Saturday, October 23, 2004

No Child "Left Behind": Code words for a children's cookbook?

Part 1: Recruiting for the "Trib Force"

Remember that Twilight Zone episode where the aliens arrived on Earth and presented our leaders with this glorious plan for the planet entitled "How to Serve Man". Well. In the final scene, "How to Serve Man" turns out to be a COOKBOOK!

For those of you familiar with the "Left Behind" series of books dealing with cult Christian longings for Armageddon, you will immediately recognize no child "Left Behind" as code words too.

According to www.leftbehind.com, the plot of the "Left Behind" series is basically that, "Passengers aboard a Boeing 747 en route to Europe disappear. Instantly. Nothing remains except their rumpled piles of clothes, jewelry, fillings, surgical pins, and the like. All over the world, in a flash, cars are left unmanned. Terror and chaos continues worldwide as the cataclysm unfolds. For those left behind, the apocalypse has just begun."

The book series goes on to describe what happens next. We who are left get stuck in "The Tribulation," a down-and-dirty war where life for the average American begins to resemble Fallugah and our children are brainwashed into fighting to the death for "Jesus".

In the series' children's books, the heroes are told that killing and killing and killing is the only way to worship God. Should they have doubts about this ACTUALLY being the will of a loving Jesus, they are immediately set straight! "Judd, Vicki, Lionel, and Ryan have decisions to make. Will they accept Christ's forgiveness, or will they blame God for abandoning them and taking away their families?" Sounds like a neo-con push-poll, doesn't it.

The future that "born again" George Bush and his friends have in store for us and our children is endless war. Are we fighting for Jesus? Hardly. We are fighting so that rich men like Bush and Cheney can get richer. The whole Jesus con is a trick with smoke and mirrors. It is a cookbook designed for us -- and for our children.

Neo-cons and cult Christians are embracing the idea of boot camps for children in a big way. They appear to think that it's a good idea to have a supply of fresh meat available to the "Trib Force" -- brainwashed new recruits all psyched up for "Endless War".

"What exactly," your next question may be, "are these kiddie boot camps like?" Aside from being training grounds for future cannon fodder, they are prototypes of what life will be like during The Tribulation -- stark and hard places where no love is ever shown. One children's boot camp in Florida run by neo-con "Christians" has been accused of torture, rape and starvation. Images of Abu Ghraib come to mind.

Are these camps toughening our children up for when they miss The Rapture and have to stew in the cauldron of The Tribulation? You bet.

Part 2: Throw-away Children

Another sad thing about the new "send your child off to boot camp" movement is that it is creating a whole new generation of "throw-away children". Tired of being a parent? Buy your way out.

Affluent adults are now sending their children off to the Utah desert or the swamps of Florida as a response to normal everyday-life parent-child situations. Twenty years ago, if Junior broke the crockery, he would have been sent to his room. Now he is tortured and starved instead.

My daughter's friend "Jordan" recently disappeared down the rabbit hole to boot camp. We just found out that he will be there until he turns 18 -- THREE MORE YEARS. What kind of a person will he be when he gets out? One cannot even begin to imagine.

So much for happy teenage years. There will be no football games and proms for these throw-away kids. According to other teen boot camp survivors, "Jordan" will be lucky if he returns with his sanity intact -- not to mention the nightmares.

The new "Throw Away" concept of parenting: If a robust energetic enthusiastic boy is being a bother and the Ritalin isn't working, send him off to boot camp.

When I was a kid, we had girls in our school who would disappear -- allegedly to "visit relatives" for eight or nine months. They would always come back looking older and sadder.

Now it is our boys who disappear and come back looking older and sadder. Whenever a boy re-appears at my daughter's school with that "deer in the headlights" look in his eyes, we know there has been a boot camp involved. And that this child had not been "Left Behind" either.

Part 3: Send a letter to Jesse

Want to help? Please send a letter to a boy stuck in "Wilderness Therapy". His name is Jesse Collins Zipperman and he is at the Aspen Achievement Academy in Loa, Utah. Tell him the gossip, chit-chat about the weather and sign it Aunt or Uncle Your-Name-Here (Be aware that all mail is heavily censored). We just got a letter from Jesse; he is truly miserable and could use some cheering up! Address: Aspen Achievement Academy, Loa, Utah 84747. Or fax it to 435-836-2452 or 435-836-2477. Or e-mail him at admissions@theaspenacademy.com He's somewhere near Zion National Park. Take a vacation. Go try to visit him.

Sources: http://www.leftbehind.com/channelbooks.asp?channelID=30

International Survivors Action Committee: http://www.isaccorp.org/ Thousands of children are currently in privately owned "behavior modification" programs. Unfortunately, the "treatment" offered at some of these programs could be considered child abuse.

Kids end up in behavior modification programs, boot camps, wilderness camps, and drug rehabs for all kinds of reasons..... For the kids who end up in a harsh, abusive program, it can be the beginning of a life-long battle with nightmares, depression, rage, and thoughts of suicide.

Great new book: Iraq, Inc. A Profitable Occupation. http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100484530 "Pratap Chatterjee takes us into the fast-spinning revolving door between the government officials who attacked Iraq and the corporations who have profited so handsomely from the war. A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting, Iraq, Inc. is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what has really gone wrong in Iraq." — Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Nation
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