Origins of Torture in FL Drug Program, BFEE Pal - A "Wayne Madsen Moment"

[autorank]

This article is fascinating. Why the hell are we honoring people who run programs like this with ambassadorships. This story is what you'd call a "Madsen Moment."

http://media.orkut.com/articles/0145.html

This story is about our current ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler,
BFEE friend extraordinaire!

2400 Baud by John Gorenfeld
His Own Private Abu Ghraib
Wednesday, March 23, 2005

He created a system to reprogram bad kids. Delete the bad code in their personalities. Break the will of sullen stoner boys, make bad girls confess to whorish secrets and reverse-engineer the minds of heavy metal kids. And rebuild all of them into an anti-drug army. Such were the works of Melvin Sembler and the feats that STRAIGHT, the ultimate in teen drug rehab programs, attempted during the Totally Awesome Eighties.

Melvin Sembler's clinics might have seemed like a good idea at the time, when teen drug use was high and New Age thinking seemed to offer new and hopeful therapies for pressing the RESET button on human beings.

There were major problems, though. He modeled STRAIGHT after another program, creepily named "The Seed," shut down after the U.S. Congress literally issued a report in 1974 comparing it to "the highly refined 'brainwashing' techniques employed by the North Koreans." Sembler's imitation wasn't shut down until 1993 for illegal child abuse: beatings and sexual humiliation. Kids were thrown against walls.

<snip>

Why should you care about the STRAIGHT story? Because there's been a national debate over whether torture is worth it if it gets terrorists to reveal their secrets. Some worry we've opened Pandora's Box, inviting torture and ends-define-the-means abuse into the rest of the American way of life. But it's old news. Turns out that in some states we've been using it on teenagers for years.
--------------------------------------------------------

[bobthedrummer]

1. Nice find, thanks!

:hi:

[autorank]

2. Strange, huh. Makes you think.

:wtf:

:hi:

[bobthedrummer]

3. I imagine this guy "explaining" why the Italians can't see Sgrena's car.

:puke::argh:

[autorank]

4. OMf'ingG! Great point. He and Berlusconi must make a real pair.

[seemslikeadream]

5. TheStraights at a glance:

Protesters picket Florida Holocaust Museum Awards Banquet

http://thestraights.com/pickets/fl-holo-011704/fl-holo-report.htm


David Lopez Blass released from Straight-descendent Growing Together, Oct 29 Heat from John Kerry and Florida Democrat candiate Jeff Fisher helped secure the release of David Blass. link aA new site shed's light on Growing Together. link There is a petition out to grant full Constitutional rights to David Blass and to all clients at Growing Together. petition
http://thestraights.com/index.htm

It is worth the pain giving a glance to its new friend, Sembler ambassador. His Excellency Melvin Floyd Sembler, beyond to being "extraordinary and plenipotentiary Ambassador in Italy", is also a "distinguished citizen" of the Scout, has had a medal from the National Conference of the Christians and of the Hebrew, it has had the Humanitarian Prize of the center Hebrew Golda Meir/Kent, but above all he is ex-president of the International Council of the Centers Trades them.

In fact, Sembler is not sure a diplomats of profession. For the precision, he is a former-vendor of feminine underwear, become one of the main constructors of centers trades them of the United States.

http://thestraights.com/articles/sembler-italian-kelebekler.htm


They run very close to really performing psychic murder. Marge Robertson, executive director of the Cincinnati Chapter of the ACLU, speaking of Straight, Inc., from Cincinnati Post

http://thestraights.com/articles/melsembler-bio.htm

[bobthedrummer]

6. Wow, so it's even worse than I thought-and Sembler is rewarded with an

ambassadorship to Italy by The War President.:grr:
Thanks. slad.
:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

7. and Jeb is an advisor at the school

As of October 11, 2001 Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida and brother to the President of the United States, is on the Advisory Board for Straight which now calls itself the DFAF (Drug Free America Foundation, Inc.) And so is his wife Columba! James W. Holton, Commissioner of the Florida Transportation Commission, is on the board of directors of the DFAF. It should come as no surprise to see Jeb Bush tied to DFAF, after all Betty Sembler was his finance cochairman. And then there is SAFE. Straight-Orlando closed on August 14, 1992. On that very day Michael Scaletta Straight - Orlando's executive director (taking Loretta Parish, Straight - Orlando's marketing director, with him) opened SAFE, Inc. out of the same facility Straight had used. In the morning the kids had been in Straight; after lunch they were in SAFE. In late 2000 TV station WAMI from Miami, Florida did a two-day exposition on SAFE. Because Governor Jeb Bush had previously visited SAFE he had been contacted while the segment was being produced to get his thoughts of SAFE. Even though he had been told that the segment was going to be controversial, Jeb Bush sent the station this letter of endorsement of SAFE! Even without Jeb and Columba, the list of names on Straight's Advisory Board is nothing short of extraordinary!. Here they are:

http://www.thestraights.com/news/index.htm#jeb-dfaf

:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

8. THE BLUE CHAIR

While we're on the subject

http://www.kidsofelpaso.com/pages/626869/index.htm

[autorank]

9. That link is absolutely chilling. We love the deat and unborn and hate

our adolescents, fear them, and punish them. What is going on?