Art, this is a touchy ethical issue for me. I disaprove of ppl trying to manipulate others into some action or adversity w/ guilt or fear. I know I've come accross that way in the past and I regret it. It was never my intent. My only intention in this has ever been to inform.
I could cite all kinds of material to support my argument. And I often do. But most of the evidence is stuff we all know already. We just don't necessarily connect the dots.
Here's the problem as I see it, with heavy emphasis on the personalities and organizations I've been most familiar with.
First, Elan is not unique. Ok, every place and time and personal experience
is unique in ways. But that's not what I'm talking about. Elan is just one of hundreds of therapeutic boarding schools using the confrontation therapeutic community treatment model.
Essentially, I see these facilities as a very agressive implimentation of the standard trend, over the past 150 years, to institutionalize the tasks once left to the private domain of families and communities. The kids who wind up in these intense facilities, whether private or public, overtly religious or not, w or w/o judicial coercion, are the ones who have resisted whatever the broader system has in mind for them. They may have been labeled ADD, ADHD, ODD or whatever and they stubornly refuse to accept the judgement that they are flawed and that whatever the adults want them to do or want to do to them, that they should comply.
Look at what we, as a society, are asking them to accept. Goose Creek is emblematic of the problem. ( current news on Goose Creek
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&editi ... oose+creek )
Between zero tolerance, rampant piss testing, the media frenzy over juvenile violence and debauchery (none of which is supported by crime stats), kids today have to walk a far narrower path in order to keep their "pretty good kid" standing. That, I believe, is the primary reason why the troubled parent and forced treatment industries are growing so fast. It's not that kids are getting more insane. It's that we're labeling more of them as 'in need of service' or 'underserved' or 'possible gang affiliate' or... or... the list goes on.
Then there are specific efforts on the part of organizations (the ones who's names I know) like Drug Free America Foundation and Partnership for a Drug Free America (two sides of the same coin, those), Drug and Alcohol Testing Industries Association, Global Institute on Drug Abuse, Drug Policy Network of the Americas which I know to be closely tied with the Seed/Straight line of the troubled parent industry and who are extremely influential in matters of domestic and foreign policy. I know their philosophy, I can see manifestations of it all over the place and I want people to understand just how dangerous these people are.
It's very quickly getting to the point where any deviation from authorized views and activities is equated with potential terrorist involvement. Check out the RAVE Act that was tacked on as a rider to the Amber Act
http://www.mapinc.org/raves.htmIt is now illegal, under felony penalties, for a concert promoter or venue owner to organize or host a concert where anyone in the audience
might be expected to have some illegal drugs on them.
I know, it's a long walk from there to Elan. But it is related if you look at Elan, not as a singular, isolated cult, but as a part of the troubled parent industry that it is.
Exposing these groups always causes some pain and trouble for the people involved. But remaining silent about them, in my opinion, causes more pain and more trouble for more people.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
--Friedrich Nietzsche
