The Seed-------Did Art Barker succeed?

[Anonymous]

I remember Art coming out to talk to the group one day, and saying something like, 'If we only save one kid, it will all have been worth it.' At the time, I didn't get it. I thought he was being negative. That statement makes perfect sense to me today. "


What exactly is "ALL"?  Is it worth saving one life when you sacrifice another?  Yes, Art was fond of that little baseless self serving justification of his actions.

[Thom]

I took the 'ALL' to mean things like:

Putting up with a bunch of snot-nosed, arrogant, lying brats;

Getting smeared in the press;

Staff pretty much devoting their lives to the cause;

Fighting off government entanglements;

Expending much time and energy into the lives of hundreds of kids, knowing few would get it.

Stuff like that

and a question for you. What lives were sacrificed?

[GregFL]

your sister's childhood, for one. Was it really worth her spending her entire youth at the seed so you could just leave and then immediately start drinking in an uncontrolled fashion. Where is the gain/cost equation leading us here?

It never ceases to amaze me that the ones that can't control themselves and use substances compulsively are the ones that say the seed saved them.

[GregFL]

On 2005-09-18 00:43:00, Thom wrote:

"I took the 'ALL' to mean things like:



Putting up with a bunch of snot-nosed, arrogant, lying brats;



Getting smeared in the press;



Staff pretty much devoting their lives to the cause;



Fighting off government entanglements;



Expending much time and energy into the lives of hundreds of kids, knowing few would get it.



Stuff like that



and a question for you. What lives were sacrificed?"

interesting how we define "all" differently.

How about all being

locking roughly 10,000 kids up in a warehouse without adequate food, housing, facitilites, air conditioning in 100 degree weather.

putting child junkies, losers, and assorted unqualified egomaniacs in charge of captive children.

creating a reward/punishment system that resembled a rat/cheese maze...with the child as the rat and the child's family and freedom as the cheese.

Forcing hero worship of a man and his wife that neither earned or deserved it.

breaking families up along pro seed/anti seed sentiments.

forcing children to publiclly humiliate, degrade, and otherwise admit to illegal activities in front of their entire community.

Making people disavow thier entire before program lives and attribute their very survival to the group.

Having pre pubscent children attend specialized raps concerning sex and sexual relations (ie: boys and girls rap).

Locking kids up in houses with the windows barred and bedrooms padlocked...with known criminals and parents of questionable character.


Hitting children in the back when they nodded off or "got into their heads' or committed the henious crime of letting their backs rest against their chairs.


screaming profanities in the faces of little kids including things like "you couldn't even fuck a coke bottle" or "on the streets I would have fucked you and then thrown you out" to little girls trying to find their identities.  

Forcing kids to humiliate other kids publically.

I could continue, but obviously my "all" looks very different than your "all". Needless to say Thom, many of us "got it" whether we wanted it or not, then spent years trying to "get rid of it".


And as far as getting smeared in the press..I have gone back and read most of it. The press in my opinion was way to kind  to Mr. Barker only because back then they really didn't understand cults all that well.

The press in St Pete did a much better job, IMHO, than the south florida press..in spite of the seed parent boycott of the local paper.

And who was sacrificied?  We have been down this road before...if you are to attribute the survival of post seed kids to the seed, then the seed must bear the responsiblity of those that have fallen, for example..the kid that blew his brains out before group one day or the friend of maggies that killed himself.

 You can't just have it one way..

[SteveHHMD]

So, this is what I  remember:
Sitting on concrete floors all day long, the smell of stale cigarretes, the singing, finally learning how to feel again.  12 hours a day, then 10 hours a day.  I know that I would be in the ground because I know that I would be in the ground.  I had no conception back then at 15, that I would ever live to be 20.  I had used every drug under the sun and when I took 41 10mg valiums, my dat put me on a plane and sent me to Ft. Lauderdale.  We all have our own story.  My real issues weren't about drugs.  But drugs terribly complicated the whole process of dealing with my issues.  When I see people who  use meth, (almost every day) as an infectious disease doctor, I have my little drug talk with them.  It goes something like this:
I don't know anyone who uses drugs who is happy.
People start out for whatever reason.  When they use drugs, they dig themselves into a hole of unhappiness.  The more unhappy, the more they use, the deeper the hole.  It's hard to crawl out.  
I'm 46 now.  It hasn't been easy.  I've been divorced .  I've gotten therapy.  I understand a little more about reasons for my own unhappiness.  I drink alcohol in moderation, don't do anything else,  
Can casual drug users be happy?  I don't know.  I see a lot of apparently well-adjusted people who smoke marijuana.  I've learned not to judge those around me.  If anyone doubts that I would be dead now if it weren't for the seed it's okay.  But you don't know me.  I'm just thankful to still be here, learning how to love those around me and myself.  (Especially my new 9 week old daughter, Sofia Grace)
Best to all
Steve

[Thom]

Good morning Greg.

It's been about 30 years now. At what point does one begin to take responsibility for one's own life issues? I'm sorry your life was devastated by The Fort Lauderdale Seed. My experience was different from yours. I can't change that, nor would I wish to. I hope your day gets better.

[Thom]

Congrats on the new baby, Steve!

[GregFL]

your right we don't know you..yet. We hope to get to know you better here on this message site.

Congratulations of the new baby girl!


Steve, you sound like a thoughtfull well rounded guy. If you are that now you probably always were that, even when you were 15 and abusing substances. Don't you give yourself even a glimmer of a chance of finding your way out of that without being locked away in the seed?

 Glad to have you post.

[GregFL]

On 2005-09-18 05:18:00, Thom wrote:

"Good morning Greg.



It's been about 30 years now. At what point does one begin to take responsibility for one's own life issues? I'm sorry your life was devastated by The Fort Lauderdale Seed. My experience was different from yours. I can't change that, nor would I wish to. I hope your day gets better."

having a great day Thom, and I wasn't in the ft lauderdale seed, nor is my life "devastated". In fact, it is better than almost anyone else's life I see around me. I am one lucky guy.  Also,  What makes you think I don't take responsiblity for my life's issues?

You sure are presumptious...much in the manner of most steppers I am afraid.

[GregFL]

BTW, it is night where I am currently abiding my time. That brings the batting average of your last post down to zero...

 :grin:

[Antigen]

On 2005-09-18 05:06:00, SteveHHMD wrote:


I don't know anyone who uses drugs who is happy.

But...

I drink alcohol in moderation, don't do anything else,
Can casual drug users be happy? I don't know. I see a lot of apparently well-adjusted people who smoke marijuana.

Huh?

Here's the thing. The Seed and other similar TC's base their method on stepcraft. Essentially, anybody who uses any psychotropic at all is, by their definition, on an inexorable path of self destruction and too crazy to think for themselves.

I don't remember a whole lot of hardened addicts in either the Seed or Straight. What I remember is a whole lot of pretty typical kids who got busted (or ratted out by group members) for smoking some pot. And, as you note, the treatment for this imaginary crisis is quite invasive.

Do you believe that all 6 of us McNultys were hardened junkies at death's door? Thom, how do you explain Jim? He never bought in and has stubornly failed to fail for 30 years now. Or you, for that matter. You got the cure twice and, imo, came out the other end far more fucked up than you were going in.

That's one of the big problems w/ the program model. We have people administering highly invasive, experimental psychological treatments to nonconsenting others who may or may not need any kind of intervention at all. And these practitioners' only qualification is a belief in a particular dogma which includes a belief in their own powerlessness and insanity and that of anyone else they can button hole long enough to pass on the insanity.

To draw a parallell, what would you think of a hospital run by inpatients and former inpatients w/ no formal training who went around placing chest tubes in other patients who were confined against their will because one of the inpatients may have confessed to having passed them a cold?

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"  Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charlie Brown, _Peanuts_ [Charles Schulz]

[SteveHHMD]

Okay, that was part of why I included that information about myself ("drinking in moderation").  The point is, I needed a crutch for a time.  The Seed may have been a cult.  I don't know.  But after I got my life back, I was able to live my life and make my own choices.  I moved back to my home (Texas), and no-one tried to control me.   I stayed away from the people with whom I had used drugs, until I was at a place where I felt comfortable to do so.

I was dragged kicking and screaming to the Seed.  Could I have possibly survived without the Seed?  Maybe, but clearly SOMETHING had to change my life.  I suppose I could have been "saved" or something.  Maybe I could have gone to jail.  As long as my life was completely centered on drugs (as it was) I couldn't deal with what was really going on inside of me.  

I was interested to see John Underwood's posts.  If you read what he says, the things he says are all true.  We ARE all responsible for our actions.  We DO have problems with selfishness, justification etc. etc.  But it was also interesting to see the degree of harsh condescension.  "Why did WE fail?"  I believe that the truth is more complicated than that.   I believe that we generally do the best we can at the time with what we have.  I was grateful to see the truths that the Seed gave me.  I'm also grateful to have grown since then to understand more fully why I've been who I am.  Further, maybe some of those who John says have failed have in fact succeeded in adding goodness to this world.  

I think in life we've got to learn to take both the good and the bad, and make the best of all things.  I believe that the message of the Seed, that is, do good things, live honestly, and love those around you, is a simple guide to happiness.

Aside, when I was in the Seed, the leaders were John, Cliff, Robert, Susie B and Susie C, Libby, and Anne.  Anne was younger and very kind.  Is Art still alive?
Steve

[GregFL]

Last we heard..yes Art was alive but very sick.  Ft Lauderdale..maybe you can shed some light on his condition.

Steve..another good post.  I too think the basic message of the seed was good, but I also didn't appreciate how it was administered nor do I believe the people preaching even came close to living what they said.

One thing you said..you got out and moved. That is one very important way to get away from a cult and as you said "take the good with the bad". The people that  suffered mostly were unable to detach either because of an unhealthy attraction or because their family kept pushing the cult on them after they chose to leave.

finally, I never knew annie.

[Ft. Lauderdale]

SteveHHMD
Did you also have a brother on the program?  I think if I remember correctly your whole family really liked football?

[marshall]

--------quote-------
"Maybe, but clearly SOMETHING had to change my life."
------------------------------

Hi Steve. From what I've seen in others, something probably would have changed it. It doesn't take some magical catalyst or mind-control program. The vast majority of the friends I used drugs with (all manner of drugs, speed, downs, pot, hash, acid, pcp, mushrooms, mescaline, etc) have either stopped using completely or else just smoke pot on rare occasions. I don't know of any of them that had to attend a 12 step program...much less a coercive program...in order to stop using. None are dead (drug related), insane or in jail. None. Of course I wasn't a heroin addict or alcoholic and neither were the friends I hung out with...though a couple of them did go on to alcoholism at some point. I'm sure the statistics would be different for those groups. To suggest that all or even most casual teen drug users will end up in prison, insane or dead..or go on to be junkies is not honest. It is a lie.

I too agree that the message of the Seed was good. No-one is suggesting that we should be dishonest, do evil things or hate others. The Seed didn't invent those ideals. But as Greg points out, they did give their own twist to what those ideals meant. 'don't compare yourself to others.'...unless they're just druggie assholes or maybe just disagree with your pov. "Honesty is the most important rule" except when it doesn't support program dogma. "have respect for yourself" Girls not wearing bras and anyone using drugs or drinking is showing disrepect for themselves...but teenyboppers cursing like sailors while chain smoking is ok. "Don't let your head get out of whack"..unless you're Art. "Think, think, think"...unless such thinking leads you to question or criticize program dogma....in which case it's not really thinking...it then becomes analysing or getting into your head. "Don't be into acceptance, be a leader, not a follower"....except within the program, in which case it's acceptable to blatantly imitate Art or staff...everyone having the same general hairstyles, clothes, using identical slogans and catch phrases and thinking the same. I could go on, but you get the idea.