Cedu as Prison and work-camp/Gulag; REBELLION - impossible?

[Anonymous]

Cedu was not a prison:

"It was a place full of love, and sure there were some hard times, but, I learned important lessons there."


Cedu was a prison:

The place was a prison, quite literally. There was no liberty to speak, read, listen to, sing, or talk about - or think about - most topics of natural interest and importance to teens in an school setting. There was no liberty of movement. There was only the small illusion of liberty, in the tiny spaces where it could be stolen -

* Smushing stood in for age-appropriate intimacy, and dating (it also stood in for sex, for the true pedophiles on staff, who cuddled gleefully with the teens)

* Raps stood in for appropriate therapy - but it was a psychotic, highly destructive, invasive and self-annihilating form of public torture and, frankly, mind-control (Raps actually were the center, the vortex of the Cedu control process, that created both the intense fear, and the massive, undirected cathartic release - adn then build-up to the next, the next, the next - Raps were, entirely, discipline, and control of the student population).

* Propheets stood for *magic*. Magic cedu growth and development. They took the place of actual, normative, age-appropriate academic and personal growth and achievement. They were charades of misappropriated cultural detritus, mixed and matched with more raps, more shame, humiliation, control, abuse, and maybe (maybe not) catharsis. They were supposed to be *magic* and took the place of actual achievement.

But strip away these very hollow pillars, and what is Cedu?

It was a prison, where students did physical labor all the time, day and night. This redirects the Cedu schools into a different category - GULags, work-camps, prisoner-of-war camps.

Could you leave? Is it appropriate then to use the term "prisoner?" I think it's absolutely correct. What was the punishment for leaving? A week in the box, like in the 'great escape?" More or less. More, very often.

But, add the Cedu *magic*, the runny dribbly nosed squealing and screaming, crying and puking, and suddenly it's.. "all the love in the room."

"All the love in the room." That's a phrase used so often at the place. "Can you feel all the love in the room?"

Holy Shit! We were suckered, sucked in, because... because... because we were teens, with little to no understanding of law, of civil rights, and most or many of us came from places that had already accustomed us to some real abuse. I speak personally here, and say it was so for me.



REBELLION.

Why was rebellion at Cedu so hard to achieve? It is my remaining Cedu dream, or nightmare, that I am there, fully aware of who I am and what Cedu is, and that I cannot, cannot, cannot raise the students, or several students, to leave, to protest, to strike back against the brutality - to temporarily incapacitate a more abusive staff member, and then to call media, television, authorities, and pull attention to the place, and the practices of the mad-hatter staff.

That is the nightmare - that I cannot find a quiet moment, a secret moment, with any student, to tell them (whispering) "this is a cult".

"What?"

"This is a CULT. This is not right. We are being abused. We must get enough of us together to refuse to participate, to liberate the phone, to call out to law enforcement, to civil services, to KTLA NEWS, for Christ's sake."

Can you imagine the look of sheet-white translucent fear and confusion on the face of a programmed Cedu student, when hearing these words from a peer?

"I have to go COP-OUT!!!"


That's the expected response.

[dishdutyfugitive]

That's a pleasant thought.

If we'd have lined up single file and just marched our asses down the road - every single one of us at once.

Had they tried to physically stop us it would have been assault. And when the cops showed up we could have said, "we, the entire student body have a little secret to let you in on. The place is assbackwards, it's run by whack jobs and they're violating a handful of laws and fundamental human rights. We request a public defender and demand a formal investigation immediately".

[Anonymous]

I have thought about these scenarios at length, and, in the editing of the doc, often.

I have come to the conclusion that the greatest pain surrounding the place comes from the cognitive dissonance between what we experienced - GULag + cedu *magic* bullshit - and what we were told "hopes hang high, dreams never die, love, inner child, me, smush, cuddle with perverts" puke, barf, etc.

The reality that underlies the fear-dreams that 'Castle' was describing on a previous thread is that we were not permitted to simply name the place for what it was:

Prison. A prison.

If we'd been able to do this, we might have been able to grapple with the notion of 'rights' - ("even prisoners have rights!" somebody would have decided).
'
But, under the rubric and weight of the many thousand emotional manipulations, lies, confusions, misdirections, rules, "agreements raps, bans, smushes, contracts," etc, we were managed, flummoxed, betrayed, manipulated, squeezed into a tiny bit of anti-intellectual space that actively forbade us from seeing reality -

"We are in prison on a mountaintop with perverts and drug addicts. I am calling the police. I will not listen to these people. I am calling the news networks. I will scream bloody murder or defend myself in any and every way possible if they try to put me in a box, stuff me into a table, or take away my civil rights."

That, that would have been the correct, liberty-loving, human response.

[i]But, that's the beauty of doing this to children [/i]- to abused children, isn't it? You can strip them naked - literally - this was done to me three times - and figuratively -all rights of a US citizen removed, by one Guy Bonanno, Rudy Bentz, Doug Kim Brown, Mel Wasserman, Jim Johnson, Laurie Saunders, Jill Bentz, Pam Abell, Bill Valentine, Martin Wiens, Bruce Boslough, Steve Laird, Donna Dillman, Patrick Stambusky, by one

Charles E. Dederich? By anyone who grossly irresponsible parents are willing to allocate their parental duties, and their children's rights to...

But, that would've been the correct response. And it would be still, today, in the places where this is happening. This issue needs media attention, without a doubt.

[Anonymous]

most cults,it has been my observation,tend to play "divide and conquer" amongst the members.This is how the cult "leadership" keeps its power,if the members are all worried about being turned in by other members(or ,fighting amongst themselves) then a "plot" or a unified front of opposition,has no power.
 Since we are close to an election, I will advance this idea one step furthur. The multi party system,special intrest groups,and the divergence of ideas within our own population,not to mention religion,race,gender,and a laundry list of other factors,will always preclude a unifeid front DEMANDING any real accountability from our leadership.So change? Not really. Is our government a cult? Again, not really,but by default this is how america works against itself,by a sort of "back door " version of that tactic.

[try another castle]

Cedu is not a prison. Nor is any other TBS facility.

Despite the fact that prison can be rough to the point of being deadly, prisoners have more rights than any child in a TBS. They also have one of the most valuable rights of all: autonomy.

Cedu is a cult, at that point in the cult's evolution where members are prohibited from leaving. Mind control and coercion are used to keep most people in line and complacent.


What prison do you know is like that?


And as for the facilities who use more physically punitive measures (i.e. physical torture) which are bizarre and horrifying in their own right, those places aren't prisons either. They are gulags. Same logic: prisoners have rights, gulag detainees do not.

[Anonymous]

Hi TAC,

No, I want to firmly disagree - this is the cognitive dissonance that's been the source of my particular immovable bad dreams. It was a prison. That was the function. It may have been more, it may have been a useless, half-wit religion too,

But it was, most certainly was a prison.

Mountain top. Can you leave? Can you leave? What happens if you leave?

Call the dogs, call the cops, dragged back, in the ditch, on the chain gang.

Prison.

It identifies what the program was in a way that some part, some big and deep landform in myself was always kept in shadow -

what is this place? what is it? Oh, 'it's not a prison! we can leave! we can walk! we can... '

No, no, we couldn't! I did, twice, and was put on the chain gang of one, over and over. It was a prison. A cult is a kind of prison, but a mountaintop isolated cult, enforced by the LOCAL POLICE against the liberty of MINORS  - prison. Prison, prison.

I'll tell you, it's a bloody catharsis, this, for me. I bloody well finally understand why the place was so hard to leave - it wasn't because I bloody liked it there. It was because it was a bloody prison, and no one in the world would offer me protection against the guards - so I had to stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay...
'
count until you hit 2 years, 3 months and 10 days, of every waking hour and minute, day, and week, and hour and day, and hour and week, and week and two week and three weeks, and maybe a month - and indefinites, and bans, and another week, and dishes, and minutes, and scrubbing and digging and weeks adn days and hours and the hours...thet hours...

the bloody hours in raps. The bloody creeping, petty minutes... .tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.... and tomorrow... and always dreaming of it, and never being able to think of it. Because it was in the minutes, the creeping, petty minutes.

And so you count, and cannot leave, and must swallow and swallow and swallow the bullshit, the liquid, putrefying bullshit.

I wondered why I stayed there, and why I felt so bloody out of my mind when I was there. And it was because it was a PRISON, and I couldn't even allow myself the thought that I could even ENTERTAIN the thought of running, after running twice, and doing a third table/isolation/gulag/work detail/wall-building/shit-pushing/ditch-digging punishment.

So, I just forced, by strength of madness and bent and cracking will, to forget tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and my bastard mother, and my bastard father, two useless assholes for sending me to this useless place, for little to nothing... (I will tell the story another time, in sum, my mother's habit was to send away her troubles, and anything that demanded her to be a responsible adult was a 'trouble')...

And so... it was a prison, most certainly. Most definitely, and without a doubt.

And the pent-up rage and wish to escape the place that I feel in my chest and throat and back, to this day - even though I am long escaped - are the rage I wasn't allowing myself to even know I felt.

I think I ran my anger in every rap. I think I always said the same thing - I want to leave, I want to have sex, I want to have a normal life, I want to have a girlfriend, I want to listen to music, I want to do the things I want to do.

Bu† after a time, I think I wore callouses over the words, because I swear I don't know if I meant them anymore, or... or I was just saying them to... because..that's what I said in raps, and that made the minutes go by. And that made the minutes go by.. And that made the minutes go by.

Prison is a punishment, especially for no crime committed, but having the misfortune to trust truly wicked, useless people, such as were, too often, the adults who surrounded me in my growing up.

End soliloquy.

bests,

Liam

[Awake]

Cognitive Dissonance
This is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.
Dissonance increases with:
•   The importance of the subject to us.
•   How strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict.
•   Our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict.
Dissonance is often strong when we believe something about ourselves and then do something against that belief. If I believe I am good but do something bad, then the discomfort I feel as a result is cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is a very powerful motivator which will often lead us to change one or other of the conflicting belief or action. The discomfort often feels like a tension between the two opposing thoughts. To release the tension we can take one of three actions:
•   Change our behavior.
•   Justify our behavior by changing the conflicting cognition.
•   Justify our behavior by adding new cognitions.
Dissonance is most powerful when it is about our self-image. Feelings of foolishness, immorality and so on (including internal projections during decision-making) are dissonance in action.
If an action has been completed and cannot be undone, then the after-the-fact dissonance compels us to change our beliefs. If beliefs are moved, then the dissonance appears during decision-making, forcing us to take actions we would not have taken before.
Cognitive dissonance appears in virtually all evaluations and decisions and is the central mechanism by which we experience new differences in the world. When we see other people behave differently to our images of them, when we hold any conflicting thoughts, we experience dissonance.
Dissonance increases with the importance and impact of the decision, along with the difficulty of reversing it. Discomfort about making the wrong choice of car is bigger than when choosing a lamp.
Research
Festinger first developed this theory in the 1950s to explain how members of a cult who were persuaded by their leader, a certain Mrs Keech, that the earth was going to be destroyed on 21st December and that they alone were going to be rescued by aliens, actually increased their commitment to the cult when this did not happen (Festinger himself had infiltrated the cult, and would have been very surprised to meet little green men). The dissonance of the thought of being so stupid was so great that instead they revised their beliefs to meet with obvious facts: that the aliens had, through their concern for the cult, saved the world instead.
In a more mundane experiment, Festinger and Carlsmith got students to lie about a boring task. Those who were paid $1 felt uncomfortable lying.
Example
Smokers find all kinds of reasons to explain away their unhealthy habit. The alternative is to feel a great deal of dissonance.
So what?
Using it
Cognitive dissonance is central to many forms of persuasion to change beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviors. The tension can be injected suddenly or allowed to build up over time. People can be moved in many small jumps or one large one.
Defending
When you start feeling uncomfortable, stop and see if you can find the inner conflict. Then notice how that came about. If it was somebody else who put that conflict there, you can decide not to play any more with them.

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological state that describes the uncomfortable feeling when a person begins to understand that something the person believes to be true is, in fact, not true. Similar to ambivalence, the term cognitive dissonance describes conflicting thoughts or beliefs (cognitions) that occur at the same time, or when engaged in behaviors that conflict with one's beliefs. In academic literature, the term refers to attempts to reduce the discomfort of conflicting thoughts, by performing actions that are opposite to one's beliefs.

.... I think I recognize that feeling.

[dishdutyfugitive]

I think tac was simply trying to point out that one is primarily a physical restraint and the other is a mental/emotional restraint.

Granted prison has it's share of mental/emotional restraints

but CEDU did not have bars.

Yes, cedu did have geographic isolation but it did not have steel bars.

[try another castle]

Well, my whole point about this was that prison is a fixture within mainstream society, and is run by the state. As such, they have the responsibility to ensure that prisoners are granted basic human rights. (This doesn't mean it always happens.)

However, TBSes have no obligation to adhere to such standards, as it is a private industry (although that's changing). Its practices are secret, and there are gross human rights violations. The entire industry is built on coercion where the autonomy of the individual is compromised.

If I'm reading you right, it sounds like you might be speaking more about the physical aspects of prison in terms of remote location and inability to escape. I was speaking more towards the infrastructure and contrast in rights violations between the two facilities. I do agree that there are commonalities, I just feel that comparing it to a prison is being a bit generous.

[iamartsy]

Stupid question, but what is the box?

I was in a hospital based facility that was more secure than a prison. You would go through one locked door into a cubicle, and then into another locked door. Then you were on the unit. You spent most of your day there, indoors, with no view of the outside except this enclosed patio thing. It was a high priced prison.

Really though, in all other ways it was the same BS different place. I was always in trouble for "isolating". When I stopped isolating, I was put on a ban from touching because I am a lesbian and it was an all female unit. To this day I have intimacy issues. I was not allowed alone time in my room, no time to sit and write and especially not about myself. I could write about others, though. Even after I noticed that "staff" never asked to see my writing, I still would not go back to writing about whatever I felt like.

I don't think I wrote about myself again until 1 1/2 years after I left. I was sitting in class one day, and just started writing. A professor pissed me off, and it reminded me of the hospital. All the sudden I filled up two notebook pages with a diatribe on freedom of speech and how I lost that in the hospital, only it was more metaphorical. It became the central art piece in my senior art show just before I graduated.

[Anonymous]

I understood/stand TAC's point - Prison is a better-regulated, more transparent, and more civil-right granting institution in the US than the various child cult work-camp programs.

TAC's point that a state prison has better oversight is sometimes true - state prisons have been the sites of some of the worst human rights abuses - but they generally do have greater transparency and better adherence to law.


But it was a prison, and did have bars. That's the lie they told us, to persuade us that we weren't incarcerated - that's the big lie, and the big joke. "You can always leave! There are no bars on these windows!"

You could never leave, unless they told you so, then you walked where they told you to walk, and did what they told you to do, or the punishment would be severe, long-lasting, demeaning, physically punishing, publicly humiliating.

It was a prison, it had bars. That's the trick - they got you to believe that it was something other than what it was.

Think about it. If they had told you, "This is a prison, you cannot leave, or we will violently punish you," then you would have seen the bars. They existed everywhere that you were not supposed to go.

But they told you/us the opposite - even though what I just described was true. This is a change in the understanding of these places, that I think makes it much simpler to understand.

We were put into prison by our parents, though the vast majority of us had committed no crime, no legal infraction.

They created a fiction that played havoc in our minds - in mine, at least. I struggled against the absolutely false notion that I was no a captive. I was a captive prisoner, but I was told that I wasn't, but my life there was that of a captive prisoner, servant or slave to someone else's bizarre and insane idea of how life should be lived.

If I could have left, I would have. But I was not able to, because it was a prison, and though I 'busted out of jail' a couple of times, I was not able to figure out how to get out permanently.

The one option I did not exercise was to seek out a greater authority, either law or media (tv news, investigators), which might have done something  about the conditions of my incarceration, but maybe not the fact of it.

Prison. If they had told us - "This is a prison, you cannot leave," then we would not be having any discussion about 'bars' or 'no bars on windows.' We would have seen them everywhere they, for all practical purposes, existed.

[Anonymous]

I have to say this,unless you personally have been to both prison AND a program,and I have, as well as two stints in "mental health " hospitals,your thinking is   well, skewed. The upside of prison is this,If you really want to stop listening to peoples psychobabble,all you gotta do is get yourself placed into ad-seg. Administrative segrigation is way better IMO than population.Ad-seg gets the same food,mail,and access to reading materials,however you do your time alone.I am the kind of asshole who can.....easily. As for doing outside manual labor,what would I rather do listen to some halfwit piss and moan or dig a ditch? No contest for me.I grew up on a farm . My Dad (the hands down better of my two parents) used to work the hell out of us boys.I became strong.I was never some spoiled layabout.It was always the babbling of Idiots that got to me.Some shit for brains leading a ship of fools.Prison is prison. A program is in many ways worse.Mental health is lame as hell too.A bad C.O. is better than a good staff member.
    The "therapy" end of my program was a joke,nonsense all goddamn day,give me silence anyday.   I always wanted to stand up in group and scream "SHUT THE FUCK UP" in a voice so loud it would peel the paint off the walls.IMO the real torturous end of programs is the "therapy".Staff probably would say in their best dime-store way that "I was avoiding myself". Now what kind of bullshit is that ? I live with me 24/7x365. Fucking touchy-feely hippy shit.I learned more about myself in a 90 day ad-seg than in 20 months of "program". BELIEVE IT.

[try another castle]

I take it back. I actually don't think cedu is like a prison or a cult.

I think it's kinda more like a pineapple.

[dishdutyfugitive]

Me thinks twas sortof an upside down bundt cake

[try another castle]

No. Tranquility Bay is bundt cake.

But I think there's pineapple in both of them. Or at least, I know there's some in the pineapple.


I was there, man. I saw it all motherfuckin' go down.