Transparency needs your brain. Whistleblowers need your protection. Fresh Juice Party invites you to bring your ideas.
Please join our co-sponsors KPFA Pacifica Radio 94.1FM, journalists, former military personnel, academics, activists, policy makers, media experts, filmmakers and whistleblowers for an open discussion designed to encourage unexpected interdisciplinary alliances and action.
An article like this poses the question – who is really insane, psychiatrists or the people they treat? When readers finish this article, they may vote for the former.
“In a damning analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts said its new categories and “tick-box” diagnosis systems were at best “silly” and at worst “worrying and dangerous.” Some diagnoses – for conditions like “oppositional defiant disorder” and “apathy syndrome” – risk devaluing the seriousness of mental illness and medicalising behaviors most people would consider normal or just mildly eccentric, the experts said. At the other end of the spectrum, the new DSM, due out next year, could give medical diagnoses for serial rapists and sex abusers – under labels like “paraphilic coercive disorder” – and may allow offenders to escape prison by providing what could be seen as an excuse for their behavior, they added.
Phi Beta Iota: The meat is below the line, itemizing corporate misbehavior and political bribes in relation to awarded contracts, most of which do not produce needed capabilities that live up to their Powerpoint engineering.
For progressives and populists around the country who take an interest in Congressional races there are always a few good challengers we might hope to send to Washington. Incumbents, we assume, can take care of themselves.
But in Northern Ohio, redistricting has thrown two incumbents into one district. It’s a heavily Democratic district created purposely to guarantee a number of other districts to Republicans. The incumbents are both Democrats, both white, both 65, and many imagine that they do similar work in Washington. In fact, they could not be more different. One of them does tremendous good for our national politics, working to move our government in a better direction from inside it, just as the rest of us do from the outside. We cannot afford to lose him. We would be obliged to work for his reelection even if his opponent were far above average. The record suggests something else.
A useful example to highlight the contrast between Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is found in the funding of wars. Between 2001 and 2009, Congresswoman Kaptur voted for $545 billion in war funding, voting Yes over and over again for Bush’s wars. Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a total of $17 billion. (See the chart below.)
In the Soviet Union common criminals were punished less harshly and received better treatment than political prisoners. A person who had committed a violent crime had more rights than someone who expressed criticism of the government and could be portrayed as having acted against the government. We now have the same situation in the US.
In a recent case the Supreme Court overturned the sentence of a drug dealer who was convicted on the basis of a warrantless 28-day search by having a GPS device affixed to his car. In other words, a common criminal still has privacy rights under the Constitution, but not US citizens who are suspected of vague and nebulous “terrorist support.”
Both Republicans and Democrats have demonstrated disregard for the civil liberty protections guaranteed by the US Constitution. Among the visible candidates for president, only Ron Paul has respect for the Constitution. As it is now possible for the executive branch to take away the life and liberty of a US citizen without due process of law, the Constitution is for all practical purposes lost. Tyranny looms, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who stands against tyranny.
This is why I have written that Ron Paul is our last chance and encouraged his libertarian handlers to be flexible enough for the electorate to elect Ron Paul. I agree that Ron Paul, if elected president, would be hamstrung by the Establishment, but the other candidates offer no hope whatsoever.
Everything said about KEYSTONE is a lie. It is about refining and exporting the dirtiest most expensive source possible, at great externalized cost to the public and future generations (including water needed to flush the tar). FURTHERMORE, not a single person running for the presidency–including Ron Paul who dismisses General Welfare in the Preamble to the Constitution–is being honest about the fact that we have a 22.4% unemployment rate.
In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills. Another reason would be that the White House threatened to veto the bill if it had passed. However, it isn’t quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate’s version of SOPA) is still up for consideration.
Phi Beta Iota: SOPA is simply the latest example of a Congress that thinks nothing of abdicating its Article 1 responsibilities–every single day, Congress is betraying the public trust. They will continue to do this until we force upon them the Electoral Reform Act of 2012.
Blue Republicans are people who have never before thought of joining the Republican party, but are going to do so for one year to ensure that Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination for President in 2012.
Many of us previously identified as Democrats or Independents and/or supported Obama in 2008. We believe that on issues that matter most — war vs. peace (Iraq, Yemen etc.), civil liberties (Patriot Act etc.), and crony corporatism (bailouts etc.) — Obama has pursued a course similar to that of George Bush.
States are changing their systems all the time so ALWAYS CHECK YOUR OWN STATE INFORMATION to make sure you do what you need to do to make Ron Paul the Republican nominee for President
A curious glance at the current crop of presidential candidates makes it clear that Ron Paul stands alone when it comes to the issue of US engagement in foreign wars. He stands with George Washington against foreign entanglements while the rest of the candidates stand with Teddy Roosevelt and the attempted creation of America’s first empire one hundred and twelve years ago. Mark Twain responded to that effort by creating the Anti-imperialist society while he caustically satirized the effort in his depiction of the massacre of the Moros in the Philippines. Now we have more massacres, using drones instead of canons, on equally hapless civilians who are caught unawares or hiding from the wrath of America’s righteousness as we drive to bring virtue to a primitive world.
Today America has an estimated 700 military installations in about 140 nations around the world; its bases surround Iran as does its nuclear capability, and it is engaged in executive “wars” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. All of this while carrying a debt that exceeds thirteen trillion dollars, cutting budgets in education, medical care and social security, and retaining a Pentagon budget that exceeds that of the 16 declared developed nations combined. And to top it all off, we are considering armed aggression against Iran that could plunge America into the biggest war since WW II. Why?
Transparency needs your brain. Whistleblowers need your protection. Fresh Juice Party invites you to bring your ideas.
