Author Topic: Dear Art,  (Read 34208 times)

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Offline GregFL

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Dear Art,
« Reply #105 on: October 06, 2005, 10:56:00 AM »
Quote
On 2005-10-06 07:53:00, Ft. Lauderdale wrote:

"I was agreeing with your atty comment"



oops, I take it back.


 :grin:  :grin:  :grin:
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Offline Ft. Lauderdale

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Dear Art,
« Reply #106 on: October 06, 2005, 10:57:00 AM »
I disagree, I did not miss the point.

In fact , I think you actually missed it brother.

I think it was about 30 years ago that you missed it, to be perfectly honest.
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Offline GregFL

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Dear Art,
« Reply #107 on: October 06, 2005, 10:59:00 AM »
Really?  I missed it?


Thank God then, I'm one of the lucky ones!



 ::cheers::
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Offline FueLaw

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Dear Art,
« Reply #108 on: October 06, 2005, 11:06:00 AM »
The Seed and it's successor programs hurt way more people than they ever helped. The damage is impossible to determine. The labeled people failures who did not complete the program or who had slips or relapses. Young kids had this drilled into their heads for 12 hours a day everyday. Are you trying to say this did not have a detrimental effect on kids? Are you trying to say that programs such as this did not push some people over the edge? What if a kid was truely mentally ill,how were incompetent staff members,like John Underwood & others, going to help them? The bastards and bitches on staff could barely help themselves how in the world could they really help others?

I think it is rather funny that Seed will take credit for any possible success stories but yet take no responsibilty for any of the failures. Why is that? [ This Message was edited by: FueLaw on 2005-10-06 08:08 ]
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Offline GregFL

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Dear Art,
« Reply #109 on: October 06, 2005, 11:15:00 AM »
Quote
On 2005-10-06 08:06:00, FueLaw wrote:

"The Seed and it's successor programs hurt way more people than they ever helped. The damage is impossible to determine. The labeled people failures who did not complete the program or who had slips or relapses. Young kids had this drilled into their heads for 12 hours a day everyday. Are you trying to say this did not have a detrimental effect on kids? Are you trying to say that programs such as this did not push some people over the edge? What if a kid was truely mentally ill,how were incompetent staff members,like John Underwood & others, going to help them? The bastards and bitches on staff could barely help themselves how in the world could they really help others?



I think it is rather funny that Seed will take credit for any possible success stories but yet take no responsibilty for any of the failures. Why is that? [ This Message was edited by: FueLaw on 2005-10-06 08:08 ]"


On this I agree. My personal story is that I got MUCH WORSE after graduating the seed because the seed stripped me of all my friends pre seed, then they left me without any. Then my father became such a program fanatic that I had to flee. After that, I became hostile to authority and did more drugs than I would have ever dreamed of before going in the seed.

I finally came up for air at around 20 but the anger and shame of being in the seed stayed for years. In addition,  a family rift continued for many years over it.

No, I joke around lot today about it because it is in the past but the seed really screwed up my young life. It ruined my high school, helped cause me to hate authority, and did nothing to keep me "straight".

I agree also that if the seed is going to point to every person that "made it" and take credit, than they damn well need to own up to the failures as well.  Also, using that first and most important rule, drop the outlandish 90% "success" claims.  THAT is one of the biggest crocks ever to come out of that place, and was based on mistruths and wishfull thinking.
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Offline Antigen

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Dear Art,
« Reply #110 on: October 06, 2005, 11:32:00 AM »
Quote
On 2005-10-06 07:59:00, GregFL wrote:

"Really?  I missed it?



Thank God then, I'm one of the lucky ones!

 ::cheers::

Me too!

You can't credit or blame the Program entirely for either good or bad outcomes.  

Some people just didn't get the promised help and may have lost family support, vital time at a critical developmental phase in their lives, educational oportunities, etc. Others lost years or even decades in devotion to the cult. Some, like my dear brother, have dedicated their lives to the stepcult, even rejecting blood family over it, despite a lifetime of serious issues not present prior to the first round of intense indoctrination.

Some people DID get just that fucked up and remained so. Or made permanent, serious mistakes as a direct result of their involvement w/ a cult. I just talked to a lady the other night who lost a friend around 15 years ago. He was a Program graduate who, it was rumored, had stepped over the line and used forbidden drugs. As a result, his family kicked him out, all the friends he had had (Program grads) abandoned him, wouldn't even talk to him. Within a week or two, he closed himself into a garage, started the car and sucked on the tailpipe till he died.

People who knew him attibute that entirely to the total shunning mandated by the Program (all for his own good, of course). And now those people who knew and loved him and who helped completely demoralize him have to live w/ the question of how much their fidelity to the program over him contributed to his despair.

Myself? I can't imagine a scenareo where I would have landed up pregnant by the jackass I did wind up with, except that I was completely untethered and alone, looking for anything to hang onto. But I can't really complain; the baby is now a beautifal and baudacious young woman of whom I'm very proud and some of the losers relatives have become some of my best friends. All in all, not knowing what may have been behind door #1 or #2, I wouldn't change a thing.

Now, any of this can be overcome. I'm living proof. But that doesn't mean that the Program influence is benign, far less that it's usually helpful. As far as I can tell based on the people who have weighed in on the issue over the years, it's been a destructive force in most people's lives, though most have proven themselves resilient enough to overcome it.

Somebody, who often likes to pretend nobody knows his name, keeps calling me vindictive, even jealous (LOL) for my persistant criticizm.

It would be nice, and I don't deny it, to see some vindicatin; to have my college fund and inheritence and my childhood home back, to have my family not so divided and all the rest. I don't deny that. Who among us is really that far above it all? But it's not a realistic expectation. I never thought it was. What I'm after is much more practical. What I'm after is as simple as getting the truth out about these methods of "treatment". If you guys will kindly quit selling this toxic snake oil, I'll thank you for that. But I don't expect it. So do expect for me to refute your wild claims and to give support and assistance to anyone else who's willing to do so.


Quote
in 1966, C.S. Lewis wrote:
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 that torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
--James Madison, U.S. President

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"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
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Offline GregFL

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Dear Art,
« Reply #111 on: October 06, 2005, 11:40:00 AM »
Ginger!

What a well written, well thought out reply!

I am 100% in agreement with everything you said.
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Offline Antigen

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Dear Art,
« Reply #112 on: October 06, 2005, 11:57:00 AM »
Quote
On 2005-10-06 08:06:00, FueLaw wrote:

What if a kid was truely mentally ill,how were incompetent staff members,like John Underwood & others, going to help them? The bastards and bitches on staff could barely help themselves how in the world could they really help others?

I would stop short of calling most of them bastards and bitches. At least, right now given the thoughtful tone of the current conversation. I alwasy believed that they believed, and do to this day, every last word they said/say; even when they directly contradict themselves, even when they do it in the same breath.

The trouble was never that they were out to do harm to us. It's that they were, and some remain, totally delusional. They confused forcing confessions and professions of gratitude w/ actually effecting positive changes in their young charges. And they still do to this day. It's just exactly the same as the way a wife or child beater will beat professions of undying love and devotion out of his victim and then take that as proof that he's a great guy. If the victim ever deviates from that line (or if he even imagines or suspects any infidelity), well then the beatings will continue until the crying stops.

Quote
I think it is rather funny that Seed will take credit for any possible success stories but yet take no responsibilty for any of the failures. Why is that?


See above.

Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0807059099/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>Mahatma Gandhi, My Autobigraphy, p. 446

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"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
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Offline Anonymous

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Dear Art,
« Reply #113 on: October 06, 2005, 12:04:00 PM »
Dear Art, Shelly and others,

Thank you  for everything. I really was a drug addict before I came in the seed. Really. I shot heroin  and had a criminal record. I was a big scary guy,and I was on the path of destruction.  No one liked me, my family had given up, and the legal system was about to lock me up for years.  These facts are indisputable.

However, I had a much bigger problem that you so graciously allowed me to solve.  How do I explain this?

The group was so accepting of me, helping me with my social issues.  Eventually this problem dissapeared altogether.

Okay, I did return to hard drugs and continued with my addiction issues once leaving the seed, but my biggest problem has remain solved.

You, Art Barker, are a miracle worker. Sure, eventually the seed and I parted ways, but I never forgot what you did for me.



You cured me of being black.



For this I will always be gratefull.

Arthur
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Offline Ft. Lauderdale

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Dear Art,
« Reply #114 on: October 06, 2005, 12:42:00 PM »
Greg I guess its you who have made such mockery of legimate human beings lives.  Its amazing to me how guilty you and Antigen are of making  the same accusations that you make of others.

Alot of lives were helped at the seed. You speak nothing of this.  Only that they are cult followers or zombies or ass wipes.  I guess its a shame that you never saw the good, there was alot of good to see.  I never said I thought the Seed was perfect, far from it. Its principals made me into a human being that I'm proud of.  I guess thats what counts in the end.
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Offline Ft. Lauderdale

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Dear Art,
« Reply #115 on: October 06, 2005, 12:54:00 PM »
Antigen,  What program was that?  I thought this is the Seed Discussion Forum.  Are you being delusional again and thinking that you were on the program again?  I think you were just accusing some of us of doing the very same thing?
Could it be all the years of cannabis are having ill effects?  I'm just assuming?  

Once again my dear The seed was the seed and straight was straight.  Keep saying it to your self over and over .  Some day it may sink in, but I doubt it.

Your a very angry person and probably always will be, from what I've seen.  

The seed did change alot for the better as time went on it moved on.  Maybe you shoud too.
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Offline Antigen

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Dear Art,
« Reply #116 on: October 06, 2005, 01:08:00 PM »
No, that's you being delusional again, trying to convince us all that Straight was nothing at'all like the Seed.

If you can locate my oldest brother in a lucid moment (not an easy task, by any means) you can ask him about the impact of getting booted from the family on Art's recomendation.

Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people
http://lfb.com/?stocknumber=FF7485&code=10247' target='_new'> Thomas Jefferson.

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Offline Ft. Lauderdale

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Dear Art,
« Reply #117 on: October 06, 2005, 01:16:00 PM »
Sure it was a copycat program.  That doesn't make it the same. Have you ever seen a sequel of a movie, usually its not quite as good as the original.  I never said they wern't anything alike.  You have twisted it around again.
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Offline cleveland

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Dear Art,
« Reply #118 on: October 06, 2005, 01:32:00 PM »
Wow, this thread turned out somewhat different than I thought it might, but it has certainly been interesting.

After reading the tales of woe of former Seed graduates who ended up in prison for terrible acts, and the pro and con Seed discussion, and the fake Seed letters, I guess a couple of things come to my mind:

1. It is very difficult to prove what the Seed 'caused' - just because someone graduated and has a wonderful life, or a terrible life, you cannot prove or disprove that there is a direct link. At best, you'd have to compare the population of kids who entered the Seed in the 70s or 80s with others who didn't, and correct for the fact that many Seed kids did come through the courts or because they had problems, drug or otherwise. Also it is true that many like myself came in for 'attitude.' That would be an interesting study. I would guess that probably some people did stop using drugs due to the Seed's intervention, and some probably went out to lead better lives (althought they may have done so in time anyway). I am also guessing that there was a group of kids who left the Seed and went on to get into trouble; some will say that is due to the Seed but I think it is only anecdotal. I don't know if the 'toughlove' approach advocated by the Seed would have been severe enough to be directly causitive. I think it would be tough to prove, unless there was abuse sufficient (more than what I observed and experienced).

2. Hardly anyone wrote a sincere letter to Art, but I appreciate those willing to do so in a public setting. Anybody else want to give it a try?
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ally Gator

Offline Antigen

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Dear Art,
« Reply #119 on: October 06, 2005, 01:35:00 PM »
You just keep on telling yourself that...

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves

--Ronald Reagan

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes