rantings of a meglomaniac

[GregFL]

"A slanderous vindictive pack of lies intended to make me and my program look bad."

Art Barker, describing the 26 page drug abuse task force report on The Seed.

To make certain that crime does not pay, the government should take it
over and try to run it

--G. Norman Collie

[GregFL]

"that comes from three sources-the state bureaucrats, the promoters of other drug programs and possibly from the 20 percent of the population that normally are mentally ill"

Art Barker, describing his critics.

St Pette Times  March 1973

If there's a worse idea going than locking people up for drug use, it's probably locking them up in close proximity to some tyranical altruist who wants to 'help' them with a problem that probably doesn't exist
-- Ginger Warbis
having had about all the help I can stand!

[GregFL]

"bureaucrats..a bunch of horses asses"

Art Barker, describing the state drug abuse offices responsible for issuing the Seed a state license.

Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make  some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
-- Dave Barry

[GregFL]

"No two bit mayor of a city like Lomelo is going to hold up my program"

Art Barker, to the Dade health planning council.

The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.


--P.J. O'Rourke

[GregFL]

"When I was in show business and working the playboy club and living on a 46 ft boat, I could make all the money I wanted. Im not in it for the loot"

His response to a question that his motives may be money.  The playboy club reported back to the paper that he was a fill in only and worked there six weeks a year and made about $3000 per year.


Source. The St Pete Times.

Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? ... If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
-- Patrick Henry

[GregFL]

"If the Seed doesn't become a model program in this country in five years, you can forget about the nation. The YOuth will crawl off and die, and it'll be a whimpering kind of death."

Art Barker, describing what would happen if the Seed didn't become the standard of treatment thruout the nation.

Source   The St Pete times.

...it is worth discussing radical changes, not in the expectation that they will be adopted promptly but for two other reasons. One is to construct an ideal goal, so that incremental changes can be judged by whether they move the institutional structure toward or away from that ideal. The other reason is very different. It is so that if a crisis requiring or facilitating radical change does arise, alternatives will be available that have been carefully developed and fully explored."

http://laissezfairebooks.com/index.cfm?eid=103&aid=10247' target='_new'>Milton Friedman

[GregFL]

"Who are you and where do you work"

Art Barker to a audience member at a town meeting in St Pete. The audience member was questioning his claimed 90% sucess rate.

source   The St Pete TImes.

Life is like a shit sandwich; the more bread you got, the less shit you gotta eat.
--Anonymous

[GregFL]

"our 90% succes rate is documented by the NIMH (national institute of mental health).


Art Barker in July 1973 in response to questioning of the claimed 90% sucess rate.  The NIMH responded to the St Pete times by saying they had not even assessed the success rate of the Seed program.

source- The St Pete times.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
--Thomas Jefferson

[GregFL]

"the pushers are scared to death about the honesty of the Seed"

Describing to the Times why the Seed is guarded and his office windows are bricked over to protect him against bullets.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The people who ran straight had the best of intentions. I hope they reached their destination.

http://stopsembler.org/' target='_new'>James Lloyd

[GregFL]

"jesus said a long time ago, you can't be a prophet in your own town"

Art Barker, quoted by the St Pete times.

It is criminal to steal a purse. It is daring to steal a fortune. It is a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases

--Schiller (1759-1805)

[GregFL]

"The Seed has never done this, does not advocate this and is against this"

Art Barker, to the st pete times, reacting to a story that Seed parents kidnapped a girl from St Pete Catholic school and threw her in a car and took her to the seed, injuring her in the process. The mother said she was told her daughter was on drugs and would die if they did not allow it.The girl was later removed from the Seed by her mother.  Art's reaction?

"The Seed refused to admit her"

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

[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2003-11-14 11:38 ]

[GregFL]

"I am the founder of The Seed. I am an extremely necessary part of it. I am the one who knows about it. I would be the only one to head the program."

Art Barker, 7/72, in response to the Dade county School Board looking into starting their own program based on Seed techniques but headed by a committe of professionals.

for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.    
--Alexander Hamilton

[Anonymous]

Greg,

When you say New Times, do you mean the Miami New Times or the Palm Beach New Times Broward?

Thanks for all your good research!

[GregFL]

Neither. Back in the early 70s, there was a national magazine called "these are the New Times" and this article appeared in there. It was written by a St Pete Times staff writer that covered the seed, and then she sold the story to the national media. This article can be accessed in most major libraries just by cross referencing The Seed and Art Barker.

[Stripe]

EXCELLENT.  

The words of "the prophet" are more damaging than any personal tesitmony I could ever give.  If he's not a meglomaniac, I don't know who is.

megalomania >noun  1 obsession with the exercise of power.  2 the delusion that one has great power or importance.

Thanks, Greg.