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The views and reports made by guest reporters (including snagged reporters) on this page are not necessarily shared by The Oakton Institute or theStraights dot com. They are the observations of what one person perceived he or she witnessed at an event. theStraights dot com welcomes comments and reports from those who have been a target of a picket and will make reasonable efforts to publish counter reports or replies. | ||||||||||||
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Florida Holocaust Museum Award's banquet 2/12/2005 |
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St Pete for
Peace |
The St. Pete for Peace crowd opposes right wing Republican elitism,
the War in Iraq and Straight. They protested Bush's Inauguration Day.
Many Straight survivors favor Bush, others oppose him so the turnout
from the Straight crowd was understandably poor. But for those few who
did show, this was the first time an anti-Straight crowd protested at
The Sembler Company. The poor protest turnout was reminiscent of the
DATIA workshop protest in 2002. The US Supreme Court had just decided
that kids in any school activity could be drug tested without probable
cause for their own good. DATIA is an organization behind drug testing.
The more kids are tested, the more money it can make. Straight survivors
were aware that Drug Free America Foundation was a major player in an
Amicus Brief presented to the court. Some Straight Survivors favor legalization
of drugs, others do not. The protest was hampered because groups like
Norml who favor drug legalization also protested the conference--but
for different reasons.
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| Florida Holocaust Museum Award's banquet 1/17/2004 |
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Florida Holocaust Museum, 4/3/04 |
....... theStraights coverage link; Fornits coverage at link
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| St.
Valentine Day surprise for the Semblers. 2-15-2004. Treasure Island, Fl. |
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| SAFE
III. National Recovery Week at TD Waterhouse Centre, Orlando, 9-11-2003 |
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Wes Fager's
solo protest of Church of Scientology™'s Flag Headquarters Clearwater,
Fl.
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....s
......story |
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Story is
here.
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Story is here. Click here for additional picket pictures. For additional information on SAFE click here. And as for SAFE, GregFL is right:. WE WILL BE BACK. Addendum
to SAFE Picket, July 29, 2002. After the picket, several people
called or visited the Orlando Sheriff's Department regarding the two
incident reports that had been filed. Those concerned felt that the
Sheriff's Department was not taking the alleged restraint of a SAFE
client and the alleged assault of one of the protesters seriously. But
the Sheriff's department has filed both reports which can be found here. |
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I arrived in Tampa at 4:45 that afternoon and was immediately whisked off to Treasure Island and the US residence of our Ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler. Or should I say to the public street in front of his home. Mel and his wife Betty are the founders of Straight, Inc. and we were there to protest our President's decision to make him an ambassador in spite of the reputation of criminal child abuse which the Straights have brought upon themselves. There were probably 20 picketers there and a photographer from The St. petersburg Times.
Betty had recently hurt her foot in an automobile accident and at some point during the picket a delivery van delivered flowers making us think that she was perhaps at home. There was a private security guard in the front yard. Marked police cars were parked all over the place with three plain clothes officers stationed across the street. At one point one of the picketers stepped off the public street onto the Sembler's arched driveway (an apparent accident) and was told by the security guard that if it happened again, she would call the police. She must have thought it had happened again because soon after a police car showed up. We were hoping they would come in mass with sirens blasting and blue lights spinning to help bring public attention to the event, but it was just the lone cruiser without fanfare. One thing. Though there were 20 people on hand and The Times reporter took several pictures, The Times management did not feel that this picket was newsworthy enough to publish a report. I think that tells us something. The picketers must grow in numbers sufficiently large enough to reach the point that somebody down there feels that when people fly in from around the country to protest an ambassadorial appointment, then something must be driving them on. I don't yet know what the answer is, but maybe 25 or 100 people picketing Mel Sembler or his icon, and maybe even the Tampa Bay Holocaust Museum plus Bay Walk--maybe that's the formula we need to experiment with in the future. Was the Times bought off. Read The ethics of naming rights for St. Pete Times Forum may go deeper than previously reported
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| SAFE
I Orlando 2000
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WAMI TV news segment on SAFE-Orlando sparks a picket. In response to a two-part expose of the Sembler-based synanon called SAFE, Inc. in Orlando, Florida by TV station WAMI in Miami and in response to one's family story, A Woman Named Alba, claiming it has been ripped apart by SAFE, Inc a general picket of that juvenile therapeutic treatment program was conducted on November 24, 2000. Surprisingly, SAFE was endorsed, in writing, by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, just prior to the segment's release even though he had been warned that the station was looking at alleged abuses at SAFE. Straight co-founder Betty Sembler, who still runs Straight Foundation under its new new name, Drug Free America Foundation, was Jeb Bushes finance co-chairman. Her husband Mel Sembler, another Straight co-founder and a big contributor to George, Sr.'s presidential campaign, is the finance chairman for the national GOP. Former President George Bush is an an ardent Straight backer which should come as no surprise to cult watchers since he has been a paid mouthpiece for the Moonies. Besides his father, Jeb Bush's mother, Barbara, and his brother, president-elect George W. Bush, Governor of Texas, have also worked closely with Straight lending support to Straight Foundation which now calls itself the Drug Free America Foundation, Inc.
The November 24 picket of SAFE included representatives from three generations of The Seed including representatives from The Seed, Straight-Springfield, Virginia, Straight-Cincinnati, Straight-Saint Petersburg, Florida, Straight-Sarasota, Florida, SAFE, Inc. and KIDS of North Jersey, plus Jodi James and Scott "Bullhorn" Bledsoe representing the drug policy reform movement. Three protesters flew in from out of state, the furthest being from Michigan. Thank you Kathy Martin and Ginger Warbis for organizing this event and a special thanks to Alan Cohn and station WAMI for a job well done.
[Note: A "synanon" spelled with a small "s" is a therapeutic approach developed and perfected in the 1950s and 1960s at Synanon Foundation, later Synanon Church, whereby addicts aid in their own recovery by shouting brutal, verbal indictments at one another. They are the basis for most modern-day, confrontational synanons which are today euphemistically called confrontational-type "therapeutic communities". A Sembler-based synanon is a synanon developed at Straight, Inc. in the 1970s for kids in drug rehabilitation. ]
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Out of the Past |
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| Joe Harrington and Wes Fager protesting the Church of Scientology |
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| This web page is offered as a public service and as an educational resource to those interested in learning about the potential dangers of abusive, Straight-based synanons. The page is the on-line publishing arm of the Oakton Institute for Cultic Studies. | ||
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