Ill-Liberalism? Or, Rather, Is It “Far Left” Malaise? (A Critical yet Comradely Response to the Baffler on Liberalism)

 This was sent to the left-wing magazine The Baffler around Memorial Day 2024, but not published.  But it's too good not to share--GF

I’ve been subscribing to the Baffler for the past three years, ever since the May/June 2021 issue, and just renewed my subscription.  I confess to not reading a lot of the Baffler’s articles that have appeared, but then, I subscribe to a number of small magazines of the left and center-left, and don’t always read a lot of what’s in them, either.  But when I do read something that especially strikes my mind, sometimes it moves me, as a published writer and poet, to comment publicly.  And so I do so here, hopefully in the irreverent, snarky style the Baffler is noted for—although, I must admit, my arguments may be too earnest to entirely lend themselves to that approach!

 

Specifically, as an anti-authoritarian democratic socialist very much disenchanted with the results of the Bolshevik-legacy experiments in what Jacobin and others have called “state socialism,”  from the supposedly halcyon days of Lenin and Trotsky in power through the dark nights of rule by Stalin and later, Brezhnev, to foreign acolytes such as Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Cubans indigenous and transplanted such as Fidel, Raúl and Che right up to present-day Cuban “maximum leader,” Díaz-Canel, the more I’m struck by how they all failed to create a “workers’ paradise.”  Worse.  What they actually created was a world of Gulags and 3 AM knocks on the door by the political police, a world where even a supposedly innocuous critical comment could get one in deep trouble with the authorities, and where reformers ranging from 1956 Hungary’s Imre Nagy to 1968 Czechoslovakia’s Alexander Dubček to 1950s Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas right down to “official” reformers such as Khrushchev and Gorbachev all ended up banging their heads futilely at firmly-embedded brick walls; that is, when they weren’t killed, unceremoniously sacked, or jailed.  And that’s just to name a prominent few.  Many others not as well-known simply disappeared into the labyrinths of the various Gulags.  As, Bertrand Russell, someone with impeccable left-wing bona fides. noted in his 1920 study of Revolutionary Russia, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, written after visiting there in 1919 with the delegation of the British Independent Labour Party:  “…while some forms of socialism are immeasurably better than capitalism, others are even worse.  Among those that are worse I reckon the form which is being achieved in Russia, not only in itself, but as more insuperable barrier to further progress.”[1]  This is the same Bertrand Russell who writes two pages earlier, “The existing capitalist system is doomed.  Its injustice is so glaring that only ignorance and tradition could lead wage earners to tolerate it.”[2]  Other valuable eyewitness accounts of disillusionment with revolutionary Russia by eyewitnesses with impeccable left-wing bona fides include Emma Goldman’s My Disillusionment in Russia and Left Menshevik leader Iulii (Julius) Martov’s World Bolshevism.

 

There’s much other relevant literature available, needless to say, on other Bolshevik-legacy regimes, from post-World War II Eastern Europe to China, Vietnam, and Cuba from other critics with left-wing bona fides. 

 

All of which brings me back to the Baffler and my democratic socialism, or as others would put it, my “mere social democracy” and appreciation for DSA founder Michael Harrington’s “left wing of the feasible.”  I like a socialism that works and works well, and to date such has not come from the influence of Bolshevism, but from the European social democracy, and in the US, the legacy of the New Deal and yes, even the better aspects of the Great Society of LBJ.  This is not a political tradition, from what I’ve read in it, that the Baffler is particularly enamored with, but it has proved itself in actual practice to be a more workable one than that which has been handed down now for over a hundred years by the adherents of Bolshevism. It has also materially and psychologically benefitted millions across Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the US; has made for workers’ entry into the “middle class” and built trade unions; and, especially in the US, has created institutions such as Social Security, minimum wage guarantees, unemployment and workers’ compensation, Medicare and Medicaid which are not only taken for granted, but which have benefitted millions now for more than a few generations; as well as being programs that reactionaries love to hate and accuse of being fiscally irresponsible!  Yes, compared to the promises of “pie in the sky” in the world “after the Revolution” they are but “half a loaf.”  But truly, “half a loaf” is preferable to no loaf at all, especially one that is nowhere on the actual political horizon of 2024.  When one will settle only for “all or nothing,” one shouldn’t be at all surprised when one gets—absolutely nothing!  (For a good overview of what social democracy accomplished in Western Europe and Scandinavia, see Donald Sassoon’s 1996 One Hundred Years of Socialism [New York: The New Press].)

 

But the Baffler didn’t see this at all, particularly in its Sept. Oct. 2021 issue (#59), thematically titled “Ill Liberalism,” and which thinking in that issue still permeates the Baffler’s political approach.  It took liberalism to task in several leading articles, all designed to expose the inherent weaknesses of “mere liberalism” and demolish its pretentions,   It especially  took to task one of the smallest of small magazines, Liberties, a journal so small it’s truly obscure, though still publishing.  Further, the Baffler conflated liberalism as a political philosophy with “corporate liberalism” and “woke” corporations, neither of which is, or ever has been, as liberal or as awake as its PR portends (or is that, more properly, “pretends”?!)  But changing demographics do make for newly emerging markets, and today’s youth, the coming-of-age denizens of that prime buying group (those aged 25-55) do tend much more to the left, and far more conscious and supportive of social movements for racial and gender equality domestically than do past generations, as well as being more critical of US foreign policy.  Meanwhile, many of those in the ”Revolutionary Youth Movement” of the 1960s and 1970s have conservatized and drastically aged (and also, were vastly inflated in numbers in the first place), and are now those forlorn Baby Boomers who are on the way out.  “‘Woke’ corporations,” contrary to what people such as Ron DeSantis would have one believe, are not revolutionary firebrands whose “pernicious” influence is omnipresent, and is undermining capitalism and “traditional values”:  rather, they are savvy marketeers adopting to new market trends as they manifest themselves among those of prime buying age!  Rather than Revolution 101, “corporate ‘wokeness’” is far more an application of Marketing 101, taught in all the business schools worth their “genuinely organic” salt across this “land of the free, and home of the brave.”  It’s also a certain twinge of conscience (let’s be fair) among corporate elites, who feel one does not have to be an absolutely ruthless, heartless, dictatorial Robber Baron to make a decent profit.  Indeed, I, along with many on the left, might even feel more comfortable with sharing a beer and polite conversation with them than I ever would with someone such as Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, or J.D. Vance!  “So what?” goes the appropriate question. 

 

So, to put it in more directly left political terms (pace, Baffler!), the problem with liberalism is not so much that it is evil as it is seemingly inadequate.  It is applying a bandage when a torniquet is needed, according to those more attuned to the “far left.”  But this particular leftist, me, myself, and I, regard liberals of the ordinary grassroots stripe as the—Near Left!  Yes, they are “incrementalist;” yes, they are closer to the center than to the left, particularly the “far left;” yes, they are more comfortable with “piecemeal” solutions, and want to make sure something is tested and true before being implemented.  So what?  That makes liberalism cautious, that’s all.  The same charge was leveled against the European social democrats who put into place social democracy and the welfare state (more successfully than was done in the US).  “Why settle for mere national healthcare when you can have a thoroughgoing Revolution?” the critics’ refrain went.  Why?  Because the thoroughgoing Revolution is a pipe dream, that’s why!  We can look to Bolshevik-legacy “state socialism” and see that, and more—not just Gulags, but vital material goods shortages!  Not just censorship, but interminable queues!  As a democratic socialist quite “satisfied” to “settle for” a greater social democracy in this country, and hope to hell my hopes aren’t dashed by the triumph of a fascistic Christian Nationalism and recrimination such as that associated with today’s Donald Trump and the Republican Party, that is why I’m going to reach out to the Near Left of grassroots liberalism, and try to win them over as coalition allies!

 

Because that’s what real-world politics is all about: building coalitions to achieve positive results in the here-and-now.  Period.  Not demanding agreement on all points, only ones that mutually concern us at the present, to achieve realistic goals now and in the foreseeable future.  Not, decidedly not,  for the Final Result in the chiliastic Millennium where everything, yes, everything, is “perfect forever”!  In doing this, I don’t reach out to potential coalition partners the way I would to potential members of an affinity group, or those whom I want to put on the guest list for my trendy party.  No, I just want coalition partners who are dependable enough to work constructively with me to achieve concrete goals that are “the left wing of the feasible.”  So, let that be “incremental.”  I can also fight for more on the day or days after the initial victory, and victories, even if small, are always better at morale-building than defeats, no matter how glorious the defeated cause.  That, my Baffler friends, is how Politics 101 is actually done in the real world.  That is what Bernie Sanders did in 2016 and 2020 with such great success.  The “far leftists” accused Sanders of mere “sheepdogging” for the Democratic Party, but truth is, Bernie Sanders did more to build what today we can call a reasonably vibrant left than did all the “communists,” “Marxist-Leninists,” “pure Marxists” and “anarchists” who preceded him.  Thanks to Bernie, we have more vibrancy on the left, and more left politicians in office, than we had before his two “sheepdogging” campaigns—and I say, let us never forget that!

 

As for issues to emphasize, I would recommend domestic issues that attract the interest of millions, and stay clear as much as possible from emphasizing foreign policy issues on which only a handful are really expert (despite all sorts of pretensions otherwise), and which easily degenerate into “left” sectarian dogfights, as we are currently seeing, e.g., on Gaza, the Ukraine, and China.  Keep demands simple and direct, and don’t worry overmuch about whether they are “merely incremental” or not.  On the immediate issue of Gaza, which is certainly not going to go away anytime soon, a simple demand for a “ceasefire” enforceable on both parties, Israel and Hamas, is all the realistic left can ask for, and still get widespread public support.  Without widespread public support nothing gets done effectively, and certainly not in a society with democratic norms and practices.  If the reluctant masses do acquiesce in being forced to follow a particular course, they do so sullenly and passive-aggressively, as the whole sorry history of Bolshevik-legacy “already existing socialism” (to use Brezhnev’s euphemistic phrase) so amply shows.  That, my Baffler friends, is what I recommend on politics and dealing with liberals as a democratic socialist in the tradition of Michael Harrington’s “left wing of the feasible."           

 

---

[1] From the 1962 edition published in the US by Simon and Schuster, p.21.

[2] Ibid., p. 19.

The Transgender Imbroglio

 My best friend and closest political comrade Barry Finger, who, like me, is a decades-long left activist, thinker, and writer, reviewed my blog below before I posted, at my request, and said this of it:  "I think your manner of approaching this is kind and expansive, without a trace of demagoguery. It dials the passion down, which is exactly what should be done."  I hope it is received in that spirit--GF

I realize I’m opening the proverbial can of worms by bring up this topic the way I am going to do here, but what I’m going to write below on transgender issues I’m writing because not only do I think it is important, but also, there’s a lot of major confusion on the issues involved.  So, I write to invoke clarity on the issue.  I won’t be surprised if I’m misunderstood on this, but I can’t help or avoid that if I am to be honest.

 

To start off, let me restate the obvious:  the transgender opponents of the far right, the right-wing Culture Warriors such as Ron DeSantis, are reprehensible.  They are using scare tactics and red herring scenarios to promote an openly bigoted agenda based on dubious “what if” scenarios, e.g., males entering women’s bathrooms or locker rooms as phony “females.”  These are the same Culture Warriors who rejoiced when Roe v. Wade was overturned, who want to impose Christian Nationalism on the US public despite the US’s deliberate founding as a secular nation, who are against gay marriage, and even no-fault divorce, contraception, in vitro fertilization, and a whole range of other measures that have made life in the US more bearable than it was when it was under the thrall of “tradition.”  They are truly despicable, and that goes without saying.

 

But among these I do not include feminist transgender critics such as J.K. Rowling and Kathleen Stock.  Their criticisms are of a different, more valid, order, and they are undeservedly maligned as TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists, as if somehow their feminism was corrupted and fake).  The truth is, there is such a thing as biological sex, and it does not go away just because someone of one biological sex feels differently about what is his/her “real” sexual identity.  Fact is, rapes of biological women have occurred in women’s shelters and prisons by transgender biological males, and many women who use such shelters to protect themselves from abusive males do not at all feel comfortable as sharing such safe spaces with biological males, no matter that such males do not consider themselves male at all.  I consider these valid objections, and quite simply, biological sex doesn’t just go away because of one’s subjectivity.  That is why such disconnect between gender and sex is called a “dysphoria,” meaning a mismatch, a glaring contradiction between biological objectivity and psychological subjectivity.  Quite simply put, biological males have penises and testicles, and produce sperm; biological females have vaginas, and within them have uteruses, fallopian tubes, and produce eggs to be fertilized by sperm to reproduce new humans.  Surgery nowadays can create an artificial penis or vagina, but cannot create the inner workings of such—such created organs are not able to biologically reproduce, the whole biological purpose of sex and different sexual parts in the first place.  For those feeling transgender, a mismatch between psychological identity and biological sex is automatically built-in, and there’s nothing automatic in any psychology that can replace biology.  No social construct, no subjective sense of identity, nothing. 

 

However, a medically diagnosable gender dysphoria is real, and affects a small number of people (I’ll say more on that below, with statistics).  It is a chronic unease and anxiety due to a sense of mismatch between one’s biological sex and one’s perceived sexual identity, and are rooted in nerve pathways rather than in the brain, though the evidence for this is not presently conclusive.  Genetics and heredity also play a part.  Still, it is there, causes extreme distress, is unrelated to sexual orientation (i.e., preference for sexual partners of one particular sex or the other), and is included in the latest edition of  the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (the bible of psychiatric diagnosis classifications), DSM-5.  However, it is found only in 0.005-0.014% of the male population, and only 0.002-0.003% of the female population (biological sex in both cases).  That means that in the US, with an overall present population of 335,000,000 in round numbers (as taken from the US Census) with a 50-50 split between males and females (also taken from the Census, June 22, 2024), the number of gender dysphoric males and females overall ranges from 117,250-294,750.  Far smaller than the population of Indianapolis where I live, or many another medium or small city!  Contrast these numbers to the number of hermaphrodites (i.e., people with both male and female genes), 1.7% of the population, or 5,695,000 people; schizophrenics, 1% of the population, or 3,350,000 people; people who are bipolar, 2.8% of the population, or 9,380,000; or depressives, i.e., people who suffer from depression, 8.3% of the population, or 27,805,000 people.  So, the number of people with actual, genetically based, biological gender dysphoria is quite small.  However, of course, culture wars over transgender, both from the left as from the right, as well as social environmental concerns, e.g., mental illness, peer pressure, cultural and social susceptibility, the Internet and the way it promotes certain social identities, have evidently created a phenomenon far larger than the actual number of such individuals.  This is a societal “ill” at least as much as it is a biological or genetic one.

 

Yes, for certain sectors of the left, especially the Western left, gender dysphoria or transgenderism is quite “hip,” quite trendy, and attracts more people to it that there are actual biological people with gender dysphoria.  Or so it certainly seems.  This was borne out by a recent polling at elite Brown University, where 40% of the students identified as homosexual or transgender (whereas the actual percentage of male homosexuals is 10% of the male population, and female homosexuals, 5% of the female population, according to Dr. Kinsey’s classic study of sexual prevalence in the US).  In fact, in certain sections of the left it’s quite faddish and fashionable to be anything but a heterosexual male or female!  Moving the issue from biology to social psychology and sociology.

 

In fact, one has honestly to admit, the disconnect between those identifying as transgender, and those with actual gender dysphoria, makes gender dysphoria diagnosis, treatment, and the place of the gender dysphoric in society a matter of cultural and social norms, along with peer pressure, every bit as much, if no more, than biological and genetic factors.  That’s why it’s become a major “culture wars issue” for both the right and the left, why it’s led to such acrimony, cultural shaming and affirmation, and such divisiveness, with “culture wars” hostility on both sides of the divide.  Missing on both sides, of course, is regard for the gender dysphoric as human beings; they are but “culture wars” chess pieces, to be maneuvered and even sacrificed as the strategy of either left or right demands.  Humanity and humanism once again fall by the wayside. As much victims of left intransigence as they are of right bigotry and insistence on “proper” sexual norms.

 

Further, on the standard treatment regimen for gender dysphoria, the application of puberty blockers, initiation of hormone treatments, and even massive surgery:  while the majority view as expressed in scientific papers appears to be that such treatment is effective, there is also a significant minority of such that states it isn’t.  As an example, one 2020 review of the literature found 51 papers positively affirming such treatment as effective; however, 4 papers stated such treatment’s effects were null or negative.  A small number of papers on both sides, which means there quite simply may not be a statistically significant sample of participants in such studies as to draw meaningful scientific conclusions.  (Later, as more research came in, more negative studies were written, as reported reliably in the US newsweekly The Week, January 26, 2024.)  Certainly, treatments through puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and even major surgery are medically invasive, and the ethics of such, not to say common sense, informs us that such major means of treatment had better be of very high efficacy and easily medically justified.  That, to this author, doesn’t seem to be the case right now.  Especially with being transgender somewhat of a societal “fad,” at least in some social circles, it may well be that some people are being “treated” for a gender dysphoria they don’t genetically have.  Further, remember, though it’s cynical, it’s also realistic to remember—medicine is a business, and major medical treatments command major revenues for the doctors involved. Moreover, as there are a number of transgender clinics now in the Western world, where the diagnosis of gender dysphoria seems like its given automatically, are these clinics really effective treatment centers, or are they more akin to the oxycontin “clinics” that fueled the opioid addiction crisis?  Seems to me, a good answer is, “We just don’t know.”  As the field right now is very much unregulated.  (Worth briefly mentioning is that certain illnesses are more prominent in biological women than in biological men, e.g., breast cancer and lupus; and in biological men, of course, testicular cancer and the rare penis cancer [which occurs only in uncircumcised men].  So, wouldn’t it be medical malpractice to treat transgenders without regard for their original biological sex for these biological sex-based illnesses and their biologically based prevalences?)

 

Social factors and peer pressure simply can’t be ignored propellants in the explosion of persons identifying as transgender.  Especially among young teenagers, social and peer pressure are immense; yet the decision to change one’s gender is permanent, and adolescence is also a volatile time.  Is it really smart or correct to allow an adolescent to undergo such major sex change treatment when that adolescent isn’t even old enough to get a learner’s permit to drive an automobile?  Can’t get a tattoo without signed parental permission?  Can’t vote, let alone drink alcohol or consumer tobacco or vape legally?  And how many of us in real life made such major conclusions about our life identities that we didn’t change later?  How many of us are what we were as teenagers, only just older?  Very few, if any, I’d say.  Certainly, I’m not the person I was at 12, or 16, or even 18; and even what I was in my late twenties or early thirties corresponded very precious little to my adolescent expectations, desires and wishes, not to say identities.  Yet, when it comes to identifying as gender dysphoric, we allow mere adolescents to make such permanent choices even before they’re legally able to drive an automobile!

 

The whole matter thus calls for a big warning sign:  “Proceed with caution.”  But the “culture wars” left dismisses such caution as transphobia, unfortunately, while the “culture wars” right is openly and demagogically transphobic.  I say, both sides are wrong, terribly, simplistically, wrong.  “Proceed with caution” needs to be our societal watchword.  Period.

 

Especially since an identity or diagnosis as transgender doesn’t negate biology.  Biological males are still male, still have testosterone as the major sexual hormone, same as biological females have estrogen.  Further, and this is especially important for sports, biological males, even if transgender, especially those not biologically “neutered” by early hormone treatments, are bigger, stronger, weigh more, and are taller generally than the corresponding biological females.  Certainly, this is bound to create a valid sore spot among women athletes, who might well feel subject to unfair competition—as has happened.  Not to mention rapes in prisons and in women’s centers by transgender “women” who are actually biological males.  After all, one’s social or individual psychological identity does not negate the biological “facts of life.” 

 

Nor does extensive sexual surgery create a fully biological male or female.  While an artificial penis can be surgically created, it does not ejaculate the sperm that fertilizes the biological woman’s egg.  An artificial vagina can similarly be created, but again, without the biological function of the real biological one.  It can’t hold eggs for fertilization by male sperm.  And it is reproduction that drives sexuality and sexual differentiation biologically in the first place!

 

Such is certainly far from being a mere “social construct.”  While we can be many things societally, in the end it is based substantially on what we are biologically, and that can’t be brushed aside.  Societal norms of what it means to be “male” or “female” ultimately come down to the biological question of producing offspring.  Without such, the species does not survive.  As true for humans as it is for fishes, or salamanders.

 

That is why the transgender imbroglio is truly an imbroglio, a conflict where social norms often conflict with biological realities, which do not disappear because we within society would like them to disappear.  Throw in peer pressure, changing societal expectations, cultural fluidity, and the dividing up of the public into us vs. them tribes, and the imbroglio truly becomes an intense one, one for which, this author believes, there just is no easy answer except “Proceed with caution,” meaningfully regulate the transgender clinic and transgender clinic industries, understand that major invasive processes such as the standard treatments for gender dysphoria require a firmer scientific and ethical basis than they have now, and that, diagnostically, it is mandatory that real gender dysphoria be distinguished from mere adolescent whim and bowing to peer pressure.

 

But how should we treat those who identify as transgender, no matter what the cause of it?  With kindness, dignity, and respect, of course.  They are, above all, human beings, and even if we think them wrong, we do not negate their humanity.  And we shouldn’t through rejectionist bigotry.  Period.            

 

Mental Health Writings: Clarification--My Very Last Communication to the Circle City Clubhouse

 On Monday, July 15, 2024, I inquired of the status of my "Open Letter to the Members and Staff of the Circle City Clubhouse," which I had hoped would be circulated and commented on, even though it was highly critical; deservedly so, in my opinion.  My phone call was transferred to Jay Brubaker, the Executive Director, who claimed he didn't respond to "personal insult," and then abruptly, most rudely, hung up.  This inspired me to send this very last "Clarification" to the Circle City Clubhouse, which I will no longer communicate with.  As I state, I do not mean to "personally insult" anyone, but I consider Brubaker an utter incompetent, the "professional staff" (all of whom have college degrees) a passive bunch of glorified babysitters willing to accept really paltry wages, and the fellow mental health consumers at the Clubhouse taken for a ride, and they don't even know it.  I'm far too busy in my actual mental health recovery to bother with the Circle City Clubhouse anymore.  Although I would like to tell Clubhouse International, the national governing body of Clubhouses in the US, that Circle City desperately needs to be dis-accredited for being not a place for mental health recovery, but a warehouse where mental health consumers stagnate instead--GF 

It is indeed a shame that the Clubhouse did not see fit to circulate my "Open Letter," and to thus regard me as a second-class member, even though I'm supposedly equal to any other member, which I'm obviously regarded as not.  Recalls, of course, Orwell's "Some are more equal than others," needless to say.  But, while I don't mean this at all as a "personal insult," I do have to say that I have known Jay Brubaker since the beginning of 2016, a good 8 1/2 years now, and regard him as an incompetent and ineffective Executive Director, who has made the Clubhouse not a place for mental health recovery, but a mere warehouse and rest lounge for those not recovered who are denied the tools for recovery by the same Clubhouse, through its inadequate programs, lack of programs, and a "professional staff" that is nothing more than extremely underpaid glorified baby-sitters.  What does the Clubhouse pay its staff now, all of whom are required to have college degrees?  Undoubtedly less than what I make at my job, which requires only a high school diploma, and sometimes not even that, even though I have, of course, a college degree myself (bachelor's in economics, Indiana U.-Bloomington).  But I make $17.60 an hour for doing physically challenging blue-collar mindless menial work--yes, mindless menial work, same as the Clubhouse "provides" in its "work-oriented" program, only with the Clubhouse members required to do so for free!  $17.60/hr., or $704.00/week, vs. free.  And do "professional staff" even make $15.00/hr.?  I doubt it.  When the unlamented Scott worked there, I asked him what he made, and from the info he gave me, deduced he made only $11.50/hr.  The last time I made less than $12.00/hr. at my job was prior to October 2015!  And because of union contact, I'm guaranteed annual wage increases, so that my pay at my job has increased well over 60% since I've been there!  (By the way, to the staff I'd like to say, as an active and staunch trade unionist, "Why do you allow yourself to be demeaned by working for such wages?  Have you no gumption?")  As for mental health recovery, I've completely recovered and live an active "normal" life with a supportive friendship network, a nice apartment where I live without the burden of roommates, own my own car, actively participate in the community and have a social life, and do what I treasure most, continue to write, read, and be intellectually and aesthetically creative!  None, absolutely none, of that was due to the Clubhouse in any way.  The Clubhouse, far from being a community of supportive fellow mental health consumers for me, was exactly its opposite, and is now disapproved of by both my former psychotherapists (I've successfully completed psychotherapy, which was most helpful and enabling), and by my friends network, all of whom had hoped that in the Clubhouse I would find the supportive mental health community I deserved.  It is anger at my disappointing experiences with the Clubhouse that drives me to criticize it, as my fellow mental health consumers definitely deserve better than what they get (or mor accurately, don't get, which is so overwhelmingly much) from the Circle City Clubhouse! 

So I say not "Adieu" but "Good Riddance!"  However, as one last involvement, I would like to speak to the representatives of Clubhouse International when Circle City Clubhouse comes up for re-accreditation.

Cheers!

George Fish      

Mental Health Writings: OPEN LETTER TO THE MEMBERS AND STAFF OF CIRCLE CITY CLUBHOUSE

 written by

George Fish,

mental health consumer,

Clubhouse member

since January 2016

 (It's time someone finally called out that close-to-an-absolute scam, the Clubhouse system for mental health consumers that's supposed to aid in their recovery (but doesn't, in many cases), and which vary in quality so widely one often wonders if different Clubhouses are even in the same Clubhouse system!  Certainly, one of the very worst is the Circle City Clubhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana, to which this "Open Letter" addresses itself--GF)

Yes, I’ve been a Clubhouse member since the beginning of 2016, although I deliberately haven’t been active since the pre-COVID days before 2020.  I did return once not quite a year ago, in 2023, as an example of positive mental health recovery, and even shared a document I had written on my recovery, which was well received (and actually read!) by Clubhouse members, and which was originally recommended for publication in the Clubhouse newsletter; but that was scotched by the then-Assistant Executive Director, Pat, who claimed that my recovery was strictly a “personal” one (whatever that means!), and besides, I’d also urged Clubhouse members to make more demands on staff members to make sure their needs were met (isn’t that what Clubhouse staff members are there for?), which was a big “No-no” for Pat.  Yet, “personal” or not, for my recovery really had nothing to do with the Clubhouse, my recovery is very much real, and is recognized as such by all those who did Know Me When, and now know me as I am now.

 

However, unlike almost all the new Clubhouse members who are interviewed for the Clubhouse newsletter (by the way, a very insipid and too much real-content-free newsletter), I was not doing nothing before I joined the Clubhouse.  I had just started a full-time job that previous summer, on August 15, 2015, and, though very late in life, I was now employed in a job that was permanent, layoff-free, which paid decently, and had union protection!  I was also actively engaged in very effective psychotherapy, and had been since July 2014, and was to remain in active therapy until the end of June 2019—69 months of most helpful psychotherapy to make up for 47 years of very bad, frequently malfeasant, and very ineffective psychiatric treatment I’d endured at CMHCs (Community Mental Health Centers) and university clinics from September 1965 to beginning of June 2012!  Further, even though it took me 11 years, I’d also earned a university degree (Bachelor of Arts in economics, Indiana University), and had, through Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation, earned a certificate as a paralegal—while also suffering from my mental disorder of a schizoid personality disorder and chronic depression.  So, unlike way too many Clubhouse members, I was far from doing nothing before I came to the Clubhouse!  Where too many come, I’m afraid, simply because the housekeepers, supposed mental health professionals, and others refer them simply to get them from being underfoot.  And to my mind, too often this is just substituting one kind of warehousing for another. 

 

Yes, I’ll be blunt, as I will be throughout this Open Letter.  In fact, from reading the Clubhouse newsletter, I know of only two exceptions:  one was a college graduate like me, and was an active rap singer; the other, Alec C, has a good union job at UPS.  So, both were far from dead-end kids with too little gumption to make anything of their lives—which, unfortunately, is not the case with far too many Clubhouse members of my acquaintance.  As an excellent psychotherapist I once had put it so well, “Recovery means meeting challenges and overcoming them.”  However, one does not come to the Clubhouse to learn how to “overcome;” one too often comes to the Clubhouse simply to mark time, and do unpaid menial labor, for which there is zero reward.  Some have been coming to the Clubhouse for years, and are no more on the track to recovery after all those years than they were at the beginning.  Far too often, the Clubhouse, with its terrible dearth of programs, is just someplace you come to kill time and stagnate.   

 

I was active in the Circle City Clubhouse from January 2016 until late summer 2019.  I remember my first introductory orientation to the Clubhouse well:  I was impressed initially with what it seemed to offer; at last, I had found a welcoming home as a mental health consumer!  However, what I hadn’t realized at the time was that my hosts were but able presenters, they had been scripted well.  When they were off-script, as they later were at the Clubhouse, they were both horrible and knew little to nothing, although both liked to opine based on their really substantive lack of knowledge!  My next encounter at the Clubhouse was the beginning of the disillusionment—here I encountered one of my original hosts, Nathan, going off on a ten-minute rant about how he, an evangelical Christian, wished he could afford to tithe, even though he was broke and couldn’t hold a job for any length of time!  I also encountered Clubhouse cliquishness, as no one ever greeted me or said even “Hi” to me this whole time of 2016-2019.  Despite this, I participated; and my outside friends were really glad I had at last found a place congenial to sharing my experiences, substantially negative, as a mental health consumer.  Alas, it was not to be!  The last thing Clubhouse members were was open about their experiences and encounters as mental health consumers; very quickly, I realized how mind-dead almost all of them were, especially the regular attendees.  I shared my mental health writings I’d done earlier with the Clubhouse, donating copies to the Clubhouse library, which were soon lost, and with no staff member knowing what had happened to them, which, to me, was an unacceptable travesty.  Didn’t the staff exercise normal supervisory duties over the Clubhouse members?  The answer, I found out, was No, that “benign neglect” was the way of the Clubhouse world, even when it led irresponsibly to my documents getting irretrievably lost.  Which was so shameful I can never forgive the Clubhouse for allowing that to happen.

 

All this despite my initially being quite active in the Clubhouse, notably from the time I joined, in January 2016, until the summer of 2018, and even somewhat afterward.  For example, I published eight articles under my byline in the Clubhouse newsletter, the most that anyone has published under his/her byline.  I also prepared for the 2018 Clubhouse retreat a 14-page paper of suggestions on how the Clubhouse could be improved, and gave specifics in this paper on just what I found wrong and inadequate with the Clubhouse.  I penned fourteen pages out of love!  Yes, tough love, but that’s legitimate love, especially when I saw the Clubhouse messing up, functioning quite badly.  Alas, I wasn’t even allowed to present my paper, even though then-Assistant Executive Director Lindsay Brock promised me I’d be allowed to.  (No longer employed at the Clubhouse, where Executive Director Jay Brubaker was her supervisor, she’s now Jay’s live-in girlfriend, although he calls her his “fiancé;” however, in this “woke” age, supervisors having even consensual sexual relations with work subordinates have gotten into deep trouble for it.)  When my paper was finally introduced as part of the day’s agenda, Brock, instead of calling on me to present an outline of my tome, turned the floor over to others instead, people who had never read my paper, but who criticized me sharply for even writing it.  One of those persons who did this was long-time Clubhouse member Savella, and she was followed by another woman who essentially repeated Savella.  Long-time member Nathan again then chimed in, attacking me for not spending more time at the Clubhouse despite what he knew to be true, that I worked full-time, I was fully self-supporting because of my job, and thus didn’t have the “leisure” to hang around the Clubhouse that Nathan did, because he always seemed to be regularly unemployed!  (Holding a job for a while, only to lose it.)  All this was hardly fair to me, but no one at the Clubhouse objected, neither members nor staff—even though it was obvious that my specific voice was being summarily silenced!  

 

Of course, I differed substantively from most Clubhouse members, even though, like them, I had a psychiatrically diagnosed mental illness.  For one thing, I’m a college graduate, who, even though it took me 11 years, still graduated despite my mental illness! I’m also employed full-time, and completely self-supporting—no welfare, no SSDI, no SSI, no working merely part-time when I wanted full-time work, and now, because I also receive Social Security and a small pension from my employer in addition to my wages, make $48,000 a year and own outright my own car.  I’m also a talented, extensively published writer and poet whose writer’s biographies appear in Who’s Who in America for both 2019 and 2020!  In other words, I had (and have still) a lot of gifts that could’ve been real assets to the Clubhouse, and to its members, but I was prevented from using them properly, even though I had wanted to.  In other words, I was shunned by the Clubhouse, by members and staff alike. 

 

The only Clubhouse staffer who had any positive regard for me was Peter Hofstetter, the Clubhouse’s best employee ever, and one of the first to be laid off because of COVID, while far less able Clubhouse staffers kept their jobs.  A horrible mistake on the Clubhouse’s part, for which the Clubhouse bears full responsibility.  Peter was conscientious and able, which can’t be said of all Clubhouse staffers, most of whom are nothing more than do-little-or-nothing glorified babysitters.  Of course, Clubhouse staff wages (except at the top) are abysmal, but since most Clubhouse staffers do almost nothing, and don’t even do a good job at the little they do, it’s only “fitting” in a way they are paid like the teenage babysitters they essentially are—even though they’re older than teenagers and are required to have college degrees!  I’m in the union at my job, and as an active trade unionist I look askance at the paltry wages Clubhouse staffers accept.  (Wages so low that Peter, when he worked at the Clubhouse, was forced to dip into his savings to maintain himself on his job, as he had a wife and children to also support.)  I remember asking a former staffer (not Peter) how much he was making, and from the info he gave me, I calculated he was only making around $11.50 an hour—this in the late part of the second decade of the 21^st Century!  I hope you staffers are now doing better than that, though I really doubt it; if you are, most likely it isn’t by much; and why you would stomach such low wages when you are required to “earn” them by having a college degree in the first place, I find exceptionally appalling! 

 

At my own blue-collar job, which requires only a high school diploma (and sometimes not even that, if one has an especially stellar work record), I started out in August 2015 at $10.70 and hour, which went to $12 an hour in October that year, and built-in annual wage increases even since, doe to our union contract.  I’m now up to $17.60 an hour, an over 60% increase!  Furthermore, and needless to say, my making halfway decent money at my job is also therapeutic for my mental health recovery.  Which is why I refuse to do any work at the Clubhouse, as it is for free, i.e., it is, by definition, slave labor.  Were the Clubhouse to have  assigned me to college graduate-level jobs, I might’ve considered working for free; however, since all Clubhouse jobs are mindless menial labor, I’m not about to do them for free.  I do mindless menial labor at my regular job, and I’m not about to do any such for free!  It’s either pay me adequately, or expect no work whatsoever from me!

 

Nor does the Clubhouse do anything substantial for its members to find and hold jobs, a key part of re-entry into “normal” societal life.  In the first place, the Clubhouse focuses on resume writing, which is useful only for professional positions; it’s job applications that have to be filled out to get the prospective employer’s attention, not resumes, and most employers are wanting to know the applicant’s job record for the previous five years—and it the applicant doesn’t have one, or it’s not a good one, that’s a hurdle that has to be jumped over.  Clubhouse staff should be helping prospective jobseekers how to overcome that, but aren’t.  Also, they should be helping jobseekers to know where to look for work, and how to properly pass a job interview.  Again, the Clubhouse staff does none of those things.  The Clubhouse further has far too few Transitional Employers, can’t seem to recruit more, and can’t seem to hold onto them in many cases.  Again, the staff should be working with Executive Director Jay Brubaker and the Clubhouse Board of Directors  to overcome that.

 

Further, from what I can gather, many Clubhouse members are high school dropouts, a sure killer of a decent future.  The Clubhouse staff should be offering programs to help members get their high school diplomas, or if that’s not possible, their GEDs.  The Clubhouse staff should also be helping people develop literacy and math skills, should be recommending books to Jay and the Board that they should include in the Clubhouse library, and insist that the Clubhouse library have a budget to purchase books.  The staff should also be encouraging members to read, and to utilize the Clubhouse and public libraries.  Last, the staff should cajole, gently and tactfully, yet insistently, Clubhouse members to show gumption and initiative, and actively set goals for themselves, all the better to achieve mental health recovery.  One is not “recovered” simply because on is on SSDI or SSI and doing nothing; recovery means holding a “normal” job, and interacting in society like “normal” persons, not like people with debilitating disabilities.

 

Yes, the Clubhouse staff, from the top down, from Executive Director and Assistant Executive Director on down, has to be more proactive in cajoling and incentivizing Clubhouse members to show gumption and not be so passive!  Also, Clubhouse members need to “importune” staff members to fulfill their needs, set up programs to fulfill those needs, and to ensure that staffers are meeting their needs.  This toddler-neglectful babysitter relationship between members and staffers has got to end!

 

The Circle City Clubhouse makes the outrageous claim that 310 of its members, out of a total membership since its existence of 320, have recovered!  This is a pure lie.  Truth is, most people who ever attended the Clubhouse either dropped out, or showed up once, at their orientation meeting, and were never heard from again.  But I say, they didn’t leave because they “recovered,” they left because they saw how little the Clubhouse had to offer them.  (One of the reasons I also left the Clubhouse.)  But of the 320 members who’ve come (and usually have gone) through the Clubhouse, only about 20 are active participants, and they tend to be the same old participants.  Which I’ll say it bluntly, only indicates that they’re—stagnating!  They somehow enjoy the meaninglessness of Clubhouse life; but they certainly aren’t “recovering” from their mental illnesses. 

 

The Clubhouse spends an inordinate amount of time on fund raising, for what ends no one knows, and, again, just as with Clubhouse household maintenance, dragoons Clubhouse members to assist in fund-raising activities, once again, for free.  Unconscionable, same as having members do Clubhouse maintenance work for free!  Clubhouse members deserve to be paid for their work; not to do so is to use them as slave labor, as I’ve also said above.                

 

I’m just not impressed by Executive Director Jay Brubaker, whom I’ve known since 2016, and know him to have one, and only one, real talent, that of schmoozing.  He knows how to schmooze the Clubhouse Board, he knows how to schmooze the naïve Clubhouse members, he knows how to schmooze away any objections that staff might have; in other words, he’s skilled at that, but nothing more.  He’s a failed lawyer who could be making a lot more money were he a halfway decent one.  He’s just skilled at getting away with stuff.  He once tried to punish me for being too “negative” about the Clubhouse, then denied he’d ever threatened me with reprisal, but then I showed him the e-mail he’d sent me threatening me, and he had to retreat, bleating lamely that acting against me “was not [his] intent”!

 

However, Jay could have used his lawyer’s background and, presumably, the lawyering skills it gave him to advise the Clubhouse members when they drew up their statement for the Clubhouse on what would be allowed in the newsletter in terms of articles, and what one could say in the newsletter.  As it was, the statement drawn up was much more restrictive than legally required, and Jay could’ve properly used his legal skills to advise these neophyte members in drawing up a proper statement, one that was fully in accordance with statute law and court rulings, but was also not overly restrictive.  This “hands off” approach that seems to be required of Jay and the staff actively works against the best wishes of the Clubhouse members, however, as they lack the expertise that Jay and the staffers supposedly have.  After all, Jay and the staff all have to possess college degrees to even work in the Clubhouse, so presumably they’d have good ranges of expertise—something valuable to ordinary Clubhouse members!  But alas, ordinary Clubhouse members are just cast off to drift, to muddle through inexpertly, by the Clubhouse’s strict “hands off” approach, an approach that hurt me personally when, due to lack of proper supervision, my mental health writings given gladly as a gift to the Clubhouse were unconscionably lost forever.  Passive babysitters are definitely not what the Clubhouse needs!

 

In ending, let me point out that my absence from the Clubhouse has also been a time of—active mental health recovery for me!  My mental health is sterling, the result of five years and nine months of excellent psychotherapy done by compassionate and understanding mental health professionals.  I have finally put my dismal decades of horrible mental health treatment at the hands of CMHCs and university clinics, the quintessential poor people’s mental health treatment outlets, far behind me. (I feel for all of you still having to use the CMHCs for your mental health treatment, because they can be so terribly inadequate, especially in Indiana, which ranks 45^th out of the 51 states plus D.C. in terms of adequacy of mental health services.  I lucked out.  I was able to find excellent private alternatives that accepted my Medicare. [I don’t know any private provider who’ll accept Medicaid.])   I am no longer in therapy, and I am also no longer interested in participating in the Clubhouse, save in only one regard—when Clubhouse International comes around to review the Circle City Clubhouse’s accreditation, and how well it is doing its job (which is, let me bluntly say, doing it inadequately), then I’d like to address the Clubhouse International accreditation body on why Circle City Clubhouse should be decertified.

Unless, of course, the Clubhouse takes my criticisms of it to heart (as expressed in this Open Letter, and in earlier writings to the Clubhouse), and makes necessary changes and improvements.  But if the Clubhouse continues its presently highly inadequate business-as-usual, then it needs to be decertified!

 

Other than that, I wish not to be involved, although as I am writing this Open Letter in good faith, I do hope it will be received in good faith also, and I encourage all at the Clubhouse who wish to, members and staffers alike, to reply to me and my Open Letter.  Say anything you want, be as firm with me as you wish, but I do require this:  you must be civil!  No profanity, no name-calling, no verbal abuse whatsoever.  You’re all adults—write like adults!  You may send all such replies to me via my e-mail, georgefish666@yahoo.com.  (Yes, that is the Mark of the Beast from Revelation!  I’m proudly an ex-Catholic atheist, proud survivor of Catholic parental and school system abuse.)  I end, “Therapeutically yours, and wishing Clubhouse members much better than they’re getting.”  Yes, you can recover!  Each of you can improve your situation!  Just have the gumption to try!  Keep in mind always the old Chinese saying:  “Don’t fear going slow, fear standing still.”  Yes, even a little bit of progress can be a lot.  Don’t forget it.

 

That is all I have to say, and I wish you all well.  I give all of you, members and staff alike, my love:  tough love, to be sure, but tough love is sometimes the best kind of love one can give—or get.