Mental health advocates decry Sebastopol 'Lunatic Binge' party

[Barry]

Mental health advocates decry Sebastopol 'Lunatic Binge' party


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Mental health advocates decry Sebastopol 'Lunatic Binge' party | PressDemocrat.com (https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100730/ARTICLES/100739945/1350?p=all&tc=pgall)

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By PAUL PAYNE ([email protected])
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Friday, July 30, 2010 at 7:08 p.m.

<!-- /PUBDATE --> A national advocacy group for the mentally ill is decrying a Sebastopol musical show that plays on the theme of insanity and encourages guests to dress in straitjackets and hospital gowns.

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Click to enlarge (https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100730/ARTICLES/100739945/1350?p=all&tc=pgall#)
A poster for the Lunatic Binge event Saturday night
at the Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness said HopMonk Tavern’s “Lunatic Binge,” planned for tonight, reinforces stereotypes about people suffering serious ailments and should be canceled.

Trula LaCalle, executive director of the California organization, said poking fun at the insane is no different than mocking those with cancer or other disabilities.

“It’s totally inappropriate and rude,” she said. “This is not something I would expect from the enlightened citizenry of Sebastopol.”

Rosemary Milbrath, head of the Sonoma County NAMI chapter, said in a letter to HopMonk owner Dean Biersch that members statewide were “poised to become involved if needed.”

However, it was unclear if the group planned to demonstrate outside the show. She could not be reached Friday for comment.

Biersch, a co-founder of Gordon Biersch Brewery, would not return calls but a spokesman for the tavern said he was shocked at the group’s reaction considering Hopmonk’s past fundraiser at the brew pub for Haitian relief.

HopMonk spokesman Michael Coats said Biersch is keenly aware of “outside issues” but has no plans to cancel or change the show. He said he did not know if Biersch would meet with members of NAMI as requested in the letter.

“We’re a bit surprised about any controversy around this show on Saturday considering the band and HopMonk raised $11,000 cash for Haitian relief,” Coats said.

The theme was the idea of the events headliner group, Baby Seal Club, a local indie rock band whose members on Friday defended the show.

The band’s bass player, who identified himself only as Wizzbang, said the intent was to mock archaic institutions and stigmas, not mentally ill people.

In fact, the band is sympathetic to the plight of the mentally challenged and some have family members who have suffered, he said.

“We are embracing the darkness rather than letting the darkness consume us,” he said. “We see humor as medicine.”

Another band member said NAMI was overreacting. The band had received a number of e-mails from mental health advocates angry about the show.

“There was confusion and misunderstanding about our intention,” Wizzbang said. A letter about the show was posted on the band’s website.

But advocates were unsatisfied with the explanation.

LaCalle said poking fun at a group is not the way to break a stigma. “I don’t buy their rationalization,” she said.

She said her group got Burger King to drop ads depicting the king being chased by men in white coats. NAMI could bring it’s forces to bear on HopMonk, she said.

The brew pub should cancel and issue a formal apology for promotions running in the Bohemian weekly newspaper depicting people with wild hair and gowns slit at the back, she said.

One ad promised the “things are going to get weird” at the show.

“When you’re on the receiving end it’s not funny at all,” LaCalle said.

<hr>

[Here's the info from the Baby Seal's website. - Barry]


https://www.babysealclub.net/lunaticbinge/lunatic-binge-hopmonksite-horiz.jpg

The inmates are taking over the asylum!!!
The asylum is Shady Lobes (formerly Hopmonk Tavern) and, according to doctors within the padded, cement fortress, the lunatics residing within THE most dangerous and disturbed ward are suddenly experiencing delusions of ... musicality!
In fact, they have completely convinced themselves that they are the living embodiment of local music sensations: Baby Seal Club, Brothers Horse, Earstu, Deluxe Buckets and ANANTA -- all coming together to help Baby Seal Club raise funds for its first CD.
Rumor has it there will even be a Brian Kenney Fresno wannabe!
It's an elaborate attention-grabbing ruse to be sure, but with a looming psychological breakthrough just around the corner, our top clinicians believe it's imperative that we support them in this delusion.
So, please take pity on these lost souls and check into the asylum on July 31 at 8:30pm.
Don a bathrobe or some pj's (or your favorite alter-ego's delusional duds) and support our inmates to avoid another bedpan-flying episode like last year. Our patients are nothing without an audience and we promise that the bite guards and restraints will be fully operational this time.
Meds and shot therapy will be dispensed at appropriate intervals by our trained staff tending to your individual neurosis and psychoses. PLEASE: No Sharp Objects!!
Admission to our artfully appointed inner sanctum is $15 or only $10 if costumed to aimlessly mill about the asylum.
More details TBA (as the meds kick in).
See you at the Binge!

LUNATIC BINGE:
https://www.babysealclub.net/lunaticbinge
BABY SEAL CLUB:
https://www.babysealclub.net/
https://www.facebook.com/babysealclub
BROTHERS HORSE:
https://www.myspace.com/brothershorse
EARSTU
https://www.myspace.com/earstu
DELUXEBUCKETS:
https://www.facebook.com/deluxebuckets
BRIAN KENNEY FRESNO
https://www.bonghitrecords.com/
ANANTA
https://www.facebook.com/ananta333

HOPMONK:
https://www.hopmonk.com/

[handy]

I don't know which is sadder.

The fact that yet another self-righteous arrogant nut-case puritan can't stand the thought of people having fun for a small 'cause'.

The fact that this nut-case believes (psychotically) that she has The RIGHT! to interfere in the lives of others who are causing her no harm and have no interest in her views.

The fact that the Press Democrat thought it was important enough to put on the front page, above the fold.

Just sad...

She should come tonight. We'll be happy to treat her as just another inmate in the asylum.

["Mad" Miles]

Who would have thought that handy, and I, would agree on anything? Not me! But we do in this instance.

I wouldn't put it quite as dismissively as he has. And the "nut-case puritan" represents a national advocacy organization, not just herself.

I also found the defense by a Baby Seal Club "member" named Whizzbang, that, "we raised money for Haiti Earthquake Relief, so why criticize us for offending the sensibilities of defenders of the mentally ill?" to be a weak argument. One doesn't exclude the other.

But, if NAMI wants to get up in the face of abusers of the mentally ill, I can think of many much more appropriate targets:

Politicians who cut funding for Mental Health Services, or who never sufficiently funded them to begin with.

The use of prisons to house the mentally ill, because there's nowhere else for them in our society.

Lack of housing, jobs, services for the mentally ill.

Overmedication, to the almost exclusion of other treatment modalities.

Publicly sustained stereotypes of the mentally ill as, untreatable, hopeless, the result of genetic flaws, lazy, etc. Rather than addressing many of the systemic stressors that contribute to mental illness and intensify its extremes and make recovery more difficult than it would be in a less stressful culture. Our "winner take all" ethos must be considered when thinking about these issues.

Etc., etc., etc.,

Besides, with a name like "Baby Seal Club" where's PETA? I mean they're really dropping the ball here!!! (Sic.)

If we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at? And how can we blame others for laughing at us! The funniest character in the world is the pompous prig without a sense of humor.

In an insane world, the sane will be diagnosed as crazy.

And the satire impaired will be the arbiters of socially acceptable sensitivity and appropriate cultural expression.

Talk about a molehill...


As for the PD's editorial decision, "if it bleeds, it ledes". And this story bleeds irony.

Also they'll never avoid an opportunity to take potshots at the "hypocritical wack jobs" in Sebastopol. It's practically a tradition!

Not that "we" Sebastopuddlyites don't produce plenty of grist for that mill....

[jesswolfe]

Hmm, I think you might not really understand the implications of this event.

I am glad to hear that there was a prior event to benefit the people of Haiti. That is commendable. And I have to say that the prior event has nothing whatsoever to do with this event and the reactions to this present event.

Intentions are important, and I understand that the intent is not to make light of the very real implications of the reinforced sense of stigma that this event promotes. But intent is only part of the picture. The reality is that there are very real members of our community who do have significant mental illnesses that severely impact their functioning in the larger community. These are not people who are in institutions. They are not violent. They aren't here for people to ridicule or laugh at.

I am the co-director of the Russian River Empowerment Center, which is a program of West County Community Services. Our Center is located in downtown Guerneville. We a consumer-driven Mental Health and Wellness drop-in center that provides a safe and supportive haven for those who want to transcend serious and persistent mental illness. The Center is staffed with mental health consumers who support and empower our members to recover from mental illnesses in West Sonoma County.

We have about 100 members. These are the people in the community who are tucked away at home, isolated, some living under bridges, some cut off from their families, some suffering greatly. What we offer is the opportunity to become a part of our community at the Center where they are accepted and seen for who they really are. We see the quirkiness, the unique or difficult personalities, welcoming them without focusing on what is "wrong" with them. Its not easy for them.

It was not easy for me when I was in that situation.

Its really not helpful to portray these very real members of our community as the object of humor. This is not said in anger or self righteousness. Just stating the facts.

So, I would like to invite everyone interested to come to the Empowerment Center in Guerneville on August 6th (next friday) for our Open House. We moved recently to the Bank of America building on Main Street. Our door is right next to the ATM. The Open House will be from 1:00-4:00.

You might be surprised by what you find out.

Jessica Wolfe
Co-Director
Russian River Empowerment Center
A project of West County Community Services
16390 Main Street
Guerneville, CA 95446
707-604-7264

Welcome to West County Community Services - Russian River Empowerment Center, drop-in self help recovery center for people with severe mental illness, west sonoma county. (https://www.westcountyservices.org/pages/empowerment.html)

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.‘” ~Victor Frankl




I don't know which is sadder.

The fact that yet another self-righteous arrogant nut-case puritan can't stand the thought of people having fun for a small 'cause'.

The fact that this nut-case believes (psychotically) that she has The RIGHT! to interfere in the lives of others who are causing her no harm and have no interest in her views.

The fact that the Press Democrat thought it was important enough to put on the front page, above the fold.

Just sad...

She should come tonight. We'll be happy to treat her as just another inmate in the asylum.

[robert777]

Any group that thinks they are above humor and satire is dangerous. Interfering with artistically-minded shows because you don't like what they are saying breeds fascism. Robert


I don't know which is sadder.

The fact that yet another self-righteous arrogant nut-case puritan can't stand the thought of people having fun for a small 'cause'.

The fact that this nut-case believes (psychotically) that she has The RIGHT! to interfere in the lives of others who are causing her no harm and have no interest in her views.

The fact that the Press Democrat thought it was important enough to put on the front page, above the fold.

Just sad...

She should come tonight. We'll be happy to treat her as just another inmate in the asylum.

[Gratongirl]

Sadly, the idea of a bunch of young, healthy party people rallying to the "cause" of a band's cd project (not to impugn the band, who probably came up with a catchy theme without ever thinking that there are fellow humans who live with this theme's scenario as a reality, and full-time personal nightmare) is truly mortifying but not that surprising. If one knows people who fight the battle of mental ILLNESS daily, or live the rest of their lives caring for a child or family member that does...there is nothing puritanical or self righteous about the reaction of NAMI's spokespeople. Wake up and connect with the suffering out there that is often easily avoided and too rarely discussed...and try to sympathize iinstead. These folks are involved because they have dealt with tragedy. You are very blessed if you thnk their response is out of line.

[Clancy]

Any group that thinks they are above humor and satire is dangerous. Interfering with artistically-minded shows because you don't like what they are saying breeds fascism. Robert

Really? So cruelty toward children, child rape, child battering and chronic neglect are fodder for artistic humor and satire? It's odd that I've never seen such a thing. How about a nice comedy about emotional and physical torture? Funny, I've never seen that either.

The above subjects are the foundation and cause of most 'mental illness'. Making fun of the victims suffering just isn't funny, that's why this particular 'show' is so distasteful.

[theindependenteye]

IMHO, the Lunatic partygoers have a perfect right to dress up and hop around and pretend to be crazy, and the mental-health workers have a perfect right to call them insensitive assholes.

The imbalance is that the partygoers will have a party, the protesters will just have the sour taste of it. That's just the fact of it. Somehow I wish we could get back to the days when "protest" in its manifold manifestations had the best music, the best eros, the best performers, the best vibes -- the best party in town. I don't mean only anti-war hippiedom -- much of the civil rights movement, despite all the rage and bloodshed, was suffused with joy. Was that killed by the Stalinist Puritans among us, or did we just run out of energy, or does it still exist, dormant somewhere?

Just wondering--
Conrad

[Clancy]

I don't think humanity is built for empathy, even though the idea seems fashionable among the empathy-impaired of late. I think they're the real "Stalinist Puritans".

As Jesus, the Buddha, Mother Teresa and myriad others have said, the world is full of suffering. Does the awareness necessarily exclude the ability to party? Not in my experience. Some of the funniest and most quick-witted people I have known worked at Home Hospice, Chanate Mental Health clinic and two of the local animal shelters. In their respective fields they see suffering most people can't even imagine, but I think they live far more fully than most.


IMHO, the Lunatic partygoers have a perfect right to dress up and hop around and pretend to be crazy, and the mental-health workers have a perfect right to call them insensitive assholes.

The imbalance is that the partygoers will have a party, the protesters will just have the sour taste of it. That's just the fact of it. Somehow I wish we could get back to the days when "protest" in its manifold manifestations had the best music, the best eros, the best performers, the best vibes -- the best party in town. I don't mean only anti-war hippiedom -- much of the civil rights movement, despite all the rage and bloodshed, was suffused with joy. Was that killed by the Stalinist Puritans among us, or did we just run out of energy, or does it still exist, dormant somewhere?

Just wondering--
Conrad

[Barry]

[This was posted to the band's website - Barry]

An Open Letter to NAMI Regarding Baby Seal Club's "Lunatic Binge"

With regard to our upcoming 'Lunatic Binge' music and art performance, it has become clear that some have found the theme of our event offensive. We did not intend any disrespect to anyone by the irreverence in our word-play and comic exaggeration of pop culture representations of mental illness. We apologize if we inadvertently caused harm.
To clarify, what we are presenting is akin to a cartoon using recognizable reference points elevated to illustrate the ludicrousness and absurdities of the stigmas attached to mental illnesses and their treatments. We seek to spoof the stigmas themselves, not to perpetuate them, and certainly not to insult those who suffer from a serious mental illness. We will let the attendees decide for themselves if we have succeeded.
Nearly all of the event's organizers have been deeply and personally affected, either firsthand or through close family members, by mental illness; we know how devastating it can be. In fact, family members of our event's creators who face these challenges have been notified and are in full support. They understand that we simply choose to express our support and describe our experiences with this disease differently. All involved feel that the character of the event is in fact de-stigmatizing mental illness by calling out the darkness in us all, finding the humor in it and celebrating recovery through performance and visual art. In other words, we choose to bring light to the darkness rather than let the darkness consume us.
One could also look at our event as an exploration, a conversation and an integration. We believe part of our job as artists, musicians, poets and performers is to challenge, embrace and release. This often includes topics and subject matter that are tender. Our event is a creative expression intended as a light-hearted look at a very serious subject. We view humor as medicine and understand that not all will share our methodology. We share your earnest dedication to educate, inform and change the stereotypes by revealing them for what they are: silly, sensationalized and inaccurate. We are fortunate that mental health advocacy organizations such as NAMI work tirelessly to advance and improve the care given to those with mental illness from the dark times of just a few decades ago. We are looking forward to a conversation with NAMI's representatives at some point prior to the event.
If there is anything we are mocking, it is the broken archaic system of institutions in a society that puts many of us in boxes, judges us, and medicates us for thinking differently. It is also a criticism of the out-of-control drug and insurance companies and their attempts to frighten and misinform in their relentless pursuit of profit, which can lead to needless suffering of the mentally ill.
In closing, we realize this theme is provocative - and if awareness is raised and the conversation is opened we will have achieved our goals. We would also like to make it clear that the venue, Hopmonk Tavern and its operators have merely provided a space for our performances and are in no way responsible for our choice of subject matter.
Thank you again for your interest and concern. We join in busting the stigma of mental illness and appreciate differences in opinion.
Please see a note below that we have received from an organizer's mother who has been challenged for over forty years by a debilitating mental illness that has led to her being hospitalized numerous times, and who works closely with the mentally ill community in her area. We hope it offers another way to look at our event.
We welcome a dialog. Please contact us at [email protected]

Baby Seal Club




A response directed to NAMI from the mother of a crew member:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, here! Reinforcing stereotypes? What stereotypes exactly? Are you not, maybe, over reacting? As an individual with what has been a very, very debilitating serious mental illness what I see is in fact irony.
Do you realize that many of the Baby Seal Club members and crew members have themselves or have close family members who have serious mental illnesses?
Do you know that what is to be portrayed tomorrow night is indeed lived history of some of these individuals? The artwork that is to be displayed is ACTUALLY work by "demented" individuals, i.e., persons with an SMI.
And do you know that the rough draft of a Recovery Manual by an individual with an SMI who is in recovery will be on display?
Things are not always as they may first seem. Perhaps a stereotypical view of the way things WERE for persons who experience/d an SMI, but an ironic view. Psychiatric care WAS hellacious. Don't you see it? Or is your agenda too sacred?
This is a heroic CELEBRATION for those who have BEEN there and survived to live in recovery. This is also an ironic poking of fun at historical psychiatric treatment. This is not a mockery of the mentally ill, but of an old unworkable system. So come celebrate with Baby Seal Club. Check out the great art. Puruse the Recovery Manual (unfortunately the drastic revision - the final draft - is not yet available) and enjoy the great music. Jump on down from your high horse and mingle - joyously because the present focus is on recovery, which the band and crew celebrate with mirth.
Anna-Magdalena Christianson
Certified Peer Support Specialist / Psycho-social Rehabilitation Assistant
County Mental Health Authority
Berrien Springs, Michigan

[Cheingrand]

Excellent post-complaint spin-doctoring. Too bad this wasn't a benefit for mental health and recovery with the below spin part of the early press releases and posters. It would have done far more stigma-busting.




[This was posted to the band's website - Barry]
An Open Letter to NAMI Regarding Baby Seal Club's "Lunatic Binge"
With regard to our upcoming 'Lunatic Binge' music and art performance, it has become clear that some have found the theme of our event offensive. We did not intend any disrespect to anyone by the irreverence in our word-play and comic exaggeration of pop culture representations of mental illness. We apologize if we inadvertently caused harm.
...

[Ice Queen]

Since Sebastopolians are supposed to be so politically correct and 'enlightened' why are we NOT picketing this event? Stamping out the stigma toward mental illness applies to Hopmonk as well as all of us. How about if we have a 'binge party' decrying the use of alcohol to assuage one's problems. That would be far more appropriate to Hopmonk. Thank you Barry for bringing this to our attention
Mental health advocates decry Sebastopol 'Lunatic Binge' party


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Mental health advocates decry Sebastopol 'Lunatic Binge' party | PressDemocrat.com (https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100730/ARTICLES/100739945/1350?p=all&tc=pgall)

<script type="text/javascript"> var collab_title = 'Mental health advocates decry Sebastopol 'Lunatic Binge' party'; </script><!-- /HEADLINE --><!-- MAIN PHOTO --><!-- /MAIN PHOTO --><!-- BYLINE -->
By PAUL PAYNE ([email protected])
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Friday, July 30, 2010 at 7:08 p.m.

<!-- /PUBDATE -->A national advocacy group for the mentally ill is decrying a Sebastopol musical show that plays on the theme of insanity and encourages guests to dress in straitjackets and hospital gowns.
...

[Olava]

Why do you automatically assume that the organizers of this event are all healthy? (or young party people, for that matter?)
Many of us are currently living with a serious mental illness or have a close family member who is.
We ARE those 'fellow humans'. Not one of us is unaffected by this topic.
We have lived our own personal nightmares, and just express our experiences differently. If you can't laugh at your own darkness, it will laugh at you... So we choose to transform the darkness of life into something beautiful and humorous.

BTW, peace was made with NAMI (https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100731/ARTICLES/100739908?Title=Disabled-advocates-band-reach-compromise-over-lunatic-show). Several members attended the event, had a table to give out information and one member got up and spoke briefly between bands. The organizers of the event have nothing but respect and gratitude for the work NAMI does.


But really, if anybody should be up in arms, it should be PETA.
Not because of the bands name, but because they coerced a sheep into make toast throughout their performance. Of all the nerve.


Sadly, the idea of a bunch of young, healthy party people rallying to the "cause" of a band's cd project (not to impugn the band, who probably came up with a catchy theme without ever thinking that there are fellow humans who live with this theme's scenario as a reality, and full-time personal nightmare) is truly mortifying but not that surprising. If one knows people who fight the battle of mental ILLNESS daily, or live the rest of their lives caring for a child or family member that does...there is nothing puritanical or self righteous about the reaction of NAMI's spokespeople. Wake up and connect with the suffering out there that is often easily avoided and too rarely discussed...and try to sympathize iinstead. These folks are involved because they have dealt with tragedy. You are very blessed if you thnk their response is out of line.

[Barry]

Disabled advocates, band reach compromise over "lunatic" show

Disabled advocates, band reach compromise over "lunatic" show | PressDemocrat.com (https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100731/ARTICLES/100739908?Title=Disabled-advocates-band-reach-compromise-over-lunatic-show)
<script type="text/javascript"> var collab_title = 'Disabled advocates, band reach compromise over "lunatic" show'; </script> <!-- /HEADLINE --> <!-- MAIN PHOTO --> <!-- /MAIN PHOTO -->
Published: Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 9:31 p.m.

<!-- /PUBDATE --> A Sebastopol rock band and advocates for the mentally ill made peace Saturday night over a controversial show the advocates said mocked disabled people.

<script language="JavaScript"> var enableForum = "</script>The band, Baby Seal Club, invited members of the National Alliance on Mentall Illness to distribute information at their show at the Hopmonk Tavern, billed “Lunatic Binge.”

NAMI members on Friday had criticized the event, which played on the theme of craziness and encouraged people to wear costumes such as straitjackets. Local leaders suggested they would demonstrate the show if it weren't canceled.

But only one picketer showed up Saturday night and advocates were invited to set up an information booth inside.

Hopmonk manager Jason Abrao said members of the band worked out the agreement with NAMI.

“They seem to be in good spirits,” Abrao said. “It's going to be an interesting evening.”

-- Paul Payne

[inezalea]

Why do you automatically assume that the organizers of this event are all healthy? (or young party people, for that matter?) .

Assume you're all healthy? I wouldn't worry about that. With a name like Baby Seal Club it would be obvious to many that you really are sick.

If it's not too much trouble, would you mind enlightening us as to how you clever guys came up with your band's name?

[Barry]

Photos from the event (from their FB profile).

[Fudo]

A reposting of a letter sent out to NAMI Sonoma County members this morning...


Dear Members:

Last week we contacted you about an event occurring at the Hopmonk Tavern this past weekend called "Lunatic Binge." Thank you all for your efforts in engaging the Hopmonk Tavern and the headlining band at the event, Baby Seal Club (Baby Seal Club (https://www.babysealclub.net)), in dialogue.

Baby Seal Club's initial response to our concerns:
An Open Letter to NAMI Regarding Baby Seal Club's "Lunatic Binge" (https://www.babysealclub.net/site/namiresponse.html)

Through your efforts, the best possible resolution was achieved. The organizers of the event and members of Baby Seal Club shared that they nearly all have been deeply and personally affected, either firsthand or through close family members, by mental illness. Further, they invited NAMI Sonoma County to participate in their event to raise awareness of mental illness. Several NAMI members and our Executive Director, Rosemary Milbrath, attended and spoke at the event. What we found by participating in the event is that it was not ridiculing or exploiting mental illness, but was rather an artistic and historical look on mental illness and its treatment. The band has also agreed to work with us in furthering our outreach efforts by offering to play at a benefit concert to raise funds for NAMI Sonoma County.

NAMI Sonoma County would like to thank all of the members of the Baby Seal Club and the staff and management of Hopmonk Tavern for extending the invitation to us and also for their willingness to listen and engage us about our concerns, and to share their own. We are proud to have been part of an event that celebrated the arts and disabilities.

--
NAMI Sonoma County
1717 Yulupa Ave
Santa Rosa, CA 95405
(707) 527-6655

[podfish]

Really? So cruelty toward children, child rape, child battering and chronic neglect are fodder for artistic humor and satire? It's odd that I've never seen such a thing. How about a nice comedy about emotional and physical torture?....
I've seen all the above - it's pretty tough to pull off but it can indeed be funny. Humorlessness isn't ever a good thing. Obviously people in immediate pain are a hard bunch to amuse, but I've seen even that happen; it's one of the ways that people assert that they're more than just victims, that they can put even whatever horrible event into some kind of context. A lot of times humor arises from the juxtaposition of things that seem totally disjoint. Of course it's hard on those still suffering, but (at the risk of going too far into Dr Phil territory) it's a reminder that whatever the trauma/situation may be, it's not the center of the universe.
But your suggestion that these subjects are offbase or marginal isn't close to being true: look at Saturday Night Live's Mr. Bill, Monty Python, Pedro Almodovar's comedies, deadBabies.com, etc. - just to give relatively modern examples.

[Fudo]

The name of the band is Baby Seal Club, catchy, unless you've either been there on the ice before the carnage or seen the videos of the clubbing of infant seals. After that, such a name seems neither ironic nor artistic, only unthinking and uncaring.

Dian

Wow. Awfully quick to judge there, Dian.

"Baby Seal Club" is comprised of lifelong animals lovers, sensitive and responsible pet owners, and supporters of the Humane Society. Of course the carnage of the baby seal hunt is horrific, which is exactly the point. The opposable forces of horror and wonder are a constant in the world we live in and we chose our name because to us it represents this contrast. (Besides, "BanalBandName.com" was already taken.)

If you choose to look a little deeper, you'll find that Spike, our mascot, is depicted as a baby seal holding a spiked club in our promotional material; in other words, the name is also about transferring power to the oppressed.

Through our music, events, band promotion and the opportunities these provide to stir things up, our band -- and the incredible artists we work with -- have been given the occasion to raise awareness, start conversations and hopefully rouse support. We are students of irreverence, black humor and have trouble with political correctness. And, truthfully, the name Baby Seal Club has been a terrific litmus test to attract like-minded fans, artists and journey-mates. Since it's impossible to please everyone, we are not interested in trying. If our band name offends you, then we're probably not for you.

It the slaughtering of baby seals is something you wish to protest, please consider using the link on our website at Baby Seal Club (https://www.babysealclub.com) to donate to two worthy organizations. You can show Wacco members just how much more caring and thinking you are compared to us miscreants.

Baby Seal Club

[tommy]

I think the lunatic members of the Baby Seal Club belong in an asylum.

[Fudo]

Your Madness,

Correct us if we are wrong, but we believe you falsely attributed Baby Seal Club's Wizzbang of having brought up the "Haiti defense."

On what did you base this comment?

We believe it was strictly Hopmonk that used the fact that BSC organized an event in their establishment (that raised over $11,000 for Oxfam & Doctors Without Borders) as an attempt to vouch for our collective character.

As the storm was brewing and communication was lacking, it was their first attempt to suggest to critics that they look a little deeper. Maybe, just maybe, the organizers weren't just a bunch of completely unconscious twits going for the jugular of a misunderstood and often marginalized sector of society.

We appreciate that Dean Biersch and Hopmonk attempted to accurately frame Baby Seal Club as a band that gives a damn about their community -- both locally and globally -- and who do their best to leverage their influence to do good in the world.

Hopmonk took a lot of unjustified heat for Lunatic Binge but, nevertheless, stood by Baby Seal Club's freedom of expression. We are grateful to them for that. They may have lost a customer or two in the media circus so thanks for making an extra effort to support them and please let them know if this post helped influence your decision to visit.

Baby Seal Club





Who would have thought that handy, and I, would agree on anything? Not me! But we do in this instance. ...
I also found the defense by a Baby Seal Club "member" named Whizzbang, that, "we raised money for Haiti Earthquake Relief, so why criticize us for offending the sensibilities of defenders of the mentally ill?" to be a weak argument. One doesn't exclude the other. ... Besides, with a name like "Baby Seal Club" where's PETA? I mean they're really dropping the ball here!!! (Sic.) If we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at? And how can we blame others for laughing at us! The funniest character in the world is the pompous prig without a sense of humor. In an insane world, the sane will be diagnosed as crazy. And the satire impaired will be the arbiters of socially acceptable sensitivity and appropriate cultural expression. Talk about a molehill... As for the PD's editorial decision, "if it bleeds, it ledes". And this story bleeds irony.
Also they'll never avoid an opportunity to take potshots at the "hypocritical wack jobs" in Sebastopol. It's practically a tradition! Not that "we" Sebastopuddlyites don't produce plenty of grist for that mill....

["Mad" Miles]

Your Madness,

Correct us if we are wrong, but we believe you falsely attributed Baby Seal Club's Wizzbang of having brought up the "Haiti defense."

On what did you base this comment?
...
Hopmonk took a lot of unjustified heat for Lunatic Binge but, nevertheless, stood by Baby Seal Club's freedom of expression. We are grateful to them for that. They may have lost a customer or two in the media circus so thanks for making an extra effort to support them and please let them know if this post helped influence your decision to visit.

Baby Seal Club


Sir Fudo,

You are correct and I am not. My bad. I misread the PD article forwarded by Barry, or read it too quickly, and conflated the quote from Mr. Coats with the quote from El Whizzbang. Oops!

I'm glad the evening came off with a rapprochement between NAMI and BSC. But I haven't missed the irony that the coverage of the controversy got much more play in the PD, than the coverage of the compromise and successful communication over intent and content. Communication between what, in fact, are two groups of advocates for the mentally ill. Letters to the editor would do well to point that out.

Again, I apologize for the misattribution. Haste makes, dumb. (And no insult intended towards those who cannot speak!!!)

For anyone who missed it, part of my response was "tongue in cheek." I was not seriously calling for PETA to take on Baby Seal Club for their name. At most, I was tweaking PETA, and their ilk, for their reputation for sometimes overreacting and blowing controversies out of proportion.

I've always seen the ironic humor in their/your name. And the implied solidarity with, and support of, baby seals. Only the humorless and extremely sensitive would interpret the name to be support for the slaughter of seal pups. The use of "club" is, I learned, a triple entendre!! Rare and beautiful in the world of word play...

One of my favorite local bands, who have not been playing much lately, at least not around here, is named, "Stiff Dead Cat." Their logo is a thin, arched back, corpse of a cat radiating some kind of electricity or other force above its back. The corpse of the cat is wearing cowboy boots.

Anybody who thinks the band is celebrating cat abuse or murder, which just to be painfully clear, it is NOT!, is merely showing their own lack of imagination and irony impairment. But that doesn't stop it from happening, occasionally.

Nobody knows who, or what, killed the cat! It's just dead, OK?

I've been a kitty lover since early childhood, so if anyone has a right to get agitated over possible cat abuse, it's me. There is no cat abuse with regard to SDC!!!


There is a disconnect between the world of the hip, in the Arts, where irony and sly humor abound. And the world of mono-dimensional advocacy, where there is a serious lack of humor and nuance.

It's nice when those two worlds come together, as they apparently did at the HopMonk on Saturday evening.

Huzzah!

[pioneer]

Just another lunatic on the loose in the asylum here, so I don't really have anything constructive to bring to the debate as you would imagine... eh.. ehh..... ehhhh.. eh.. eh...ehhhh...... eh.. eh...ehhhhhhh..

But you've got to check out this vid for a timely analysis of the particular topic at hand by none other then Steven Colbert:

Colbert&#039;s Best Fast Food Moments | Comedy Central Insider | Funny, TV and Comedy Blog (https://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/2010/08/02/colberts-best-fast-food-moments/)
(top vid)

Enjoy... (great show by the way, although keep your thorazine to yourselves please, I require my own modified brand.... eh.. ehh..... ehhhh.. eh.. eh...ehhhh...... eh.. eh...ehhhhhhh.... )

[Barry]

.... But I haven't missed the irony that the coverage of the controversy got much more play in the PD, than the coverage of the compromise and successful communication over intent and content. Communication between what, in fact, are two groups of advocates for the mentally ill. ...[/SIZE][/FONT]...

That's what WaccoBB.net is for! :heart:

[Weiser]

I think the opportunity for a Dead Kennedys reunion was lost.

Mark

[Sara S]

And don't forget that we're all wacco here.......


Your Madness,

Correct us if we are wrong, but we believe you falsely attributed Baby Seal Club's Wizzbang of having brought up the "Haiti defense."

On what did you base this comment?

We believe it was strictly Hopmonk that used the fact that BSC organized an event in their establishment (that raised over $11,000 for Oxfam & Doctors Without Borders) as an attempt to vouch for our collective character.

As the storm was brewing and communication was lacking, it was their first attempt to suggest to critics that they look a little deeper. Maybe, just maybe, the organizers weren't just a bunch of completely unconscious twits going for the jugular of a misunderstood and often marginalized sector of society.

We appreciate that Dean Biersch and Hopmonk attempted to accurately frame Baby Seal Club as a band that gives a damn about their community -- both locally and globally -- and who do their best to leverage their influence to do good in the world.

Hopmonk took a lot of unjustified heat for Lunatic Binge but, nevertheless, stood by Baby Seal Club's freedom of expression. We are grateful to them for that. They may have lost a customer or two in the media circus so thanks for making an extra effort to support them and please let them know if this post helped influence your decision to visit.

Baby Seal Club

[handy]

Interesting tangent to all this:

https://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/szasz5.1.1.html
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="75%"><tbody><tr><td>
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td> <table align="center" border="1" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="9" cellspacing="5" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td> <!--startclickprintinclude--> <!--clickprintexcludeimages--> No Excuses: The Reality Cure of Thomas Szasz


by Phil Barker and Poppy Buchanan-Barker

Recently by Thomas Szasz: Fifty Years After The Myth of Mental Illness (https://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/szasz4.1.1.html)

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</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="15"> </td> <td> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> And you thought Tom Szasz was yesterday’s hero? This paper brings us up to date.
Future historians may well cast Thomas Szasz (https://www.szasz.com/) as an intrepid campaigner for the blindingly obvious: people do not have "mental illnesses" but experience a wide range of moral, interpersonal, social and political "problems in living." All such problems concern, or have an impact on, our sense of who and what we are and could just as easily be called spiritual crises. However, despite his prodigious scholarly output, Szasz might well be written out of history, as punishment for his single-handed and persistent exposure of the greatest hoax of the modern age – the construction of the "myth of mental illness" and psychiatry's ludicrous attempts to "treat" it.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> In the best Socratic tradition Szasz has been, for over 50 years, the gadfly of psychiatry. In his classic book, The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060911514?ie=UTF8&tag=lewrockwell&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0060911514) (Szasz, 1961), he contended that, contrary to the professional and public opinion of the time (the late 1950s) the mind – an abstract concept – could only be considered "sick" in the same sense that a joke or a building might similarly be described. This mind metaphor functions as a powerful myth, like many fictions, offering comfort to all who embrace the idea as a way of explaining the "inexplicable."
At the end of the 20th century religion, especially Christianity, was furiously debunked by radical secularists like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. They exposed not just its mythical nature but the harm and injustice associated with its practice down the ages. Ironically, their glaring sin of omission was to ignore psychiatry – by far the most potent and influential religion of the past two hundred years.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Psychiatrists might feign offense at their portrayal as "high priests," believing that they offer a complex and compassionate form of psychological medicine, worshipping at the same altar as scientists like Dawkins. Historically, the facts tell a very different story, as Szasz's works have vividly illustrated.
Traditional religions can hold sway over large sections of any population, and may be considered a force for good or evil. However, such "myths" are, at the very least, embraced by the faithful; who gain socially, culturally or spiritually from their allegiance; and are free to rejoin secular society whenever they wish. The same could never be said of "psychiatric patients." The open secret of the 20th century was that modern psychiatry became a "church" founded on hocus-pocus masquerading as science, and promoted a range of means of detaining and restraining its "patient" flock. Today, as psychiatry rebrands itself as a branch of neuroscience, it seeks to colonize "developing nations," despite its near-bankrupt status in its Western world of origin. Parallels with the Christian missionaries seem wholly apposite.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Over the past 60 years Thomas Szasz has published over 30 books and around 700 papers and articles, all focused on exposing the logical weaknesses of psychiatric thought, and the moral bankruptcy of its practice. Heidegger proposed that every great thinker thinks but one thought. Szasz's singular, original thought concerns the moral bankruptcy of expecting (far less forcing) people to see psychiatrists; to be admitted to so-called "mental hospitals"; to take psychiatric drugs; and otherwise to comply with the capricious fashions of psychiatric religion. His diverse and remarkably accessible writings around this single proposition have led many to view him as the foremost, contemporary moral and existential philosopher of psychiatry and psychotherapy: the psychiatric equivalent of the boy obligated to point out the Emperor's nakedness. In his 90th year, the uncompromising fury of Szasz's scholarship shows no sign of waning as three of his latest books attest.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Coercion as Cure (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1412810507?ie=UTF8&tag=lewrockwell&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1412810507) (Szasz 2007) has a "classic" feel providing, as its subtitle makes clear, a much-needed "critical history of psychiatry." Szasz acknowledges that, from his first day in medical school in the early 1940s, his understanding of the physician's role was to try to relieve the suffering of individuals who asked for, and accepted, medical help. He quickly formed the view that psychiatrists were committing a grave moral wrong by imprisoning and coercing people who neither sought nor wanted their "help." This simple, yet profoundly humanist view became, and remains, his raison d’être.
Szasz opens with his assertion that "the typical relationship between doctor and patients rests, and has always rested, on consent," returning to this moral imperative in his conclusion. Between these moral bookends he lodges a highly original thesis, which frequently makes for painful reading. His intentions, like his writing style, are clear from the outset:

In the days of the insane asylum, the nature of psychiatry was clear: the madhouse was a snake pit and snake pits could be found only in insane asylums. Today…. "snake pits" are everywhere, from the kindergarten to the hospice and the reality of psychiatric coercion and dehumanization is camouflaged by a façade of fake diagnoses, outpatient commitment, the renaming of insane asylums as "health care facilities" and a lexicon of euphemisms concealing the exploitation and injury of so-called mental patients as "treatments."
Szasz's critics argue that, today, involuntary commitment is rare. Szasz disagrees. The use of force has simply become, for the most part, covert; as shown by the proliferation of "community treatment orders" and the lingering threat of involuntary treatment, should people refuse to "volunteer." That said, in many countries, like the UK, "commitment" is again on the rise.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> The comparison with religion is obvious. Psychiatry "is a belief-system impregnated with rules and values, permissions and prohibitions." The theory and practice of psychiatry is irrefutable and inviolable "not because they are true or good, but because it is taboo to deny or reject them." St. Augustine said that "religion binds us to the one Almighty God." It is no accident that the most popular diagnostic manual – the DSM – is commonly referred to as the "psychiatric bible." It binds psychiatrists, other "mental health" practitioners and even the "patient" to the spurious ideology of the psychiatric faith.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Sadly, most "mental health professionals" have little knowledge of the scandalous history of their discipline; insulated from the warts of their history by a cavalcade of hagiographers. Those with any awareness, either blindfold themselves with the psychiatric flag, or reframe coercion as compassion: "in the patient's best interests."
Psychiatric history is riddled with charlatans and megalomaniacs, who peddled bogus remedies either in the name of medical treatment or scientific progress. All were welcomed as messiahs, if not by patients, then certainly by the families fed up with the patient's behavior. Szasz's critical history follows this messianic pathway: tracing the development of the asylum system, with its various pretenses towards "humane treatment"; adding a wealth of detail to established accounts of "shock treatment" (iatrogenic epilepsy); the "cerebral spaying" of lobotomy; and the ethical disingenuousness of "moral treatment." He reminds us that "neuroleptic drugs" were not developed to "treat" any lesion but were, in the words of Laborit – "inventor" of chlorpromazine – "a veritable medicinal lobotomy." All "side effects" associated with such drugs are – in truth – "intended effects." Today's "new generation" of psychoactive drugs perform much the same function. There is no disease to treat, only persons to be managed and muted.
Szasz's detailed account of the career of Walter Freeman, the serial lobotomist, is one of the many high (or low) spots in this remarkable book. Freeman heralded, unwittingly, the era of the "celebrity patient." Operating brutally on thousands of patients, once he completed 228 "operations" in 12 days, often without gown, mask or gloves, turning his operating theater into a circus performance. Called on by the serial womanizer, Joseph Kennedy to "treat" his gregarious, free-spirited daughter, Rose, Freeman's lobotomy rendered her so passive that the family had to pass her off as "mentally retarded," and she spent the next 63 years in the care of nuns. In an attempt to hide the disgraceful butchery of his daughter, Kennedy and his family "donned the mantle of protectors of the mentally ill and mentally retarded, as if the two terms referred to similar conditions."
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Today, many psychiatrists claim a neurological basis for mental illness – especially the "psychoses." Szasz has addressed such claims for decades, noting that if a "mental illness" emanates from some disease or disorder of the brain, then the patient needs a neurologist, not a psychiatrist. The difference is critical, as he notes at the end of Coercion as Cure. Over a century ago, the fledgling American Psychiatric Association invited S. Weir Mitchell, founder of the American Neurological Association to address their 50th anniversary meeting. With grave misgivings, Mitchell agreed. Szasz notes that Mitchell's scathing address has been remarkably neglected by psychiatric historians:

You quietly submit to having hospitals called asylums; you are labeled as medical superintendents ... You should urge in every report the stupid folly of this. You ... conduct a huge boarding house – what has been called a monastery of the mad.... I presume that you have, through habit, lost the sense of jail and jailer which troubles me when I walk behind one of you and he unlocks door after door.... You have for too long maintained the fiction that there is some mysterious therapeutic influence to be found behind your walls and locked doors. We hold the reverse opinion ... Your hospitals are not our hospitals; your ways are not our ways.
Plus ça change! Contemporary neurologists do not coerce people with manifest brain disorders – such as Parkinson's disease or epilepsy – to accept treatment. Neither do they show any interest in pursuing people with hypothetical "brain disorders" – such as schizophrenia. Szasz concludes: "More than ever, the ways of psychiatry are not the ways of medicine."
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> In Psychiatry: The Science of Lies (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815609108?ie=UTF8&tag=lewrockwell&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0815609108) Szasz summarizes, pithily, the thesis he has been illustrating so vividly for five decades. His erudite and highly readable account underlines the scientific folly of talking of "illness" in the absence of physical pathology; bringing the sheer mendacity of both professional and political perspectives on "mental illness" to life through the duplicitous accounts of those like Tipper Gore, Kay Redfield Jamison and Lauren Slater, all of whom "built successful careers as celebrity experts on madness." Szasz views them all as "impostors...." "Being an expert about mental illness is like being an expert on ghosts or unicorns."
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> However, the best examples of impostors are to be found among the parcel of rogues called "antipsychiatry," especially its "guru" Ronnie Laing. Although he tried to distance himself from such an affiliation, Szasz's documentary account reveals how Laing created this "movement" with the South African psychiatrist, David Cooper, who later proposed that having sex with female patients would be "therapeutic." Szasz has frequently been associated with this grouping, so it is unsurprising that he should want, so vigorously, to explode its mythical nature; showing how "antipsychiatry" was merely a thinly veiled attempt to redirect power from the mainstream into the hands of Cooper, Laing and others.
In Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815609434?ie=UTF8&tag=lewrockwell&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0815609434), Szasz begins by pointing out the foolishness of the title – who would call an obstetrician opposed to abortion, an "anti-abortionist"? More importantly, he reminds readers of his libertarian belief that people should be free to believe in "mental illness," just as they are free to believe in God, voodoo, alien abduction, or anything else about which he might be skeptical. People should also be free to consult psychiatrists; to accept or reject their diagnoses; to take drugs; to accept electro-convulsive therapy, or even submit to psychosurgery. His main concern has always been with the abuse of psychiatric power: where people are coerced, or otherwise manipulated, into accepting bogus "treatments" for their metaphorical "illnesses." All those associated with "antipsychiatry" – from Cooper and Laing, to Lacan, Basaglia and their various "disciples – never sought to challenge this abuse of power. Instead, they tried to wrest power from orthodox psychiatry, in pursuit of their own ideological prejudices.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Szasz begins his conclusion by quoting GK Chesteron who "wisely warned – do not free a camel of the burden of his hump, you may be freeing him from being a camel." In Chekhov's novella, Ward No 6, he reminded us that "what the inmates of psychiatric confinement need is freedom, not another set of careers." Szasz concludes with the reminiscence of Lenin's younger sister, who recalled that when the "great dictator" read Ward No. 6 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140447865?ie=UTF8&tag=lewrockwell&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0140447865) "he felt like going out of his room and taking a breath of fresh air: it seemed to him that he had himself been locked up in Ward No. 6."
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Psychiatric organizations and government departments alike now employ the ludicrous double-talk of "mental health problems/issues/difficulties"; acknowledging, however grudgingly, that the only "fact" is that people experience problems, in relation to themselves or others. In that sense, Szasz's original premise has been accepted. The outstanding problem lies in the consequences of such a worldview. When people experience problems they may or may not ask for help to deal with them. Nowhere is it written (except in the psychiatric canon) that people are obliged to accept "help" far less be penalized should they decide to ride out their fate.
None of this is "rocket science." Indeed, future scholars might wonder how Szasz managed to create such a fuss in the late 20th century, when the social significance of science and its inherent rationalism was being brought to widespread public attention; and support for mythology and faith-based ideologies teetered on the brink of collapse. Szasz's thesis has been simple and straightforward. If people have a genuine (i.e., biological) illness, then they may be offered appropriate medical help. However, as persons, they have the right not only to choose from various "treatment" alternatives, but can refuse them all, if they wish.
Szasz's emphasis on persons was and remains the critical stumbling point of Szasz's thesis: a veritable sin of commission. In The Myth of Mental Illness he stressed the centrality of "personal conduct" and ever since has written and talked only of persons. 40 years ago he wrote:

Modern psychiatry dehumanizes man by denying ...the existence, or even the possibility, of personal; responsibility of man as a moral agent...(The psychiatric mandate) is precisely to obscure, and indeed deny, the ethical dilemmas of life, and to transform these into medicalized and technicalized problems susceptible to "professional solutions" (Szasz, 1973. p. 11).
There are no "patients, clients, survivors or service-users," only persons. This stubborn defense of personhood is ignored, not because it is flawed, but because of its implications.
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Szasz's concerns are unashamedly political. Szasz has often quoted Lord Acton's dictum: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In Psychiatry: The Science of Lies he recaps the story of its origin, in Acton's critique – as a Catholic – of Vatican-sponsored mendacity.

It cannot be faith in the true sense, which a man defends by immoral means... elief is not sincere when the believer is not sincere. ...I have never found that people go wrong from ignorance, but from want of consciousness, Even the ignorant are ignorant because they wish to be ignorant in bad faith. (Acton cited by Szasz, 2008: p114–5)
Acton concluded: "I find that I am alone...I cannot obey any conscience but my own." The parallels with Szasz are all too apparent. He too realizes how marginal is the position he has created for himself:

(Critics of psychiatry) who call themselves "antipsychiatrists," "critical psychiatrists," "ethical psychiatrists," "postpsychiatrists," "ex-mental patients," "voice hearers" and so on – oppose one or another psychiatric "diagnosis" or "treatment"; sometimes even psychiatric coercion. But they draw back from defending an ethic based on nonviolence, personal responsibility for public actions (as distinct from private actions called "thoughts"), and every person's inalienable right to his or her life and death – lest they appear uncompassionate and, perish the thought, unscientific and illiberal (in the modern, statist sense of "liberal").
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> A popular tactic employed by many of Szasz's critics is to dismiss both the man and his ideas on the basis that he eschewed the practice of mainstream psychiatry: refusing especially to work with so-called "non-compliant psychotics." Szasz reminds us that obstetricians are free to choose not to perform abortions and neurologists are not obliged to conduct so-called "psychosurgery." Indeed, despite its emergence as a response to the traumatic casualties of the Great War, most "plastic surgeons" are celebrated today for treating "patients" whose primary complaint is overweening vanity. Szasz chose to work only with those who asked for his help and who were willing to enter into a contract with him. The legal analogy, which Szasz first employed in Ideology and Insanity (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815602561?ie=UTF8&tag=lewrockwell&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0815602561), is apposite.

In the practice of law...the objects of classification are not the attorney's clients, but the nature of his work. We thus have attorneys who specialize in corporation law, criminal law, divorce law, labour law, tax law and so forth (Szasz 1973, p. 238).
Szasz chose to be a "psychiatric defense lawyer." The hostile opposition to any similar "division of labour" within its ranks "is a measure of the extent to which psychiatry has abandoned the liberal-rationalist values of science and the open society (committing itself) to their counterrevolutionary antithesis, the illiberal and irrational values of scientism and the closed society (Szasz, 1973:238)."
Much of today's radical thinking in mental health amounts to little more than footnotes to Szasz. From the "political correctness" of "mental health problems" to the emergence of "advance statements," most of our contemporary "radical thinking" is borrowed from Szasz. It may well become the historian's duty to make repay the debt.
Reprinted from The Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy.

August 4, 2010
Phil Barker is Honorary Professor, University of Dundee, Scotland. Poppy Buchanan-Barker is Director, Clan Unity International, Fife, Scotland. Thomas Szasz is professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. Visit his website. (https://www.szasz.com/)
Copyright © 2010 Phil Barker and Poppy Buchanan-Barker <!--endclickprintinclude-->

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[lynn]

Ah, Heck...Talk about some people wrapping themselves up in a straightjacket!...
It's just nutty in itself to take life too darn seriously...

Events like this in good spirit are just plain fun!...And seems to me are just as much about making fun of our own, at times, crazy selves...

Glad things got resolved on a good note...

[Fudo]

We live in a world that is neither black nor white.

We know this intuitively yet sometimes we crave a stable shoreline while floating in a sea of grays. Amongst other things, Lunatic Binge, like artfulness at its best, was a fantastic lesson in moral ambiguity.

With this in mind, and without further ado...here is your chance to judge for yourself as we present for all interested gawkers, rubber-neckers and lookie loos, Baby Seal Club's official blog entry that details the entire behind-the-scenes Lunatic Binge controversy from our band's perspective: https://sealspiel.blogspot.com/

And don't forget...if you care to follow Baby Seal Club's future antics, be sure to sign up on our website https://www.babysealclub.com or friend us on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/babysealclub