Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Seed Discussion Forum => Topic started by: Anonymous on July 19, 2004, 09:55:00 AM
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It seems that the Seedlings had a "deeper' connection and belief in soem of the leaders--like Lybbi. Did Straight have people that were put on a pedistal like they had soemthing special as human beings? Or were the connections colder and more distant among the group aad staff? Did straight have one unquestionable leader or did people question him/her? DId they say I Love You all the time at Straight. It seems that Straight was a chepa version of The Seed or did people at Straight really have a stronhold on the group in a way that the group beleived the leaders had some special connecyion from above? :idea:
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You know the Seed was more like that waco deal. At first it was a government experiment but t got outa the hands of the government. Not that waco was a government experiment but actually the Seed was and I heard people tell me that Art had a direct connection with God himself. I still don't know what that meant to the other Seedlings except there was something vry different from the Seed and the copycat programs.
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You're right. Straight wasn't a personality cult in the way The Seed was/is. The authority of Staff, especially Sr. Group staff, was unquestionable and absolute. But it wasn't unheard of for a sr. staffer to get started over and someone else take their place.
When a well-packaged web of lies
has been sold gradually to the masses
over generations, the truth will seem
utterly preposterous and its speaker
a raving lunatic.
--Dresden James
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differences between the Seed and The Straight....
1) Art Barker, a bonifide certifiable cult leader. Straight never had one...sure they had Miller Newton but that was before he rose to cult leader status in his own program.
2) Hippy dippy love. Straight didn't have it. The Seed was a cool aide love cult disquised as a drug rehab. The Straight only professed to "love you", the Seedlings in a bizzare creepy way really did.
3) The Seed had a shorter program. Art created a revolving door affect where you were there for usually six months to a year. The straight kept you longer because they had financial incentive to do so.
4) "professionals" on staff. The Seed didn't really have them as Art refused to let anyone tell him anything and ran the seed as you would expect a rogue cult leader to. the Straight professionalized the model and brought in "the professionals" which lead to additional treatment modalities that didn't really do anything but add additional layers of breaucracy to the model.
5) Disquised direction. Here we bring in the cult aspect of the Seed vs the Straight. The straight's mission was purely a drug rehab with the modality lifted from the Seed. They missed somtehing...Arts grand scheme to take over the nations youth and become the beloved all powerfull savior of america's youth. Art's real direction was to build a "seed army" and be the leader. The straight never had such aspirations.
6) Meaner edge...the straight wins this one hands down with the "restraint as punishment" modality. Seed never had it.
7) extreme motivation. The Seed took this idea that seemed innocuous at the time, show your "motivation" to be called on by waving your arms enthusiastically and snapping your fingers. The straight morphed this into something truly bizzare.
8 ) Professionalization of model. The Seed had a us vs the world cult modality. The Straight was primarly a business model which choose to blend into normal society and thusly got itself approved for insurance billing and was able to get the republican party behind their cause.
9) Kooky cultic relationships. Only the seed could bring you marriages approved by Art, Art marrying a kid old enough to be in the program, Art adopting staff members, inner circle beach outings, communal living, sexual rumours, etc, etc. This stuff was just to bizzare to be made up.
10) Occultism and/or mysticism. The Seed warped into something that believed in astrology and Art being able to read your mind.
11) Financial empire. Art created a financial empire, funding staff members into business and keeping his finances secret. Cash was brought in like a church. The straight in contrast created a professionalized payment model involving monthly payments and insurance billing that just plain didn't exist at the seed.
In Conclusion, The Seed was a bonifide cult disquised as a drug rehab. The Straight was a copy of the Seed, dropping most of the cultic aspect but sharpening the edges, professionalizing the model, and becoming a longer and meaner program.
Which was worse? Depends on your individual experience. Some will swear both were beneficial and others it seems from both places took their lives.....
I personally found the cultic aspect of the seed very harmfull to my family, my personality and my attempt at asserting my early individuality. It took me years to find my way and build my confidence back up, and even today there are lingering consequences to being forced into a thought reform cult at age 14.
Some people I know sailed thru and swear it was beneficial. Go figure.....
[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-07-20 15:33 ]
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I agree w/ most of your assessment. But I think you're missing something very important.
On 2004-07-20 07:31:00, GregFL wrote:
"differences between the Seed and The Straight....
4) "professionals" on staff. The Seed didn't really have them as Art refused to let anyone tell him anything and ran the seed as you would expect a rogue cult leader to. the Straight professionalized the model and brought in "the professionals" which lead to additional treatment modalities that didn't really do anything but add additional layers of breaucracy to the model.
For the most part, the "professionals" on staff were hired for their titles. "Dr." Newton had his doctorate in social anthropology out of a correspondence school in Ohio. I was surprised to find that out just a few years ago, as nobody ever questioned that little detail. And why would they? You walk into a drug rehab and this middle aged man introduces himself as Dr. Miller Newton, you naturally enough assume he's a psychologist or something, right?
Same w/ Dr. Burns (education) and Dr. MacDonald (pediatrician) and, I'm sure, a good many others.
I think the objective was essentially the same; to keep the real professionals out. The difference being that Melvin is a whole lot more savvy than Art. Art seemed to really enjoy the "us against them" thing; raging against the world and all that while Mel had a more realistic plan for actually garnering meaningful influence and taking over the world. I think both men were hand picked by Bobby DuPont. Art was too full of himself to do something so subtle so Bobby (or whomever) kicked him to the curb and recruited a more qualified candidate to fill the position.
5) Disguised direction. Here we bring in the cult aspect of the Seed vs the Straight. The straight's mission was purely a drug rehab with the modality lifted from the Seed. They missed somtehing...Arts grand scheme to take over the nations youth and become the beloved all powerfull savior of america's youth. Art's real direction was to build a "seed army" and be the leader. The straight never had such aspirations.
I disagree. Compare what DFAF has actually accomplished to what Art has accomplished over the last three decades. The Semblers are making public policy on the domestic and international levels, controling billions in public funding and have accoplished such a lock on the nation's youth that no school student is safe from random search of their cars, clothing, back-packs and even their bladders. And none of us can escape seeing their propaganda here and there, except to toss out the TV, turn off the radio, drive only on back country roads w/ no billboards and never read a newspaper. These fuckers are EVERYwhere!
8 ) Professionalization of model. The Seed had a us vs the world cult modality. The Straight was primarly a business model which choose to blend into normal society and thusly got itself approved for insurance billing and was able to get the republican party behind their cause.
Again, I think they've done more than blend themselves into society. They've gone a long way toward blending society into their worldview through force of law.
11) Financial empire. Art created a financial empire, funding staff members into business and keeping his finances secret. Cash was brought in like a church. The straight in contrast created a professionalized payment model involving monthly payments and insurance billing that just plain didn't exist at the seed.
Ditto. Art had some public funding. The Partneship for a Drug Free America has at least hundreds of millions in funding each year and controls, through public mandate, billions more in law enforcement funding, mandatory minimum sentencing (never forget that Jim Wackenhut and other of their cronnies are heavily invested in private prisons and prison services), property forfeiture, DARE, military aid to local law enforcement and the list goes on and on and on.
In Conclusion, The Seed was a bonifide cult disguised as a drug rehab. The Straight was a copy of the Seed, dropping most of the cultic aspect but sharpening the edges, professionalizing the model, and becoming a longer and meaner program.
Which was worse? Depends on your individual experience. Some will swear both were beneficial and others it seems from both places took their lives.....
I think Straight had the same goal w/ more realistic, more professional business plan. They have accomplished much of their often stated objective of turning the whole world into the Program so that we (who were then stuck in group) wouldn't have to send our kids anywhere to get them indoctrinated.
History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.
--John Buchan
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Excellent analysis Ginger. One thing tho, this..
Ginger:
"I disagree. Compare what DFAF has actually accomplished to what Art has accomplished over the last three decades. The Semblers are making public policy on the domestic and international levels, controling billions in public funding and have accoplished such a lock on the nation's youth that no school student is safe from random search of their cars, clothing, back-packs and even their bladders. And none of us can escape seeing their propaganda here and there, except to toss out the TV, turn off the radio, drive only on back country roads w/ no billboards and never read a newspaper. These fuckers are EVERYwhere!"
Yes, and no. my point was Art's goal of "saving the youth" and being the King of the Seedling world was always evident and quite different than the Sembler result of infiltrating program idealogy into government and everyday life. Art in contrast wanted every kid Worshipping HIM and being a seedling...a very different proposition.
Also "professionals" on staff. I agree that they were there to legitamize the program, not to actually do anything. But this in itself is evidence of a difference in the two camps...Art would have never allowed it. Notice I put professionals in italics in my post and said they really didn't do anything.
my main point is that Art was a bonafide cult leader and the Seed was a cool aide love cult/drug rehab. The Straight became something else, a machine built upon a cult model with no cult leader but with vast connections that even after the closing of the rehabs continue to perpetuate the drug war and infiltrate totalitarian drug testing into everyday life.
The Seed sucked...and so did straight, and so does DFAF...
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Thanks. Yeah, I think we're probably really saying about the same thing anyway. That's why you're no fun to argue with, we think alike enough already. I miss my brother sometimes :wink:
Anyway, I was just coming back here to drop this off:
http://www.reason.com/hod/dk071504.shtml (http://www.reason.com/hod/dk071504.shtml)
Very interesting article on the Drug Warriors' strangle hold on both branches of the Dempublican oligarchy.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism--how passionately I hate them!
--Albert Einstein
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you can call me bro anytime..
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Thanks, that's sweet! But it's OK, my aim is improving. :grin:
For the community to have 10% to 25% of its men unable to vote or unable to access credit or other privileges of citizenship for the rest of their lives in some states creates a permanently diminished
group within society.
Jeremy Travis, Urban Institute
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Thanks Greg
what about the way Straight kids interacted with each other? Was there a lot of closeness as they knew each other for many, many year, like a big family? or was that just at Seed? Like did they trust each other woth business decisions or money issues. Were thye like "brothers" and "sisters" or was that just Seed that was that just seed that was able to promote the illusion of a "strong bond". Kike did the Straight kids suffer loyalty issues amongst each other?
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I can only speak for myself. But I really never trusted anyone at Straight. Soon as I was able, I split and didn't look back for a long time.
I don't think those Seed friendships were real enduring either, though. At least I know that my 3 brothers, one sister and a sister in law never stayed in touch w/ any Seedlings for very long after they graduated. (my brother was in love w/ his future wife before the Program; litterally the girl next door)
The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer
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I think I understand what anon was getting at. The Seed relationships, at least the inner circle ones, were based on compliance and submission to Art, therefore they were not real. If you asserted inviduality, they dropped you like a hot potatoe.
Cultic love is conditional and not real, but the cult members truly believe they love you, and they truly believe they are cutting you off for your own good. This is true of all personality cults.
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Who was Lybbi? :question:
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Lybbi McDonald. No relation to the Ronald McDonald folks who sold their franchise operation to J.R. Crock. Her father was wealthy, though, behind the invention of some then new innovation in milk shake technology, I shit you not. Last I looked, McDonald's hogi shop was still open for business at Hilsborough Inlet in Pompano. I can't remember the exact spot, but it's somewhere in the vacinity of the Yardarm site:
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/1999- ... print.html (http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/1999-04-01/news/news3_print.html)
The way I remember the legend, poor Lybbi's wealthy parents abandoned her and refused to support Art's bottomless thirst for mo money (uh... I mean to support her Program, I mean... yeah, that's it) So Art and Shelly 'adopted' her after she came of age. I don't know if there ever was any more legal substance for that than there was for calling the Seed a drug rehab. But that was the official line.
Lybbi never left the program. She married another Seedling and remained on staff till 'the rap from hell', which split Seedlings into two camps; Art or Lybbi. That was sometime around 2000 or later. Last I heard, she's given over warping the minds of young humans in favor of more maliable, less intelligent greyhound dogs.
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
--Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor
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Your insane Ginger there was no milkshake conection or hogi shop. Where do you get your info? In your make believe world? Seriously you come up with the hoakiest bullshit sometimes...
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I heard that Lybbi trains dogs for FEMA and she trains puppies for canine Companions for Independence.
What do you mean by "warping minds"?
When did the Seed in Fort lauderdale close?
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On 2006-07-03 06:46:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Your insane Ginger there was no milkshake conection or hogi shop. Where do you get your info? In your make believe world? Seriously you come up with the hoakiest bullshit sometimes..."
How do you know, and what about that comment is "insane".
Why are you so angry?
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That's not the Ginger you think.
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Read on and you will see.
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greyhounds? Where do you get your info. I think you just make up shit along the way. That other artical about Staphanis had nothing to do about anything. You scare me how dangerous your potiential for making up shit is.
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Actually Jack told me that. It was a highschool hang out of his. He took me there for lunch one time. Maybe you just don't know much that's true about Lybbi's family?
A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
--Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
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Hey Eudora, what was "the rap from hell"?
Hey Greg, did Seed staff have a big clusterfuck or something? It makes me sad to think that they actually had fun while lording it over the rest of us.
Here's my capsule assessment of the differences between Seed and Straight, Seed and WWASP, and Seed and most of the current spin-offs: The Seed sought to break kids' spirits. Straight and the spin-offs have sought to break kids' spirits and also psychologically scar them for life. Hands down, I would "prefer" the Seed, and you know how much I think the Seed stank. Still, as you pointed out, Greg, there was an endearingly goofy quality to the Seed amidst all the posturing and meanness. That goofiness was a mitigating factor; it made it less harsh. LOVE YOU!
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Why do you write that Lybbi "warped minds"?
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Eudora you don't know what you are talking about her dad was a stockbroker. "Little minds think crazy stuff"
You do know there is no tooth fairy ? Right?
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On 2006-07-03 12:33:00, marcwordsmith wrote:
Still, as you pointed out, Greg, there was an endearingly goofy quality to the Seed amidst all the posturing and meanness. That goofiness was a mitigating factor; it made it less harsh. LOVE YOU!
I agree with this assessment. :wink: Seriously. Given the choice, if it were real choice, hands down, Art and Lybbi and Shelly and the whole goofy gang were benign compared to the likes of Virgil. Trouble is that, unintentional as it was, they set up a set of circumstances that is just ripe for exactly this type of abuse. No getting around it. Look at each branch individually. Same things keep happening.
You know....if the Seed was in Utah, who knows how many "wives" the old bastard would have.
Jupiter Survivor
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..... if i may intrude.
we all suffered so the point is....
what we r gonna do about it ?
no one will ever stop sembler until he's "DEAD"
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I think you got it Marc.Even tho the Straight was a copy of the seed, it was a copy of the St Pete seed, readily admitted by senior staff (read; John U) as having a meaner edge than Ft Lauderdale. The replacement was sans Art and These people took Art's fantasy of a seed utopia and flushed it down the toilet, replacing it with a harder edged, more corporate version of the same dogma.
Libbi does train dogs now. That is easily researchable on the net. The rest of the story about her parents being millionaires, and of course the 1000 a day junkie habit...I just don't know.
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"The rap from Hell" or whatever you want to call it, was the break up of the inner circle. It has been posted about here in the past. I wasn't there so anything I say is second hand, but the story goes something like this. Art was losing control, Libby garned her followers and went to Art's house where they confronted him. Art threw them all out and that forever divided the hard core Seedling group.
Those that know more can clarify what really happened. Ft Laud, care to help out here?
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It's kind of hard to explain. But I'll try and, as long as you want to toss out questions, I'll try to answer better.
In a way, all the staff and all the higher phasers had that affect of superiority and 'sacred science' sort of thing. It just wasn't anywhere near as convincing. It was sort of stilted, at least from my point of view. I don't think many people believed literally that there was any mind reading going on. Just that it was probably best to pretend it was. After all, there was behavioral science, intense scrutiny and surveilance coupled with mock junkie wisdumb at work and so forth.
I don't think they flushed the utopian dream at all. I think they thought they were improving on it; tweaking, perfecting, making it more efficient and scalable. That, after all, is what Mel Sembler does. He builds shopping malls to replace home towns. These days it's come full circle. He's building multi use developments which are, for all the world, about as close as you can get to the living/commerce space design of all these old towns around here. Living upstairs and to the back, storefront at the street, the whole town walkable. Only thing missing is the hills and wild berries.
What do you think, S? I know you don't have the same frame of reference that I do. But nobody ever worshiped Mel Riddile or Dean Mistratta that I've ever heard of (well... uh, except maybe Dean's Boys getting on their knees. But that's a different sort of worship LOL)
I tried for years to live according to everyone else's morality.
I tried to live like everyone else, to be like everyone else.
I said the right things even when I felt and thought quite differently.
And the result is a catastrophe.
---Albert Camus
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On 2006-07-05 16:43:00, GregFL wrote:
It has been posted about here in the past.
:eek: People have posted here about it. Don't make me drive down there and pimp slap the passive sense out of your mouth!Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time, and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.
--Thomas Carlyle
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well, I missed the original posts about the rap from hell, but I do appreciate your general explanation, Greg, and it's enough for me.
It's odd to think the Seed was wracked by melodrama right up into its final days. In a way, I sorta imagined they all (that is, anyone who was still around by the year 2000 or so . . . jeez, imagine that!) might have mellowed out a little. Like there was that one poster here who'd been to The Seed in the nineties and who started a thread entitled something like "I don't get it" and she testified that The Seed had been caring and kind to her.
From what I've read here, it seems the Seed had a kind of U-shaped evolution, from sweet innocuous hippie cult, quickly devolving to cruel coercive thought reform program (perhaps peaking in St. Pete in that regard) and then slowly inching back to gentler ways. But the massive delusions of grandeur persisted all the way through, I suppose.
Goofy, yes, but gross and disgusting, because we had no choice in the matter. We were forced to act the adoring audience for the pontifications of Art and senior staff. The irony is that they needed to be adored and worshipped--and they insisted WE needed THEM.
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On 2006-07-06 00:34:00, marcwordsmith wrote:
From what I've read here, it seems the Seed had a kind of U-shaped evolution, from sweet innocuous hippie cult, quickly devolving to cruel coercive thought reform program (perhaps peaking in St. Pete in that regard) and then slowly inching back to gentler ways. But the massive delusions of grandeur persisted all the way through, I suppose.
I think so. Remember the Straight was modeled after the early St Pete Seed. All of the original Straight staffers were early St Pete seed oldcomers.
This was my frame of reference that I held for the seed until this forum. I never imagined that one day oldcomers would be out playing tennis with their newcomers in the afternoon, Or that raps would end in the afternoon and everyone would go home, or stuff like this. That was out of the realm of possiblity in my perception of the place.
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...A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
--Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
This is a fantastic quote. Right the fuck on!!!
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Man, I just want to thank ya'll for having this discussion in a place and a way that I can understand, especially Greg FL and Eudora, who have obviously spent a lot of quiet time thinkin' on all this. It's just so nice to be able to gain more understanding of the past and know that other people are troubled by the same things that trouble me. Before I found this site, I despaired of ever finding anyone that I could, dare I say, "relate" to. I salute your noble search for understanding and thankyou for shining your light to help me see.
-starry-eyed pirate, $tr8 survivor and Drug War P.O.W. 85-87
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::cheers::
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Naw, man, thank you for comin' along and joining the conversation. I just want to understand, ya know? All we really did was throw out the invite and maybe taunt and stoke it a little here and there. You guys make up all the content and context.
:nworthy:
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differences between Straight & Seed - one sucked, the other blew! :D
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i recall one instance which iwitnessed.. a boy and his father were being confronted by a staff member.. the staff member told the father to 'hit him' so the father did..the boy was cornered and struck back. was restrained by the staff member, the police were called, the boy was charged with assualt &battery, witnesses don't cha know, and remanded by the juve court to seed custody... when i hit age of majority, i was told "no, we can't legally hold you... but we can physically hold you".. it's been a long long time for me and good to finallly recognize that this stuff did exist, and awful to kow that it still does rssmddn :D :D
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welcome to the forum. That memory of yours is a bit of seed history, DENIED by the faithfull but well remembered by us , now adult, unwilling participants.
Anything else you remember?
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"but we can physically hold you" creepy. Seedy creepy
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yes greg there is something, many things i remember... most importantly it's been many years and much study.. we were drummed and drilled mto believe that no one repeat no one would believe us that we were merely drug addled (perhaps drug riddled sounds better, cant't decide) teens, whose word and testoimony were forever impeached, that if we protested or told word would leak out about us, and we would be unemployable, shunned, pariahs, as would our families.. to any i strongly recommend sargents book physiology of brainwashing and conversion... until i read that, i believed that i was dealing with psychological matters within myself, and not an inclusive psychophysical phenomena... grateful for this forum
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This guy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sergeant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sergeant)
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We are gratefull you are here as well. What branch were you in, and When. Any 'seed happenings" that stick out in your mind, other than the staff directed beatings by seedling parents?
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This guy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sergeant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sergeant)
Looks intense. I get the feeling I should check it out.
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I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
-Rita Rudner :D
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Having entered Str8 right after their first anniversary,I see many similarities,as duplicating the Seed was Str8's first objective.We had a cult leader,Helen "The Old Bitch" Petermann.She later left to form LIFE when she realized that she would never have the control of Str8 that she desired(That,by the way,was a good thing).As a newcomer,strangely enough,I would ask if this was like the Seed and they would tell me that the Seed was based on fear and that Str8 was founded on love.Upon my leaving Str8,LIFE was formed within a year.The Seedlings on staff on Day 1 for me were David Crock,Robin German,Cynthia Pickart(later Crock),and Tom Vida.Marci Moore was Sr. Staff and a Seed sibling.The differences between the Str8 I entered and the Seed from reading this thread,my answer would be very little.The Str8 I left eighteen months later(by the way,my family only paid once like the Seed),was evolving into a far more sinister monster.More "thorough" meant more time.When they charged by the month rather than the program,suddenly,it also meant revenue.By the way ,Ginger,in my time a Jr or Sr. Staff startover was unheard of.They would just be terminated.See how things change when they charge by the month.