Columnists

A tangential note:

One of the Big Fatal Mistakes of inexperienced persons who embark on self-employment is to undervalue oneself, and as a result, to undercharge. Customers do not respect this. When the price of something is too low, people invariably perceive that something is wrong with it. This detracts, and it is a reason that many entrepreneurships fail. Yet, there are many types of salesmanship applicable to many situations.

In the case of being a mental health consumer seeking help to move ahead in life, salesmanship may be needed to convince the appropriate people to go along with what you want. You may need to do some convincing that you are a viable person, one who can do very well in life with the necessary help. You may also need to explain exactly what is in your way, and in what ways you need a reasonable level of help. And here, it is also necessary that you don't undervalue yourself. This morning or yesterday morning, I forget which, I was on the phone with one of the many people responsible for my treatment, when I mentioned that I placed a classified advertisement in which I'm trying to offer copyediting services to the public. The mental health professional had a perplexing reaction. So, I said to him, in a chiding tone, that I have a life outside of just being a mental health consumer. -more-

A Memorial Day Column: The United States of Warmerica

The folks at Progressivememes.org have prepared a pictorial statement that does justice to the dark side of Memorial Day. Instead of honoring generations of dead American soldiers, the statement recognizes the victims of the Pentagon's deadly global adventures. The text reads as follows:

I stand with the millions of people murdered by US wars and proxy wars.

Native Americans. Africans (slaves). Vietnam. Cambodia. Honduras. Guatemala. Indonesia. Nicaragua. Iran. Syria. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Yemen. Ukraine,

According to Brown University's Costs of Wars project, US wars since 9/11 have killed over 900,000 people and cost $8 trillion.

The statement includes this footnote:

Senior US diplomats warned that aggressive NATO expansion was unnecessary and would result in a war. The US went ahead with it to provoke and weaken Russia. The RAND Corp. study, "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia," specifically recommended arming Ukraine and warned of Russia's likely military response.

The Mental Illness of Pro-gun Demagogues -more-

There were a lot of things wrong in the 1950s when I was growing up, redlining, classism, deep racism, segregation, poverty, little opportunity for Blacks or women, abortion was illegal, gays were closeted, McCarthy was ruining lives with his communist conspiracies, but one thing I never had to worry about was being so pulverized by a weapon of war that DNA would need to be used to identify who belonged to the mass of unrecognizable bloody flesh on the floor in a school classroom. And that is because no one could walk into a gun store and buy an AR-15, an assault weapon or similar gun or guns that hold high capacity magazines. There were not more guns than people. There were not weapons of war sold at your local store. There wasn’t an ad “CONSIDER YOUR MAN CARD REISSUED” to buy an assault weapon. https://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/12/gun-ads-bushmaster-mattel/

The problem is the guns and the answer is not turning teachers into marksmen with AR 15s on their desks or slung over their chests. When I hear the phrase, “they’re coming to take your guns away” all I can think is “I wish.”

In Australia in 1996 there was a firearm massacre in Tasmania in which 35 people died. The Australian government responded and united and did just that, they took the guns away removing semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession, roughly 650,000 guns and established strict laws on who could possess a gun. https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback In 2019 after the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, New Zealand banned assault weapons.

Background checks, if even that measure could be passed is not enough. There needs to be a national ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines and access to ammunition needs to be controlled too. That is what we need to be marching for. -more-