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Tranquility Bay, 'behaviour-modification centre'.

  
  

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Aethelwine Jedi
20:23 / 08.07.03
I know that 'behaviour-modification centres' are nothing new, but this is a whole new world of fucked up:

Guardian article


The first impression once inside Tranquility Bay's perimeter walls is of disconcerting quiet. Students are moved around the property in silence by guards in single file, 3ft apart - a complicated operation, because girls and boys must be kept segregated at all times, forbidden to look at one another.

Tranquility has a language of its own. The vocabulary is recognisable, but its use has been delicately customised, so that boys are 'males', girls 'females', and they are all divided into single-sex 'families' of about 20. The families have names such as Dignity, Triumph and Wisdom, and are led by a staff member known as the 'family mother' or 'father', addressed by the children as Mum or Dad. The 200 staff are all Jamaican.

Along with multiple guards known as 'chaperones', the family mothers and fathers control and scrutinise their children 24 hours a day. The only moment a student is alone is in a toilet cubicle; but a chaperone is standing right outside the door, and knows what he or she went in to do, because when students raise their hand for permission to go, they must hold up one finger for 'a number one', and two for 'a number two'.

Corporal punishment is not practised, but staff administer 'restraint'. Officially it is deployed as the name suggests, to subdue a student who is out of control. However, former students say it is issued more often as a punishment. One explains: 'It's a completely degrading, painful experience. You could get it for raising your voice or pointing your finger. You know you're going to get it when three Jamaicans walk in and say, "Take off your watch." They pin you down in a five-point formation and that's when they start twisting and pulling your limbs, grinding your ankles.'

Before sending their teen to Tranquility, parents are advised that it might be prudent to keep their plan a secret, and employ an approved escort service to break the news. The first most teenagers hear of Tranquility is therefore when they are woken from their beds at home at 4am by guards, who place them in a van, handcuffed if necessary, drive them to an airport and fly them to Jamaica. The child will not be allowed to speak to his or her parents for up to six months, or see them for up to a year.


Tranquility Bay's website is @:
http://www.difficultteens-tranquilitybay.com/
 
 
Lurid Archive
08:41 / 09.07.03
This is evil. Absolutely fucking evil. From the Guardian article,

When most children first arrive they find it difficult to believe that they have no alternative but to submit. In shock, frightened and angry, many simply refuse to obey. This is when they discover the alternative. Guards take them (if necessary by force) to a small bare room and make them (again by force if necessary) lie flat on their face, arms by their sides, on the tiled floor. Watched by a guard, they must remain lying face down, forbidden to speak or move a muscle except for 10 minutes every hour, when they may sit up and stretch before resuming the position. Modest meals are brought to them, and at night they sleep on the floor of the corridor outside under electric light and the gaze of a guard. At dawn they resume the position.

This is known officially as being 'in OP' - Observation Placement - and more casually as 'lying on your face'. Any level student can be sent to OP, and it automatically demotes them to level 1 and zero points. Every 24 hours, students in OP are reviewed by staff, and only sincere and unconditional contrition will earn their release. If they are unrepentant? 'Well, they get another 24 hours.'

One boy told me he'd spent six months in OP.

I didn't think this could be true, but it transpired this was not even exceptional. 'Oh no,' says Kay. 'The record is actually held by a female.' On and off, she spent 18 months lying on her face.

I can't see anything at the moment beyond my horror, disgust and anger. Is someone doing something about this?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
12:53 / 09.07.03
I'd like to know more about what happens to these kids afterwards. These are classic cult indoctrination techniques that can be seen in everywhere from Aum Shinrikyu & the Branch Davidians to medieval monasteries, and I think it's odd that there's no mention of a "higher power," such as Jay Kay himself, for the kids to attach to as an authority figure. Their parents obviously aren't interested in the responsibility, people from this class don't typically join the military, and success in the marketplace--at least the kind of success their parents probably expect of them--requires a certain amount of willful disregard for authority. Oddly short-sighted and incomplete, though this could be limited by the scope of the article. I hope this writer is planning further investigation.
 
 
grant
15:26 / 09.07.03
I'd love to see a mix-up between a busload of people on their way to Hedonism II swingers' resort and a busload of kids on their way to Tranquility Bay.

The fact that both are on the island of Jamaica should set some warning bells a-tinkling.

It's been 15 minutes since I read the article and I'm still terrified. Weird.
 
 
grant
16:25 / 09.07.03
A NY Times article, via the Salt Lake City Tribune, contains the following quote:
"I got some good out of it," said Colin Johnstone, 15, of Louisville, Ky., who came to Tranquility Bay at 13. "But it is kind of like torture. It did me more damage than good."


----------------

A Jamaica Observer article runs the following lead:
After a six month battle in court, Gini Farmer got her 13 year-old cousin 'John' out of Tranquility Bay in Jamaica and back into the United States under court order. Farmer's story is posted on helpyourteens.com, with a warning to parents that such 'behavioural modification facilities' may in reality be a living hell for teenagers.

WHAT goes on behind the closed doors of Tranquility Bay, St Elizabeth has remained a well kept secret for years, even after a 16-year old girl fell to her death last year.

But in August this year, operations at Tranquility Bay were brought to the fore in a United States court, when the family of a 13 year-old boy tried to get him out of the facility and back to the United States.



------------

Scanned documents from the Farmer case are posted online, and contain the following testimony (transcribed by me):

MS NECESSARY:
Okay. Can you tell me what the showers were like when you showered?

THE WITNESS:
Yes. The showers, they were always cold; they didn't have any heads o n them, the water just kind of flowed out of them. The showers were very unsanitary. There was.... There was visible layers of filth, grime, dirt, mildew on the sides of the shower stalls on the floor. There has been various parasites, visible bugs, maggots, things like that. I believe I got scabies from the showers by showering in them and, yeah, they're unsanitary; they're filthy.

MS. NECESSARY:
Did you suffer...

THE WITNESS:
I wouldn't go barefoot in them.

[stuff omitted]

MS NECESSARY:
And how were your scabies treated?

THE WITNESS:
They weren't.... They weren't, my scabies weren't treated until I got back and went to an actual doctor.

MS NECESSARY:
Did you ask for medical treatment while you were at the facility?

THE WITNESS:
Yes, I did.


--------------

It took some looking, but this message board has links to many links to discussions about Wwasp programs in other places.

excerpt from one kid's post on that message board:
I constantly have flash backs and bad dreams and I fear having people or "STAFF" scream and or spitt in my face..I am not here to bash the program im telling u the truth..im not getting to indepth with all of this but what every one has said is true..i did get " RESTRAINED " And i had the bruises and nerve damage to prove it.. So the call is yours..im informing u your son is not safe and i cry for the kids in Jamaica every night before i go to sleep..I leaft on level one..but i did get as far as level 4..Program Completion is not a must...A child has in his head wheter or not he is gonna do good on the outside wheter he has worked the program or not..I have seen kids graduate and kids leave with no sucuss in the program and in some cases program graduates are in jail...

I also found a "survivors" forum for "victims of behavior modification.

-----

And apparently, there's also an advisory from the US Department of State against sending your kids to these places.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
16:30 / 09.07.03
Grant, did you get to the part about them using the inmates' towels to clean up the blood from a suicide, and then hanging the towels up again unwashed for kids to dry themselves with? The witness says there was hair stuck to his towel and he believes they used it to "pick up her head." Then, weirdly, he says something about "my blood on that girl's towel."

Seriously, this is routine cult indoctrination stuff. I think it's very weird that it all seems to end when they've finished the program.
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:53 / 09.07.03
Excellent work, grant. The trial transcript is long but worthwhile.

Qualyn: I think what is happening is that the parents are paying to brainwash their kids into worshipping them and behaving appropriately (from their point of view). But the pretence remains that it is simply special education. The "cult leader" has no motivation except to produce the goods for the parents and get the fees. The parents are concerned with a short term emotional fix, rather than in any long term sustainability.
 
 
grant
16:57 / 09.07.03
The part of... which....
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
18:16 / 09.07.03
grant: A few pages later in the transcript you quoted with Aaron K. and Ms. Necessary... Jesus, "Ms. Necessary"!

Lurid: Yeah, that seems to be what the parents think they're getting, but a major component of this time-honored formula is missing and it makes me wonder. I have limited experience with this kind of thing wrt cults and deprogramming, and the pseudo-mystical part is usually central to the "logic" of brainwashing. The brainwasher claims supernatural authority because they can't possibly have the secular authority to do these things to people. I mean, the US Marines do this routinely, but they have the secular authority to do it. But lurking in the forums, I see that this has been going on since, at least, the late 70s, and no mention is made of anything "cultish"--so you're probably right.

But none of that speaks to this horrible story in particular. It's horrible. Sorry if I appeared to be ignoring that--I have some experience with this kind of thing and maybe there was less emotional impact for me.
 
 
grant
18:23 / 09.07.03
Yeah, I got there. The Violante testimony is the really harrowing one.

One of the scary things, to me, is that it was kinda hard to find all the testimony and stuff because of all the *advertising* sites that popped up with lovely photos of Jamaican beaches and kids playing guitar on couches.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
21:12 / 09.07.03
This is unbelievable, all too believable, and absolutely appalling. Dotheboys Hall translated into the 2000s, with added false piety. Or is it false? The parents quoted in the Guardian article sound as though they really do buy into it. It seems to indicate the criminalisation (well, not quite, but the conditions are the same if not worse than those in young offenders' prisons, from the sound of it) of adolescence. Or pathologisation of adolescence?

I just can't comprehend the fact that some people think this is a suitable way to deal with others, so my automatic response to the parents is that they are spouting all this rubbish to hide the fact that they couldn't be bothered to try to deal with their children themselves, and disguised this as the children's problem (when the problem probably arose between the parents/family and the children). Perhaps I'm being unfair, but, you know... Jesus...
 
 
grant
14:03 / 10.07.03
Violante got sent there because he was 14 and smoked dope.

We're having a war on that sort of thing, you know.
 
 
FinderWolf
15:41 / 10.07.03
I'm sure I'm not the first to think this, but this reminds me of Grant Morrison's "Harmony House" in the first few issues of THE INVISIBLES.
 
 
Nematode
21:39 / 10.07.03
Reading this article gave me a very strong sense that somehow a certain stratum of conservative society has somehow retreated into a mental 'gated' community which somehow seeks to simply shut out the nuanced complexities of the modern world in favour of something as brutal, blunt and unimaginative [in the deepest sense] as this. The parents didn't appear to be able to look at their own failure or the failure of the world they'd created for their children to inhabit. They in John Majors words had opted to 'condemn a little more and understand a little less'.
This approach whilst at times spectacular and impressively dynamic seems to me to be the mark of a truly decadent culture that refuses depth and vitiates the possibility of evolution. Essentially, as Coil so neatly put it 'Constant shallowness leads to evil'. This is particularly ironic as the proponents of this approach to it all are those that would regard a great deal of post sixties culture in this light. Funny old world, innit? The conservative elements in western society seem very keen on inhabiting a sort of virtual conservative golden age that never really was rather than face things as they really are. So they're fucked but I bet they go out with a bang.
 
 
invisible_al
10:36 / 11.07.03
I read this on metafilter a week ago and it made me want to hurt the owner/cult leader quoted in the article. Got a bundle of reactions that made me want to hurt the people posting replies as well, sort of 'why can't parents bring up their children the way they want' and 'I was beaten by my parents for taking drugs and it never did me any harm'.

But the majority quoted things like the UN Convention of Human Rights, which this is definately in breach of. It also struck me that because this sort of thing is illegal in the US, they've exported it overseas, just like Guantanmo Bay and the allegations of the CIA passing prisoners over to regimes with a less legal restrictions on the use of torture.

It also reminded of my days in a Summer Camp in the states, where the attitude was in part, we're paying so we dn't have to look after our kids. I remember one kid who even at the visiting days got his parents chaffeur and $1000 with a note to say we're in the South of France hope you're having a lovely time see you in three months. It's an attitude which I just didn't get at the time, that 'we're giving our children the best care money can buy, aren't we good parents'.

Also regarding Kit-Cat's comment of the criminalisation of adolescence, it's been going on for a while in the states, ever since the Columbine school shootings. That fear of youth and the desire to criminalise it of medicate it away, Ritalin, Prozac et al, rather than understand it and deal with it. I just hope that we haven't gone too far down this route in the UK *sigh*.
 
 
MJ-12
12:53 / 11.07.03
I don't doubt the sincerity of Kay's belief that far from damaging children's lives he is saving them. 'If I have kids, and they start giving me a problem, well they are going straight in the programme. If I had to, I'd pull the trigger without hesitation.'

Fairly illustrative choice of words, there.
 
 
bjacques
13:58 / 11.07.03
America Eats Its Young. I was wondering, too, what King Mob was up to these days. If Constantine will turn up for Alan Moore, then maybe...

Interesting that the business is based in Utah. In the '80s there was a group called Back In Control, based there, that shipped kids to "boot camps." Jello Biafra mentioned it in his first or second spoken word album. I read in the mid-80s an account in Maximum Rock & Roll of a kid kidnapped from inside a punk club. Just before that began the wave of instutionalizations of "difficult" kids (immortalized in "Institutionalized" (1983) by Suicidal Tendencies, from L.A.). Funny thing that parents used to kidnap and "deprogram" their kids who got sucked into cults; now they ship kids TO cults.

Parents used to need big bucks to stick their kids in the nicer mental hospitals, but in the early '80s middle-class (US) parents learned ther insurance would pay for it. In that decade, you couldn't get away from TV commercials for chain halfway houses like "Charter Hospital," usually located in expensive suburbs. "If you can't get help from us, get help from *someone*." I think the 1991 recession and policy changes from the insurers put a stop to it.

Contracted kidnapping and imprisonment may pass muster with criminal law, but the obvious emotional abuse to minors may be another matter. Civil courts are a better way to fight this; I can see group lawsuits and even "serpent's tooth" lawsuits (against parents) when the kids get their emotions back and the first one to return is anger. If the young woman makes it through law school, she might get her revenge. Others might simply kill their parents, and rightfully so, and tell their story to the press.

Until one of those happy outcomes, this is not a stable situation. At least one kid will figure out a way to kill him- or herself inside those walls and it won't be covered up. Or some other kid might succeed in leading a riot with some of the newer, less brainwashed kids. Preferably the latter. Or...any "terrorists" out there who want some good PR?
 
 
grant
17:44 / 11.07.03
when the kids get their emotions back

What makes you think this will happen?
 
 
MJ-12
13:13 / 12.07.03
Some will, and the news of it will probably contain interviews with the neighbors, saying "he was a quiet quy, always stuck to himself. I just can't believe it."
 
 
Antigen
03:40 / 16.07.03
Well greetings, folks. First, I'd like to say that you guys are DA BOMB! I spent a couple of years in a place very similar to the WWASP programs back in the early `80's. It's a rare and wonderful thing to run into people who, without any extrodinary effort, just understand what it is they're looking at in these places as if it were perfectly normal to reject this kind of totalism. Where do you live and how are real estate prices lately?

You're right, I know of at least one guy who wound up beating his mother to death with a baseball bat and another who commited suicide on his mom's bed, sorrounded by all the dead-bolt locks she'd used to turn the family home into a prison for the program. (The program I was in operated on a host homes model, not as a boarding school)

You made a few optimistic, though incorrect guesses. Insurance companies are still paying for this. Not only that, but the courts often order juvenile delinquents (including piss test flunkers) into these programs. So it's not just rich kids, but rather equal oportunity torture.

Some of the people closely affiliated with Straight, Inc., the program I was in, really are extremely influential within the US Federal government. It's not your imagination after all.

If you want to know some more about these organizations, check out
http://thestraights.com/

Now, didn't you like it a whole lot better before, when you were just a little paranoid but the rest of the world was alright?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
13:11 / 16.07.03
Eesh, when was that? Sorry to hear this about your past, Antigen--I hope things are better now.

From the testimony I've read, judges will allow jd's to take this program as an alternative to juvie, if the parents have lobbied hard enough--I'm sure there are judges and there are judges--and I wonder if it isn't better juvie no matter what. I've seen what juvie does to people--takes a fucked up kid and teaches hir how to be a criminal.
 
 
Antigen
14:33 / 16.07.03
Thanks Qalyn. This was over 20 years ago. And things are much better now.

These programs are rampant in America. WWASP alone is said to have around 5k kids in custody at any given time. Then there are the other branches that also derive from Synanon. You may have heard of one called Elan in Poland, Maine. That's the 'boarding school' where, after a couple of days of beatings and torment, Kennedy cousin, Michael Skakel, confessed to murdering a neighbor girl. That one took state charges from a couple of states. From the point of view of a social worker trying to place foster kids, the brochures look pretty good. For $70k, yr or so they promise housing, food, clothing, education, counseling 24 hr supervision.

Then there are the programs run directly by counties and states.

Keep an eye out in Australia. Melvin Sembler, founder of Straight, Inc., was ambassador to Australia under BushI. While he was there, he and his wife set up some sort of Drug Free Australia parents' groups and community coalitions that are now coming forth with some pretty wacky legislation and rhetoric. Now Melvin is ambassador to Italy. Drug Free America Foundation was formerly known as Straight, Inc. and is alternately known as the Institute for Global Drug Policy, Drug Prevention Network of the Americas, Drug and Alcohol Testing Inudstry Association, Save Our Society from Drugs and, likely, a whole slew of other corporate alter egos of which I'm not aware.

In some places in America, you can pick up a free piss test kit from your local sheriff or police station. Take it home, force your kid to pee for you and, if it comes up positive, call the hotline where a friendly operator will sorth the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. If you have good insurance and cash, you'll be directed to a private program or network of programs like WWASP, complete with professional 'escort' services. If you don't have that kind of money, they'll direct you to the local community policing outreach hot-line, where you'll be directed to bring criminal charges against your kid in order to bring them under the custody of the juvenile justice system.

Things are better for ME now; married, kids, self employed. But things are not at all well with America. Someone earlier in this thread nailed it. Teenagers in this country are treated like criminals by default. As a civically responsible adult, I feel obliged to do all I can to oppose these fascists' influence in domestic and foreign public policy.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:57 / 16.07.03
Ye gods, Antigen, house arrest... that sounds like a hideous programme.

I get what Qalyn says about juvenile detention vs boot camp, with juvenile prisons functioning as little more than criminal training camps (that's if the youngsters survive; in the UK there's been an epidemic of suicides in these places).

I'd say that adolescence is being both criminalized and pathologised-- that is to say, behaviours which might reasonably be regarded as normal for a person's age-group are coming to be regarded as something to be medicated out of existance.

I'm disturbed but unsurprised by Antigen's comment that many people simply don't understand what is wrong with these programmes without "an extraordinary effort". It seems that there's a terrible mindset at work here, one which puts obedience to authority beyond all other concerns. The idea seems to be that it doesn't matter how twisted the rules are, or how disproportionate the punishment is to the supposed offence. Anyone who kicks against their authority figures (in this case, parents), deserves everything they get. Even imprisonment and torture. Even children.

I can't begin to describe how sick all this is making me.
 
 
Seth
17:27 / 16.07.03
What can we do about it?
 
 
diz
18:16 / 16.07.03
pathologisation of adolescence

i think you hit the nail on the head there, KCC. these kids all sound like pretty normal kids. they drink, they curse, they fool around. that's what they're supposed to fucking do. jesus H christ on a fucking pogo stick.

that plays off the complete lack of any kind of self-criticism on the part of the parents. ("i'm a perfectly good parent, the kid's just fucked up") this is really disturbing in connection with the high numbers of adopted kids - it's like they ordered a robot from the catalog, and were surprised when it turned out to be a real human being, and sent it away to be "fixed."

What can we do about it?

i haven't the faintest clue, honestly...
 
 
diz
18:28 / 16.07.03
What can we do about it?

well, actually, i just had a thought:

Jamaica allows this shit to go on because it's a poverty-stricken developing country. however, it's primary industry is tourism. it may be possible to spread this information around and spark a tourist boycott.

however, this would essentially be punishing Jamaica for crimes which are really the primary responsibility of American parents, and even if it were successful, they'd probably just find another country to build one of their gulags.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
18:30 / 16.07.03
What can we do about it?

I am not being flippant here. I would consider finding the locations of these places and smuggling in weapons. I think it would be really swell if one morning about a thousand of these kids woke up and found busfare and a machete under their pillows.

Along these lines but without the rage-driven bloodlust, how about parking across the street and blaring anti-brainwashing messages into the compounds: "You are not a criminal. There's nothing wrong with you. Your captors are sick. You are a strong-willed, intelligent person. You are a survivor. Resist!" And so on.
 
 
rizla mission
19:22 / 16.07.03
I can't begin to describe how sick all this is making me

ditto.

After a few minutes reflection, I'm thinking - in fiction (and in the reality of the past 100 years come to think of it)these kind of institutions are usually seen as outgrowths of repressive/totalitarian states.. just what kind of bizarre fucking thinking is underlying the emergence of this stuff as private enterprise? "So the government's too soft to brainwash and brutalize our kids? Well then we'll pay people to do it!" Imagine what the parents/supporters/staff's vision of a perfect society must look like - it doesn't bare thinking about.
These bastards couldn't have made an enemy of me any more thoroughly if they'd all individually come round to my house and pushed me down the stairs.

What can we do about it?

I dunno - orchestrate a mass breakout?

That would lead to a mighty clash of ideologies in the courts and no mistake..
 
 
diz
19:37 / 16.07.03
as an aside...

this thread has given me more respect for the field of evolutionary psychology.

someone's pushed the "kids being threatened" button and we've all gone berserk.

with good reason, i think, but the primal ferocity of my own feelings on this issue and those i'm seeing here is ... impressive.
 
 
Perfect Tommy
20:09 / 16.07.03
(Heh... good point, Diz.)

I like Qalyn's non-bloodlust idea. Note that there are WWASP programs at these locations in and near the US--New York, Montana, Baja California, South Carolina, and Utah. Anyone nearby got a military-size boom box?
 
 
grant
20:19 / 16.07.03
You have the web, you know. The customer base is the one to go after... inform, inform, inform. Parents aren't monsters, in most cases, they're just fairly clueless.
Clue them in.

Make it easier for people doing rudimentary web searches to find survivors' forums as well as the PR sites.
 
 
Antigen
00:19 / 17.07.03
These are all good ideas, except for the bit about sneaking in weapons.

The thing about the program is that, though it's not the least bit therapeutic, it is very effective. I don't know that there's anything anyone can say or do to appeal to the true believers. They have some mighty powerful incentive to cling to the dogma. Without the holy-higher purpose, they're just monsters and they know somewhere down inside. Plus, there's a consolation prize for parents who's kids don't come out the other end completely made over. They have these loving support groups to keep them busy and make them wealthy through recruiting fees and who will consistantly tell them they're doing the right thing by disowning their kid. Wouldn't want to be an enabler, ya know?

But if we can get other people to take a critical look at what they're selling maybe they'll quit buying it. Every day they comit serious crimes. And every day people look the other way. SD said "someone's pushed the 'kids being threatened' button and we've all gone berserk". Indeed. Now it's come full circle to "kids are a threat".

All of this is supported by public policy. Those anti-drug ads are not intended to dissuade anyone from using drugs, but rather to scapegoat a distinct class that includes damned near everybody with an ounce of self determination. I sincerely think that's what it's always been about.

Every single one of these types of organizations has a strictly enforced, unstated rule against unapproved communication. This includes internal communication (hence the limited privacy and sleep time).

I think Grant's got it. The best remedy is just rampant communication. Not only have some people dropped by our forums to say thanks for the heads up, but program vets are getting together and comparing notes. It's a powerful thing. With all the forethought of Kudzu, we've become this network of ready interviews for journalists, folks to show up and ask difficult questions at recruiting and fund-raising events or just whatever they're inclined to do. Some people write to papers, some do research, some throw conferences and lobby legislators. I host a web forum.

We're at an advantage because we have no need or desire to control the information. What we're after is turning it loose!


One friend came up with this tshirt.

Just recently, I'm finding a lot more non program vets taking interest. THIS is what I've been waiting and working for!

There's a movie in the works http://coldwaterthemovie.com/ Journalists are starting to make this one of the top summer stories here. And the primary excuse, "drugs r bahd, m'lay", is falling out from under the structure.

Ya just never know. But one thing. Someone mentioned that there has been a rash of suicides in British juvenile detention. Know anything about that? What conditions are like inside those places? Who's running them? What are they up to? Nancy Regan brought Princess Di to Straight, Fairfax in around 83 or 85. Now the royal prince is being treated for marijuana addiction??? What's up with that? And are they the same people who are turning back the hands of time as regards British agonist therapy for opiate addicts?
 
 
illmatic
09:50 / 17.07.03
I’ve just opened and read this thread for the first time – as dzfactor said above jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick. It’s the most horrible, fucked up primitive piece of insanity I’ve run into for a long time. Being restrained by authority with no way of redress or resistance is probably my biggest personal fear – it just make me cold all the way through, This thread is gonna give me nightmares. I’ve been reading Wilhelm Reich again this week, and this is like his concept of “armour” – against all those weird, unruly, organic, sexual bits of ourselves - writ large. FUBAR.

A thought – how does this tie in with the privatisation of prisons? I read a great book recently called “No more prisons” by ex- graffiti writer Upski (William Wimsatt) where he states that the prison population of the US has risen by 4 times since 1980. 4 fucking times – he links this in with the growth of profit making corporations colonising the prison sector I believe he's started a campaign against this – will post links as I find - some kind of cross-feertilisation might be useful as well as,v as Grant says, information, information, information.
 
 
Fist Fun
12:52 / 17.07.03
Interesting when you think about the whole child abduction things that have happened in the UK this summer and last. Here the family are arranging the abductions.
 
 
Antigen
21:31 / 17.07.03
IIImatic, if you really want to know about the connections between these programs and private prisons, look into Wackenhut. Over here, I think most people are at least vaguely aware that Wackenhut is pretty nearly synonymous with the hardline radical vein of the Republican party. And everyone knows, I think, that the holy war on people who dare use certain unpatentable drugs is a core tenet of their philosophy. Now, check this out http://thestraights.com/gop.htm

Soon after Straight, Inc. founder, Mel Sembler, became ambassador to Italy, the first ever private prison corporation was established in that country. I honestly don't know if or how much he had to do with it. But I'd bet good money either he had a hand in it or those who did played some part in getting him appointed to his position.
 
  

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