Finally, readers can get to see what the whole hour-long, nightly, Forgotten Ones’ dance protests are like.
Thanks to one of our wonderful readers, Le’Gal, we have in our possession the video that weareasyou nightly puts up then quickly takes down.
I thought it would be nice to put on the record a complete episode of the nightly dance for Raniere, led by his seven faithful Nxivm followers.
The seven followers who run the Forgotten Ones [lest they be forgotten] are:
Eduardo Asonsolo
Suneel Chakravarty
Marc Elliott
Nicki Clyne
Danielle Roberts
Linda Chung [far right]
Michele Hatchette
Readers and viewers might find the hour-long video a little boring, but one can skip around and get a look, and hear the music they are dancing to and a pretty good narration by Nxivm member Eduardo Asunsolo Ramirez, as he describes the action and the reason for the dance protest at MDC.
Last night, it seems that quite a few more people came out than usual, including a number of Spanish speaking people, and even a few children.
Nobody is arguing, as far as I know, that their cause is not a good cause – the protesting of inhumane conditions at MDC and Asunsolo makes some pretty good points during his narration on the brutal conditions and how even a little communication with the outside world can go a long way in cheering up these tormented prisoners who spend 20-24 hours per day in their tiny cells, month after month.
https://frankreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/weareasyou-video-2.mp4
It has been reported that Keith Alan Raniere was moved from his cell where he could see the dancers and perhaps be cheered himself by his followers’/slaves’ efforts, to a cell where he cannot see them. That is unfortunate, but happily, the dancers have vowed to continue even if their Vanguard cannot see them for the sake of the other prisoners there.
I hope for the Nxivm dancers’ sake that this dance protest does not have unintended consequences for Raniere. The Bureau of Prisons will have the final say on where Raniere is sent for his permanent prison after he is sentenced. The fact that there are dancer-followers of his, doing these protests – however justifiable – will likely not sit well with the BOP.
They may punish Raniere for it by assigning him to a harsher prison than he would otherwise be assigned. They can justify it by claiming he is a dangerous cult leader that still has his Manson-like followers madly dancing in front of the prison every night where he stays.
This may lead to the recommendation that he be sent to a supermax facility – where he will be in isolation and suffer intensely.
In that case, it will work out, as many Nxivm schemes often did, just the opposite of what they were claimed to be intended to do. The Nxivm Intensives, for example, were supposed to lead a student to executive success but usually led them, if they took enough courses, to poverty and dependence on Raniere.
And the dance protests, meant to improve the plight of prisoners, may wind up getting one prisoner, Raniere, into the worst prison in America, instead of a more reasonable one, where he would at least have a chance of remaining in good health, having the company of other humans, getting some outdoor recreation, working at a job at the facility, having access to the library and courses, and potentially surviving his prison sentence.
Instead, if the BOP goes supermax for Raniere, his plight will be worse than it is now: Years, maybe decades of being indoors all the time, with 23 hours in his cell and only one hour a day out, never seeing anyone, getting his food placed between alternately locking doors, which slide open on one end only long enough for the guard to place his food there and for him to get it after the other door is locked closed.
A life of utter loneliness and despair, a life of hopelessness, and, quite often, madness over time is the end result of our modern American isolation in prison system – for the worst offenders. It is as cruel a punishment as one could ever dance to protest against.
It is cruel – but sadly, it is not, in America, at all unusual.
There is every chance that the Nxivm dancers have waltzed their Vanguard right into permanent isolation in a supermax when he gets his permanent assignment. I have no doubt that Raniere approved, maybe even devised the dance protest and now I think it highly likely that this completely quixotic effort will wind up backfiring on him. Instead of helping him, a few weeks of dancing may hurt him intensely for years to come.
A typical isolation cell at ADC Florence.
