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If the system was fair, these killers would not be skating free again and again and again, after massacring unarmed teenagers. Once again I am reminded how cheap human life is in this country, especially if that human life happens to be that of a black person.
Reply to #10: Palindromedary, where do you get your facts? - AIW
Sen. Schumer is a poor example of "progressive" change in America. Schumer's nickname is "Wall St. Chuck" for god sake.
However, I agree, if Democrats embrace Wall St. (the base) like Sen. Schumer the MONEY will come storming in from the financial sector, or they'll divide up their money strategically between pro Wall St. Democrats and Republicans.
The word "progressive" is losing its meaning like liberal, libertarian and democrat. The forces from the right have redefined those terms. Sen. Schumer, 30 years ago, would be considered a far right republican, as his views hold today. The ruling elite have effectively moved the entire political class to the right of center in the US.
No longer is US politics, if it truly every was, a right left paradigm, now it's how far to the right a politician can go without appearing to completely sell out. The political outlook for America is mighty grim in my humble judgment.
If the US is ever going to function as democracy, the people of the USA must start to construct democratic institution of their own to combat the forces that have come to dominate our political system. The Democratic Party is infested with right wing ideology that some people can't bring their selves to admit, boarding on denial.
We have two direction for this country. Corpo-Fascism or Citizen inspired Democracy . The choice is going to become much more difficult the longer we wait and allow the wealth interest of this government to dominate and control the system.
Sen. Chuck Schumer is not a progressive voice, but rather, a symbol of everything that is wrong with this country. Sorry for getting, a little off point, but as I continued to write the obvious conclusion of supporting a person like Sen. Schumer is negative sum gain for the American people. Schumer is a sink hole of ideas when it comes to democracy. He's a death loving war hawk, financial whore and dishonest player in the "liberal" halls of congress.
During Grand Jury proceedings a defense isn't presented. The district attorneys present evidence to the members of the Grand Jury. The members of the Grand Jury question witnesses, and have subpoena power to call in whoever they want to help them make a decision. They can either indicte the accused, which means there is sufficient evidence to go to trial, or no bill, in which case the process is ended. It does not have to be a unanimous decision, in most cases a simple majority. This case required 75% to indicte. The system is fair, and it works,
The jury in a trial is called a petit jury, "petit" being the opposite of "grand". I was pretty sure grand juries were supposed to have more members, but that's based on watching "Law & Order", which shows only New York. Obviously things vary from state to state.
I seem to remember hearing on progressive radio in the last few months that a grand jury is where the prosecution makes its best case for indictment, to make sure that a trial is actually worthwhile. In this case, however, it seems that Bob McCulloch wasn't interested in that.
again i object to this simplistic "poll." it smacks of thought control. what if i agree with the grand jury decision? please stop treating us like russian school kids.
as it happens, i view the event as a tragedy, and doubt the decision was a coverup: there are not enough facts, so positions depend on one's biases, no way to judge a grand jury.
as for the ensuing violence: a shame, an excuse for free "christmas shopping" in ferguson. where protests in other areas block streets, etc., it just taxes local got coffers, with all that police overtime.
What more do you need than Jesse Ventura's anecdote about 4 people stopping their seizures with marijuana? Well technically, you need double-blind studies. Hopefully, some science will get done now that there's no fear of prosecution for trying to study something that seems to be worth studying.
I got that e-mail from the Democratic Party asking for ideas on how to do better. I think I answered the survey a little unhelpfully. It asked how the party could get people to vote for Democrats more, and it asked how to increase turnout, but I didn't realize as I was filling it out that those aren't the same question.
I told them they need to get people to understand that the Presidency isn't the only important office, and to oppose the protrayal of Congress as one thing when it's really 4: the majorities and minorities of the House and Senate. Separating that in people's minds will allow the Democrats to get people to understand that the Republicans are responsible for the poor performance of Congress.
I also said they need to push the platform in midterms. People seem to think more in terms of parties than candidates at these times, so differentiating the Democrats from the Republicans, in order to get people to pick a party, would get people to vote down the ballot.
I got a similar survey from my state party, and, in addition to the above, I told it to show how state government is important.
UNC Tarheels ~ Smoking marijuana and the alleged shoplifting had nothing to do with the killing of Brown. Since he is dead and cannot stand trial any actions on his part prior to the incident in question are hearsay and irrelevant at best. All that matters is what happened at the scene of the tragedy.
Also, what the looters did is another story. There is never any justification for random vandalism. That will never help any cause. If they attacked the police in defense as a result of the police attacking them that would have been a completely different circumstance. However, from what I saw in live streams last night, the police went out of their way to give clear and fair warning and were attacked themselves without provocation. This I do not condone under any circumstances.
Palindromedary ~ The key question here is whether or not Brown attacked Wilson as claimed. It fell upon Wilson to prove to the Grand Jury that he felt threatened enough by Brown to shoot him. If he was attacked, that might explain several warning shots or even one shot to the legs; however, the man unloaded his entire gun at an unarmed man several yards away shooting his torso and head with a clear intent to kill. I personally have seen no concrete evidence that Brown attacked Wilson in anyway to warrant that shooting. All I've seen so far is clearly falsified evidence and I'm sure that is all the looters have seen too. However, I'm open to the facts. Certainly the Grand Jury was convinced. Now, convince me.
In my opinion, if the facts and evidence were released before the verdict, this entire riot may have been avoided. It is very suspicious how the authorities have been handling this case from the get go. They seem to be intentionally trying to incite violence; rather, than to suppress it. If they are not sitting on credible evidence, than clearly this is nothing more than a coverup. I don't see any other possibilities--do you?
Reply to #15: Shoplifting, jaywalking and smoking pot, last I heard, were not "crimes" that warranted the death penalty. Hello.
So much more here I'd like to respond to, if only time warranted! I'll be back. - AIW
For profit health insurance companies are the death panels that Sarah Palin and Senator Chuck "Don't pull the plug on grandma" Grassely were referring to.
What we need in this country is Medicare part E for everyone and card check for unionization. An Oligarch friendly Congress we don't need!
D Anne Marc,
So you think it is okay to smoke marijuana, take things that don't belong to you and push around store clerks when they try to stop people from shoplifting?
I guess you also think that destroying city property and businesses is ok also I saw video of looters in August and last night so explain to me how it is legal to burn down buildings and take things that don't belong to you? Oh and what about the people who owned a business or worked in those buildings that now have no job?
People like yourself have been warning the American public about the un-elected coup being perpetrated on the American public by way of the Economic Elite, Reaganomics, media consolidation of Right wing ideology, and the inverted totalitarianism (New World Order) now gripping the US.
Being a Vietnam era vet and a life long counter culture kid, I agree with you and those who have commented about "For Profit" health insurance. It does not work!!
I remember the US had a National carrier in the 60's, Blue Cross- Blue Shield. When I started working it was free to employees: never got a medical bill, all prescriptions were covered; you merely presented your BC/BS card and all the services needed were coordinated and sent for reimbursement. This was replaced with Reagan's HMO's.
I have live in Canada for 16 years and obtained dual citizenship. In Ontario, OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Program) is quite similar to BC/BS. I am currently disabled; both surgeries to remove discs in my neck were covered completely including all diagnostics, surgery and follow-ups. However, even here the ultra conservatives are trying to de-fund all social programs and replace them with "For Profit" entities.
This corporatization is nothing but an "End Around" democracy and social responsibility. If the ISDS mechanism is codified, corporate law will overrule "ALL GOVERNMENT AND STATE LAWS TO PROTECT PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT".
It is time to stand up and bring destruction to this NeoCon revolution. Howard Zinn, in a 1970 speech said," The spirit of the Constitution demands that when the "Rights of Man" are deprived by illegitimate forces, it urges the right to "alter or Abolish" the current form of government... And it stressed "Abolish". See Matt Damon reading Howard Zinn.
I agree. Palindromedary, MB stole a $50 box of cigars and had marijuana in his system. Instead of blaming the police officer blame the parents! It was their job to teach their children right from wrong! The rioting and looting after the incident and after the verdict has no place in polite society.
My useless 4th bi-pap machine broke within 6 months of receiving and I was forced to write Medicare that I will not accept another of these badly manufactured devices which has a design flaw. I need a tracheotomy tube surgery so that I can sleep past 90 minutes . No body cares if a patient has correct full medical records. Doctors leave most of what you inform them excluded from your medical record. Then they omit all the important symptoms that would diagnose your illness. When they discover that they made a gross error they will go back and alter your medical records as my pain doctor altered mine. This is why every person should be afraid of electronic healthcare records because their is not a single law about them. Read the GAO report to Congress about ways that fraud my be committed because of all the ways that software is written to make auditing very difficult. They still have not made any rules to audit EHR records and Medicare fraud is bad. Mine would be a good example.
I was disabled in 2000 from a back surgeon who messed up my surgery. It was only to be 4 hours but became over 8 hours. He never informed me about all the complications and I was in massive pain that the nurses were forced to contact the surgeon who then contacted my pain management doctor. That doctor informed him to use OxyContin because I have an unusual gene which effects how I respond to all Rx's. Oxy is the only pain medication that ever reduces my pain. The surgeon NEVER told me what occurred during the surgery and I never would have learned the truth unless a relative informed me after I was released from the hospital. I was unable to move my entire left side of my body. Unable to move or feel my entire left leg and entire stomach . The surgeon ordered a rush job of a body cast that I was now suppose to wear before I would be allowed to rise out of my bed. Six months after the surgery when feeling returned to my left leg it was a "new" pain in my thigh that was totally unbearable. I never was able to return to work and our county welfare system had to file Social Security Disability for me at 49. I received my disability within 4 months. I was unable to get any medical records from that surgeon or the hospital. The surgeon refused to see me at my 7 month recheck because he had nothing he could tell me about the severe damage he caused. I returned to my pain doctor who also failed to obtain my medical records from the surgeon or hospital and only recently have I discovered he also failed to write all my surgery complications that I informed him. Instead he wrote medical records as if he had never been my doctor and was now trying to diagnose a problem about back pain. Completely false medical records for 11 years that I have been unable to obtain. This medical office would only provide a partial copy. I also had another complication that damaged my breathing which I have been unable to get any diagnosis of what it was because none of the doctors wrote the medical symptoms I was providing to all of them. After 10 years one PCP mentioned a sleep test but failed to write the order. This PCP was with our county hospital that provided medical care for Medicaid & Medicare people with SSI. I finally rememered that the test had not been performed and demanded the sleep test get ordered. I learned I had severe obstructive sleep apnea because that I did not have before that surgery. Then I never was provided any competent medical care with any specialist either. I learned a year after when I went to a sleep specialist who read my CPAP testing that she incorrectly diagnosed the sleep test and no type of CPAP equipment would help my illness. The second opinion sleep specialist informed me that the first specialist had just made a "guess" instead of repeating the testing. A very expensive bi-pap was paid by Medicare that was a total waste of money because the doctor violated Medicare rules when she failed to stop the monthly rental as no improvement was obtained; therefore, retesting should have been performed for a downgrade to a less expensive CPAP machine if the test found an oxygen pressure that kept my airway open when I slept. The test testing was not performed as I was told it would be with higher pressures that the first test. The second test only proved that the first was misdiagnosed. But no oxygen pressure was found. Then the expensive bi-pap had never functioned correctly either and was returned many times for replacement but the DME would not fix it or replace it until I contacted the manufacturer. I am now with my 4th sleep specialist because of incorrect medical records and test results not performed correctly and my pain doctor altered my medical records many years ago that I just discovered as he added symptoms that I never had so he would not be held liable for malpractice for writing a high dose of OxyContin all those years when I had severe obstructive sleep apnea that had not been diagnosed from the first moment I returned to him for treatment of all the surgery complication. He omitted all that medical information and wrote completely false records to cover up the mistakes of the surgeon. I never will trust any doctor to every write a correct medical record and now voice record my medical appointments and send certified confirmation letters about all that was discussed at my medical appointments. My pain management doctor installed an Electronic Healthcare software package in 2008 that writes modules of paragraphs about exams and conversations that never occurred regarding side effects of medications that they write, conversations that they had discussed all medical issues with me and that I had been completely satisfied and informed about everything. Then they continued to write the false medical symptoms of "lower back pain" which I have informed them repeatedly is a false medical record and stop writing that to my medical record or I will inform Medicare/Medicaid about the false medical records. This doctor's medical group has become so large they don't respond to a single certified letter that I have written year upon year to get my full copy of records or to amend all the false records they have previously written. I only received a response when I posted all my medical experience about my medical care that their surgeon and they had provided since 2003 that also lost my job because the doctor wrote an incorrect insurance authorization to my Medicare Rx insurance company twice. Only then did I get any response about not receiving a copy of my medical records and the fact that masses of medical info is missing from my records. What happened to all my medical file before the surgery and why have false records been written after I returned totally disabled from complications from that surgery that "you" had referred me to get done. This is how doctors treat Medicaid/Medicare disabled patients. Absolutely no respect and write any medical record they want. Now I have a useless spinal cord stimulator implanted that was written to my medical records which was placed because I reported "lower back pain" which is totally false record. The owner of this medical group who is my doctor did not see how they had harmed me in not providing my medical records or about the incorrect diagnosis that has repeatedly been written to my medical record. Doctors have no morals anymore. I have had to file a complaint with Health & Human Services Office of Civil Rights because I have been unable to get a full copy of any medical record from any doctor for the last 12 years since my illness has gotten worse every year. It isn't just insurance companies it is also many of the doctors who provide medical care to obtain payment from Medicare & Medicaid when the devices they tell you must have to get better don't provide any benefit. Therefore, they write a false record to get Medicare to pay the bill. I would love to tell my story to Congress because no person would believe all the incompetent medical care I have received since 2000 and the tens of thousands of dollars that have been billed to Medicare/Medicaid for useless medical care and I continue to become more ill .
Dear Thom:
I have gathered statistics from the internet, much from CCHR, on psychiatric abuse. You have my permission to re-print, publish and distribute this.
Statistics And Testimonials Of Psychiatric Abuse
A. Psychiatric Medication
1. Ingestion
· IMS Health, a company that provides information, services and technology for the healthcare industry, reported in 2013 the number of Americans, all ages, taking psychiatric drugs totaled 36,472,663 . A report in The Archives of Pediatrics Medicine indicates that the use of psychiatric drugs by children more than doubled for the decade of 1987 to 1996. Research form the University of Maryland tracked 900,000 children for that decade and found that psychotropic drug use by children under 18 rose form 2.5 percent to 6.7 percent.
· worldwide statistics show that a rapidly increasing percentage of every age group, from children to the elderly, rely heavily and routinely on these drugs in their daily lives. Global sales of antidepressants, stimulants, antianxiety and antipsychotic drugs have reached more than $76 billion a year—more than double the annual US government budget spent on the war against drugs. More than 100 million prescriptions for antidepressants alone were written worldwide in 2002 at a cost of $19.5 billion (€15.9 billion).
· One in seven prescriptions in France includes a psychotropic drug and more than 50 percent of the unemployed—1.8 million—take psychotropic drugs.The United States loses approximately $100 billion (€81.5 billion) to health care fraud each year. Up to $20 billion (€15.7 billion) of this is due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.
· In Canada, between 1995 and March 1996, 428,000 prescriptions for one particular, highly addictive tranquilizer were written, with more than 35 percent of these for patients 65 and older. In Australia, the elderly are prescribed psychoactive drugs in nursing homes for being “noisy,” “wanting to leave the nursing home” or “pacing.”
· Twenty million schoolchildren worldwide have now been diagnosed with mental disorders and prescribed cocaine-like stimulants and powerful antidepressants as treatment. In the US alone, 1.5 million children and adolescents on antidepressants are at risk of known, drug-induced violent or suicidal side effects.
2. Harmful Effects
· British coroners’ reports showed benzodiazepines as more frequently contributing to unnatural death each year than cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy and all other illegal drugs
· Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)—today’s antidepressants—cause suicidal thoughts and behavior. Paxil (paroxetine), for example, is seven times more likely to induce suicide in people taking it than those taking a placebo (sugar pill), according to a Norwegian study.
· Antipsychotic drugs such as Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel place the elderly at increased risk of strokes and death and have a “boxed warning” to emphasize the risk.
· It is not just the taking of antidepressants that can cause extreme violence. Withdrawal from antidepressants can cause extreme violence too. Research shows that in just a few days, a person can unknowingly go into severe withdrawal and not even know why he or she is feeling so violent or suicidal. A common symptom of withdrawal is the return of the symptoms the drug was supposed to treat. Psychiatrists will commonly tell you that this is the “return of the mental illness.” It is not. This is withdrawal, an indication of addiction or dependency
3. Violent Incidents
· Despite 22 international drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs citing effects of mania, hostility, violence and even homicidal ideation, and dozens of high profile shootings/killings tied to psychiatric drug use, there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence.
· Between 2004 and 2012, there have been 14,773 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system on psychiatric drugs causing violent side effects including: 1,531 cases of homicidal ideation/homicide, 3,287 cases of mania & 8,219 cases of aggression. Note: The FDA estimates that less than 1% of all serious events are ever reported to it, so the actual number of side effects occurring are most certainly higher.
· A study of 950 acts of violence committed by people taking antidepressants found 362 murders, 13 school shootings, 5 bomb threats or bombings, 24 acts of arson, 21 robberies, 3 pilots who crashed their planes and more than 350 suicides and suicide attempts. At Columbine High School, on April 20, 1999, teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot dead 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before shooting and killing themselves. Harris was taking Luvox, an antidepressant known to cause mania and violence
· At least 34 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 166 wounded and 78 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs).
· Between 2001 and 2009, there were 2,100 suicides in the U.S. military, triple the number of troops that died in Afghanistan and half of all American deaths in Iraq. During that same period, military orders for psychiatric drugs known to cause suicidal thoughts and acts increased 76%. American vets have it even worse. One U.S. military veteran kills himself every 65 minutes—an astonishing 22 a day. Today, some 80% of vets labeled with PTSD receive psychotropic drugs; 89% of these are given antidepressants, with 34% treated with antipsychotics – drugs so powerful they were intended only for the most seriously disturbed. Since 2001, there have been more than 150 worldwide drug regulatory warnings and studies issued about the dangerous—often lethal effects—of psychotropic drugs such as these.
B. Sexual and Other Abuse From Psychiatrists
· In a British study of therapist-patient sexual contact among psychologists, 25 percent reported having treated a patient who had been sexually involved with another therapist.
· A woman is statistically at greater risk of being raped while on a psychiatrist’s couch than while jogging alone at night through a city park.
· On October 31, 2002, French psychotherapist Jean-Pierre Tremel was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping and sexually abusing two young patients that the court recognized as being extremely vulnerable. Tremel, age 52, claimed his “treatment” was based
· A 2001 study reported that one out of twenty clients who had been sexually abused by their therapist was a minor, the average age being 7 for girls and 12 for boys. The youngest child was three.
· In 2003, the Colorado State Board of Psychologist Examiners revoked the license of Dr. John Dicke, whose treatment of a 5-year-old boy included using sex toys. According to the boy’s father, his son had been “stripped naked, tortured, restrained, verbally abused, sexually abused, brainwashed and horrified by a dildo” during the alleged therapy.
· In 1989, Dr. Paul A. Walters, psychiatrist in charge of student health at Stanford University, California, and former head of Harvard University’s Health Services’ Mental Health Division, was forced to resign after allegations of his having “frequent sex” with a female patient. The woman, who had been the victim of sexual abuse as a child, was awarded more than $200,000 in an out-of-court settlement. She said Walters had used her to perform oral sex on him, “sometimes as often as two out of three psychiatric analysis sessions per week.”
· An Orange County, California, psychiatrist, James Harrington White, was convicted of the forced sodomy of a male patient. After an investigation by Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), White was found to have drugged young men, then videotaped himself having sex with them. White was sentenced to prison for almost seven years
· In June 2002, a jury ordered the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio to pay $7.5 million (€6 million) to 62-year-old Mary Lou Zimmerman following a horrific psychosurgery operation. Mrs. Zimmerman had sought treatment for compulsive hand washing after she read glowing reports about the procedure on the clinic’s website. The reality was a nightmare. She was subjected to an operation in which four holes were drilled into her head and sections of her brain, each approximately the size of a marble, were removed. After the ordeal, she found she was unable to walk, stand, eat or use the bathroom by herself. Her attorney, Robert Linton, stated, “She lost everything—except her awareness of how she’s now different.…She is completely disabled and needs full-time care.”
C. Psychiatric Fraud
· One of the largest health care fraud suits in US history was in mental health, yet it is the smallest sector within health care.
· A study of US Medicaid and Medicare insurance fraud, especially in New York, over a twenty-year period, showed psychiatry to have the worst track record of all medical disciplines.
· Germany reports roughly $1 billion (€807 million) is defrauded each year.
· In Australia, health care fraud and patient over-servicing has cost taxpayers up to $330 million (€226 million) a year.
· In Ontario, Canada, psychotherapist Michael Bogart was sentenced to 18 months in jail for defrauding the government of almost $1 million (€815,993), the largest medical fraud case in the history of the province.
D. Soaring Costs
· In the United States, the mental health budget soared from $33 billion (€29.7 billion) in 1994 to more than $80 billion (€72 billion) today.
· Switzerland’s spending on mental health increased from $73.5 million (€65 million) in 1988 to over $184.8 million (€165 million) over a ten-year period.
· Germany currently spends more than $2.6 billion (€2.34 billion) a year on “mental health.”
· In France, mental health costs have soared, contributing $400 million (€361 million) to the country’s deficit.
· Today, the psychiatric industry in the United States alone takes an estimated $5 billion (€4 billion) from ECT per year. In the US, 65-year-olds receive three hundred and sixty percent more electroshock than 64-year-olds, since Medicare (government health insurance) takes effect at age 65, evidence that the use of ECT is guided, not by medical compassion, but by profit and greed. Although psychosurgery is less common today, up to three hundred operations are still performed every year in the United States, including the notorious prefrontal lobotomy. In the United States, 65-year-olds receive 360 percent more shock treatment than 64-year-olds because at age 65 government insurance coverage for shock typically takes effect.
Source: CCHR
Excerpts on psychiatry from the book Surviving The Matrix Planet: How The Medical-Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical Corporate Complex Is Destroying Your Health & Sanity And What You Can Do To Reclaim It
from The 3 Basic Categories of Drugs
#3-Psych Drugs:
Mind-control drugs: ALL psychiatric drugs are mind control drugs. They are WORTHLESS and of no benefit whatsoever, and, in fact, are the most dangerous of the 3 drug types. THEY SHOULD NEVER BE TAKEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE!!
Since the 1950’s the psychiatrists, in league with the drug-pushing pharmaceuticals have made a great effort to propagandize you into believing there are serious “mental diseases” and “behavioral disorders”. They claim these are caused by brain and/or nervous system malfunction, or other sometimes undetermined reasons, and this necessitates the use of drugs (and a variety of non-medicinal techniques) to return the person to “normal”. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
The validity of any science is based on the determination of the correct cause of an observed effect. Bridges will topple if not built to the exact standards established by the science of engineering. No healing practitioner can deny that there are physical causes to physical ailments. The body is, after all, a physical apparatus. But it is a well-established truth that adverse mental stress precipitates body illness. The field of psychiatry, on the other hand, attributes ALL mental disorders to physical causes. Denying over 10,000 years of religious wisdom and philosophical understanding of man and life as a spiritually motivated entity they arbitrarily decided that all mental activity and behavior stems from the brain and nervous system. THUS, THE ENTIRE FIELD OF CONVENTIONAL MENTAL HEALTH, ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE IS PREDICATED ON AN UNPROVEN ASSUMPTION. The truth is: psychiatry --- and psychology --- has no more determined the correct cause of mental illness than scientists have discovered who or what created the universe.
The term “mental illness”, in fact, has become an oxymoron as “mental” refers to a mind but psychiatry claims there is no mind so how could something they profess doesn’t exist become ill? Also, psychology means study of the soul but modern psychology disclaims the soul. Unable to DISPROVE the existence of the mind (or soul for that matter), ascribing all behavior to the brain and nervous system, they had to twist the term mental illness to parallel physical diseases in order to validate and justify their “science” and treatments. Cleverly perverting the term “mental illness”, putting labels on types of irrational behavior without determining its correct cause, then manufacturing and marketing drugs for its “cure” is about as scientific and ethical as the old time hucksters who tried to scam off their snake-root oils.
Hence, every so-called disorder (like “ADD” and “bi-polar disease”, etc) has been an arbitrary invention from their committees and national conventions, and has NO scientific validity. THERE IS NO SUCH DISEASE, MENTAL MALFUNCTION OR BEHAVIOR DISORDER AS ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER, BI-POLAR DISEASE OR ANY OF THE PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC-SOUNDING NAMES THEY MANUFACTURED TO IMPRESS YOU INTO BELIEVING THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. They made ALL of them up solely to keep themselves in business.
Obviously there is observed irrational behavior. But the increase of mental illness beginning in the late 19th Century --- coincident with the establishment of psychiatry --- and continuing at a soaring pace into this millennium underscores that they have failed to develop ANY genuine cures. A statistically rising rate of mental illness for over one hundred years!! Any business with such a horrible record of failure would have long since been dissolved. Psychiatry’s status, authority, support, and operations are kept propped up only by government appropriations, foundation grants and the convincing lies they have spread into the society.
Furthermore, they have employed the pharmaceuticals to manufacture dangerous drugs (such as anti-depressants, and other psychotropic mind-altering drugs) to push on you and your children. The “treatment” actually creates the mental disorders they are trying to “cure”! Which then “justifies” the medication.
I recently met a fellow employee who was taking an anti-depressant. I asked him how long he’d been taking them. He said over a year. I asked him if he was still depressed. He said more than when he first started taking them. Ritalin, what they feed kids to “treat” so-called ADD, is a powerful mind-altering drug that induces disorientation, so of course kids taking it will a have a deficit of attention! A few years ago a co-worker told me how the school nurse “ordered” her son to take Ritalin and after several months he had become listless, inactive and less interested in his studies and extra-curricular play. You can guess what I told her to do and tell the nurse where to go.
People have told me stories like this:
“My mother-in-law was diagnosed as bi-polar and was a raving lunatic before the medication calmed her down.”
“What’s she like now?”
“Well, she doesn’t say or do much now. She’s a lot easier to be with”
See, her mother-in-law was acting horribly irrationally, and since we all bow down to the authorities, and they tell us her “bi-polar schizophrenia, etc, etc” is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain we unquestionably trust and believe them. Now she is a controlled half-deadened dim-wit rather than the sane rational potentially loving human being that she could be with REAL effective treatment. Being a vegetable is a lot easier to deal with than a screaming idiot but, truth is, she wasn’t cured. She was disposed of, quick-fixed into a wasted nothing, of no benefit to society or anyone. One brand of irrationality has been traded for another and, worse, now the likelihood increases that she may one day pick up a knife (or some other dangerous weapon) and do some bodily harm to others or even end her own life. Yet people get to really believe theirs or their family member’s “medication” really works. Until they explode and go psychotic. But nobody blames the medication or their dispensers. After all, they’re the “experts”! But in reality their pills are nothing more than little round ticking time bombs that could go off at any unpredictable moment.
What the news media does not report is that behind virtually every sensational mass murder/suicide the perpetrators were either taking psychiatric drugs or receiving some kind of psychiatric treatment. Instead they just parrot the LIES given them by the psych-pharma PR departments, trumpeting their “advances” while suicides and homicides DIRECTLY LINKED TO THEIR “TREATMENTS” skyrocket out of control. If you think I’m exaggerating go read or listen to the news almost any day of the week and you’ll hear the stories. Then go on-line and research the omitted truth --- you’ll find it. The horrible conclusion, the red-flag alarm bell that very few seem to hear is this: the psych-pharma industry hasn’t just failed to successfully treat mental derangement for lack of trying. No. Psych-pharma treatment is CAUSING violent psychopathic crime.
Modern life can be very stressful. People get depressed. What kid doesn’t get hyperactive now and then? (it is the tremendous amount of refined sugar in snacks, etc that causes excessive hyperactivity) And unfortunately, some people become very mentally disturbed. It has NOTHING to do with your brain and/or nervous system, short of nutritional deficiencies. (see Note on Adrenal Gland Burnout, and Hypoglycemia-Hyperglycemia below). It has everything to do with the inability to handle stress. Actually, besides handling stress, the most important factors in the maintenance of a sound mind --- and most effective handling of mental disturbance --- is getting enough rest and eating properly.
The use of drugs and other destructive psychiatric “treatments” like ECT (electro-convulsive shock treatment) and psycho-surgery (slicing out parts of your brain!) essentially evolved from the Nazi death-camp doctor’s experiments as modern replacements for the medieval insane asylum tortures. The psychiatric institution has managed to legitimize themselves and hoodwink governments and you into believing their lies. In this regards they are much more criminal than the medical community. At least the ER’s are excellent for treating life-threatening emergencies and many accidents. And some surgical and other medical procedures are helpful. All the psych wards and dispensaries do is manufacture, perpetuate and spread insanity. The civilization will be better off when they and their practices are outlawed.
Tom:
The other "sorry" to our vets is more a PLEA - a plea to the powers that be to stop drugging our G.I.s with dangerous psychotropics that are causing them to commit suicide. I will make further posts on this. You, as a former practitioner should be aware of this: in the 1980's psychiatry shifted its agenda away from personal counseling to the manufacture and dispensing of psychtropics, this is collusion with Big Pharma.
Suicides and homicides directly relating to the ingestion of psychiatric medication HAS SKYROCKETED OUT OF CONTROL! Pre 1980's we did not have these incidents - celebrities like Robin Williams on psych meds committing suicide. Others on medication like the kids at Columbine, the Fort Hood shooter, the psychotic in NYC on meds who beheaded his mother and then jumped in front of a train, etc, etc, etc. Yet the FDA and Congress DOES NOTHING!! I have written letters to my Congressman and Senators, as well as the President to enact a moratorium on these dangerous drugs. The following is the letter I sent to President Obama:
Dear Mr. President:
As a Vietnam War era veteran, I am very concerned about the current suicide rate amongst our G.I.s which, well documented in current news, eclipses battlefield casualties. More American servicemen have died committing suicide in Afghanistan and Iraq than have been killed in combat. In World War 2, the biggest military conflict in history, you would be hard pressed to find any American serviceman that committed suicide. So why should the percentage in TODAY'S wars be so outrageously high? Obviously those in command are very concerned but the ANSWER, which will open the door to lowering servicemen suicides, is overlooked. The answer becomes clear when you ask a simple question: what is the MAJOR difference between treatment then and now?
The answer is psychiatric diagnoses and treatment.
In WW2 there were NO psychiatric drugs. Soldiers suffering from the psychic ravages of war, such as shell shock, were COUNSELED on a one-on-basis, and when they regained their self-confidence they were returned to the front.
Today military psychiatrists and doctors treat the G.I's psychic ravages with PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS. It IS the drugs that are causing the suicides, as they are doing so at an alarming rate amongst the civilian population.
So much work has been done by psychiatric reform advocacy groups like MindFreedom, CCHR, and others to show how psychiatric drugs are dangerous and ineffective. THAT is the cause and reason for the G.I's committing suicide
In the 1980's psychiatric treatment shifted from counseling to the manufacture, diagnosis and treatment with psychiatric medication. Psychotropics are now the number one selling pharmaceutical drugs worldwide. But the rise of suicides and homicides due to these drugs has SKY-ROCKETED. We didn't have these incidents of shocking murders and suicides - man goes into a Burger King, shoots 6 people and kills himself - pre 1980's. Now they occur every other week. The Ft Hood shootings is one example-the perpetrator was on psychiatric medication.
I am urging a MORATORIUM on the dispensing of these dangerous drugs to our troops and a return to the successful personal counseling that was effective in the earlier wars. Frankly they should be BANNED. The medical hierarchy will not like this and will fight against it but look, WHAT THEY'RE DOING IS NOT WORKING.
I guarantee you, there will be a substantial reduction in military suicides when medical personnel stop treating our military with psychiatric drugs and counsel them instead.
PLEASE ACT ON THIS.
Sincerely,
Randy Gomberg
894 NW Mignonette Ave
Gresham, OR, 97030
503-669-2127
I agree with the Grand Jury's verdict. Anyone dumb enough to reach through a police officer's car window and punch him out and wrestle for a gun is dumb enough, and dangerous enough, to suffer the consequences. And the fact that MB had just used his very large size to bully a convenience store clerk indicates that he was setting a precedence for being a bully.
I think the key words here are "he was 85" and "he smoked". I had a friend who was 67 and he smoked and he got cancer too. But he was unable to afford any health care except that he had VA. So, the VA doctor wouldn't send him to get a CAT Scan or anything...just kept writing a prescription for pain killers. By the time he got into the VA hospital, against his doctors wishes, he was diagnosed as having cancer that was so progressed that all they could do was put him in a unit awaiting his death. That was just before the expose of the VA system. As with the 85 year old (and he was lucky to have even made it to 85) the 67 year old friend smoked. If you smoke, you are writing your own death sentence! My friend wouldn't agree to stop smoking either. I think the doctors at the hospital thought: well, what's the use...he caused his own problem and won't even try to help make himself better. Tobacco is an addictive drug that will eventually kill the smokers...usually way earlier than 85.
Yes, that insurance company should be stood up in front of a firing squad for fraud. As many others, including those VA doctors, should also be shot. They take our money and wiggle out of paying for necessary care. If they were in Saudi Arabia, they'd have their hands, or heads, chopped off. But our system is so crooked these bandits get away with murder, but not before stealing our every last cent. If they ever privatize Medicare or Social Security, they will have completely destroyed us.
If he was 85 wouldn't Medicare be responsible for covering all that?
The Teapublican Party's premiere think greed tank, The Heritage Foundation, came up with the idea of Romneycare in 1989, so of course it's all about preventing healthcare from standing in the way of unregulated profit. But hey, when perceived "truth" amounts to nothing more than expensive lies, lies paid for by billionaires like the Kochs, because they're freaking nuts, this Heritage foundation idea suddenly becomes a Government takeover with death panels and don't forget, Obama is coming for your 20 gauge. Then wide eyed Bachmanns and Palins run around sceaming out the bull with all kinds of media idiots covering them.
It's all hilarious until the few dummies who buy into this Koch anti-government rhetoric happen to be the 16% of the 30% who even bother to vote. It's so embarrassing and pathetic for the leaders of the free world to end in reality being just a couple of crazy old billionaires.
Heres a live stream to the protests in Ferguson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo8dx8ZpCXQ
The way Dems talk, I thought the ACA had solved all those problems....lol.,...look, as long as you are dealing with the "health" (death) "insurance industry", they can make more by denying you care...what is it about that that you neoliberal,s refuse to understand? We stuck on Medicaid (who had hoped for another option) sure as hell understand it.....you had better too and dont stop fighting for natioanl health care.
BTW, I am in a Red state that expanded Medicaid....I just dont WANT Medicaid..I want the same helath care Thom Hartmann gets...its a human right
I hate to be the one to interrupt this thread with a news bulletin; but, the Grand Jury in Ferguson has just reached a verdict: No indictment for Officer Darrel Wilson. Just thought you all might like to know. If you live in Ferguson, you might want to stay home tonight. Justice has once again been pissed away on the alter of knuckle dragging ignorance and blind racism. God help us all!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/24/ferguson-grand-jury-deliberations/19474907/