Letters 1/06/05

Oct. 5, 2005

Pseudo science?
Thank you to recent letters for stating the “facts” of psychiatry/psychology’s harmful drug therapies. This industry’s incestuous relationship with multibillion-dollar drug corporations and its dependency on massive federal funding (our tax dollars) should lead anyone to suspect its motives. Add to that its horrendous record of failures and its admission to cluelessness about the true nature and means to mental health, and you have an industry which is begging to be shut down.
Psychiatry has had nearly two centuries to apply its theories to heal the mental difficulties of humanity. If its “science” was based on valid premises, people would be saner. Instead, it informs us regularly that 50% of us are or will be mentally ill. To increase the ranks of its clients (and hence its profits), it frequently redefines mental illness to include normal human experiences, hormonal fluctuations, and dietary deficiencies. Then it feeds the fire it has created with harmful drugs, camouflaging the horrible side effects, and creating a society that is becoming mentally “iller” by the day.
The President’s New “Freedom” Commission on Mental Health set forth an initiative to implement mandatory mental health screening for all public school children, employees, day care workers, etc. If this initiative takes effect, our mental health will be placed further into the hands of the drug companies whose profits depend on a populace convinced of its insanities by slick advertising and by health care professionals pressured to accept these solutions.
It is time we became vocal in our disapproval of this pseudo science and luckily, we are not a minority. Tom Cruise had the courage to state the facts that many of us already knew.
Go to CCHR.org and mindfreedom.org, pull up their links, and see just how MANY individuals and groups persist in questioning its legitimacy.

Elisa Brabenec • Suttons Bay

Down on psychiatry
Hooray for Ben Hansen for opening the door to the facts about psychiatry (Letters 9/22). How‘s this for a fact: psychiatry has the highest rate of insurance fraud of any medical profession. For a complete list of facts about this pseudo science visit CCHR.org.

Randy Gilmore • Suttons Bay

FEMA‘s footsoldiers
To complement Rick Coates’ piece on hurricane relief efforts locally (9/29), I felt compelled to share that along with my ex-husband, Tom Myers, currently assigned to hurricane Katrina, my sister Ranve and my brother Don of Suttons Bay have just arrived in the Houston area as FEMA subcontractors for hurricane Rita.
With all the negative press about FEMA, I want our community to know that there are dedicated FEMA “footsoldiers” who work hard and in dangerous conditions, seven days a week, from sunup to sundown until their assignment is completed. These folks aren’t the FEMA bureaucrats who finger-point on Capital Hill.
Tom’s modesty would never compel him to disclose the fact that he’s been threatened by gang members, shot at, run out of dangerous neighborhoods, had his car broken into, spray painted and had various items stolen out of it. My brother once thwarted a burglar attempting to break into his hotel room.
FEMA assignments can be tough physically, too. Tom works through twisted ankles and asthma attacks due to slippery surfaces and mold spores regularly. My sister recalls a lot of climbing on her first FEMA job - the World Trade Center disaster of 9/11. Many elevators didn’t work but one still had to inspect apartments up several floors.
There is no such thing as a day off for a FEMA subcontractor because there is no “day off” for the victims and an assignment may last for months. When we were first married Tom was gone for nearly six weeks during the Northridge earthquake. He missed the birth of Naomi, our first child, while working in the U.S Virgin Islands and didn‘t get to meet her until she was a month old.
Both of our little girls understand that they may not see their dad for some time when a disaster is declared. They are proud that he is helping people and we all pay close attention to the Weather Channel as events develop. We keep in touch via cell phone and e-mail, when available.
Despite the obstacles of their chosen trade, my FEMA family have homes they can return to - many of their claimants will not. I wish them health and safe travel as they leave their own families behind (with no clue as to when they’ll be able to return) and head out to help those suffering in our southern United States.

Dolly N. Martinson • TC

False assumptions
Regarding Bob Downes’ recent Random Thoughts piece titled, “Travel the world in your closet,” I realized I haven’t been sufficiently moved to write a letter to the editor since he made the nearly identical justification for unconscious consumption in the article titled “The American Jains” in April of 2000.
While the article is interesting, much of it rests on a couple false assumptions I can’t let pass.
The first is that sweat shop jobs are perhaps better than subsistence farming. The second is the usage of per capita income as some measure quality of life. Per capita income tallies the cost of war, graft, environmental and natural disaster cleanup and many other negatives that get added to the bottom line. It says nothing about distribution of income, caloric intake per capita or any other health, justice or quality of life indicators.
Regarding just how our “consumption” may be helping our less fortunate neighbors, I’ll simply excerpt my letter from April 2000:
“I believe it incorrect to assume that we are doing anyone in the developing world a favor buy buying tennis shoes they are making for us in at a wage of 68 cents/day, whether they be children sold to slavery or a father trying to put food on his family’s table. Most of them have no other choice because our own rate of resource consumption long ago ballooned beyond our boarders.
At that point in history the market was more than happy to oblige the demand with the support of our government and others by forcing native peoples around the globe off their land, away from sustainable subsistence farming and production practices and into the wage labor market. Our government has spent untold billions subsidizing this transition from healthier land-based subsistence to wage labor economies, through support of right-wing authoritarian regimes, war, unfair trade practices and control over the terms international money lending through the IMF and the World Bank... to name a few. All this so we can continue to buy bananas at 20 cents a pound and gasoline cheaper than bottled water (at least that was true in 2000).
Thinking that we are doing someone a favor by buying cheap imports is such a thin rationale for justifying any consumption habits. That’s like patting oneself on the back for saving an oilfield worker’s job by buying a gas guzzling SUV. Such thinking, and buying habits, only perpetuate the miserable working conditions and living standards in the developing world as well as here at home.

Timothy Young • Honor

Insensitive VH1
I just wanted to give “kudos” to the programming directors and the executive producers at the VH1 network for understanding people’s psyche and the need for healing. The other day I was channel surfing between ESPN and the Outdoor Life Network and ran across a program being aired on VH1. The program focused on the very wealthy and the multi-million dollar houses and property they have purchased (not that having that much money is a bad thing).
One has to keep in mind it was approximately 10 to 14 days post-Katrina. I immediately had a déjà vu experience because I clearly recall the exact same situation last year following the tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Both times I said to myself, “Wow! Those guys know how to heal pain and devastation through their programming.”
Not only do I see the potential for an Emmy, but I also foresee a Darwin award with their name on it. Maybe I should just quit channel surfing, or the executives might want to sign up for the next sensitivity training seminar at their company.

Scott Schuh • TC

CAFTA‘s dark agenda
Sylvia Inwood, chair of the Green Party of Michigan, seems to have found the ear of the Northern Express in her incomplete article on CAFTA (9/15). Granted, much of the economic impact that Inwood addresses is factual and, indeed like NAFTA, the so-called “free trade” mentality has infected both Democrats and Republicans. Inwood should take a closer look at what she calls “the multinationals,” as they have been the biggest donors to the green movement in America. The private property rights group PPF (Putting People First) once asked, “Why do these companies invest so heavily in Green groups like the National Wildlife Federation? Because the Greens lobby to restrict the supply of resources available for human use. This artificially inflates the value of resources owned by big business, while strangling new competitors in their cribs.”
Greater insight is needed to address more important issues that were omitted in Inwood’s article. Just why does corporate America, including the multinationals, move their factories outside the continental United States? At first glance, one might blame economic determinism in the fact that American businesses are over-taxed and over-regulated (including wasteful environmentalism based on junk science), with the overall result that businesses follow the carrot held by government. You would think the legitimate cure is that our own legislators would clean up the over-regulated mess they generated.
CAFTA is less a free trade deal than it is an international foreign trade subsidy to our neighbors to the south. Like so many other words currently invoked to garner favorable feelings among a less than watchful populace, CAFTA in reality paves the way for more ambitious plans.
Mexican President Vicente Fox promoted the pact with the following ominous endorsement. “Eventually our long range objective is to establish with the United States, but also with Canada, our other regional partner, an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union.”
The next very important step will be the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). With the promotion of the FTAA, the rhetorical gloves are off. David Rockefeller, former chairman of the CFR and COA, said referring to NAFTA, the precursor to the FTAA, “Everything is in place - after 500 years - to build a true ‘new world’ in the Western Hemisphere.”
If it‘s a political solution you want without the taint of green, check out the U.S. Taxpayer Party. If it’s more info on the FTAA go to: www.stoptheftaa.org

Matthew F. Schoech • TC