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Freedom of Choice in Mental Health Fall 2008 www.MindFreedom.org Freedom of Choice in Mental Health Canada gets Mad Pride! Cherise Clarke of Vancouver (left) and Ruth Ruth of Toronto help lead major Mad Pride celebrations throughout Canada. Story on page 14. • Mad Pride Breaks Free in Ireland and The New York Times • MindFreedom Celebrates UN Disability Treaty • Interview with Little Brother, BIG PHARMA Director David Heine Ruth Ruth writes of the above photograph: “The picture is beautiful. I love it. And I love the moment in which it was taken! David Oaks snapped it just after a presentation of TIED TOGETHER, A Mad People’s History Play. I play myself speaking to a class about my own activism, and Mad People’s History takes form. The play was part of ‘A Night of Mad Culture’, at the Madness Citizenship and Social Justice Conference at Simon Frazer University in Vancouver, June 2008. Mad Culture’s host was Cherise Clarke. Cherise graciously played a cast-on-the-spot cameo in TIED TOGETHER!” Cherise coordinates Mad Pride activities including art, music, poetry, and presentations with Gallery Gachet, an art center in Vancouver, Canada totally run by mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors. www.MindFreedom.org Published PbyAGE MFI • MFI Wins Campaigns for Human Rights and Alternatives in the Mental Health System MindFreedom International (MFI) cooperation, MindFreedom Interna- Please join! unites thousands of individual mem- tional leads a nonviolent revolution of bers. The majority of MindFreedom’s freedom, equality, truth and human www.MindFreedom.org membership, board and staff are rights that unites people affected by [email protected] psychiatric survivors. However, the mental health system with move- membership is open to everyone who ments for justice everywhere.” supports our human rights goals. MindFreedom International If you are not yet a member, be- 454 Willamette, Suite 216 Advocates, mental health profession- come a member or donate, now! If als, family members and the general you are already a member, consider P.O. Box 11284 public are all valued members and an early renewal donation. Mind- Eugene, OR 97440-3484 U.S.A. leaders in the MindFreedom com- Freedom is a non-profit organiza- phone: (541) 345-9106 munity. tion under IRS 501(c)(3) and your toll free in USA: 1-877-MAD-PRIDE MindFreedom International also donation is tax-deductible. (To NEW fax: (480) 287-8833 unites grassroots organizations. Each join or donate, see the back cover or Sponsor Group or Affiliate has a www.MindFreedom.org.) MOVING? Please provide your new liaison on the MFI Support Coalition You are also encouraged to check postal address. Advisory Council. out our Mad Market of books and Privacy: The MindFreedom MFI is rooted in a global move- products at www.MadMarket.org. database is private. MindFreedom ment to change the mental health Proceeds support MFI’s human organizers may be given contact system. MFI is one of the few groups rights work. in the mental health field that is lists. If you prefer no contact inform You can now also download a free the office. independent with no funding from or copy of our MindFreedom brochure. links to governments, mental health You can then print it out and distrib- Copyright: Unless noted, providers, drug companies, religious ute it to inform people about MFI you may copy for non- organizations, etc. Funding is entirely campaigns for human rights and commercial use. Please credit from members like you, and a few humane alternatives in the mental www.MindFreedom.org © 2008 foundations. health system. It is available at: MindFreedomtm. MFI’s mission: “In a spirit of mutual www.mindfreedom.org/brochure. Conserve: Printed with soy-based ink on partly recycled paper. MindFreedom plants trees to help Table of contents issue #49: replace paper used. Welcome to MindFreedom International ..................................................2 Thanks to donors and to members Is David Oaks Normal?..................................................................................3 who volunteer through mailing parties, research, tips, writing, UN Adopts Disability Rights Convention...................................................3 editing and much more. Mad Pride in NY Times... in the Fashion Section!.....................................4 Board: Celia Brown (President), Ted What’s New on MFI Website?......................................................................4 Chabasinski, Judi Chamberlin, Krista Erickson, Janet Foner, Al Galves, Frank Blankenship on MindFreedom Affiliates.........................................6 Mary Maddock, Matt Morrissey. Choice Campaign..........................................................................................7 Staff: David Oaks (Director), Martin MindFreedom Youth Leaders at Summit....................................................7 Rafferty (Office Manager), Jeremy Mad Pride Ireland’s John McCarthy............................................................8 Bensman (Director of Member Services, Editor). Poetic Justice with Bonnie Schell...............................................................10 Webmaster: Hal Noble/NetCorps. Mary Van Pelt on Mental Health................................................................11 Desktop publishing: Interview with David Heine, Film Director...............................................12 McKenzie Printers Guild, Ruth Ruth on Mad Pride’s Future...............................................................14 [email protected]. Personal Story: Past Pieces by Pam Rose.................................................15 ISSN 1537-5013 PAGE • www.MindFreedom.org UNITED NATIONS ADOPTS DISABILITY RIGHTS CONVENTION BY CELIA BROWN, PRESIDENT, hard for eight years on the Conven- MINDFREEDOM INTERNATIONAL tion on the Rights of Persons with The United Nations celebrated the Disabilities. The UN Reception was adoption of the Convention on the a way for us to celebrate and to Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognize the many human rights (CRPD) at the General Assembly on struggles and contributions of the Monday, May 12, 2008. (In the UN a user/survivor of psychiatry com- convention is a type of treaty.) munity, and to stand united with our friends of national and regional Following this event, we had the disability organizations, members UN Reception sponsored by mental of the International Disability Cau- health consumer/survivor of psy- cus, the members of the new Inter- chiatry human rights organizations national Disability Alliance and the including Mental Patient Liberation CRPD Forum to work to implement Alliance, World Network of Users/ the convention. Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP), MindFreedom International, Psy- There were brief remarks by Dan chRights, Human Rights Strategic Hazen, Jan Wetzel, Tina and myself Working Group, Ithaca Mental Pa- and people mingled at the reception tients Advocacy Coalition, Dream- with good food and drink. weavers Peer Support and The Myra Kovary, of MFI’s UN team and We have come a long way in Empowerment Center. It was held WNUSP, plays the harp at the United educating and building coalitions at the Church Center across from Nations reception. during the process of working on the United Nations. Thank you for the convention at the UN. Let’s con- your well-wishes, funds and infor- work of Users/Survivors of Psychi- tinue to build alliances with other mational materials that you shared atry, as well as Myra Kovary, Kate disability activists in the USA and with people at the reception. Millett, myself and others on the around the world. Tina Minkowitz, of World Net- MindFreedom UN team, worked Nothing about us, without us. From the Executive Director: Why Mad Pride? BY DAVID W. OAKS everyone for mental and It’s official. We’re in fashion. emotional problems, and As you’ll see in this issue, we Mad Pride activists have place millions of new custom- made the “Style” section of the Sunday New York Times. ers onto their powerful drugs. A few experts might now mistakenly call me normal. I Please understand that I have not used the psychiatric system for more than thirty am pro-choice about your David Oaks years. I’m married to a wonderful, loving woman, Debra. personal health care deci- We are tax-paying homeowners with a nice garden. For sions. If you know the risks, if you have access to a these past two decades, I’ve directed our respected non- range of alternatives, if you willingly choose prescribed profit human rights group, MindFreedom International. pharmaceuticals, that is your own business and nobody I suspect, though, that many of my beliefs would still else’s. I have been there. I know what it’s like to beg for a be labeled by some mental health professionals as delu- psychiatric drug. I also know what it’s like to quit psychi- sional. Or nuts. Here are a few. atric drugs, and care must be taken to do this well. • I believe tens of thousands of us so-called mad citi- • I believe many of these psychiatric drugs can be addic- zens and allies are making history by transforming how tive, brain damaging and deadly, but much of this informa- we as a society approach the whole subject of the mind. tion is covered up from patients and their families. • I believe the psychiatric industry would like to screen continued on page 9 www.MindFreedom.org PAGE • 3 Mad Pride Covered by New York Times It is no longer possible to doubt “Just as gay-rights activists with similar conditions and to that the Mad Pride movement is reclaimed the word queer as a inform the general public.” gathering real
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