Urgent: Include Psychiatric Rights Somehow?

DavidOaks · Post by **DavidOaks** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 3:38 pm

HELLO, to everyone doing a camp at Burning Man
on the art theme this year, 2005, about the mind.

I've posted a couple of other places that this is my 30th
year working for human rights in the mental health
system. A bunch of folks I know go to Burning Man,
such as from Oregon Country Fair (I'm in Doors of
Expression Booth in Community Village).

Why I'm writing now:

If you are doing a camp on this year's theme where
you could conceive fitting in a few folks doing
some weird stuff for human rights in the
mental health system, please e-mail me off list
at [email protected]!

Background: We're part of the psychiatric
survivors movement, sometimes called MAD PRIDE.
We are fighting the enormous corporate psychiatric
system oppression, see our web site below for
more info. It would be so cool to include a little
something creative, fun, MAD CULTURE that helps
let people know that the psychiatric survivors
movement even EXISTS.

I'm guessing that maybe a camp on the
art theme might have some way to
co-create something together.

Spread the word, thanks,

David

David Oaks, Director
MindFreedom International
454 Willamette, Suite 216 - POB 11284
Eugene, OR 97440-3484 USA

http://www.mindfreedom.org
email: [email protected] fax: (541) 345-3737
phone: (541) 345-9106 toll free in USA: 1-877-MAD-PRIDE

MIND YOUR FREEDOM: United Action for Human Rights.

join here: http://www.mindfreedom.org/join.shtml

MindFreedom Support Coalition International is an
independent non-profit uniting 100 sponsor groups
to win human rights & alternatives in mental health.
Accredited by the United Nations as a
Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with
Consultative Roster Status.

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the
creatively maladjusted." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 6:31 pm

Will you be gifting tin foil hats?

helitack · Post by **helitack** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 6:33 pm

I wear thin lead sheets under my hat, seems to work.

satireDUN · Post by **satireDUN** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 6:52 pm

i also hear that the rims of those nifty top hats, coated with mercury, help protect your tasty tasty brains.

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:14 pm

Could be off-topic and unrelated, but do any of your members have experience dealing with temporary narcotic based mental episodes?

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:27 pm

Could be off-topic and unrelated, but do any of your members have experience dealing with temporary narcotic based mental episodes?

Not sure about the OP or her/his group but I believe the person posting here:

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... tle#163419

is with a group called MAPS http://www.maps.org/ which has been on the playa for several years and has helped augment the Rangers at Sanctuary (not the theme camp) adjacent to Ranger HQ. This is where Rangers get a lot of altered people that don't actaully warrant intake at the REMSA tent for medical treatment.

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:58 pm

Isotopia wrote:Not sure about the OP or her/his group but I believe the person posting here:

You mean undawawa?

is with a group called MAPS http://www.maps.org/ which has been on the playa for several years and has helped augment the Rangers at Sanctuary (not the theme camp) adjacent to Ranger HQ. This is where Rangers get a lot of altered people that don't actaully warrant intake at the REMSA tent for medical treatment.

Yep, thanks, thats where I was going to go with it - they might want to trade a couple of messages to see if there is any overlap.

Not like anyone does drugs on the playa...

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 10:06 pm

they might want to trade a couple of messages to see if there is any overlap.

I think we might be talking about two different animals here. The MAPS folks are certainly well versed in their work and have a good deal of street cred as far as I've been able to ascertain. Sometimes a bit overenthusiastic but smart players just the same. We're not talking conspiracy puppies here. Can't vouch for the latter arrival here though. Going over their web site gives me some pause.

Elemental666 · Post by **Elemental666** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:06 pm

I don't get it...

What's Psychiactric Oppression? I'm missing the point...

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 8:49 am

There is a real psychiatric rights movement--survivors of ElectroShock Therapy for instance, and the Thomas Szasz people. I have mixed feelings, because the whole "let's not commit people" thing of the 60s and 70s have bit us in the ass in some ways and have bit the psychotics in the ass in really bad ways. This doesn't mean that we all don't need some real education in what "craziness" means and that we can't deal better with it on numbers of levels.

I have no ideas for a camp, but good luck. Wait' there was that exibit that was a big hit at the psych convention in Moscone Center a couple of years ago where they somehow made the shrinks experience what it was like to be a scitzophrenic taking a bus--if you could do something like that, that brings the subjective experience of madness closer to teh sane, that would be interesting.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:29 am

What's Psychiactric Oppression?

Distilled down to an extreme oversimplification it migh read to suggest 'medical intervention by psychiatrists to stem mentally...affected people from either remaining that way or getting worse.'

blyslv · Post by **blyslv** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 2:37 pm

Isotopia wrote: This is where Rangers get a lot of altered people that don't actaully warrant intake at the REMSA tent for medical treatment.

Well i just figured out the venue for MY performance art.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 3:11 pm

We've actually thought about bartering them out on an hourly basis. Stop by the dome, have a look and shop for the raging, screeching meltdown case, the quiet, quivering paranoid, the manic, talk a mil a minute speed freeak or the moon walking whack job with a pound of mushrooms in his/her stomach. They're all entertaining in their own special, altered sort of way.

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 11:07 am

[quote="Badger"]Will you be gifting tin foil hats?[/quote]

AW, MAN! That's a GREAT idea for gifting. Protect your Psyche from The Man. Wear a Tin Hat!

I'll be wearing a foil-covered pirate hat to match my washboard.

-gatt
ZaphodBurns!
Home of the Infinite Improbability Root Beer Saloon
http://www.zaphodburns2005.org

Cosmic Code Authority · Post by **Cosmic Code Authority** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:15 am

David's cultural misunderstanding of the way art gets made at Burning Man does not make his (our) cause wrong or as simplistic as decipted on this thread. I may post to this thread later, though I think that I do have the time to spare.

also, for the record, I do not know of any crossover of the MAPS crowd with MindFreedom, except for philosophically. I would welcome any cross-polliination that might occur. I have posted a few antipsychiatry notices to the Cognitive Liberty tribe on tribe.net in hopes to sparking some interest by the MAPS people who I imagine hang out there.

yay for tinfoil hats.