If only it were just a laughing matter

I found a posting by by Leigh angrydog.motime.com about the DSM (Diagnostical and Statistical Manual) of the American Psychiatric Association.

THE OUTLAW CATALOG OF CAGEY OPTIMISM Psychiatry and psychotherapy obsess on what's wrong with people and give short shrift to what's right. The manual of these professions is a 943-page textbook called the DSM-IV. It identifies scores of pathological states but no healthy ones.

In 2002, I began to complain about this fact, and asked readers to help me compile material for a proposed antidote, the Anti-DSM--a compendium of healthy, exalted, positive states of being. As their entries came in, we at the Beauty and Truth Laboratory were inspired to dream up some of our own. Below is part one of our initial attempt at creating an Anti-DSM-IV, or as we also like to call it, The Outlaw Catalog of Cagey Optimism. >> continued

The DSM really is a joke. Did you know that it is not based on any studies or statistics at all? In fact all the "disorders" voted into being (which include the very serious and pervasive "Arithmetic Learning Disorder" - no I'm NOT kidding and I only wish I were, and the "adolescent defiant disorder" -- I wonder who gets to decide what THAT one means).

In the selection from the video I was last night, psychiatrist after psychiatrist said, on camera, that they don't have any tests for these "disorders" and they have never had a cure.

I'd say the laugh is on us.

posted by: jbasoon at 03:07 | link | comments |
psychiatry, cchr, dsm, fraud

New Scientology Human Rights Campaign

I went to the 22nd Anniversary Event for the founding of the International Association of Scientologists in LA last night.

After David Miscavige's intro (absolutely brilliant and devastating in terms of his indictment of the powers that be and their crazy wars, torture of political prisoners et. al), Mike Rinder gave an absolutely incredible speech on psychiatric violations of human rights.

The "Psychiatry - an Industry of Death Museum" has been open almost a year, and the traveling exhibit has been touring around the world for the past few months and the documentary films in those are the most eye opening productions I've ever seen.

The GREAT news is that this has now been made into a DVD!

It is outrageous what these so-called professionals get away with - literally murder.

The DVD can be purchased at www.cchr.org<.

I know I've personally seen the destruction of psychiatry -- they dismantled my best friend in 1968. She went from being a vivacious, loving, funny, active woman to a bedridden drugged-up terrified specter. Two sets of 15 shock treatments each, because he husband committed her for screaming and carrying on. Don't you just want to know what he did to provoke her to do this?

Anyway, if hers were an isolated case I might not be so violently opposed to them, but their "technology" is torture and their current fad is the drugging of our entire society. And I don't want any part of their Brave New World.

posted by: jbasoon at 02:47 | link | comments |
torture, scientology, david miscavige, prisoners of war, psychiatry, cchr, scientologist

Psychiatric Violations of Human Rights

Remember who used to run the Russian Gulags? Remeber who developed brainwashing in the Japanese and later Korean POW camps?

Did you realize that it is the same profession that directs the humiliation of "detainees" in the Iraqui conflict and a Gitmo?

And that is the least of their human rights violations, believe it or not.

Anyone with a real concern about human righ

This is the web site of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Check when the CCHR traveling exhibit is going to be close to you and make plans to go and watch the 1 hr and 48 minute long documentary that lays bare the truth about this profession and what you can do to bring them under the law.

posted by: jbasoon at 19:52 | link | comments |
torture, human rights, prisoners of war, pschiatry

Religious Tolerance

Thank to jrobbins for pointing me in the direction of this excellent article by Chuck Colson on Breakpoint

With the election season is full swing, I’m going to ask you to forget for a moment all the mud-slinging and scandal-mongering that is raging across your television set, coming from both sides. Instead, consider the really serious weighty issues before the American people this fall: the war on terrorism, Iraq, the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, immigration, and so much more. Some politicians are talking about these critical issues—more need to. We need to know where our candidates stand on these questions.

But as Mark Earley told you yesterday on “BreakPoint,” there’s another issue that Christians absolutely need to bring into the political discussion this election year: religious freedom—not only around the world, but also here at home.

Certainly the global outlook is grim. Just this past June, a pastor and members of the Full Gospel Church in the province of Than Hoa, Vietnam, were dragged outside by police and brutally beaten. Their only crime: gathering to worship Jesus. In Pakistan, a 7-year-old Christian girl was lured away from her home, raped, beaten, and left for dead in a ditch. She was targeted because of her faith. In China, Peter Xu Yongze, pastor of one of the largest underground Protestant churches there, was hung up across an iron gate during one of his five jail sentences. They then yanked open the gate, so that his chest nearly split in two.

As chilling as these reports are, even more chilling is the fact that the vast majority of religious persecution cases never make the news. While North Korea is in the headlines for testing a nuclear weapon, few Americans know that hundreds of thousands of Christians are penned up and tortured in grotesquely brutal North Korean concentration camps.

And lest we should think that Christians are the only ones subject to torture and death for their faith, consider the following cases: Kurban Zakirov, a Jehovah’s Witness in Turkmenistan, was injected with psychotropic drugs while he was imprisoned for his faith. Farzad Kasiri, a Baha’i in Iran, was flogged for his faith. And in Uzbekistan, thousands of Muslims are imprisoned, denied due process, and subjected to torture.

So, what does America and the upcoming elections have to do with all of this? Let me put it this way: To whom much is given, much is expected. From the very early days of our republic, Americans recognized the truth that freedom of religion is a God-given right, in fact, the most basic of human rights. And, as the leading world power, the United States is in a unique position to help curb religious persecution around the world. To remain silent about religious persecution would be to betray all that we stand for.

I would only add that as Americans we are losing credibility in our work to guarantee human rights and religious freedom in other countries when we flaunt our contempt for such international instruments as the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by our treatment of "detainees" in Guantanamo and recent legislation legitimizing same.

posted by: jbasoon at 16:03 | link | comments |

Eric DeShazer has a very astute assessment of the Guantanamo scene:

The Bush Administration continues to insist that all detainees that are not eligible for release are to be tried as criminals by military tribunals. I may be wrong, but I think the tribunals will be closed to the public. The reasons given for the necessity of the tribunals are national security concerns, the protection of intelligence gathered in relation to the "War on Terror", and the uniqueness of the situation (new kind of war, yada, yada, yada). What just occurred to me is if the detainees are tried in pseudo-secret, then they will not be given the chance to publicly state any of the reasons why they decided to join the "jihad" against the U.S and we, the U.S. public, will not be given the chance to hear them. Also, it will be that much easier to cover up any misdeeds and/or mistakes that have been committed by our military and intelligence professionals in the pursuit of revenge for 9/11. Even Nazi party officials were given high-profile trials that were open to the world, and they killed millions. What a coup for the gung-ho, kick-ass and take names later crowd.

We wouldn't want people hearing that the U.S. isn't considered perfect by every person on the face of the Earth. We surely wouldn't want people to wonder if our policies in regards to foreign governments are maybe a little self-serving and maybe a lot more unfair than is widely believed. That just wouldn't do. Now I don't claim that a person can have a legitimate reason to kill someone just to make a political statement. They do not. No one does. I think the terrorists, extremists, whatever you want to call them, are going about this the wrong way. They would be so much closer to realizing their goals if they would embrace the use of non-violent protest and civil-disobedience, such as that used by the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. or Mehatma Ghandi in the struggle to liberate India. So I am not advocating violence to pursue political gains. What I am saying is these people may have some legitimate complaints. They chose the wrong way to voice those complaints. But, why can't they be heard? What would it hurt for us to have to listen to a little criticism? It might do us some good to sit back and reflect on the what we are actually doing in the Middle East and where these actions are taking us.

I still think America is one of the strongest democracies on earth, but I feel it is the responsibility of every American to make the country live up to the ideals on which it was founded.

What has been done with this issue is a violation of the most basic human rights and international conventions, and degrades the US's position as a leader in this field, which undermines our ability to then insist that other countries institute human rights reforms.

posted by: jbasoon at 22:14 | link | comments |

Human Rights Watch on the Military Commissions Act of 2006

Human Rights watch has studied and digested the important information in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and has posted it on thier web site.

It explains, among other things:

What military commissions are and what Congress authorized in the MCA

How the military commissions authorized by Congress differ from those that were struck down by the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

What penalties the military commissions can impose.

I think you will find this a very disturbing read, but one that needs to be confronted and made broadly known.

posted by: jbasoon at 16:05 | link | comments |

Human Trafficking

HumanTrafficking.org is an excellent resource for information on human trafficking and action being taken to combat it.

Here is some information about their mission and activities:

About Us

How does this Web site help?

The purpose of this Web site is to bring Government and NGOs in the East Asia and Pacific together to cooperate and learn from each other’s experiences in their efforts to combat human trafficking. This Web site has country-specific information such as national laws and action plans and contact information on useful governmental agencies. It also has a description of NGO activities in different countries and their contact information.

Why this Web site?

In the Asian Regional Initiative Against Trafficking (ARIAT) meeting in 2000, and in other international initiatives, the participants proposed to promote cooperation and partnership among their governments, NGOs, international organizations, private sector, and civil society organizations in prevention, protection, reintegration and prosecution aspects of trafficking in persons. It was suggested that countries should build regional cooperation networks, including cooperation through the Internet, to combat the issue of human trafficking. As a result of the unanimous recommendation of the ARIAT meeting, this Web site is supported by the United States of America Department of State.

The HumanTrafficking.org project is being implemented by the Academy for Educational Development with funding provided by the U.S. State Department.

posted by: jbasoon at 17:36 | link | comments (1) |

Truth about Psychiatry

Here's a myspace page that was put together by a 20-year-old guy from Florida, where he has compiled so much information on psychiatric human rights violations, you can learn a lot about it with just this one visit.

posted by: jbasoon at 19:48 | link | comments |

Military Commissions Act

Bush signed the "Military Commissions Act" into law today.

It passed the House with 96% of Republicans supporting and 83% of Democrats opposing.

Amnesty International lists out 8 points of International Law that this violates, inlculding the following:

It strips the US courts of jurisdiction to hear or consider habeas corpus appeals challenging the lawfulness or conditions of detention of anyone held in US custody as an "enemy combatant". Judicial review of cases are severely limited. The law applies retroactively, and thus may result in more than 200 pending appeals filed on behalf of Guantánamo detainees being thrown out of court.

Gives the military commissions the power to hand down death sentences after trials that did not meet international standards.

Prohibits any person from invoking the Geneva Conventions or their protocols as a source of rights in any action in any US court.

Enough.

We need to get to the real source of terrorism. "Solutions" like this have not improved the situation with regard to terrorist one bit.

posted by: jbasoon at 21:43 | link | comments |
torture, human rights, prisoners of war

Stand Up Against Poverty

Tomorrow is the last day of "Stand Up Against Poverty Month"

Learn what you can do to help at the Global Call to Action Against Poverty

posted by: jbasoon at 21:42 | link | comments |
poverty, human rights