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Messages - Jeff_Berryman

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31
Open Free for All / Please Help Christopher Pittman, 15
« on: February 22, 2005, 10:41:00 AM »
Quote
Sorry.  I am the mom to 2 grown boys, and I really really wanted to believe that this boy was really messed up on Zoloft---but sometimes we just have to accept it:  Sometimes there really are just some bad ones out there.



This kid killed his grandparents.  Burned down the house to cover it up.  Drove away from the scene in a car.  All this at age 12.



And he was "upset"....just didn't want to obey.



Sorry:  he just has to pay the price."



Boy am I ever conflicted on this one.  In the first place, I entirely agree with the sentiments above, in principal.  But then again my late father's personality changed beyond recognition every time he changed blood pressure medication.  The one he was taking in the '60s and early seventies made him psychotic.  Later on he switched medications and became more or less bearable.

So on the other hand, the medication defense is not all that implausible to me.  I'm going to have to think long and hard about whether or not to sign that petition.

32
EVERYBODY should get after their own congressmen about this and have them back up Congressman Miller in pressuring the new Attorney General.  This is the first positive action we've gotten on the Federal level since the state department raided Pacific Coast Academy.  The Salt Lake Trib Article is below.  Contact info on the House of Representatives it at:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/


New push for camp regulation
At-risk teens: A Utah organization could see closer federal oversight
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune
 
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2564302
 
 
WASHINGTON - President Bush's new attorney general says the Justice Department may take a more active role in oversight of boot camp programs for troubled teens.
   The comments by Alberto Gonzales came in response to a question submitted by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Miller has been pressing the Justice Department unsuccessfully to investigate allegations of abuse at World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), a Utah-based chain of programs for at-risk teens.
   ?Mr. Gonzales' comments suggest he will be more sensitive to this serious situation than the Justice Department has been to this point,? Miller said in a statement. ?I will be watching carefully to ensure that he fulfills the commitments he has made in response to these questions.?
   In his written responses to questions during his confirmation process, Gonzales said the Justice Department would work to engage states and directors of private facilities to ensure children are protected.   If cases of inappropriate or abusive practices cannot be resolved, they may be referred to the Civil Rights or Criminal divisions at the department for action, Gonzales said.
   Previously, former Attorney General John Ashcroft had responded to Miller's inquiries by stating that the department lacked the authority to investigate abuse allegations at private facilities.
   Ken Kay, president of WWASP, said he has invited Miller's staff to visit the WWASP schools and would welcome the attorney general if he wanted to visit, but ?unnecessary government intrusion is never the answer.?
   ?I, and all our affiliates, maintain that our No. 1 concern is always for the safety of our students and children in general,? Kay said. ?I would be more than willing to be part of any fact finding committee with members of the [attorney general's] staff.?
   There are seven schools in the WWASP network, including three in Utah.
   One of WWASP's facilities, Majestic Ranch in northern Utah, was investigated by state officials three times last year, resulting in one conviction.   Others have been shut down, including Casa By The Sea, which was closed by Mexican authorities last September.
   Last week, a committee in the Utah Legislature approved a bill sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, that would toughen state regulation of the schools.
   WWASP founder Robert Lichfield, his family and business partners have given more than $1 million to politicians in the last two election cycles, including hundreds of thousands to Utah officeholders and candidates.

33
The Troubled Teen Industry / TEEN REHAB: AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
« on: January 18, 2005, 04:34:00 PM »
The fact that Montel would run a Promo for PURE is a strong indication that you've all misjudged Sue Scheff.  Montel would have checked her out thoroughly before doing any such thing.  Sue's detractors consist of the pro-WWASP crowd, and a handful of people with so much emotional baggage that I feel more pity than anger.  She's one of the heros of this cause and it's time some of you realized it.

34
Straight, Inc. and Derivatives / Montel Show
« on: January 18, 2005, 11:21:00 AM »
The stuff on Straight was so intense I had to leave the room for a while.  My blood pressure was getting so high I thought I'd have a stroke.  This is the best and longest expose yet.  I think we may have passed a major turning point here.  I wonder how many kids will get pulled out of programs over this?

35
Tacitus' Realm / Tsumani Conspiracy
« on: January 11, 2005, 10:25:00 AM »
I have seen more ludicrous conspiracy theories, but I can't remember when.

36
You look upon psychiatry as enthroning religious prejudices in technical language.  I see it the other way entirely.  Freud advanced a necessary and revolutionary concept - psychiatry will not pass moral judgements.  That made it possible to look objectively at such things as - say - homosexuality.  That made it possible for a deadly sin to evolve into an alternate lifestyle, to the point that one of the Protestant sects just appointed a gay Bishop.  That one change of viewpoint was one of the factors that has destroyed the political power of organized religion in the Western World.  (Our Bill of Rights was another.)  It's one of the things that the Islamic world is deathly afraid of, which is one of the reasons they finance terrorists.  

There is, however, a horrible flip side to Freud's revolutionary concept.  When you decline to pass moral judgements, you can rationalize ANYTHING.  (Kind of like "There is no right or wrong, only working and non-working.)  

When Hitler came to power in Germany, the German psychiatric community fell in behind him gladly.  They had hospitals and institutions full of the mentally ill and mentally retarded that they could not help.  Hitler's proposal to exterminate the lot of them was just the ticket, and they did so with grat enthusiasm.  The gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz were modeled after smaller versions built in German mental hospitals years earlier.  (My Russian professor at school claimed that as recently as the 1980s, the law in East Germany required that Downs Syndrome babies be euthanized at birth.)  

When Brezhenev came into power in the Soviet Union, mass extermination of suspected non-believers had become politically unworkable.  His solution was to throw dissidents into mental hospitals where they were tortured with drugs and other "therapies."  Once again, there was no moral compass to prevent it.  The Soviet Psychiatric community became a tool of the oppressors.  

You are right that a lot of prejudices have found their way into psychiatry, but they did so through the social attitudes of the shrinks.  Religion had little or no direct role in my view.  

Whenever a group of people - an army, a police force, or the staff of a "behavior modification" school, decides that it is not answerable to any moral compass but its own, awful things can happen.  Guys who started out as decent human beings can end up pouring cyanide into the "showers" and thinking it's OK because they're following orders.  

The guys who carried out Stalin's purges were not inhuman monsters, or even raving fanatics.  I knew their ideological descendents and they seemed a fairly decent bunch.  The ones I talked to seemed fairly rational.  The fanaticism and inhumanity was built into the system and anyone who made himself part of the system bought into it automatically.

37
The Troubled Teen Industry / Desisto School
« on: October 22, 2004, 09:51:00 AM »
I used to drive past the Florida location years ago, and the locals were terrified of it.  They were under the impression that every kid there had committed at least one murder and all would be adjudged insane on their 21st birthdays and sent on to state mental hospitals.  That pretty well assured that any runaways would get no help or sympathy from the local community, or local police or social service agencies.  I can't help but wonder if those rumors were spread deliberately.    [ This Message was edited by: Jeff_Berryman on 2004-10-22 18:05 ]

38
The Troubled Teen Industry / turn on the HISTORY CHANNEL
« on: October 22, 2004, 09:36:00 AM »
One thing is certain:  When you make a drug illegal you make it scarce.  When you make it scarce you make it expensive.  Addicts needing to finance their habit push the drug and create new addicts.  That makes providing the drug very profitable.  Good old free enterprise gets into the act to meet the demand, and the next thing you know the drug is still expensive, but abundant, there are many more addicts, and their numbers grow by leaps and bounds.

In the 1930s Britain started furnishing its junkies with heroin so they wouldn't create new junkies.  It worked, and they got their addiction rate way down until they got an influx of opium-loving middle-easterners after WWII.

39
The Troubled Teen Industry / We need a good Attorney in Utah
« on: October 13, 2004, 12:50:00 AM »
E-mail me privately at [email protected]

40
The Troubled Teen Industry / CASA abuse
« on: October 08, 2004, 09:16:00 PM »
E-mail me privately at [email protected]

41
The Troubled Teen Industry / Timid wwasp employee speaks out
« on: September 27, 2004, 01:00:00 PM »
E-mail me privately at [email protected]

42
The Troubled Teen Industry / No Findings of Abuse
« on: September 27, 2004, 09:47:00 AM »
Quote
On 2004-09-26 20:40:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Jeff Barryman.  Since you are very involved with PURE, I assume you are not concerned about the same type of programs that PURE refers to? I've read allegations of abuse at different times in regards to the Programs that pay this referral company.  "



I'm not going to answer this posting as long as it's anonymous.  Identify yourself and maybe I'll reply.

43
The Troubled Teen Industry / No Findings of Abuse
« on: September 26, 2004, 10:10:00 PM »
Quote
On 2004-09-26 17:50:00, cherish wisdom wrote:

"Robert Lichfield is a lyer and should be excommunicated from the Mormon church for the abuse he promotes and covers for.

"


My Department Chairman at Florida State was a Mormon Bishop and Stake President, and one of the finest people I ever knew.  (You know Flanders on the Simpsons?  Think of someone who manages to be a real life version of Flanders, and yet somehow manage to be COOL at the same time.)  He later headed up the LDS Missionary effort in Moscow, and then came home with cancer and died.  I miss him very much.  I can't understand how one organization can have people like him at one extreme and people who run for-profit gulags at the other.   Maybe because Mormonism is a relatively young religion the extremes of temperment within its ranks haven't resolved themselves yet.  Maybe all religions are like this in their early days.

44
The Troubled Teen Industry / No Findings of Abuse
« on: September 26, 2004, 05:56:00 PM »
Actually Ginger, I'm not so much inviting you to ban anonymous postings as daring the anonymous pro-wwasp posters to come out of the closet.  I do them the courtesy of using my real name, why don't they?  (Program survivors are, of course, a different matter, and I said as much.)

45
The Troubled Teen Industry / No Findings of Abuse
« on: September 26, 2004, 11:21:00 AM »
More anonymous postings.  This brings back memories because I sat through three depositions with Robert Lichfield: mine, his, and Ken Kay's.  I was a co-defendant in his lawsuit against Sue Scheff.  The court threw out the case against me before it ever got to a jury.  They never HAD a case against me.  They were accusing me of unfair business compeition when I'm not in business.  

I can't help but remember that right after the deposition someone anonymously posted comments about my appearance and physical condition, information that could only have originated with someone who attended the deposition.  It's entirely possible that someone with WWASP - maybe even Lichfield or Kay - posted the above.  I don't see why Ginger even allows anonymous postings.  I've never hidden my true identity and I see no reason why anyone other than program victims should.  Anything Pro-WWASP that you see posted here needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt.  

No findings of abuse, eh?  And so far no one has convicted Michael Jackson of anything.  Does that mean that you'd let your kids do a sleepover with the gloved one?  (Actually, the way he pays off his accusers, maybe you would!)

You know, the thing that sticks out most from the depositions is a matter of body language. It was actually WWASP's lawyer who first made an issue of this, accusing me of trying to intimidate Ken Kay with body language.  It hardly seemed necessary.  I got the impression he was already shaking in his boots as it was.  (BTW, in my opinion, one of the biggest factors in my victory and Sue's was that we had - in my opinion - MUCH BETTER LAWYERS.  I don't know if this means that WWASP simply chose poorly, or that no one who was any good would take the case.)  

But it was LICHFIELD's body language that I found fascinating.  All through Kay's deposition he spent about seventy percent of the time either covering his mouth with his hand, or hiding his entire face in his hand.  I interpret that to mean - and this is only my own opinion and belief, protected under the first amendment - that there are still some big secrets that never came out in the deposition.  I interpret it to mean that it was stuff that Kay could have divulged, but our lawyers never knew the right questions to ask.  And I interpret it to mean that it is something Lichfield is deeply ashamed of and terrified will get out.  

Well, here's hoping.

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