First up: ‘The Dangers of Psychiatrists Diagnosing from Afar; A Marxist review of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, edited by Bandy Lee, M.D., M. Div., St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2017, Steven Strauss, January 10th, 2018, dissidentvoice.org (Dr. Steven Strauss practices Neurology in Baltimore, Maryland and is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He is a member of the Freedom Socialist Party)
Strauss opens by noting that as Bandy Lee is also a practicing neurologist, and Marxist femininst, the book had caught his eye. He’d hoped that given how oblivious psychiatry and psychology have been to the role that capitalism plays in mental illness, Lee’s compilation might have done better. He opines that sadly, it doesn’t.
“In fact, if Donald Trump is as dangerous as the authors claim, then their volume is at least as dangerous, because both their analysis of and solution to the problem, if taken seriously, can only make matters worse. They do not question the very social foundations which have without a doubt led to Trumpism. They treat Trump the symptom without touching the underlying disease, and even then their remedy is a small dressing over a gaping and festering wound.
The authors’ discussions are entirely in the liberal tradition. They clearly support progressive causes, like opposition to racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia, but they do not once question the underlying capitalist system which aids and abets these social crimes. They do not consider that it was precisely the mass disillusionment created by a combined liberal-conservative assault on working peoples’ standard of living which put Trump in the spotlight. More of the same assault will only replace Trump with another disaster.”
He argues reasonably that finding a solution to the mentally ill president is to question the sick socioecomics that produced him, then radically transform it to one with no economic generators of mental illness, no economic compulsions for war, racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia, as in socialism in which democracy rule by ordinary people.
He admits that until that day, it’s important to address the immediate urgency of Trump’s specific psychological illness, what we really need to be addressing his political programs, given that so many allegedly rational politicians support and agree with them. As in: they’ll still be around when he’s gone, still leading us to the brink of disaster. But onward to:
Trump’s mental illness: diagnosis and treatment
Referencing key themes is book: Trump’s malignant narcissism, underscored by his lying, bullying, lack of empathy, delusional thinking, etc. Thus his political danger being hot-headedly activating nuclear codes and dropping the big ones. Strauss references the many commentators noting: ‘One tantrum away…’, etc. Zo…we need an emergency mental health ‘fitness to serve’ evaluation not only of this President (in order to Article 25 him) but for every other applicant for Prez or Veep. He laughs at their solution: electoral reform!
“It should be fully appreciated that the authors’ position in no way questions the U.S. nuclear program or a U.S. initiated nuclear war. These are not the problems. It is that a deranged human being is currently in charge. If any of the individual authors do oppose the U.S. nuclear arsenal or the role of U.S. nuclear power in the current world order, they do not even hint at conveying that message to the reader.
It goes without saying that the proposed solution isn’t guaranteed to remove Trump, and even if it did, it probably wouldn’t be any time soon. Given the alleged urgency of the problem, what would the authors propose we do in the meantime?
We have to conclude from the logic behind the authors’ reasoning that the real problem lies not so much with Trump himself but with a very repairable little leak in our otherwise ingenious democratic plumbing. The founding fathers, it would seem, did not go quite far enough in their system of checks and balances to preclude the possibility of us electing an outlier situated so many miles off the sanity curve. That only proves, of course, just how democratic we are, that it really is true that in America anyone can become president, even a psychopath like Donald Trump. Not to worry. It’s nothing a little patch can’t fix. We can keep the pipes from bursting. And we can thank the mental health profession for coming to the rescue.
What will we have when the leak is fixed? Obviously, we will all be able to go to bed secure in the knowledge that only a sane president now has the power to blow up the planet.
This is precisely, and without exaggeration, what the book is all about.
Then comes his Deeper Questions section to which he writes the authors seem overtly oblivious, including:
“Virtually every single contribution from the twenty-seven mental health professionals addresses Trump’s psychopathology without once discussing the history of U.S. capitalism or imperialism. These words themselves appear nowhere in the book. Social theory, Marxist or otherwise, is non-existent. The expression ‘U.S. democracy’, on the other hand, fills the pages.
What does this mean? It means that the socioeconomic foundations of the United States are taken for granted. They are a given. Even more, they are accepted as legitimate. The notion that capitalism has something to do with why we are in such a predicament and why even an allegedly sane president will not make us any safer is safely kept in the dark, as if it does not even exist or is not up for discussion.
The theme that the fundamental aims of U.S. foreign policy are legitimate runs throughout the book. I stopped counting how many authors were concerned that Trump is alienating “our allies” and taunting “our enemies”. We read more than once about the sane and wise John Kennedy and how he was able to successfully beat back the Cubans without resorting to nuclear war. There is praise for the likes of the CIA and FBI. Kissinger and Brzezinski get favorable treatment. One author tells us not to worry because even if you oppose the pro-Zionist Trump, you can continue to love Israel.”
Mind-boggling.
Other headings of high interest include:
No discussion of nuclear war
A comment on sanity, with quotes from Eric Fromm, Sigmund Freud to rebut the authors, etc.
His The Chomsky epilogue rises to high satire in my estimation; it’s longish, but opens:
“The book ends with an epilogue by Noam Chomsky. Considering Chomsky’s world-renowned reputation as a left wing critic of U.S. domestic and foreign policies, and after reading twenty-seven essays filled with patriotism, praise for the likes of the CIA and FBI, sighing over Zionism, adoration of John F. Kennedy and his actions opposing the Cuban revolution, and many similar points, I asked myself if Chomsky had even read the manuscript which he agreed to contribute to.”
He ends:
“I venture to say that if working people and unionists could be drawn into a discussion of the Trump danger, their solution to the problem would involve far more than election reform and convening a panel of mental health experts. Sadly, bringing their discussion to working people for critical feedback is not part of the book’s message.
But if it was, that would be a major step in the direction we need to go.“
By the by, at least one of the contributing authors to this book was is pop-biographer Gail Sheehy of the Passages series; her bio page says nothing about her related to ‘psychology’ or ‘psychiatry’… but I’m sure her ‘expert analysis’ was right on the money, so to speak.
When seeking images of the book cover, I also found this charming one and clicked into its web page of origin:
It went to this anti-neoliberalism website, and included what I assume (but don’t know) are a few chapters of the book, including Robert L. Lifton’s, Judith Hermn and Bandy Lee, with various articles their troupe had written and published at differenet websites, but no hyperlinks, such as this one:
“Dr. Gartner (author of “Donald Trump Is: [A] Bad, [B] Mad, [C] All of the Above”), the initiator of an online petition, now with fifty-five thousand signatures, who cofounded the national coalition, “Duty to Warn,” of (as of this writing) seventeen hundred mental health professionals.”
From Bandy on the poorly attended Yale conference (after noting the Fear Factor), but watched online by many:
“If we are mindful of the dangers of politicizing the professions, then certainly we must heed the so-called “Goldwater rule,” or Section 7.3 of the APA code of ethics (American Psychiatric Association 2013, p. 6), which states: “it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion [on a public figure] unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”
“Embracing our “duty to warn,” as our professional training and ethics lead us to do at times of danger, therefore involves not only sounding an alarm but continually educating and engaging in dialogue our fellow human beings, as this compilation aspires to do.”
‘An association of mental health professionals advocating Trump be removed under the 25th Amendment as psychologically unfit, on Twitter. #DutyToWarn
Ha ha: turns out it was the self-same Bandy Lee (‘an assistant professor in forensic psychiatry (the interface of law and mental health) at the Yale School of Medicine who has devoted her 20-year career to studying, predicting, and preventing violence’) who’d addressed ‘briefed a dozen members of Congress — Democrats and one Republican — on the president’s mental state.’
Jeebus, this group never came out of the wall to advise the same for HW Bush, who of course was famously in the throes of his ‘Don’t cry for me, Argentina’ dementia while serving, or had I missed it?
On morning edit: For instance, see JP Sottile’s ‘Missing the Trump Team’s Misconduct’ consortiumnews.com, January 9, 2018
“If the so-called “Liberal Media” really is out to “get” Trump … they really suck at it. Why? Because if I was a managing editor at MSNBC (or CNN or the “Today Show” or “Good Morning America,” for that matter) and I was “out to get” Trump … I’d have spent a good three blocks of airtime on former Eli Lilly bigwig Alex Azar. He’s Trump’s replacement for the sleazy, insider trading Dr. Tom Price at the Department of Health and Human Services. Hell, POLITICO even did most of the work when it published a big story detailing the way Eli Lilly gamed the patent system to sustain Cialis as a rock-hard profit producer when Azar was a Lilly exec. They used a pediatric study loophole the makers of OxyContin had once used to squeeze another six months of profits out of their drug.
On the other hand, they are not talking about the Oil Industry’s influence and the opening up of offshore drilling. They are not talking about the significant expansion of the war on terror … and Trump’s direct hand in a spike in civilian casualties around the Muslim world. They are not talking about the trainwrecks inside the Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). They are not talking about Trump pushing DIPLOMATS to get even more involved in selling weapons around the world. They are not talking about Trump’s role in opening up the media for more consolidation. And they are not talking about a dozen other damning stories that, if they’d just dispatch some effing reporters and producers and photographers, they could use those video-driven packages like a goddamn barrage to pepper Trump’s presidency and, in turn, to corner his supporters on Capitol Hill.”, and so on.
************************************************************************
Ahhhh. but moving on to No. 2: ‘The Electrical Abuse of Women: Does Anyone Care?’, Bruce E. Levine (a practicing clinical psychologist, writes and speaks about how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect), Dec. 22, 2017, counterpunch.org
“Many Americans are unaware that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)—more commonly known as electroshock—continues to be widely utilized by U.S. psychiatry. In the current issue of the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, psychologist John Read and co-author Chelsea Arnold note, “The archetypal ECT recipient remains, as it has for decades, a distressed woman more than 50 years old.”
In a comprehensive review of research on ECT, Read and Arnold report that there is no evidence that ECT is more effective than placebo for depression reduction or suicide prevention.” They conclude, “Given the well-documented high risk of persistent memory dysfunction, the cost-benefit analysis for ECT remains so poor that its use cannot be scientifically, or ethically, justified.’
“This begs the question of why this brain-damaging electrical abuse of predominantly middle-aged women, unlike the sexual abuse of younger women and girls, is not today addressed by most high-profile feminists. One renowned feminist who did speak out against ECT was Kate Millett (author of the 1990 book Loony Bin Trip), but she died in September 2017 after receiving little attention in recent years. There continues to be women such as psychologist Bonnie Burstow (author of the 2006 article “Electroshock as a Form of Violence Against Women”) who do see ECT as a hugely important issue for women, but Burstow is renowned only among ex-patient “psychiatric survivor” activists and dissident mental health professionals.”
He notes that many feminists and Americans at large believe in the APA’s promulgation of the research showing the efficacy or ECT in treating depression, with no basis in factual evidence.
If and when there were placebo-controlled studies (simulated ECT while under general anesthesia):
“Read and Arnold report that none of these studies showed ECT effectiveness beyond the end of treatment.” He then explains the data, and skewers the meaningless of APA claims that include no placebo-control. As in: ‘Anecdotal testimonials are worthless at best’.
But here’s where it gets scary biscuits:
“Psychiatry is well aware of ECT’s negative public image, so today the administration of ECT is not as painful to observe. Patients are administered an anesthetic and given oxygen along with a muscle relaxant drug to prevent fractures. However, the goal of ECT is to create a seizure, and these ECT “procedural improvements” raise the seizure threshold, thereby necessitating a higher and longer electrical charge, potentially resulting in even greater brain damage. The standard “electrical dosage” is from 100 to 190 volts but can rise to 450 volts. Thus, while ECT no longer appears quite as torturous to observers as it appeared prior to these procedure changes, ECT’s effects on the brain are as—or more—damaging than ever.
Even ECT advocates such as the APA recognize ECT’s adverse effects on memory, but the APA tends to minimize the extent of this damage. However, in 2007, the journal Neuropsychopharmacology reported a large-scale study on the cognitive effects (immediately and six months later) of currently used ECT techniques. The researchers found that modern ECT techniques produce “pronounced slowing of reaction time” and “marked and persistent retrograde amnesia” (the inability to recall events before the onset of amnesia) that continue six months after treatment.”
I did find that ECT shocks are usually done is a series, on or two a week for X weeks. He tries to guess how many people are ‘treated’ with ECT, but recent data is scant and only estimated, including the 2009 Journal of Psychiatric Practice having reported, “approximately 100,000 people in the United States and over 1,000,000 worldwide receive ECT. ‘. He did dig out, however, that women are 2 to 3 times more likely to be its…recipients than men, and that often it’s women over forty-five who are in ‘severe’ clinically depressive states.
“Psychiatrist(s) commonly recommend ECT to severely depressed patients after various antidepressants fail to improve symptoms. Psychiatry increasingly focuses on symptoms and not causes of our malaise, and so it often fails to address obvious sources of depression such as loss, unhealed traumas, and other overwhelming pains”
I dunno how many Amerikans are taking prescription anti-depressants, or are now addicted to opioids, whether legal or not, but given the inherent dangers of the former, plus the addictive nature of the latter, is the alternative of ECT akin to ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’? The answer might depend on the individual.
Now I reckon a Marxist analysis could indict capitalism as underpinning many of the reasons ordinary people get depressed: no jobs, scant, if any, wealth, one paycheck or large hospital bill away from destitution or home-foreclosure if not homelessness, the background media background of fear this nation, fear that national leader who’s coming to get you! fear the future! But remember to go out and support the duopoly candidate of your choice! They care about you, and will perform miracles to better your lives!
(cross-posted at Caucus99 Percent.com)
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
but trump called durbin an asshole!!!! & that’s why “nothing is done” in Washington. Incivility! no comity, no bipartisanship, etc., etc.
i’m sure the salvadoreans agree with durbin, however. and wonder what the fuss is about. cuz that dick pendejo, like all the rest of the dems, is on board with dumping 285k of them.
like everything, the discourse of mental illness is weaponized. how could it not be, when drinking water is also weaponized? is mental illness a disease or a failing? eh, it’s whatever it’s needed to be to produce certain ends.
and doesn’t an employee found unfit for the job, potus or whatev, have any rights? can trump receive treatment & be found fit to return to work? nah. does kevin spacey have any rights or recourse against Netflix? nah, one of the most famous & up there moneywise people in the world, Spacey can’t do shit. his house of cards collapsed. end of story. precisely b/c the focus of #trumphurtsmyfeefees, #russiagate, #metoo, etc., is all on individuals, how could these “movements” do anything but reinforce existing power relations?
did trump call durbin an asshole? i’d seen some kerfuffle that the UNHC had commented on re: T and ‘shitholes’ or close. ah, the naked face of nationalism and empire; O wouldn’t have been so crude (but he deported millions during his hope and change tenure). but yeah, strauss is right: focus on policies and deed instead.
i’ll leave spacey alone, including that diary at wsws, partially cuz he gives me the shivers as an actor. but yes, that movement isn’t about the lower classes, although the Oprah for Prez movement says on twitter that her consortium is raising money to help working gurls who need to fight back! yeah, right. there’s some empty suit virtue signaling. ché pasa posited on ian welsh’t oprah for pres that a #penishatresistance would follow. ;-)
‘weaponized discourse on mental health’: amen to that.
but just look at the creatures that strauss says the book endorsed and praised: “There is praise for the likes of the CIA and FBI. Kissinger and Brzezinski get favorable treatment. One author tells us not to worry because even if you oppose the pro-Zionist Trump, you can continue to love Israel.” later he says they praised JFK for his bravery in cuba for shutting down the revolution…without a shot. all praise the capitalist hegemon! save the mentally ill we broke the goldwater rule for because: duty to warn!
as to bipartisanship, you may already have seen ‘House Democrats supply votes to block limits on NSA spying’, wsws.org
“Sixty-five Democratic representatives joined 191 Republicans to ensure the continuation of Section 702 of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), which allows for the warrantless collection of electronic communications of individuals outside the US and their contacts, including American citizens within the US. The NSA uses Section 702 to scoop up millions of emails, text messages and video chats with the connivance of Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AT&T and other Internet giants.
Prior to the final vote, 55 Democrats helped torpedo an amendment, put forward by Michigan Republican Representative Justin Amash, which would have placed limited curbs on the way data collected by the US government can be used, requiring the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain a warrant before collecting information on American citizens from the NSA database.
Pelosi spoke from the House floor to denounce the amendment and encourage her colleagues to vote against it, earning praise from Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. “I want to thank [Pelosi] for coming up and speaking against the Amash amendment and in favor of the underlying bipartisan [bill],” Ryan stated. Pelosi also played a crucial role in 2013, in the immediate aftermath of the Snowden revelations, in quashing an earlier attempt by Amash to limit the NSA’s surveillance powers.”
(not that several other agencies aren’t pying on us, sharing ‘intel’…)
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/01/13/fisa-j13.html
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2018/roll016.xml
Today’s IT Ooops in Hawaii will likely cause some to argue that we are more likely to scare ourselves into panic than Trump is to reactively overreact. We next will see an incident that occurs when Trump is not at a golf course; they they will spin that a more out of danger.
Trump likely thinks that to carry out the madman deterrence tactic to absolute power, he must neither be pegged as too sane or too insane. It seems that most intelligence agencies find a psychologist, at least, cheap enough to do analyses of heads of state. Bet even Ivory Coast has profiles of other heads of state.
Bandy Lee’s book is just the parlor game version of that kind of profiling. That however does not shake the sense that there is something seriously wrong with that man, Herr Trumpf.
The ECT overuse issue in on point. It occurs because neither the physician, the patient, and expecially the surrounding family can understand what is happening, how it cannot be “willful” (put that through the Know Thyself thread questions); what the physician most wants to get out of the way are the painful interactions with the patient for everyone involved. It often works well enough for time to heal all things. But at such a long-term cost. In the midst of the privacy that most such situations surround information about the full range of behavior and the social interaction, one is seeing only a slice of behavior.
There are risks in allowing someone with bad judgment to continue in office.
But what is has stalled the government is the paralysis in the House because the Republicans are seriously divided into three ideological groups and Nancy Pelosi is succeeding well enough in holding the Democratic causus unified. The GOP is defeating its own large majority just like Democrats did in 2009-2010.
it would be pretty interesting to know ‘whose missile’ hawaiians believed it might be/must be, given the many hyped threats in the news, wouldn’t it? my bet would have to be north korea’s, though, given the penis/button measuring T and Un have been (allegedly) engaging in.
of course there are such risks, but as strauss points out, how many *don’t* have and make bad judgments? he’s no doubt a deranged loose cannon, but strauss and sotille point out rightly, imo, that the issues and policies need to be examined, lest the next boss will be just like the old boss, only…more genteel sounding. more soon, i just got a gong….and need to take care of a few (chosen) responsibilities.
re: ‘Trump likely thinks that to carry out the madman deterrence tactic to absolute power, he must neither be pegged as too sane or too insane.’ that’s an interesting take, and a bit tangential to it was a Q i’d meant to ask juliania earlier, akin to this: had she read on of b’s essays at MoA that seemed to indicate that he thinks that herr Hair is playing some sort of eleventy-dimensional chess in forcing the EU to solve some of the kerfuffle w/ DPRK. but then, iirc, he hadn’t thought T’s defense posture was all that bad.
but right on cue, this came in w/ the popular resistance newsletter: ‘Veteran Nuclear Launch Officers to Congress: Rein in Trump’s Ability to Launch Nuclear First Strike’; Former Missileers Warn: “No Individual, Especially Donald Trump, Should Hold the Absolute Power to Destroy Nations”
spot on, but one of the suggestions was okays from sec def and the AG. are they more stable than T? mad dog and beauregarde? guess congress might be, if marginally, lol.
excellent thoughts on who benefits from ECT, though. ‘yes, they sign waivers, but…’. amen.
two additions for posterity:
article 45ing herr trump would essentially take a palace coup:
(from Osita Nwanevu at slate.com):
“So what does the 25th Amendment actually say? The relevant portion is Section 4, which outlines procedures for the removal of a president deemed “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Once the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet decide that a president is no longer fit, and once the House and Senate have been notified, the vice president can simply take office as acting president. If the president protests to the House and Senate, he is reinstated absent another vote declaring him unfit by the vice president and the Cabinet. If another vote finding the president unfit is taken, Congress is responsible for determining whether to remove the president permanently—throwing one out for good requires a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate.”
also, commenter hecate at C99 added this fascinating theory: ‘ECO-PSYCHOLOGY With THEODORE ROSZAK, williamjames.com
“If you look beyond the modern, Western schools of psychiatry, you find that in traditional societies among primary people it is understood that sanity and madness have to be defined always in relationship to the natural habitat; and that indeed, to a very large extent, madness is understood to be an imbalance between the individual and the natural environment, or between an entire tribe or a people and its natural environment. That’s a much larger conception of what sanity and madness are.
If we suspect that an entire culture may be embedded in “collusive madness” or “communal neurosis,” where does the therapist then look for a baseline to define sanity and madness? Perhaps an entire society is mad, in which case you don’t simply want to adjust people back into another condition of madness.
There is a madness involved in urban industrial society that has to do with our lack of balance and integration with the natural environment. We’re not basically okay within an urban industrial society. That’s a problem with the possibility of treating problems of neurosis within an urban framework. The city is itself shot through with a kind of madness. I’m talking about something that’s so apparent in the pace and tempo of our daily life that I think it’s almost taken for granted that we are living a kind of crazy life. All we have to do is be caught on the freeway in a traffic jam to recognize the madness of the way we’ve constructed the world around us. The amount of waste and the amount of stress and the amount of tension that we inflict upon ourselves. There’s something crazy about that.
When we say we are crazy with what we’re doing in this urban environment, this quite simply has no professional meaning. Because psychiatrists who are themselves products of an urban culture and practice within an urban context are often not prepared to call into question a context that they themselves are tied to. If the city is a crazy context in which people live, then that would also be a crazy context in which to carry on psychotherapy.”
yes, it sounds like industrial disease! (h/t greyson smythe)
(the lyrics))
Congrats to Wendy for what I think is an excellent approach to mental health, and in particular when mental health enters the political arena via the 25th Amendment, among other tangents.
And it’s for this reason that I am asking for your permission and in order to tell my readers that this ingenious approach to Leadership and Entrepreneurship is premised on European-oriented psychology and psychiatry.
And if your permission is granted to me, my focal point will be premised on Chicano and Native American military vets and where public polling is beset by the absence of military vets in our nation’s generic public polling and in contrast to the public polling that we do amongst ourselves while not specializing in the “marketing and sales” of the results that we achieve amongst ourselves.
And here’s the trending results from our history of political engagement. And by way of background, over these many years, I have authored six books on Latino Politics, and consequently, this European-oriented psycho-babble is interesting to say the least, and yet, mostly irrelevant to each of my readers.
As such, our public opinion polling has concretized today’s Trump Legacy and to be known as the Era of “_____________”
In the past, the Reagan Legacy was known as the Era of Criminal Stupidity and George W. Bush’s Legacy was known as the Era of Gross Incompetence.
So, I await and with bated breath, your permission. Thanks!
Jaango
of course you have my permission, jaango, as long as you realize that it’s all other peoples’ work. strictly speaking, i borrowed a bit more of steven strauss’s analysis than is permissible, but i doubt he’d mind. same for roszak’s eco-psychology essay. i never did finish it, cuz i’ve been working toward an MLK day diary i’m about to post.
but if you want to use more of his essay than ‘fair use standards’, it’s possible there’s a way to email him or ask at williamjames.com. best to you,
wd
p.s. you always dodge what the obomba rule era would be named, eh? ;-) he gave us trump?
lol and oh, my: roszak died in 2011, so you’d need a medium to ask his permission. wm. james copyrights, but can he copyright that interview? ah, well, permission is harder to obtain than forgiveness, in any event… ah, the light comes on, slowly…
yes, he’s all over youtube, problem, if any, solved.
but look at this! ‘‘Indigenous EcoPsychology‘, Part One: On Being Human, with Glenn Aparicio Parry’, as well. native american elders meet theoretical/quantum physicists in concentric circles. whooosh! sounds fascinating. (not that i could do much more than let the Nova series on quantum physics wash over me…w/o much comprehension.)
Where Chicano and Native American Military Vets Challenge Today’s Toxicology For A Well-Understood Purposeful Intent…
Today, the medical community is touting its skill set for inserting this mindset into the political arena, and where this skill set is being advocated to advance the 25th Amendment relative to President Trump’s behavior from within the White House and where twitter is utilized to adopt and adapt public policy that is consequentially opposed to what President Obama crafted and espoused as his public policies and leading to a vast array of institutionalized Public Laws. And therefore, this “challenge” continues apace, and yet, the historians of tomorrow, will be facing a difficult test for the respective and consequential “Truth-Telling” that animates our Self-Governance Model.
And unfortunately, our nation’s 20,000 credentialed Journalists are continuing to tarnish their respective reputations as of today (and for a disregard of their reputation that coalesces into tomorrow’s reputation) and all due to their allegiance for the financial reward that comes from the major news outlets and to include the Internet, nonetheless or is it notwithstanding?
And my good friend for all these many years, at least for these past twenty years or so, is Wendy Davis, the Editor and Publisher of her web site, Café Babylon Dot Net, and where earlier in this week, she wrote to address the usage of Psychology and Psychiatry and of this ‘introduction’ in today’s toxic politics and where the advocates, writ large, expressed their intention to support and address the 25the Amendment or the replacement of President Trump from the Oval Office and the promotion of Vice President Pence as this presumptive replacement.
And if you’re unfamiliar with Café Babylon, I encourage our readers to take the time and thusly, take a gander over to her website, and her differing and much larger perspective on our nation’s “behavior.” And by way of background or for all these years, I first encountered her at the Talking Points Memo shortly after Professor of History, Dr. Josh Marshall came onto the Internet, and subsequently, our discussions on the Middle East and all that this encompassed, was the start of my acquiring a wealth of knowledge somewhat unbeknownst to me, at the time, given my consuming interest in the Chicano Movement and all its vast array of tangents for civic engagement. Thus, my formal request of these past few days to her was for my tad of usage to craft this Commentary and on behalf of the Chicano Veterans Organization. As such, she quickly granted me her permission. And of course, always my thanks to her for her sharing her
And here’s Wendy’s compilation of what currently passes as the Psychology and Psychiatry’s zeitgeist, and with her internet link
Since, I’ve completed this Introduction for this Commentary, permit me to move on to another viable tangent of the unfamiliarity of today’s Chicano Movement, that is irreplaceable for our continuing ‘history’. Given that I am “long of tooth and grey of beard’ our history gently reminds that back in the days of the Vietnam War, the only neutral territory was the Chow Hall and where the feeding frenzy consisted of or was required that both a glass of white milk and a glass chocolate milk on the table was the simplified indicator for “grunt talk.” And further, the public law that was the then public law, or the military draft, most of us did not like having to serve in the Vietnam War and yet we did, and subsequently, the political barbs from both the Right and Left, continues to come forth as the “soldiers of the fascist Army and for the plutocrats.”
Unfortunately, for this ‘critique’ is amply refuted by the Best and Brightest as the then Status Quo brought us the Pentagon Papers. Furthermore, earlier this week, we celebrated the federal holiday that is Martin Luther King Jr., we too recognize that in his final years of life, he was amply recognized as a “radical” for this widely-announced zeitgeist for his opposition to the Vietnam War and which reinforced our Chicano Movement here in our wonderful Sonoran Desert, and had he lived into 2002 and 2003, he would have been opposed to the Bush/Cheney’s Authority to Use Military Force, as well is support for our Academic-Military Draft.
But I digress. And here’s what continues to be important to the Chicano and Native American military vet and as indicated by Elements One and Two and as following:
Element One: The Consequential Demand
Our Demand For The Following Congressional Resignations…
Given the espoused vitriol in the White House by President Trump, and via his repeated mantra of ‘shithole;’ we find this statement to be thoroughly unacceptable, and consequently, we are demanding that the Republican participants—less Senator Lindsey Graham, at this meeting on immigration, should submit the respective resignations forthwith.
As such, the following:
1. House Speaker Paul Ryan
2. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas
3. Senator David Perdue of Georgia
4. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida
5. Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia
As military veterans and for our having worn our nation’s uniform, we neither accepted nor tolerated racism from our fellow comrades. As such, we expect our Elected Officials to follow our iconic leadership, and if not, they should resign for their failure to challenge any espousal for racism from any person in the White House and to include President Trump. And nothing less is acceptable to us!
From the Public Policy Board of the Chicano Veterans Organization, from here in Phoenix, Arizona, and dated today, January 13, 2018
And Element Two: The Academic-Military Draft
“Oh Hell! And Where Do I Start?
Back in 1985, the Chicano Movement issued its Agenda of Unmet Needs, and of the 10 elements addressed was the formulation and implementation of the Academic-Military Draft. To wit, a high school graduate or a high school dropout could enlist for a 3-year term, and while engaged, 50% of time would be spent on ‘soldiering’ and the remaining amount of time spent in a classroom and where college-level general studies were to be conducted.
After three years and at separation, each person would hold in one hand, the Honorable Discharge and in the other hand, each person would hold a two-year college degree and equivalent to an Associate of Arts Degree in General Studies. Consequently, Self-Discipline, Hard Work, and Ambition, would become the starting point for our nation’s “equality at the finish line.”
And if one harkens back to the Bush/Cheney administration, the implementation of this Academic-Military Draft, today, we would have a young population of over 30 million millennials under 35 years of age, with each being a military veteran and for having accrued a four-year college degree. As such, Common Sense would dictate that taxpayer supported colleges and universities would be standing in line recruit these former enlistees and where Affirmative Action would not be on today’s esteemed Roster of Characteristics for Enrollment. In short, decision-makers would adjust the requisite use of scholarships and other related tangibles/intangibles for ensuring that these military veterans-students would become outstanding successes.
Now, white America knows about the Academic-Military Draft and has since 1985, and which begs the question of an ‘unmet need’—still borne—of a Systemic Continuation for more Criminal Stupidity, albeit, a Quiet Segregation.
(And dated, August 4, 12017)
In closing, much can be said about the many tangents relative to the starting point for “equality at the finish line” and if so, the Equal Rights Amendment will become front and center and onto our political agenda, and in the years ahead. And correctly so! And needless to say but I will, the ERA will overcome the SCOTUS-oriented decision for the purposeful intent on being anti-progressive, which means that Citizens United will achieve its rightful place and that being rationally tossed into trash bin of history. And forthrightly, the medical industry still falls short of its desired ‘mark’.
Jaango
and you’ll enter that in your own bailiwick, jaango? i really don’t know where you post, you see, nor that you’ve published six books. i’d forgotten to mention that.
but i dunno that i’m w/ you on this, but as w/ many, i disagree on much of who obama is, what he did and did not do, most especially by way of police state, security state, economic justice/injustice, deporting a million immigrants (fewer than trump, but now the Nicaraguans to get sent home) and so on.
“and where twitter is utilized to adopt and adapt public policy that is consequentially opposed to what President Obama crafted and espoused as his public policies and leading to a vast array of institutionalized Public Laws.” but ‘espoused’ might be the key word, as in: not necessarily what he did in the end. that obama had also labeled the existence of VZ as a ‘threat to US national security’, also pissed me purple. well, i’ll stop now, lol.
Wendy,
To your three questions:
The Legacy for President Clinton can best be described as the Era of Anti=Progressivism, and infamously known as Part One. As to President Obama, his Legacy will become known as the Era of Anti-Progressivism, or Part Two.
I am now in my first month of my 19th year and which I am the political writer for the Chicano Veterans Organization. And its membership roster consists of over 40,000 Chicano and Native American military vets. And when we wore our nation’s uniform, we were the Privates, Corporals and the Sergeants, and after our discharge, we attended our choice of colleges and universities and where we achieved a small portion of Ambition, that being our respective college degrees.
As to my authorship of six books focused on Latino Politics, the books are being weighed as a “set” and with the original intent to “gift” the set to several taxpayer-funded colleges and universities that have a stellar reputation for their Chicano Studies Program.
And the above 1,300 words were posted at the web site for the Chicano Veterans Organization. Therefore, our history of like-mindedness continues unabated for all these many years. Albeit, a newer version of ‘nationalism’ that permeates into today’s toxic politics. And yes, “they” are listening.
Jaango
thanks for answering, jaango; by the by, ‘wd’ is fine. ;-)
for me, the obomba era might me ‘the return of corporate fascism’, or ‘he gave us trump’. but even w/ your construct, wouldn’t you want to reconsider the portion i’d referenced?
but aha! i’d thought you’d meant initially that you were jazzed about eco-psychology, and that’s why i went a huntin’, and found the man who’d done an event in which indigenous elders met w/ quantum physics scientists. anyhoo, in the comments i found what article 25, section 4 requires, and it would amount to a trump palace coup. it was a link from slate.
as to the draft, to me ending the draft was what first ended the anti-war movement, the second time when obobma was prosecuting wars of choice in so many nations. you might want to peek into my MLK day diary and pay click into nicolas davies’ long compilation in his ‘giving war too many chances’.
gotta go, have some very lengthy honeydew requests from mr. wd. ;-)