simple response to John Underwood

[JaLong]

Ginger, Who is the DFAF and DPNA? I'd really would like to know. I agree our government has blood all over it's hands all over the world. It makes me sick. I was not scolding you. I was  asking you some questions. I have no anamosity towards you at all. It just feels to "me", whenever someone replies to one of your posts, you try to blast them out of the water. I don't even know you, just your posts. Were you in the St.Pete seed? Again, as my letter back to Marc said, if I have offended you in any way I apologize, and ask your forgiveness.

[Antigen]

JaLong, as long as you have been discussing these issues w/ ppl in these forums, I'm guessing you'd know very well who DFAF is by now if you wanted to. But, in case anyone else reading, now or in futre, wants to look into it, here's a good start.

http://thestraights.com/articles/dpna.htm

Essentially, "Plan Colombia" is an American war effort pursued on the pretext of waging the war on drugs. The founders of Straight, Inc. and past funders, friends and supporters of The Seed are in it up to their eyebrows. Their connections go all the way to the White House, latterally throughout the intelligence community and all the way back to the `70's.

If former Seedlings and Straightlings don't know what our lunatic captors are doing w/ our money, our national reputation, our young brave soldiers and our taxes these days, then I would suggest that it's worth your time and trouble to look into it a little bit. We all who sat in group and know firsthand how crazy and how thorougly deluded these people are have an obligation to raise a hew and cry about it. These people should never have been trusted to care for teenagers, never mind to make international policy and order soldires around!

But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora's box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism.
http://www.mises.org/liberal/ch1sec11.asp' target='_new'>Ludwig Von Mises

[Anonymous]

I noticed in the linked article that S.O.S. is a Betty Sembler Foundation.  Is this the same S.O.S. that posted the web page Marshall cited on cult-like rehab programs, offering S.O.S. as a non-coercive alternative?

[Antigen]

No, Betty's SOS is Save Our Society from Drugs. It's mission statement is all about opposing medical marijuana inits and legislative efforts on the state and federal levels.

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.
-- F. P. Jones

[marshall]

Is your group a cult? From the sos website:

 Points to look out for in your group members:

Emotional overreaction when the group or leader is criticized. Seen as evil persecution
Demonization of former members or members of alternative groups

Cult Leaders
Points to look out for in your group leader:

Authoritarian approach and intolerance of questioning or criticism.
Lies about and insults opponents.
Leader regularly accuses dissatisfied members who leave of having something wrong with them, having personality disorders or being transgressor and deserters.
The group/leader is always right and followers never feel they can be "good enough".

[marshall]

'It has been known for a long time that persons who test high on authoritarianism relate best to the rigors of the 12-step program and are more likely to become devoted, long-term members. The sponsor system assures social stratification, self-debasement, and gratification of the need for control over others. Beyond this, members achieve status and credibility based on time since last drink, so that someone with five years of sobriety might feel diminished in the presence of someone a decade sober. The result is a core membership of "true believers" whose identities are at one with AA.

AA presents itself as necessary to life itself: "without AA we will perish." Any criticism of the Program or of AA is regarded as heresy that endangers the lives of AA'ers everywhere, and must be silenced by admonitions or mottos. Members dwell upon themselves endlessly, working steps on themselves, and attending [meetings] as part of methodical spiritual growth.

AA has a well-known reputation as "slogan therapy," but all cults use repeated phrases as an indoctrination technique. Like all cults, each and every slogan or motto of AA is an inversion of the truth or a platitude to cover an atrocity. The meeting structure itself forbids two-way communications, allowing for one to "share" whatever, with only marginal or no commentary from the group. Approval and disapproval are communicated slyly with acerbic comments from groupers, or nonverbal gestures and cues.
Pathologizing inquiry, criticism, and dissent. The Program is divinely inspired, and may not be criticized. Persons who object to cult doctrine are ostracized, reprimanded, regarded as sick, diseased, in denial, in relapse, constitutionally incapable of honesty, or simply doomed. Critics of AA are always angry, in denial, paranoid, sick people. Skeptics and others who test the coherency of AA doctrine are advised, "Take the cotton out of your ears and stick it in your mouth."

by Jack Trimpey
 from The Journal of Rational Recovery

(I have no idea whether any of this is true of AA but it sure reminded me of the Seed)

[Antigen]

On 2005-09-07 19:29:00, marshall wrote:



AA presents itself as necessary to life itself: "without AA we will perish." Any criticism of the Program or of AA is regarded as heresy that endangers the lives of AA'ers everywhere, and must be silenced by admonitions or mottos.

Didn't John just recently accuse us all of killing off prospective Seedlings by discouraging them from giving it a shot?  :rofl:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
-- Margaret Mead

[Anonymous]

can anyone tell me where to find fuelaw's interview with reporter about his beatings at the seed, what newspaper or magazine

[OverLordd]

Some one please referance me to John UnderWood's posts.

[Ft. Lauderdale]

You won't hurt him? now will you?
Look under POSTER you'll see his name & go to the first page of each & there ya go...

[Thom]

On 2005-09-08 12:03:00, Antigen wrote:

On 2005-09-07 19:29:00, marshall wrote:

AA presents itself as necessary to life itself: "without AA we will perish." Any criticism of the Program or of AA is regarded as heresy that endangers the lives of AA'ers everywhere, and must be silenced by admonitions or mottos.

Didn't John just recently accuse us all of killing off prospective Seedlings by discouraging them from giving it a shot?  :rofl: "

When I got into 'program' for real in '91, I hated the mottos! They were trying to break down the concepts of recovery into tiny sound bytes so that even someone with a self inflicted scrambled brain could absorb them. I didn't care for that because it took a while for 'them' to 'brainwash' me into believing that I was in possession of such a brain, right here on top of of my very own shoulders! Through MY lifestyle choices, I had allowed myself to become, at least for a time, simple minded. I finally 'came to believe' I needed the small chunks (mottos) so I decided I would keep coming back, keep it simple, eat more cotton, this too shall pass (I just hope that one is not about kidney stones!) it works if you work it, one day at a time, meetings make it (what?....coffee?), think, think, think, yadda, yadda, yadda....

 I don't believe that John just recently accused me of killing off prospective Seedlings by discouraging them from giving it a shot, because I'm not a member of the 'USALL' cult. (if you don't know what that acronym stands for, you don't know what you're talking about) I have been programmed to encourage people to seek help, if it is called for. I think the term for this type of behavior is something like 'compassion', or 'empathy', if I remember my Seed jargon correctly.....I do remember 'symphony kills'...I avoid it like hip-hop.

[Antigen]

And how is this `91 enlightenment different from, say, the one in the mid `80's or the one you and I discussed sometime around `95 or `96, which had just occured recently. Or that stunning inspiration around `80 or so that led you to believe you were doing me a huge favor by helping force me into Straight?

It'll never change, Thom. The last thing you ever were is simple minded. A simple minded person would automatically balk at the difference between suggestion and brute force. It takes a bit of complexity to hold sets of contradictory views to be equally true and valid.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.
--Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

[Thom]

On 2005-09-19 09:28:00, Antigen wrote:

"And how is this `91 enlightenment different from, say, the one in the mid `80's or the one you and I discussed sometime around `95 or `96, which had just occured recently. Or that stunning inspiration around `80 or so that led you to believe you were doing me a huge favor by helping force me into Straight?



It'll never change, Thom. The last thing you ever were is simple minded. A simple minded person would automatically balk at the difference between suggestion and brute force. It takes a bit of complexity to hold sets of contradictory views to be equally true and valid.

Thank you? I'm not quite sure if you just said I'm hopelessly simple minded, or hopelessly complex.

Enlightenment is a process. If it were a single event, we would all be consumed by the overwhelming brilliance of the mind of God.

I have, even today been enlightened! I was not aware that I helped force you into Straight. I'm not sure if it is the result of a blackout on my part, or because it didn't happen.

[Antigen]

There's a lot you don't remember.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.
--James Madison, U.S. President

[Anonymous]

On 2005-09-20 08:54:00, Antigen wrote:

"There's a lot you don't remember"

It is obviously a DELAYED REACTION from smoking marihuana decades before!