March 30, 2014
WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES DO NOT WANT ANY FORCED “INVOLUNTARY OUTPATIENT COMMITMENT”! IT IS AGAINST HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND WE WILL FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS UNTIL CONGRESS LISTENS!
Please make these calls TOMORROW, MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014, AT 4-7AM PACIFIC TIME OR 7-10AM EASTERN TIME. MEETING WILL START AT 10AM IN DC!
FOR CALIFORNIA PLEASE CALL:
Boxer, Barbara – (D – CA), 112 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3553, email DIRECTLY HERE: http://www.boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm
Feinstein, Dianne – (D – CA), 331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3553, email DIRECTLY HERE: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
FOR ALL OTHER STATES PLEASE CALL HERE
Leave a short message:
“I am (name, city). My Senator should NOT vote for a Doc Fix that includes Section 224 of the House bill (HR 4302). Section 224 has nothing to do with Medicare. It would use Federal dollars to pay for forced psychiatric treatment in our communities. Forced treatment is traumatizing. It criminalizes people in crisis. It scares people away from seeking help. It is costly but not effective. Keep Section 224 out of the Doc Fix bill. (Leave your phone number if you want a return call.) Please make these calls TOMORROW, MONDAY AT 5-7AM PACIFIC TIME OR 8-10AM EASTERN TIME. MEETING WILL START AT 10AM IN DC!
Your voice counts if you make the calls.
From MAD IN AMERICA
March 28, 2014
An array of national mental health and disability advocacy groups joined together today, urging people to contact their senators in protest of a section of a bill rushed through the House of Representatives by voice vote yesterday. Section 224 of HR4302, up for a vote in the Senate on Monday, would subject people in crisis to forced treatment. “In its rush to fix a problem with Medicare, the House passed a bill including a highly controversial program, involuntary outpatient commitment, with no debate and no roll call vote,” said Raymond Bridge, public policy director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, “And it seems that the Senate may pass a version of the House bill including this troublesome provision on Monday.” “This legislation would eliminate initiatives that use evidence-based, voluntary, peer-run services and family supports to help people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses to recover,” said Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D. “It would bring America back to the dark ages before de-institutionalization, when people with mental health conditions languished in institutions, sometimes for life.”
Of further interest:
List of phone numbers for DC offices of U.S. Senators
Research on Outpatient Commitment (Psychrights)
Compulsory community and involuntary outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders (Cochrane Review)
Contact: Dr. Daniel Fisher, info@ncmhr.org, 877-246-9058, cell: 617-504-0832 (press only) Raymond Bridge, 703-883-7710, raymond.bridge@ncmhr.org
BUT PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SENATORS IN EACH STATE:
DR. DANIEL FISHER ON MENTAL HEALTH
Dr. Fisher has an M.D., Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the National Empowerment Center and a member of the President’s Commission on “Mental Illness”. He is one of the few psychiatrists in the country who openly discusses his recovery from mental illness. He is a role model for others who are struggling to recover and his life dispels the myth that people do not recover from mental issues.
LET US REMEMBER MARTIN L. KING JR. “I call upon you to be maladjusted, maladjusted as the prophet Amos who in the midst of the tragic inequalities of injustice in his day cried out in words that echoes across the generations: ”Let judgment run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
As maladjusted as Lincoln who confronted a nation divided against itself and had the vision to see that the nation could not exist half free, and half slave.
Maladjusted as the — hundreds and thousands — of Negroes, North and South who are determined now to stand up for freedom, willing to face possible violence and possible death, who are willing to stand up and sacrifice and struggle until segregation is a dead reality and until integration is a fact.
Maladjusted as Jefferson who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery cried out in words of cosmic proportions: ”All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I call upon you to follow this maladjustment. It is through such a maladjustment that we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom, equality and justice.”
Martin Luther King Jr., Excerpt:
“There are certain words in the technical vocabulary of every academic discipline that tend after a while to become stereotype and cliches, there is a word in modern psychology which is now probably more familiar than any other words in psychology. It is the word the maladjusted; it is the ringing cry of the new child, psychology — maladjusted.”
Wildflowers' Movement 