Ft. Lauderdale, there is no chance in hell that my mother will ever forget who Art Barker is. To her, he's about like Jesus on Earth.
I know that for a lot of people, the whole Seed experience was just a few months and didn't involve their whole lives. That's not what happened to us. My next door neighbor sent one of his three daughters there. She wound up on staff. You might remember her. Her name was Pam and she was featured in a pretty high profile newspaper article when she worked at Pompano Harness.
Anyway, even though she was completely emmersed for a short time, she eventually quit staff and got back to a fairly normal life. That's not what happened in our family. All three of my older brothers and one sister went in. By the time I was old enough (and, believe me, by that time my mother was convinced that
every teenager could use a run through the Program just as a prophylactic) The Seed was in trouble (again) over juvenile placements. That's why I never went there. Instead, I went to the New and Improved Seed in St. Pete.
All of my brothers and sisters left town just about as soon as possible. Other kids in the neighborhood were not allowed to associate w/ me because their parents were a little afraid of us. This included my best friend (till I was 8, anyway) who's dad was a BSO officer.
As recently as about 13 years ago, my mother was
still trying to get me into a damned program! Now, mind you, I have never been addicted to anything but tobacco. The one time in my adult life when I picked up the phone and called her looking for moral support (my husband was sick, I was scared) she took it as the oportunity she had been waiting for. She called me the next day and told me she had made arrangements for my kids so that I could enter residential rehab!
This changed the course of my life and family profoundly and completely. The Seed essentially stole my mother and childhood from me.
But I never thought it was a matter of general interest till a couple of years ago. See, I thought that all the Programs had either shut down or reverted back to small, non-influential little cults like The Seed had done. But I've found out since then that these programs and people who believe in them have a whole lot more influence over public policy and funding than most mid-sized towns. And so I think it's worthwhile to examine the philosophy and experience of the people who make up these groups. Hopefully, if people get a general understanding of just what the TOUGHLOVE hategroups are all about, they'll quit letting them write public policy and checks.
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If today he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him,--"I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."
--Abraham Lincoln