Menu

OBJECTIVE

HOLISTIC AND NATURAL HEALTH


Web Journal Thursday 28th February 2008
  • Restraints on children 'must end'. Institutionalised child abuse emerges once again in the UK in private detention facilities with approved methods of brutality intended to cause pain.

1. Restraints on children 'must end'. Fortunately, this institutionalised child abuse has emerged, but my questions are how did it get started and how long has it been happening?

BBC News Friday, 7 March 2008, 07:11 GMT

Restraints on children 'must end'

Teenagers
The UN says pain should not be used as a form of control

There must be an end to painful restraint methods used on children in custody, MPs and peers have demanded.

There is no excuse for the "unacceptable" use of violence on children as young as 12, the Joint Human Rights Committee said.

Its report on privately run detention facilities said changes to guidance effectively gave staff free rein to use violence to enforce discipline.

The Ministry of Justice said it was reviewing the use of restraints.

Restraints on children 'must end'

2. 'Distraction Techniques' are a euphemism for violence. The following Email was also sent to my MP, the Justice Department and the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR).

Although it is laudable that the JCHR has taken lead on this institutionalised child abuse, why is it that all my communications for a decade about similar abuse from the use of surveillance technology in the hands of child abusers along with hundreds of people participating under the auspices of various departments of government who should know better has done nothing to bring this to a stop? There is a fundamental failure to comply with basic standards which are nonviolent in the community and this nation as a whole. That is why these situations occur and have to be corrected (sometimes) from places like Parliament.

These situations should never get started, but they do. This shows the character of that actually exists at the point of doing in this society. It is wrong and needs to be changed, but so far there are too many people who support violence by allowing this kind of abuse to start, and they go on sustaining violence while it is happening. This country is a long, long way from fundamentally addressing the problem of child abuse the results of which are violence in the community.

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: "Restraints on children 'must end' " "Distraction Techniques" are a euphemism for violence. I cannot believe that this abuse as been allowed to be institutionalised with approval.
Date: Friday 07 March 2008 14:19
From: Gary D Chance
To: news24@bbc.co.uk, k.buck@rpkn-labour.co.uk, general.queries@justice.gsi.gov.uk, jchr@parliament.uk

Breaking someone's hand (effectively), knuckle rubbing of ribs and kidneys and a sharp blow to the nose are all unbelievable violent abuse intended to cause pain and injury that you report as being institutionalised and approved for use as "restraint" against 12 to 17-year-olds in private detention.

I am dumbfounded. I cannot believe that this violent abuse was allowed to be so institutionalised as standard procedure. Where is this country when it comes to child abuse and the origins of violence?

Let me share with you a bit of Alice Miller from her book For Your Own Good: hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 1983.

Read her section The Walls of Silence (p 232) in the book's chapter about Jurgen Bartsch: a Life Seen in Retrospect where she documents the kinds of abuse (pps 235 - 239) which are carried out similar to these listed here for "restraint."

She concludes the book with these two points:

"1. Child-rearing is basically directed not toward the child's welfare but toward satisfying the parents' needs for power and revenge.

"2. Not only the individual child is affected; we can all become future victims of this mistreatment." (p 243)

This is the same thing society has done in "caring" for children who have fallen into detention.

The teenagers in these institutions require treatment that is exactly the opposite of what most likely created the reason for their being incarcerated.

By treating them in this manner society is reinforcing abuse and turning out violent people rather than rehabilitated people.

To do this to those between 12 and 17 is criminal and should be recognised as such. Worst of all, however, is the fact that this was institutionalised, approved and sustained violence.

It is unbelievable that the UK is so backward, but then again I have been experiencing this violence from these kinds of personalities on an institutionalised basis inside my own home for a decade courtesy of surveillance technology used as a weapon in the hands of those whom I reported for child abuse.

And, everyone turns a blind eye to its reality deny[ing] that this is taking place which permits it to continue explaining why it has been occurring against me 24/7 for almost a decade.

Such is the real character of the UK which has emerged once again publicly in facilities for private detention of those aged 12 to 1

3. Brown condemns no-uniform advice. RAF personnel have been verbally abused while wearing their uniforms in public. The RAF commander elected for restraint by limiting them from wearing their uniforms on "civvy street." The Prime Minister believes that they should wear their uniforms in public places too. Could this develop into a very large problem now with all this publicity?

BBC News Friday, 7 March 2008, 14:00 GMT

Brown condemns no-uniform advice

Marching personnel
Police say they have not received complaints about abuse

Gordon Brown has condemned reports that RAF personnel at a Cambridgeshire base were advised not to wear uniform in public for fear of verbal abuse.

He said armed forces members should be "encouraged to wear their uniform in public and have the respect and gratitude of the British people".

The decision not to wear uniform was taken by the station commander at RAF Wittering near Peterborough.

Defence minister Derek Twigg blamed "a tiny minority" for the abuse.

It has been claimed that verbal abuse has been directed at service personnel by people opposed to UK involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Brown condemns no-uniform advice

4. Military service personnel should wear uniforms 24/7. The following Email was also sent to the Ministry of Defense in honour of US Marines Lt Harry Bird, Colonel Vine and others who have carried out extensive abuse in the community 24/7 for seven years and one-month since February 2001. Why do you think the public has a problem with the military in the UK?

Very sadly this occurred during the Vietnam War to those in the military in the US. Some even went to Hawaii to attack military personnel physically. The abuse was so strong in the US by a small percentage of the population that the overall intimidation had a negative impact on those who were getting out of the military and returning to civilian life during the Vietnam War.

I attended Columbia University from 1966 to 1969 to complete my undergraduate education and from 1971 to 1973 for a graduate degree. During the sixties I did not let it be known that I had been in the military although I was attending school as a result of the G.I. Bill which made financial support available to those who were considered Vietnam War era veterans. This was especially true in the spring of 1968 when Columbia's main campus was closed with regard to classes and education from the last week of April for the rest of the spring semester.

The 40th anniversary of the worldwide spring uprisings that occurred in 1968 is fast approaching. The primary problems associated with the Columbia University uprising and the university's closure with respect to education following the clearing of the campus protesters by the police was not directly related to the Vietnam War although this was over every undergraduate's head as a possibility following graduation. The main issues were Columbia's building of a gymnasium on public land (Morningside Park) with a "back door" entrance offered to the Harlem community at the bottom of the hill.

Another key issue had to do with student disciplinary procedures following a ban on indoor demonstrations. This did involve demonstrations against military/government recruitment on campus which caused the students to assemble inside Hamilton Hall en masse at the college Dean's office on the ground floor. This was Tuesday afternoon, 23rd April 1968. I had a French class in Hamilton that afternoon. I had no idea anything was happening until I came downstairs to see the lobby packed full and overflowing with students out the front doors. That was my last class for that semester.

The real lesson to be learned from Columbia which I carefully watched as an observer during the following weeks was that the two extremes must not be allowed to polarise a situation because this creates a power vacuum in the centre where most of the people exist. The Administration and the student radicals just went further and further to the extreme in their respective opposite directions so that the majority did not want to have anything to do with either. The result was that those in control of the Administration lost their jobs and the extreme radical students were expelled. The rest of us muddled on producing a new structure for university management.

Violence came to the campus because of the intransigence of each side which had to share equal responsibility for what occurred and be banished from the university. The police were an instrument and had to do their job. However, their brutality was over the top which alienated everyone in the middle. They repeated this on campus on 21st May 1968 during another problem when the police were called in. The Tactical Police Force (TPF) cleared buildings in a most brutal manner, and chased after students who went into their own dormitories on 21st May 1968. This was what was called a "police riot" and was to be expected.

The most important aspect of these confrontations to be avoided is the creation of conflict situations where the people in the centre fight against each other rather than address the real problems. Extremists concentrate on creating conflict situations and emotionally inciting people to behave in extreme ways that further these conflicts amongst themselves. Credit goes to the faculty who brought the ultimate resolution about through a most difficult time with great problems, antagonisms and high emotions confusing the issues while causing more problems. Columbia survived and went on.

The most sad aspect of the uprising and building occupations at Columbia was that some of the extreme radical students went on to form the Weather Underground and turned to bombing across the country as terrorists in a very real way. They were the ones who blew up a building on West 11th Street in Manhattan from their bomb factory killing two of them. This building just happened to be next to the home of Dustin Hoffman who had left his home office for couple hours only to return to find the building next to his missing. Had he remained in his home office, he would have been a casualty.

The FBI tracked down the Weather Underground and stopped their campaign. They had originally intended to bomb military installations and its personnel, but after their bomb factory blew up, they changed to bombing only buildings and not people. This is not something that anyone would want to see happening in the UK from antiwar protesters or terrorists. It's for this reason that such verbal abuse against the military should be stopped by not allowing the inflammatory language of hatred and bigotry get started in any way.

It is most important not to allow a polarisation to develop where each side becomes extreme and intransigent, and it is most important not to foment conflict situations in the large group of people who are generally in the middle. Anyone who tries to create a conflict situation in the middle like Colonel Vine, Lt Harry Bird, BS and others should be recognised for what they are, stopped and removed to their respective places of origin. Actually, they should be held legally accountable and responsible for their actions over the past seven years and one month.

They are agents provocateurs of the worst kind who could easily foment riot and destruction from terrorism. Why anyone allows this to take place as it has for the past decade and especially for the past seven years and one month with Colonel Vine, Lt Harry Bird and others directly using inflammatory language of hatred and bigotry in the community 24/7 is beyond me. The results could be to set off a fuse that ignites a much larger social conflagration.

It happened at Columbia which I always considered as a lesson in micro form for what can easily happen at the national level in macro form. That is a very distinct possibility and remains the central threat with respect to the extreme behaviour from either side of the political spectrum. Verbal abuse against those in uniform could be the beginning of something much larger and must be stopped immediately as provided by law in the most appropriate and nonprovocative manner possible.

The most important problem to address is those who claim military affiliation and have cited the Ministry of Defense support for their abusive activity in the community as a reason for their being present. This must be stopped. The military cannot even appear to be abusive in the community while condemning these verbal abuse attacks on service personnel in uniform. If it goes on this will only make it worse and lead each side further away from the other increasing the polarisation problem.

If the military does not want its men and women in uniform verbally abused, it must not abuse the general public in a far worse manner with terror torture techniques carried out by the abuse of surveillance technology. If the military continues to condone this activity and allow it to be carried out in its name, the spectre of the spring of 1968 looms largely over its shoulder. Remember it was in France that the workers occupied the factories in the spring of 1968. It wasn't just a student uprising.

The acting Dean of Columbia College, Henry Coleman, was kept in his office all night by the student protesters. Although he was given the opportunity by the right wing students to depart through a path they proposed to create, he refused. He did not want to create a conflict between students of opposing inclinations. He remained in his office until he was allowed to depart freely by all the next day. Henry Coleman is a great credit to intelligent leadership. He went on as Dean of Students at Columbia putting into practise this concern for all students over the years.

Today I received in the post my Columbia Magazine (Winter 2007- . I guess the spring 1968 40th anniversary issue is in the works. Its current cover story feature is entitled Inside Pakistan: is the door open to democracy? That is not the real issue for the world today. The real question is whether the west is really democratic? My direct experience 40 years after the uprising at Columbia tells me that this is not the case.

Who will prove me wrong by stopping this intense abuse from surveillance technology that I have been experiencing for almost a decade? Of course, that does not mean substituting another form of suppression. It means genuine democracy, human and legal rights and the ability to have a private life not subjected to continuous abuse second-by-second 24/7 on an indefinite basis as is occurring from surveillance technology in the hands of the child abusers and the viciously violent military personnel who have destroyed democracy in the UK.

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: RAF in uniform. Why didn't the RAF commander order everyone to wear his/her uniform 24/7 wherever they are?
Date: Friday 07 March 2008 15:47
From: Gary D Chance
To: news24@bbc.co.uk

Why isn't it a requirement for all armed services personnel to wear their uniform at all times everywhere.

Let's put a thumb in the figurative eye of those who would abuse those who serve and wear a military uniform.

Also, at the same time let's address those military personnel (domestic and foreign) who abuse others in the community with unlawful and criminal misconduct while using surveillance technology as a weapon to do so as military personnel.

I do not condone the abuse of anyone in military uniform having myself spent several years in uniform living in the community where I wore my uniform to and from work.

I also do not condone abuse by those military personnel (active, retired or former) who are in the community where they clearly make it known that they are military affiliated and use their rank along with their names while engaged in extensive abuse.

Abuse condemnation has to be universal, and the government cannot carry out abuse using military personnel in the community when it wants to condemn the abuse of military personnel by the public.

The government is provoking such abuse against the military in the community by supporting and sustaining the abuse by the military of the public in the community.

Let's hear the whole story reported in the media, please.

Go Back

Post a Comment