Tuesday, December 18, 2012

I feel like I am being put in a box. I feel mildly depressed. I feel very stigmatized as I imagine most of my consumer/ex-patient/survivor friends feel. Words during times like this almost fail me. Why? Because I am a Mental Health, ECT Survivor. I have always been non-violent (except when I served in the army and went to war.) With my background as a childhood abuse survivor I fit the profile of 

these killers, a loner, withdrawn, social misfit (yes that was me.) I however did not take my anger outward, but kept it inside as most of us do that are dealing with those feelings. I have always used my anger in constructive ways. From helping to start Local 1397 Steelworkers food bank, being a founding board member/ past president of the PMHCA, starting Wellspring Drop-in and the Rainbow Kitchen. As well as serving on many local, County and State boards where I spent a lot of time working on Mental Health laws. Because of the talk I see in the media about what can be done about preventing more murders I have become fearful that all the work and changes that C/S/X have brought about in the MH system are all for naught. I am fearful that more people will become over medicated and more people with get ECT. Most of all I fear the loss of the rights we fought for. Today on the Dr. Oz show I heard a shrink say that patients have too many rights and Drs have very little power. That about says it all. Now is the time to take a stand, we can no longer be silent, we have many voices. Lets use them before we lose everything we have fought for!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

I Posted this on Facebook and Google +

Once Again (cause I keep seeing this Mental Health BS on Twitter, FB, and the media) Mental Health isn't the Issue, GUN CONTROL is!!!
Because of my Mental Health Background (Clinical Depression and other diagnoses) I can not legally own a gun but I bet anyone I could get one if I wanted one (I don't). IMHOP The real problem is these Psych Meds, many of these killers were either on or withdrawing from meds. When I see all this garbage being written about or shown on TV, it makes me fearful. I fear for the Consumers, Ex-Patients and Survivors because the 99% of us Are NON-VIOLENT. Think about it

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Sorry

Haven't been updating the blog as much. Been hanging out on Facebook with old friends. I have blocked some of the folks from here so don't even try.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

"Can you imagine, if what's going on with the tea party rallies, if they were a group of black people,waving guns, coming up armed, talking about how you might have to take matters into your own hands if the government doesn't do what you want, you think the reaction in this country would be similar to what it is now?"
-- Bill Maher, telling the truth again,

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

40 Years Ago Today May 4, 1970 Kent State Shootings


It saddens me that there are people that think the murders at Kent State and Jackson State were justified. Don't believe me? Follow the link to this video. Edward R Murrow once said "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it."

Monday, May 3, 2010

Friday, April 30, 2010

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Why Aren’t Tea Partiers Protesting Arizona’s Big Government Overreach On Immigration?

Tea Party activists go out of their way to insist that they’re not partisan, racist, or filled with hate; they’re just patriots who want to stop a “socialist” government machine from controlling their daily lives.
The new immigration law in Arizona should be ripe for the Tea Parties to take up. SB-1070 is the “broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations,” giving police unprecedented power to detain anyone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant and making “the failure to carry immigration documents a crime.” Even traditionally far-right figures like former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee have worried that the law might lead to racial profiling abuses by the government.
But as the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson notes, this Tea Party support hasn’t materialized:
Activists for Latino and immigrant rights — and supporters of sane governance — held weekend rallies denouncing the new law and vowing to do everything they can to overturn it. But where was the Tea Party crowd? Isn’t the whole premise of the Tea Party movement that overreaching government poses a grave threat to individual freedom?It seems to me that a law allowing individuals to be detained and interrogated on a whim — and requiring legal residents to carry identification documents, as in a police state — would send the Tea Partyers into apoplexy. Or is there some kind of exception if the people whose freedoms are being taken away happen to have brown skin and might speak Spanish?
Not only are Tea Partiers not speaking out against SB-1070, they’re actively supporting it. The Arizona Tea Party Network called on its members to support Brewer’s big government. In fact, the sponsor of SB-1070 is state Sen. Russell Pearce (R), a Tea Party backer.
According to a new survey directed by University of Washington political scientist Christopher Parker, white Tea Partiers tend to be “predisposed to intolerance,” pointing to a possible reason the movement has been reluctant to join with immigration reform activists:
For instance, the Tea Party, the grassroots movement committed to reining in what they perceive as big government, and fiscal irresponsibility, also appear predisposed to intolerance. Approximately 45% of Whites either strongly or somewhat approve of the movement. Of those, only 35% believe Blacks to be hardworking, only 45 % believe Blacks are intelligent, and only 41% think that Blacks are trustworthy.Perceptions of Latinos aren’t much different. While 54% of White Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be hardworking, only 44% think them intelligent, and even fewer, 42% of Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be trustworthy. When it comes to gays and lesbians, White Tea Party supporters also hold negative attitudes. Only 36% think gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children, and just 17% are in favor of same-sex marriage.
Also, if Tea Partiers really do feel like they’ve been taxed enough already, they should support immigration reform. As Andrea Nill has reported, “In January, the Immigration Policy Center and the Center for American Progress found that legalizing undocumented immigrants through comprehensive immigration reform would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue within three years. The study predicted that ultimately the benefits of immigration reform would go beyond pure tax revenue and would yield at least $1.5 trillion in cumulative U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years.”

Monday, April 26, 2010

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Saturday, April 10, 2010

In an interview last night, President Obama responded to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s criticism of his nuclear weapons policy, saying, “the last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues” “If the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are comfortable with it, I’m probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin,” said Obama.

In West Virginia, Coal Miners' Slaughter


by: Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
The high cost of energy in America was paid in human lives this week, with the deaths of more than two dozen miners in a massive explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia. It's the worst mine disaster in a quarter of a century.
Upper Big Branch is owned by Massey Energy Company, which operates 47 mines in central Appalachia. According to the Los Angeles Times, it employs nearly 6,000 and in 2009 reported revenues of $2.3 billion, with a net income of $104.4 million.
At the center of this week's catastrophe is Massey's president and CEO Don Blankenship, a man so reviled nowadays he had to be escorted away by police when he and other company officials tried to address a group of distraught family and friends outside the Upper Big Branch mine in the early morning hours after the explosion. The crowd hurled invective - and a chair.
Blankenship hates unions (Upper Big Branch is a non-union mine), thinks global warming is a figment of our imaginations and that those who do believe in climate change are crazy; supports destructive, mountain-top-removal mining; serves on the board of the conservative, free market U.S. Chamber of Commerce and now, lucky us, shares his pearls of right-wing wisdom via Twitter. "America doesn't need Green jobs," he tweeted pithily last month, "but Red, White, & Blue ones." David Roberts of the environmental magazine Grist described him as "the scariest polluter in the U.S. ...The guy is evil and I don't use that word lightly."
Just one example of Massey Energy's earlier history of environmental malfeasance was described in a May 2003 issue of Forbes Magazine: "In October 2000 the floor of a 72-acre wastewater reservoir built above an abandoned mine in Kentucky collapsed, sending black sludge through the mine and out into a tributary of the Big Sandy River. The sludge killed fish and plants for 36 miles downstream. Water supplies were shut down in several towns for a month. In total, 230 million gallons spilled out, 20 times the volume of the crude oil from the Exxon Valdez. Lawns nearby were covered in as much as 7 feet of muck...
"... The reservoir had shown signs of leaking right before the accident and Massey failed to report that fact to regulators as required, according to the U.S. Mine Safety & Health Administration. The cleanup has cost $58 million so far."
This week's Upper Big Branch mine disaster is the latest in a string of environmental and safety-related calamities linked to Massey and Blankenship. In 2008, the company paid a $20 million fine to the Environmental Protection Agency, and that same year, a Massey subsidiary, the Aracoma Coal Company, pled guilty to safety violations and agreed to $4.2 million in civil penalties and criminal fines connected to the 2006 deaths of two miners in a fire.
According to The New York Times, "After the fire broke out, the two miners found themselves unable to escape, partly because the company had removed some ventilation controls inside the mine. The workers died of suffocation. Federal prosecutors at the time called it the largest such settlement in the history of the coal industry."
The Upper Big Branch mine has a long history of violations. Last month alone it was cited by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration for 53 safety violations, many of them for inadequate venting of dust and methane and improperly maintained escape passages. Last year, the Times reports, "the number of citations against the mine more than doubled, to over 500, from 2008, and the penalties proposed against the mine more than tripled, to $897,325." So far, only $168,393 of those fines have been paid.
Blankenship's response? "Violations are unfortunately a normal part of the mining process," he told a radio interviewer. West Virginia and federal laws were toughened after the Sago mine disaster in 2006 that killed 12 men. But as the number of safety citations has increased, so, too, has the number of appeals by the mining companies, and while that long bureaucratic process unfolds, it's business as usual.
Blankenship and Massey Energy play our political system like a country fiddle, a system corrupted by money and influence. A certified public accountant (he's actually in the national CPA hall of fame - I'm not kidding), Blankenship apparently sees the world as one big balance sheet, with human life an expendable commodity and - especially if they're judges or other officials - something to be bought and sold. The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics says that since 1990, those associated with Massey and its political action committee have given more than $300,000 in campaign contributions to federal candidates. And in 2006, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Blankenship spent more than $100,000 trying to elect pro-business candidates to the West Virginia state legislature.
But it's in the courthouse that Blankenship has really tried to spread the wealth. In 2008, photos were published of him wining and dining West Virginia Supreme Court Justice "Spike" Maynard along the Riviera. They were popping corks in Monaco as Massey Energy was before the court appealing a $50 million judgment that had been won by smaller mining companies charging Massey with fraud. Subsequently, Maynard recused himself from the case and was defeated for re-election. Now he's running for Congress.
Blankenship had better luck when he went on the offensive against West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Justice Warren McGraw, creating a PAC called "And for the Sake of the Kids." He contributed $3 million and created campaign ads described by USA Today as "venomous." They made particular hay with a case in which Justice McGraw was part of a majority that voted to free a mentally disturbed child molester, who got a job as a school janitor.
McGraw was defeated by Blankenship's candidate, Brent Benjamin. When the appeal of the $50 million came before the court, ABC News reports, "Justice Benjamin refused to recuse himself from the case and twice provided the deciding vote in Massey's favor. The jury verdict against Massey was overturned."
So egregious were Benjamin's actions that even the current United States Supreme Court, so heavily pro-business in its recent decision-making, was appalled. It ruled that the judge and Blankenship were out of line. Even so - and even with Benjamin finally recusing himself - on a third vote, Massey again won its appeal.
When you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. Meanwhile, miners working for Massey Energy and Blankenship continue to risk their lives deep below the earth, digging out the fuel that helps keep our lights burning at the price of never knowing if the tiniest of sparks will ignite the next fatal explosion.