Poor Mojo's Newswire

In a post that’s (hopefully) due to hit the mainstream press and cause public outrage, Reddit user Pixel8 posted the horrifying first-person story of a teenager named Xandir who was forcibly abducted from her home, publicly restrained, and transported to a program for “troubled teens” where she and others were psychologically and physically threatened and tortured as “treatment” — solely, or at the very least primarily, because she is gay. The “school” in question amounts, by the teen’s account, to an abusive re-education facility or, if you will, a brainwashing program. It is Cross Creek in Utah, affiliated with the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), a Utah-based group that serves as an umbrella organization for “programs for troubled teens.” Though WWASP itself is not-for-profit, many if not most of the individual programs are for-profit, as are the affiliated services that provide a) “escorts” (i.e., men in black) to take the teens to and from the facilities, and b) the for-profit company that process “tuition” payments — not to mention c) the organization’s private, for-profit marketing firm. According to an article in Reason, many of the individual programs are owned through various partnerships by officials of WWASP and their close relatives. There have been a number of really serious questions asked about just how much influence WWASP’s officials and the owners of the individual programs exercise with lawmakers. But back to Xandir, who was grabbed from her home, again, apparently for the crime of being attracted to women and under eighteen…and therefore without civil rights. The post is an absolute must-read for anyone concerned about the rights of any youth – especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, questioning or transgender. It’s a reminder that adolescents in the U.S. have, in practical terms, exactly and only the human rights their parents and the authorities decide they’re entitled to. . . .

Sen. Rand Paul R-KY made headlines last week for single-handedly obstructing the renewal of the Patriot Act, calling the law an unconstitutional infringement on civil liberties. His demand to insert a series of amendments to weaken the law nearly allowed it to lapse and put the country at "risk," but Paul said it was worth it to prevent the government from continuing to "blatantly ignore the Constitution." But when Paul went on Fox News host Sean Hannity's radio show Friday to discuss his opposition to the national security law, he suggested implementing a far more serious infringement on civil liberties. While discussing profiling at airports, Paul called for the criminalization of speech: PAUL: I'm not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they've been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they've been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn't be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that's really an offense that we should be going after -- they should be deported or put in prison. . . .

As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells. Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do. "Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [�470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off." Memories from his detention at Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province from 2004 still haunt Liu. As well as backbreaking mining toil, he carved chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and assembled car seat covers that the prison exported to South Korea and Japan. He was also made to memorise communist literature to pay off his debt to society.