Fornits

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

The infighting among individual advocates, advocate organizations, etc. seems to have really stepped up recently. Who does this benefit? Teens? Parents? Advocates? How about none of the above?

But the Program owners & supporters have got to be loving this. It makes their jobs easy -- just let the movement self-destruct from within. That's a common tactic authorities use against criminal organizations -- plant the seeds of doubt and distrust, and watch the individuals all turn on each other.

Whoever posted the thing about The Life of Brian, with the comical infighting between the Judean People's Front vs. the Judean Liberation Front, etc. hit the nail on the head.

done

With a name like Herbaceous Perennial Learning Center (HPLC) I would expect the curriculum to be based on smoking weed and fucking New Age women. Now that's a program!!!

Oh shit, wrong thread to reply to. ops:
Must be my ADD kickin' in...or maybe those beers.

Quote from: ""GabbaGabba""

you actually give him a chance to become an adult that contributes to society

And less likely a chance he'll end up "contributing" posts to fonrits web forum for the wayward web fora lost victims surviving the best they can using the internet to re congregate so ate least someone understands web forum thingy.

Not sure exactly what you meant by that but whatever...I personally think the "web forum thingy" is the most powerful democratizing force in the history of the human race. No unscrupulous act or person is safe from the bright light of thousands of eyes prying down on it from the internet. That's why programs and certain repressive regimes deny open access to communications -- because the truth is contrary to their objectives.

I have to laugh at Gilcrease's exit plan and re-entry plan. How about something like this:

Parents handed over anywhere from $7000 to $14,000/month for a cult to incarcerate and brainwash their kid, for 'crimes' he was never found guilty of, or to try to re-program him into the person they thought he should be. Unless they're uber-rich, his college fund or his get-started-on-adult-life fund is gone.

Exit Plan:

1. Apologize profusely for what you did to him. Explain that you're a moron and were just trying to 'save' him. Hopefully he believes that you still love him and had no idea the 'help' was harmful to him.

2. Invite him to live at home and try to rebuild your relationship. If he doesn't want to do that right away, offer to subsidize his rent, food, clothes and transportation for however long it takes, or until he is firmly established on his own and is able to financially take care of himself.

3. Offer to pay for "real" school, whether that means finishing high school, getting a GED and then going to junior college, university or whatever -- if he wants to finish his education.

4. Offer to pay for "real" therapy if he wants to see someone, to work through all the shit that Program put in his head.

There are no contracts or conditions. You do this simply because he's your child and you were obligated to raise him until he was 18 and you neglected that responsibility and instead paid someone to hurt him. You owe it to him.

The ironic thing is that although this might sound expensive compared to Gilcrease's exit plan, it will end up being a lot cheaper than the Program -- even if your idea of "transportation" is to buy him a brand new car and even if he gets accepted to Harvard.

And instead of forcing him to survive on the streets by his wits -- crime, drug dealing, prostitution or whatever -- you actually give him a chance to become an adult that contributes to society -- an adult any parent should be proud to claim as their child.

They don't fuck around with slavery either...

Slaves' families are angry with kiln owner's sentence
By Ching-Ching Ni, Times Staff Writer
5:31 PM PDT, July 18, 2007


BEIJING -- Workers' families and friends reacted with anger Wednesday after the owner of a kiln operated with slaves who were beaten and forced to work long days was sentenced to nine years in prison even as two aides received far harsher punishment.

Kiln owner Wang Bingbing, the son of a local Communist Party official, was sentenced Tuesday after being convicted of unlawful detention for the use of slave laborers, including minors, at his kiln in Shanxi province.

The supervisor of his plant, Zhao Yanbing, received the death penalty after he was convicted of beating a mentally impaired worker to death with a shovel because he wasn't working hard enough. Foreman Heng Tinghan, found guilty of intentionally injuring workers and illegal detention, received a life sentence.

"We are very angry. This sentence is too lenient," said Zhang Shanlin, father of a young man so badly beaten and burned he still cannot walk without assistance. "The owner got off too easy. Without him, how could they have enslaved so many people?"

The case, which came to light last month after hundreds of fathers seeking missing children believed to have been sold into slavery pleaded for help on the Internet, exposed the widespread use of slaves at a number of kiln operations in central China.

Tuesday's sentencing came a week after Beijing executed the country's top food and drug safety official for taking bribes and approving fake or deadly medicines sold at home and abroad.

Worried about the latest scandal's potential to further tarnish the country's international reputation, officials have cracked down on 7,500 small kilns across central China and slapping more than a dozen kiln owners and foremen with jail terms.

Chinese media have reported that as many as 1,000 minors were involved in the various operations. Officials say only six child laborers had been freed from the recent raids, leading some critics to that the true extent of the scandal is being covered up.

"The scandal is a blot on socialist China which we must wipe out," said Shanxi Provincial Court Vice President Liu Jimin.

Another 95 mostly lower-level officials have been disciplined for dereliction of duty in the brick kiln slavery saga, with penalties ranging from removal from office to expulsion from the Communist Party.

While officials point to the size of the dragnet as an unprecedented commitment to justice, critics and victim families say it lets bigger fish off the hook.

"These guys are scapegoats," said Zhang Xiaoying, the mother of a 15-year-old boy who had been enslaved and rescued. She is not related to Zhang Sanlin. "They are hired hands. They were just following orders."

Victims of Wang's kiln operation said he relied on his father's power to pay off local police who ignored abuses.

"It's inconceivable that slave labor and gross physical abuse on the scale it's been reported could possibly have gone on without full knowledge of local officials," said Robin Munro, research director at China Labor Bulletin, a watchdog based in Hong Kong. "My guess is too many officials are involved, prosecuting them all would be even worse for the government's image."

Psy brings up some good points about what does it really mean to be "voluntary." Parents can threaten to disown kids, etc. if they refuse to go, and then there is the brainwashing aspect that starts right away in cultish BM programs. I'm reminded of Nick's character in Over the GW, who's mom at one point early on tried to pull him out but he didn't feel he was ready to leave.

Maybe one of the biggest differences between a program and real treatment is the element of time. Psy mentioned "learned helplessness" and blombro mentioned "culture of dependence," which I think are the same thing. If you live in a bubble long enough, you might learn to become dependent on the security and the daily routine of the bubble -- even when it's an abusive environment. You might learn to fear the real world and freedom of choice.

These are some of the negative side-effects of institutionalization. No matter how qualified or well-intended the doctors, therapists or whoever, if you live in that artificial environment for too long, you're most likely going to suffer some negative effects like "dependence" or loss of confidence.

So real inpatient treatment has to be a short-term deal. Notice that Julie's kid only spent 5 days at Ridgeview. The whole "level1/level2" thing she mentioned about the place bothers me, like it bothers others, but it looked to me like "level1" was meant to be for patients who were going to be admitted and discharged very quickly -- in a matter of days -- where "level2" was more like patients who might be there long enough to start forming relationships -- a few weeks, maybe even a month or so. And the levels didn't sound like BM levels where you lose privileges for not playing the game correctly.

blombro, your complaints about Summit are very eye-opening. If it's a Program, it's not much like the abusive programs usually discussed here. But it doesn't sound like treatment either -- more like daycare for young adults.

Those people should be living in apartments or college dorms, or at home or with relatives if they're unemancipated minors. WTF is the point of wearhousing them like this? Oh yeah, the culture of dependence.