Lifton criteria of thought reform
Breaking News!!!!
Melvin and Betty Sembler have filed suit against Richard Bradbury; the man who shut down Straight, Inc. under that corporate name.Click Here
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Tell Mel to GET HONEST!!Click Here to revoke your "successful graduate" status |
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of it's victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
-- C.S. Lewis.
Straight Inc. Alumni
For those associated with Straight Inc. Even if you
didn't 7th Step/Graduate. Regardless of your current lifestyle and view of
Straight Inc. you are welcomed to join. Hosted by Don Smith, 7th Stepper
from the Cincinnati Branch
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Notice: Correction, retraction and apology
On April 24th, 2003, we recieved a letter from the law firm, Englander & Fischer, P.A. on behalf of Calvina Fay taking exception to the following text and asking us to retract these statements and to publicly apologize.
(Letter from E&F, Page 1 - Page 2) Upon reviwing the text in question, we noted a couple of errors and ambiguities that we feel we should rightly address.
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Robert Dupont - former paid consultant (professional testiliar) for Straight, Inc.,
former director of NIDA, granted Art Barker several million for The Seed in Ft. Lauderdale
Interesting note, here. It seems there's a rift within the cult. One faction seems very much attached to the idea of hard prison time as a necessary incentive to rehab. Now, if drug use is as devastating as these people claim, for the life of me I can't see why any more incentive would have to be contrived. But take your blessings as they come, the two factions seem to be shooting each other in the foot over this.
Tim Mantooth, former client then executive staff of Straight Atlanta, went on to join the staff of Phoenix Family Institute (that's what Straight, Atlanta called itself after they got shut down in `93) Now he's working a new gig called Recovery Fellowship of North Atlanta
Art Barker, Founder of
The Seed, only retired late in 2001! Not only that, but he moved his operation
back into the original building in Ft. Lauderdale.
A lot of people attribute the invention of the Gateway Theory to Robert DuPont, former head of NIDA and author of "Getting tough on Gateway Drugs". But he only plagiarized the idea from Art. See, Art found himself in a lurch in the Summer of 70 when all the news had forecast a massive epidemic of heroin addiction. But it never happened. So here's this guy with all the gears set in motion to build himself the most revolutionary, fantastical, Earth shaking drug rehab that ever was. But then he found himself with no goddamned druggies! So this was his answer; convince the parents, already scared to death by the Summer of Manson propaganda, that pot smoking (which represented a plentiful market for his services) would set their children on an inexorable path to destruction via heroin addiction.
How do I know this? I was there. Is this guy evil? Maybe so. Art Barker stole my family from me when I was just 6 or 7 years old. But I knew the guy personally in a sense. I had about the same contact with Art as a parishioner of a very large revival movement might have with the Bible Thumper. I tend to think of him first as a self deluded megalomaniac; he's only dangerous if you believe him. I think Art was a stooge for Dupont, very like the many Dr.'s (of education, mostly) who have been hired by the spin-off programs for the misleading use of their titles. One very important difference between The Seed and Straight is that Art, was so thoroughly convinced of the rightness of what he was doing that he was not very careful about hiding what he thought. As a result, he had a hard time keeping friends and necessary alliances. So The Seed was issued NIDA requirements to acquire consent forms for experimental and dangerous treatment. Art refused the ultimatum, shut down all but the Ft. Lauderdale branch. As far as I know, the Seed is no more than a strange little cult that exists in Down Town Ft. Lauderdale these days. But I could be wrong. Please let me know anything you might dig up on Art Barker, Shelly Barker, Libby MacDonald or The Seed.
Here's some interesting commentary from John Underwood. John was one of the early Seedlings and original Sr. staff.
See: Articles on The Seed
Straight, on the other hand, was founded by a close knit group of politically and economically powerful men
with no compunction whatever about doing had to be done to make their enterprise a success. To this day,
these people wield extremely heavy influence in many areas of public policy and sentiment.
Oddly NIDA never made the same requirement of Straight with regard to consent forms. Robert
Dupont, then head of NIDA who directed over a million dollars to The Seed, later became a paid consultant for
Straight.
The Reverend (now priest???) Dr. Virgil Miller Newton -
Took over as clinical director of Straight Incorporated in July of `82. In `83, he resigned from Straight
to found the Kids' chain, starting in Bergen County, NJ. He recently settled a suite
brought by former client, Rebecca Erlich for $4.5 Mil. Currently residing, much to the chagrin of his
neighbors it seems, in Maderia Beach, Florida and
teaching courses
in General Psychology and World Religions at the Seminole campus of St. Pete Jr. College. Coincidentally or not,
this is the headquarters for the Multi Jurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force,
who's Advisory Board includes such notables as
Mrs. Betty Sembler - President/Founder, Drug Free America Foundation, Mr. James McDonough - Director,
Office Drug Control State of Florida Executive Office of the Governor (currently, Brother Jeb! Bush).
Bill Oliver
Just an aside, SAFE Marin's Mission Statement says:
"SAFE was established by parents who have dealt with the reality of their children's drug and alcohol abuse. Our mission is to provide support, information, and resources to parents whose minor children are, or are at risk of substance abuse, because of peer pressure or family predisposition."But .... California State University, Sacramento says: "With grants of approximately $500,000 from the United States Department of Education, the College has produced two television projects: Strategies, Techniques and Resources in Drug Education (STRIDE), and Substance Abuse: Family Education (SAFE). These projects incorporated substance abuse prevention and education in the daily activities of school-age children. "I guess they haven't carried over that first and most impotent rule? |
David Gilcrease, member of the Gilcrease family that founded Phillips Petroleum based his �behavior modification� techniques on the research of B.F. Skinner and Fritz Perls who were experimenting with mind control/brainwashing in the 20th century. He is founder of Resource Realizations, which has been sued along with the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) for mentally and physically torturing and brainwashing America's children.
On the board of Phillips Petroleum, Halliburton, and advisor to the Supreme Court is long time George Bush associate Lawrence Eagleburger. On the board of SkyWest Airlines, servicing and in seeming partnership with George Bush airport in Texas is none other than J. Ralph Atkin, part owner of Teen Help/WWASPS. President Bush is trying to move legislation that will institute the drugging and behavior modification of children in public schools with the �New Freedom Initiative�. The largest Utah-based corporate contributor to the Republican Party is World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools.
[lifted straight from HEAL Online ]
Interesting piece on Straight & D.A.R.E from Sumeria
"Calvina is the Executive Director of Drug Free America Foundation. As such,
her primary activitiy seems to focus on promoting and facilitating
violations of the 
Melvin and Betty Sembler
