What is PROTECT and why should you care?
by Trey Bundy

        Kids get fucked. I think we can all agree on this. Look up, look down, look underground. Almost no one is looking out for the kids. Here in San Francisco, the last venue for kids to see punk shows on a regular basis, Mission Records, has ceased to exist as a place for young folks to meet, mosh and god forbid, drink a forty. George W. thinks if he shows up at a nursery school and plops his pampered ass down on the floor with a bunch of pre-schoolers while the cameras are looking that we’ll forget about all that promised aid for public schools that never arrived. If a nine-year-old wants to go on his class field trip to the aquarium so he can see an alligator, he has to sell candy bars on the street (sometimes competing for shop space with crack dealers or worse).

        I shit you not, gang. I’m about ready to throw my vote at Arnold Schwarzenegger – that’s right, The Governator – solely on the basis of his success in blasting an after school program initiative through the California legislature. Even an overpaid Republican bodybuilder from Austria knows it. Kids get fucked. And when they do, we all take it in the ass with’em.

        These problems that kids face are common knowledge and most people have come to accept them. Now, let’s take off our gloves and talk about how kids really get fucked. More than thirty-five U.S. states have laws on the books which state, to varying degrees, the following: An adult male who has sex with a child has committed the crime of rape and can be sentenced to twenty years in prison. However, if the adult male and the child are related by blood then he has committed the crime of incest. He is eligible for probation. I didn’t type it wrong and you read it just fine. Sexual predators are being rewarded for not inconveniencing their neighbors whenever the mood strikes them to rape a child. This is called an incest exception loophole. We’ll come back to it.

        About eleven years ago, my band mates and I were hired by another musician friend to work as counselors at a summer camp for severely emotionally disturbed kids who had been removed from their families because of abuse or neglect. The experience resonated and we returned the following seven summers, eventually taking jobs in various group homes and residential treatment programs. I’m not here to get all Oprah Winfrey and tell you how rewarding it was because it wasn’t. But the anger generated from constant exposure to what these kids had been through was always enough to keep me coming back. And anger is a two sided coin. It can be destructive or it can be productive. When it comes to channeling anger effectively, nothing beats sitting up all night trying to comfort a screaming kid who suffers from night terrors except maybe restraining that kid physically to prevent her from committing suicide. This makes you angry. Angry at those who hurt her and made her this way. Angry at the system that promised to help her and then failed to participate in her healing. And because it’s all right there in front of you, you’re compelled by a sense of urgency and your natural response is to suck it up and focus solely on the needs of your client, much like the guys they send when you call 911. Properly directed, anger can be a miraculous source of fuel. And it’s recyclable because just when just when you think you’ve run out of gas you realize that because your client has no lawyer, some judge has decided to grant the biological father (read: rapist) unsupervised visitation every other week effectively sending the kid right back to the origin of her misery on a bi-weekly basis. This makes you REALLY angry. At the end of each week, it helped a lot to be in a punk rock band.

        All this time, we kept playing shows, making records, drinking tons, and trying to remain welcome company in the punk scene. We played, watched, and read about hundreds of shows. Gradually, it hit me like a ton of bricks falling in slow motion. All these bands are out there slammin’ out their music, screaming for change, and rallying the audience. However, most of these people don’t know what they can do to change what they’re pissed about. They drink, fall down, and wake up the next day still pissed about whatever it is in the world that pisses them off. Myself included. I was pissed about all kinds of stuff. I still am. And so, it seems, are most people you find at shows. God bless’em. It’s not easy to turn anger into action and those who manage to usually find themselves in small numbers, lacking any real power. As a group or a scene or a society, we aren’t focused on changing any one thing. Crime. Abortion. Famine. The ozone. Racism. Drug addiction. Save the whales. How the fuck is anyone supposed to get anything done?

         Meanwhile, back at work, the kids I’m attempting to help are a mess. A mess that is not their fault. And the bricks keep falling. Our world is raising generation after generation of people so damaged and lacking in empathy that they’ll never be able to give two shits about any of the things that are endangering our species, much less change them. Who’s in charge of cleaning up this junkyard and bailin’ our asses out of this mess anyway? Republicans? Democrats? I’m not exactly brimming over with confidence. Sure, on both sides as well as outside and in between, you can find lots of people who are compassionate, committed, determined and focused, but not nearly enough of them. And they all have their own particular issues that are chapping their hides.

         The problem here is that no matter who controls congress, you need to be able to fork over a significant block of votes if you want any politician to give a rat’s balls about your issue. That’s why gun enthusiasts, retired people, and big, fat corporations usually get what they want. They are focused and they move in large packs. This scares the snot out of politicians and makes them very easy to push around. How fuckin’ liberating does that sound? Blackmail congress! (See, activism can be fun). But it takes focus and it takes the numbers. So, whatever your social agenda is, you’re going to need some help.

        Where are we going to dig up our dedicated constituency? Back to the group home where a nine-year-old has just attacked his roommate and written FUCK YU I AM GONA CILL YU AN BERN YU on his bedroom wall using a magic marker and his own feces simply because you said the word “furnace” in his presence. The word probably reminded him of the emotional or physical torture he suffered at the hands of his abuser. Call me crazy, but when this kid grows up, he might be too busy being a junkie or a suicide or a sexual predator to bother showing up at the polls.

        Addiction, depression and rape are themselves serious problems that need serious fixing but where do you think such afflicted people come from? Do you think they’re emerging from paradise to become strung out, predatory, self-mutilating adults? I don’t. Fucked up people don’t go to hell. That’s where they come from. Over-crowded foster homes equal over-crowded prisons.

        So let’s try to bring all this up to the present. The kids are still getting fucked. The good folks trying to right all the wrongs in the world are ass out with no constituency. And our band’s favorite venue in the U.S. (Jay’s Upstairs in Missoula Montana where the Moose Drool beer flows strong and pure) has just announced that they will be permanently closing their doors in a matter of weeks. Things are looking pretty gruesome, but believe it or not, I’ve managed to locate some hope. And more than just a shred.

        While I may very well live out my days without ever getting drunk on Moose Drool again, a plan is finally in action that can simultaneously protect the kids, ream those who prey on them, and help produce a future generation of strong, caring adults to go about the business of saving the world. The plan is The National Association to Protect Children or PROTECT and it’s the first of its kind. It’s a political action committee (like the NRA) made up of seasoned pros whose only agenda is the protection of children. PROTECT’S advisory board alone is an astonishing resume of accomplishment and dedication, comprised of world renowned lawyers, mental health professionals, trauma experts, psychiatrists, social workers, investigators, musicians, authors, journalists, artists, filmmakers, professional lobbyists and campaign directors with more accumulated experience than can be measured in centuries. Hell, even the guys that directed The Matrix are in on this. These are folks who know how kids are mistreated and it makes them sick. Sick enough to puke. But they ain’t drinkin’ tea. They’ve decided that focus plus participation equals power in Washington, where it will now be seen to that kids finally have a voice.


Here’s a list of people who would do well to join PROTECT:
1) People who recognize the inherent obligation of a species to protect its young.
2) People who feel powerless to impact the problems that hit closest to their particular squat.
3) People touched by a sense of empathy or morality.
4) Gleefully self-centered people without a care in their hearts for the plight of others who just want a better world to wander around being useless in.
5) People who are sick of rhetoric, evasiveness, and lies every time a politician is asked to speak to the needs of children.
6) Mean, nasty S.O.B.s who walk around pissed off all the time looking for some one to unleash their anger on. PROTECT is going after the fuckers who deserve it.

        Here’s how: Remember the incest exception loophole? PROTECT closed it in North Carolina and Arkansas. Illinois is next, in a matter of weeks, if Governor Rod Blagojevich knows what’s good for him. And on and on it’s gonna go. This means that evil rotten motherfuckers who prey on their children will be showering with their own kind instead of with kids.

        PROTECT will also be lighting fires under asses to implement two and three strike laws that will lock up predatory sex offenders, not shoplifters and dope fiends. (Many of the latter, by the way, were once the kids these laws weren’t around to protect when they needed them). These battles are just the tip of the iceberg. PROTECT is also fighting for foster care and juvenile justice reform, better background checks on those who work with kids, better training and salaries for those who work in child protection, guaranteed mental health services and independent legal representation for victims of child abuse, accountability on behalf of the justice system regarding the handling of child abuse proceedings and a full scale war against child trafficking and pornography. The list goes on and on. I e-mailed Grier Weeks, PROTECT’s executive director, and asked him what members would be called on to do. He mentioned various ways to help and followed them with this: “The most important thing we ask our members to do is join. The NRA doesn’t have four million supporters. It has four million members. The AARP doesn’t have thirty million who think it would be a good idea to fight for their rights, they have thirty million members. Children will never have political muscle until people get off the sidelines and start swinging.”

        That’s exactly what PROTECT has done. They were incorporated in June 2002 with their doors swinging wide open in January 2003. And they came out of the gates fast. They had to. Within days of hanging an OPEN sign in the PROTECT window, Parade ran an article about their successful efforts to change the incest exception law in North Carolina and the state by state battle to change similar laws elsewhere became a race against the clock. “At the same time PROTECT was starting up,” Weeks said, “so were the legislative sessions in most states. So we got legislation introduced in Arkansas and Illinois in the first few months. That paid off because not only did we change laws, but we gave our membership critical momentum and helped people to understand that we were not here to ‘take positions’ and ‘talk’ but to fight and win real battles.” This demonstration of instant action and effectiveness is indicative of the man who birthed the notion of a political lobby for kids. Author and attorney for children, Andrew Vachss, has been calling for an “NRA for kids” for years. As Weeks remembers, “When I first heard him say this in a newspaper interview, I nearly fell out of my chair. The guy not only nailed it but he was using a nail gun. And you just couldn’t argue with his analysis of the kind of people who traditionally care about ‘children’s issues,’ but also care about the environment, health food, and third word development.” Of such people Vachss says, “You can be a wonderful, loving person but your love is a pad of butter on a 20 foot piece of bread. Who’s gonna taste it?”

        Who ingoddamndeed? PROTECT is the result of the blood, sweat, and tenacity of many people who share that belief and understand that it is our obligation to fight vigilantly and tirelessly to ensure that children have a voice in the political arena because alone they’re stuck in a nightmare where they try to scream but nothing comes out.

        Now I know by now I’m sounding like a preachy bastard and I know that punks don’t like to be told what to do. But I also know that every one wishes they could change things and it’s tough to do it alone. Am I promising that if you join PROTECT today then tomorrow you’ll wake up in a world that’s all cold beer, good bands, and mandatory life imprisonment for gay-bashing nazi skinheads who beat up people at shows? No. But if we want to quell a true source of misery on this planet then we have to start somewhere and as far as I can see, the first logical step is making sure that the kids, literally and figuratively, don’t get fucked.

To learn more about the fight to protect children, organize a music related fundraiser or to join PROTECT visit: www.protect.org

And for the comprehensive dope on child protection visit: www.vachss.com

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Article originally appeared in Razorcake Fanzine.  Reprinted by permission.

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