One group of humans get to decide, another is supposed to just follow orders, and trust that the other group will make the right decisions. One group gets heavily funded and carried aloft on the shoulders of the Status Quo and heralded everywhere as heroes, the other gets to remain passive, waiting in silenced trust to be served. One group gets to engage in "reputable" dialogue with each other, the other group gets to  "rant" and "rave" and can only be viewed in a very narrow, paternalistic way. All of these ways have a lot of bigoted assumptions within them and end up tooling all the otherwise beautiful human beings involved. 

 I work full time and loose my dignity everyday. Here is a quote from Phoenix Rising in the early 1980's. "If you thought school was bad welcome to work a "prison of measured time"..

My talk at the Process Work Institute school where I study in Portland Oregon, joined by Mouse from Reed College Icarus and Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland. Includes an audio recording of the entire event.

On Thursday, February 21 a committee of Toronto City Council heard from numerous deputants regarding the critical loss of shelter beds and other basic services for homeless persons in the downtown. Council opted to do nothing.

The recent horrifying death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport has provoked an international outcry over the indiscriminate police use of Tasers.

I've become embroiled in a discussion about how psychiatry is being utilized within the prison system as an additional means of punishment under the guise of 'penal reform'. No doubt psychiatry is inherently punitive when it functions in this capacity as partner to the judicial apparatus. But this is to say nothing of those innocents who find themselves incarcerated and punished in psychiatric prisons (euphemistically referred to as 'hospitals') without even having broken any laws. (This actually means the vast majority of psychiatric 'patients'.)

At the end of the day, 'partial equality' is not an option. What's important is for us to be able to figure out what is realistically achievable over the short, medium and long term.

Several years back, the City of Toronto initiated a 'pilot project' where a male psychiatric nurse would be teamed up with a plainclothes cop on patrol in the city's east downtown.

I've run into a situation of blatant discrimination in my own home city. While I'm not going to go into specifics about this case, the complicating factor is that it arises out of a situation that many would not consider 'politically correct', ergo, the person involved is considered by some as perhaps not deserving of support or protection.

To be honest, the concept of 'recovery' is being turned into just another buzzword from the 'mental health' industry. In reality, the only 'recovery' the system appears to promote or perceive as possible is within the context of the existing medical model, through aggressive lifelong tinkering with peoples' brain chemistry or genetic makeup, and with diagnosed people still expected to occupy the same narrow, oppressive social niche as has been the case all along.

My bullshit detector's been activated once again.

it's more obvious every day that this society is not working.

It angers me beyond all imagination that psychiatric incarceration, police brutality, forced drugging and complete negation of our humanity or worth is the best our supposedly 'enlightened' society can offer to distressed people.

Personally, I see no conflict here. By 'right to health' I take it that a diversity of resources, products, services etc. that can help restore, maintain or promote a healthful quality of life ought to be available and universally accessible. (Personally, I would also include nutritious food, decent housing and community engagement among the above).

HI THERE

Mental Disability Rights International and the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales needed a spanish-speaking psychiatric survivor with group facilitation and grassroots organizing skills. So I got a call: Would I go to Argentina to work on the campaign to reform the country's asylum system? Here's a report on my fascinating trip to the land of Che and Milongas...

I spoke at work for the International Day for Persons with disAbilities. I did not disclose I pretended to have depession.

Bipolar author of "Lipstick and Thongs in the Loony Bin" describes the limits of psycho-logical language, the contraints vs. liberation of diagnoses and how symptoms are signals to pay attention to, but not be afraid of necessarily...

Photos from my recent trip to Buenos Aires Argentina to work with Mental Disability Rights International and the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales in the effort to reform the country's abusive asylum system.

Is left right on consumer survivor issues...?

The Icarus flock swarms on Minneapolis Minnesota, for a delerious Samhain romp through darkness and puppets, visits with old friends, and facilitating a group discussion on radical mental health at the Arise collective bookstore.

hi diddlers