Post by: Antibody? on August 10, 2004, 05:29:00 PM
Post by: mad on August 10, 2004, 08:41:00 PM
Is it to work to shut down the various Cedu schools and other places like them? If so, contributing to the two investigations that have been cited in this forum seems like a good start. You might also ask the investigators how you could get more involved, perhaps lobbing individuals actively to come forward with their stories of abuse and help them decide to attach their names to the narratives. The majority of posts on abuse on this site, while disturbing, are not evidence. I can also imagine that actively posting to forums for parents considering sending their kids to emotional growth schools might also have an impact. There is finesse to that tactic, but if the post was not anon and presented appropriately I can imagine that people would think twice before choosing Cedu. I have called Detective Chuck Wyatt in Twin Peaks and provided him some narrative on my experiences at RMA and my take on the program in the early 1990s. He said it was useful as background. I was very troubled by the investigation into abuse allegations that he mentioned and am disturbed by all of the posts on abuse I have read on this site. They make me sad and angry on a couple of levels, but mostly sad.
Best, M[ This Message was edited by: mad on 2004-08-10 17:43 ]
Post by: Anonymous on August 10, 2004, 11:31:00 PM
Books for parents of troubled teens....
Raising awareness is key. I think its more effectively done sometimes in entertainment than a PSA.
I know my parents genuinely thought I would get adequate schooling, be in an environment that was structured and that promoted self esteem with qualified therapists. THe only true thing was the structure. Everything else was BS.
So, while picketing and investigations, and lawsuits are one tactic, raising public awareness is another.
Post by: mikehunt on August 11, 2004, 10:03:00 AM
Post by: Anonymous on August 11, 2004, 01:30:00 PM
Rambling thoughts on closing Cedu
The Cedu schools have a considerable amount of social capital, not only from parents with wide connections and at least some wealth, but also from students that feel good about their experience. [Yes, its is annoying that some feel like they benfitted] Given that the cedu family of schools has a large amount of social capitial, the only way to erode their base is through a long term campaign. Inform, Inform is great, but really just the begining. If I had the cash and the time here's an outline what I'd do to get started:
- Start a 501 (C)(3) with the H designation [non-profit org for educational purposes, but with up to 20% of revenue going to political activity] I'd hire a kid right out of college to start organizing a base that opposes the practics of the schools. I can talk more about organizing if anyone is interested.
- I'd also start a 501(c)(4) for lobbying purposes. Lobbying in Idaho can not be that hard. And I'd work to regulate the environment that these schools exist in. For example, I'd increase the reporting burden on the schools. I'd also mandate high staffing ratios. And more .. you get the picture. I'd lobby for state funding for oversite. Additionally, I would argue for increased taxes for the schools, due to the burden of oversite needed. Since they clearly can not self-manage. [If funds allowed, I'd have a lobbist in DC, if not I'd have my (c)(3) organizer start working with groups in DC -- yes, this can be on an educational basis]
- Here's the non-traditional thing that I would do to make a difference. Bonner's Ferry Largest private employer is Cedu. As a result, there is considerable loyality to the school in the community. We are not talking a big town here. There needs to additional employment oppertunities in the community if there is an expectation that the staff will walk forward with thier story. In the last decade Bonner's Ferry has lost two of their three saw mills.
To get started with this type of campaign, one would need:
- at least $40,000
- A pro-bono attorney
- a solid starting list of people opposed [and committed to being opposed as the only issue that they are woring on]
- A wider list of people who maybe opposed to cedu schools
This is just a sketch. Many of the details would need to be hammered out and aggreed to by a core group of people with the time and the money for a long-term campaign.
Post by: Anonymous on August 11, 2004, 02:52:00 PM
Folks if it is run by Brown Schools it is abusive. Their wilderness program "On Track" was shut down after staff suffocated and killed a kid in a restraint. Then CEDU kids gang raped a girl repeatedly and the staff covered it up and broke the law by failing to report to even child protective services - let alone the sheriff. In the interests of money, they chose to keep all the other girls at the school in with rapists rather than lose that income and face their own neglegence.
I don't think any parent in his or her right mind would support such a program as that; Nor does anyone need legal advice or money to keep putting the truth out there.
We have done a hell of a great job already. Brown schools is a fraction of the size it was just three years ago. Rocky Mountain Academy is for all practical purposes Broke, On Track is gone and the only Brown program holding on in the black is the one that lies to parents the most - Boulder Creek Academy. Parents that support it deserve the hype backed by negative results that they will get. The kids don't. BCA is a joke - I used to work there. It is a Mormon Cult, substitute mental hospital. Parents: You send them there, you drug them up, and you say goodbye. Isn't that what all these rich parents are doing? They don't want the trouble of raising a teen, so they pay 160 thousand dollars to a gulag to do it for them. In this case, CEDU.
Post by: Anonymous on August 11, 2004, 03:49:00 PM
Stick to the things you can prove, no one is going to believe the schools are swimming in bestiality, hangings, gang-rapes, and whatever fantasies you come up with
Why make up things, Brown Schools are worth more than they were 3 years ago, look at the company figures, you just have to look at the figures, they're public, to see it.
Post by: bradensmith on August 11, 2004, 05:13:00 PM
Hey the bottom line about all this, is whatever decision is made on what to do to shut them down, BE RESPONSIBLE! You can use this forum to your benefit or other documents from students talking but, they cant talk about rape and all that other crap. They have to be real, well written and not so disgusting because just like somone said earlier, Who will listen? If you want to get it done, you need to have well written material, and well spoken people. Imagine, a bunch of ex-cedu students talking responsibly saying they hate the school, now that they havn't seen before. That will light a fire under the ass's of students services , and the media, or WHOEVER! that you wont believe. Good luck bring em HELL!
Post by: Anonymous on August 11, 2004, 06:12:00 PM
Post by: Son Of Serbia on August 12, 2004, 01:46:00 PM
I know that many professions (construction included) have some type of industry wide newsletter that most professionals within the community subscribe to (for example the american medical journal for doctors). Perhaps a good start for us would be to try and identify if such a newsletter for educational consultants exists, then we could compose our own article about what really goes on at cedu, and lobby the publishers to print it.
This could be a good start, and it might help at least some of these professionals realize that cedu is not the school that they claim to be.
.
[ This Message was edited by: SON OF SERBIA on 2004-08-12 10:52 ]
Post by: Anonymous on August 12, 2004, 01:49:00 PM
Post by: Anonymous on August 12, 2004, 01:51:00 PM
Post by: oh shizzle son on August 12, 2004, 03:09:00 PM
what assholes..
as we all know, there were plenty og loaded kids at CEDU meaning coming from extremely rich families which in a wya is probably why there fucked up, but im not talking about everyone because i myself come from a wealthy family and so was alot of kids i knew...so im thinking pull togethor and start a newsletter or simple pamphlet made that states simply what CEDU is and what it does..in a conservative way i suppose to get parents attention because conservative fucks tend to "do whats right as a parent" and all that shit more or less there sheep to the government as some kids were sheep to CEDU....so if anyone has marketing strategies or anything just post em up so we can get something started
oh also haha if your gonna get pissed or offended by this then dont read!
i was talking to a recent CEDU survivor and he was talking about hacking some cedu database and getting all the parents e-mails telling them the truth. however this is a horrible idea, yes i agree because it will ruin this reputation we are trying to develop here.
it would just make CEDU once again sound like the good guys, just what they want....i declined to the idea and reccomended a more presentable approach to ending CEDU's existence
Post by: oh shizzle son on August 12, 2004, 03:10:00 PM
Post by: Deborah on August 13, 2004, 11:17:00 AM
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... &forum=9&5 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=5052&forum=9&5)
You can watch the latest news segment at:
http://www.woai.com/troubleshooters/sto ... 52B79B2EC3 (http://www.woai.com/troubleshooters/story.aspx?content_id=F4B79CB0-9C47-4B37-BF9F-D452B79B2EC3)
Post by: Anonymous on August 13, 2004, 05:50:00 PM
"There are allegations of instances documented where staff are accused of having sexual contact with the kids, and other allegations where the boys were supposedly left unsupervised and were able to have sex with each other.
In another case, CPS documented that a child tried to commit suicide by downing a bottle of Ibuprofen. Then only a couple of days later he was supposedly able to get his hands on more Ibuprofen and overdosed again.
There are also findings that Woodside Trails used something called empathy therapy, where a staff member forced a boy to re-enact some sequences of a sexual attack with the boy playing the victim.
The state comptroller's office tells me that CPS investigations of these allegations were often incomplete, while other allegations were never even investigated."
Post by: spirithelps on August 13, 2004, 08:15:00 PM
I'm not gonna give up . . . As an author, I want to write about this. The whole story, from parents who aren't around, to kids that break rules and seem to have no hope, to institutions that are only concerned about their bottom line profit.
As a researcher, I've discovered there is very little information out there on the whole subject and particularly about the schools themselves -- not many news reports, it was quite difficult just to locate the proper licensing department to look for any complaints, and state laws are vague and new (I haven't delved into Federal law yet).
So, I'm looking for good solid, verifiable information and experiences. I've seen the posts about a teen movement to expose the whole enchilada. I think that is a wonderful idea.
And, if any parents are reading this thread, you should drastically reconsider sending any child to one of these places, I don't care how good it looks on the front. I'm also a parent and no stranger to problems, but never in my wildest dreams would I send my children to any residential treatment program, not for 1 month, 3 months or a year.
Please do post or email me at [email protected]
Toni
Post by: Oppositional Defiance on August 13, 2004, 10:08:00 PM
Post by: spirithelps on August 14, 2004, 05:14:00 PM
Post by: spirithelps on August 14, 2004, 05:49:00 PM
I was always the neighborhood mom (I say was 'cause my kid's now 22) where all of the kids hung out. I wanted it that way so I could watch over 'em and be involved. One kid spent so much time with our family that he stayed for 3 days at our house without his mom ever calling or him calling her. I thought I'd just wait and see . . . So, it'd be very difficult for me to send my kid off to someone I don't even know.
I don't understand this attitude in parents. They must be involved at least 'til age 18. It is a lot of work, that's for sure, and it doesn't end at 5 pm. It's day and night, whatever it takes. It's setting morals and standards in the kids, but also walking their talk as role models.
I think in many, many instances a better situation would be where the parents and the child go to a neat vacation-type remote setting, but work on their problems together (without cell phones, X boxes, TV, you know what I mean). At least, my heart went out to many of the kids that I worked with. Their lives have been very sad.
Now here this, I'll say this up front. I'm not religious at all, I am very spiritual 'cause one night in the '80s with a 4-year-old child I said a prayer that I would do whatever it took to stop the haz waste burning near our home.
I had never been an activist, but I went to the first public meeting and I signed up to be a volunteer. The next week, out of several hundred volunteers, the new group fighting the haz waste called and asked me to be on their board of directors. I remembered my pray, thought, 'geez, I did say the prayer.' and accepted the work. We won. We also exposed a huge facility almost completed outside of Phx, illegal state bids, and the 3 top state enviro people were fired.
So, now, I've been fighting for lots of social 'causes, and whenever I get stuck--need an expert, attorney, whatever--I just pray and it arrives! No kidding! I've learned to keep praying for whatever I need, and it comes. Sometimes what I need is not really what I thought at all, however.
Anyway, along those lines, I think we all came here (offered ourselves up, so to speak) at this very crappy time in history to do a particular job, a job that only we can do. It's up to us to find out what our particular job is (listen to your heart for this, what makes you feel good and what makes you feel bad). Sometimes we have to build experiences first to be able to do our particular job. We have to make a strong foundation on which to build our dream. Our dream is always related to what we really, really, really love to do.
But this is all just background history about me. What I'm interested in doing right now is exposing a virtually unknown mega industry, where parents rely on state laws and licensing to protect their children, and where children are basically held hostage and exposed to illegal treatment by untrained staff without so much as a right to tell anyone about the offenses.
I know some from my own work experiences there, but I didn't stay for very long. I'm sure many of you have similar stories, worse ones or not so bad of ones. I need to hear from you what you would change in the system, and what was the need in your life that put you in one of these places in the first place.
And, most of all, I need honesty. I absolutely hate lies. There is never any good reason for a lie.
Anyone know anything about the national movement to take some action?
Toni
most illegal types of treatment of any group in our society.
Post by: Anonymous on August 14, 2004, 09:15:00 PM
Post by: Antigen on August 15, 2004, 12:47:00 AM
- A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
- A republic is where the sheep get to pick which wolves vote on what to have for dinner.
- But in a constitutional republic, voting on dinner is strictly
forbidden.
--A Patriot
Post by: Anonymous on August 15, 2004, 01:18:00 AM
Post by: Antigen on August 17, 2004, 03:10:00 PM
Dearest friends, amigos, amigas, amiguitas, amies et amants,
It's moi, Euro-Backpack-Elmer again, with just a footnote to my silly Me Gusta Marijuana song by Manu Chao.
I knew bupkis, nada, zilch about Manu Chao when this little Argentine grrlie sent this metric shitload of a file (1 metric shitload = 0.897 English shitload). I'd heard it once before, maybe in the Caribbean. For all I knew, he might have been singing in Turkish. But I got the drift. And the whole song, every line, had instantly tickled something very deep in my soul. If listening to Me Gustas Tu were a drug, Larry could have charged me $20 a dose, and I'd have been very careful not to lose Larry's number.
In fact if I click on Me Gustas Tu one more time, my wife is going to divorce me, or stab me with a knitting needle.
Even just the lyrics, without the noise, has people e-mailing me for the mp3. My brother, who once, very briefly, wore a beret and was Wannabe Euro, sent me from memory, from 45 years ago, the lyrics to the Pop Song that blared that summer through every speaker in France.
The right song, the right rhythm, the right lyric, seem to be Brain Peanut Butter or Superglue of incredible strength and duration.
When I am not watching Jerry Springer in my torn undershorts and unmatched socks, I spend a huge amount of my time and energy trying to Persuade People. In fact, I am on a Mission From God to persuade all the governments of the world to let most of their prisoners out of jail immediately, and to cease all war and state violence within four months, and forever. When I have achieved these goals, I will get around to Reforming the Current Collapsed Æsthetic State of All Music, Art and Literature. Then I will take a short vacation.
This Bunch is also heavy-duty into equally ambitious Persuasion. Preston, Libby my Blog Neighbor, and Erin, the Mom Who Made Maryland Legalize Medical Marijuana, are just some of this bunch who kick ass in the Persuasion Arts.
A formerly active drugwar star, Andria E-M, lives in London and has a modest ambition: To persuade all the governments of Europe and the World to stop criminalizing and jailing needle-drug users and addicts, and to grant them all Human Rights, a voice in government drug policy, and even observer status at international drug treaty summits.
Don't laugh. She's winning. When prohibitionist governments lock her out of these summits, the world media surrounds her, interviews her, and her reform efforts get all the Euro-headlines. Her reform quotes for the camera are more colorful and interesting to the BBC producer than the UN Anti-Narcotics Commissioner's quotes, so Andria's on the BBC that night, and the Commissioner, with his million-Euro media blitz budget, isn't.
Yes, it's always seemed that Persuasion is an Art. But it's also become a Science. And the Science is called Meme Theory.
A Meme is just a fancy technical word for an Idea.
But in Meme Theory, we ignore the idea itself, and concentrate entirely on how some Great Ideas immediately are ignored and forgotten, while many Really Bad Ideas catch on with big crowds like wildfire, and take over the politics and history of entire nations or continents or generations.
A good example of a Really Bad but Highly Successful Meme is Hitler and the Nazi Agenda. When this Meme was born during the 1920s, with a couple of lonely, weird cranks screaming hatred and loony ideas on streetcorners, there were lots of competing Memes in Germany and Europe which I personally think were a lot better than conquest, genocide and totalitarianism. But Nazism quickly won the battle for the minds of the German people, and all over Europe, all the other competing ideas were extinguished for fifteen years.
Meme Theory looks at ideas as if they were little living organic critters, like bugs or ants, or Viruses ...
"Language is a virus." -- Laurie Anderson
... and, like the boll weevil they sing about down South, they're just a-lookin' for a home.
Every Meme is born in somebody's brain. Somebody thinks it, and then thinks, "Wow, this is a Great Idea! I want to share it! I want everybody on Earth to believe it!"
So the lonely baby Meme travels from the brain to the Thinker's Mouth or Fingers. And from there, via TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet, and gossiping in diners and grocery stores, and arguing in bars, the Meme tries to leap into the ears and the eyes which are the Input Devices of Other Peoples' Brains.
Will the newborn baby Meme find homes in new brains? Or will the new brains spit the new Meme out again, and the Meme won't find new homes in new human brains?
The Virus is the best analogy. Never mind what's in the center of a virus, never mind what disease it represents. If a virus can't leap from one human to another, and find a new home, and make more virus babies, it's going to Dead End and vanish from the Biosphere. Viruses can kill or cripple people, but they have to be very careful not to kill you too quickly -- before you have a chance to fuck or share a needle with someone. Only in Hollywood movies are there diseases which kill you in ten seconds, so you can't make it to Ted's party tonight.
There's a lot of mathematics that describe the way a disease or plague spreads through a human population. Exactly the same equations describe and predict how a Very Interesting Rumor spreads through a human population. "Did you hear what happened to the Governor of New Jersey?" bears a startling mathematical resemblence to smallpox or the Bubonic Plague or influenza.
Meme Theory looks instead at the ways, the Package, the sticky Protein Jacket, the hooks, the rewards, the little tricks, the candy-coated shell, helps a Meme leap from one human brain to the other.
The son of friends of mine spent three years as a Solid True Believer of a Nasty Cult. He was smart enough to be accepted at Harvard, there was seemingly nothing damaged or wrong with his brain. So there he is on his first week at Harvard, far from home, lonely, friendless, disoriented. Also, he is a Straight-A Honor Student Nerd, and has absolutely no social or romantic skills, he has never dated or had a gf or bf, he has been much too busy getting into Harvard. It's Saturday, and he has a 100 percent certainty that he will spend tonight alone in a tiny dark room.
He is standing on a Cambridge sidewalk feeling sorry for himself, when suddenly a gorgeous 18-year-old girl, with freckles, and a Friendly Smile that spans an ocean, walks directly up to the lonely Harvard freshman, and says: "Hi! Want to come to a party tonight?"
He went to the party, you bet. He never got bare wrist from Freckles, but he spent the next three years in the Cult, driving his parents insane.
That Cult Meme came wrapped in a protein jacket of Cute, Adorable, Gorgeous, Friendly Freckles. And also had Radar for Lonely Nerds. It also came wrapped in a protein jacket of How I Can Drive My Parents Crazy and Give Me Power Over Them.
And it's a wildly successful Meme, with millions of humans who've let it into their brains and given it a home -- and passed it along, all over the world.
Cooties live in the Biosphere. Memes live in the Ideosphere.
Here's a great Protein Jacket:
Give this new idea a permanent home in your brain -- or else you will burn in the fires of Hell for all eternity.
A twin component of the Protein Jacket: If you give this new idea a home, you will Live Forever in Heaven, and be Young and Pretty and Healthy and Pain-Free again, and Happy Forever. Everything you want will be yours for free.
It often helps a Meme to expose it to new brains when the brains are four or five or six years old. And to tell the kids that they are Good if they like the Meme, and Bad if they don't give the Meme a comfy and permanent home in their little brains.
Notice I haven't even mentioned what the actual Idea is. You probably can guess. The Idea might even already have a permanent home in your brain. Maybe you've spread it to others. (Or just driven your kid to Sunday School and picked him or her up again three hours later.)
Open an Almanac to Religions of the World. Go down the list, from the religions that have billions of members, to the religions that have less than a million. Then consider their particular Protein Jackets. What do they promise if you give them a Brain Home? Which Religions are growing? Which are shrinking? Then find a list of Dead Religions. Once they had millions of followers, their churches or temples were all over Eurasia, like Manicheanism. Now you can only find them in old dusty library books. What was wrong with their Protein Jackets? What was better about the Protein Jackets on the new religions, with their 100 screwy followers, that eventually replaced them?
For the moment, forget about legalizing or decriminalizing cannabis, ibogaine, heroin, cocaine and LSD. De-focus on the Goals.
Focus on the Protein Jacket. Focus on the pretty young smiling girl on the sidewalk, on la musica de Manu Chao, on the Phish Farewell Concert, on the Vans Warped Tour, on Lilith Faire. Focus on the Terror of Not Giving Our Meme a Home in Your Brain. Focus on the Eternal Rewards of Giving Our Meme a Home in Your Brain.
Focus on Sunday School -- Drug Legalization and Decriminalization Memes, in cartoon form, for six-year-olds. Don't give them drugs. But give them Happy Drug Decrim Memes every Saturday morning, that they can sing about with their friends.
All or most of the above is shamelessly filched from the best Intro to Meme Theory I ever read, a long section in Douglas Hofstadter's book, "Metamagical Themas." Hofstadter is most famous for his book, "Godel, Escher, Bach" (Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction). Anyway, everybody go read all about Memes in "Metamagical Themas."
As I said, Persuasion is a Science Now, not just an Art, and maybe we should think about mastering this Science. Maybe we're just a few hundred weirdos screaming on sidewalks now. Maybe we're as loopy and screwy and as universally ignored and ridiculed and persecuted as Paul, Peter, Matthew, Luke, Mark and John were. It's hopeless, right?
Elmer the Mad Scientist (in the UK: Boffin)
Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic
for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has
happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to
the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail,
there will be anarchy throughout the world.
Daniel Webster
Post by: spirithelps on August 20, 2004, 01:06:00 AM