posted on January 17, 2004 10:45:16 PM new
Gravid, I have to say one thing about your post. Many in this world have high IQ's and exploitable skills. As a matter of fact, the higher IQ, the closer the genius is to madness. Is that a false statment in your opinion?
But to me, that doesnt make one mentally or emotionally well human beings, though. How many people in your walk of life have you seen just cannot 'politic' the right social skills despite high IQ and/or great skills or craft?
As everybody knows a large part of our contributions to the Arts and some pretty great inventions were created from those mentally afflicted, or thought totally insane. Have you ever encounted somebody so gone and they say the most pointed and profound thing to you that it leaves you for a moment temporarily stunned because it boinks your brain to a new reality? It can almost be disturbing and you dont know why.
I have always thought they tapped into things the rest cannot not reach. As I said before, I've seen it as a part of their barin is mis-firing, or...a part is firing that "normal" brains do not.
Sometimes I think maybe we, in our staggored 9-5, let me work my azz off at a job I hate my whole life with my get get reality - maybe its us who think we should help and arrest these crazies .. are the real ones that are missing the boat.
posted on January 17, 2004 10:59:46 PM new
Nero, I tend to agree with your last sentence also.
I've thought about being homeless. I can be quite independent if I wish to be and I know how to hunt, fish, grow a garden, build a shelter and I can even witch for water so I if it happened to me I may head away from the city. Though I admit I have grown very spoiled lately and my skills are quite rusty.
posted on January 18, 2004 12:46:44 PM new
If I understand it I believe I agree with your last sentance also.
It is just a lucky chance that my wife and I happen to have qualities that society values. Of course it would have even been better to be born a Bush or a Kennedy. Nothing to brag about at all. And after all is said and done about standardized testing and the school system I think we are also throwing away huge amounts of people who are smart and talanted but don't take standardized tests well.
I agree that many very very bright people are marginal in dealing with everyday life. I often think of a professor I knew at Bowling Green U in Ohio who could explain all the complexities of testing and statistics in great detail but could not make a pitcher of lemonade.
Smith I have no desire to think ill of you. You seem to have gotten that impression somewhere along the line. I can tell you are a lot like me. If I disagreed with you about something it was not any defining event to make us enemies.
It has been tremendously liberating the last four years to not have a regular job I have to go into and punch a time clock. I am doing things I should have done a long time ago.
In the long run I may be better off not working a regular job. I have a book in being considered for publication that I would have never had time to write working ten to fourteen hours a day. And am half way through the sequel. I have a number of projects going now any one of which may pay off.
And if not the roots and berries will still be there.........
posted on January 18, 2004 01:31:25 PM new
Kiara, PLsmith, Gravid -- wouldn't it be wild to have a taste of that freedom for a a bit?? No responsibility; nothing owned or owed? Just picken' berries, you and the elements trading forces..lol!
posted on January 18, 2004 01:45:34 PM new
I'm afraid I've been too domesticated at this point to be released back into the wild, Neroter.
I would like to take a lazy trip on a houseboat some day, though...
posted on January 18, 2004 07:39:29 PM new
To fully understand the epidemic that is the exploitation of the American Soldier one need look no further than the 250,000 to 500,000 homeless veterans that on any given day wonder the streets of the United States. Up to half a million veterans, mostly those who fought in the terror-filled jungles of Vietnam, have been forgotten in time, left to fend for themselves lost among concrete jungles and steel-glass canyons. Forgotten by a government that sent them across the globe to fight the evildoers of the moment, namely Communists, most men fought in ghastly battles, witnessed appalling atrocities, experienced death firsthand and saw gruesome injuries that scarred them for life.
War is hell, and soldiers do not easily escape from these flames of enveloping terror when returned home. The repulsion of what they were forced to both see and perpetrate in the name of freedom, liberty, democracy and the American way left many as psychologically fragile as fine china. For years veterans have had to deal with knowing they were part of war, that most evil of human endeavors, that brings out the worst in the human condition. Many returned impregnated with the horrible demons of what they witnessed on the battlefield, perpetually unable to exorcise the wretched memories of their testosterone-stressed-filled adventure in death and destruction.
Millions returned home after a bitter defeat, with 58,000 of their comrades devoid of their once beaming energy, packed in body bags, their bullet or shrapnel ridden corpses testament to the ultimate sacrifice that to this day has lost all purpose and whose pain still lingers in the minds of millions of young boys now turned middle-aged veterans who fought a war without meaning, in a land lost in time for an ideology that could not evolve with reality. Today the scars, both mental and physical, remain entrenched, making up to half a million once young and brave soldiers homeless indigents of unjustified hopelessness, unable to escape the awfulness of what was forced upon them by a system and a cabal of elites whose only purpose was defending their ideology, increasing and maintaining their power and enriching their pockets.
In the military it is one’s duty to never leave anyone behind. When it comes to homeless, injured, amputated and mentally destroyed veterans, however, it seems to be the modus operandi. It is the exploitation of the American Soldier. Today, many experts fear the next great wave of homeless vets and psychologically ravaged citizens are in Iraq fighting for their lives. The next generation of exploited men and women is systematically being converted into mentally fatigued, overtly-stressed and physically scarred individuals that will return home with the horrors of what they have seen and done in the desolate deserts of Mesopotamia ingrained into their now fragile minds. This is the sacrifice made; this is the reality of Bush’s war.
Through the physical and mental loss of our loved ones our government declares victory. Through the devastation unleashed onto humanity Bush tries to assure re-election. Through the alteration and usurpation of our soldier’s lives and minds Bush claims triumph over evil; through their enslavement to the Leviathan and government oligarchy he claims to further assure our freedoms and liberties. In the end, evil is unleashed under our name, our freedoms and liberties are eroded more every day and we come closer to becoming the slaves and serfs of yesteryear as the war the Leviathan has spawned against us and our loved ones grows in intensity.
Monday, January 5th, 2004 - 02:12am GMT
Manuel Valenzuela
Axis of Logic
posted on January 18, 2004 07:56:04 PM new
When the mental institutions closed they probably did find homes for the patients, I doubt they just put them out the door and onto the street.
I know that some families were expected to take care of them but weren't able to cope. Some probably stopped seeing their doctors or careworkers and no one checked on them again. If an adult stops taking his medication and ends up on the streets it's not really a police matter if he's not harming anyone. Some with mental problems just hop onto buses and go to other cities too. Trying to get them help afterwards isn't an easy matter and I doubt they could ever do it.
Helen, after every war there are men and women that return home with mental problems and I wonder how many get the help they really need, especially if they don't have close families that support them constantly.
Nero, I tried a "back to the land" type of lifestyle that was quite simple but it was way too much work. We had to chop our own wood, haul our water, preserve some of our food, etc. It was fun but it wasn't easy so we moved back into the city. Right now I'd rather just win a big fat lottery.
posted on January 18, 2004 08:53:06 PM new
I have a cousin who's been diagnosed a schizophrenic. He's been classified and medicated as such since his early teens. His dad's a brilliant lawyer and this kid is brilliant, too, but he's also mentally ill. He doesn't like being mentally ill. He doesn't like the medication/therapy available to him. Taking it turns him into a zombie; eschewing it causes him to act-out violently and unpredictably. He doesn't like the fact that he's going to need some kind of care for the rest of his life. He doesn't like it -- as no teenager would -- that the safest place for him is under his parents' roof. He'd like to have a real life; go to college, see the world, get married and start a family of his own. He can't. His disease has ruined his chances for any semblance of a normal life, and late last year he became so violent (so frustrated?) that his parents committed him to an institutuion for eighteen months. That boy will be an adult when he is released... free to take his meds or not, free to live with his parents or not, free to become one more of the nameless homeless who walk the streets -- or not.
It was this boy I thought of when entering this dialogue about the homeless. But for a disease, my cousin was destined to become a productive member of society. I wonder how many other brilliant minds have wound up on city streets; how many Mozarts we've been denied, how many Einsteins we've thrown away...
[ edited by plsmith on Jan 18, 2004 08:56 PM ]
posted on January 18, 2004 08:55:41 PM new"Nero, I tried a "back to the land" type of lifestyle that was quite simple but it was way too much work. We had to chop our own wood, haul our water, preserve some of our food, etc. It was fun but it wasn't easy so we moved back into the city. Right now I'd rather just win a big fat lottery"
I would like to get away from land and live on a boat. There's nothing more peaceful. But for that you need the lottery too.
posted on January 18, 2004 09:30:41 PM new
The lack of concern and sympathy for such people who become homeless when they are unable to function because of mental illness is appalling.
And isn't it ironic that some of the homeless are more intelligent than those who are so critical of their situation.
posted on January 18, 2004 09:39:28 PM new
back to the land? back from WHERE?? I don't think I want to go there
___________________________________
Mi abuelita me dijo "en boca cerrada no entran moscas".
posted on January 18, 2004 10:15:15 PM new
Lol, profe51.
plsmith, that's sad about your cousin. It seems that schizophrenia happens to more young men than women but I know of one lady who has a daughter with it. She was "normal" until she went to University and her mother thinks the pressure of all the courses triggered it. It has now been 10 years of institutional care, home care, etc. The daughter is okay for awhile and then just disappears and does live on the streets off and on.
It seems that many schizophrenic and bipolar persons are extremely talented and sometimes brilliant. I know a bipolar person that I've had to help and it can sometimes be a full time job trying to get help from government agencies and hospitals.
Usually the person suffering doesn't realize they need help and may think they are okay. For anyone to just think that they can step in and be helpful, they may be surprised at the time they may have to devote and how emotional it can get for everyone involved. It's not easy, especially if you have a job and other commitments.
posted on January 19, 2004 07:41:30 AM new
plsmith, that is really sad about your cousin. Sometimes I wonder if they (the drug companies) couldn't come up with the right drugs, but its kinda like the exterminator business...you know, if they really could kill all the bugs, they'd have no repeat business, so whats the incentive to eradicate them? (A Pulitzer prize? Big deal!)
I think almost everybody knows somebody who has a family member with a mental illness. It is an extreme burden on the families because the effects so directly affects THEIR mental state. Some are doing real good while others cant seem to be helped. I dont know what the difference is. I look to some like George Stepanophlos (*sp), Mike Wallace and others who seem to manage with it and are even by society's standards; "successful". Though they dont suffer schizophrenia however which is the probably the most debilitating of all to be saddled with. But I also think many a musician, actor, painter etc., would be classified as mental if they had to survive outside that reality realm.
But getting back to the faith based charities -- I have to say, its crossed my mind that maybe these people are tortured souls -- and I know it sounds far fetched -- but could they be possessed by demons, like they used to think of it in the days of old?? ("and you know it makes me wonder...lol Led zep). But being the hip liberal I am, waffle on it all the time -- but could it be so? Instead of a physical brain defect or some early trauma that triped up the wires?
I dont think you can have one foot in a religion and one foot out.
posted on January 21, 2004 04:34:56 AM new
Yeah, PL...I knew posting that would put me on the rafters here.
But thats the thing with religious right wing conservatives. Take the bible whole thing - hook, line and sinker as you said, or shut the hell up about what you pick and choose is the "thruth". (misspelled on purpose.)
