A poem "for" Indiana Governor Mike Pence

 

 

For Indiana Governor Mike Pence

 

Mike Pence,

Who ain’t worth two cents,

How does your Indiana garden grow?

With overgrown noxious weeds,

Gnarly young tree sprouts,

And piercing, stabbing thorns

All over the place, of course!



Sabbatical closed—leaving behind fond memories, emptiness and loss

Sabbatical, the Indianapolis bar/restaurant in Broad Ripple, on the Strip at 921 Broad Ripple Avenue, closed its doors for good on July 12, 2015, victim of struggling business fortunes and an only-three-year lease set to expire.  But it leaves behind many fond memories for being an arts-and-original-music venue that was especially attractive both to aficionados and to inveterate square-pegs-in-round-holes such as myself.  And it went out in a splash, with four days of partying and special music events that featured some of Indianapolis’s most talented “other alternative” musicians, plugged-in acoustic folksingers and folk-rock bands, and ended its final night with the regular Sunday-evening show sponsored by Rocketship Comedy.  All in all, it gave us a good run for the money in its three-year tenure, a mightily unorthodox business finally felled by the humdrum  of “business as usual” in a burg never friendly to alternative voices that weren’t safely tamed by conventionality.

So the building that housed independent Sabbatical now stands empty in Broad Ripple, Indianapolis’s supposedly “hip” business venue-neighborhood that, despite the patina of picturesque pseudo-vintage storefronts, is dominated by conventionally-upscale chain boutiques and bars catering to frat rats and suburban shoppers who prefer a “hipster” ersatz to any really bohemian, creative, or unorthodox substance.  Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s  We’re Only in It for the Money LP delineated with eerie prescience just what Broad Ripple has become:  “Every town must have a place where phony hippies meet.”  Indianapolis itself—its smug complacency exposed in novels by its two most-talented Native Son contemporary authors, Dan Wakefield’s Going All the Way and Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions—killed Sabbatical, though the apparent cause was a limited lease that was only the tail end of the lease held by a previously-failed Mexican restaurant.  Yes, Indianapolis itself, characterized in the Vonnegut novel above as “the asshole of the universe,” really killed Sabbatical.  That and, of course, commercial greed; but a commercial greed above all seeking to maximize profit by kowtowing to the lowest-common-denominator conventionality and generic standard.  This is simply standard operating procedure in Indianapolis, also known as IndiaNOPLACE:  a big city bereft of any kind of truly urban ambience outside of staid business districts and a plethora of shopping malls where everything looks essentially the same because everything is essentially the same.  Because, at bottom, Indianapolis is a burg straight out of those angry novels by Sinclair Lewis, cities that are really only overgrown small, insular towns which Lewis immortalized in his telling phrase, “dullness made god.”

But the three owners of Sabbatical tried—Dave Queisser, his wife Jeannie, and their associate, Kevin Phillips.  Queisser, an experienced bar owner, had previously owned the Hideaway and Locals Only, places where those who were unconventional and loved original art and music always felt at home.  To Dave, hanging original artwork on the walls by local artists and having bands play music of all genres that was different from one which one heard on the radio, and was more often than not originally composed, was just part and parcel of the way he did business.  Certainly he wanted to make a living at what he did; but that was not his sole raison d’etre.  Creating a quality ambience was.  Creating spaces where artists, musicians, and the unconventional and unorthodox could feel comfortable and belonging was as integral to his business models as was having a bottom line that didn’t end in red ink (which, unfortunately, Sabbatical did).  Call him a businessman with a vision; and yes, a vision that in the end, both for Locals Only and for Sabbatical, was undermined by landlords focused on high-profit “economic development” of their properties.

From its beginning in late summer 2012, Sabbatical tried to be a bar/restaurant that was different.  But its very location in Broad Ripple was antithetical for that—because over-commercialized Broad Ripple already had too many bars, far more conventional bars that catered to a far more conventional clientele than the type that would find Sabbatical congenial.  And there were space limitations in the building that housed Sabbatical that interfered with making Sabbatical the kind of place that the owners had really wanted it to be.  It was much smaller than Locals Only had been, and lacked the stage that Locals Only had for the musicians and bands.  That meant that the musicians had to make do in a corner on the floor of the second room, walled off from the bar area, which was in another room; thus, a built-in physical setup that separated the patrons of one room from those in the other—an obvious hindrance for musicians and audiences alike.  Further, Broad Ripple is plagued by lack of parking space, and the space that is available is either almost always metered or, if on private lots, expensive.  Though Sabbatical did have a small parking lot in the back, space was readily taken up—often by people who weren’t customers of Sabbatical; but it was just too expensive and bothersome to regularly patrol for miscreants and tow them away.  Moreover, the exotic, rather gourmet, menu Sabbatical tried when it first opened did not suit well the burgers-and-fries tastes of the regular Broad Ripple denizens, and had to be regularly downsized and conventionalized lest food rot away unsold.  So even the large crowds eating and drinking on the front patio the first two years of Sabbatical did not translate into profitability—and because of the thick stucco walls that trapped heat and humidity Sabbatical’s inside was never much of a draw, and was usually only sparsely occupied. 

Last, the square-pegs-in-round-holes ambience of Sabbatical itself simply did not attract because it was far too unconventional for the conventionality that is at the heart of Broad Ripple’s present-day bar and partying-hangout appeal—as a place where white fraternity types and business majors can rub shoulders with the white upscale suburbanite young and not be disturbed by those who are brazenly different, who lack mainstream aesthetics and values, and who, moreover, are decidedly of a darker skin color and cultural sense.  It is telling that the two bars in Broad Ripple most noted for their overflow patronage, Kilroy’s and Brothers, are both chain establishments with studiously antiseptic décor, bar versions, essentially, of a Steak ‘n Shake!

Now Sabbatical’s building is empty—but it’s not the only emptiness Sabbatical left behind.  I felt this keenly on the Tuesday and Wednesday after closing, when I became distraught that there was now no longer a Sabbatical to go to for a friendly brew and banter with Gina, the regular bartender those two days.  And that I deeply missed both that and her.  Along with TJ, Jeff, Krista, Damon, John, Chris, Steve, Jeannie, Kevin, and the other good friends I felt I had there, some of whom I may never see again.  And how I will miss the friendly-mocking banter of Dave Queisser, his genial insults that paradoxically made me feel appreciated, his chuckling “dismissal” of me as one utterly lacking in social skills, but nonetheless intelligent, accomplished, and a valued customer all the way back to Hideaway days.  Now I had lost another ambience where square-pegs-in-round-holes were welcome, because in Indianapolis few places welcome square-pegs-in-round-holes.  They even try to get rid of them despite their being paying customers, as was true with the Sinking Ship, transmogrified by the greed of the owners from a hipster bar to yet another frat-rat sports bar. Here I had been deliberately insulted and told never to return by the manager sitting five seats down, despite being a paying customer, because  I was no longer the kind of ultra-conventional customer the owners wanted!   There just aren’t many places in this justly-named IndiaNOPLACE that want offbeat poets and writers coming in.  Now I am left with only the Melody Inn, primarily a late-night music venue that is accepting of both me and my writing, and where I am greeted and made to feel welcome by the socially-liberal-yet-fiscally-conservative libertarian owners—when the place is open.  Yet that is but all there is now, unless I settle for a generic bar just for a brew absent any sense of belonging, of feeling truly welcome; but if it’s only brew I wish, better to just stay at home and drink by myself!  Another emptiness that has enveloped me now that Sabbatical’s gone.

And there is a bigger loss also: the art and music that Sabbatical had, something carried on by Dave from the Hideaway and Locals Only that made them places that both the customers and the musicians enjoyed.  That certainly was something that was felt those four days of Sabbatical’s final partying; and was felt by me personally when local musician Jethro Easyfields invited me to the mic to do some Lenny Bruce/George Carlin-inspired stand-up comedy.  Because only at Sabbatical would I have been so invited, and only at Sabbatical would I have been appreciated for that.  Alas, now it’s gone.  The crowds just aren’t there for those who publicly perform the offbeat.  Only poets come to poetry readings, effectively making them read only for themselves and a small coterie of others, never for broader audiences; and the same for comedy also.  We who do original spoken-word art aren’t welcome by the general crowd, who only want to hear karaoke and DJs.  Even live music, especially if it’s original and not just copies of what’s heard on the radio, isn’t much wanted anymore here in IndiaNOPLACE, to the chagrin—and unemployment—of my many musician friends.  Ah, sad but true—only the staid, the familiar, the derivative, and the conventional has market appeal anymore.

It wasn’t always that way, but is now, and what was once a vibrant scene in Broad Ripple precisely for what Sabbatical offered has now been absent for a couple of decades.  Back in the 1980s Broad Ripple had a vibrant live music scene, where punk and alternative predominated, throngs of the young walked the streets, the Patio nightclub drew enthusiastic crowds for unconventional music and ambience, the telephone poles and city light posts were pasted over solidly with colorful fliers advertising alternative cultural events.  But all that was too much for the conventional merchants, who wanted to clear the place of the “clutter” of improvised fliers and skateboarding youth who weren’t twenty-one and big spenders in the bars and boutiques, and  didn’t patronize the strictly commercial ersatz the merchants offered.  So the youth on the streets were chased off, new venues opened that served alcohol and thus forbade youth to enter, posting on telephone poles and city light posts was punishable, and black youth in this predominantly white part of town seen as potential “criminals”  The police “helped out” by aggressively prowling for those suspected of partying too much, and ever-so-“helpfully” arrested them for drunk driving or public intoxication—putting yet another chill on the street scene, and thus ensuring “respectability” for the merchants, who weren’t selling anything original, but were only franchising national and regional chains.  Loss of innocence to commercial “reality”—the vibrancy of youth and experimentation giving way to “proper” old-age stodginess and devoted dullness in the name of profit.  In such an environment a Sabbatical could not last, and didn’t; but, needless to say, it will be sorely missed—and the good times, as well as the loss and emptiness left behind, well remembered

Kudos to the Pope, but Not to Catholicism! Pope Francis’s Climate Change Encyclical

 

[A slightly modified version of a one-page leaflet I passed out at a discussion and question-and-answer session on Pope Francis’s new encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’,  held in the Interchurch Center on the campus of the Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana, June 22, 2015.  The event was organized around panel presentations by Jesse Kharbanda, Executive Director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, and Andy Pike, head of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and School’s Creation Care Ministry.  The discussion with question-and-answer session, open to the public as part of a series of forums held under the sponsorship of the Seminary’s Monday evening SPEA class and organized by the students themselves, while positive on the need for environmental protection and the need for action, focused primarily on the “spiritual” side of the Pope’s encyclical, and what individuals themselves “could do” to advance environmental awareness.  Aside from the students, the great bulk of the audience was decidedly senior, with most of the public attendees easily in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s, which is reflective of Indianapolis’s aging “progressive” population itself.  The youngish (under 40) Kharbanda, by his own admission, has tried to “broaden the appeal” of environmentalism by pitching the environmental message not only to the usual left and liberal activists and groups, but also to corporations and conservative Christians and other religious; Pike, who is retired, spoke as a Catholic activist on environmental and other issues.  The modified text of the leaflet is directly below.  It is essentially as it was originally composed (admittedly in a hurry) and passed out at the meeting, where it was received with interest—GF]

 

POPE FRANCIS’S CLIMATE CHANGE ENCYCLICAL—

KUDOS TO THE POPE, BUT NOT TO CATHOLICISM!

written on June 22, 2015

 by George Fish, georgefish666@yahoo.com, Indianapolis, Indiana:

ex-Catholic, atheist, democrat, socialist, humanist, secularist

While we can indeed take heart at the Pope’s recent, very positive and needed, affirmative encyclical message and call for action on climate change, Laudato Si’—a message issued so strongly, so urgently, and with such scientific validity it upset climate-change denialists and conservative Catholics to a degree that drove them into frothing rage—let it not stand as a vindication or a prettifying of a still-ugly and ominously regressive Catholic Church.  Of course, we who are secular and democratic in our instincts should be delighted at the viciousness and obtuseness it has excited among the likes of the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue and Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum, notoriously right-wing Catholics and ardent opponents of both science and secularism.  Yet that not serve as pretext for overlooking the still-seamy underside, indeed, even the public face, of official Catholicism:  as illustrated by remarks, and their lack, from Pope Francis himself.

In all honesty, even as we celebrate the Pope’s directness and scientific correctness evinced in Laudato Si’, let us also pointedly note that scientists and secularists have been saying the very same things as the Pope is now saying, and for a good decade previously.  And in honesty, let us also pointedly note that Pope Francis, ever true to official Catholicism even in its open obscurantism, felt obliged to gratuitously insert into his climate change encyclical yet more inappropriate, dogmatic and obscurantist screeds against not only abortion, but even birth control, “officially Catholic” positions even much of the forced-to-remain-silent Catholic lay body objects to; not to mention all of us outside of the Catholic Church who are sick and tired of hearing these monotonous, one-sided mantras that indicate so firmly that Catholicism has yet to actually enter the 21^st Century.

Let us not also forget the Pope’s, and the Vatican’s, denunciation of the recent historic vote in traditionally-Catholic Ireland firmly upholding same-sex marriage, a fundamentally decent political and human rights position the still-viciously homophobic Catholic Church insists on repeatedly negating and denouncing; thus denying in its ecclesiastical fulminations the fundamental dignity and humanity or non-heterosexual humanity.  Let us not forget either the Pope’s own backhanded approval given to the Muslim fanatics who committed the Charlie Hedbo massacre, as the Pope himself gave backhanded justification to the murders of the magazine’s staff for “offending” another religion—as if the magazine’s open secularism and anti-clericalism even justified horrific mass murder!  Let us also note the Pope’s own glaring silence on the ethnic cleansing being carried out today in Myanmar (Burma) and Sri Lanka that is being fomented by chauvinistic Buddhist monks.  As well his silence on the ever-prevailing atrocities continually carried out in the name of Islam not only by supposedly “rogue” groups such as ISIS, but even by Islamic states themselves, as in Saudi Arabia and under the military dictatorship in Egypt—not to mention the Islamic suppression of the Arab Spring!

Nor let us forget the still-festering scandal within Catholicism due to rampant priest-pedophilia, and the Vatican’s still-prevailing do-nothing-effective approach to it (Pope Francis did nothing more except appoint yet another commission to “study” the problem).  Nor let us forget the centuries of abuse and suffering meted out to Catholics and non-Catholics alike through the official actions of the Church, in the rampant abuse and abuse of power in the Catholic school system, and the systematic oppression meted out to whole populations, even those that were comprised of stalwart Catholics, in such Catholic countries as Ireland, Spain, and throughout Latin America.  Despite the Pope’s new encouraging words on climate change, Catholicism still has a lot to answer for before the body of secular, democratic humanity.

 

Anarchist economics and political economy

Posted in the now-defunct Left Eye on Books, November 2012.  Slight editorial changes to bring up-to-date--GF

 

Political economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy) is the name originally given to economics during its early days of development under the classical economists such as Adam Smith, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith) David Ricardo, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo) John Stuart Mill, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) and its enfant terrible, Karl Marx. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) But I want to use it in a different, a “new,” sense here, as the intersection of politics and economics; because, while economics itself has become a highly technical field, it is more often politics that informs economic policy and practice—that is, just what is done to create jobs, promote equality, produce goods and services that benefit all, and basically provide for the material benefit of society.  Further, while much of economics, or classical political economy for that matter, is implicitly or explicitly pro-capitalist, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism), significant objections to capitalism have been raised through the economic analysis of capitalism itself, as well as through the positing of an alternative political order to capitalism—chiefly, of course, by the left.  Both historically, and in the present, the left divides broadly on the alternative polity to capitalism into two main camps: socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism) and anarchism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism)

 “The Accumulation of Freedom” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781849350945-0) develops both the anarchist critique of capitalism and the project of an anarchist society and its achievement through 19 essays written by anarchist scholar/activists, not all of them professional academics.  This scholarly activism is exemplified in the biographies of the three editors themselves, Deric Shannon, (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781849350945-0) Anthony J. Nocella II (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781849350945-0) and John Asimakopoulos (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781849350945-0).  Appropriately for the discussion of “new” political economy and economic analysis as seen through anarchist eyes, “The Accumulation of Freedom” is subtitled “Writings on Anarchist Economics.”

 

Anarchist critiques of both capitalism and socialism have taken on an active new life in recent years on the left, and anarchist movements are now an integral part of it.  The anarchist notion of direct participation in the restructuring of society, the notion of non-hierarchical social arrangements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_organization), and full democratic participation in all decision-processes have become integrally part of the world left theory and practice, often displacing previous left attraction to socialism and Marxism-Leninism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism_Leninism) Anarchism and anarchist movements have come prominently into play since the Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (WTO) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization) in 1999, (http://socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19622) and are integrally involved in both the activism and the political theory of Occupy movements. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_movement) The “Postscript” in “The Accumulation of Freedom” written by the three editors in November 2011, at the height of Occupy Wall Street, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street) expresses both the indebtedness of anarchism to the Occupy notion, its cross-fertilization by Occupy, and posits directions within an anarchist perspective that build on and extend Occupy notions.

An important development concomitant with the rise of contemporary anarchism is the notion of effective socialist-anarchist alliances around issues of common concern, and friendly, if critical, dialogue between socialists and anarchists.  Three contributions to this notion of positive socialist-anarchist alliance have been articulated by socialists who see commonality despite differences with anarchist activists.  The first of these was Ursula McTaggart’s “Can We Build Socialist-Anarchist Alliances?” in the socialist bimonthly Against the Current 141 (July/August 2009). (http://solidarity-us.org/site/node/2263) A more restrained, but equally positive, assessment of socialist-anarchist alliances was given by Marvin Mandell in his review article in New Politics 47 (Summer 2009), “Anarchism and Socialism.” (http://newpol.org/node/75) Mandell ends his review by writing, “I think Marxists and Anarchists can learn from each other and, in fact, need each other.”  George Fish also contributed to the positive discussion of socialist-anarchist alliances from a socialist perspective in his review of Noam Chomsky’s “Chomsky on Anarchism,” in New Politics 49 (Summer 2010), “Chomsky, Anarchism, and Socialism,” (http://newpol.org/node/423) and reviewed “The Accumulation of Freedom” in New Politics 54 (Winter 2013), http://newpol.org/content/anarchist-economics-and-socialist-anarchist-dialogue.

“The Accumulation of Freedom” reciprocates this socialist appreciation by several contributors borrowing much of their analyses and critiques of capitalism from socialist and Marxist sources and, in some cases, openly expressing appreciation for Marx and Marxist ideas themselves.  This is sometimes quite hard to do for anarchists, as Marx was a foremost critic of anarchism and engaged in vigorous polemics with two of its leading proponents, Mikhail Bakunin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin) and Pierre-Joseph Prudhon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon) Yet in many ways the socialist and anarchist critiques of capitalism dovetail, and few socialists would have quarrel with the extensive critiques of contemporary capitalism and its destructiveness laid out here.  Further, these analytical essays, contained in Parts 2 and 3 of the book, are extensive, well documented, and well done, giving great elucidation and development to the topic.  The only analytical essay in these sections I was disappointed with was Abbey Volcano and Deric Shannon’s “Capitalism ion the 200s: Broad Strokes for Beginners,” which I found more descriptive than analytical, but perhaps that is why it is subtitled as it is—it is aimed at beginners to economic analysis of capitalism, not so much at veterans like me.

There are many essays that discuss the how-to-do-it aspect of anarchist social transformation, but they all share in common the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and cooperative, mutual aid and support approach that is an integral part of contemporary anarchism.  Unlike many socialists, anarchists rely more on direct action and determined groups of people just doing it, from Occupy movements to workers taking over factories and running them themselves, as detailed in Marie Trigona’s (http://www.blogger.com/profile/14345188450610946384) “Occupy, Resist, Produce! Lessons from Latin America’s Occupied Factories.”  Here anarchists differ in emphasis and tactics generally from socialists in that they are impatient with socialist efforts to gain control of state power and use the power of the state to transform capitalism and create the new socialist state order because, of course, anarchists oppose the very existence of the state itself.  But they also believe that the people themselves can organize to provide for their needs and wants independently of, and without reliance on, the state and state power.

“The Accumulation of Freedom” also contains useful guides on tactics of resistance, protest and effective opposition.  Chief among these is Robin Hahnel’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hahnel) “The Economic Crisis and Libertarian Socialists,” based on a speech Hahnel gave in Greece to anti-austerity activists.  Hahnel lays out a multi-point guide for political action to restructure the European economies such as Greece’s that have been devastated by neoliberalism, and articulates in this a program many a supposedly “tamer” socialist would heartily agree with.  D.T. Cochrane (http://yorku.academia.edu/DTCochrane) and Jeff Monaghan’s “Fight to Win! Tools for Confronting Capital” draws lessons on tactics and strategy from anti-corporate struggles that have been found useful and effective in a number of cases, from opposing sweatshops to getting divestment from arms manufacturing to stopping destructive research on animals.

The “Introduction” by the editors, “Anarchist Economics: A Holistic View,” the “Preface” by Ruth Kinna, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Kinna) and the “Afterword” by Michael Albert, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Albert) “Porous Borders of Anarchist Vision and Strategy” articulate points of convergence and divergence among anarchists themselves, and elucidate in detail that there is no more only one sole variety of anarchism than there is only one sole variety of socialism.  These three essays are especially useful for beginners in anarchist thought, though they have much also to teach the veterans, and they teach positively to all across the board—anarchists, socialists, as well as to interested political science and economic specialists and students who are neither.

Nor are people of color, both in the US “internal colony” and the Third World, slighted; Ernesto Aguilar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernesto_Aguilar) takes note of their struggles in “Call It an Uprising: People of Color and the Third World Organize against Capitalism,” emphasizing a positive intersection of race, class and resistance in sparking rebellion of the darker-skinned vast majority of the world’s oppressed against global capitalism.  While insightful in many ways, I did find this essay burdened too much with rhetorical flourish when it seemed to need more in-depth analysis. Aguilar raises many an intriguing thought, but then drops it without further discussion.  

But all this only demonstrates an extensiveness and diversity to anarchist thought and proposals that is rich and intriguing in itself, and certainly belies any notion of an anarchist “party line” or generic “one-size-fits-all” variety of anarchism.  The essays are well chosen, expressive of a wide diversity of approaches, and interesting and exciting to read.  I read ‘The Accumulation of Freedom” virtually nonstop; once I started, I simply could not put it down.  “The Accumulation of Freedom” is an important contribution to the study of this “new” political economy defined at the beginning, and is a book to heartily recommend.

*****

George Fish is a veteran socialist writer and poet in Indianapolis, Indiana, who has contributed to many left and alternative publications.  He has appeared in New Politics (http://newpol.org), In These Times (http://inthesetimes.com) and Socialism and Democracy (http://sdonline.org), among many others.  He has written on economics (in which he has a university degree), Marxism and socialism, mental health issues and pop music, formerly wrote on Indiana and Indianapolis as a journalist for Examiner.com, and has a political blog, “Politically Incorrect Leftist,” http://politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com.   

  

A Crazy, Demented Way to Critique Psychiatry

Published May 2013 on the now-defunct Left Eye on Books website.  It expresses succinctly and well how I, as a psychiatric critic as well as a psychiatric survivor, regard the issues of mental health and frequently ineffective and counterproductive psychiatry--but also why I repudiate as well the totalizing rejectionism of psychiatry by certain of its seemingly left-wing critics--GF

 

While the violent, murderous mentally ill—Andrea Yates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates), Seung-hui Cho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho), Jared Lee Loughner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Lee_Loughner),

James Holmes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Eagan_Holmes),

Adam Lanza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting), Jodi Arias [suspected of being bipolar] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Travis_Alexander) [To which we can now, sadly, add Elliott Rogers--GF]—have been much in the news as of late, completely overlooked is that the mentally ill are more likely to do violence to themselves than others, notably through suicide.   Further, in regard to the above psychiatry itself not only failed to protect society, it also failed to protect these persons from themselves.  This in itself is a telling indictment of the way psychiatry carries out its self-appointed task of helping those who are troubled, disturbed, dysfunctional, delusional, and dangerous to self and others.  Another side of “helping” psychiatry neither NAMI (http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=About_NAMI) nor the supporters of psychiatry, not to mention the psychiatric professionals themselves, talk about openly, except to make excuses.

But unconditional psychiatric opponent Seth Farber, Ph.D. (http://www.sethhfarber.com) will have none of this.  In his latest book, “The Spiritual Gift of Madness: the Failure of Psychiatry and the Rise of the Mad Pride Movement,” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781594774485-2) Farber, somewhat an anomaly in being a family therapist himself as well as a totalizing anti-psychiatric critic, sees mental illness as neither dysfunctional nor debilitating, much less a form of major suffering by those mentally ill themselves; but rather, as a direct gift from God, who supposedly uses mental illness to communicate and share his blessings with mere mortals.  Farber thinks this is especially true for those diagnosed “bipolar” or “schizophrenic”—following R.D. Laing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing), who saw schizophrenia in particular as a sane way of responding to the madness of society itself.  For Farber, those diagnosed mentally ill are directly communicating with the supernatural through their illnesses. 

 

In this way Farber’s book is similar to William James’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James)  classic of psychology, “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780486421643-9)  James, like Farber, a religious person who eschewed much of traditional religion, while not seeing madness as such in the mystics whose visions he favorably documented, and whose sometimes bizarre behavior he overlooked, thought that these mystical visions were the direct communicating of humans with Divine Godhead himself, and that God approached humans not objectively, but, as he put it, “subliminally.”  Of course, some of the behavior of these mystics and seers James approvingly noted were at least bizarre in themselves—for example, Quaker religion founder George Fox suddenly feeling he was “called by God” to take off his shoes and stockings in the middle of winter and go into a village he’d never ever been in before, walking the village streets barefoot and crying aloud for the people there to repent; or the Catholic monk Soso, whose extreme self-abnegation and even self-flagellation are easily seen as fanatic and masochistic.

Further, although Farber has a very favorable and enthusiastic view of the Mad Pride Movement, a significant current among strongly anti-psychiatric former mental patients (or “mental health consumers,” as they are often colloquially called, though many prefer the term “psychiatric survivors”), this enthusiasm is not always shared by Mad Pride advocates themselves. For example, MindFreedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindFreedom_International), which hosts a major Mad Pride website that Farber touts, disagrees with Farber himself that there is spiritual value in the troubled visions and hallucinations of mental illness—a point that, while Farber mentions in this book, he makes light of, as this direct evaluation by anti-psychiatric “psychiatric survivors” themselves undermines his very thesis in “Spiritual Gift of Madness.”

Personally, I can attest as a “mental health consumer” or “psychiatric survivor” myself that the notion of Mad Pride is far from delusional or incorrect—although I did not suffer from the hallucinations, delusions and unreal flights of fancy that accompany being bipolar or schizophrenic, but, instead, from years of very disabling and debilitating chronic depression.  Like many a “mental health consumer,” I found in my own personal experience that psychiatric treatment was most unhelpful for me, though parts of it I did indeed benefit from; moreover, I found much in my psychiatric treatment that was harmful to me personally, as well as the psychiatric system itself being fundamentally classist.   For I was consigned by lack of insurance and funds to the Community Mental Health Center system, or to university clinics as a student, where much of the treatment offered was indeed assembly-line and mediocre, and where even psychiatrists, therapists and other professionals who really cared about their patients came up against brick walls of disillusionment and frustration by the institutionalized bureaucracies that are endemic to such systems—and where the bureaucrats and those who can accept the bureaucracy in good cheer are often merely uncaring timeservers concerned more with job security than with what is optimal for their charges. 

So I do indeed have a form of Mad Pride, and am also anti-psychiatric, though not in Farber’s totalizing, rejectionist way; for which Farber consigns me to the camp of those who are “pro-psychiatry,” even though such a charge is as laughable as to regard the Greek far left group Syriza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_Radical_Left) as “pro-capitalist” just because it runs on an electoral platform that calls for major restructuring of the Greek and European capitalist systems.  But yes, I am “reformist” in that, unlike Farber, I believe in the radical restructuring of psychiatry as it presently is in order to make it a humane, truly scientifically-based system that restores human dignity to the disturbed, the dysfunctional, the troubled and the delusional, and can make them productive, happy and fulfilled human beings, something neither psychiatry at present nor the suffering of mental illness itself make possible.

In self-disclosure I must state that I do indeed know Seth Farber personally, although only through phone conversations and e-mails.  I first encountered him when I answered the contact info given at the end of his first book, which, overall, is quite good, albeit mixed, with substantive weaknesses as well as strengths—“Madness, Heresy, and the Rumor of Angels: The Revolt Against the Mental Health System.” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780812692006-10)  Farber initially regarded me in a friendly way, as an ally of his in critiquing psychiatry.  I myself am a published author on mental health issues, with three papers of mine formerly posted on the website of the Boston, Massachusetts mental health consumer advocacy group the Transformation Center; these were dropped when the Center's website changed formats, but are still available for viewing at their original location, Frog Majik Music, http://frogmajikmusic.com. One of these, “Once a Nut, Always a Nut?” Farber himself called a “brilliant deconstruction” of the psychiatric system.  Farber even lists me in the “Acknowledgements” for “Spiritual Gift of Madness,” though he’s since broken off with me.   Principally because, as far as I can tell (Farber is obscure on why he actually came to consider me—mistakenly—as “pro-psychiatry”), I titled my essay on what it actually felt like to suffer major depressive episodes, “What It’s Like to Be Chronically Depressed,” as just that, for which Farber vehemently anathematized me for using the “psychiatric” term “chronically depressed.”  However, this essay was excerpted and published in a very astute and insightful book, Agnes B. Hatfield and Harriet P. Lefley’s “Surviving Mental Illness: Stress, Coping, and Adaptation,” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780898620221-1) which, quite remarkably, devotes sections II, III and IV to accounts from mental health consumers themselves on how they experienced mental illness and recovery.  Hatfield, in writing me to ask permission to quote from “What It’s Like to Be Chronically Depressed,” which had been previously published by the Indiana Department of Mental Health, called my “poignant essay,” as she called it “one of the best descriptions of depression I’ve read.”

 

But in praise of Farber, let me say that he is the author of five books to date, two of which, the aforementioned “Madness, Heresy, and the Rumor of Angels,” and the political “Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel,” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781567513264-2) I found especially informative.  Same as in “Spiritual Gift of Madness,” these other two books demonstrates Farber’s special deftness in the art of interviewing—he is a very good interviewer indeed, though he does tend to ask presumptively leading questions, often to the irritation of those he’s interviewing, in order to get the answer he’s specifically looking for, whether those interviewed wish to say that or not.  Farber has six such interviews in “Spiritual Gift of Madness,” and they are the most interesting parts of the book, far more interesting, lively, and informative than Farber’s leaden, didactic prose in which he expresses his own viewpoint.  Indeed, the book outside the lively interviews is a stiff, terribly dogmatic and one-sided polemic in which Farber concedes nothing of value to any who disagree with his central thesis that the hallucinations and delusions of mental illness are anything but the Voice of God communicating with humanity.  His view on this is totalizing, Manichean and black-and-white, and he attributes nothing but malevolence and conspiracy to psychiatry itself, seeing evil when a more thoughtful and astute critic, such as Robert Whitaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Whitaker_(author)) in “Anatomy of an Epidemic” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780307452412-15) or Mark Vonnegut, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Vonnegut) in his own autobiographical account of mental illness, “The Eden Express,” (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781583225431-0) would see more correctly (as would I) malfeasance and self-serving “business as usual.”  Certainly, psychiatry as constituted today needs and deserves major criticism; however, in his totalizing rejection and ill-placed assertion of innate spirituality among those mentally ill, Seth Farber does only a disservice to such criticism with “Spiritual Gift of Madness.”              

 

 

 

Indiana’s Brain Drain—the problem that won’t go away

This is a reposting of the very first article I wrote for Examiner.com back in September 2009, and my direct honesty in writing about Indiana's still-continuing Brain Drain raised a slight maelstrom of concern, lest I be seen as tarnishing "images."  But I write it as I see it, no ifs, ands, or buts, the way an honest reporter should.  Slightly edited to bring it up-to-date--GF

According to the Indianapolis Star, the leading newspaper for the State of Indiana, 46.6% of Indiana’s recent college graduates leave the state annually, while the largest influx of in-migration to Indiana consists of those with less than a 10^th grade education.  Already, in a state with an economy that is still nearly 17% dominated by manufacturing, where layoffs are a major occurrence, only a third of Indiana’s workers have a high school diploma of the equivalent, and only 28% of Indiana’s workers in the prime age work group of 25-34 have college degrees.  This compares to 39% nationally.  Yet by 2025 60% of Indiana’s workforce will have to hold college degrees for the Indiana economy to stay productive. (Again from the Indianapolis Star.)

 

But right now a college graduate in Indiana is more likely to be told that she or he is “overqualified and underexperienced” and not hired, rather than hired.

 

I know that personally—for I am one of those “overqualified and underexperienced” college grads, are many of my friends and associates.  And like many of them, I work at CTB/McGraw-Hill in Indianapolis through the temp agencies Kelly Services or Dployit working the regular but strictly seasonal job of scoring the state school system standardized tests that have become de rigueur for the schools since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.  During the peak of the season, over 1,000 college grads are so employed—at a job which, while it requires a college degree, only pays as much as a security guard, with no benefits, and is essentially a niche job with few transferable skills.  (What we do is most akin to what is only part of a teacher’s job—grading tests and papers.)  Yet, for many of us, this is the most substantial employment we have all year round.

 

Jim Weddle, then General Manager for Kelly Services at CTB/McGraw-Hill, keenly aware of this pool of intellectual talent he had out there, has tried to shop around the list of Kelly employees scoring tests to other employers—to no avail.  Just not interested.

 

The recession has made things even worse, of course.  For example, during the 2009 test-scoring season at CTB/McGraw-Hill, from mid-March to mid-June, I saw returning to work many colleagues I hadn’t seen out there for the couple of years.  Their reason for coming back was all the same: laid off from the jobs they’d held previously, often with little prospect of being called back.

 

One such person in this situation is Jerry Hall, a lawyer eligible in Indiana to practice law, but unable to financially afford to do so.  For the last two years he’d had a steady but low-paying warehouse job that enabled him to get by, but he was laid off from that.  He was grateful that there was at least the test scoring to come back to, but had no idea of what he’d do for work when the season ended.  “I hope I can find a warehouse job that will pay me $8.00 an hour,” he said.  Right now he’s diligently looking for warehouse and other unskilled and semi-skilled work to tide him through—but Indiana had 10.7% unemployment in June 2009, considerably higher than the national average of 9.5%, so he was not optimistic.  More pointedly, even if he did have a client who would pay him for legal representation, he couldn’t afford to spend the time it takes to be an effective attorney, for his days have to be spent looking for work, and the regular 2010 test-scoring season won’t resume until mid-March, with little hope for windfall projects being available before then.

 

Ironically, Indiana employers have been importing college graduates from elsewhere to fill the few high-tech jobs available, while Indiana’s college graduates go underemployed and unemployed for “not having the right degree.”  Which defeats the very purpose of the stated official goal of educationally upgrading Indiana’s work force.  Because, for one thing, a college education goes far beyond vocational training, no matter how specialized and technical the profession one’s trained for; a real college education enhances one’s ability to think, to assess critically, to research, to expand one’s intellectual outlook, and to appreciate the arts and culture.  So, while Indianapolis, typical of other Hoosier cities in this regard, has a plethora of shopping malls and upscale restaurants, its dearth of artistic and cultural amenities is not something the truly educated person is going to find attractive.  He or she simply wants more than just shopping malls.

 

Perhaps no where is this better seen than is the latest boosterist fad being promoted to solve Indiana’s economic dilemma: replacing declining manufacturing jobs with new, highly-skilled jobs in biotech.  But Guidant, a biotech pioneer formerly in Indianapolis, left the state when it was bought by pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, and the state has not been able to attract significant biotech investment and venture capital since that departure.  Yet, what’s increasingly become a will o’ the wisp for the quintessentially Rust Belt Indiana economy is still touted widely by Indiana’s politicians and business leaders.  This despite that biotech is fast becoming just another economic development illusion that joins those other economic development illusions promoted in the past—such as Indianapolis becoming the amateur sports capital of the nation, or a major convention and tourism site. 

 

Recently, the Indianapolis Star touted the job-creating possibilities of biotech by pointing to the alleged job opportunities created by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co., and prosthetics manufacturer Cook Instruments, both of which had been in Indiana for quite some time—they had provided 7,200 jobs.  This in a state that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, had lost 156,000 jobs from May 2008 to May 2009!  Showing that Indiana’s weak economy hurts its workforce across the board, more than just the college-educated.

 

 

Indiana’s educational limitations, thus, are not constraints that confine just the college-educated, although that they certainly do that—Indiana’s lack of jobs and the substantial lack of education among its workers and potential workers cut everywhere.  Consider that Indianapolis Public Schools, IPS, the public school corporation for much of metropolitan Indianapolis, including its inner city, has an overall high school graduation rate of only 47%, as stated in the Indianapolis Star.  In some of the inner-city schools the rate is only 30%.  And of those who do graduate, half or more do not go on to higher education.  “We’re stuck,” said Philip Powell, Associate Professor of Business at Indiana University-Bloomington, in the Indianapolis Star.   “We’re stuck because we don’t have the knowledge base we need in the labor force.  A lot of that is because of our really mediocre primary and secondary educational system.”

 

 

              

                  

Indianapolis: Super Bowl city not so super

Not so super Indianapolis, Indiana's State Capital and largest city, as it was when it hosted Super Bowl XLVI, an event which, ironically, followed one of the absolutely worst seasons ever for the Indianapolis Colts.  Originally posted on Examiner.com--GF

 

By all standard measures, Indianapolis’ first hosting of a Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVI on February 5, 2012, was a resounding success.  Certainly that’s shown by glowing press coverage.  The Associated Press’ Tom Coyne penned a February 5 story, “No more Naptown: Super Bowl boosts Indy’s image,” that was long, detailed, extensive and fulsome in praise of Indianapolis in snagging Super Bowl XLVI.    “Scoring High Marks,” a February 7 story by Robert King in the Indianapolis Star, the city’s daily newspaper, specifically noted the very favorable impression as Super Bowl host Indianapolis had garnered among the professional sports news broadcasters and networks.  By all press reports (of which those above are only two), Indianapolis had successfully carried off one helluva splashy party that Super Bowl week.

 

But for us who live in Indianapolis, one successful special-event weeklong party doesn’t a successful city make.  For its residents, as opposed to those who came into town from outside specifically for the Super Bowl activities, Indianapolis is still beset by many, many problems and drawbacks.

 

For one thing, participating in Super Bowl week events, not to mention attending the big game itself, was prohibitively expensive for many residents.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Indianapolis-Carmel metropolitan area (Carmel being a suburban town just north of Indianapolis) still had an 8.6% seasonally-unadjusted unemployment rate in January 2012, which meant 76,500 living here were out of work, while many others had only part-time jobs when they wanted full-time, or had dropped out of the labor force altogether.  (Including these, by BLS methodology, nearly doubles the “official” unemployment rate, which measures only those without jobs who are actively seeking work.)

 

Further, parking one’s car in downtown Indianapolis, where the activities that week were, cost $20 per day; and although downtown was served by IndyGo, the city’s public bus system, many parts of Indianapolis aren’t served by public transportation at all, nor are any of the outlying suburban communities.  Just one of the reasons IndyGo is dubbed IndyDon’tGo or IndyWon’tGo by many Circle City residents.  (The moniker comes from Indianapolis having at the heart of downtown Monument Circle, a circular roadway enclosing the War Memorial, the city’s central landmark.)  Nor is public transportation all that convenient even for those areas that are served:  there are long waits between scheduled buses, and because of this, spending six hours’ time at Super Bowl activities could often cost bus riders eight-ten hours’ time when considering the wait for buses.

 

Downtown Indianapolis also presents a sharp contrast between the very rich and the very poor—intermixed with all the high-class hotels and upscale shops, restaurants and bars is a large population of homeless, many of whom are highly-visible street beggars.  Downtown is also home for the city’s missions that provide beds and meals for some of the homeless, though with harsh restrictions.  But they don’t even come close to serving all the homeless.

 

Back in fall 2011 Republican Mayor Greg Ballard succeeded with his plan to privatize the city’s parking meters, resulting not only in a considerable rise in parking rates, from 75¢ an hour to $1.00 an hour an even $1.50 an hour, but also extended the time parking fees had to be paid from 6 PM to 9 PM and eliminated Saturday free parking.  Ballard touted the “convenience” of the new meters which had to be installed, because they now made it possible to feed the meters by credit or debit card—but of course, only if the credit or debit card isn’t maxed out, which isn’t the case for many, including myself at the time (as I was unemployed during Super bowl week, and subsisting on only $150 per week unemployment compensation).

 

 Then there’s Indianapolis’ famous sewer overflow, a perennial problem and health hazard every time there’s a major rainfall or snow melt (neither of which occurred Super Bowl week, so the tourists didn’t have to notice—unlike year-round residents).  This problem stems from a sewer system that was put into place in the 19^th Century and not expanded essentially since then, despite considerable population growth.  The result is sewer water flooding the streets and overrunning river banks during heavy rainfall and snow melt, and it’s a problem that has plagued Indianapolis now literally for generations.  When I moved to Indianapolis in December 1979 residents were then grousing about the sewers, and had been for many years prior; and although everyone acknowledges the problem, political bickering on how it is to be financed, and who is to pay for it, has stymied action.  Due to the conservative nature of Indiana politics generally, which carries over into Indianapolis, the financing plans proposed so far have been regressive, substantially exempting rich property owners while disproportionately soaking the middle-class and poor instead.  The result has been gridlock over the truly-needed extensive overhaul and expansion of the Circle City’s sewer system.

 

While Indianapolis has 43% of Indiana’s college graduates according to the BLS, as

noted in an October 19, 2008 Indianapolis Star story, “Indy area is flourishing while rest of state falters,” it doesn’t mean that having a college degree in Indianapolis automatically translates into a high-paying, high-skill job for many of these graduates.  This results in many college degree-holders being rejected by many employers in low-education, low-skill Indiana as “overqualified,” and thus stuck in low-skill service jobs or only temporary employment.  (After all, 48.6% of Indiana’s college graduates leave the state upon graduation, precisely because of the lack of degree-level jobs.)  I can attest to this firsthand myself, as one who scored the standardized state system standardized tests in a local temp job that requires a college degree and temporarily but regularly employs nearly 1,000 college graduates during the yearly-recurring test-scoring season, but which provides employment only four-six months a year.  Since then, I’ve “moved on” to a permanent, full-time blue-collar warehouse job, grateful that my economics degree from Indiana University was simply ignored, not used against me!  And that was the only permanent full-time job offer I’d even received in the previous ten-and-a-half years.  My personal observations, plus anecdotal evidence, tells me that many of Indianapolis’ college graduates are insecurely employed, working strictly temp jobs when work is available, or if among the better-paid, are working as servers, bartenders, or other tipped employees in Indianapolis’ upscale restaurants, bars and hotels where no college degree is required.

 

Tom Coyne’s story cited above credits long-serving (1976-1991) Republican Mayor Bill Hudnut with making Indianapolis an eventual Super Bowl city.  Hudnut’s goal was to capture an NFL team for Indy, capitalizing on Indiana’s sports mania.  As Coyne put it:

 

In the 1970s, then-Mayor Bill Hudnut decided that sports was the ticket to revitalizing the city and putting it on the national map.

It seemed to be a good fit. Indianapolis was the capital of a sports-crazed state that had Notre Dame winning national football championships in the north, Indiana University winning national basketball championships in the south, the Indianapolis 500 in the middle and a high school basketball tournament that created Hoosier Hysteria.

 

Although Indianapolis already berthed the NBA Indiana Pacers, the team’s uneven playing record, propensity for brawling, and lack of fan support did not make basketball a big-ticket item.  To Hudnut and others, that required snagging an NFL team, which Indianapolis did in 1984, when the then-Baltimore Colts sneaked out of Maryland in the wee hours of the morning, under cover of darkness, and arrived in Indianapolis at dawn.

 

But even that didn’t do it all by itself.  The real ticket to NFL success in Indianapolis all came down to one man:  Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts’ quarterback from 1991 until released by Colts owner Jim Irsay on March 9, 2012.  It was Manning’s stellar playing for the Colts that made the team a top-rated NFL contender that went on to play in two Super Bowls and win one of them.  His reputation was key not only in getting Indianapolis to be the site of Super Bowl XLVI, but earlier, in persuading Indianapolis and the State of Indiana to specifically build for the Colts the brand-new Lucas Oil Stadium and tear down the still-serviceable, not-yet-paid-for Hoosier Dome the Colts now found inadequate, threatening to leave Indianapolis if a new stadium were not built. 

 

But as CNN reported, before Peyton Manning the Colts were a “laughingstock.”  They may become so again—during the 2011 NFL season, with Manning out the whole time because of recovery from neck surgery, the Colts were 2-14 for the football year in which Indianapolis hosted the Super Bowl!  The only honor the Colts snagged that season was the dubious one of having first choice in the upcoming NFL draft because of its bottom-of-the-barrel last-place finish.

 

Indianapolis’ turn-around from Naptown (where everyone napped) and IndiaNOPLACE has been based on an economic development strategy that could be called Third World:  using not just big-name sports, but conventioneering, upscale shopping and tourism as well, to attract big spenders from out-of-state and the affluent suburbs surrounding Indy to make the city flush with money.  But that success has come at the price of long neglect of those who actually live in Indianapolis—for the Circle City, along with Indiana as a whole, continues hemorrhaging well-paying manufacturing jobs and replacing them with low-paying service jobs, while, as mentioned above, nearly half the college-educated continue to leave the state.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2009 Indiana ranked below both the national and the Midwest averages for educational achievement among those 25 and older, and each year from 2006-2011 had a drop in per capita income, according to the Department of Commerce.  In just the last year, two major manufacturing plants in Indianapolis, the General Motors foundry and auto parts manufacturer Navistar, permanently closed their doors, further devastating an already-devastated East Side, once home to 100,000 manufacturing jobs.

 

So yes, while in certain ways Indianapolis has turned around, in other, also-crucial, ways it hasn’t at all.  Indianapolis still resembles all too much the final line in that venerable jazz standard, “You Came A Long Way From St. Louis”:  “You came a long way from Missouri/But baby, you still got a long way to go.”