Cedu was a prison:
The place was a prison, quite literally. There was no liberty to speak, read, listen to, sing, or talk about – or think about – most topics of natural interest and importance to teens in an school setting. There was no liberty of movement. There was only the small illusion of liberty, in the tiny spaces where it could be stolen –
* Smushing stood in for age-appropriate intimacy, and dating (it also stood in for sex, for the true pedophiles on staff, who cuddled gleefully with the teens)
* Raps stood in for appropriate therapy – but it was a psychotic, highly destructive, invasive and self-annihilating form of public torture and, frankly, mind-control (Raps actually were the center, the vortex of the Cedu control process, that created both the intense fear, and the massive, undirected cathartic release – adn then build-up to the next, the next, the next – Raps were, entirely, discipline, and control of the student population).
* Propheets stood for *magic*. Magic cedu growth and development. They took the place of actual, normative, age-appropriate academic and personal growth and achievement. They were charades of misappropriated cultural detritus, mixed and matched with more raps, more shame, humiliation, control, abuse, and maybe (maybe not) catharsis. They were supposed to be *magic* and took the place of actual achievement.
But strip away these very hollow pillars, and what is Cedu?
It was a prison, where students did physical labor all the time, day and night. This redirects the Cedu schools into a different category – GULags, work-camps, prisoner-of-war camps.
Could you leave? Is it appropriate then to use the term “prisoner?” I think it’s absolutely correct. What was the punishment for leaving? A week in the box, like in the ‘great escape?” More or less. More, very often.
But, add the Cedu *magic*, the runny dribbly nosed squealing and screaming, crying and puking, and suddenly it’s.. “all the love in the room.”
“All the love in the room.” That’s a phrase used so often at the place. “Can you feel all the love in the room?”
Holy Shit! We were suckered, sucked in, because… because… because we were teens, with little to no understanding of law, of civil rights, and most or many of us came from places that had already accustomed us to some real abuse. I speak personally here, and say it was so for me.
REBELLION.
Why was rebellion at Cedu so hard to achieve? It is my remaining Cedu dream, or nightmare, that I am there, fully aware of who I am and what Cedu is, and that I cannot, cannot, cannot raise the students, or several students, to leave, to protest, to strike back against the brutality – to temporarily incapacitate a more abusive staff member, and then to call media, television, authorities, and pull attention to the place, and the practices of the mad-hatter staff.
That is the nightmare – that I cannot find a quiet moment, a secret moment, with any student, to tell them (whispering) “this is a cult”.
“What?”
“This is a CULT. This is not right. We are being abused. We must get enough of us together to refuse to participate, to liberate the phone, to call out to law enforcement, to civil services, to KTLA NEWS, for Christ’s sake.”
Can you imagine the look of sheet-white translucent fear and confusion on the face of a programmed Cedu student, when hearing these words from a peer?
“I have to go COP-OUT!!!”
That’s the expected response.
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