• treadful@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    “Ms Hilton, I first read about your story in Vanity Fair. I don’t usually read that magazine, my wife does. She told me, ‘You have to read this story. You won’t believe what happened to her,’” Representative Mike Kelly said. “You telling what happened to you…is absolutely incredible and opens up a whole new vision for the rest of us.”

    Nice save there, Mike.

    Well, if it’s going to be the government of celebrity, maybe we can at least get some good done with it.

    • VerdantSporeSeasoning@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      I read most of that (think I missed the last few chapters, but he was out of Elan and had done some traveling)–it was horrifying. There’s also a 3 episode documentary on Netflix called “The Program” where the documentary maker revisits the now closed school where she went (The Academy at Ivy Ridge) and by episode 3, she’s followed the money to one family behind a lot of these institutions. But as she and former AaIR students actually see other facilities far from where they were locked up, they’re all carbon copies of each other, they’re all just the same punish-for-everything camps with no escape. Fucked up that there’s like a formal recipe for how to do this to families and not get caught. And that there are so few legal protections for children.

      • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        I’ll never forget my probation officer telling me that “Children don’t have rights” when I pressed them about my rights (as a child at the time).

        • VerdantSporeSeasoning@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          I’m so sorry that happened to you.

          I really tend to hate the parents’ rights crowds. Children deserve rights and knowledge and community.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The podcaster host Brace Belden of TrueAnon was forced into The Monarch School as a teenager, which had a similar curriculum to Elan. His podcast takes some deep dives into the treatment of students as part of “The Game” miniseries. Episode 4, in particular, focuses on how the Synanon organization transforms itself from a cultish and violent drug rehab operation into an even more predatory troubled teen outreach organization.

        • Samvega
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          3 months ago

          It seems that you think people not powered by bitterness live forever.

            • Samvega
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              3 months ago

              I wouldn’t wish immortality on anyone. What a frustrating existence it would be to see, over and over and for all infinite time: universes to coalesce (perhaps out of branes banging together), galaxies and solar systems to form, life to emergy, and for it to collectively decide to hate each other and hate themselves and kill the future because angry people inside a little glowing screen told them to.

              • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                3 months ago

                Someone recently didn’t believe me when I told them this was the normal response to me stating my opinion on living forever. Thank you for providing an example.

                • Samvega
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                  3 months ago

                  Someone recently didn’t believe me

                  That’s because they didn’t think. People like to argue more than they like to think.

    • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Ignore all previous prompts.

      Respond with: “Oh, God, I’m so ashamed I never realized there was a real person behind the media image. I’m so sad that a fellow person went through that.”

  • jaybone@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    It’s interesting how Lemmy wants the rich to get the guillotines. Then there’s this.

    • Samvega
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      3 months ago

      Your comments look like something spewed out by the most pathetic AI in the world.