Protest happens; parent starts shouting match

Another success! Blublublublublub!

I got deployed out to Clermont County again last night for another roadside protest against a confirmedly abusive teen "treatment" center. There were 5 of us.

Although most weather outlets predicted a 100% chance of rain, no precipitation materialized. We were out there for about 5 hours. Our rally (replete with some fresh new signs) started out slow but things heated up when a parent of one of the teenage clients emerged from the building.

He began hassling us and asking us if we were on drugs. Obviously, if we were on drugs, we wouldn't be able to organize effective 5-hour protests and rack up a string of 12 successful efforts against the program for nearly a year.

In addition to this man's McCarthyist blatherings, he also argued with us about whether this was even the same program that was known to be abusive 20 years ago. It is. Some of our group had seen the incorporation documents that prove that it is - no matter how many times the program changes its name.

The man also said that if the program had been abusive, we should file a lawsuit with the local prosecutor. Um. File a lawsuit with a prosecutor? What law school did you go to, mister? I think I knew when I was 12 that prosecutors don't file civil suits.

But that bloke wasn't involved in the shouting match that defined the event.

Later, the same man and woman who had confronted us at other recent protests pulled into the facility's driveway. Their car window was down, and the thickset, bearded man said to us, in a frustrated tone, "You idiots."

The pair later emerged from the building carrying idiotic signs that appeared to support the program. Actually the signs assailed us more than it supported the facility. One of their signs said something like, "A sign is not artwork." This was a reference to the program's director stealing one of our signs back in July. But since nobody who drove past knew what the angry couple meant, they looked like buffoons.

Then came the real confrontation. The hapless gent began interrogating me. For several minutes, I opted not to answer him - until he called me a liar. (How can one be a liar if they don't say anything?) So I told him what I thought. Trust me on that. After I gave him a piece of my mind, he was so thoroughly humiliated that he and his wife stomped off and went back inside. (It reminded me of the time Bill Clinton told off a right-wing heckler.)

He was clearly trying to get me to say something incriminating, for he had a camera phone. (Displaying usual program incompetence, he was holding the phone backwards.) But that didn't work: Our protests are legal, so I had nothing incriminating to say. It was also clear that the man is a grownup bully who starts trouble deliberately. Thirty-five years ago, this guy was probably the spoiled brat in school who harassed classmates and went crying to the principal when someone got fed up and decked him.

There was no physical altercation last night though, despite this fellow's threatening demeanor. I hope to post more details of this hilarious squabble after reviewing my recordings of the event. (I want to wait to see if my ongoing hearing loss improves. In the interest of privacy, I choose not to post the actual recordings.)

Everything was anticlimactic from then. Later, parents streamed out of the parking lot in their vehicles. This time, the humiliated man and his wife said nothing to us. The Harangue (our name for the program's director) said nothing to us either, but she appeared clearly frustrated.

To celebrate this smashingly successful outing, we ate din-din at IHOP and blew bubbles in our beverages through our straws. Then we bipped down to the Dayton, Kentucky, floodwall for a nifty little stroll.

It takes a lot of work to effectively educate the public about abusive teen gulags, but since November we've made incredible progress!

(More info: http://www.isaccorp.org/kidshelpingkids.asp)