I swore off political blogging after the 2008 election. I had avoided political commentary even at cocktail parties from the end of the Viet Nam War until the invasion of Iraq. I have no desire to go back to that. But this morning when I read this, I thought it had something to say about the strength of the medical industry lobbies trying to stop healthcare reform, so I regressed and posted it. I promise to see this as a "slip" and get back "on the wagon."
Mother JonesBy Kevin DrumOct. 4, 2013
At its core, the dispute over the budget and the debt ceiling isn’t complicated at all. But it is full of misconceptions and urban myths. Here are the 10 facts worth remembering past all the obfuscation:1. Democrats have already agreed to fund the government at Republican levels.2. Despite what you might have heard, there have only been two serious government shutdowns in recent history, and both were the result of Republican ultimatums.3. Democrats in the Senate have been begging the House to negotiate over the budget for the past six months, but Republicans have refused.4. That’s because Republicans wanted to wait until they had either a government shutdown or a debt ceiling breach as leverage, something they’ve been very clear about all along.5. Republicans keep talking about compromise, but they’ve offered nothing in return for agreeing to their demands—except to keep the government intact if they get their way.6. The public is very strongly opposed to using a government shutdown to stop Obamacare.7. Contrary to Republican claims, the deficit is not increasing—it peaked in 2009 and has been dropping ever since, declining by $200 billion last year with another $450 billion drop projected this year.8. A long government shutdown is likely to seriously hurt economic growth, with a monthlong shutdown projected to slash GDP in the fourth quarter by 1 percentage point and reduce employment by over a million jobs.9. No, Democrats have not used debt ceiling hostage taking in the past to force presidents to accept their political agenda.10. This whole dispute is about the Republican Party fighting to make sure the working poor don’t have access to affordable health care.
Mother jones, the bastion of objectivity and unbiased reporting.
The are no winners for the public here, and frankly I am not interested in either party winning as well. The medical industry, as far as insurers and big pharma goes at least, already won by agreeing to this bs law in the first place.
It is a crap law written by self serving, narrow minded, arrogant bastards who are revealing their true personas now with this divide, as narcissists and antisocials do when challenges are prolonged, and, the republicans are not saviors but just crass opportunists.
The shut down is only about saving their jobs, not in any way doing them.
Thank you for your brief relapse, personality disordered people have a nasty way of wearing down even the strong. Just pay attention to what Obama says and does as this goes into next week. Wait for it, I know he will have his defining slip of the tongue.
Blocking monuments. And you thought furloughing air traffic controllers was rude. Shame and humility continue to be beaten well after being pummeled into submission. This is ugly stuff, folks.
Most media indulges in drama and fails to report facts as facts and not just one side of a coin with weight equal to propaganda. Wack jobs like Alex Jones and Glen Beck are peddling paranoia. They’re cult leaders who sell delusions to a subset of the population that is miserable, paranoid, lacking critical thinking faculties, and socially isolated. The woman who was just shot after ramming a White House gate, then starting a high speed chase to Congress was little more delusional than most of the bunker brigades. Perhaps she was also psychotic with the help of a psychoactive drug or the effects of quitting one or more cold turkey. Or maybe she was simply schizophrenic and coming undone as she would have anyway without just the right intervention. Or maybe it was inevitable in spite of what was offered her.
Nevertheless, believing that Obama is planting electronic devices in citizens’ homes in order to broadcast their lives on television, is not much more delusional than believing that the POTUS is not an American citizen, but a Muslim Manchurian Candidate that wants to establish sharia law in the U.S.
Does the mental health field have anything to say about such delusions? Do psychiatrists not recognize the tricks of the double bind that is being used to hold our nation hostage? Does this field not recognize severe bully behavior? Is psychiatry so wedded to the biological hypothesis of mental illness that they no longer recognize pathology when it’s staring them in the face, because it didn’t fill out a glib little checklist and pay for a fifteen minute “evaluation”?
A committee wanted to add “excessive bitterness” to the DSM-5 as a mental illness because they saw so much bitterness in patients after the financial crisis; but somehow they’ve missed outrageous beliefs that have no connection to reality beyond hate radio, and its nihilistic cult leaders who conjure apocalyptic doom out of everything while stirring mentally unstable people into a paranoid frenzy. They sell a lot of gold, heirloom seeds, and dried foods to people who have no idea what rubes they are.
It seems at this juncture, that mental health professionals should be making note of the ill effects of virulent racism and its mind-bending effects.
“”This is ugly stuff, folks.””
Definitely Dr. Hassman since the Republican Party in my opinion is using terrorism to prevent a law that was legally passed and upheld by the Supreme Court from coming to fruition. If the Democrats give in, what is next, social security, medicare?
And before anyone accuses me of partisianship ask yourself if you would have liked it if the Democrats had engaged in the same tactics to prevent a law from coming to fruition that they didn’t like that had been legally passed. In my opinion, they would be accused of treason.
As one who is looking forward to getting health insurance, I would have preferred single payer but at least, it is better than the status quo in which people continue to be excluded from the insurance marker. I am surprised Dr. Hassman that as a physician, you don’t understand that situation even if you don’t like Obamacare.
Wiley,
The media also has neglected the fact that the young woman fell down and hit her head on some stairs before becoming pregnant. But I guess calling someone mentally ill and delusional does more for the ratings than putting a TBI in the headlines as contributing to the cause. A big fat sigh!
I’ll be posting on this dishonest and disingenuous dialogue by the partisan zealots later this PM, but I’ll say it hear as a prelude: knock off the Saul Alinsky attack garbage of “terrorists”, “jihadists”, “arsonists”, and the other insulting and inappropriate terms the Democrats use with impunity and division.
Both parties suck, period. You want to wrap yourself around a flag of pure partisan extremism, well, your choir will love and adore you, but, responsible and attentive adults just shake their heads and dismiss you and the self serving rhetoric.
People should have a right to access health care, but it is completely absurd to claim everyone should get the maximum care options irregardless of the patient’s efforts and commitment to be compliant as asked. Again, it is just absurd to listen to this empty clamor that a finite and limited system should ignore their boundaries by letting everyone in and claim to be an equal.
Enjoy the lie, sell the false hope, and screw honest and committed people out of legitimate opportunity just to pad party voter group size.
This debate has been so full of crap by both sides, you honestly have to wonder what the next incident will be involving disgruntled, hostile, and reactionary citizens, and such incidents will not be by people overtly mentally impaired.
But, per the Billy Joel song “it’s just a fantasy, it’s not the real thing, sometimes a fantasy, is all we need.” Good luck with that agenda!!!
Dr. Hassman, with all due respect, you are distorting what I said and I think you know that. Out of respect to Dr. Nardo, I will stop here even though there is more I would love to say in response. But really, I would be wasting my time.
BBC had an international story on the US shutdown up a few days ago.
“US shutdown has other nations confused and concerned”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24342521
lol… aint it the truth?
Ah, AA— head injuries should be on the list of things that cause psychosis-like episodes and other erratic behaviors and perceptions. With just the exact blow to the head, a person can be made a sociopath. Since I’m convinced that my ADHD is the result of a head injury, I should be able to keep that option in mind.
Also, I think iron deficiency or B-12 deficiency might have a major role in a lot of women’s post partum depression. Pregnancy is a nutritionally demanding state and can put the fetus’s needs ahead of the mother’s.
Or, she could have been what can reasonably be called psychotic for no explicable reason.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/governing-by-blackmail.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?hp&_r=1&&pagewanted=all
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/06/tea_party_radicalism_is_misunderstood_meet_the_newest_right/
Radical Caucus Of The Members Of The APA
Event At Institute Of The Psychiatric Services, Philadelphia, October 11, 2013
Critical Perspectives On Psychiatry And Hopeful New Paths: Contributions From Europe, Australia And The USA
Symposium: October 11, 2013, Friday, 2pm-5pm. Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Room 305/306, Level 3
CHAIR: Kenneth Thompson, MD ;
CO-CHAIR: Carl Cohen, MD.
DISCUSSANTS:
Helena Hansen, MD,PhD : USA;
Bradley Lewis, MD,PhD: USA.
PRESENTERS:
1. The Patient as Primary Mover in Mental Health Services – Our Best Hope for Change?
Inger-Kari Hagene Nerheim
2. The View from Down Under
Alan Rosen, D.P.M., M.B.B.S.
3. Mental Health, Social Justice and Community Development: Working with Diverse Communities in an English City
Philip Thomas, M.D.
4. Non-Diagnostic Practice
Sami Timimi
5. Critical Perspectives from France: The Psychosocial Effects of Globalization on Mental Health- Towards an Ecology of the Social Link
Jean Furtos, M.D.