Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

That much is understood.  There are laws protecting information, though, that would have lent some semblance of protection to certain information in certain situations.  The new law bypasses all of that. The government can now do whatever they want.  It is a difference even if the information was never too secure to begin with.

I wanted to thank everyone who has contributed to TBFight.com over these last few years and helped spread a little more awareness about these issues.
It has recently come to my attention that Tranquility Bay is closing (hopefully this will end up being true); therefore I'm not quite sure what to do with the site anymore.  The people who have visited and contributed to the site have made it what it is.  It's been a great resource for the last few years and a lot of time and thought has been put into it by many different former enrollees, parents and the general public.  
So, I'm asking the same people who have made it what it is to help me decide the future of it.  A few ideas I have:
1) Archive it
2) Continue to operate but mainly as a resource for former students to get in touch with each other.
3) Merge it with another site like anti-wwasp or cafety or fornits or the like.
4) Discontinue its existence.

I'm here asking for ideas. Thanks in advance! It's been a great experience.

Ok so I initially found a site which linked this animation/movie to the creator reading the Observer article.  I contacted the creator and was told that he had not read the Observer article at the point of creation, so it wasn't necessarily directed as a reflection on the article.  I couldn't really get past the similarities though (only some of which I mention in the post to follow), and so it was decided to post about the piece anyway.  Aleksander Wasilewski, author, also told me that he did read the Observer article a bit after making "Smile!," and made a print about it, aptly named Tranquility.

Alek agreed that "Smile!" was very appropriate in the context of Tranquility Bay, and therefore I'll share with everyone else what went through my mind while watching it (or at the very least some of the striking similarities I saw).

I hope others find it as striking as I have, and please do post about what you thought.


----Original Post-----
This is an animation apparently made after the creator read the Observer article.<=False! =/ It illustrates the coercive practices used in the Tranquility Bay program and most WWASPS related programs.  Highlighted is the use of a student's peers to be the facilitator of what is permissible and not.  The Observer article states:

...they are employed for three days a week as a member of staff, and must discipline other students by issuing 'consequences'.

Every time a member of staff or upper-level student feels a student has broken a rule, they 'consequence' them by deducting points. Rule-breaking is classified into categories of offence. A 'Cat 1' offence, ie rolling your eyes, is consequenced by a modest loss of points. A 'Cat 3' offence, eg swearing, costs a significant number, and may drop the student's score beneath their current level's threshold, thus demoting them and removing privileges.

And again, in part 2, the article describes peers punishing each other:

Points and privileges are awarded to students who tell on each other. If you don't tell on someone for breaking a rule and get found out, you lose points. 'There is zero trust,' Scott explains. 'You can't trust anyone. It's not us against them. It's everyone against you.' Scott remembers a new boy being caught with incriminating used tissues; masturbation is strictly forbidden. 'And they got him up in front of everyone right after dinner, and the upper-level kids just ripped into him, this little 13-year-old kid. It was kind of the entertainment for the night. That's what I mean about breaking kids.'

The smile sign has a particular meaning to me because of how many days I spent there thinking about how I never smiled anymore.  The nurse actually asked me one day why I never changed my expression, apparently unaware of the screaming emanating from O.P.  Yet, we had to smile to advance.

The ending appears to be directly related to this:

Once a year, Tranquility Bay has a Fun Day. There are sports and special food; girls can braid their hair; staff are smiling. And there is music. Ceaseless, bass-heavy, deafening music. It sends the teenagers out of their minds. They can't stop dancing. Everywhere, students are dancing, demented with fever, as if a switch has been thrown and a surge of energy unleashed through the grounds.

It's absolutely true. Fun Day - A.K.A. the day parents and reporters arrived.  Nobody was going to give up the chance to drink a soda (albeit generic), eat a piece of chicken (or something faintly resembling what we know as chicken), and play sports all day.  It was fun.  Everyone knew though, the next day was going to be back to exactly how it was before.  But bring in music, and you couldn't get away from it. Music put everything in its proper place.  Emotions aligned themselves perfectly to the rhythm, and you felt better even if nothing changed. The only sounds we usually heard were the other kids screaming from O.P., or the staff yelling for everyone to get in line. You could hear the waves crashing and we talked to each other intermittently in secret and in group. But other than that, it was really only 'emotional growth' tapes while we ate.  98 percent of the time we weren't allowed to talk, so hearing music, nearly any music, well it definitely affected you. This animation shows the student's peers doing something a bit vulgar at the end in response to the music.  I did not see that happen while I was there, but I understand the point being made.

The animation is extreme, but to many of us who were there it represents the dark mental state that transpires. The pain, the pressure to conform, the absurdity of it all is portrayed rather well here... in my opinion

Go HERE to view it.

This was taken from: http://www.werehouse.net/
Please visit the site for more work done by Alexsander Wasilewski

Federal would interfere with state sovrienty- would never happen... but a state to state effort to that end wouldn't be a bad idea, IMHO

True...Since it might be inconceivable, though, to expect all states to adopt such a resolution... I think maybe a combination of regulation that states something along the lines of George Miller's EICA Act of 05 (i.e. The state receiving the child must hold true to the standards of the state the child is being received from) and a good number of individual states passing age of consent similar to Washington would work well in conjunction with each other.

Also, I do suggest reading the link Kat posted up a few posts back... It has Dr. Charley Huffine explaining his position very well.

I believe if you look at what he says, it does hold true to what I am advocating.

Quote from: ""chaking""

So, in your view a federal law needs to be enacted granting a younger age of consent? That would be the only way I can see to actually allow a person under 18 to have the right to defy their parent's wishes in terms of placement.
That, though, could lead to a world of problems. Not the least of which would be deciding when a kid can actually make rational decisions for themselves.  When I was sent away, would I have checked myself into a center or not? Probably not. Did I need some help. Probably.

I think the age of consent needs to be lowered, personally- within certain contstraints of course.   It doesn't have to be all or nothing.  Defying parents if they are irrational is not a bad thing... each person needs to be asses differently. I'm against institutionalization period, unless the person is a threat.


I agree with Charley on this one.  - you say, would i have checked myself in and respond 'no'...well, at a certain point you have some rational sense, talking would have helped... but no one changes by force... and if they do, it's only superficial until the external regimine is removed.  


http://cafety.org/index.php?option=com_ ... &Itemid=35

I don't have enough information to say whether the age of consent should be lowered or not.  I do think that would be much more difficult to persuade people of, than regulating the industry as a whole. Although I've heard Washington State does have a good model for age of consent (something like 14?)... So it might be worth checking out. But on a federal level, that might be a very hard proposition to pass.

And as for forced therapy. Obviously that doesn't work. But I do believe there is a need to seperate people who are dangers to themselves (in reality, not the alleged 'he will die otherwise' crap), and those who are physically addicted to substances.  They need separation for a time so that they may regain some "free will" and not "addicted will"...

Quote

I don't think it is feasible to try and take away the right of a parent to decide what is best for their child.

Then you'll always have greedy business men ready to fleece these parents of their cash, and provide substandard care for the kids. You will always have selfish, self absorbed parents who send their kid away for smoking pot and ditching school and don't feel like dealing with it anymore. Coercive treatment breeds violence, and so long as it exists there is no solution.

Yes, you are right. But not because of what i said. You will always have greedy buisnessmen trying to get everyone's money in a capitalistic society, period.  There is no easy way around that. How do you deal with that? Regulation.

I wouldn't mind hearing what exactly the alternatives are?