Karen, you ask a lot of questions and I could probably go on for hours and hours trying to answer some of them. But I'll do my best to hit the big points and leave it at that.
On 2003-08-23 09:32:00, KarenZ wrote:
"I'd like to talk about Straight.
I had never herd of it until I got involved with looking into WASP.
As bad as I think WASP is, this Straight bunch sounds many many times worse.
I'm not sure that's the case. It's only been around for a couple of years, after all, and Straight (under that corporate name) was in operation from `76 - `93. I think there's a lot yet to come out about WWASP.
I have tried to look into what is going on now -and have been confused.
Are they still operating anywhere under any name as a teen program?
Yes! SAFE, Orlando; Pathway Family Centers in Detroit and Salt Lake City; Kids Helping Kids in Lake Worth, Florida.
Were are the people who owned and operated this program now?
Melvin Sembler is currently Ambasador to Italy. Under Bush I, he was Ambasador to Australia. During all three Bush campaigns, Melvin was Finance Chairman for the Republican Party. His wife, Betty, was on the finance board for Brother Jeb in Florida. Much more on all that at
http://fornits.com/anonanon/Early on, around the early `80's, they split off their treatment programs from their fund-raising/recruiting arm. This they named Straight Foundation and then renamed it Drug Free America Foundation. They are still in operation, offering zero tolerance drug free ____ programs, drug testing kits and referal services back to their Synanon based treatment programs. At one point, they tried to pass federal legislation limiting funding for juvenile treatment to only Synaonon based programs.
http://fornits.com/anonanon/drug-free-a ... l-2001.htmAdditionally, Bill Oliver, former Straight exec director, wrote the Peer Counceling program used in many public schools today. Essentially, it amounts to training a group of students to supervise other students in very much the same way fifth phasers do in group.
DFAF members are active in trade organizations like Drug and Alcohol Testing Industries Association, Institute for Global Drug Policy, Drug Prevention Network of the Americas (
http://www.gdpn.org/dpna/events/events.htm ), Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Taskforce Training (militarization of civil police agencies) and D.A.R.E.
In essence, they're everywhere your kids are, just as they said they'd be 30 years ago.
Why can't straight survivors have them charged with assault and battery?
Same reason it's so hard for former WWASP students to take legal action against them. The program people have judges, educators, law enforcement people and others in their pockets. Those TOUGHLOVE therapy groups pull double duty as a powerful lobbying and fundraising arm. But for most, by the time you regain your balance, get back on your feet and start to fathom what's happened to you, the statute of limitations has expired. Even if you realize it right away, it's just your word against everyone else still in group, on staff and the parents' group. (that's one reason why every single program has such stiff prohibitions against association with former clients not in good standing)
It turns my stomach to read this stuff. Its really horrible beyond belief - thats why you arent' believed by people who weren't there - its just so unbelievable this could go on!
It seems to me there ought to be some way to prosecute these sadist who operate these programs. I can't get over how hard it is to bring them to justice. This has GOT to change.
I gather Straight also used thought control on the parents - apparently at least as effective as what WWASP uses - but how did they manage it in Straight?
Essentially the same way they do in WWASP. They get you convinced that, unless you follow without question every directive, no matter how strange, your child will die.
How did they manage visits and phone calls and letters?
That's just a little different from WWASP. Under the host homes model (as opposed to boarding school, wilderness or whatever) the kids are housed by the families further along in the program. Newcomer parents attend weekly or twice weekly open meetings where parents and kids sit in chairs accross from eachother, but are not allowed to make eye contact with their kid or communicate with them till they earn talk priviledges, and then it's a supervised talk in the same room with other kids/parents who've earned talk. Newcomer parents are not allowed to know which oldcomer home their kid is living in at any given time and, as with all of these programs, absolutely no contact with the outside world is permitted by phone, tv, newspaper, written letters or otherwise.
I wonder why the mental health agencies; Public health agencies, aren't all over this - weren't all over this, demanding it stop!!
In some places, they were. The mental health agencies in Miami gave The Seed the bum's rush. In Broward, they already had a few in their pocket. In St. Pete, the game was over before it had begun with Mel Sembler and Mark Vines (chiefe of police) already being Program parents.
I still can't get over the fact this kind of thing can take place, and the perps not end up in prison.
That's the nature of religious fanaticism that is the War On (people who use certain unpatentable) drugs.
However, Miller Newton is probably pretty close to finally ending up in jail. He's still got a core cult following, but he just got hit for another $4.5 mil, I think the figure was, in civil court. See
http://thestraights.com/
I mean, just think - Say I took in a foster kid, and she turned out to be a little hellion; and I delt with it by stringing her up from the ceiling and encouraged the other kids to hit her with a broom - They'd lock me up and trow away the key - and rightly so.
Only if they believed her. If the chief of police, Republican finance chair, 150 kids, all their parents and all the rest showed up for hearings and called her a liar and you a saint, you'd get away with it just like a Catholic priest.
What ever exist in law, that allows programs like WWASP and Straight to exist, must be changed.
NOTHING!!!! Not in official statute and certainly nothing in the Constitution authorizes anyone to do these things to kids or anyone else. If there's one thing that offers cover for these sadistic lunatics, it's the myth that "kids taday" are evil, dangerous monsters out to destroy the world. It's bullshit, of course. Kids today want just what they've always wanted down through the ages; to become competent, capable and successful adults. There are only differences of opinion in what that means and how to go about it. WWASP and programs like it feed on delusional parents who turn a blind eye to what kids today have to deal with and who insist on holding them to a standard of behavior that
might work for Beaver Cleaver.
Has anyone ever staged a march on Washington? That might be worth considering.
"
I don't know. We did protest the DATIA conference along with half a dozen other groups. It was fun, but I don't think we really accomplished very much. What we need is for consumers to inform themselves about these racketeers and to demand of our representatives that they and their dollars be banned from DC. People need to understand that all of these programs are modeled after Synanon, which became a dangerous cult; that they're very similar in operation to Scientology and that they are BAD medicine!
Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1840300051/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'> William Cowper, a British Christian poet & hymn writer (18th century)
