Bush to Screen Every American for Mental Illness
A frightening article made the rounds of Rapid Response - Iowa
this weekend and set off warning bells all around. After checking
and double checking sources and doing further research, the good folks
at Rapid Response - Iowa
determined that this plan does indeed exist and has already been funded
to the tune of $20 million. Oh, and Bush is going to start the national evaluation by
testing and medicating (for mental illness) our teachers and school
children first.
Christina Butts of Des Moines describes why this is so alarming:
"The
people pushing for this have an agenda not to help the truly mentally
ill but to start on an invasive government program to start requiring
testing, diagnosis, and then medication for increased labeling of
behaviors NOT presently listed by American Psychiatric Associations, but
to start falsely labeling enemies, and the public in general for
coercion, control, manipulation, and conditioning - for the benefit of
the powerful corporations in control of the present administration.
[For
people who suffer from mental illness or who have some kind of brain
injury,] the fear and terror that are involved when they are aware that
their every move and response is what can be used to deny them rights
and liberty is barely imaginable by the normal public. To think that a
slow, insidious move like this is trying to be implemented to get the
US citizenry literally addicted and dependant on 'Soma'-type
pharmaceutical drugs, for mood enhancement or combating mislabeled
ADHD or other 'mental illness', is horrendous. No more protests or
wrong-thinking voters will ever be a problem again for the extreme
conservative rightwing. Why try to solve the problems of society when
they can make money and medicate the public to accept and forget.
No more competing with 'illegal' drugs, because now the government and
business can feed the good stuff to us at a market-valued profit."
Here's the article that set off the flurry of concern, and below, you will find links to further reports corroborating this information.
Now Bush wants to test every American for mental illness--including you! And guess who will create the tests?
By Jordanne Graham, InterventionMag.org
Next
month, George W. Bush plans to unveil a broad new mental health plan
called the “New Freedom Initiative.” Never mind that it couldn’t have
less to do with freedom; if you’re a thinking American, this initiative
should scare the hell out of you.
The New
Freedom Initiative proposes to screen every American, including you,
for mental illness. To this end, the pResident established a New
Freedom Commission on Mental Health, to study the nation’s mental
health delivery service and make a report. It’s interesting to note
that many on the staff appointed to the Commission have served on the
advisory boards of some of the nation’s largest drug companies.
The
commission reported that “despite their prevalence, mental disorders
often go undiagnosed,” so it recommended comprehensive mental health
screening for “consumers of all ages,” including preschool children
because “each year, young children are expelled from preschools and
childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional
disorders.”
Children
and school personnel will be the first to be screened. The panel
concluded that schools are in “key positions” to screen the 52 million
students and six million adults who work at the schools. By doing this,
the commission expects to flush out another six million persons not now
receiving treatment. But who will decide the screening criteria? Bush
and his people? The drug companies? What are their qualifications?
...The Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, was named by the commission as
a “model” medication treatment plan that “illustrates an evidence-based practice
that results in better consumer outcomes.” Medical algorithms are a
decision-tree approach to treatment. If symptoms A, B, and C are evident, use
treatment X. In 1995, TMAP began as an alliance of individuals from the
University of Texas, the pharmaceutical industry, and the mental health and
corrections systems of Texas.
...In an article in the British Medical Journal, Jones shows that many
companies who helped launch TMAP are also major contributors to Bush’s
re-[s]election funds. For example, Eli Lilly manufactures olanzapine. This
is one of the drugs recommended in the New Freedom plan. Lilly has
numerous ties to the Bush administration according to the British
Medical Journal. It says George Herbert Walker Bush was once a member
of Lilly’s board of directors. Our current [pseudo-]pResident Bush appointed
Lilly’s chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, as a member of the
Homeland Security Council. Eighty-two percent of Lilly’s $1.6 million
in political contributions in 2000 went to Bush and the Republican
Party.
Read the rest of the article here.
Here are a couple of links to corroborating reports:
Bush to screen population for mental illness
The New Freedom Initiative (US): Ready To Be Tested?
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Monday, August 16
Bush to Screen Every American for Mental Illness
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 16 Aug 2004 03:24 PM CDT
Iowa in the News: The Election
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 16 Aug 2004 09:57 AM CDT
Nader Officially On Iowa Ballot
KWWL.com Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader will officially appear on the November ballot, according to Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver's office. Nader supporters turned in 3,198 signatures to the Secretary of State's office yesterday. That's more than twice the number necessary needed to appear on the ballot. State law requires a minimum of 1,500 signatures. Nader campaign coordinators say the signatures were obtained in 76 of Iowa's 99 counties over the last three to four weeks. They also say they got the signatures without help from Republicans. Signature gatherers approached attendees at a Republican rally in Clive and asked for their support because it would help Bush's campaign. Source The Importance Of Iowa This Election Year Keloland.com George Bush spent the day campaigning in Sioux City, Iowa. It's his third campaign trip to Iowa in four weeks. Bush's stop comes just a couple of weeks after his presidential opponent, Democrat John Kerry visited the state. So why is Iowa such a hot spot on the campaign trail? Iowa is one of the 10 key battleground states in the 2004 election. First John Kerry wowed the crowds in Sioux City, Iowa. Now George W. Bush is taking his message to the state. KELOLAND news analyst Steve Hemmingsen says, "If you go back 30 years or so you had Harold Hughes who had a pretty good Democratic machine going over there and the Democrats are never very far behind the Republicans in Iowa." ...Hemmingsen thinks one of the reasons the two candidates have chosen Sioux City as a political stop on the campaign trail is because of the community's diversity. He says, "Sioux City is the biggest thing in that part of Iowa by far. And also you have quite an ethnic population down there, a multi-ethnic population. You also have blue collar workers, some white collar workers and I think in a lot of ways Sioux City is probably more representative of what the whole population looks like than Sioux Falls is." (more) Inactive voters swell Black Hawk County rolls Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier WATERLOO --- They could control the outcome in any local election. If they voted. More than 10,900 Black Hawk County registered voters --- 13 percent of the 82,000-plus total --- are listed as inactive. That's the highest number of inactive voters in First Congressional District counties, even more than Scott County, which has more people. And it's the sixth-highest number in the state. The number of inactive voters in the county has more than doubled over four years. It's the highest since the federal National Voter Registration Act was enacted in 1993. Under that law, county voter registration rolls are checked annually against U.S. Postal Service records to determine changes in address of registered voters. The County Election office sends those voters who have moved a card requesting a mailed response. Those voters who do not respond are listed as inactive. (more) High-Tech Voting Machines Coming to Eastern Iowa KCRG.com Eastern Iowa voters will soon see high-tech machines at their polling places. Delaware and five other counties are the first in the state to receive five pound precinct count optical voting machines. (more)
Connie Wilson: The Fog of War, Part 1
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 16 Aug 2004 05:11 AM CDT
The Fog of War, Part 1
by Connie Corcoran Wilson Throughout “The Fog of War,” the 2003 Oscar-winning documentary produced and directed by Errol Morris, interview subject Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson during the Viet Nam war, offers these eleven lessons which could serve us equally well as a nation today: 1) Empathize with your enemy. 2) Rationality will not save us. 3) There’s something beyond one’s self. 4) Maximize efficiency. 5) Proportionality should be a lesson in war. 6) Get the data. 7) Belief and seeing are both often wrong. 8) Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning. 9) In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. 10) Never say never. 11) You can’t change human nature. While sharing these lessons, learned during his 85 years on the planet and his many years of public service, (including the first non-Ford family member President of Ford Motor Company and President of the World Bank), McNamara also shares some quotes that seem very, very relevant right now. For one, “Learn from your mistakes. Try to learn. Try to understand what happened. If people do not display wisdom, they will clash like blind moles, and then mutual annihilation will commence.” While talking about how close the United States came to war during the famous “Missiles of October” crisis with Cuba and the Soviet Union during JFK’s presidency, McNamara relates a conversation that occurred, many years after the crisis, when he learned, in January of 1992, that there had been 162 nuclear warheads and 90 tactical warheads on the island during the famous October, 1962, blockade of Cuba. McNamara asked Castro, “Did you know (the extent of the weapons on the island)?” -- to which Castro answered “Yes.” He then asked Fidel, “Would you have recommended to (Nikita) Khrushchev, (then the Russian Premier), that he use them?” Castro responded forcefully, that he HAD told Khrushchev to use them! McNamara’s final question to Castro was, “What would have happened to Cuba?” (if Khrushchev had listened to Castro’s advice and used the weapons stockpiled on the tiny island 90 miles off the coast of Florida). Castro admitted that the island would have been totally destroyed. McNamara shakes his head in incredulity, seemingly stunned to learn that this was Castro’s position. “Pull the temple down on our heads? My God!” says McNamara. It was John Fitzgerald Kennedy who told the United Nations, in an address to them on September 25, 1961, “Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer be of concern to great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” Certainly Castro’s comments to McNamara illustrate this very danger, and the new threats of biological and chemical weapons certainly belong in the same “to be avoided at all costs” category as nuclear weapons, for the very reasons so eloquently expressed by JFK at the United Nations over 43 years ago. more » |
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