Romney, torture, teens (amazingly fuckedup)

[Heretic.Ape.]

Romney, Torture, and Teens

http://www.reason.com/news/show/121088.htmlThe former governor's connections to abusive "tough love" camps
Maia Szalavitz | June 27, 2007
When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he’d support doubling the size of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, he was trying to show voters that he’d be tough on terror. Two of his top fundraisers, however, have long supported using tactics that have been likened to torture for troubled teenagers.

As The Hill noted last week, 133 plaintiffs filed a civil suit against Romney’s Utah finance co-chair, Robert Lichfield, and his various business entities involved in residential treatment programs for adolescents. The umbrella group for his organization is the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS, sometimes known as WWASP) and Lichfield is its founder and is on its board of directors.

The suit alleges that teens were locked in outdoor dog cages, exercised to exhaustion, deprived of food and sleep, exposed to extreme temperatures without adequate clothing or water, severely beaten, emotionally brutalized, and sexually abused and humiliated. Some were even made to eat their own vomit.

But the link to teen abuse goes far higher up in the Romney campaign. Romney’s national finance co-chair is a man named Mel Sembler. A long time friend of the Bushes, Sembler was campaign finance chair for the Republican party during the first election of George W. Bush, and a major fundraiser for his father.

Like Lichfield, Sembler also founded a nationwide network of treatment programs for troubled youth. Known as Straight Inc., from 1976 to 1993, it variously operated nine programs in seven states. At all of Straight’s facilities, state investigators and/or civil lawsuits documented scores of abuses including teens being beaten, deprived of food and sleep for days, restrained by fellow youth for hours, bound, sexually humiliated, abused and spat upon.

According to the L.A. Times, California investigators said that at Straight teens were “subjected to unusual punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threats, mental abuse… and interference with daily living functions such as eating, sleeping and toileting.”

Through a spokesperson, Lichfield has dismissed the similar charges against WWASPS to The Hill as “ludicrous,” claiming that the teens who sued “have a long history of lying, fabricating and twisting the story around to their own benefit.”

Straight would use virtually identical language in its denials: In the 1990 L.A. Times article cited above, a Straight counselor downplayed the California investigators’ report by saying, “Some kids get very upset and lie and some parents believe them.” Both Straight and WWASPS have repeatedly called their teen participants “liars” and “manipulators” who oppose the programs because they want to continue taking drugs or engage in other bad behavior.

Curiously, however, both programs regularly admitted teens who did not actually have serious problems. In 1982, 18-year-old Fred Collins, a Virginia Tech student with excellent grades, went to visit his brother, who was in treatment for a drug problem at Straight in Orlando, Florida.

A counselor determined that he was high on marijuana because his eyes were red (this would later turn out to have been due to swimming in a pool with contacts on). He did admit to occasional marijuana use, but insisted he was not high at the time, nor was he an addict. Nonetheless, he was barraged with hours of humiliating questions, strip-searched, and held against his will for months until he managed to escape.

He won $220,000 in a lawsuit he filed against the program for false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, and battery. Ultimately, Straight would pay out millions in settlements before it finally closed. However, to this day, there are at least eight programs operating that use Straight’s methods, often in former Straight buildings operated by former Straight staff. They include: Alberta Adolescent Recovery Center (Canada), Pathway Family Center (Michigan, Indiana, Ohio), Growing Together (Florida), Possibilities Unlimited (Kentucky), SAFE (Florida), and Phoenix Institute for Adolescents (Georgia).

Sembler has never admitted to the problems with Straight's methods. In fact, when he recently served as Ambassador to Italy, he listed it among his accomplishments on his official State Department profile. Although all of the programs with the Straight name are closed, the nonprofit Straight Foundation that funded them still exists, though under a different name. It's now called the Drug Free America Foundation, and it lobbies for drug testing and in support of tougher policies in the war on drugs.

One of the plaintiffs in the current case against WWASPS, 21-year-old Chelsea Filer, spoke to me when I was researching a TV segment on the industry. She told me that she was forced to walk for miles on a track in scorching desert heat with a 35-pound sandbag on her back. “You were not allowed to scratch your face, move your fingers, lick your lips, move your eyes from the ground,” she said. When she asked for a chapstick, “They put a piece of wood in my mouth and I had to hold it there for two weeks. I was bleeding on my tongue.”

Why was Filer subject to such punishment? “I had less interest in school and more interest in boys and my mom was worried about me,” she says, explaining that her mother believed that the program was nothing more than a strict boarding school.

Because she has attention deficit disorder, Filer was unable to consistently follow the exacting rules, and repeated small violations were seen as ongoing defiance. “It broke my heart that my mom had no belief in me,” she says, describing how, because WWASPS had told her mother to dismiss complaints as “manipulation,” her mother ignored her pleas to come home.

“I’m not a bad kid,” she continued, “I never used drugs, I was never in trouble, I have no criminal record. I know my mom was worried about me—but so many times I told her that this is too much. I would gladly have gone to prison instead.”

WWASPS is linked with facilities Academy at Ivy Ridge (New York), Carolina Springs Academy (South Carolina), Cross Creek Programs (Utah), Darrington Academy (Georgia), Horizon Academy (Nevada), Majestic Ranch Academy (Utah), MidWest Academy (Iowa), Respect Camp (Mississippi), Royal Gorge Academy (Colorado), Spring Creek Lodge (Montana), and Tranquility Bay (Jamaica).

Although it has settled several lawsuits out of court, the organization has never publicly admitted wrong-doing. However, the U.S. State Department spurred Samoa to investigate its Paradise Cove program in 1998 after receiving “credible allegations of physical abuse,” including “beatings, isolation, food and water deprivation, choke-holds, kicking, punching, bondage, spraying with chemical agents, forced medication, verbal abuse and threats of further physical abuse.” Paradise Cove closed shortly thereafter. That same year, the Czech Republic forced the closure of WWASP-linked Morava Academy following employees’ allegations that teens were being abused.

The former director of the Dundee Ranch Academy Program in Costa Rica went to local authorities after seeing medical neglect and other severe abuse, although human rights abuse charges were ultimately dropped against the owner, Robert Lichfield’s brother Narvin. That program closed in 2003.

Police in Mexico have shut down three WWASP-linked facilities: Sunrise Beach (1996), Casa By The Sea (2004) and High Impact (where police videotaped the teens chained in dog cages).

In 2005, New York’s Eliot Spitzer forced WWASP to return over $1 million to the parents of Academy at Ivy Ridge students, because the school had fraudulently claimed to provide legitimate New York high school diplomas. He fined Ivy Ridge $250,000, plus $2000 in court costs. A civil suit has been filed for educational fraud in New York as well, by a different law firm.
Straight's Sembler currently heads the Scooter Libby Defense Fund, in addition to his work for Romney, and has worked tirelessly to keep the Vice President's former Chief of Staff out of prison, even after his conviction on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. After all, if running programs that impose these kinds of "treatments" on American teenagers is not a prison-worthy offense, why should lying to a court be?
The Romney campaign is aware of the WWASP suits, and should be familiar with the Straight suits. If not, it's worth asking: Does Romney support these types of tactics for at-risk youth? Or does he take the line the organizations founded by his fundraisers take—that these dozens of lawsuits are merely from bad kids who make up lies?
Coming from the man who wants to triple the size of Guantanamo, these aren't insignificant questions. If Romney doesn't believe the aggressive tactics he supports for use against enemy combatants ought to be used against troubled teens and youth drug users, he should say so, and show he means it by removing these men from his campaign.

[Nagognog2]

We should ask his kids what he has in mind by "torture." One trip to DisneyWorld - they'd talk.

[rxbandit]

It appears swim is a survivor of one of these camps, actually he got kicked out of 3 of them in his youth for being a liability... and for frustrating the uninformed counselors with knowledge and facts when they provided manipulative emotionally driven prophaganda towards swim. In swims experience these camps are scams to manipulate key emotions and leach money out of the victims. The only way these actually work are if the student gives in and becomes brainwashed into believing he is unable to function without there bullshit philosophys. Swim saw many a good man fall victim.

Possibly the most messed up industry in America.

[snapper]

SWIM was placed in several such treatment facilities and submitted to their destructive tactics. No dog cages, but same kind of self-esteem destroying brainwashing and forced submission to endless rules made to be broken so that punishment is unavoidable. SWIM found all it did was make SWIM more distrustful, bitter and better able to manipulate authority. Then SWIM became and adult and successful in spite of this treatment, initially motivated by a need solely to prove all those simple-minded bullies running those places wrong. SWIM also started to use as soon as SWIM left. Perhaps a disciplined boarding school for trouble kids, but nothing justifies this kind of brainwashing...the only thing worse than these 'treatment programs' is prison, and that's a close second.
SWIM will only say that Mitt Romney is as poisonous as all his other republican neoconservative comrads. No doubt the investment in the camps is to maintain a pool of young boys for him and his friends to molest.

[lulz]

Originally Posted by snapper

No dog cages

Speaking of dog cages, the bastard tied the family dog to the roof of his car when he was going on a 12 hour drive. On a brighter note, the dog had the good sense to piss all over the car.

The white Chevy station wagon with the wood paneling was overstuffed with suitcases, supplies, and sons when Mitt Romney climbed behind the wheel to begin the annual 12-hour family trek from Boston to Ontario. ... Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog. ...


As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.


As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2...s-dog-tal.html

[Heretic.Ape.]

"emotion free"... kind of reminds me of "sociopathic"

[Orchid_Suspiria]

He sounds like a sociopath,but it's a cold comfort that in the end these people pay for what they do.

[Pino]

Originally Posted by Orchid_Suspiria

He sounds like a sociopath,but it's a cold comfort that in the end these people pay for what they do.

No, they don't. Sociopaths and especially psychopaths don't care about punishment. Some of them become successful members of society. They are really fit for jobs, where there are quick, harsh and emotion-free decisions to make. Like crisis managers.

The most bold estimation of psychopaths running around in the world is 7 percent of the population. A psychopath is born with his disease. A sociopath has a disease, which rises from social conflicts. They have both an anti-social personality disorder.

Normal people can become sociopathic. Sounds fun, emotion-free crisis management.

One of the plaintiffs in the current case against WWASPS, 21-year-old Chelsea Filer, spoke to me when I was researching a TV segment on the industry. She told me that she was forced to walk for miles on a track in scorching desert heat with a 35-pound sandbag on her back. “You were not allowed to scratch your face, move your fingers, lick your lips, move your eyes from the ground,” she said. When she asked for a chapstick, “They put a piece of wood in my mouth and I had to hold it there for two weeks. I was bleeding on my tongue.”

This is just plain fucked up. Is this even possible to subject an 21 years old adult to this?

[lulz]

Originally Posted by Pino

A psychopath is born with his disease. A sociopath has a disease, which rises from social conflicts. They have both an anti-social personality disorder.

Normal people can become sociopathic.

Sociopath and psychopath are just two different terms that the psychiatric community has used for the same disorder historically. Today the accepted term is antisocial personality disorder, but all three terms refer to exactly the same pathology. Psychopath is the oldest term, sociopath replaced it, and today APD replaces sociopath.

Normal people can't become sociopathic, they are born that way. When normal people and sociopaths are exposed to violent images, they react differently on a physiological level, this has been demonstrated experimentally. Sociopaths simply lack an emotional reaction.

You may be thinking of narcissistic personality disorder. Clinically, narcissists are almost identical to sociopaths. But the physiological difference is that sociopaths lack an emotional response, whereas narcissists experience an emotional response, they just mentally block it from their conscious experience. You can't become a sociopath, but you can become a narcissist, it depends mostly on early childhood experiences.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Good explanation!

[Pino]

Originally Posted by lulz

Sociopath and psychopath are just two different terms that the psychiatric community has used for the same disorder historically. Today the accepted term is antisocial personality disorder, but all three terms refer to exactly the same pathology. Psychopath is the oldest term, sociopath replaced it, and today APD replaces sociopath.

Normal people can't become sociopathic, they are born that way. When normal people and sociopaths are exposed to violent images, they react differently on a physiological level, this has been demonstrated experimentally. Sociopaths simply lack an emotional reaction.

You may be thinking of narcissistic personality disorder. Clinically, narcissists are almost identical to sociopaths. But the physiological difference is that sociopaths lack an emotional response, whereas narcissists experience an emotional response, they just mentally block it from their conscious experience. You can't become a sociopath, but you can become a narcissist, it depends mostly on early childhood experiences.

I thought there were two schools of thought at the moment. One of them treating sociopath and psychopath the same and another differentiate between them, however both are still suffering from an anti social personality disorder.

But I can be wrong, I just studied the matter for personal interest. So I have some difficulties differentiate between trends (It has something of the nurture vs nature discussion) and facts. The "nurtured" sociopath sounds like the narcissist.

[x cynic x]

Originally Posted by Orchid_Suspiria

He sounds like a sociopath,but it's a cold comfort that in the end these people pay for what they do.

Or so we would like to believe

[rainsong]

wow that is fucked up.
Here are some more articles about the straight program:
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2072.html
http://www.webdiva.org/fox/

1st post btw

[tayo]

um, 220 grand i would do some things for, but then imagine all the people not getting lawsuit money.

[toe]

This site mainly focuses on the Seed/Straight and their direct descendants. There are legal documents & news articles concerning the founder of the Seed, who was in disturbingly tight with the government. His agenda and policies arguably had a greater influence on the DARE/Just Say No agitprop that emerged in 80s America than did those of Nancy Reagan. He wound up being appointed ambassador to Somewheresmallia as I recall. There is documentation of the evil paths of other major players as well, but this guy takes the cake.

Of course, there is a ton of testimony, both informal and legal, from survivors. Here is a sample of the civil and criminal suits filed against them.

SWIM thinks all who did not succumb to the neglect and abuse while in custody bear scars- some more than others. Some have been able to persevere and excel as responsible adults. But even the most well-adjusted survivors report needing an obligatory Fuck Off period for a spell following release/escape. Others spiralled into major mental illness, and there are a disturbing number of suicides and suspicious deaths amongst straight alumni.

The page cited above has useful resources on other "boot camp" rehabs, as well.

Amnesty International is concerned with this.

[ganjaman]

imo those places don't exist they're like the boogie man parents just tell kids about him to scare them from doing shit

[toe]

Originally Posted by ganjaman

imo those places don't exist they're like the boogie man parents just tell kids about him to scare them from doing shit

Then one of us is totally delusional.