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Do we torture? Heck, we torture American kids INCLUDING using RENDITION!!!

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Cell Whitman Donating Member (872 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-25-06 08:29 PM
Original message
Do we torture? Heck, we torture American kids INCLUDING using RENDITION!!!
Edited on Wed Jan-25-06 08:43 PM by Cell Whitman
John Gorenfeld, who seems to have a knack for the unseemly stories people are AFRAID to cover, has a new one out on the latest conservative child torture camps. And yes, they use rendition to outsource their torture. George Miller (D-Ca) has some legislation pending on this and has asked the GAO to look into the Child Torture business. I am sure he could use help making some noise on the subject, so please pass this on....

Make no mistake, this is a side of conservatism they don't want people to see but we will see it more and more as they maintain power.

here's an excerpt from Gorenfeld's latest found here:

READ the whole thing. Seems conservatives think if you are against child torture you are playing politics. hah

http://alternet.org/story/31000/


No More Nightmares at Tranquility Bay?

Largely unregulated, the teen rehab industry has scarred thousands of kids for life. Now one lone congressmember is pushing to stop the abuse.

From the Czech Republic to Costa Rica and Mexico, cops have seized American overseers for caging or mistreating American teens at harsh "boot camps" run under foreign flags to escape U.S. law.

But here at home, the companies that ship teenagers to remote reform schools can freely go about their business in many states. You can dial 1-800-355-TEEN to reach the sales staff of Teen Help, LLC, who can arrange for your child to be spirited away. They might put you in touch with "escorts," guys who can pull up to your driveway in a van and transport even the most defiant child to the airport. The next destination is up to you: a "tough love" school here in the 50 states, like Majestic Ranch in Utah or Spring Creek Lodge Academy in Montana?

Or perhaps Tranquility Bay, a barbed-wire discipline facility in Jamaica, where some of the approximately 250 teens can find themselves confined against their will and marched around by guards. Only the devil stands in the way of your consumer choice. The devil, that is, and a lone congressman, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.

Just ask Ken Kay. He's the president of the tightly knit group of Utah men who run these outposts with their families, under the umbrella company World-Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS), whose leaders, critics say, try to hide their role in running the schools by running them under different names. Ken's son Jay, a college dropout who ran a mini-mart in San Diego, now oversees Tranquility Bay, where he had admitted to the media that he squirted pepper spray on his charges in the past.

As a teen at Tranquility Bay, you can't call home and are escorted between rooms by Jamaican "chaperones." Talk out of turn and your punishment might be that a trio of guards wrestles you to the ground. "They start twisting and pulling your limbs, grinding your ankles," a student told the British newspaper The Guardian. Not knowing when you'll go home, you might take cold showers and watch "emotional growth" videos. The promise is that you will return a respectful, happy teen. But many WWASPS alumni who've banded together at online survivor websites like Tranquility Bay Fight and Fornits say their lives haven't been saved, they've been devastated.

Several WWASPS schools have been shut down after abuse claims. Tranquility Bay's counterpart, High Impact, a WWASP affiliate in Mexico, closed in 2002 after dark stories emerged. Teens said they were kept in dog cages. Two parents, Chris Goodwin and Stephanie Hecker, told the Rocky Mountain News their children were made to lie in their underwear for three nights with fire ants roaming over them and were threatened with a cattle prod if they scratched.

In December, Rep. Miller asked Congress's nonpartisan General Accounting Office (GAO) to launch a fact-finding probe into similar schools, claiming the $1.2 billion teen rehabilitation clinic industry is shrouded in secrecy. Miller's office is awaiting word from the GAO on the investigation request. After a call to the GAO, AlterNet was told no decision had been made yet as to whether to launch the study, which would look into whether the industry was receiving special tax treatment or using fraudulent marketing techniques. Asked why he requested the probe, Rep. Miller explained, "Far too little is known about the so-called 'behavior modification' industry, even as it has surged in size since the 1990s, and that is why I have asked the GAO to review it... There is no excuse for allowing children to be placed in unlicensed programs where their physical or emotional health is jeopardized."

much, much more... here http://alternet.org/story/31000/


Gorenfeld had one out which was ignored for the most part on Melvin Sembler who has started these camps himself. He's a MAJOR Republican fundraiser, former Ambassador to Italy and now is collecting funds for Scooter Libby's defense.

Ambassador de Sade
http://www.alternet.org/story/27725/

Insidescoop had two shows on the Sembler case and one guest who has been tracking these groups for 20 years said the biggest problem is that many Americans think that shipping their kid off to be tortured is an acceptable way to raise them.

The shows can be found here on Nov. 10th and 13th. Levine found this so troubling he gave it two shows!

http://www.radioinsidescoop.com/mt-posts-current/

Alberto could find a way to rationalize it.

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boobooday Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-25-06 08:36 PM
Response to Original message
1. I can't believe people do this to their children
Their crimes? Smoking pot, skipping school, having sex. Pretty typical teenage stuff.

If you click through to the sites maintained by the kids who have been there, the stories are heartbreaking. One kid was there for three years.
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sakabatou Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-25-06 08:50 PM
Response to Original message
2. Or those "Straight Camps" that fundies tout.
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Cell Whitman Donating Member (872 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-25-06 10:27 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. yes, did you see the Ambassador De Sade piece
Amazing what Rita Cosby WON'T cover.

http://www.alternet.org/story/27725
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MisterP Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-25-06 11:25 PM
Response to Original message
4. the U.S. has declared war on its offspring;
the insurgents at home are "manipulating."
Dear God, sift through all the links.
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Cell Whitman Donating Member (872 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-26-06 12:46 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. MrP "Dear God, sift through all the links"
Edited on Thu Jan-26-06 12:47 AM by Cell Whitman
appalling stuff in those links, ain't it? We rightfully worry about torture abroad but right here at home NOT A PEEP ABOUT THIS FROM RITA COSBY.


Where is Rita on this?

Where are LIBERAL bloggers?
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Cell Whitman Donating Member (872 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-26-06 01:10 PM
Response to Original message
6. bump - come on folks
I know the whole world is going to hell but can we get some attention to this? I mean they are torturing kids for gosh sake.

Anyone know Rita Cosby?

Paging Rita Cosby...
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