Op-Ed

All advocacy involves a lot of debate. We live in a society that has yet to agree on whether the toilet paper goes over or under, so it isn't surprising that something as complex as mental illness advocacy brings out the claws. We only have to look to Facebook to see the anger that some folks show toward political candidates they disagree with. Democrats and Republicans will be in conflict from now until the end of time. And, without muddying the waters with political debate, that makes sense. Those two parties are on different sides, with sometimes wildly different views. But what about the massive disagreements of people that are, in theory, on the same side, who should have similar views? Mental health issues are serious. They are life-threatening. But more than anything, they are personal. The outcomes fill a spectrum from inspirational to devastating. I work in an industry where the typical advocate is either a person living with the illness or a person who has had a loved one, most often a child, die from this illness. Most of us have, on some level, watched someone we love suffer. The most affected of us will carry the emotional scars of someone we love having died.

Seven percent want military options considered (poll by McClatchy-Marist, April 7-10), up from six percent a bit earlier (Pew, March 20-23), or 12 percent for U.S. ground troops and 17 percent for air strikes (CNN, March 7-9). Polling is similar on U.S. desire for a war with Iran, or for U.S. military involvement in Syria. Many more Americans believe in ghosts and UFOs, according to the polls, than believe that these would be good wars. The U.S. public never got behind the war on Libya, and for years a majority has said that the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan never should have been launched. The search for a good war is beginning to look as futile as the search for the mythical city of El Dorado. And yet that search remains our top public project. The U.S. military swallows 55.2 percent of federal discretionary spending, according to the National Priorities Project. Televised U.S. sporting events thank members of the military for watching from 175 nations. U.S. aircraft carriers patrol the world's seas. U.S.

Two weeks ago in reaction to the McCutcheon decision we touched on an issue that will become central to our movement: Has the democratic legitimacy of the US government been lost? We raised this issue by quoting a Supreme Court Justice, former US president and a sitting US Senator: “The legitimacy of the US government is now in question. By illegitimate we mean it is ruled by the 1%, not a democracy ‘of, by and for the people.’ The US has become a carefully designed plutocracy that creates laws to favor the few. As Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissenting opinion, American law is now ‘incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy.’ Or, as former president, Jimmy Carter said on July 16, 2013 “America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy.” “Even members of Congress admit there is a problem.

"Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on," goes the refrain of a famous song from the civil rights movement. We marched for freedom -- for new laws that would end segregation, guarantee equal rights, enforce voting rights, and provide affirmative actions to help correct decades of being locked out or left out. We couldn't let lunatic sheriffs or Klan rallies or jail distract us. We had to keep our eyes on the prize and hold on. That advice applies today where public expression of racial animus can distract from the far more serious legal reverses equal rights has suffered. First we had the rancher and conservative folk hero Cliven Bundy embarrassing himself and his right-wing allies with his foolishness about "the Negro," suggesting that African Americans might have been "better off as slaves." Bundy dismissed blacks as "on government subsidy." This from a man who had fed his cows off federal land without paying grazing fees for decades, a "government subsidy" he has no intention of repaying. Then we had the tape of the loathsome and unprintable rant of L.A.

Enough is enough, sports fans. It's been known for decades that the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers is a racist jerk. Ditto the owner of that professional football team in our nation's capital, whose current horrific anti-indigenous team name is a global embarrassment. But these guys are the tip of the iceberg. The real question is: why are these teams owned by individuals at all? Why do we allow our precious sports clubs to be the playthings of a bunch of billionaires? Why aren't the football, baseball, basketball, hockey and other major sports franchises so many of us so passionately love and support not owned by the communities that give them their life? Why is our nation powerless to remove the racist logo from a public stadium just down the street from the White House and Congress? There's a model out there that does work. It's called the Green Bay Packers (of which I'm proud owner of 2 shares).

Our society has lost a great activist today with the death of John Judge. No one spoke more clearly, strongly, and informedly on political power, militarism, and activism for positive change. While John lived nextdoor to Dennis Kucinich -- and with one of the best views and one of the best collections of political books and documents -- in Washington, D.C., it was as staff person for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney that he advanced numerous causes of peace and justice and accountability for the powerful on Capitol Hill. On impeaching Bush and Cheney he was there first. John's expertise reached back into history and across continents. From the Kennedy assassination to conscientious objection to how-a-bill-becomes-a-law, he was a person to turn to for information and wisdom who was never anything but helpful, friendly, cheerful, and energetic. He could describe the hiring of Nazis in Operation Paperclip and the creation of the Cold War and then suggest that perhaps the Nazis actually won World War II. He could explain the creation of standing armies in such a manner that you knew without a doubt that either our society was insane or you were.

As Rebecca Gordon notes in her new book, Mainstreaming Torture, polls find greater support in the United States for torture now than when Bush was president. And it's not hard to see why that would be the case. Fifteen years ago, it was possible to pretend the U.S. government opposed torture. Then it became widely known that the government tortured. And it was believed (with whatever accuracy) that officials had tried to keep the torturing secret. Next it became clear that nobody would be punished, that in fact top officials responsible for torture would be permitted to openly defend what they had done as good and noble. The idea was spread around that the torture was stopping, but the cynical could imagine it must be continuing in secret, the partisan could suppose the halt was only temporary, the trusting could assume torture would be brought back as needed, and the attentive could be and have been aware that the government has gone right on torturing to this day with no end in sight.

The Bible's injunction that we shall be judged by how we have treated the "least of these" (Matthew 25:40) appears in different forms in virtually every religion or faith. And surely the measure of a country is how it treats the most vulnerable of its people -- children in the dawn of life, the poor in the valley of life, the ailing in the shadows of life, the elderly in the dusk of life. This week, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Republican budget proposal put together by Rep. Paul Ryan, chair of the Budget Committee and Mitt Romney's running mate. The vast majority of Republicans are lined up to vote for it, with possible exceptions for a handful who think it does not cut enough. It is a breathtakingly mean and callous proposal. The Republican budget would cut taxes on the wealthy, giving millionaires, the Citizen for Tax Justice estimates, a tax break of $200,000 per year. (Ryan tells us only what tax rates he would lower, not the loopholes he would close to make his proposal revenue neutral. But CTJ shows that even if he closed every loophole, it wouldn't make up for the revenue lost by lowering their top rate).

The Department of Education just released its annual study on civil rights in our education system. The report, Attorney General Eric Holder summarized, "shows that racial disparities in school discipline policies are not only well-documented among older students but actually beginduring preschool." Pre-school? Yes, from preschool on, boys of color are disproportionately afflicted by suspensions and zero-tolerance policiesin school. They are more likely to be disciplined, more likely to be suspended, and more likely to be held back a grade. Suspended students are less likely to graduate on time and more likely to be suspended a second time. They are more likely to drop out, and to end up in trouble. The report shows that preschool is not a reality for much of the country, particularly in poorer districts. Where it does exist, students of color -- blacks and Latinos -- are more likely to be suspended. This has been documented repeatedly in older grades, but now we learn it starts even in preschool. And that's not all.