Marshall, you're a prince.
Marc, I wish I had your composure.
John, when I read those 'sarcastic' questions, I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Why did I fail the Seed? Get out of your head! I never had any obligation to the Seed or Straight and neither did a single member of group who was held against their will.
We live in a contract based society. Contracts acquired through desception, coercion or undue influence are simply invalid. Can you comprehend that? That, even though yours and Art's and most of the parents' intentions were entirely good, you never had a right to force them onto us or to expect, far less demand, anything in return; at least, not anything good!
As to failures within our families, that's none of your damned business. Maybe you should have become a shrink and laid these neurotic parents out on a couch for a living. Oh yeah, rjfro, blame the parents for believing what they were sold? Riiiiiight! It's all their fault. Maybe the Enron execs should have tried that defense?
This was the real gut buster, though. "And finally, if awareness, enlightenment can simply be gained from life (as so many of you propose), without the intervention of a prominent catalyst, how do you explain the state of the people, the nations, the condition of planet earth today?"
John, it's been over 20 years now. You still believe the Seed would have saved the world if only.... what? If only Art and Lybbi had listened to your advice? Fact is, whether you accept it or not, Straight and The Seed were similar enough that I had no problem at all getting along in group for two years by applying what I had learned about the Seed. There was even a Sr. Staffer named Chris who reminded me very much of you personality-wise. It was a constant tet-a-tet between Chris and me. He was obviously smart enough and dispassionate enough to see what was going on and, occasionally, cut a kid or the entire group some much needed slack. And I was constantly dropping little hints that I thought he ought to know better when he did let things get out of hand, which was rather too often in my opinion.
Straight HAS had a significant impact on our country and on the world. I don't know how you could call it positive. Just look into what DFAF, DPNA, ASAMS, MJCDTF* and the rest of their aliases and cronnie organizations have been up to on every level of local to international policy. There's little doubt that the Semblers succeeded where Art failed. They had a better business plan, better connections and they have imposed Program onto broader society in many ways.
And that's just one offshoot. Around the same time Bobby DuPont was setting Art up w/ his millions in federal funding, Mel Wasserman took the Synanon method to greater heights through CEDU (rumored to stand for Chuck E. Dederich University) They hooked up w/ the LGA people and have build a virtual empire of toughlove hategroups which generate millions per year for investment in public policy.
Now here I can cut Art considerable slack and even dig deep and find some genuine gratitude. He was a smart guy, no doubt. And he was in a position to do damned near anything. The cops wouldn't question him, neither would the parents and woe to any politician, teacher or anyone else who made his enemies list. I can't believe he was too dumb to play ball on that level. So that only leaves one alternative; he decided to cut his losses and reign over his small following rather than ride along to where that train was headed.
Based on what you've said about why you split, I'm thinkin' you didn't see it coming. And, based on what I've heard from later-day Seedlings, it seems that Art was able to regain some of that hippy love-fest vibe that was missing from Straight. And all these years later, you're still crying sour grapes cause you didn't get to take over the world? Please! Count your blessings!
Finally, I obviously recognize that some people like you landed up there at a time in your lives when you were genuinely in dire straits. And you must recognize that, for whatever reasons, the Seed experience has had a profound impact (good or bad) on just about everyone who had significan contact w/ it, regardless of their condition going in. Has it occured to you yet that, quite possibly, you were not thinking entirely clearly back then? Maybe, in the process of alterning your path away from opiate addiction and prison, the experience had other effects on you of which you were not and are not aware?
* If you're completely unfamiliar w/ these acronyms, then you don't know what you're talking about. Sorry, that's just how it is.
Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice.
--Hearst newspapers nationwide, 1934
