Has anyone heard about this?

[Zorin Industries 0]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/st...,987172,00.html

 

Must say it seems a little sinister to me

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

[dubq 0]

This is no good. One day, one of these kids is going to be an adult who finds their way back to the bay and sprays the shit out of his teachers with an AK. I can also see this building severe resentment directed at the parents who sent the kids off to this place.

 

This is ridiculous:

 

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.

 

...and, their website: http://www.tranquilitybay.org/ .. what's with the cage around the Earth?

Edited August 14, 2003 by mach7

[dubq 0]

Scott remembers a new boy being caught with incriminating used tissues; masturbation is strictly forbidden.

 

Ah, man. I'd be so screwed!

[Guest HBK16]

Thats not right. In so many ways.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I know its not really the same thing, but Im sorta reminded of the movie Disturbing Behavior.

[EricMM 0]

If this is what passes for good parenting in America, sending your kid to Tranquility Bay, then God help us all.

 

There is nothing right about any of this. The program directors probably screen the parents as much as the kids; they probably attempt to find parents who would be so glad for a little respect that a little damage would be a small price to pay.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Just wow. The guy gets some fulfillment out of hurting kids. I do admit some kids need to be straightened out but don't need Sgt. Slaughter and his reggae friends to do so if the parent's a good one.

 

Jim Mozingo got the result he wanted. Twenty months after sending his son Josh away, he arrived from North Carolina to collect him. Mozingo has four sons, an insurance company, and is a good example of a typical Tranquility parent. Divorced from Josh's mother, busy, wealthy, he found Tranquility by typing 'defiant teen' into the internet.

 

'I tell you, I was at my wits' end with my son. We'd tried military school, but he got kicked out. He never got into trouble with the police. He was one step from that. What it was is, he was going through this identity crisis. Peer pressure. Pot got involved.'

A typical tranquility parent is a divorcee who can't spend time with his kids? Gee, color me shocked. Identity crisis? Call it shitty parent crisis. I know if my mom ever sent me there, I'd never see her again because when I got out I'd bounce from home.

 

The manipulation amuses me too. Don't tell your parents we're beating you or else, you know, they might actually wanna rethink their dumbass decision and end my sick fetish.

[EricMM 0]

Whats so sick is that these parents enjoy what comes out of this kid-factory.

 

It's like, they're getting what they want, which is obediant and quiet kids.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I would get in fights with every single person there until I was killed, maimed, or was old enough to where I couldn't be kept any longer. I'd beat some rasta ass.

[Youth N Asia 0]

There are just too many outs now for being a bad parent

[EricMM 0]

What's astonishing to me is that the Bill O'Reillys of the world are more concerned with nudist camps than these "child modifing" camps.

 

Maybe they're unaware?

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Why does Bill O'Reilly care that there's people off somewhere consentually being naked with each other?

[Vern Gagne 0]

O'Reilly's never talked about this before. Why is his name being mentioned.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Because he's talked about nudist camps, apparently.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

This fucking horseshit REALLY makes me want to form a militia, fly down to Jamaica, find this place, and strike Assault On Precinct 13 style. Of course, won't happen, but hey...

 

This REALLY needs to come to the attention of the governments of both Jamaica and the United States (the latter especially). From what this article says, if it is indeed true (even if it isn't fully true, the very idea sickens me), is that Tranquility Bay is nothing but a prison for those who think independently. I might even go as far to say it's a Concentration Camp (without the physical genocides).

 

Maybe Jay Kay needs to remember what HE was like as a kid...

[EricMM 0]

I must say that two things stick out for me:

 

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.

 

'The purpose of observation,' Kay offers, 'is to give the kids a chance to think. Hopefully, it's giving the kids a chance to reflect on the choices they've made.' And indeed it is often in OP that a student decides to stop fighting. In this respect, OP works. In fact, the success rate of OP can be understood as a perfect distillation of Tranquility Bay's ideology. If your son is willfully disrespectful, the most loving gift a parent can give him is incarceration in an environment so intolerable that he will do anything to get out - where 'anything' means surrendering his mind to authority.

 

'I say to the parents,' says Kay, leaning back in his office seat. 'The bottom line is, what's the end result you want? Getting there may be ugly, but at least with us you're going to get there.'

 

If any prison in America tried this with their immates, there would be an everloving outrage. I guess prisons are just too public, and too noticed. People are forced into prison, this kid camp is voluntary... And parents SEND their kid to this!!!!!!

 

Every day, each family has a meeting, taken by its 'family representative', the staff member who reports to their parents in a weekly phone call.

 

Challenger family's meeting is the first I attend, and has the appearance of group therapy. The girls sit in a circle on the floor, with an hour to stand up and 'share', or offer 'feedback'.

 

The first to her feet is frightened that her old problem of anorexia is returning. 'I feel really disgusting the whole time. I hate it so much because I feel so imperfect. I just feel so insecure, I didn't think this was going to come back, I don't know what to do.' She casts about, anguish bubbling out incoherently. 'Like, if I was to date a guy, and I was always hating myself, well that would push him away. Being alone really scares me a lot, but I know that's how I'm going to end up.' Now she is crying hard, gulping air, talking randomly. 'Like, if I get a Cat 2, I feel like I'm letting everyone down.'

 

After 10 minutes she sits down. But there is something odd about the atmosphere - hot grief has met ice-cool air. Hands go up for feedback.

 

'No one else is thinking about you, why do you think anyone notices you?'

 

'Don't you get it? The purpose of being here, and getting consequences, is to teach you how to pick yourself up. If you don't mess up, you go home.'

 

I am completely taken aback. As they rattle out their spiteful attacks some sound bored, like waitresses running through a menu, but others are imaginatively vicious. After the next has shared, a girl stands up and points at her victim's acne.

 

'Why is it that you feel so comfortable wallowing in your own crap? That's why you have that stuff on your face. It's because you're hurting yourself on the inside.' The family rep looks on with approval.

 

The rep for Renaissance takes a more pro-active role in her meeting. Her senior boys need no help on the feedback front - 'You've got a really bad attitude. I've talked to you about that before. You're lazy. That's all you are, man' - and so on, but she pulls a coup de grâce towards the end.

 

A boy stands and clearly thinks just once he is going to come off best. There had been a dispute over his 'exit plan', the arrangement for his imminent return home. He had said he was not going to live with his mother and staff thought he was. His mother had now written to confirm that he was absolutely correct.

 

'So I just wanted to make sure,' he says, with biting diplomacy, 'that there were no other "misunderstandings" that need to be cleared up.'

 

His family rep stares hard at him hard, smarting. Defeat seems inescapable. The silence lengthens, and her eyes narrow.

 

'You know what? I'm going to review your exit plan. It will have to go on hold.'

 

'Miss! Miss, no!' He is aghast, panic-stricken. 'You can't mean that? Why are you punishing me?'

 

She studies him. 'I am not punishing you. You just gave me the idea. You have punished yourself.'

 

Why would students want to stand up and share, or give this kind of feedback? Scott Burkett, a student who left two years ago, explains: 'You can only move forward in the programme if you share intimate details of your life. If you don't share, you're not "working the programme", and they'll take away your points. In a meeting, your rep will suddenly pick on you and say, "Right, I want to hear something private, right now. Come on. Or do you want to go to OP?" And I'm going through this inventory in my head real fast, thinking what will hurt least to say? Because you tell her secrets and then she uses them against you later. Like, say a guy mentions problems with his girlfriend, a month later she'll have him up, and she's saying, "You don't think she's waiting, do you?" She's laughing at you behind your back. "How many of your friends do you think she's sleeping with right now?" So I start telling her something, and she just says, "I'm not listening to that, that's not deep," and she calls for the guard to take me to OP. And I've got until he gets in the room to give her something better, or he's taking me.'

 

Points and privileges are awarded to students who tell on each other. If you don't tell on someone for breaking a rule and get found out, you lose points. 'There is zero trust,' Scott explains. 'You can't trust anyone. It's not us against them. It's everyone against you.' Scott remembers a new boy being caught with incriminating used tissues; masturbation is strictly forbidden. 'And they got him up in front of everyone right after dinner, and the upper-level kids just ripped into him, this little 13-year-old kid. It was kind of the entertainment for the night. That's what I mean about breaking kids.'

 

or what about this:

 

Parents cannot visit their child at Tranquility until they, too, have attended a seminar in the States. They attend further seminars together with their child and many consider this to be the programme's most valuable attribute. 'Awesome,' marvels Jim Mozingo, 'mind-blowing.' But this dual approach ensures that the only people outside Tranquility with whom students are allowed contact become insiders, too, co-opted into Tranquility's special language and belief system. And parents have a financial incentive to believe and proselytise. For every new customer they can recruit, a month's fees for their own child are waived.

 

What. The. Fuck.

[BX 0]

I have never been so disgusted in my life.

[EricMM 0]

I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more posts. I sure care about it more than fucking Howard Dean.

 

I guess there's not much to say.

 

Or everyone is speechless...

[BX 0]

Damn. Can't resist throwing that in there for no reason huh?

 

::puts Dean in 2004! pic in sig::

 

I gotta generate a little heat here.

[EricMM 0]

No it's just that some howard dean convos take 5 pages and this doesn't?

 

I'm sorry but the Demo is gonna lose anyways, who ever wins.

 

AND this is STILL more important NOW. Maybe Dean during the primarys but damn...

[NoCalMike 0]

this is some fucked up shit

[Guest DeputyHawk]

it's not just tranquility bay, there have been and no doubt still are, other (effectively) youth concentration camps just like it for undisciplined teens. there was a tv documentary awhile back about a military-style camp in arizona i believe eventually shut down for excessive brutality when a former prisoner got out and contacted the media about running an expose. there were at least a handful of the camps in america which were all closed down. this is maybe about two, three years ago. sick, sick shit. i think some parents need to lie on their faces for 24 hours for even considering putting their kids through this crap.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

I just think the parents need realize that kids need some leeway. Sure, start doing heavy drugs? Yeah, kick their asses, or at the most send them to a boot camp to straighten them out. This place? It's a brainwashing camp. Whoever made the Disturbing Behavior reference is dead-on.

 

But the sickest case? The 17-year-old girl with straight-A's, no criminal record, and an acceptance into Harvard...who was sent there for dating somebody she loved but her parents didn't like. HOW FUCKED IS THAT?!

[EricMM 0]

and then she was taught that she was wrong and on the road to self-destruction.

[Guest stardust]

This has to be one of the most disturbing things I've ever read about. And what's sad is that just in the way they're brainwashing these kids, they're also brainwashing the parents.

 

'One of the groups I do here, it's called Rape And Molest. They struggle with a lot of guilt in that group. You know, a lot of these girls dress and act provocative. They get involved in substance abuse. They place themselves at risk and then they get taken advantage of. Now, we always say no means no. We're real clear about that. But then we say, you know, you've got to look at how you market yourself. Girls can be hard work to help,' he chuckles. 'They are so much more dramatic than boys!'

 

He also sees 30 adopted children - a remarkable ratio out of 250 students. Without irony, he tells me that adopted kids 'have more issues with trust. You know, attachment and abandonment. These are the programme's most difficult students. But they have to get ownership of the fact they were part of the problem, the reason why they were sent away.'

 

I cannot believe a clinical psychologist sad this. Any of it. This entire article has just left me in shock.

[Vern Gagne 0]

I'm still skeptical of this place. I think something like this exist, but this bad? It wouldn't shocke me if some of the stories where fabricated to possibly scare the kids.

[EricMM 0]

Yeah, in regards to the things Stardust pointed out, this seems almost to be a joke.

 

I mean I don't recall if anyone has ever been to that joke website, the anti-masturbation one which advocated selling all cucumbers in slices and removing the doors from your teenager's room? It was just so twisted because someone tried to make up twisted stuff.

 

This whole "You were given away for adoption because you made your parents not want you" or "You were raped because you were a bad person" it's like... too much.

 

I'm sure worse things happen everyday though. I really don't know what to think at this point. I just want the names and locations of the parents who sent their kids to be tortured and brainwashed for 40K a year.

[Guest stardust]

This whole "You were given away for adoption because you made your parents not want you" or "You were raped because you were a bad person" it's like... too much.

Sadly enough, though, there are people out there who do hold opinions such as those. Think about it, in any rape case, the defense always tries to find a character flaw in the victim. If she had previous sexual partners in the past, they'll try to use that to prove she was promiscuous. If she has a tendency to dress provocatively, or sexily, they'll try to say that she was "enticing" or "seducing." The current Kobe Bryant case is a prime example of that. How many people think that the girl was actually raped, and how many have been trying to find all sorts of things about her character and her past that prove that she could be lying about it. Hell, in some cases, people that are close to the victim, and who know her and her character, will tell her that it was her fault, simply because she was a female and therefore tempted the male and left him helpless to his own desires.

 

As for the adoption issue, I don't recall ever knowing any adopted children who felt that way, but I have known some foster kids who felt that way...that their parents didn't want them anymore because they were bad kids (never mind the fact that their mom was something like a two dollar crack whore who doesn't know who the kid's daddy is, or that the parents simply can't afford to take care of the child, but not because the child had done anything wrong in particular).

 

If that psychologist was actually being for real when he said what he said, all he's really doing is taking those fears and insecurities that rape and molestation victims have, and that adopted children have, and playing upon them, and twisting them, and turning them against these poor kids who have most likely been traumatized by what they've experienced.

 

Yes, it is too much. But what if that guy DOES honestly believe what he said? While it does seem a bit surreal that a place like this could exist, I think we also have to entertain the possibility that it could very well exist, and that none of this is false information in the slightest. And honestly, I'm not sure which is scarier, the thought that some journalist would fabricate all of this information, or that a place like this would exist in the first place. Either way you look at it, there are definitely some sick, sick people in this world.

[EricMM 0]

I don't care if you take someone who has had more sex than fifty Houstons and walks about naked.

 

Rape is rape. I don't understand how you can mitigate rape. It's not an accident, it's a fucking process.

 

Anyways, I'm going to give this story my stamp of truth ® right now because since there are clearly people who get off on rape, there clearly could be people who get off on telling people they deserve rape.

 

So I go back to the question: could these parents and guards and all be arrested for about fifty million counts of being fucking insane? (I don't know the specific charges)