangerous kids, the Oldings and their staff insist - despite the neighborhood rumors of gun
thieves and worse.
``We don't get crazies here,'' said Mark Rocha, a youth minister and Elk Mountain employee. ``We're talking
about youth. We're not talking about a nuclear reactor here.''
Education consultant Lon Woodbury sends a lot of kids to Elk Mountain - the type who ``when in a safe
environment, the decent kid comes out.''
He said that private behavioral schools have to launch aggressive public relations campaigns to overcome
the fear factor in the community.
``People assume they're criminals. Most of these kids aren't,'' Woodbury said.
But it's not so much the kids that concern the neighbors. It's the administration.
``Until they learn how to abide by the laws, they shouldn't have more kids there,'' said Jeannie Roach, one
of a coalition of neighbors near Elk Mountain.
Neighbors have a running list of violations at Elk Mountain: building dormitories without the county's
blessing or knowledge, exceeding its licensed capacity, housing students in incomplete buildings without
proper safety inspections, failing to test water and even a poaching incident.
Most of the problems have been resolved, but any trust between neighbors and the Oldings has vanished.
And some neighbors still grumble about the roar of Elk Mountain's dirt bikes in their peaceful outback.
``Who's kidding who?'' said Carl Olding in reference to one vocal opponent to the bikes. ``We'll never be
buddies.''
Elk Mountain recently was licensed by the state as a children's treatment facility, which allows for more
than 12 students. But the license still is on provisional status.
The school also persuaded the county to issue a conditional use permit that allows up to 25 students for
two years, when the permit will be reviewed.
But that permit didn't include the academy's Base Camp program, which houses as many as 12 additional
students for six to nine weeks in an unfinished cabin on the heavily treed mountainside above the main
campus.
It's those students that the school still needs permission to house. Two or three teens were up there this
summer, cooking up Campbell's soup for dinner and sleeping on bunkbeds without mattresses.
``They've flaunted the fact that they don't have to abide by the rules,'' Roach said of Elk Mountain. ``If they
get away with it, we'll wind up with 100 little schools around here that get away with breaking the rules.''
One little school under scrutiny is Glacier Mountain Inc.
Like the directors of many local teenage residential facilities, Glacier Mountain's directors got their start at
another behavioral school in the region.
``People learn how much money others are making, and they start adding it up on their fingers,'' said Brenda
Hammond, former director of the now defunct Eagle Mountain Outpost. ``But anyone who goes into that
business, to be successful, can't be in it for financial reasons. It's very draining.''
Olding started planning Elk Mountain Academy while working for less than $8 an hour as a counselor at
Eagle Mountain Outpost. He and his wife started their family-based group home in Clark Fork in 1993.
Their group home was allowed under Bonner County's zoning laws only after the county's legal counsel
agreed that attention deficit disorder qualified as a disability. Olding claimed that all of his students had the
condition.
Glacier Mountain markets to ADD support groups, according to Woodbury.
``Since when does a delinquent teenager qualify as handicapped?'' wonders Marty Taylor, Bonner County's
planner. ``I'd be interested in seeing more review of that.''
In Glacier's case, both Larry Bauer and John Baisden used to work at CEDU Family of Services, which
operates Rocky Mountain Academy, Northwest Academy, Ascent and Boulder Creek Academy in
Boundary County.
Baisden was CEDU's director of admissions from November 1994 until July 1995. Now he and Bauer operate
a group home in the Colburn area on Oliver Road.
Baisden was reluctant to discuss the business, which is under investigation by the state licensing arm of
Family and Community Services and by Bonner County Planning and Zoning.
Baisden said the home takes up to eight kids, but had no students as of the last week of August.
``We don't have any plans of being an Elk Mountain or a Rocky Mountain Academy,'' he said. Baisden
would not say how many people Glacier Mountain employs.
But according to an inspection on Aug. 10 by Jean Hughes, an environmental health specialist at
Panhandle Health District, the home had 12 teenage residents. She reported that the unfinished basement
was being used as a classroom.
According to Glacier's state license, it can have only eight residents. And because it lacks a conditional use
permit as a school, it cannot teach students there.
``We did do instruction,'' Baisden said. ``We're not going to do that anymore. We don't think that's the real
world. When they go home, they go to real schools.''
Glacier Mountain has provided inconsistent information to the county about the facility, according to a
letter from Taylor that was in Health District records.
Bauer has told Taylor that the students attend classes at the group home, but another letter about a week
later said they would attend public school. In the first letter, he stated an intention to obtain a conditional
use permit to become a children's treatment facility, which allows for 13 or more residents.
The Health District also is looking into the home's water and sewer systems. Hughes said the district could
not approve either in a letter to Jim Puett, a state licensing specialist.
Like Glacier Mountain, the operators of Northwoods Trailside School like to keep a low profile.
The school was founded in Bonners Ferry in 1993 and is run by former CEDU employees David Yeats and
Matt Fitzgerald. They have two homes, with up to four boys in each, in Bonners Ferry.
They recently started taking in boys at Fitzgerald's home in Sagle, too.
``We want it very small and very unobtrusive to North Idaho,'' said Fitzgerald, who left CEDU because of
philosophical differences. CEDU's schools have more than 100 students each.
Fitzgerald said they don't work with ``at-risk'' kids as much as those who their parents fear will fail in a
big-city atmosphere.
``We deal with kids who want to come here and like to be here,'' he said.
Northwoods has yet to apply for a permit from Bonner County to operate a school in the Sagle area. It is in
the process of applying for a foster care license, which allows up to six unrelated children in a home.
Northwoods isn't the only facility expanding.
Elk Mountain is moving part of its program across the border.
``To be at Elk Mountain is to be in a bubble,'' Olding said. ``How do you get loaded at Elk Mountain? If
anyone smarts off in class, they're out picking rocks immediately. They live in this surreal world where there
is no temptation.''
So Elk Mountain has spawned Elk Creek, 86 acres the Oldings just bought near Heron, Mont., where they
plan to build another home for boys who progress to their second year at the academy. Those students will
go to public school in Noxon, Mont.
The Oldings already have four students enrolled in Noxon, but for now the teens still live at the academy
north of Clark Fork.
Noxon High Principal Bob Goodrich has had students from other group home settings. Northwest Montana
seems to be a magnet for the behavioral school industry, he said.
One well-known school is the boot-camp style Spring Creek Lodge near Thompson Falls, which is expected
to soon have more students than the entire Noxon School District. Those students never leave the facility.
``It's one of the enterprises of Sanders County that's somewhat lucrative,'' Goodrich noted.
Elk Mountain's move to Montana was partially motivated by pressure from neighbors. Montana has fewer
restrictions on group homes and private schools.
``We get a lot of, `Well, we'll just move to Montana,''' said Puett, the Idaho state licensing specialist.
In Montana, Olding sees an opportunity to offer more services to students who aren't ready to leave the
support system that Elk Mountain offers.
He also has 86 acres to play with - plenty of room for a dirt bike track that won't bother anybody, he said.
``No matter what happens,'' Olding said, ``I'm going to continue to do this work, whether it's in Montana or
Idaho.''
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Saturday, October 30, 1999
FEDERAL JURY SIDES WITH WOMAN IN RAPE LAWSUIT
EMPLOYER ORDERED TO PAY $164,595; COUNTY HASN'T FILED
CRIMINAL CHARGES
Section: THE HANDLE
Page: B1
Author: By Susan Drumheller Staff writer
Illustration: Color Photo
Caption: Armstrong
An ``intervention specialist'' who delivers kids to private behavioral schools and camps in North Idaho was
ordered by a federal jury to pay a former employee $164,595 for allegedly drugging and raping her.
Twila Stephenson filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Richard Armstrong of Bonners Ferry, Idaho,
in November 1996, accusing him of slipping drugs into her drinks, then raping her.
Armstrong runs a company called Boundary Lines, which specializes in transporting teenagers from their
homes to private schools, such as the Rocky Mountain Academy.
Stephenson worked for Armstrong as a counselor from 1993 until April 1996.
The jury deliberated for four hours after a fourday trial in Coeur d'Alene.
Jury members determined that Armstrong raped Stephenson while she was unconscious, that he caused her
to be unconscious and that the conduct was outrageous.
``We were surprised by the verdict,'' said Stanton Rines, Armstrong's attorney.
The evidence included two taped confessions, said Craig Mosman, Stephenson's attorney.
``Somebody who commits those acts ought to be in prison,'' Mosman said.
Boundary County officials never charged Armstrong, despite the fact that Mosman and Stephenson filed a
report with police and offered to provide evidence, Mosman said.
Mosman said he never discussed the case with Boundary County Prosecutor Denise Woodbury, who was
not available for comment Friday.
Stephenson has left the state and now lives and works in New Mexico, Mosman said.
She claimed she was fired after the alleged rape when she confronted Armstrong about crushing sleeping
pills into her drink after she refused to have sex with him.
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Monday, May 24, 1999
SANDPOINT TRIES TO SERVE YOUTH
TOWN MEETING AIMS TO IDENTIFY CAUSES OF VIOLENCE
Section: MAIN NEWS
Page: A1
Author: By Susan Drumheller Staff writer
Recent school shootings in Colorado and Georgia, plus a string of bomb threats closer to home, have captured
the attention of adults in Sandpoint.
``It's really scary,'' said Sharon McInturff of Safe Homes/Parents Who Care, a parent support organization in
Sandpoint. ``The problems we have with substance abuse and violence, it's not just a school issue, and it's not
just a parent issue. It's a community issue.
``If we don't get a handle on it, we're seeing the outcome - it's the violence that's erupting in schools across the
states.''
Getting to the root of the problem is part of the reason Mayor David Sawyer called a town meeting for
Wednesday night at the Panida Theater.
The meeting, called ``Our Youth and Our Community: Coming Together,'' will give the public a chance to air
concerns about safety at school and other issues concerning youth, while at the same time exploring solutions.
``Our main concern is healthy kids,'' Sawyer said. ``If we don't do something like this, we're not going to have
coordinated programs and the relationship with youth in our community is just going to get worse.''
According to the most recent Idaho Kids Count profile, Bonner County has a higher percentage of high school
drop-outs, violent deaths among teenagers, teenagers not working and not in school, and children living in
poverty than the state average.
Idaho Kids Count is a state effort to track the status of children and each year publishes a county-by-county
report.
Turning around some of those statistics is the long-term goal that organizers of the town meeting have in mind.
The meeting grew out of concerns voiced to Sawyer during the bomb scares at Sandpoint High School. Sawyer
had just returned from a conference called Building Character Cities, that taught how to offer guidance to youth
in a society that doesn't offer much guidance, Sawyer said.
``There's very much a common thread across a wide spectrum across political, social and religious beliefs that
there is a lack of teaching values, and of mentoring values, to each other,'' he said.
In meeting with different youth workers and volunteers in the community, Sawyer came up with the idea of
holding a town meeting.
Organizers don't want it to become a gripe session, although they do expect some discussion about the way
authorities handled the recent rash of bomb threats. School Superintendent Roy Rummler and Sandpoint Police
Chief Bill Kice will be on hand to talk about school safety.
``It's not just to respond to all the recent events, but to see what our community can do to pull together for our
youth,'' explained Frederic Wiedemann, a psychologist and founder of the Unifying Fields Foundation, an
educational non-profit organization. Wiedemann will be the moderator of the meeting.
``I'm going to be there,'' said Rich Geiger, a parent of a Sandpoint high school student, and clinical psychologist
who works for CEDU schools. The Sandpoint-based organization runs Rocky Mountain Academy and other
schools for troubled kids.
``I'd like to have a community that's more responsible for youth,'' Geiger said. ``Teenagers need structure and they
need attention. There's far too many youth wandering around our streets in the middle of the day. That means
they're not structured and they're not involved.''
Geiger also has some concerns about the way the school district responded to the bomb threats, calling the new
security measures ``a reactionary Band-aid.''
``I moved to Sandpoint because I didn't want my daughter to have to walk by armed guards to get into school,''
he said.
If Sawyer's vision is realized, the high school would have little need for tight security measures in the future. He
hopes to bring the whole community together into a network that can work in concert to impart healthy values to
children and teenagers. The Town Meeting is just the first step, he said.
``We don't have a bandwagon yet,'' Sawyer said. ``If we can create a bandwagon more people will come to the
table.''
He mentioned Lewiston's Lewis and Clark Coalition for Families and Youth as an example of a community-wide
effort to help raise healthy, happy teenagers.
The Coalition was formed about 10 years ago and has successfully landed several grants for youth-oriented
programs.
``Our theme is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,'' Jay Ney, one of the founding fathers of the
coalition. Ney said one of the greatest accomplishments of the coalition was simply to raise awareness in the
community.
``The denial that some people have, that some things only happen in certain cities...people realized it wasn't in
another city, it was local,'' Ney said.
McInturff said a network in Sandpoint would go a long way to direct the efforts of the many splintered groups in
town.
``We need to get together and start working together,'' she said. ``We can do a lot more that way.''
-----------------------------------------------
Want More I saw It - lots more
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Is there any news coming out on CPS in Idaho like there is in other states? It might not be a bad idea to see if there's interest (yet) among tax reduction proponants to make the argument that government spending on juvenile rehab does more harm than good.
Necessity never made a good bargain
--Benjamin Franklin Apr. 1734
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Boise (Idaho State) Regional Treatment Center Licensing - These are the people who let CEDU (Brown Schools) continue to operate:
Steve Green
Ed Vandusen
Jim Puitt
Office Phone 208-334-5534 - for all of them
Ask Fot Their Email addresses and send them e mails
example sgreen@state.id.us
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Idaho is a closed incestuous and fearful system -everyone is either afraid of everyone else or comitted to protect them - I doubt that the press would say anything against a business or public entity. They can critisize public figures and get away without a suit, but there are other pay backs from the community. We would need a protest at CPS - then call the press. But victims are not local so orginizing them to arrive here would be virtually impossible.
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One can never be sure this sounds exactly like the way CEDU has done things.
August 11, 2000
Why I liberated my daughter from a behavior-modification
boarding school
by Patricia Wolff
In the following account, "Friendship Glen School" has been substituted for the
school's true name, and other minor word changes were made in order to conceal
identities. Otherwise, the following is unchanged from Patricia Wolff's original
letter of July 24, 2000 to PTAVE (Project NoSpank). Ms. Wolff can be contacted by
writing to http://www.teenliberty.org (http://www.teenliberty.org), a web site that exposes the whole
racket of teen boarding schools and boot camps and also read the
eye-opening book An American Gulag: Secret P.O.W. Camps for Teens by
Alexia Parks. I learned that facilities like Friendship Glen School and
others even more repressive systematically violate the human and legal
rights of thousands of children in America every year. Deaths in these
facilities are not uncommon.
I also read the policy statement of the Association of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatric Nurses (ACAPN) regarding the rights of children in treatment
facilities and behavior modification boarding schools, and was shocked to
see that Friendship Glen School was in flagrant violation of nearly every
recommended standard! Even convicted murderers in federal prisons have
more rights than do the children at behavior-modification boarding schools
and boot camps.
I know in my heart that I did the right thing when I pulled my daughter out of
Friendship Glen, even though it was against my ex-husband's wishes. I also
know that I must now face his wrath and a court battle. What I don't know is
where I will get the money to pay legal fees and court costs. I need financial
help and I also need the support of former school inmates and employee
whistle-blowers to provide first-hand testimony about what really goes on
inside.
State agencies and organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, and the ACLU need to investigate these facilities and start
pushing to protect the legal and human rights of the children who are
trapped inside.
My daughter can survive teenhood without repressive boarding schools and
boot camps. She is a good kid - intelligent, creative, compassionate, and
full of life. She is not a criminal and neither are any of the other kids
incarcerated at Friendship Glen School. They did not fail us. We as parents,
and as a society, have failed our children.
For more on this topic, see BOOT CAMP FOR KIDS: TORTURING TEENAGERS
FOR FUN AND PROFIT
Please forward this page to friends, colleagues and others who care about the
rights of children.
HOME
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Actually the legislature in Idaho and our US Senator, Larry Craig, are very interested in this. This is a very anti-government anti tax state. It would be a very good place to start a grassroots movement for your party.
Just screen people carefully. There are a lot of racists, criminals and religious nuts here who are also anti-tax anti-government.
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Join Mailing List "Helping Raise Awareness On Teen Treatment Abuse And Mistreatment" 100% NONPROFIT Parents have a duty to protect the physical and emotional welfare of their children. Those who are in control of children in boarding schools have similar responsibilities to parents and are required to exercise a reasonable standard of care for the safety of children or young persons in their custody. Where a duty of care exists and there has been a failure to provide a reasonable standard of care, those responsible could face legal proceedings. Legislation relating to the safety of students in boarding schools Legislation that aims to protect the personal safety of children and young persons includes: the Human Rights Act 1993, that deals with the responsibilities of employers where complaints of sexual harassment are made against an employee; the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, that refers to the right of children not to be subjected to cruel, degrading or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment and to be secure from unreasonable search or seizure; the Children Young Persons and their Families Act 1989, that deals with child abuse (the physical, emotional or sexual harming, ill treatment, abuse, neglect or deprivation of any child or young person); the Crimes Act 1961, under which it is an offence for any person who has the custody, control or charge of any child under 16 to wilfully ill-treat or neglect the child or wilfully cause or permit the child to be ill-treated in a manner likely to cause the child unnecessary suffering, actual bodily harm, injury to health or any mental disorder or disability; the Summary Offences Act 1981 that deals with the ill treatment or wilful neglect of children under 17 by those to whom the care or custody of a child has been lawfully entrusted; and the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, under which employers must take all practical steps to ensure that no action or inaction of any employee harms any other person in the place of work, and that persons in the place of work (other than employees) are not exposed to situations that may adversely affect their health and safety. Responsibilities of boards of trustees in state schools In addition to the above legislation relating to the safety of children and young persons generally, boards of trustees of state schools are required in the National Education Guidelines, issued under Section 60 of the Education Act 1989, to take all reasonable care to: provide a safe physical and emotional environment for students Under the State Sector Act 1988 school boards also have a duty to be a good employer and to: ensure that employees maintain proper standards of integrity, conduct and concern for...the well being of students attending the institution. [Section 77A (3)] The performance of boards of state schools in meeting these requirements is investigated and reported on by the Education Review Office in the course of its reviews of schools. Responsibilities for boarding hostels Schools are not required to provide boarding establishments and such establishments generally operate independently without direct State funding. The provision of hostel accommodation is essentially a private function, and the contract for boarding is a private commercial arrangement. In some cases parents of school students who need to board away from home have to make private boarding arrangements if the school they wish their child to attend does not provide boarding facilities or if all the places in a particular boarding facility are filled. The extent to which the governing authority is formally involved in the day to day operation of hostels varies from school to school. In a large proportion of state schools, the board of trustees, often through a subcommittee of the board, governs the hostel. In the case of integrated schools, a board of proprietors or the school trust is usually involved in governing hostels. In private schools the usual arrangement is for the school trust board to govern the hostel. The contractual arrangements that students and parents enter into with school boards and hostel managers also vary from school to school. The Education Act 1989 is largely silent with respect to school hostels and does not make any explicit reference to the responsibilities of boards of trustees for student safety in hostels. In McGuinn v Palmerston North Boys High School Board of Trustees, the Court found that: the right of any student.....to a place in a boarding establishment at a state school was neither granted nor recognised by the Education Act 1989 or any other statute. While the Board was a creature of statute, it did not have any prescribed statutory function in relation to the boarding establishment at the School. The Court also found that the relationship between the management of the hostel and the student and his parents was viewed as commercial. Accommodation services were provided in exchange for money. Although a "boarding school" is not an entity defined in law and the relationship of the school management to the hostel management can vary in nature, such legal and commercial niceties are not always apparent to parents enrolling their children in a school that offers boarding facilities. Provided By: Education Review Office #####################################################################
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Why our current Educational Institution is detrimental to children:
Its structure, demands and curriculum are not child-centered or in line with developmental or learning needs
It regiments children's basic physiological needs and fails to allow children to respond to their own needs at times unprescribed by the teacher
The physical body is denied not only liquids, snacks and elimination, but exercise and rest (one or two "recesses" per day end around age 10)
Half of the states in the USA still permit teachers to assault children with paddles
It does not take into consideration that there are seven different learning styles
It provides no time for solitude, small child-led group meetings and independent study
It does not allow children to direct their own learning based on talents, interests and abilities
It fails to function as a democracy to prepare children to function in a democratic society
It is an institution based on control, order and punishment for non-compliance
Mistakes are not viewed as learning experiences, but as failures or infractions
Children?s effort and performance is graded according to the subjective opinions of a teacher
Grades are permanent, undisputable and are used to divide and "track" children according to performance
It labels children who cannot conform as "learning disabled" or "behavioral problems"
It isolates children from their families
It isolates children from the community
Children are forced to take busy work home after being confined for seven hours in school
Homework further isolates children from family time, play time, social time and time for pursuing one?s own interests
Children?s knowledge is assumed by using standardized tests designed to cater to those who excel at structured, pressured, recall of isolated facts, rather than dialoging or expressing knowledge in a variety of ways
It isolates children from taking part in contributing their ideas and talents to society
Learning is considered to be about "getting the right answer" rather than about the process of how to ask questions and where to find answers
Finding answers from peers or parents is called "cheating"
It is responsible for 1000?s of children being prescribed stimulant drugs for their exuberance, boredom or due to the teacher?s inability to provide a stimulating learning environment
It isolates children from interacting with people of various age groups
It creates a climate for children to isolate themselves into exclusive groups in order to establish a sense of power and territory in a hostage-like system (similar to prisons)
Its insensitive, control-based practices offer little opportunity for children?s voices to be expressed, leading to rage, rebellion and revenge
It is an outdated institution based on the work ethic of the early 1900?s
It has refused to modernize to meet the creative and intellectual needs and demands of a modern society
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The historical origins of forced mass schooling and our modern schools
John Taylor Gatto (1996), educator and strong supporter of home schooling, has written extensively about the origins of our current educational institution in America. Schooling did not exist as long as many people assume; In 1650 New England colonies, influenced by Plato?s Republic, attempted to create such a compulsory institution, to no avail. In the early 1800?s, a group of influential secret society ideologists were influenced by the Socialist Prussian system of forced mass-education. Prussians instituted a subordination system to mass-educate the population?s children with the goal of producing an obedient group of people to conform to the Prussian goals of like-minded thinking and servitude to the government, army and to the mines. Gatto writes that "the underlying premise of Prussian schooling is that the government is the true parent of children" (p.44). In 1852, this secret society, known as "The Order of the Star Spangled Banner", was successful in passing legislation for forced mass schooling in Massachusetts. Gatto writes that within the next 50 years, every state followed suit, "ending schools of choice and ceding the field to a new governmental monopoly" (p. 43).
Horace Mann, John Dewey and Kindergarten founder, Friedrich Froebel, were all vocal in supporting an institution that would control and gernericize education to prevent people from becoming from too knowledgeable and powerful. Gatto writes that in the early days of education reading was discouraged. Gatto adds that Dewey believed that with self-directed education, people become "dangerous because they become privately empowered, they know too much, and know how to find out what they don?t know by themselves without consulting experts" (p. 44).
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On what principles was traditional schooling founded?
Schooling was influenced by the idea that self-directed education created dangerous, free-thinking, over-educated people
Schooling was influenced by the idea that children are helpless, blank slates that would never learn on their own if left to self educate
Schooling was influenced by the idea that parents cannot provide an adequate education for their own children
Schooling was influenced by the idea that only "experts" can impart knowledge and adequate education
Schooling was influenced by a governmental idea that isolating children from their parents would limit free thinking, ensuring a more malleable and willing labor force
Schooling was influenced by the work ethic of the 1800?s which valued passive obedience to an authority
Schooling was based on preparing children for lives of servitude to hard labor in factories, mills and army
Schooling was influenced by the idea that education is what happens when an authority feeds facts to a passive recipient
School student management was influenced by harsh, punitive, religious views of children as bad and in need of "reform", regimentation and control
School student management was influenced by the scant knowledge of child development of the times
Student management was influenced by adults showing little regard for the physical and emotional needs of children
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Why traditional schooling is detrimental to society
School teachers love children who are quiet, obedient, passive recipients of the information that they present. Compliant children rarely argue or question the ideas of the teacher. On the contrary, spirited, exuberant children who buck the system are first punished into compliance, or next, are referred for testing to earn a label of "learning disabled", "special needs", or "behaviorally disordered". A remedy of stimulant medication to slow down or focus the bored, understimulated or energetic, passionate child often accompanies these testing results. Some of these children simply learn in a different manner than is being taught, or at a slower pace. Some are exceptionally bright, creative, gifted or talented. Many are abuse and neglect victims acting out their rage in school. Although obedient children are easy for parents and teachers to control and be around, these children often have difficulty with taking initiative, leadership, self-motivation, self-education, assertiveness, free-thinking, self-expression, trust in their own abilities and bringing innovative ideas to fruition. In our modern, technologically advanced society, the very qualities that are required for many of the successful careers of today are the very qualities that traditional schools subdue and squelch.
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Reference
Gatto, J.T. (1996) The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix A System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought? Chapter 7 in Deschooling Our Lives (Hern, M.): New Society Publishers.
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Excellent! I love Gatto.
May your days be joyously challenging and your words artfully true.
--Ginger Warbis
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A lot of this is true across the board. Some of this is true in some cases. Some of this is false in some cases. Some schools are better than others. To say that all of these assertions are true about the educational system as a whole would be a stretch at best. Don't get me wrong, I see the truth in a lot of this. Home schooling is great if you feel you are qualified to offer your child an education better than what he'd get at a school and have the means and the patience to be with your kids 24-7. More power to you. Maybe you think that the school in your area sucks. Another good reason to do it. I dropped out of the 10th grade. Look at me, I can actually spell. I spent a lot of time reading and going thru the dictionary when I was in straight. I did this when I "should" have been studying whatever they wanted me to learn. I'm a free-thinker to a fault almost. So I guess my point here is that my views are not based on the fact that I'm "one of them" because I never finished, nor wanted to. I got a GED. So finally I say to each his own. The school system ain't always so bad. Hell, it's a good place to mingle and to acquire drugs. :rofl: Shit, I could go on, but I think I'll stop here...
Ok, your turn. Tell me why you think I'm short-sighted or wrong, if you think I am...
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Yeah, but the trouble is that, over the course of 12 years, you learn that mingling and free trade are subversive activities. Yeah, I think I can do better than that! With one eye tied behind my back!
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
--
Anonymous . . . for obvious reasons
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If I had been more careful, I could have made alot of $$ in high school. But I was a fool. I freely admitted to selling LSD to private school kids. They threw me out. That was fine cuz I wanted out. I wanted to go to a school where there were girls. I got what I wanted and ended up getting laid at age 16. Not too bad. :grin: she was hot, too...at least to me at the time. A few years older, part Puerto Rican..."YEAH, BABY" (in austin Powers' voice) :lol:
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So basically, default school culture, not any real crime against any nonconsenting other or any real failing on your part, bought you a ticket into the 'I need to be fixed!' social order.
See what I mean?Preacher man don't tell me heaven is under the earth; you don't know what life is worth;.......If you know what life is worth, you will look for your's on earth.
--Bob Marley
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Yes...YES! But it was good ol' straight incorp that swindled my parents, not the schools. Oh sure, the private school kicked me out, but I wanted to be kicked out so I could go to a public school. And ultimately, I decided that I wanted to drop out of the 2nd public school that I ended up going to, having failed out academically from the Balto School 4 the Arts (the first one.) I spent about a week or 2 in September in the next school and since I didn't know anyone and wanted out of my parents house, I of course dropped out when I ran away from home. The schools could have been better, sure. That's part of the reason for my dropping out or failing out. But it was straight that was ultimately at fault, and my parents (to some extent) for buying into their BS. School was ok while it lasted, and i can't really blame the schools themselves for ending up in straight. There wasn't much collusion between the two going on here in Balto. like there was in Florida or VA.
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Granted, it's more obvious in some places than in others. Goose Creek S.C., for example, apparently had a collective psychotic break just last week. Did you catch any news on that?
Aparently, the principal and local police have become convinced the mere suspicion of trade in certain unauthorized euphorics is more dangerous than a SWAT team, high on adrenaline, weapons drawn.
But the same theme prevails throughout school culture. Conform or be cast out. Schools don't exist to serve the needs of the kids. The kids are suppose to pour themselves into the mold designed by the schoolpeople, at gun point, if necessary.
The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Oh, yeah...I read about that from your link. That was WAAAAY fucked up.
But the same theme prevails throughout school culture. Conform or be cast out. Schools don't exist to serve the needs of the kids. The kids are suppose to pour themselves into the mold designed by the schoolpeople, at gun point, if necessary.
Alas, for the most part, what you say is true. But I still wouldn't give up the memories of my old school daze, lol.
This one's for you Antigen, an old favorite of mine while still in school, ironically:
Hyperactive Child
I'm tired of kissin' ass
I can't sit still all day
You know I know your school's a lie
That's why you dragged me here
'You're a hyperactve child
You're disruptive, you're too wild
We're going to calm you down
Now this won't hurt a bit'
Drag me to the floor
Pullin' down my pants
Ram a needle up my butt
Put my brain into a trance
'No more hyperactive child
Got too much of a mind
Wouldn't you rather be happy?
Now this won't hurt a bit'
Cameras in the balls
No windows, just brick walls
Pledge allegiance to a flag
Now you will obey...
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Me either. For me, school was sweet respite from Program influence, most of the time. But if I could trade it all for a life more like Mark Twain's I wouldn't hesitate.
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't.
-- Anonymous
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Thanks Ginger
I love the dialoge. There is a great book written by "Jourard" called "The Transparent Self" that puts schools, hospitals, government, CEDU type schools, religion et al. in their true place as stupifying agents of socialization that attempt to make good, compliant, robot, worker-consumers out of us all. And, isn't that really what all these schools WWASP, CEDU, Public education, religious or dogmatic universities are doing.
There is nothing wrong with education - Free thinking - but there is a lot wrong with being molded to the will of the status quo.
Think Freely: We all must stand up and bitch and complain; and be whoever we really are, be authentic, play, be hyperactive, crack a dirty joke, make fun of a political party, a flag.
And, hey what is this American Flag bullshit lately. Is this supposed to be the symbol of all that is good - ie. Dumb George Bush and Smart George Bomb. Fuck these self important ethncentric xenophobic assholes flying their little flags. And "God bless America????" Fuck you. My bumber sticker says "God bless the whole world." And, I'm going to put an upside down flag on my car, dripping blood and oil that says "God Bless Canada and Mexico." Fuck Patriotism.
It is just propaganda for the stupid people who can't see that economics, politics, public policy, human rights, morals, power, and what is good or bad are socially constructed perceptions that change "as the wind blows and the newspaper directs" (Quote Emerson.)
Hows that for a Rant -
Hey - I Love You Guys
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Here's a favorite essay of mine on the flag and patriotism.
I love Old Glory. I just wonder if I can take it back from the creeps who've waved it all my life.
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By King Kaufman
Sept. 18, 2001 | I'm wrestling with the American flag.
It's everywhere now: tiny ones riffling on car antennas, medium ones waving from porches, giant ones yawning from cranes. People are wearing them. Every Old Navy flag shirt ever bought has been pulled out of the drawer this week, and Stars and Stripes 'do rags are all the rage.
There's no flag flying on my porch. I don't have a flag, and they're hard to come by these days anyway -- not that I've tried to get one. And if I had one, I can't figure out if I'd fly it or not.
See, Old Glory and I, we go way back, and we've had our problems.
For most of my life, the American flag has been the cultural property of people I can't stand: right-wingers, jingoists, know-nothing zealots. It's something that hypocritical politicians wrap themselves in. It's something that certain legislators would make it a crime to burn -- a position that's an assault on the very freedom that the flag represents. It's something brandished at times like these by idiots who say things like, "Let's go over there and burn those rag-heads!"
During the Gulf War, I hated the American flag. It was everywhere then, too, on porches and car antennas and over the left breast of every uniformed athlete, all in support of a war I and many others thought to be immoral.
But I also love the flag. Seeing it stirs something in me, even when I'm mad at it, or disagree with those who wave it. I am, after all, an American, and despite being opposed to every single military adventure this nation has undertaken in my lifetime, I'm a patriotic one at that.
For me, though, patriotism is more about the freedom to criticize the government than it is about waving a piece of red, white and blue laundry around and singing "God Bless America." It's about loving our shared national personality -- aggressive, impulsive and open, unimpressed with such Old World nonsense as royalty. It's about feeling at home in a country where the first question asked of new acquaintances is not "Where are you from?" but "What do you do?"; where a loutish baseball star can sit next to a president and say, "Hot as hell, ain't it Prez?" and be loved all the more for it. It's about loving this country's crazy cultural stew -- that "melting pot" that we give ourselves more credit for than we should, but that really does exist.
For me, statements like "America right or wrong" or "America: Love it or leave it," a chestnut from my childhood, are the antithesis of what this country is all about. And those are the sentiments that the flag has come, over many years, to represent for me.
So you'll be surprised to hear that I have an American flag shirt, and maybe surprised to hear that I sometimes wear it -- without irony! -- on occasions such as the Fourth of July. First of all, it's a hell of a shirt since, after all, it's a Grand Old Flag. But I also like what it says. It says I'm an American. Not for me the pretentious Europhile weenieness that sometimes plagues my fellow middle-class American white boys. I'm a proud son of the country that's produced Bart Simpson and Ambrose Bierce, Robert Johnson and Abe Lincoln, Michael Jordan and Doc Holliday. Bruce Springsteen said something in his "Born in the U.S.A." days that stayed with me: "That's my flag too." How did the Republicans and the gun nuts and the xenophobes co-opt it?
There are two kinds of patriots: The "God Bless America" kind and the "This Land Is Your Land" kind. I'm the latter.
On the surface, the songs sound similar: simple melodies with lyrics about America's natural beauty, the mountains and deserts and "oceans white with foam" in one; the Redwood forests, Gulf Stream waters and "sparkling sands of her diamond deserts" in the other.
But that's only because we don't sing all the verses that Woody Guthrie wrote in his song, an answer to "God Bless America," which he hated for its sentimentality and dumb, blind devotion. Here's one of the verses school kids don't sing: "As I was walking, I saw a sign there/And that sign said 'No trespassing'/But on the other side, it didn't say nothing/Now that side was made for you and me." Another verse has "my people" at the relief office, "wondering if this land was made for you and me."
That song's political and social criticism, its questioning, are also part of what make this country great. These things, as much as our culture, our national personality, our country's physical magnificence, are what the flag represents to me.
But when I see that flag flying from a neighbor's porch, I think, "Oh boy, right-wing nut." And I'm not hearing people singing "This Land Is Your Land" over the last week, though "God Bless America" is everywhere.
While I'm not quite a pacifist, I have a pretty simple, even simplistic view of war: You don't fight unless you've been attacked. So now that this country has been attacked, I agree with the vast majority that some sort of military response is warranted. This is a new feeling for me, this feeling that we're the good guys and we're fighting the bad guys. It makes sense that I'd want to fly the good guys' flag, but that flag comes wrapped around a lot of baggage.
There's the bell. The wrestling match continues.
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
-- Plutarch
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Wow,
Now that is free thinking. If that is what the flag represents - then I'm a patriot
Fine, Fine words Ginger. I stand corrected and touched.
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I cried when I found that. I was in such a deep, deep funk after 9/11 and this was such a shining beacon of hope for me. Glad you enjoyed it too.
T'is an ill wind that blows no minds.
--Syadasti
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Wow,
Yep, I remember watching the Space Shuttle Blow Up Live in the 80s. Then I heard John Denver's dedication "They Were Flying For Me." I Balled my eyes out.
Then comes WTC. It makes me sad that so many people in the world hate us. I wish our people were in control instead of this military-industrial government. We would show them all compassion and love. We would let them choose their beliefs and political systems. We would help them get rid of despots and tyranny. We would ask them to join in peace - not call them names. We would dialouge with words, not bombs. We would take responsibility for installing these dictators and supporting them. We would give the power back to our people and theirs. And I could say The Flag Stands for Freedom Human Dignity and Social Justice.
Americans are good people. I have skipped Christmas and given the hundresds of dollars I would spend on plastic and cloth placating relatives to homeless in blanktes and gloves for them and their children.
When we are at our best that is what we are all about - love and freedom. I take some responsibility for buying into the mass consumerism and paying the taxes that support the politics and the bombs, for supporting leaders that subvert the poor in the "third world," that make them hate us enough to blow us up. Somewhere in my heart I believe that we can build relationships with the Islamic world, show them good will and make friends of them if we can get out from under the Bush. I hope we all can see that vision and create it - not just for the good of the United States, but for the good of humanity.
Peace
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I'm with you here up to a point. I have no guilt. I don't vote. I agree Bush sucks and so does the war on Iraq. But Bin Laden...hmmm...maybe he bombed us because he's a crazy zealous fanatic. I'd like to see him dead. How would you feel if relatives of yours died as a result of 911? like killin' some muthafuckin' towellheads I bet, right? Thought so... :skull:
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I'd be really angry too - and I am anyway. I do however see the roots of war in wealth distribution, power imbalance, cultural, religious, and racial difference. For example we have similar fanatics here who blow up gay bars and abortion clinics and and those people have dead family members too. I watched thousands die in Vietnam - some called them "gooks" and that wasn't helpful - We lost that war. Now I'm watching The Chrstian Identity movement kill "brothers" and sisters. We have the same hate/ fear element as in Islam - We both call them Religious fundamentalists - we are all fallible. We are all equal, We are all human, and we all hate.
Peace - I am sad for your our loss.
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Agencies to Contact
If you are a teen, a parent searching for a "disappeared" child, or friends of a teen who has been disappeared, contact the following authorities.
Contact them by telephone, letter, and in person. Ask them to investigate suspected child abuse. They are required to uphold the law. Ask them to do their job. Follow-up with on-going contact, as needed. Ask for a progress report. Ask what action they plan to take.
Many officials in these agencies are completely unaware that GULAG schools exist. Words like "behavior modification," "intervention," "boarding school," "therapeutic boarding school," "attitude adjustment," "emotional growth," hold them in a trance and keep them from acting to protect teens. They may not understand the urgency of your request. You can break the trance, when you use words like "kidnap," "disappeared," "child abuse," "snake-pit school," "child torture," "teen prisoner of war". Ask them to investigate.
If you suspect child abuse, you have a duty to report it. Child abuse is a felony in some states. Officials, once informed, have a DUTY to report. They can be held liable - and their license revoked - if they ignore or refuse to act on a report of child abuse or child torture, when that report can be supported with first-hand and factual information.
Agencies to contact include:
Child Protective Services (Ask them to do their job. Ask: will they go to Court to ask for the return of this teen?)
Child Advocacy Services (Ask: can an advocate be assigned to protect this teen?)
District Attorney (Ask them to do their job. Ask: what laws can they apply to protect this teen?)
Attorney General (for your state) (Ask: can you contact all law enforcement agencies in the state and ask them to be alert to this new form of possible child abuse. Ask them to report all suspected cases to CPS.)
U.S. Attorney (for your region) (Ask: can you contact all law enforcement agencies in the region and ask them to be alert to this new form of possible child abuse. Ask them to report all suspected cases to CPS.)
The U.S. State Department (Washington DC, for out-of-the-country facilities) (Make your request in writing. Ask them to make this a top priority. Ask if there are other cases pending for the same facility. Ask them to treat exiled teens as U.S. Citizens, guaranteed the same rights and protections as adults under the Constitution. Follow-up, as long as necessary, to get the response you want.)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (Contact your local or regional office. Ask what support they can provide. In cases where attempts to intimidate may include death threats made across state lines, or over the Internet, contact this agency.)
Home
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Subject: CEDU
These schools are very similar straight, CEDU, Brown Schools, Rocky
Mountain Academy, Montana Academy, WWASP. They all came out of the
Synanon Model. They use EST, The Forum, Landmark Forum, Lifespring,
Mind Dynamics Werner Erhard, of EST, The Forum and Landmark Forum
and John Hanly of Lifespring had stints with Mind Dynamics and
Scientology. CEDU uses Scientology's Ethics - "A form of social
isolation to force conformity." Scientology won a lawsuit and now
owns The "Cult Awareness Network" So Cult Members will be giving
advice to victims of cults. The good thing is that Scientology wants
to shut down all these other schools and groups (they call call
then "squirrel groups" that steal their methods. Ginger is
knowledgeable and good. Send The Cult Awareness network info on CEDU about CEDU and others stealing their technology and subverting it. Divide and
conquer.
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[ This Message was edited by: Antibody? on 2003-11-18 10:46 ]
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Thanks for the compliment. But I want to clarify my position on this.
I don't believe in the "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" strategy. I think it always causes more problems than it solves.
Here's my theory in a nutshell. There's a common thread that runs consistently through all these programs. No matter if the push for reform comes from disillusioned members or from the outside or which aspects of the routine they change, some things remain the same.
In order to keep it together, they have to control information. If you wanted to try and trick CAN into doing what you want, you'd have to give them selective information and hide from them the fact that they're doing themselves in. That's a lot of overhead and a big gamble.
Instead, just let everybody say and find out what they want to say and to know. Without the strict controls on communication, cults simply can't hold it together.
The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.
--Joseph Sobran
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Yeah,
I guess the perception could be created that you would approve of this. Sorry if I gave that impression.
Nevertheless, I think it is an effective method to set these idiots against each other. After all, that is how the Mafia was brought down - and these places are little more than small mafias. These Groups have been around for a long time. Scientology for 53 Years, CEDU for apx 35 years. And, they hurt a lot of people and families every day. I, for one, won't stand by and pretend it doesn't matter what happents to these kids. These CULTS are all bent on World Domination. Every group or country that has tried to Dominate has died at the hands of others who wanted the same - "SO BE IT."
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Well, I think that happens all by itself without any extra help. Whenever the pressure rises and their own actions come under scrutiny, the natural thing for them to do is blame someone else. And that's just what they do. Watch now as the whole industry condemns WWASP and tries to pretend they're completely different.
That's what happened to The Seed and to Straight. Those who control the past, control the future; and those who control the present, control the past.
--George Orwell
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This is a serious inquiry.
I want to know if there is any hope of settling a lawsuit against CEDU school.
I am not a money-grubber, just a concerned ex-student who wants to see CEDU take it where it hurts, their wallet.
Let me explain.
I attended CEDU high school, California for nearly three years.
The years in question were 1995-1997.
During that time, I experience uncountable atrocities, abuses and brainwashings.
I completed the full program, including every single profeet they have to offer, finishing with their week-long summit workshop.
I graduated their program thanks to having a stubborn mother who ignored my constant tearful pleas to remove me from the program. She was under advisement from the staff to ignore all my requests, and dismiss my claims as lies. She continued to do so even after I advanced in the program and was no longer monitored on phone calls. She was lied to. Even today, when I tell her that everything I ever told her was true, and that I have nothing to gain by telling her that now, she goes white-faced and silent and tells me she does not want to talk about it.
During my stay at CEDU, I was placed on a "table restriction" for an entire month. This remains the longest restriction I have ever known anyone to have been on. I sat on a hard wooden bench, no cushioning, in the dining room to face the ridicule of my peers. Every night I got the hardest, dirtiest, nastiest washroom jobs possible. By day I labored in freezing conditions, clearing a "nature trail" a good four miles of deep woods trail blanketed by two feet of solid snow and ice. I did this even though it was the dead of winter and no one bothered to go on the trail. On another "work assignment", I dug a rain-trench and hauled rocks across campus by wheelbarrow (saving the school contracting fees to get it done professionally) in the hot summer sun while "good" kids got to lay on blankets on the grass, play guitar and eat candy and watch me work. To add insult to injury, while I walked by counselors would lean over the balcony and yell at me to move faster while kids laughed, watching me try to run with a wheelbarrow full of rocks. I hauled buckets of them to landscape a tiny, dirt-filled pavilion observable when walking into the dining hall, in preparation for parent visits, to help make things pretty. During this assignment I dislocated my wrist, and for weeks was unable to even lift my notebook for school. This did not stop them. Collapsing into bed that first night after dislocation, I was awake all night crying because I thought my wrist was broken. They ridiculed me when I reported it, refusing to stop making me work, also refusing me pain medication (thought I might like it, maybe)
During sporting events, I was forced into a swimming pool on a rainy, forty degree day. The water was so cold my leg cramped up and I couldn't walk without a limp for months. In fact for up to a year afterward, whenever I went for a walk the pain would return. Nevertheless, they continued to force me to train for their wilderness trip. "Training" consisted of forcibly running three miles, three times a week plus sprinting in the parking lot and up a seventy degree angled hill (the hill to the "non potable water supply" cedu students will know what I mean). The trip itself was two weeks of hell. I was forced to hike no less than ten miles a day for the first week. At the end of the first day, due to equipment malfunction, (cheap thirty year old frame packs can't distribute weight well) I reported that my feet were masses of blisters. I was told "pad em up, move em out", and had to walk on them while they burst unter my weight, causing excruciating pain. It felt like walking on hot coals all day. I was not allowed to rest them, let alone stop the trip. One of my friends accidentally spilled boiling water on his leg, causing second degree burns. He was not allowed to leave the trip either, let alone have the injuries medically treated. Within a couple days, his blistered legs were draining a large amount of foul-smelling, pus-like discharge. He still went untreated, having to clean the wounds in dirty, parasite-filled streams which we couldn't even drink without chemically treating. Staff did not care. Another trip I wasn't on had their packs mauled by bears in the night who ate most of their already meager food. During my four days of forced isolation on the trip, I was given water, a bag of granola and two cereal bars a day. I was not allowed to take any other food. I slept on the ground under a tarp with no sides, despite nearly stepping on a rattlesnake two days earlier. We were so deep in the wilderness that I observed a wild wolf drink from the stream a few feet from where I sat. A full-grown bear charged down the hill ten feet away from me, chasing what I never knew. Thank god he didn't see me, or I would be another casualty. I was later told we were constantly monitored by counselors, but I never saw them.
Due to my alleged noncompliance with the program, I had to repeat this wilderness event two more times. Most students only do it once, and consider it the hardest thing they ever do. I did it three times. At the end of each time, I had to complete a nine mile run on the desert sun with no rest stops. The third trip I refused, due to the masses of blisters on my feet. Returning to school, I had a table restriction waiting. On my longest restriction, I completed at least a hundred full pages, front and back, of "writing assignment", intense personal information that I had to leave on my table at all times. Several times I would return from work assignments to find untrained staff or students reading them without my permission. If the counselors thought they weren't personal enough, they would tear them out and throw them away and make me rewrite them. During raps I was screamed at in front of other students about my personal issues by both counselors and students. In fact, untrained, unschooled student peers were regularly allowed to assist in working with other students on emotional growth issues. To encourage this, students would get punished, by which I mean more work, if they did not confront at least two students per rap on meaningful issues during the first few months of stay.
Also because of my so-called noncompliance, which really meant I observed no signs of brainwashing yet, having not learned to do everything everyone told me without question, I was dropped not one but two peer groups, each time extending my potential stay by six months. I would have had to watch my friends graduate without me, but there were so many runaways that they had to combine all three peer groups into one just to have enough to keep them going. I was told they would keep doing this until I complied. When I observed that I would eventually become 18 and be allowed to leave, they countered that they would get my mom to sign a paper saying I was incompetent to be a legal adult. I don't even know if this is possible, but by then was so mentally exhausted I believed it. I was verbally abused, sworn at, physically threatened. Phone calls were monitored in case I told my parents what was really going on, and limited to fifteen minutes every two weeks. Letters were read before sent, and only allowed if they met standards, which meant they could not contain pleas to leave. This would be considered not working with the program. Incoming letters were opened without permission and read before I ever recieved them, any offending material removed. If any gifts were sent by sympathetic family members, they were confiscated and kept by staff. Letters were restricted to family members only. Sex was not allowed, smoking was not allowed, even by 18 year old adults. Nearly all forms of music were banned. Even naming a restricted band resulted in punishment. Severe dress codes were in effect, banning logos, any clothes with words on them, the color black, baggy clothes, suggestive clothes, jewelry, long hair in boys, hair dye, sideburns were limited, buzz-cuts, mohawks, shaved heads, all banned. Students recieved punishments for untucked shirts, unparted hair. This was supposed to mbe to help keep the focus on emotional growth and to not hide behind an image, but was just an exercise in conformity, to forcing kids to adapt to the counselors demands. Speech patterns, suspicious nicknames, hand gestures, anything that couold be consedered image-driven, was banned. I was once banned from the library because rather than spend time moitoring other students for signs of dissent, I liked to read. Alone. I was banned from being alone. To discourage revolt. students were routinrly banned specifically from anyone they formed a close friendship with. Any restriction (table, couch, pit, wherever) was met with automatic bans from younger levels of students who might be les brainwashed. I was once accused of excessive masturbating, and forced to ask an older student or staff's permission to escort me to the bathroom and monitor my activity. The reason for this was because I spent a lot of time in the bathroom in order to just be alone. I was ridiculed, known thereafter by my peers as the "bathroom escort masturbator". We were contstantly punished if we ate more than a small amount of food, being accused of not letting others have their share, or "scarcity". If found guilty, plates would have to pass staff inspection. All the students were very thin, which was good for parents who liked to see improving body images, and mistook starvation for health. On parent visits, cooks would prepare more expenive and better quality food to promote the illuson we were eating well. On one occasion the entire school got food poisoning and spent two days suffering from uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea, often at the same time, as well as severe dehydration to the point of delirium. I personally remember speding the night crying and confused, my entire dorm (and every other) literally taking turns in the bathroom puking and shitting. At one point I passed out on the toilet and had to be awakened by a roommate who needed the bathroom. My roommated would talk to themelves, laugh at nothing and sing songs at the top of their lungs all night. I remember discovering that my blanket was all balled up and crying out loud because in my confusion I did not know how to straighten it out. I could hear crying coming from other dorms. I know I cried out loud a lot of times. Immediately after supper that first night,the first one to get sick went to the doctor. When the doctor suspected the cause might be a food-borne organism, the student was returned to school. No further students were permitted to seek medical attention, even though 95% got life-threateningly sick. I could not keep down fluid, I just kept throwing it back up again. I should have gotten an IV, but they wouldn't allow it. To this day I am amazed no one died. The next morning, staff told everyone NOT TO DRINK THE WATER!! I remember crying because I wanted water so badly. The staff insisted that the illness was in the water, and no one was to drink it. They said a truck was to come with bottle water. It never did. I was given one can of seven-up, which I could not keep down. Most students were too weak to get out of bed. Still, staff continued to insist it was "something in the water", and that we were to tell that to our parents if they asked. In a couple of days, they declared the water "treated" and forgot the incident. No one ever came to investigate our water supply, which came from an isolated tank on campus and could have been easily tested. It wasn't. I know this because we were forced to limit out showers to five minutes per person per day, on grounds that we might deplete the water supply. Not taking one shower a day was grounds for punishment also. In addition to all these rules and restrictions, staff could make up new ones on a whim. One staff placed a student on work assignments for asking if he was gay. Another put a kid on a whole week of dishes for "disagreeing". Parents would come up on designated days for the whole school, or had to request a visit in advance so the pleace could be "prepared" for them. Events never offered otherwise were trotted out for parents. Counselors would smile and mess up students hair.
It was sickening. The parents would go through their own profeets, except they would take place in comfy resort hotels. I had the opportunity to observe a part of one on one occasion. It was nothing more than a baby meditation exercise where the parents "went back to childhood" together and were told everything was okay. Then they gave each other hugs. They didn't even have to experience sleep deprivation. Yet they were told that they too had experienced the profeet, so they could see what we went through and get to bond about it with us. On the other hand, we were told that if we thought we were going to fall asleep, we should stand behind our chairs to stay awake all night. Same thing? You decide.
All of this and so much more it would take a whole book to write it all happened directly to me. These are not just stories. The stories I heard, about CEDU, Ascent, RMA, Suws and other such places could fill a book of their own, but I can't account for their validity. These things I wrote about I can, because I experienced them personally.
So does anyone here think I have grounds to sue the school, or do you think they have some kind of legal loopholes in place to avoid it. See, even now I am still paranoid that they'll get the upper hand. For months after I graduated, I suffered nightly nightmares that I had been enrolled again, or had to start over. I woke from those sweating and in terror. I understood what vietnam vets mean by flashback. The whole thing felt like POW camp. If you ran away, they sent private escorts after you to track you down, cuff you and bring you back. One kid made it to Germany and was still found. Others disappeared and their parents never heard from them again. IF they were 18, their parents were encouraged to disown them and not support them in any way. I saw several parents tell their kid to their face they would do this.
If anyone knows anything about suing, wants to, is trying, has tried, please let me know.
If anyone remembers any of these incidents, or has stories from CEDU or other schools, let me know. I am writing a book on the subject and may include other people's stories.
If anyone just wants to commiserate, I am available.
My e-mail is spitefulspear@hotmail.com
P.S. to Mark Waitt, Alyx Thorson, Joe Csapo and Anthony Musso- if you are alive and read this, please write me. They never let me contact you.
Jake Hallam
survivor
R.I.P. Heather Woods
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Call information in Sandpoint Idaho. Ask for the Law officeds of Powell and Reed - Formerly verby Powell and Reed. Also Try Janet Jenkins in Sandpont. Verby Powelll and Reed settled a huge lawsuit just a while back.
If the Statute of Limitations has run out, go Public. There is a person writing a book on CEDU na,ed Maya S -Antigen has Maia's contact address. If you need a qualified professional to give testamony. I'd be happy to help.
Antibody?
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Who is this Maia person? Did she go there? Tell me more about her.
Jake
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CEDU Settles Personal Injury, Fraud Claims
http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/pag ... p?str=3541 (http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/pages/news/news.asp?str=3541)
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With all due respect John, Todd D, looks cute and can fake love - like most mormon gods. However, he has a very dark side. Todd was into power.
Todd's wife told many of us that Todd controlled her like a god and even abused her. He was a tyrant at the school and a tyrant at home. He pubically lambasted kids and shamed them publically for mastrubation, he screamed, he yelled, to control and induce fear and intimidation.
He has no college education yet calls himself a counselor. He is unquelified to run workshops, he has no concept of ethics, child rights, empathy or compassion. In my professional opinnion he is mentally ill
The same can be said for Bill B. This fellow is Passive-Aggressive beyond clinical. And, he uses mental torture and mind games to drive kids to crack up. He is responsible for more hospitalizations, inclusing his own, than any staff I have ever met. This Guy like Todd and La Teresa and many others is fake and sadistic.
As for Lateresa, I have never seen a more entrenched narcissistic false self. La exudes such obvious inauthenticity, fake crying, fake feelings, fake love, and icky, smelly, scummy, rotting false concern. Her presentation,itchy with bugs in it, false. Her values, greedy, two-faced, avoident and sociopathic. And, she is just what CEDU wants.
They have one good Director. Lori at NWA. She's creative, kind, real, ultra-intelligent, ethical with education, great critical thinking skills and NO BS. - I bet they fire her. She is exactly what they don't want.
This is critical, a criminal organization needs criminals - ethical people are threatening. They always get rid of the good ones, -- Cowboy Bob, Mark R, Roy P, Jenny, Doug Kim Brown ad infinitum. This is because a cult does not get outside information. And all there is inside is criminals. That is the why of the Racketeering, Child Abuse and False Billing lawsuits.
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You are soooo right! You obviously have been around BCA/RMA for a long going by the range of names you mentioned. I am a fellow ex cedu employee who could tell stories you wouldn't believe. Like the time a female employee was forced to sit on 12 male student's laps one at a time and say to them "is that a rocket in your pocket,or are you just glad to see me?" Or the time a female student was forced to flirt with every guy in the room while strutting around in a bathing suit until many of them were brought to obvious arousal.
cedu schools are the most degenate form of brainwashing you can subject your child to. It is so sad that parents are paying $5,000 plus to get in.
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HA = yeah I was in that propheet with poor Wendy, and the others and poor Fred being socially conditioned to cooperate with that bull. She should have sued them. And the kids were unquestionably being subjected to child abuse. I told them they couldn't do that, they just laughed -- Then I told Child Protective Services and they just said it was indeed child and adult abuse, asked for proof, took a report and sat on their ass. So did Adult Protective services and Jim Puitt at RTC licensing. Idaho has no regulatory function. You can have a elementary school education and hang up a shingle and go to wotk as a counselor doing therapy - gestalt or therapeuitic nose picking in Idaho. Look, The reason these schools exist in Idaho and Utah and the Ozarks is because the regulatory system is a sham.Washingtom has a real regulatory system and laws protecting the rights of kids - look there for emotional growth boarding schools - There are three non state facilities maybe - and no Synanon there. Wake up Idaho regulation RTC and Child protection is a cover up. They want money and busines and will subscribe to anything to get it here. And that is one more reason not to send your kids to CEDU or any other of the 1000s of schools ed consultants recommend, in Idaho, or anywhere else - especially the one's in Samoa and other toilet 3rd world countries - get a clue parents. This is a RACKET. Research clearly demonstrates that these schools, not only don't work but make most people worse. That is why the only proof the have to sell you are testamonials from brainwashed kids and parents. See the testamonials on TV for get rich quick programs, miricle diet programs, fountains of youth to infinity. They prove nothing - never will. CEDU is CRAP, CRAP, CRAP - Kids grow up by themselves. People change their behaviors - by choice. Two years is enough - the fix is the kid not the Therapy. See the book "Escape from Babel." The only savior is way up there in the kids will. Get family therapy. If not, go dump 160 thousand dollars off niagra falls or burn it or better yet, start a youth center in your town. And Stop asking about CEDU -- read the fucking literature - it's all over universities, all over the web. Call Child Protection in Idaho -- They all hate CEDU - They were here for the riot --- Idiot Parents ---- No wonder you can't raise kids.
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As usual, you are right on top of the research Ginger - Keep it up.
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Thanks, man! But I didn't have to go searching for that one. I saw it firsthand. It would be hard to miss the same pattern playing out again and again. It's very much like what happens when a church congregation splits. I've lived that too.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... miamithem' (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/040303082X/circlofmiamithem') target='_new'>H. G. Wells
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I have been a social reformer in Idaho for some time. I think it would be helpful for everyone to know that the reason the government in this State will not address child abuse in institutions and corruption in social service business in general is clear.
It would also be helpful to know why the Idaho State Health and Welfare Department (and all the others for that matter) allow outright stealing of taxpayer money targeted (through private sector for profit and non-profit agencies) to disatvantaged groups such as teens, elderly, mentally ill. disabled, and developmentally disabled people.
Follow the money. Follow the Grants. Follow corporate interests. Follow the lobby.
It all leads back to this conservative State Legislature that should cut off funding if the Department of Health and Welfare programs are shown to be wasteful or if private Therapuitic Programs are shown to be abusive in any way. Why won't they, you ask?
Health and Welfare won't take any case to the District Attorney that might result in a cut to their funding. Therefore, conclude that it is all about money and they would rather let kids die in gulags, and let psychosocial rehabilitation and targeted case management agencys steal the state blind then let the Idaho State Legislature find out what's going on.
And, the Legislature doesn't want to find out anyway and actively avoids "finding out" or letting anyone know that they know. Why. because a huge federal funding stream to Idaho social services would be cut. Conclusion: institutionalized corruption for business, by business, and of business (and include socialized services - that still fills pocket books and pays boards of directors). This is the agenda of Capitalism (literally money-ism). What did you expect - Democracy? True democracy?
Sorry folks, capitalism has stolen Democracy's name and relpaced it. Government by the people - MY ASS. Government by Business. Government by Financial interests. That is what we have. Here and everywhere else - Time to Wake up and "smell that smell."
Now, I am not suggesting communism for God's sake. I am suggesting running out the politicians and replacing all those fucking agents of institutionalized corruption - Republican and Democrat. The only way to do that is to make them irrelivant. I'll bet Antigen has some good ideas on how to go about that.
Regarding who I am. Forget it. Contact me and tell me who you are, prove it, and if you are a boarding school zealot, prepare to see my fighting side. If you want to sue me, Please take all my debts, but first, spend millions on lawyers, so I can laugh at your stupidity while I play in Australia afterward.
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Antibody, I'm with ya' most of the way. But what you're describing is not Capitalism, it's Socialism. And the problems we're seeing in the social services sector and other areas are emblemic of the flaws in Socialist theory.
The way our government is designed to operate, it was never supposed to play a big role in Capitalism. It was supposed to stay the hell out of the way, for the most part, except as regards trade w/ foreign nations and trade among, but not within, the states.
Contrary to public school teaching, this does not mean there are no rules and is no control. The rules are the imutable laws of ecconomics that are still enforce regardless of the amount of regulation. Market forces control a free economy. Everyone's subject to the same rules, including an element of chance that prevents too big a fortune and too much control ever being concentrated in too few hands. Regulation reduces those risks and destroys that natural natural check on imbalance.
I've just lately had occasion to spend a lot of time hanging around a top notch local medical facility. Same shit there, except that most of the people subject to the silly JCAHO fire drills and new Homeland Security measures for first responders were sane, compassionate people who held the spirit of the JCAHO mission in higher regard than, apparently, the functionaries at JCAHO do.
Every day, at least once, there's a fire drill. First you hear the recording over the house paging system announce "Condition F on floor ___" If you happen to be on floor ___, you'll see the strobe lights start flashing and all the nurses drop whatever patient care tasks they might be wasting time on and close all the doors. JCAHO, in effect, absolutely requires the hospital staff to place relatively sound-proof, opaque barriers between patients and themselves at least once every day for around 20 min or till someone thinks to open the door again in order to retain their accredidation. I had to wonder if the strobes ever brought on an epileptic fit, too.
You will never get better performance out of government regulators because of the imutable laws of ecconomics. The regulators have the authority to employ government coercion to enforce their will. And they have unlimited funding w/ which to secure their authority. That kind of influence is always for sale. Remove that authority and let each medical facility compete on the basis of their reputation for safe, effective medical treatment and you certainly couldn't get any worse than what we have now.
But, in order for that to work well, we have to return to the old fashioned, skeptical American mindset that our health and other aspects of our lives are our own responsibility. It is patently rediculous for any halfway intelligent adult to just float along, agreeing with whatever lettered professional might come along and suggest and expect not to get hurt by it. As well trained, educated and intended as any professional may be, they will never, ever know or care as much about your own skin or your own child the way you do. The very idea that people would ship their kids off to strangers, sight unseen, just because some other strangers say it's safe enough is just about unimaginable to me. I wouldn't leave my toddlers in a daycare where I couldn't just drop in and hang out whenever I wanted to. I wouldn't leave an adult relative that I love to fend for themselves in a hospital when they're feeling helpless or drugged, either. Doesn't mean I doubt the intentions or competency of any of the staff.
Oh yeah, and we say "medicine", we don't say "drug!" (yeah we do! :wink:)
"Replace end user" (The Top Support Call Closer 10 Years Running)
--Bastard Administrator
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
American drug war P.O.W.
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
[ This Message was edited by: Antigen on 2004-03-09 06:51 ]
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Well. I'm with you too Ginger. I really see merit in that ideology. And, I don't see how we can get around the notion of social-Darwinism either. It is, after all, the law of nature.
I am curious ,however, about your view on boarding schools and the investors and corporate interests that support them? When it comes to survival of the fittest, or, better yet, survival of the strongest, richest and meanest, and that is the way nature operates whether we like it or not. Aren't these corporate giants and money-grubbibg boarding school investors the proverial lion eating the proverbial gazelle kids? Is this not pure unfettered capitalism. Why, Capitalism ain't fettered much in Idaho. That's why we have so many abusive programs.
With regard to the corporation, history is replete with unregulated people, and it would seem that a small group of the strongest and meansest always get the most resources and use them to rule the peasent masses. And, that is how capatalism unfettered really works.
How would we prevent, as free people, the amassing the resources by the few (food, energy, land, water and influence that we need and will have to bargain for as the prices go up and up)?
What about the natural pack instinct. Humanoid packs are led by local warlords who then arm themselves to protect and guard the resourses from those who would take them. Then, scarcity drives prices up (suppply and demand). Competition then comes in to thwart this. But, the warlords fight for teritory and markets and someone wins. Remember Al Capone. Remember the Gambino family, prohibition the Sandanistas ad infinitum. The guys just killed the competition -capatallism unfetered it was. We Installed the Shah of Iran, We built the Talaban to fight in Russia. We installed Sadbam Hussin. We made Kadaffi what he is. We installed a dictator in Panama - see the movie Bowling for Colombine. Laugh your ass off about what a bunch of bullshit we feed our citizens and how we instill fear for fun and profit through media. I am pro gun ownership - so is this movie. Its just not pro bullshit.
And so, it has been said that "power corrupts and abosolute power corrupts abosulutely."
I worry that human nature is mean, and the less powerful will be used to forward the purposes of the powerful as history shows. Many will stand by and watch the carnage. Do you think I will? They will let social Darwinism take its place. I would be one of the strong ones - except for one weakness. And, in the natural order, it is a weakness. My compassion for others would be my demise.
I look, therefore, to you and your generation to find a way remove government and regulation preserving justice. I will be gone. I look to you to choose to preserve or diminish our natural weakness, that instinct that we MUST not have if we are to survive in the jungle - compassion.
Would the purist preserve it, and, if so, how? This is retorical, I know, but aren't we really trying to protect ourselves from ourselves? And, if left to our own devises would we not destroy ourselves, by exploiting each other? Remember slavery? It still exists. The powerful provide us with enough to feed and house ourselves and take everything else - all the fruits of our labor. Are not many of us, therefore, slaves in unregulated capatalism? There are many third world examples of capatalism unfetered.
The beginnings of America in New York, the Civil War, slavery, The demise of the Native American. All the result of Greed. Yes i'll stick with Democracy, but pure Capatalism - no way. tweaking.
quote)
"This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free." "SLAVE OWNERS WHO WANTED TO BE FREE!!!!" - We came over here in those boats and met the natives, ate with em and then said move over. We took their gifts. Then we kicked them aside and said "move over." "Bring in the stuff boys." We kept pushing them over and moving them over and moving in the stuff and more stuff. We tortured and killed a bunch of "witches" so we could teach the native Ametican a "civilized religion." We kidnaped their kids, took their culture, language and religion, beat the bad ones "you know, the savages who weren't civilized." We kicked the French out of the South. We killed a bunch more Indian kids and women and took our civility to the Mexicans in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. We killed a bunch of them (We took their land and resources)but we paid em a little bit -(bless us). Hey, we bought Alsska for a few bucks - ....they had a choice..pppppp. We kept saying, "Move over, bring in the stuff." We went to Africa in boats and took fathers and mothers from their children - in chains so they could pick our cotten because "its so hot out there, i just hate that work." Then we were forced to free them - ha ha. So, we could beat em with clubs, shoot fire hoses at them and hang them from trees for having the audacity to want to sit in the front of a bus, for wanting a good education and the right to vote. Then we got the Native Americans shoved out on to Alcatraz. Now "I guess we're going to send them back where they came from" And then the redneck says: "Yeah put them welfare people to work filling in the Bering Straight and charge them Indians a buck a head to go home" --- Some George Carlin (1970s) some mine.
Capatilism -- yee haw? -- With a choice like that, I'll take Democratic Socialism as in England, Australia and Canada any time.
We are the tyrants. We are the assholes of the world. I don't Canada kicking the shit out of everybody with a different ideology. I don't see Austrailia them jamming their ideology down other peoples throats. I do see their dumb english president and our retarded president smart-bombing first century peasants back to BC. But, I don't see them Sweden stealing Arab culture and imposing theirs on the rest of the world - to get their resourses and industry to fund an imperialist expansionism of capatalism for profit. And, all while pretending to hold dear the principls of freedon of religion, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, freedom of speach, freedom to believe, and say what you think. BULLSHIT.
We don't want these things for the rest of the world any more. We don't take "your huddled masses" any more. We only want rights for ourselves - and, now, only if you can pay for them.
So, I say to Bush, You have made the whole world hate us - and why shouldn't they. I have two bumber stickers on my car Bush. One says: "INVEST IN AMERICA - BUY A CONGRESSMAN." The other says: "NO FLAG IS BIG ENOUGH TO COVER UP THE SHAME OF KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE." It has an upside down American flag partially covering a bloody hand print. I'm not "PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN," -- IM ASHAMED. And though it would be convenient for me to care what people think about that. Although it would benifit me to care what people think, at least one molacule worth of care about what what people think, I don't care at all what anybody thinks - not at all.
Ginger, again, It can work, but I think it needs some tweakin.
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On 2004-03-09 14:53:00, Antibody? wrote:
"I am curious ,however, about your view on boarding schools and the investors and corporate interests that support them? When it comes to survival of the fittest, or, better yet, survival of the strongest, richest and meanest, and that is the way nature operates whether we like it or not. Aren't these corporate giants and money-grubbibg boarding school investors the proverial lion eating the proverbial gazelle kids? Is this not pure unfettered capitalism. Why, Capitalism ain't fettered much in Idaho. That's why we have so many abusive programs.
No, it's not. It's a blended system of Capitalism and Socialism. How many of the students in Idaho boarding schools come from Idaho? Most of the students come from upper middle class suburban families; people who live in a world where Big Brother is watching over everything. If you stub your toe, Big Brother will find someone's knees to break so they suffer too. It doesn't occure to these people (as amply evidenced by some of the discussion in these forums) that they have any sort of responsability to even raise their own kids, let alone investigate the people w/ whom they trust them. They all just march in rank and file, do as they're told and let someone else do all their thinking for them. They're farm raised.
With regard to the corporation, history is replete with unregulated people, and it would seem that a small group of the strongest and meansest always get the most resources and use them to rule the peasent masses. And, that is how capatalism unfettered really works.
Yes, but notice how none of those evil business empires has ever been able to take over much of the world w/o strong government alliances. The peasant masses are under-rated. People will go along w/ a deal that doesn't benefit them only just so far. Right now, agriculture is one of the biggest worker abusers. Small family farms don't mistreat their employees because they have to compete w/ the small family farm down the road. But Citrus Mutual and Big Sugar can get away with it, and they do. They employ prison labour as well as illegal immigrants working under the old "company store" system in Florida. If either industry suffers any threat whatsoever, government steps in to bail them out. Just look into the Florida Citrus Canker war that's been going on for the last couple of years to get a clear picture of how that works.
How would we prevent, as free people, the amassing the resources by the few (food, energy, land, water and influence that we need and will have to bargain for as the prices go up and up)?
I'm not sure anyone can give you a 100% guarantee that that will never happen to any extent, but I'm pretty sure it would be a step in the right direction to quit subsidizing the protection racket that is our vaunted accredidation system.
Remember Al Capone.
A product entirely of prohibition. Before the benevolent tyrants decided to help the poor immigrant classes with our horrid drinking problems, Al Capone was chisling the names off of tomb stones and reselling them as new. It was the artificial scarcity caused by prohibition that gave Capone and his ilk their stock in trade.
Remember the Gambino family, prohibition the Sandanistas ad infinitum. The guys just killed the competition -capatallism unfetered it was.
No, capitalism unfettered was the drug policy we had before Harrison. Drugs were everywhere, but there was a notable absence of drug violence and other drug problems.
We Installed the Shah of Iran, We built the Talaban to fight in Russia. We installed Sadbam Hussin. We made Kadaffi what he is. We installed a dictator in Panama - see the movie Bowling for Colombine. Laugh your ass off about what a bunch of bullshit we feed our citizens and how we instill fear for fun and profit through media. I am pro gun ownership - so is this movie. Its just not pro bullshit.
Yes, again and again, we keep making the same mistake; buying into the same bullshit. If we can just tweak and manipulate things just a little bit more, this time it'll work out fine and we can then go back to those quaint ideas embodied in our Constitution, Federalist Papers and other writings of that nostalgic era.
And so, it has been said that "power corrupts and abosolute power corrupts abosulutely."
Yes, and that's why it's better to leave as much power as practical distributed among as many people as possible. Every time we concentrate power into fewer hands, we foster corruption.
I worry that human nature is mean, and the less powerful will be used to forward the purposes of the powerful as history shows.
If you believe that people cannot be trusted to govern themselves, then can they be trusted to govern others?
--Thomas Jefferson
Seriously; where are we going to find these incorruptable people to rule over the rest of us? What history shows is that whenever we allow government (people) to become too powerful, they always do a lot of damage with that power. No making human nature any better. People will always be somewhat good and somewhat bad. The best we can hope for is to limit people's power to fuck with eachother.
Many will stand by and watch the carnage. Do you think I will? They will let social Darwinism take its place. I would be one of the strong ones - except for one weakness. And, in the natural order, it is a weakness. My compassion for others would be my demise.
I look, therefore, to you and your generation to find a way remove government and regulation preserving justice. I will be gone. I look to you to choose to preserve or diminish our natural weakness, that instinct that we MUST not have if we are to survive in the jungle - compassion.
It's not a weakness. It's often misplaced. But we all need eachother. We all understand on some level that the golden rule is understood in reverse sense. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", asif that were just a nice thought for Sundays and holidays or something. No. We all operate on precedents and standards. Do unto others with the understanding that they'll gladly do the same to you, because that is the standard you have set for yourself. Dogs speak the same language. Not too sure about cats.
Would the purist preserve it, and, if so, how? This is retorical, I know, but aren't we really trying to protect ourselves from ourselves? And, if left to our own devises would we not destroy ourselves, by exploiting each other? Remember slavery? It still exists. The powerful provide us with enough to feed and house ourselves and take everything else - all the fruits of our labor. Are not many of us, therefore, slaves in unregulated capatalism? There are many third world examples of capatalism unfetered.
The beginnings of America in New York, the Civil War, slavery, The demise of the Native American. All the result of Greed. Yes i'll stick with Democracy, but pure Capatalism - no way. tweaking.
quote)
"This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free." "SLAVE OWNERS WHO WANTED TO BE FREE!!!!" - We came over here in those boats and met the natives, ate with em and then said move over. We took their gifts. Then we kicked them aside and said "move over." "Bring in the stuff boys." We kept pushing them over and moving them over and moving in the stuff and more stuff. We tortured and killed a bunch of "witches" so we could teach the native Ametican a "civilized religion." We kidnaped their kids, took their culture, language and religion, beat the bad ones "you know, the savages who weren't civilized." We kicked the French out of the South. We killed a bunch more Indian kids and women and took our civility to the Mexicans in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. We killed a bunch of them (We took their land and resources)but we paid em a little bit -(bless us). Hey, we bought Alsska for a few bucks - ....they had a choice..pppppp. We kept saying, "Move over, bring in the stuff." We went to Africa in boats and took fathers and mothers from their children - in chains so they could pick our cotten because "its so hot out there, i just hate that work." Then we were forced to free them - ha ha. So, we could beat em with clubs, shoot fire hoses at them and hang them from trees for having the audacity to want to sit in the front of a bus, for wanting a good education and the right to vote. Then we got the Native Americans shoved out on to Alcatraz. Now "I guess we're going to send them back where they came from" And then the redneck says: "Yeah put them welfare people to work filling in the Bering Straight and charge them Indians a buck a head to go home" --- Some George Carlin (1970s) some mine.
Capatilism -- yee haw? -- With a choice like that, I'll take Democratic Socialism as in England, Australia and Canada any time.
We are the tyrants. We are the assholes of the world. I don't Canada kicking the shit out of everybody with a different ideology. I don't see Austrailia them jamming their ideology down other peoples throats. I do see their dumb english president and our retarded president smart-bombing first century peasants back to BC. But, I don't see them Sweden stealing Arab culture and imposing theirs on the rest of the world - to get their resourses and industry to fund an imperialist expansionism of capatalism for profit. And, all while pretending to hold dear the principls of freedon of religion, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, freedom of speach, freedom to believe, and say what you think. BULLSHIT.
We don't want these things for the rest of the world any more. We don't take "your huddled masses" any more. We only want rights for ourselves - and, now, only if you can pay for them.
So, I say to Bush, You have made the whole world hate us - and why shouldn't they. I have two bumber stickers on my car Bush. One says: "INVEST IN AMERICA - BUY A CONGRESSMAN." The other says: "NO FLAG IS BIG ENOUGH TO COVER UP THE SHAME OF KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE." It has an upside down American flag partially covering a bloody hand print. I'm not "PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN," -- IM ASHAMED. And though it would be convenient for me to care what people think about that. Although it would benifit me to care what people think, at least one molacule worth of care about what what people think, I don't care at all what anybody thinks - not at all.
Ginger, again, It can work, but I think it needs some tweakin. "
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.
--George Washington
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Sorry, had to run.
On 2004-03-09 14:53:00, Antibody? wrote:
Would the purist preserve it, and, if so, how? This is retorical, I know, but aren't we really trying to protect ourselves from ourselves? And, if left to our own devises would we not destroy ourselves, by exploiting each other? Remember slavery? It still exists. The powerful provide us with enough to feed and house ourselves and take everything else - all the fruits of our labor.
That's what I'm tryin' ta' tell ya'! The powerful are able to purchase the coercive authority of government to keep the rest of us in line. Back before the Industrial Revolution, the Coal companies had a mighty hard time keeping the rabal in line. We call that era "the coal wars". Now, with the drug war and struggle against Communism as cover, we simply poison, burn and slaughter landowners in So. America who are unamenable to Occidental's best offer.
Are not many of us, therefore, slaves in unregulated capatalism? There are many third world examples of capatalism unfetered.
There is no unregulated Capitalism. The third world is not free of our government. I have a good friend who married her way to America from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. She could not believe that, here in the land of the free, she couldn't just sell whatever of her belongings she wanted to from her front lawn without a permit; have as many friends and relatives living in her home as she pleased or work an honest day for a willing employer without getting some sort of permit or certification from the government. Oh, and no chickens, goats or other livestock, either. Rabbits, you can get away w/ cause most people think of them as pets. :roll:
The beginnings of America in New York, the Civil War, slavery, The demise of the Native American. All the result of Greed. Yes i'll stick with Democracy, but pure Capatalism - no way. tweaking.
Greed is with us always. The means to do a great deal of harm with it rely on government authority.
"This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free." "SLAVE OWNERS WHO WANTED TO BE FREE!!!!" - We came over here in those boats and met the natives, ate with em and then said move over. We took their gifts. Then we kicked them aside and said "move over." "Bring in the stuff boys." We kept pushing them over and moving them over and moving in the stuff and more stuff. We tortured and killed a bunch of "witches" so we could teach the native Ametican a "civilized religion." We kidnaped their kids, took their culture, language and religion, beat the bad ones "you know, the savages who weren't civilized." We kicked the French out of the South. We killed a bunch more Indian kids and women and took our civility to the Mexicans in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. We killed a bunch of them (We took their land and resources)but we paid em a little bit -(bless us). Hey, we bought Alsska for a few bucks - ....they had a choice..pppppp. We kept saying, "Move over, bring in the stuff." We went to Africa in boats and took fathers and mothers from their children - in chains so they could pick our cotten because "its so hot out there, i just hate that work." Then we were forced to free them - ha ha. So, we could beat em with clubs, shoot fire hoses at them and hang them from trees for having the audacity to want to sit in the front of a bus, for wanting a good education and the right to vote. Then we got the Native Americans shoved out on to Alcatraz. Now "I guess we're going to send them back where they came from" And then the redneck says: "Yeah put them welfare people to work filling in the Bering Straight and charge them Indians a buck a head to go home" --- Some George Carlin (1970s) some mine.
You're using the term "we" very loosly here. Not all European immigrants slaughterd the natives and took what they had. I'm living in a part of the country where you can't tell the natives from the immigrants. Haven't been able to for a hundred years now. They just blended. Around the time of the American Revolution, these folks were known as the Over the Mountain Men and they turned the tide in that war. They didn't care, really, what the crazy bastards back East were doing, so long as they kept buying furs and other forrest goods and remained scared to death of the "frontier". That's why the British thought the Western approaches were unguarded. There wasn't any organized guard set and there hadn't been hostile natives in these regions ever, as far as I know. Just a lot of halfbreeds who didn't need anything, never made any news and w/ whom it's best not triffle. Free people, in other words.
Capatilism -- yee haw? -- With a choice like that, I'll take Democratic Socialism as in England, Australia and Canada any time.
We are the tyrants. We are the assholes of the world. I don't Canada kicking the shit out of everybody with a different ideology. I don't see Austrailia them jamming their ideology down other peoples throats. I do see their dumb english president and our retarded president smart-bombing first century peasants back to BC. But, I don't see them Sweden stealing Arab culture and imposing theirs on the rest of the world - to get their resourses and industry to fund an imperialist expansionism of capatalism for profit. And, all while pretending to hold dear the principls of freedon of religion, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, freedom of speach, freedom to believe, and say what you think. BULLSHIT.
So quit paying taxes. It's not Americans who do these horrible things to people all over the world. It's the US military.
Ginger, again, It can work, but I think it needs some tweakin. "
Always tweakin'. That's built into the plan. Every little town and village gets to figure out for themselves what works best. When things don't work, people tweak them. Unless, of course, you could go to jail for it. Right now, I'd love to quit messing with this bad sewer system that feeds into the bad regional treatment plant and just dig a french drain. I've done the research, I know how to make it work in this soil. Unfortunately, the city would condemn my house if I built a system that works. So, until enough of my neighbors wake the hell up and realize that they can only control us to the extent that we let them, I guess I'll just keep on fixing this bad old system and look forward to better days.Any Irishman who doubts the reality of selective enforcement ought to take just a moment to comtemplate the etymology of the term "paddy waggon".
--Antigen
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Ginger,You are raising the fire in me. BULLSHIT.
Much of Government needs to be cut. Let us start with the military - half of our spending - and up since the end of the cold war.
And, can you just get rid of all government and remain a human being with a heart? Ginger, With all due respect, your conclusion is vague, and it doesn't even follow from your premise. Then. your conclusion assumes a cause and effect relationship that has not been demonstrated. Finally, you only quote me out of context. Then you answer only the questions I ask when you can construct (through language)a way to frame the words to fit your politicl bent. Scientific method attempts to disprove it own hypothises, and, failing that, proves the hypothisis or rules it out. Your whole conversation is brilliantly constructed logical fallicy.
This hypothisis of no government and no taxes is not supported because it advocates elimination of tribal-centered contribution for simple and pure individuaism - When community contribution and collective resourse-sharing (tribe) represent the only explaination for the evolution of civilization and the resulting survival of the individual against environmental hardship.
Put simply we need each other and have to help each other. We have to live together with heart and humanity or we die. What you suggest is abandonment of your brothers and sisters in nature. Case in point:
I worked for a govenment funded non profit agency AAOA that helped aged, disabled, and mentally limited people from being exploited personally, sexually, and financially by people, hospitals, nurses and just plain business crooks and often family members in the shadows - always people in the shadows). AAOA, you have probably heard of it because it is an national organization in every state that funds senior centers - "The Area Agency on Aging"
As an advocate for old and disabled folks, I've seen abandonment of community to individualism.
Family members gouged grandma's eyes out and tied her to a chair while they collected her monthly pension checks. Another old retired dentist was lonely, so he got a care-giver who moved in and spent all his money on drugs while she and her husband bilked him for tens of thousands of dollars. They always came up with a new emergency and he "just had to help." New cars, living expenses, drugs, and fancy dinners on the town. These are not isolated, and therefore logically fallacious testamonials. The world I work in requires daily intervention on hundreds of such incidents each day.
How would these people be found with no system, no community orgs, government funded to oversee them?
The community ignores the aged, then asks for them to be put away in nursing homes. There is money in that.
Before you were born, they had no government funding for agencies like this. They did have poor houses and settlement houses, and mental wards full of shit and piss with guards beating elders, kids, and the socially anxious who had a hard time coping with stress (sound familiar)?
Before government took a role, we did have a few great women (social workers and feminists)helping to shut down those hell houses and begin humanizing the system to make people stronger and better contributers, get them educated, employed, and channelled into a place in the world that fits who they are - not private boarding schools for example. This is the origin of my profession Ginger - "compassion." And, you insult it.
Religious organizations and communities that wanted these people OUT OF THE WAY, and hidden from view funded the poor houses and hell holes. These were full of abandoned disabled and developmentally delayed children, people who were considered "demented" with autism, aspbergers syndrome, elderly folks with dimantia, altzheimers syndrome with abandoned, unrully children, maverick adults, screaming schiophrenics and people who just refused to conform, all being hosed down from sleeping in excerment.
Five year old girls and boys were regularly whipped and molested by "gruardians of the house." Where were you advocates of inactivism then. I'll tell you where, you were in the ferry land of "I don't give a shit about anyone but myself."
Indeed, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
You repeat it. We started with "no government." It was established seperate from church - a good thing. You forgot about slavery, Ginger, government went to war to abolish it - Slavery, I asked you about that - No response? Too in contexet?
So we get no "adult protection," no "child protection," just molesters, abusive religious reformers, Waco child molestors, Randy Weaver racist Christian Identity MORONS. (I knew him - he lived up the hill from me. He marched his kids in uniforms with insignia of hitler - he was an asshole with rights, and he created his own problem. He killed his wife and child by being an asshole. He was just like that moron in Waco, David Koresh. David brainwashed, molested and burnt all those people - If I was there I would have been shooting at him too. And with no government I could. How's that work for you?
But a killer, really, I am not. We're just a few social workers trying to help. And are we laughed at for having that thing you forgot to quote me on - "compassion." Yes. It receeds at times.
Also, You didn't answer my question. Who takes care of these things and makes sure that it is done humanely? Who holds humanity accountable to be humane, fair, just and kind? Contrary to popular folklore and confirmed by thousands of years of tyranny in historical record, we are not "basically good." A few are -- very few.
More than half of us don't even have alturism in our nature. Ten percent of us have no consience at all.
So, let us say that we have succeeded and we have aboloshed the government. We have no taxes. It's everyone for himself. Survival of the fittest. Genocide to all those weak old folks, those retarded bastards and bitches who have the gual to suck charity out of our grandiose pristene lives. How dare them? Let then Die? Workable? Yes. Honerable? No. Libritarian? Yes.
Good luck in you perfect Libritarian world. I'm sure you will gain when you cut down all the forests, poison all the waters and let all the weak infidels die. After all, none of that will affect you. "Well, "uh?????? in the short run it won't."
Anyway, I'll be dead because I have bad kidneys, high blood pressure, heart disease,a broken heart (in more ways than one) and will soon be too old. Too old to be one of the "fittest." I and you will, therefore not survive long without that forgotten compassion. But, compassion isn't important anyway is it? What is important is getting rid of taxes and getting filthy rich so all the Libritarian heros of this free economy won't be inconvenienced and can remain "dedicated inactivists?"
Yep, we can sit on our asses and get rid of government and taxes and all our problems will go away. Let me know how that works out. Well, I wouldn't call it work - maybe inactivism. Good luck. Once for the road - BULLSHIT.
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If I am of the opinion that it is inexpedient to assign to the government the task of operating railroads, hotels, or mines, I am not an "enemy of the state" any more than I can be called an enemy of sulfuric acid because I am of the opinion that, useful though it may be for many purposes, it is not suitable either for drinking, or for washing one's hands.
--Ludwig Von Mises
Nobody said anything about no government. I'm talking about properly limited government.
I've seen plenty of good intentions gone horribly awry through government administration. I laid my dad to rest after several months in the care of the VA. What I saw were wonderfully dedicated and well intended medical professionals working under impossible circumstances. They wanted to provide home care for him, but the people making the allocation decisions frankly were more interested in spending the money on those flashy recruiting ads we see on TV all the time and on massive efforts to obfuscate things like Gulf War Syndrome and the effects of "depleted" uranium on soldiers and civilians.
There's where the problem comes in. All the good intentions in the world can't compete with a well motivated and well funded lobby.
I don't know of any government regulatory systems that actually work. I do know of a whole lot of instances of abuse that have been facilitated and/or covered up by government regulation. Basically, if an individual or private organization breaks the law by abusing people, you stand a chance of holding them accountable or at least of escaping their influence. But when a government agency breaks the law by abusing people, you're essentially fucked. They're just not going to prosecute themselves.
How do you propose to fix the regulatory system in Idaho? Can you point to an example that Idaho should follow? My solution is to 1) look out for myself and my own and to teach my kids to do the same and 2) encourage others to rely on themselves and people they actually know and trust instead of falling for that age old "Big Brother is looking out of us" scam.
What alternative do you suggest? How do you propose we go about fixing the system?
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On 2004-03-11 13:37:00, Antibody? wrote:
"Oh Ginger,
I'm sorry, apparently, I misunderstood you I went of on riding my white horse again. I acted grandiose, arrogant and righteous. These are things I'm working on. Damn it, you?re forth person I apologized to today.
NP, I've done the same thing myself.
I believe that depression as we view as individual pathology is actually a response to a real perception of the pathology in others. It is an effort which is recognized as a failure to do something about the pain in the world. The manic attack is an effort to escape into things as a way of avoiding the depression. It is the essential countermove to the delusion of altruism.
I agree with the first part. I don't have low self esteem. I have low esteem for everyone else. But the second part, I'm not so sure. Having gone on what might be described as the occasional manic binge from time to time, I see it as more of an optimistic and determined attempt to actually do something about the way things are.
"I enjoy a slight hearing impairment. Just that much less bullshit I have to listen to."--Crazy Mac
Just thought I'd throw that in :wink:
What I would suggest, if it were possible, would be a workers party, workers lobby, a complete and total labor strike. Sit down and block all corporate offices peacefully. Let them bring in the water cannons, the tear gas, the National Guard with "this summer I hear the drumming 4 + dead in Ohio" (Neil Young (1971).
The problems with that plan are that 1) we need the economy to function even more than the powerful elite. If our local grocery stores all run out of stock for 3 days, we're fucked. We can't just hop a jet to somewhere else or hire an armed guard to bring in and protect our food. and 2) it's impossible to sustane a "complete and total labour strike".
But fear not, there's a more moderate approach that works even better and is easily sustainable over the long term; permanent, selective, partial labour and consumption strike. Avoid doing business w/ anyone who you don't think is going to look out for you in the long run. Every single time I have a choice between spending a dollar at Wally World and spending it w/ a local guy, the local guy gets it. Every time, even if his breath stinks and he bad-mouths me to my face. Don't like the way your employer treats you? Go work for someone else who treats you better. Be as independent as possible. Don't like agribusiness? Fine. Grow a garden, patronize your local coop and/or roadside stand. Vote with your feet, not with guns bought and paid for w/ our tax dollars.
That they stop spending our money meddling in the affairs of other countries with bombs and pay offs for political influence. That they join other nations in helping bring humanity to other cultures through dialogue, diplomacy and intercultural respect. That they stop wasting our tax dollars on the government welfare establishment(agencies) that suck out all the federal funds for the upper working class before it gets to the people who need - not money, but day care, mentoring, job training, social skills, and unconditional positive regard.
Uh, well.. you can ask. But I don't think it'll do any good. Better idea. Quit giving them money to waste in the first place. If you care about job training, social skills and unconditional positive regard for the people who need it, then patronize those businesses and hang out with friends who embody those ideals. Water what you want to grow.
No more corporate welfare. If a company fails, it fails - that?s evolution. Spend money, not on buildings, cars, over-regulation, and H bombs. Help people get back on their feet with a minimum wage is enough to rent an apartment, drive a modest car, raise a child, live, and eat.
The trouble is that your ideal priorities or mine are never going to exactly match someone else's. So, no matter which factions prevail in controling public funding and other resources, there will always be dissatisfied factions w/ just as much right to grouse as those who won.
The better plan, and it did work out damned well for several hundred years before, during and after the American Revolution, is to let individuals and local communities take care of almost everything for themselves, keep the Federal government restricted to it's original Constitutional limits and the States restrained from violating the rights of their citizens.
Finally, we didn't actually have to fight a war to end legal slavery. We're the only country that fought such a war, but all other nations ended slavery at least as well as we did. How'd they do that?
Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care.
Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young, DOJ/DEA
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Thanks Ginger,
Your honesty and empathy is appreciated.
I do see your point. About the manac part - some of the most productive people in the world are a bit manic at times. case in point - me. I believe that this would be correct for us, but not for everyone, as hypo-mania can evolve into raving psychosis. I beieve, Whitaker is saying that, in many cases, this is one's only defense for a person who wants to keep his integrity and alturism, but can't because he would starve; so he or she is driven by "social robots" into depression while his beating heart repeats - this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
On the second point I agree that the local operators need goods and this would be self sabotaging. My only argumant would be that we can only get the attention of the culture and status quo with dire consequences to ourselves. An analogous situation would be the starvation, beatings and torture of blacks in the south and of people in India, and blacks under apartied.
The trick of the status quo is that they know we are unwilling to go hungry, suffer, pain, suffer cold, heat and forgo the want of comfort.
We will never as a people, control our own lives until we control the resources that sustain us. We can not get freedom without suffering. You will get a few people to go along, but you won't get change without extreme pain. You can boycott, but most people won't. You can grow a garden, but most will go to the store and support the system.
What you are suggesting was done. It started to work, but hippies very quickly become yuppies and then conservative republcans. You need uprising, with the unfortunate massive suffering that is included - part of the deal.
We have social security (or insecurity) medicare (or meda a little care), Medicaid, (enablement for the poor) and Unimployment Insurance (under- employment) for one reason. The 1929 crash of the markets that made rich people suffer as much well, almost as much, as the poor. Forget the value and cost of these programs to argue another time. The point is that people got pissed, marched om washington and we got change. No suffering no change. Very infortunate.
I would also remind you that early America and post revolution America was no panacia. The witch trials, torture, religious fanaticism of the free mob. Starvation, was common, child mortality and child and spousal abuse was epidemic. Kids barely old enough to walk worked 18 hour days. Whole communities died in drought and flood. Starvation was common. Crime and murder rampant. It certainly is good that this lifestyle is more congruent with nature and evolution, but I doubt that it was as pretty as our history books make it look. Barbarism was rampant. Genocide was the order of the day. Native people, women and children were killed and tortured daily. You had to be a social robot, even more then than now, because you would end up on the rack or drawn and quarterd, or have you limbs chopped off if you did not conform to the status quo.
I'm sure you understand that we need to protect the rights of people. Even whichcraft is a religion. Schitzophrenia or manic depression or poverty is not a crime, and, as you aptly pointed out, can be a strength. By our history, we are not a great and alturistic people. Today we are the same. Only, we do it all over there and under the carpet. See the movie "Bowling For Columbine."
Ginger, I appreciate your open dialouge and your acceptance of differing points of view. This is what we all need in our culture. God, if you only knew what it is like living in Idaho. Where almost everyone is a "social robot" who thinks they are a free thinker. You are so refreshing. Thanks for expanding my thoughts by having the courage and dignity to put up with my opinions and moods right or wrong. I'd love to have Joe with you sometime - maybe even a j - though, as a general rule, I don't go there anymore.
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Great dialogue! The perspectives here are refreshing and well thought out.
I do have a question to both Ginger and Antibody (my fellow statesman.) Do you think status quo can be maintained? Because I see massive changes taking place around the world, particularly economic changes. Americans like to think that they are insulated in this country from a total melt down of the economy, and I think that is very foolish, though exactly what the George Bushs and Allen Greenspans of the world would like us to think.
Don't you find it a bit strange that credit is being handed out like sand in the desert? Our economy is based on people going into debt. It is the only thing holding us up right now.
I don't know what the end game is for this country's economic plan, but I don't think it's going to be good for us. It may very well take us to that place of discontent in which we become ungovernable.
I don't mean to come across as one of those wacko cults predicting the end of the world, or one of those North Idaho wacko's preparing for total destruction of the world as we know it, but I think we are all foolish to think that any kind of status quo remains for our future. Hold on my friends - it will likely be a bumpy ride.
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I do not. But it's not asif this would be the first time in human history, now would it?
I think it pays right now to do a couple of things on a personal level. First, fall in love with your home area or move to one you can love sincerely.
I so envy the people around here who know the comprehensive history of every permanent family, rich or poor; every school, every township council and all of the long-term businesses, some of it dating back to the late 1800's. They have a broad and solid perspective on things that transient populations lack. They're less suggestable than the people I knew all my life in Florida.* Makes me think of those family vinyards in Europe that have been nurturing and protecting some of the same grape vines for a hundred years or more, come war or whatever. That's what I want for my eventual great grandkids. That... culture... real, organic, honest to God local culture is one of the most precious things corroded by Program philosophy.
That and make friends with some old black ladies and see what you can learn from them about perserverance.
* That's not to say that they don't print the maps on all the bus schedules upside down. They do. I shit you not. Anonymity Anonymous (http://fornits.com/anonanon)
[ This Message was edited by: Antigen on 2004-03-12 19:23 ]
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Ginger.
It's probably better that we don't, I remember laughing and having a great time back then, but I also remember getting a bit parinoid.
As mush as I dis on North Idaho, I actually do love it, and most of the people here. In reality, there are only wa few whackos and others who have every right to disagree with me.
You might want to chack out Coeur d'Alene Idaho -It is just such a place as you describe. You have to put up with a little cold in the winter, and a few nut balls; but winters are way easier than they were in the Siera Nevada mountains in California and just as beautiful - even a little more beautiful where they haven't logged out all the older trees. Everything is green and there are rivers. elk, moose and big lakes glacial geology everywhere.
All cultures are represented, hick, hippy, goth, jock, cowboy, liberal, conservative, libritarian, independent and even my bent Green (aka bleeding heart, white horse riding, environmentalist ultra liberal tree hugging asshole)- ha ha,a complement, if you don't mone me saying so myself. We definately need more blacks, hippys, and people with pearcings and tatoos, but we're getting more diverse.
I have been all over the country and this is as good as it gets. We are getting bombarded with growth here because people want what you are talking about - I didn't lock my house for 15 years here. You have the City near by (Spokane WA).
Recreation is increqadible - year round fun. Water sports of every kind. Wnter sports of every kind all free. The only thing I miss are the mavericks in San Francisco and the Ocean. So I go there once in a while.
Come on up Ginger. You have a free place to stay any time.
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On 2004-03-13 15:34:00, Antibody? wrote:
Come on up Ginger. You have a free place to stay any time."
I may just do that one day. Got room for a family of 6, including an 80lb black lab?"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."
"Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?"
--Hobbs to Calvin
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On 2004-03-14 05:59:00, Antigen wrote:
"
On 2004-03-13 15:34:00, Antibody? wrote:
Come on up Ginger. You have a free place to stay any time."
I may just do that one day. Got room for a family of 6, including an 80lb black lab?"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."
"Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?"
--Hobbs to Calvin
"
Ginger
Sure, we have room for visitors - 3400 square feet. My wife loves dogs and kids. I love dogs, especially black labs. The kids can go in the basement and you and the dogs can have the guest suite.
Most of the warm part of year we spend camping in the woods, playing in the rivers, hiking, mountain biking and fishing. We're not home a lot.
Remember the movie "A River Wild" with Merrill Streep. That river - Where they ran "The Gauntlet" is here. I run it too - In the dead of winter in a 7 foot playyak. My wife ran the salmon and Lochsa last year. I've been thinking about taking you down the North Fork of The Payette. You have to have your zipper in back for that one - ha ha
to be explained later:
"This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free." "SLAVE OWNERS WHO WANTED TO BE FREE!!!!" - We came over here in those boats and met the natives, ate with em and then said move over. We took their gifts. Then we kicked them aside and said "move over." "Bring in the stuff boys." We kept pushing them over and moving them over and moving in the stuff and more stuff. We tortured and killed a bunch of "witches" so we could teach the Native Americans a "civilized religion." We kidnapped their kids, took their culture, language and religion, beat the bad ones "you know, the savages who weren't civilized." We kicked the French out of the South. We killed a bunch more Indian kids and women and took our civility to the Mexicans in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. We killed a bunch of them (We took their land and resources) but we paid em a little bit - (bless us). Hey, we bought Alaska for a few bucks -.... "They had a choice..pppppp." We kept saying, "Move over, bring in the stuff." We went to Africa in boats and took fathers and mothers from their children - in chains so they could pick our cotton because "it?s so hot out there, I just hate that work." Then we were forced to free them - ha ha. So, we could beat em with clubs, shoot fire hoses at them and hang them from trees for having the audacity to want to sit in the front of a bus, for wanting a good education and the right to vote. Then we got the Native Americans shoved out on to Alcatraz. Now "I guess we're going to send them back where they came from" And then the redneck says: "Yeah put them welfare people to work filling in the Bering Straight and charge them Indians a buck a head to go home" --- Some George Carlin (1970s) some mine.
I ran into a little Identity Christian fellow at Sharie?s (like Shonie's down south). He was against birth control, and of course abortion. I said "if you are against abortion, a part of the solution would be birth control - right? :wstupid: I pointed out the research showing that people most opposed to homosexuality wer also those mose aroused by seeing it, leading one to conclude that the reason these biggots think it is a choice is because they are bi and it is for them. That's why they get so pissed about it. It's a "reaction formation" defense mechanism. They hate what is within themselves and they project the self hate on to others. Check out our hatred for jewish folks arabs and the talaban. The people who bitch about em are just like em. :silly:
I had about a one hour conversation with Dick. He was a fundamentalist - literal interpretation of the bible - ya know? So, I very calmly and logically dismantled his arguments one by one - pointing out, ad homonym, questionable cause, arguing from ignorance, fallacy of logical order, and conclusion without evidence. You know, "yer fer gettin rid of abortion, but yer not fer gettin rid of birth control?" You know, and stuff like "if God created Adam and Eve, and they had two kids, and one kid (Cain) was killed leaving one earthling -Cain. Then who did he marry and how did they do all that begetting humping). He said he knew I was a liberal all along :wink:
Here's an Idea. We just got an e mail describing how to get rid of the Taliban. They have to kill themselves if they see any other man's woman naked. It suggests a naked woman day to weed them out and get rid of them. I thought it was a great idea. :em: Besides the ladies at the hot springs keep getting older and heavier like me - we need some diversity here in Idaho - ha ha ahhhh.
[ This Message was edited by: Antigen on 2004-03-14 08:28 ]
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On 2004-03-14 08:23:00, Antibody? wrote:
I ran into a little Identity Christian fellow at Sharie?s (like Shonie's down south).
...
Anyway, I told him I wanted to get more blacks, gays, hippies and liberals to move up here because I like diversity and "different" people to interact with -like him. He left.
Yup. Conservative Christians insist that they don't evolved. I believe them!
So, it doesn't matter what you are doing around here. Fishing, Hunting Shooting or Arguing with Richard Butler It's all good. And great fun.
As long as you're having fun at it. That is the key to happiness. I'm convinced of it.Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
--Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, 1950
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i am a survivor send me an e mail at cedusurvivor@yahoo.com
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Why our current Educational Institution is detrimental to children:
Its structure, demands and curriculum are not child-centered or in line with developmental or learning needs
It regiments children's basic physiological needs and fails to allow children to respond to their own needs at times unprescribed by the teacher
The physical body is denied not only liquids, snacks and elimination, but exercise and rest (one or two "recesses" per day end around age 10)
Half of the states in the USA still permit teachers to assault children with paddles
It does not take into consideration that there are seven different learning styles
It provides no time for solitude, small child-led group meetings and independent study
It does not allow children to direct their own learning based on talents, interests and abilities
It fails to function as a democracy to prepare children to function in a democratic society
It is an institution based on control, order and punishment for non-compliance
Mistakes are not viewed as learning experiences, but as failures or infractions
Children?s effort and performance is graded according to the subjective opinions of a teacher
Grades are permanent, undisputable and are used to divide and "track" children according to performance
It labels children who cannot conform as "learning disabled" or "behavioral problems"
It isolates children from their families
It isolates children from the community
Children are forced to take busy work home after being confined for seven hours in school
Homework further isolates children from family time, play time, social time and time for pursuing one?s own interests
Children?s knowledge is assumed by using standardized tests designed to cater to those who excel at structured, pressured, recall of isolated facts, rather than dialoging or expressing knowledge in a variety of ways
It isolates children from taking part in contributing their ideas and talents to society
Learning is considered to be about "getting the right answer" rather than about the process of how to ask questions and where to find answers
Finding answers from peers or parents is called "cheating"
It is responsible for 1000?s of children being prescribed stimulant drugs for their exuberance, boredom or due to the teacher?s inability to provide a stimulating learning environment
It isolates children from interacting with people of various age groups
It creates a climate for children to isolate themselves into exclusive groups in order to establish a sense of power and territory in a hostage-like system (similar to prisons)
Its insensitive, control-based practices offer little opportunity for children?s voices to be expressed, leading to rage, rebellion and revenge
It is an outdated institution based on the work ethic of the early 1900?s
It has refused to modernize to meet the creative and intellectual needs and demands of a modern society
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The historical origins of forced mass schooling and our modern schools
John Taylor Gatto (1996), educator and strong supporter of home schooling, has written extensively about the origins of our current educational institution in America. Schooling did not exist as long as many people assume; In 1650 New England colonies, influenced by Plato?s Republic, attempted to create such a compulsory institution, to no avail. In the early 1800?s, a group of influential secret society ideologists were influenced by the Socialist Prussian system of forced mass-education. Prussians instituted a subordination system to mass-educate the population?s children with the goal of producing an obedient group of people to conform to the Prussian goals of like-minded thinking and servitude to the government, army and to the mines. Gatto writes that "the underlying premise of Prussian schooling is that the government is the true parent of children" (p.44). In 1852, this secret society, known as "The Order of the Star Spangled Banner", was successful in passing legislation for forced mass schooling in Massachusetts. Gatto writes that within the next 50 years, every state followed suit, "ending schools of choice and ceding the field to a new governmental monopoly" (p. 43).
Horace Mann, John Dewey and Kindergarten founder, Friedrich Froebel, were all vocal in supporting an institution that would control and gernericize education to prevent people from becoming from too knowledgeable and powerful. Gatto writes that in the early days of education reading was discouraged. Gatto adds that Dewey believed that with self-directed education, people become "dangerous because they become privately empowered, they know too much, and know how to find out what they don?t know by themselves without consulting experts" (p. 44).
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On what principles was traditional schooling founded?
Schooling was influenced by the idea that self-directed education created dangerous, free-thinking, over-educated people
Schooling was influenced by the idea that children are helpless, blank slates that would never learn on their own if left to self educate
Schooling was influenced by the idea that parents cannot provide an adequate education for their own children
Schooling was influenced by the idea that only "experts" can impart knowledge and adequate education
Schooling was influenced by a governmental idea that isolating children from their parents would limit free thinking, ensuring a more malleable and willing labor force
Schooling was influenced by the work ethic of the 1800?s which valued passive obedience to an authority
Schooling was based on preparing children for lives of servitude to hard labor in factories, mills and army
Schooling was influenced by the idea that education is what happens when an authority feeds facts to a passive recipient
School student management was influenced by harsh, punitive, religious views of children as bad and in need of "reform", regimentation and control
School student management was influenced by the scant knowledge of child development of the times
Student management was influenced by adults showing little regard for the physical and emotional needs of children
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Why traditional schooling is detrimental to society
School teachers love children who are quiet, obedient, passive recipients of the information that they present. Compliant children rarely argue or question the ideas of the teacher. On the contrary, spirited, exuberant children who buck the system are first punished into compliance, or next, are referred for testing to earn a label of "learning disabled", "special needs", or "behaviorally disordered". A remedy of stimulant medication to slow down or focus the bored, understimulated or energetic, passionate child often accompanies these testing results. Some of these children simply learn in a different manner than is being taught, or at a slower pace. Some are exceptionally bright, creative, gifted or talented. Many are abuse and neglect victims acting out their rage in school. Although obedient children are easy for parents and teachers to control and be around, these children often have difficulty with taking initiative, leadership, self-motivation, self-education, assertiveness, free-thinking, self-expression, trust in their own abilities and bringing innovative ideas to fruition. In our modern, technologically advanced society, the very qualities that are required for many of the successful careers of today are the very qualities that traditional schools subdue and squelch.
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Reference
Gatto, J.T. (1996) The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix A System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought? Chapter 7 in Deschooling Our Lives (Hern, M.): New Society Publishers.
::boycott::
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I agree with many of your points.
On this note, I think apprenticeships are highly undervalued.
Just shooting from the hip but Public schooling should be 1/2 topics of the student'schoice and 1/2 apprenticeship opportunities.
I do have to say that a friend of mine teaches public school 6th grade. I'm very impressed with the improvements they made since I was in 6th grade.