Your mental wellness requires a global revolution. In fact, your physical wellness requires one, too.
For many years, I have noticed that there are people doing good social change work for mild reform. That is nice, but during my work in what we affectionately call the “mad movement,” I have often called for revolution, because the change we need is so big! Please do not misunderstand me, we need to attempt a peaceful revolution, which I do not think has been adequately tried; however, I am not a pacifist.
How do you know that a revolution has started? How does it feel? Maybe one has started but we did not get the memo? Or maybe you will start one? What is the connection between peaceful, nonviolent revolution and violent revolution, if any?
Given global warming, inequality, and so many other problems such as bee colony collapse, etc., etc., most people I talk with agree that there needs to be a revolution. My amazing wife, Debra, has helped name our revolution “Love Earth Revolution,” and maybe your name for this revolt is different?
It seems that whenever I hear about big problems in the world, the person concludes by saying that we know what needs to be done, we have the technology, a solution is affordable, but we need to act urgently and the main question is, “Do we have the collective will?”
There is a moral paralysis that blocks necessary revolution. Even Pope Francis is calling for a revolution because of global warming and poverty!
Hmmm, paralysis, seems like I might have some tips about that subject, in fact, maybe the disability movement might be able to help? Many other social change movements have also called for a nonviolent revolution.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his speeches and essays for about a decade that we all needed to be “creatively maladjusted” to oppression. In fact, he said that the future of the world lay in the hands of the “creatively maladjusted.” MLK said that we are in dire need of a new organization that he called, “International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment.” Because this was an obvious reference to NAACP, many in his audiences would laugh, but there is a very serious side here.
As many readers of this blog know, a few years ago, the mental health activist group MindFreedom launched Creative Maladjustment Week to help make MLK’s vision real. Tomorrow, July 7, is the start of this year’s CM week. Each day has been given a theme which you can read below:
7 July – Day of Creativity
8 July – Day of Action & Movement
9 July – Day of Laughter & Joyful Noise
10 July – Day of Kindness: This Friday, by the way, I will celebrate out at the Oregon Country Fair. The honorary chair of the IAACM has long been the real Patch Adams. Patch will speak at the Front Porch at 1:00 PM, however, we hear that he will be at the Community Village stage at 5:00 PM to kindly address creative maladjustment. Folk singer David Rogers will do a sign-along of the ancient freedom rebellion song, The Thoughts Are Free!
11 July – Day of Self Care
12 July – Day of Community Care
13 July – Legacy of Lunacy
14 July – Day of PRIDE: This is also Bastille Day and for decades, psychiatric survivors have used this day for international protest about changing the mental health system. When the revolution in France overthrew the Bastille, a psychiatric survivor was in there!
Your Leadership is Needed!
We know that leadership is best when it is near equal and everyone is a leader! This leaderful approach is known as a horizontal approach. That means you are in charge of creative maladjustment week, if you choose to! As long as your activity is in sync with the values of MLK, the sky is the limit.
Tomorrow, July 7, which this year happens to be a Tuesday, what will be your creative act of maladjustment to the seeming moral paralysis that is holding us back?
You may leave your answers on this blog’s comment area below. Or, if you are on Facebook, please search for our FB page https://www.facebook.com/IAACM , and you can leave your ideas there.
MindFreedom set up a webpage to promote Creative Maladjustment Week and you can read about that here: http://cmweek.org/
There is plenty of more info on the web, try these search terms: mad pride, MLK creative maladjustment, IAACM.
This year, for the first time, we will not have the activist present in this world, Leonard Roy Frank. This great psychiatric survivor worked in our movement for decades and died this year. My friend studied revolutionary social change by reading a lot about MLK, Gandhi, and many others who worked for social justice. Leonard was born July 15, 1932, and died January 15, 2015. So the next day after CM Week, Leonard would have turned 83. Personally, I think starting a global nonviolent revolution for justice on his birthday would be a great gift!
Here is a little-known aspect to CM Week that you might not know. There is actually a good reason to start this on July 7. From a Wiki article about Alleged Lunatics’ Friends Society:
“On July 7, 1845, Richard Paternoster, John Perceval, and a number of others formed the Alleged Lunatics’ Friend Society. A pamphlet published in March the following year set out the aims with which the Society was founded:
At a meeting of several Gentlemen feeling deeply interested in behalf of their fellow-creatures, subjected to confinement as lunatic patients.
It was unanimously resolved:… That this Society is formed for the protection of the British subject from unjust confinement, on the grounds of mental derangement, and for the redress of persons so confined; also for the protection of all persons confined as lunatic patients from cruel and improper treatment. That this Society will receive applications from persons complaining of being unjustly treated, or from their friends, aid them in obtaining legal advice, and otherwise assist and afford them all proper protection.
That the Society will endeavour to procure a reform in the laws and treatment affecting the arrest, detention, and release of persons treated as of unsound mind…“
* Also, the editors helpfully added this: Many photos and videos were posted on the Stop Shock Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/stopshocknow/media.
* The original blog entry by me is as follows:
Last month almost 30 grassroot protests of electroshock were held in nine countries around the world. I had the great honor of organizing the protest here in Eugene, Oregon, USA, even though I am a survivor of psychiatric drugs and not electroshock. Electroshock is the psychiatric procedure in which electricity is run through people’s brains. Below are eight lessons that this historic event taught me.
First, here is a two-minute video of our local protest by my good friend and long-time activist David Zupan. This brief documentary shows Chuck Areford, a mental health worker, publicly apologizing to protester Fred Abbe and other shock survivors.
Eight Lessons I Learned from Our International Protest of Electroshock
1. Thank You Debra Schwartzkopff and Other Shock Survivor Organizers!
You proved once more that passion and unity are the main qualities required for resistance. Too often, people in our society mistakenly think that scientists, attorneys, professors and other esteemed professionals are the only ones who are credible. However, even though some of you shock survivors were fairly new to activism, and some of you even wrestle with cognitive disabilities caused by the shock, the true grassroots victory of International Day of Protest Against Electroshock on May 16, 2015 is undeniable.
It may be difficult for some to believe, but in a few weeks time earlier this Spring, these activists used their wits, Facebook, email lists and solidarity with one another to create an event about this very-challenging topic in many different countries at the same time. My friend and recently-deceased activist Leonard Roy Frank would have been very proud of the way the human spirit once again showed itself as unconquerable.
2. Your Protests Were A Pebble in the Pond that Continues to Reach Thousands
Here in Eugene, we had our protest in the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza across from our popular Saturday Market. While we had to compete with enthusiastic drummers who gather each warm Saturday, we had a good sound system thanks to musician/activist David Rogers who played some tunes. Because this free speech area is well-used, we were guaranteed to have a crowd.
Some protests that day mobilized a few dozen people, others were as small as one person, but all reached many people both online and face-to-face. That is the seeming-magic of taking action. Science has shown that the flap of a butterfly wing can influence the landing of a storm thousands of miles away. Protests, life, the mind and in fact all of reality, apparently emerge from feedback loops far from equilibrium on the edge of chaos! Shock survivors show us that we must be sure to flap your butterfly wings even if we cannot control or predict the exact outcome.
3. Activism is the Alternative that Some Will Not Name
You shock survivors and supporters pulled off these protests with your dedication even though you did not have a lot of money.
Let me give an example of an event I like that uses a lot of taxpayer money, but tends to exclude such real activism. Every year, for the past 28 years, the US federal government funds a major gathering called the Alternatives Conference, bringing together about 900 Americans with psychiatric diagnoses to discuss their local projects such as community centers, peer support groups, respite, advocacy and arts organizations, etc. I have enjoyed about ten of these meetings. However, because this event is funded by taxes there is one alternative that tends to be avoided: Activism.
Sure we all can talk about anything at the Alternatives Conferences, but if we do any significant community organizing, participants have to maintain their independence, such as going across the street and renting space from some other hotel, because the government funders are afraid of bad publicity. While understandable, it is ironic that the main way I have personally found recovery after a psychiatric diagnosis has been my four decades of activism, yet that topic is taboo at this great meeting.
Just before I fell and broke my neck in the Fall of 2012, I helped organize a protest about electroshock during the Alternatives Conference that was held that year in Portland, Oregon. The organizers of the Alternatives Conference 2012 were my friends, but became very nervous that our ferment would endanger their future government funding. My friends prevented us activists from publicly announcing our protest, and even came with hotel administrators to ask me to sign a legal disclaimer, though our protest was across the street from the conference, in a public park. You may see the 22-min. video of our 2012 protest here, it is one of the last times I spoke before my broken back impaired my voice.
On May 16, 2015 electroshock survivors showed us that even though they might not have the same millions as the US government, they made up for that with determination. Sometimes I wonder why USA federal employees are so frightened by activism when the President got his start doing community organizing in Chicago (see Barack Obama’s great book, Dreams from My Father).
You may email the head of the half-billion USA agency that funds the Alternatives Conference, Paolo del Vecchio, and ask why the US taxpayer coughs up money for much of the electroshock in this country, even though our Food and Drug Administration has never approved the device, which remains Class III, experimental with no proof of safety and efficacy. For decades, I have known Paolo, who identifies as someone who has been a mental health consumer. I wonder if Paolo remembers our time in Kentucky years ago when we both keynoted an event, and I introduced him to a bunch of shock survivors who had all experienced human rights violations related to their shock.
Five years ago this July 14, Paolo, who then had a lower federal rank, invited me and more than two dozen other Americans with psychiatric labels to be in a focus group about mental health. We were able to put out a great statement about the undue influence of corporations on our mental health systems, and you may read about that action here. Paolo mainly made sure that our statement did not speak for the feds. Since our historic statement was issued, I have not heard from Paolo and he has gotten promoted!
Please email a strong but civil inquiry to Paolo and his agency:
I have emailed Paolo personally today, and said the following among other things:
“Will federal agencies look into the subject of human rights and electroshock now? This is more than forced electroshock, which occasionally happens in the USA even through outpatient commitment, and includes the fact that every informed consent process I have viewed has been flawed. Perhaps the worst and most subtle violation is that adequate non-drug alternatives are often not researched and provided, even though the scientific evidence shows that such alternatives are often more effective especially in the long run.”
4. Activism as a Healing Alternative
Now I can hear some of you readers blaming taxpayer funding of our movement as the main reason activism is excluded at events like the Alternatives Conference (see number 3 above). However, I have seen the same problem at an independent, grassroots event. Just before I fell and broke my neck in 2012, I was generously invited to be one of the participants in an historic gathering on the coast of California in the beautiful Esalen Institute, which was co-founded by an electroshock survivor, the late Dick Price. Because Dick had been a Lithuanian-heritage Chicago-area psychiatric-survivor resident who experienced Harvard, like me, I felt some resonance.
The purpose of the Esalen gathering was to re-ignite Dick’s grand vision for creating humane alternatives to the current mental health system. Near the end of my stay, we held a support group, and I revealed how lonely I felt there because my main alternative remains activism, and while many other alternatives were discussed, it felt like activism was marginalized. This is not in anyway to disparage the activism by these amazing leaders for alternatives who gathered at Esalen. But the fact remains that too often we see a separation between activism and alternatives. For the shock survivors who organized last month’s protests, speaking up and mobilizing seemed to be a healing alternative.
5. Let Us Get Tougher With Electroshock!
Over the decades, I am proud that I have helped mobilize many people about the issue of involuntary electroshock, that is, when the procedure is given over and against the clearly explicit instructions of the recipient. Incredibly, forced electroshock is growing in parts of the world, according to Disability Rights International. Involuntary electroshock is done now and again even in the USA.
Using special court orders, some Americans living out in the community even have to report to hospitals for electroshock. That is correct, outpatient commitment can include court-ordered electroshock of Americans living in their own homes. I do not fault people if they are skeptical that such extreme violations occur in the USA, but we have the records, media coverage, witnesses, court appearances, etc. to absolutely prove this. Please just use your favorite search engine, adding the words forced electroshock, to read about two people in Minnesota who MindFreedom campaigned for who were receiving the involuntary procedure on an outpatient basis, even though they live out in the community:
I continue to be outraged that involuntary electroshock exists anywhere in the world! Just about the only organized supporters of this violation are industry groups of psychiatrists. Congressperson Tim Murphy (R-PA) has a bill that would vastly expand forced outpatient procedures, an attorney has confirmed with me that this could include involuntary electroshock.
When I worked for MindFreedom, we even got the World Health Organization to oppose forced electroshock, in writing.
Human rights violations involving electroshock extend far beyond forced electroshock. For many years, I have asked to view the informed consent process for electroshock, and in all instances I discovered incorrect facts and outright distortions. But even more than force and fraud, there is a third “f” word, fear, that is a widespread human rights violation related to electroshock. Over and over I have seen people with mental and emotional difficulties prescribed a big variety of psychiatric drugs, and then when these fail they are offered electroshock. However, there are many more humane approaches which are often not provided. The fear of troubled people that the only approach is biomedical, such as drugs and shock, is a growing human rights problem.
While publicizing the protests about electroshock, I noticed that several readers said positive things about these procedures. However, the shock survivors that helped initiate these protests helped get a discussion going about this suppressed topic and that is a great public service. Breaking the silence about all electroshock is a great first step. Having a civil discussion is a start! Exactly how the human rights violations related to electroshock will be addressed remains an important topic, but we must speak out now about this brain-damaging approach and the need to offer alternatives.
7. Linking Electroshock To Global Peaceful Revolution!!!
Today, Pope Francis issued a proclamation that we need a revolution to stop global warming, or climate catastrophe as I have heard it called. Pope Francis called for everybody of all faiths, or of no faith at all, to defend Earth and unite with the cries of the poor. How does the topic of environmental collapse connect to electroshock? There are many real reasons to feel sadness and even despair, especially when climate catastrophe threatens our dear planet. When people feel upset, our society can do much better than running electricity through their brains. Unfortunately, modern medicine is now exploring high-tech super-powerful electrical magnets as an alternative to electroshock, and you may read about such Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation here. Brain damage seems to be a factor here, again; after head trauma there can be personality changes that some psychiatrists interpret as improvement.
After our protest in Eugene, several of us carried our signs and marched a couple of blocks. We stopped for a moment at the nearby Summit Bank which was closed that day, because the hours are weekdays. The reason we stopped there, is that the leader of Summit Bank is the newly-elected leader of our local Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce. I have been helping to mobilize a peaceful effort for five years to have our local chamber speak up and say that the US Chamber in Washington, D.C. does not speak for them about global warming. The well-respected climate group, 350, has had a campaign for about five years to ask local chambers to distance themselves from the US Chamber about this climate catastrophe.
I call the worst-case scenarios for run-away climate catastrophe, in which feedback loops such as methane release amplify global warming to such a chaotic extent that we risk eliminating all human existence, and perhaps all multi-cellular life on Earth, “normalgeddon” and you may read a special landing page I have created for this topic here:
Surprisingly, after my many blog posts about climate catastrophe, I have read some push-back from several skeptics who do not seem very worried about the risk of human-caused global warming, even the well-researched high-certainty of sea level rise, etc. that can be read in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change here, which convenes more scientists than any other project in human history.
While the IPCC focuses on problems from global warming that are highly-certain, I am more worried about the real risk, even if it is uncertain, of a Venus-like climate catastrophe that may end all life here as we know it, and future generations. Hey, Never Again is a slogan that really means never again! However, normalgeddon would wipe out all humanity so mathematically that would be many “agains”! Even an uncertain risk of such a normalgeddon deserves more discussion today, because sweeping upsetting topics under the table is not good for mental wellness!
At the end of our protest here in Eugene, a few of us posed around a statue of the author Ken Kesey that is in the center of our town. Ken wrote the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and he told me before he died that he had a friend splice some electrical extension cord wire so that while Ken lay on the floor, the friend touched Ken’s temples with the bare wires and Ken experienced electroshock in a very crude way. Ken had seen medical electroshock when he worked for a while in a psychiatric institution. Ken said he believed in experiencing at least once and he wanted to research electroshock for his novel. When his friend touched Ken’s temples, Ken later reported that every cell in his body cried out “No!” After that, Ken told me that he no longer believed in experiencing everything once! Ken opposed electroshock, and the image of his protagonist receiving shock remains an icon of this procedure today, even though some details are changed; the brain and electricity are still the same as when Ken wrote this.
We protesters gathered around the statue of Ken reading to his grandchildren because we wanted to thank Ken for bravely writing about electroshock. Yes, I realize that in my opinion and in the opinion of many others that Ken wrestled with substance problems. However, Ken’s rebellious prankster spirit in this book, where he calls normality the Combine, should inspire us all. After I fell I deal with paralysis of all four my limbs and even one vocal cord, but I see that the wider society, what is mistakenly called “normal,” is far more paralyzed than me and had better wake up soon!
Thanks electroshock survivors for taking action and showing all of our society how to shake off this moral paralysis, now!
8. We Are Our Own Media!
I received a photo album from activist Graeme Bacque that has dozens of photos from the protest of electroshock that was held in Toronto. A special thing about this protest is that by coincidence the American Psychiatric Association was having their huge Annual Meeting nearby.
We can learn from other activists, many of them young, that after a protest we must cover our own events. We can upload still-photos, a brief paragraph description and for those who are able, videos.
In order for us to keep on complaining about corporate media, we first need to report on our own events and with 21st century technology, we can do that. For example, way to go Graeme, whose photo from Toronto is on the right, and you can view his album on Flickr here: Graeme’s Photo Album of Toronto 2015 Electroshock Protest
My friend and psychiatric survivor/attorney Jim Gottstein, from his group in Alaska, PsychRights, helpfully compiled this online list of protests about electroshock last month, and you are invited to click around, see the photos, play any videos, and enjoy:
My late friend Leonard Roy Frank would have had a birthday on July 15. In case you have not already started a Global Peaceful Revolution already, and you would like a day to start a GPR, please join with me this July 15th and start! This would be a great gift to a shock survivor, studier of nonviolent revolution, editor of quotes and a leader with a great sense of humor.
Hey, if Americans celebrate revolution on July 4, and French celebrate July 14, then how about we start a Global Peaceful Revolution on July 15?
Thanks all shock survivors, organizers of last month’s protests, and everybody who continues to break the silence about electroshock, and helps to lead a Global Peaceful Revolution.
Reviving the spirit of Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!
Today, Saturday, 16 May 2015, a protest was held in Eugene against human rights violations caused by the use of electroshock, a psychiatric procedure involving the running of electricity through the brain. The protest today was one of about two dozen held in about eight countries. The speakers included:
Fred Abbe, 68, of Reedsport, OR personally experienced electroshock as a teenager. He said, “I survived 40 years of psychiatric oppression, including 15 bilateral electroshock ‘treatments’ totally forced against my will, every other day within a 30 day period in 1964, before I reached the age of 18, in Jackson Park Memorial Hospital in Miami Beach, Florida.”
Chuck Areford of Eugene, a long-time mental health worker who once gave electroshock, spoke movingly about how he is full of regret.
Adrienne Bovee, a young-adult psychiatric survivor from Eugene and student at the University of Oregon who said, “I feel lucky to have narrowly escaped brutal psychiatric treatment like electroshock.”
Chrissy Piersol of Eugene, a young-adult psychiatric survivor who works as a peer mental health counselor, called for more humane alternatives.
David Rogers of Eugene, folk singer and songwriter, sung about empowerment and disability. He works as a mental health peer supporter. Find his music via his website www.sasquatchguitar.com
David Oaks of Eugene, psychiatric survivor who has worked as an activist for human rights in mental health for 40 years. He said, “The world today can cause a lot of despair, such as through global warming that threatens life as we know it. We can do better than just responding with jolting people’s brains!” Oaks called for a nonviolent revolution, and several of the listeners took up his chant of “Now, Now, Now!”
A speakout was then held and we heard from a facilitator of integrative natural healing, Sid, who called for better approaches. We also heard from another psychiatric survivor.
At the end of the Eugene protest, activists walked to the statue of Ken Kesey in the middle of downtown to remember his literary resistance to electroshock.
Co-sponsors of the peaceful protest in Eugene included MindFreedom Lane County, International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment, Network Against Psychiatric Assault, Rethinking Psychiatry, and ectjustice.com, which has more about the protests including a list of planned events. More info can be found on the facebook pages of MindFreedom Lane County and Network Against Psychiatric Assault. May is the annual “National Mental Health Month.”
For more information about the day of protest against electroshock, see www.ectjustice.com. For info about the Eugene protest, see www.davidwoaks.com. Find on facebook Network Against Psychiatric Assault and MindFreedom Lane County.
For decades, I have been volunteering at the huge Oregon Country Fair. Started in 1969, OCF now brings together about 40,000 people over three days in July on about 300 acres that several thousand of us volunteer to run. We all own the land, and the Fair has about 50 food booths and 700 artisans, along with a bunch of stages and wandering ambient performers. Over the decades, many of these counter-culture leaders have utilized the Fair as a kind of reunion for an extended family and what is often called “hippy” culture. The land, which OCF found out has been used for thousands of years for indigenous people to gather each summer, is about 15 miles west of Eugene, near the small town of Veneta.
I have personally found a great deal of inspiration and support by attending and participating in the Oregon Country Fair. My work as an activist to change the mental health system has been very much helped by being in this community. When some of us dream about a society that values all of our human feelings, ideals, and emotions, very often we end up talking about celebration and festivals like this. For too long we have considered mental well-being to be about the five, ten, fifteen, or twenty percent of us that gets a psychiatric label each year. But really, if you look around at out world for a moment, you can easily see that to be alive, to be human, to exist, one must have support and healing. Festivals like this one give a glimpse of what the world can be like and I recommend this experience for envisioning a future mental health system or any futuristic vision of change.
But what about now?
I and many others in the Fair Family have often wondered why we cannot bring this creative energy to the wider world. After many fairs, I have asked, “Why can’t this be more than three days, why can’t we be outside of Veneta?” Well, quietly such psychospiritual rejuvenation has been growing internationally.
A few years ago, a small documentary team visited a couple dozen of what they call “transformational festivals” in several countries and they have made a series of videos that you can watch online for free, though like me, you may be inspired to make a donation after you see the first three (I understand they are working on creating a fourth).
Check out a free preview / overview that in less than 10 minutes sums up this series, here: http://thebloomseries.com/
Once you see this preview video, you can view all three of the full documentaries that are available in this Bloom series here: http://thebloom.tv/public/
Update 13 May 2015: *Our Eugene event will be rain or shine. * The Free Speech Plaza is kind of big, so please find us in the Northeast corner up the stairs by the entrance doors to the county, which is also away from the drumming, though it will be noisy so keep your remarks loud and brief!
By David Oaks
On May 16, 2015 there will be several dozen grass roots protest against electroshock, mainly in the US but also in about eight other countries. Below is info about our local protest here in Eugene, Oregon, USA:
Reviving the spirit of Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!
When: Saturday, 16 May 2015, 2 pm.
Where: Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza at the northeast corner of 8th and Oak St., across from the Saturday Market.
Speakers in Eugene that day include:
Fred Abbe, 68, of Reedsport, OR personally experienced electroshock as a teenager. He said, “I survived 40 years of psychiatric oppression, including 15 bilateral electroshock ‘treatments’ totally forced against my will, every other day within a 30 day period in 1964, before I reached the age of 18, in Jackson Park Memorial Hospital in Miami Beach, Florida.”
Chuck Areford of Eugene, a long-time mental health worker who once gave electroshock.
Adrienne Bovee, a psychiatric survivor from Eugene and student at the University of Oregon who says, “I feel lucky to have narrowly escaped brutal psychiatric treatment like electroshock.”
Chrissy Piersol of Eugene, a young adult psychiatric survivor who works as a peer mental health counselor.
David Rogers of Eugene, folk singer and songwriter, will sing about empowerment and disability. He works as a mental health peer supporter.
David Oaks of Eugene, psychiatric survivor who has worked as an activist for human rights in mental health for 40 years. He said, “The world today can cause a lot of despair, such as through global warming that threatens life as we know it. We can do better than just responding with jolting people’s brains!”
At the end of the Eugene protest, activists will walk to the statue of Ken Kesey at Broadway and Willamette St. to remember his literary resistance to electroshock.
Co-sponsors of the peaceful protest in Eugene include MindFreedom Lane County, International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment, Network Against Psychiatric Assault, Rethinking Psychiatry, and ectjustice.com, which has more about the protests including a list of planned events. More info can be found on the facebook pages of MindFreedom Lane County and Network Against Psychiatric Assault. May is the annual “National Mental Health Month.
One of the most amazing activist campaigns I have been involved in during my 40 years of protest for human rights in the mental health system, was the effort to stop the involuntary electroshock of Ray Sandford of Minnesota.
Incredibly, back in 2008, he was getting forced shock every Wednesday morning on an outpatient basis. That is right, every week in his group home out in the community, he was picked up and brought to a local hospital for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) through his brain, against his will, with a court order.
Ray reached MindFreedom in the Fall of 2008, and an international human rights campaign began for him.
Below, you will see an article by psychiatric survivor activist Loretta Wilson looking back on this action six years ago, which involved thousands of people speaking out together to help and support Ray. It took longer than I thought, but Ray won!
Loretta often talks on the telephone with Ray, and reports on his current needs. Today, as an oppressed person who lives in a group home, Ray should have a better life. Six years ago, his psychiatrist, guardian, lawyer, group home, and many other authorities worked together for his forced electroshock. It is to Ray’s credit that somehow he phoned us at the MindFreedom office and kicked off this historic movement victory.
Back then, Ray’s psychiatrist said that he had to have forced electroshock or he would not survive. Six years later we can now reliably say that this psychiatrist was wrong!
During his forced electroshock, I remember how a bunch of us flew in to Minnesota and reached a lot of people there about Ray. Thanks, Loretta, for keeping in touch with Ray and remembering this great victory.
Some activists dismiss electroshock as an issue for campaigns, because the vast majority of psychiatric treatment is of course with drugs. But as long as even one person is subject to forced electroshock, especially with involuntary outpatient commitment, we are all at risk. In an often-divided movement, opposing forced electroshock unites almost everybody, along with most people on the left and the right in the general public.
At this time, Congressperson Tim Murphy (R-PA) is pushing for his bill for far more involuntary outpatient procedures in the USA, and an attorney has confirmed with me that Rep. Murphy’s bill does not exclude forced electroshock in the community of people living peacefully at home. When the public discovers that his bill would allow more involuntary electroshock of peaceful, law-abiding citizens in their own homes, there will be general outrage. Talk about out-of-control big government over-reach!(more…)
Wade Hudson, a long-time activist and one of your main collaborators and friends, announced that you had died suddenly either late Wednesday night, January 14, 2015, or early Thursday morning, and all of us in the Mad Movement have lost one of our most powerful champions.
Leonard, I always thought of you as one of the early, beat drop-outs, because you were going into the business world after your graduation from the Wharton School of Business in the 1954, but your spiritual journey brought you into conflict with this society. As part of your mystical experience you were one of the early Americans in that generation to renounce eating meat and dairy products, and of course you grew that big beard. In 1962, because of your cultural and religious rebellion, you experienced absolutely incredible psychiatric abuse, including both forced insulin coma shock therapy and electroshock therapy. Many times I have told the story about how your psychiatrist checked to see if you had shaved or deviated from your vegetarianism, and when you persevered he ordered more forced electroshock.
For four decades I have been an activist challenging the mental health industry. More and more I feel that the climate crisis should be one of the highest priorities for social change led by people who have personally experienced psychiatric abuse, and our allies. I affectionately call us The Mad Movement. It seems that almost every speaker against global warming ends their message the same way, that we can stop this catastrophe if society has the “will.” I believe that participants in The Mad Movement have an important insight into real sickness in society. As a psychiatric survivor, I have seen too much labeling of creative maladjustment as ill. We need to shake off our world’s complacency and numbness, also known as “normality.”
The beginning of 2015 marks the fifth anniversary of a little-known campaign by the well-respected environmental group 350.org that asks the approximately 7,000 local chambers of commerce in the USA to oppose the way the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, based in Washington, D.C., blocks national progress in the fight to stop global warming. 350 says that, “The Chamber has long opposed environmental standards, but on climate change, they’ve gone pretty near berserk” (www.chamber.350.org).
350’s main request of local chambers seems pretty modest — to simply issue a statement saying that the US Chamber “doesn’t speak for us” in its denial of human-caused climate change. Unfortunately, despite five years of effort by activists, only 56 local chambers have distanced themselves from the U.S. Chamber about global warming. That is less than one percent! I have helped organize many actions over the past five years to ask our local Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce to say anything about climate change, but regrettably we have been met by a wall of silence.
We have tried everything from writing letters to the editor, personally corresponding with board members, performing public street theater, and protesting inside the chamber office itself. And still, no substantial moves have been made. The Eugene Area Chamber’s board members relentlessly refuse to speak up for values that they profess to have.
I am extremely concerned about the disaster of climate change because I think of it as a one-two punch. The first punch is highly predictable and linear. Almost all scientists agree on this “unequivocal” punch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change spotlights the certainty of human-caused global warming hazards, such as sea-level rise. I am more interested in the second, surprise punch of runaway climate change, which is non-linear.
There has been a quiet revolution throughout the sciences that I like to call “the butterfly effect.” Others call this field the science of emergence, chaos, dynamic systems, or complexity. In short, when complex systems like Earth’s environment are disrupted, chaotic results can occur. Global warming may trigger amplifying, abrupt feedback effects, such as methane release as a result of warming permafrost. A little global warming may lead to an irreversible avalanche of extreme global warming. I call the worst case scenario of climate change “Normalgeddon.”
Right now, the Eugene chapter of 350.org is focusing on valuable state-wide campaigns such as blocking oil pipelines, divesting the University of Oregon Foundation from companies that profit from fossil fuels, and carbon-restrictive legislation. These campaigns are necessary, and we should rally for more support for these local efforts. We should also still support 350.org’s national campaign to get local chambers to speak out against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce president has always been responsive and civil to me personally, but he has also refused to speak out against the U.S. Chamber. He claims that the Eugene chamber is entirely independent. In a way, the Eugene community should see the Eugene Area Chamber’s refusal to speak up as a gift, because the climate crisis is no longer a faceless entity — it is embodied by our local chamber’s refusal to demand real change. Our chamber is also an actual place to peacefully protest. The chamber’s office is downtown at the corner of 14th and Willamette.
The planet’s issues are the people’s issues. Those of us who are the most marginalized and disenfranchised by existing inequality are the most vulnerable to impacts of the changing climate. All organizations fighting for people must fight for the planet, and vice versa. As a mental health and disability rights activist, connecting the issues of mental health and climate change are particularly important to me, but this work can and must be done in all realms. Please take up the leadership to nonviolently urge that the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, and its leaders, speak up about the U.S. Chamber and climate crisis.
After my wonderful wife Debra and I came home from last year’s climate march here in Eugene in solidarity with a huge New York City march, we turned to each other realizing that we had the exact same take-away message: Hope means acting from your own highest principles, without necessarily knowing what the outcome will be. I hope that the Eugene community and the board members of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce will think this through, and act on their own highest principles. After all, real mental well-being requires that we work now with a sense of urgency, unity, purpose and hope. Not only do we need a climate miracle, we need to construct our own miracle in our minds and in our communities.