The Right to Know Who the RANT They Are

by Crabbina

OK, Rally fans, brace yourselves!

This Rant  comes to you courtesy of one of the more astonishing examples of adoption cluelessness we have ever read. It’s a blog published at: Red Thread Adoptive Family Forum

It takes a special kind of talent to spin adoption business lies into cotton candy fluff, and we are in awe of your peerless ability to swallow what was served up by some of the people you’ve “interviewed” (as long as “interviewing” means not questioning the steaming piles of cackadoodie these interviewees dump in your lap!). Allow us to suggest that a job as a fact-checker at the New Yorker might not be a career goal for you anytime soon.

Yes, dear Andrea, Rally is sad to say that you lost us at the title, since you named your blog after a bogus concept. The “Red Thread” myth so beloved of adoptive parents to Chinese-born children is not about a red thread linking a Chinese orphan to a white family in the US of A. No, it’s about…drumroll…marriage.

If you don’t believe us, kindly trip your little blog-worthy fingers over to this estimable site, written by an adult Asian adoptee: Adoption in the Land of Make Believe

“I think I’d like to tie an invisible red thread around the vital bits of the person who first misappropriated the Chinese red thread lore about marriage and turned it into something resembling a Precious Moments Confucius say-edition figurine,” she wrote. “Convenient how this blatantly repurposed lore serves to varnish over a child’s existing heritage with a faux-Oriental ‘destiny’ and ‘good fortune’ lacquer.”

Rally certainly could not say it better.

With our very own Red Threads held firmly in clenched teeth, we read on, perusing the recent entries…only to stare at the computer monitor in disbelief at the arrogance and hubris in the adoptive parents she profiled. You know, the kind of adoptive parents who’ve been steeped in the Adoption Land brand Tea of Entitlement for so long that they have shriveled-up prune fingers stuck in their ears as they shout “la la la la la” to anyone questioning either their integrity or the integrity of their country from which they’ve chosen to adopt. Really, Andrea, showcasing this “I want to adopt, and don’t you dare question my choices because I deserve to be a parent, and I’m gonna get me a kid from some country that I choose because I want to, so don’t you dare ruin all my plans and bring up those horrible, mean, terrible words like ethics and corruption and trafficking because that is just, like, ruining my whole day and my need to show the world that I am the great savior because I have chosen the true path and no one is going to stop me!” kind of sentiment is just so, oh, we don’t know, so Galindo of you. (Hint: look up Lauryn Galindo at PoundPup Legacy).

To wit, we shall examine this priceless gem: Adoption From Haiti

In it, some rich white guy named Craig Juntunen, who started a campaign (Both Ends Burning) to keep the trafficking adoption racket business open, blithely stated: “We cannot and must not let a few cases of corruption in the international system completely put all children into this dire situation, condemning them to live in orphanages or on the streets.”

I assure you that “we” did not put these children into any dire situation. You need to look to the governments, adoption agencies, and all the other elements that have caused poverty, disease, and vulnerability and created an orphan/children-in-need situation in the first place. So let us make it crystal clear for you, Craig. There have not been a “few” cases of corruption in the adoption racket. There have been so many that ENTIRE COUNTRIES HAVE SHUT DOWN. Countries like Guatemala, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, Liberia, and Kyrgyzstan are now closed to US adoptions. And China, the Philippines, and Korea are slowing down.

So if you think these closures came about due to a mere “few” cases of adoption corruption, you are either an employee of an adoption agency, only communicate with adoption agencies, or not spent the 10 seconds on Google that will show you the true path to enlightenment!

Or maybe you are the kind of a parent who adopted a child from a corrupt country yet are unable to admit to how bad the problems are because if you did, you’d have to admit you are a big part of the problem too. Naughty, naughty!!

“Adults have a responsibility create an efficient and reasonable system to allow these children to flourish,” Craig went on.

Yes, Craig, they do. But the “system” as it stands now has both adoption agencies and governments either contributing to or creating this irresponsible, slimy, and corrupt process. Where are your suggestions for agencies and governments to clean up their act? What say you about US-based adoption agencies who swoop into countries and start up programs in a heartbeat without vetting the local, corrupt entities responsible for signing off on the bogus paperwork, even as they sign on loads of naïve new clients? Honestly, Craig, we really, really want to know what you have to say in defense of these scum-buckets! If you want to shine the light on international adoption with your candle campaign , you are going to need a lot more than one…and we’re not sure the world has enough for that mission! To ease your way into the light of truth and justice, we are thrilled to hand you our very own Rally flashlight. It automatically sends high beams into all the dark corners of international adoption. Wait—hold that thought! Look at all the dust bunnies the Rally flashlight has found over in the corner where some of your board members hang out!

Hi there, Professor Lizzie Bartholet! So glad your fun times not talking about all the corruption in Guatemala have paid off in such a rewarding way! All the children who will now never get adopted because Guatemala’s money-guzzlers lawyers were so corrupt on the ball have agency apologists people like you to thank!

And then, Craig did not disappoint when he gave one of the most outrageous statements we at Rally have ever read in our many years trampling through the sewage left in the wake of we’re-only-in-it-for-the-children adoption agencies.

“Ultimately, I believe that international adoption will lead to the evolution of a global society, where the cross-pollination of races and cultures will shrink the planet. Families created through international adoption are ambassadors, because their children become part of the communities they live in and everyone gains from that experience,” claimed Craig.

Craig Juntenen, we are calling your bluff on this despicable, disgusting, detestable statement. CROSS-POLLINATION? Are you serious? Are you referring to genetically modified soybeans or real children? Have you no respect for vulnerable orphans who have suffered unimaginable losses in order to make you feel all puffed up as some weird kind of super-dad in charge of breeding a super-race? Since when are adoptees supposed to be poster children for blended cultures? Don’t they have a right to their OWN CULTURE and not YOUR Utopian view of the world?

Rally suggests that you apologize to every international adoptee on this planet for saying something so heinously off-base. We aren’t holding our breath, because we sincerely doubt you have a clue as to what we’re talking about. But just in case, please don’t hand out your are-you-kidding-me Both Ends Burning t-shirts with the apology.

Speaking of clueless, and if you can stand one more example (really, this is hurting us more than it’s hurting you, as we’ve had to read and re-read this stuff in order to pull this Rant together), allow us to present the grand-prize winner of the Adoption Corruption Denial of the Year Award (yeah, it’s early in the year, but we already know this one will be hard to beat!). And the winner is…..Candace Warltier, who works in public relations in Chicago and blogs about it at Portrait of an Adoption. Andrea spoke to Candace, which can be read at: Stranded in Kathmandu.

This interview is so riddled with spin that Rally’s own heads are spinning in disbelief. Candace has already earned a well-deserved RANT from another truth-not-spin-seeking blogger at O Solo Mama, so we suggest you read that first. However, we are also compelled to comment on a few of Candace’s statements of “fact.”

Spin #1

“At that point, she [Candace] could not have foreseen the changes in U.S. government regulations, changes that would throw her plans to become a parent into peril.”

This is a flat-out lie  because the US government had been warning prospective parents for MONTHS about the instability of the program. Furthermore, anyone with half a brain and a Google button could have easily researched how utterly corrupt the Nepal adoption program HAS ALWAYS BEEN. In addition, are you, Candace, going to deny that you were a member of the Yahoo support groups for those interested in adoptions from Nepal, one of which (N-child) has thousands of postings with copious details about the horrible and ongoing problems in Nepal adoptions for the last several years?

Spin #2

“I believe it was political and that our government was not happy with the way the Nepali government was managing the adoption program. Clay Adler, consular at the US Embassy, claimed there were cases of fraud. However, he couldn’t cite any specific cases, nor in all the cases that have been processed has one been fraudulent.”

For a second, we thought you were a JCICS spokesman. Sorry, Candace, what do politics have to do with trafficked children? You knew the warnings were there, you knew there was a history of stolen children and coerced birth families, you knew the money was flowing and untraceable, but you’re choosing to blame this on politics?

And do you honestly think a consular officer is going to tell someone like YOU or any other prospective parent who’s already drunk their agency Kool-Aid about what he had or had not discovered? Why should he tell you when your own agency wouldn’t? Did you sign a contract hiring the US Embassy to facilitate your adoption?

Spin #3

“I believe there are stronger, more powerful organizations, including UNICEF, that are pushing our government to closing all international adoption programs.”

Oh please.  Grow up and stop blaming the US adoption agencies failures on some other organization! Unicef and humanitarian/children’s rights groups in Nepal like Terre des Hommes see inter-country international adoption as a last resort. Why shouldn’t a Nepali family be given precedence over a non-Nepali family? Trying to ensure a corruption-free adoption program is NOT THE SAME THING as shutting the program down!

Spin #4

“While I believe a child’s identity and heritage is a critical part of their life and should remain so forever, providing a child with a loving ‘forever family’ is a human right and supersedes keeping them in poverty and institutional environments.”

It is clear that you feel that the ends justify the means, Candace. This isn’t about human rights of orphans. This is about YOUR need to be a parent. This is about YOUR need to sign on with an agency working in Nepal because you felt like it. This is about YOUR need to pretend that this program was oh-so-clean and ethical because, like Craig, if you admitted that you made a supremely selfish choice of countries from which to adopt, the game is up.

By the way, Candace, why haven’t you mentioned what your charming adoption agency was doing in Nepal anyway? All adoption agencies working in Nepal know that country is hopelessly and deeply corrupt—yet they CHOSE TO WORK THERE ANYWAY. Please, do us a big, big favor and explain how this makes Nepal adoptions inherently ethical. We all are breathlessly awaiting the artful spin you will doubtless pour over this pesky little problem.

Let’s make one more thing perfectly clear, Candace, that orphan you adopted and all the other orphans from Nepal whose paperwork may well be a complete forgery have human rights, too. It’s called the right to know who they are. Something these children are likely never to know because of adoptive parents who find the time and energy to blame everyone except, oh, Rally doesn’t know, maybe THE ONES WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Namely, the government and officials of Nepal with their greedy hands outstretched, the adoption agencies who deny the corruption, and the gullible and deluded US citizens who sign on anyway, certain that they are right and the rest of the world is wrong.

Just in case you were wondering why we are so angry about this, Candace, do beg our indulgence while we point you to a statement Nepal itself published. In it, they basically admit that their adoption program is riddled with corruption and needs a total overhaul. Read about it here Nepal: Corruption and Fraudulent Documents or here West Not Impressed or here US Bar on Nepali Adoptions to Stay.

And because it’s Rally’s lucky day, this article Orphaned or Stolen? was only published on February 18, 2011, so to be fair, of course, you could not have known its contents before you wrote your blog or spoke to Andrea. But get this–it confirms with devastating precision and in the strongest language possible just how corrupt the adoption process was in Nepal from 2006-2008. So, please, Candace, do us a super-huge favor and tell us what you think about the leaked cables obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Are you going to deny: “In 2009, Nepal began to allow international adoptions once again. But when it did, a number of observers were concerned that the country re-licensed many of the agencies and orphanages that had been implicated in the earlier waves of fraud and corruption…. Given this, it’s especially interesting to note that, in September 2008, the French and German embassies to Nepal called a meeting of other diplomatic missions. According to the last cable, below, everyone at the meeting agreed that the newly proposed rules (the ones in place today) would be inadequate–and urged the Western diplomatic missions to hold fast against problematic adoptions.”

We are helpfully pointing this out to you in the 0000001.00 percent chance that you might want to blog about this someday. No need to thank us!

So, to all the Craigs and Candaces and their adoption-fuzzy Red Threaded spin-artists and hypocrites, Rally would like to say in closing that someday, the real truth will come out.

You will have to own up to your choices and participation in wiping away your child’s history. You will have to stop the spin. That day will come when your adopted child finds out just how dirty the programs you chose were, and that you not only chose them anyway despite repeated warnings–but you went out of your way to justify them and expected the whole world to cry a river with you.