What qualified Helen Peterman to run juvenile drug rehabilitation programs?
A lot of people have asked this question; not only of Peterman but of other staffers in these programs.
We know it wasn't any formal education or certification because she never had any. I think all of her qualificiations came from her direct involvement in The Seed and Seed spin offs. Having been a high school drop out then a fuckup as a parent and then joined 3 documented abusive cults consecutivly is all the qualification you need to run another one.
That's the one common thread. Dr. Miller Newton was not a medical or psychiatric doctor. His doctorate was in anthropology. In the real world, he was qualified to be a history teacher, not a drug counselor. But he put a kid in Straight, became obsessively active in the Parent group and that qualified him as executive director at Straight and founder of Kids.
Art Barker may or may not have graduated high school. The qualification that he bragged about was having been a skidrow drunk and chronic AA member.
That's the whole basis of the Synanon method; fuckups counseling fuckups. Now, in my opinion, if people want to join these cults and dedicate their lives to defining themselves and others by their maladies, ok. I honestly don't have a big problem w/ that. But when they have the hubris to force young people (and old, as they do in court ordered stepcraft 'treatment') to endure their dubious newage bullshit and they force me to chip in by way of tax deductions and public funding and they force others to participate through court ordered involvement, then I have a problem w/ it.
Essentially, I see these people as self deluded into thinking their fuckups qualify them to dictate whatever they like to whomever they see fit. They have every right in this free country to delude themselves. But they have no right to fuck w/ others or to demand public funding and public policy to their benefit.
The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
--Anonymous
