Especially from Dorie Rae Gallagher:
I stomp for Libraries, Education, and Honesty but most of all Freedom...freedom to be who we are, freedom of speech and freedom of open government.
LB: Glad to see that the freedom to be is Minneapolis-specific.
The freedom to be who we are should include the right to choose whatever kind of health care we think will be helpful, even if one person wants us to be disabled for life and be “out of the way,” and even if we think different thoughts about politics, religion, spirituality, life styles, or if we happen to be in poverty or a profoundly depressed emotional state at the time.
This is no reason to force us into the “mental health” system and take our lives away.
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David Shove said on a different subject:
“It's not Minnesota nice. It's hardball politics. You will be reviled and screamed at.”
LB: There is no group more reviled and just plain ignored until and unless we can make money off them than those labeled “mentally ill.” The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has long since been forced to give up their proclamation that “M I” is a “brain disease.” They can’t show any xray, MRI, SCAN, or blood, hair or urine test which indicates any medical condition. The psychiatrists say -- before we give them total control over other people (not ourselves) -- “You will have to take “medications” for life; you will be disabled all your life.”
We don’t need to make and keep people drug addicts for life. We can’t even make it sound scientific any more. Why would we want to, anyway?
It may be time for some higher-level thinking. Why are we still granting monopoly power to politicized medicine? The experience with Vioxx has now let everyone know that the pharmaceutical companies have been covering up the vast dangers of the drugs and that the FDA has been covering up for big Pharma.
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The following fable may be appropriate:
John Robbins, in Reclaiming Our Health, tells this story: Once upon a time there was a large and rich country where people kept falling over a steep cliff. They’d fall to the bottom and be injured, sometimes quite seriously, and many of them died. The nation’s medical establishment responded to the situation by positioning a most expensive ambulance fleet which would immediately rush those who had fallen to modern hospitals where the latest technological wizardry was used. No expense was too great, they said, when people’s health was at stake.
It occurred to several people to erect a fence at the top of the cliff. They were ignored. All of the people who worked in the medical industry and those who made devices used in it and those who built hospitals were against the idea. They said, “This is too complex and health is too important to be left in the hands of people who are not experts.” When a few families who had lost loved ones tried to erect a warning sign at the top of the cliff, they were arrested for trespassing.
Much later on, it was decreed that those who had already broken both arms and both legs in previous falls should exercise utmost caution when falling.
Louise Bouta
Kingfield
Well Mind Association of Minnesota
4003 Pillsbury Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55409
612-823-8249
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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