Hey Misbehaver, Great speaking with you earlier.
I get what you're saying. Not everyone really wants to rehash this shit or expose the private details of their lives to public scrutiny. There are hundreds of thousands of us, though, who've spent some time in these places. Some are inclined to be muck rakers, some are not. I have as profound a respect for anyone's fourth amendment rights as for their first amendment rights.
But anyone who's acting to influence public policy according to Program dogma automagically waives their right to privacy in this particular area of their lives, imho. And anyone who volunteers to engage in public debate on the issue is fair game within the scope of what they decide they want to divulge. I have never gone looking in anyone's background except for public figures. So I'll probably never win a Pulitzer, but I don't have a lot of enemies either.
Thanks for all the kudos about our work. We're trying to pull together all of the documentation we can on people associated with the Program who currently hold positions of public influence and responsibility. I think the people who've given them their confidence deserve a little gratis background check. :wink: Some people find it therapeutic to talk about their experiences with people who's been there. Others find it more therapeutic to talk about their experience to current or prospective employers of these bastards.
Leme make this a long one. For most of the past 20 years, I've tried my level best to forget all about my weird little history and to overcome the neurotic hangover that it left me with. For the most part, I think I was over it some years ago. There were always reminders, but I'd gotten pretty adept at brushing them off as paranoia.
At the same time, I've watched a lot of issues with varying degrees of interest. Homeschooling and public education, for example, and the whole EFF.org thing on crypto export, clipper chip and all the rest. Drug policy has been a growing interest of mine just because it's SO wrong. And, I think, it was also about looking under the bed for the boogie man just to make sure he wasn't really there.
So I've seen all kinds of material from all different perspectives about Ian MacDonald, Wm. Bennette, Daryl Gates and DFAF, Dr. Nehaus bogus research; the lot generally considered to be the most rabid and unballanced drug warriors on the planet. I never suspected that any of these people would have anything to do with Straight till Brother Jeb! introduced his new and improved drug war strategy, now with more coerced treatment for kids.
Now, I remembered that the Bush family had been very cozy with Straight via the Nacy Reagan's holy jihad, which started while King George was VP.
So I contacted some drug policy reformers with what I thought would probably be taken as a classic Southern fairy tail, "Ya'll just ain't gonna' b'lieve this shit!" but I had to start somewhere cause it was freakin' me tf out that this guy in the governors' mansion seemed to be threatening to spread the Program accross the land at my expense.
Turns out, they knew all about it, had even awarded Richard Bradbury Activist of the Year for shutting down the last Straight location in, I think it was, `93. Arnold Trebach, founder of Drug Policy Foundation, had even written a chapter of his `85 book "The Great Drug War", about Fred Collins' experience with the Program. DFAF is Straight, Inc after a couple of name changes, and they generally run Florida state politics. You have some interesting shit goin down around Cincinatti there, I wonder how influential KHK parents are in local public policy?
Holy sheep shit, Batman! All these fuckin years I thought I was just paranoid. Sometimes I think I liked it better that way, when it was just me and the world was more-or-less allright. But now I'm pissed! These sons of bitches are putting my kid through psyche treatment in school (DARE, Peer Counseling), patroling my neighborhood via militarized local law enforcement (Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Taskforce), pushing piss testing in the workplace (also by government subsidy) and feeding Colombia's civil war and the Taliban. It's not my imagination afterall. Every time I step out the door or switch on the idiot box, I'm reminded of the damned Program and it is real.
I'm not real concerned about making right what was wrong 20 years ago. I had plenty of oportunity to sue or protest or do something back then. I decided, instead, to not give the muthuh fuckuhs another minute of my life. I regret that now. I could have used the money as much as the credibility among family and strangers that I might have had if I had won. And I have to wonder whether I might have been able to help save some people all the trouble, so I guess I owe you and your family an apology. Of course, on the heels of that I have to wonder if I had the strength at the time to do anything but grab my ass and run; I might have just broke myself on it and accomplished nothing.
For me, this is all about the present. I enjoy raising hell in a very public way. On a personal level, I need to know the odds on whethter or not the cop in my rear-view mirror or the talking head on tee vee is a true believer; I know that many are not but they're not talking. How come? What might I do to make it more practical for them to speak up? My dad raised me to be extremely patriotic. That means that I'm responsible to get done whatever I think needs doing. Anyone who's skeptical, good. A little skepticism a little earlier on would have saved us all a lot of trouble! If you're disinclined to even think about all this, that's cool too. I know you won't go along with the Program in whatever form, I'm seeking to influence those who otherwise might.
