JaysPolitics

Bisexual: What does it mean?

2007-12-01T04:52:00.000-08:00

Most people think that bisexuals are promiscuous. This is a bit like the opinions some have that all homosexuals are pedophiles, or that all priests are. True, there are promiscuous people of most orientations, and there are sexual predators of all orientations, but orientation alone does not determine morality. We can talk about the need of some to believe they are more moral than others due to their orientation some other time. Fact is that most Bisexuals do not think of themselves as bisexual and try to conform to being either straight or gay. Most have things to think about in life other than sex.

Relationships are not all about sex, either. How about love? It is not so impossible to love and admire a person of ones own gender and for that to lead to a desire for greater intimacy. Many bisexuals say, "We fall in love with the person, first. Gender is irrelevant."

The probability is that not all people who say they are 100% straight or 100% gay really are at the extremes of the Kinsey scale. The liklihood is that there are vast numbers of people who are bisexual and either do not realize it or will not admit it.Well, part of the reason that I make a point of expressing my bisexual orientation is because others need to know they are not alone. They need to know that one can be bisexual and still enjoy a monogamous relationship, especially if love is the foremost desire. They can accept their nature of their orientation and still consider themselves good people.

I believe it is the case that sexual orientation is determined by a combination of nature and nurture. The gay person has no control over the fact that he or she find their own gender most attractive. Neither does the heterosexual. This, precisely, is the reason that sexual orientation is not a matter of virtue. The orientation of our sexual desires, where we are on the scale, is something pretty much beyond the individual's control. Probably, the notion that it is a matter of virtue is driven entirely by people for whom it is a matter of choice: bisexuals who are insecure about their same-sex feelings, presume all others face the same choices and are perpetually at odds with those who state that their orientation is not a choice, thinking all to be like themselves.

This is unfortunate as orientation is irrelevant. The struggle of virtue is not about sexual orientation. People of all orientations must decide the extent to which they will govern their passions or be governed by their passions. Virtue is created not by orientation, but by what the human being brings to and adds to their own human condition. Can one govern ones passions so they are not a distraction to the need to help others? Certainly, passions can lead us to predatory behavior hurtful to ourselves and others if they are not managed well.

Many do not like such thoughts because they require work. Beneath them is the hint that you are not more virtuous just because you like to sleep with the opposite sex, even by becoming a parent you are not automatically more virtuous as we can find many examples of bad parents. Yes, participating in birth and parenthood can lead one to become more virtuous, but it requires us to respond appropriately. It is that response to our human condition accomodating the needs of others among the demands of our own desires that is the beginning of virtue.

Should Men Marry?

2007-11-05T05:14:00.001-08:00

Brother Walter connected me with this story about men's rights.

Should Men Marry?

Scoop: American Cassandra - Susan Lindauer’s Story

2007-10-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

New Coverage of Susan Lindauer

Scoop: American Cassandra - Susan Lindauer’s Story

Good news. Mukasey is GOOD news...

2007-09-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

...for America. Why do I think this?

Here's the answer:

This from the New York Times, this morning:

LINK

Ex-Judge
Is Said to Be Pick At Justice
Democrats Likely To Accept Him as
Attorney General
By Michael
Abramowitz and Dan EggenWashington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 17,
2007; Page A01
President Bush has selected retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey as his new attorney general, sources said yesterday, moving to install a law-and-order conservative at the Justice Department while hoping to avoid a confirmation fight with Senate Democrats.

This was the judge that so pinned the ears back on the prosecutors for wanting to forcibly medicate Susan. Known as a tough guy. A stickler for the law. He was able to protect an individual who politicians were ready to throw away or dispose of as was done with Martha
Mitchell during Watergate.

I wrote about the experience of being in his courtroom. I was quite thrilled with our nation to see such a judge on the bench and felt that way even before I knew how he was going to decide anything regarding Susan.

I knew she was getting one of the best for a judge. My pointing that out to her might have been one of the things that helped to calm her down a bit. She had to admit that in many other countries a judge's permission would not have been necessary.

In contrast, it is the unfortunate case in Pakistan that the ruler has been able to render their court powerless. That is a problem that even given fears of terrorism in a courtroom in New York City a few blocks from the cavity of the former World Trade Center Judge Mukasey did not permit. And that the culture of our nation did not permit... at least, not yet.

Nice to see one of the good guys win, once in a while.

Judge Mukasey Said to Be Pick At Justice

2007-09-17T04:06:00.000-07:00

Can anybody tell me why this news would be good... no, thrilling, on a personal level?

See the story that prompts this Monday-morning excitement in the Washington Post:

Ex-Judge Is Said to Be Pick At Justice
Democrats Likely To Accept Him as Attorney General
By Michael Abramowitz and Dan EggenWashington Post Staff WritersMonday, September 17, 2007; Page A01

One of Collin Powel's friends

2007-08-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081602745.html

Politics in the Church

2007-07-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

Something I found that I wrote a while back that reiterates what I learned reading Bertrand Russel:

Politics are inescapable. Sometimes they arrise from healthy motives -- the desire for self improvement. We see someone else who is successful. We try to emulate what that person does, follow their example, listen to what they say and learn. Sometimes another person comes along and says something different. We don't listen because it doesn't sound like our leader. As the organization grows, leaders become more powerful and the tendency to resist other voices creates a kind of informal censorship that discourages creativity and critical thinking. Understanding how some faults arrise out of human nature, it is easier to forgive and more difficult to villify or bear a grudge.

Spiritually, we must find a balance between "listening for the voice inside us," listening for voices in the wilderness telling us about the voices they hear, and the need to have community to discern truth.

Perhaps I'm radical, but I prefer quiet, reflective meditation to a lot of the hubbub of group attempts at group praise. St. Francis said to "preach the Gospel and to use words if you must."

The need of the churches, politically, to engage the young results in language that, to me, sounds condenscending. The pedestal on which marriage and baptism of infants have been raised, I find inappropriate. It is the choice of adults to follow a ministry that needs to be celebrated and recognized. My reading of the Christian faith does not instruct me to marry and increase the population. I understand the need to accomodate human needs, but am aghast that one group of sinners so accomodated so violently fall upon other sinners seeking the same accomodation.

That the creation of new souls, new humans, children is a miracle of life and something to be held in awe, I do not deny. However, I do no find it to be particularly enobling. It is not right that so many think parenthood itself is a sign of virtue and I therefore dislike the center stage given to parents at the baptism of infants. Better to see how they do as parents and honor them later--or let us each honor our own father and mother by how we conduct our lives.

There, now I've gone and become pedantic.

The church needs a diversity of ministries. Children would find the services I most enjoy dreadfully boring, I imagine.

if life were a thing that money could buy...

2007-05-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

...all the rich would live and the poor would die.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/05/29/nz.lifesupport.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Susan's Kitchen

2007-04-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

The refinancing went through. Susan paid her attorney fees related to warding off her father's foreclosure. Eight thousand dollars poorer, in the end, she still stuck to her goal. New windows would lower energy bills. She also wanted a new kitchen.

Karin and I both suggested to her to hold off on the kitchen until she had a full-time job. We both recommended that she keep some funds in reserve. Instead, she committed every last dime. Well, there wasn't money for the floor or the sink or the plumbing, but she has been working to save money for those things.

She spend many days at Home Depot. They sent somebody to measure the kitchen. She hired contractors who gutted the existing kitchen, closed up a door, and put in dry wall. Then they started to assemble the new cabinets. Well, it turns out that the kitchen doors are not big enough to let the new corner cabinet in. The contractors told her that they wanted $2,000 more to knock out the back window in the laundry room, widen the back door to the kitchen, bring the corner unit in then clean everything up.

She says that she called Home Depot and they refused to do anything about the error. Meanwhile, the contractors discovered that Home Depot did not measure correctly and one counter is 3 inches to long on one wall and another is 3 inches too short on the other.

Strikes me that they were here to measure and should have not only gotten the counter's measured correctly but measured the doors and planned as to how to get the corner unit in: maybe by bringing it in in pieces and constructing it on-site.

Two-thousand dollars is more than she has. She agrees to $800 for them to knock out the back window, bring the corner cabinet into what is now the laundry room and replace the windows. Then she has spent this weekend widening the door herself using an electric gardening saw and a hammer.

I'm upset that she did not get Home Depot to pony up and fix the problems that they have created. I am sure there are people who know more about widening doors in load bearing walls than she or I do. I look at the hole in the wall with the many sawed-of two-by-fours and am sure that it is going to be difficult to repair.

She's convinced that it is impossible for her to get Home Depot to fix the situation. Apparently, they stopped returning her calls. However, I'm at a loss for how they could since she has no direct line at the place were she is temping.

Update on Susan

2007-03-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

My apologies for not posting more in recent months.

Susan had an evaluation. She says that the doctor declined to comment on her case. I suspect that he filed his medical findings, in any case, but Susan had the impression that he had washed his hands of her. Nevertheless, there is a hearing next month with the new judge. Susan's lawyer says that she has been excused from attending the hearing.

You know as much as I do about the facts, at this point.

My thoughts about what this has been all about and what will happen next are speculative. I tend to look for the simplest answers, but suspect that could be a mistake in Susan's case. Her father's connections cause me to speculate as to how much pressure he exerted upon prosecutors, perhaps in a well meant (at least in his mind) effort to get her help that he felt she needed.

A lesson that I can take away from this is an understanding that no human being is entirely rational. The air we breath is 80% Nitrogen. As a one-time scuba diver, I know that nitrogen becomes a narcotic somewhere past 100 ft. of depth, if a diver is breathing an 80% mix. The stories of nitrogen narcosis make clear that the incidence of it's affect upon the mind is subtle enough that victims do not realize they are being "narced." I think there are many subjects that have similar affect.

If we talk about sex, for example, no person has a neutral or unbiased position. Anything that brings the topic to mind causes ones mental chemistry to change, and no two people are the same. And so, I feel, that we must presume that we will all be less capable of reason in dealing with such topics or their influence. Like nitrogen narcosis, some function better at one ambient pressure than others, but all begin to dysfunction at some pressure point.

We have seen examples of great intelligence coexisting with great idiosyncrasies in humans or the even the relatives of humans we perceive as most gifted. We regard stories like Don Quixote as classics because they express themes that seem to us timeless and universal. We do not always appreciate, however, when modern day figures joust with our windmills. Nevertheless, I think society is better for accepting the consequences of diversity in order to grow through its blessings.

Susan's father dropped his foreclosure. The loan from the family trust does not need to be repaid until such a time as this house is sold, and there is no longer interest accruing.

Susan refinanced with a reputable mortgage company. Legal fees cost her $8,000 but she did not have to pay $138,000 immediately. With the refinancing, she eagerly paid of debts, arranged for new Pella windows to be installed, which will greatly reduce heating and air conditioning bills, and has initiated a contract to update the kitchen on her main floor.

The next bit of news is that her brother and father arranged to have a fair amount of her mother's furniture sent to her. The furniture is being unloaded from a United Van Lines truck by a very remarkable driver. He's doing the unloading himself, helping with reassembly, and educated me about some of the tricks of backing such a vehicle that I had not realized despite having towed a fairly large trailer over much of the country for many months. I always enjoy learning something new from an expert.

The furniture is pretty impressive. Chairs with designs carved by Susan's mother depicting the Crusades. Other chairs with her mother's needle pointed cushions... I'm hiding with my broken wrist and bad back until the dust settles.

More when I know more.

Punxsutawney Phil ssys, "No shit Sherlock," predicting early spring

2007-02-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070202/ap_on_re_us/groundhog_day

Another Evaluation for Susan?

2007-01-23T02:18:00.000-08:00

Well! What is this?

Susan's says that her lawyer is surprised and confused. The Justice Department wants another evaluation, the judge has agreed, and even the prosecutor, Susan thinks, was surprise.

What does this mean?

Another visit to Carswell?

It is amazing, to me, that with so many people in need of medical care and who are not provided for their needs by our government, that somebody who does not want it is forced....

Ah! Here is what we don't think about. What if all medical care were in the control of the government? Would that not be another way for tyrants to govern? Anybody who does not get along with authority can be labeled as psychotic or delusional and institutionalized.

I will begin donating to the ACLU, today. I think that Thomas Jefferson, and maybe a few other of our founding fathers would.

On the DC Metro

2007-01-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

Riding in, this morning, I had some memorization tasks to occupy my time that probably served well to wake me up a bit, even if I delayed breakfast and coffee for after arrival at work. At Union Station several people got on the metro, together, already engaged in a conversation. It was an easy guess that they commuted by MARC together frequently. A woman who had entered the car by the middle door pushed through the crowd to join them, near me, at the back door.

"We're just going to get another bunch of political appointees who are going to want to change everything again," said a man with a trim gray haircut.

A man in uniform next to him nodded. "We've had three different deputy assistant secretaries already, this year." Then after a pause, "Each one has had different funding priorities... different ideas."

Foreclosure Conclusion

2007-01-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

Susan's brother prevailed upon the father to halt the foreclosure proceedings. Not only that, but he also pointed out that the trust the father was managing had been set up to benefit him and Susan, and not to impoverish them with loans at extortionist rates -- howbeit there be loans with more extortionist rates. The interest was then forgiven. A few days later the brother had another conversation. Perhaps he enumerated the benefits that he himself had received from their late mother's estate, perhaps he pointed out how he and Susan had been cajoled into rolling their immediate inheritance into the trust, and how monies from that had been employed by the trustee, their father. Perhaps those monies had not been repaid at interest. I don't know the whole story but Susan's account, though often full of anxiety, and I can never trust her convictions when she is in the grip of her fears, seems likely. The good news is that Christmas got her in touch with her brother who had little knowledge of what was transpiring, and however tired he might be of her afflictions, decency, and probably actual brotherly love prevailed.

Yesterday, Susan received word that the brother had further prevailed in a request that proceeds to her from the trust not be repaid at all. So, now she is closer to being solvent. The house may be quickly refinanced, given that it has a renter or two more than it had when the Justice Department sent Susan away. That additional income, thanks to friend Karin who invested thousands of dollars and time down on her knees cleaning and fixing the previously unusable bath rooms. That refinancing should pay off a few other debts.

She quickly got on the phone to a Fannie Mae mortgage backer, and tells of a wonderful program they have for strapped home owners, one that is designed to prevent bankruptcies by providing reasonable rates and incentives of better rates for good performance in repaying the loan. Now, she is asset rich and cash poor.

The current crisis is the car. My motorcycle broke down. Pieces that held a saddlebag to the frame broke off and required welding. Josh, the head of the service department at Bob's BMW, told me about a welder. The story of what that required is written elsewhere, but Susan met me at the welders and watched as I took my bike apart, then we put all the pieces in her car, leaving a stripped-down vehicle for the welding. The next night, she took me back out and watched in amazement as the bike, more-or-less came back together. Once I got the bike home, and after washing my hands, we went to dinner. Her car immediately began running with a lurch. At stop lights, we found that it stayed running at idle if we quickly got it into neutral.

I feared at first that it was a timing belt, since it was behaving differently under load. She said that it had been replaced only twenty-thousand miles ago.

"Well, maybe it's something as simple as a spark plug."

The recent, suddenly cold weather might also have something to do with it.

I went to work the next day and she took the car to a local service shop. It turned out that the car needed new ignition wires. Fifty dollars -- not bad. However, in her anxiety to fix whatever might be wrong -- her first thought was the transmission -- the list of roving requirements grew and the bill came to $400 that she doesn't have. Doesn't everybody know to ask for a diagnosis and an estimate before agreeing to service? She allows that the mortgage has not yet been paid, either, and that she needs transportation to get to a bank to cash a check that another tenant gave her, late.

There is a lesson in this, for me. If I were more thrifty I could more easily asist. I could have held off on the repairs to my bike. Perhaps I should stop riding it altogether until I have a bit more money in savings. In the last month, I completed a 60-thousand-mile service. That and the repairing of the saddlebag could have both waited until spring and better riding weather, I suppose. Truth is, however, that it is easier to ride to work, given the state of my back, than it is to walk to and from the metro. My back is generally ordering a halt after about two blocks. Standing in Metro stations waiting for trains, if I'm not fortunate enough to get a seat, doesn't help, either. Perhaps I need to start using a cane so that my need is more apparent.

A friend admonishes me that I need to stop living "paycheck-to-paycheck." That is true. However, I've previously prided myself on the notion that I live more by faith in God than faith in the dollar. It is no small coincidence that every dollar remind us, "In God we trust." Still, I perhaps tempt fate too much or at least need to desist in testing providence by foolishness.

I went to bed last night troubled that I could not help her. I did not sleep well. When I slept I had nightmares. Not the kind of nightmares with ghosts and such, but the kind that describe to me very real calamities. I hesitate to write about them as I fear that the notion of such evil will be learned by others and employed.

It nevertheless came to me that while men may have been successful in defining the tyranny of governments and to some extent devising means to limit them, we have not done as well in recognizing the tyranny of lenders. After my foray into self employment as a Microsoft Trainer, and two accidents that ended it and added an exclamation mark for emphasis, I have had a taste of what disadvantage the poorest Americans face although I had the benefit of somewhat marketable skills, and a security clearance at a time when employee candidates with them were becoming harder to come by.

A good mortgage and lending market are important to enterprise. The same for insurance. There is a point beyond which both businesses may exploit weaker parties and at which the business becomes one of more questionable motives and ethics. The profit motives of free enterprise should serve and remain subordinate to public interest, not the opposite.

I mention insurance because it is part of my personal nightmare. My only employment was self employment at the time of the last may accident, I had no health insurance. The other party's insurance company quickly admitted responsibility, but failed to be forthcoming in assuring medical treatment or compensation for time I would lose from my work, teaching. If it were not for a lawyer willing to represent me, I would have had no further medical care. Still, the aggressiveness with which insurance companies have pursued medical cost has resulted in a situation whereby doctors are less willing to prescribe comprehensive examinations. Despite complaining of head and back injuries, neither the emergency room or my doctor were willing to prescribe x-rays or MRI's. So it was that I lived with undiagnosed back pain through the months of June, July, August, and into September -- attending physical therapy until I was allowed to go back to work, in July.

It is also the case that I went weeks before symptoms of dizziness, headaches, and forgetfulness were diagnosed, and that due to a friend who worked at the Food and Drug Administration, who recognized them and instructed me to insist on seeing a psychiatrist -- not that the psychiatrist was willing to afford the expense of baseline studies required to document the consequences of a "closed head injury." This friend knew that such injuries are occurring more often in people who wear helmets!

Back on full-duty, I taught my first motorcycle safety class, since the accident. After a bit more than an hour walking and instructing on the black-top, I was bent over by a shooting pain down my left leg. This justified a MRI of the lower back and revealed several bone fragments that had broken off of disc's and were floating in my spinal column.

To this day, I have had no x-ray of my skull, no MRI of the upper back, and while doctors have been generally attentive to the injuries of the back, my comments that the right knee periodically is causing me some concern have gone uninvestigated. I tend to focus upon the more serious and painful problem, myself.

And so I see a problem. One part of the insurance industry hikes up the price of medical care, and another, when required to afford it to to an injured party who is clearly entitled, endeavors to limit it to restrain their costs. The citizen is caught in the middle.

A few days ago, I heard a radio program on NPR, interviewing a Democratic party politician on what it means to be a Democrat. He mentioned the "Jacksonian" notion that the health of a society is measured not in by the health of those at the top, but by the welfare of those at the bottom. While I worry that this notion allows a majority of freeloaders to prevail upon a minority of more responsible, productive workers for welfare, I realize also that human happiness drives all of us to find ways of being of service to others, and that perhaps freeloaders will never be in a majority even were it permitted to be so.

In my nightmare, I lived in a country ruled by casino owners. Many who came for entertainment ended up impoverished and enslaved. They were forced to perform for the entertainment of new people coming to the land. The entertainment was not particularly good although the performers struggled at their craft. The scripts were such that they had to portray their own indignity. Those who watched did so out of the lack of any better entertainment all the while thinking that their failure to recognize the merit of the performance was due to their own lack of culture. They strove to become more sensitive to the moral and theme of the story, but only became programmed to fit into similarly dysfunctional lives.

The horrors that were visited upon those who schemed to escape their poverty!

Upon waking I thought of the game of souls. Those who had lost theirs, endeavoring to similarly impoverish others. The only form of entertainment--way of feeling better--for those who have lost their own soul is the process of finding or creating greater unhappiness in others. Perhaps this is the business of vice. Let me consider how society comes to allow it and make it fashion.

Good quotes on war & peace

2006-11-20T05:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.randomterrain.com/favorite-quotes-fighting-and-war.html

Three from that page:

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Salvor Hardin

Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.
Margaret Mitchell

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.
Tony Benn

Foreclosure II

2006-11-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Karin Anderson purchased the house at auction for $250,000.

Susan will contest the foreclosure. Chances are that her father will lose his claim and end up paying legal fees. In any event, Karin will transfer the title back to Susan.

Foreclosure

2006-11-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

This just in. Susan's Dad did foreclose on her! She just found out that the house will be sold at public auction.

Federal riot police seize turbulent Mexican city | Top News | Reuters.com

2006-10-30T15:04:00.000-08:00

Maybe we should take a moment to watch what is going on in a neighboring country. Interesting.

Federal riot police seize turbulent Mexican city | Top News | Reuters.com

Patterico’s Pontifications » Clint Taylor on Susan Lindauer

2006-10-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

Patterico’s Pontifications » Clint Taylor on Susan Lindauer

From today's Writers' Almanac

2006-09-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

Miguel de Cervantes said, "Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."

After the hearing

2006-09-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it may be that there will never be a trial. Who knows. It does look like Susan's fears of being taken away again to Carswell have been ended. My own suspicion is that the prosecution, or others in the Justice Department, have awakened to their being used for the purposes of others, and decided that her case really is not as serious as they first thought.

Judge Mukasey pretty much pointed that out in his decision.

There were others who were doing very similar things to which Susan was accused of, as has been pointed out in recent news blogged below, so I can't blame government folks thinking this was more of the same, at first blush, and not wanting an offender to slip through the cracks on a technicality. Even Susan agrees that most of the people in the government want to think of themselves as good people when they go home at the end of the day. Don't get her started on Carswell, though.

Susan says that on her way into New York City for the hearing, last Friday, that she was listening to the radio and heard a familiar voice calling into a radio station, saying that he was a retired federal judge who had enjoyed the station and saying, "...I appreciate your commitment to freedom of speech." She thought it was a bit serendipitous.

Hearing, Friday

2006-09-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

Susan will be meeting the new judge at a hearing on Friday. The prosecution is still trying to force the medications one way or another. Now, they want the judge to order her to take them (voluntarily?) under penalty of contempt. That really is risky. If she were to fail in that then they have a lot of latitude as to how long to lock her up. All these drugs have side effects, I think. Some of them are very unpleasant. Lots of ordinary patients learn that the disease is better than the cure.

I remember the quacks at GW Medical convincing me that I needed to be on Depakote, years ago. I complained that it screwed with my ability to concentrate while playing chess, making me nauseous and sleepy, and that I wanted to discontinue it. The doctor gave me a story about how one had to go off of it gradually, and that I needed to stay on it longer just to see if it was beneficial. Then, at the six month mark I went to see him and he told me to just quit it immediately. I figured out, later, that one of the forms I had signed permitted them to use me as a test patient for some study they were doing with Depakote. They didn't give a damn about my well being.

So, I can sympathize with somebody who lives by their wits and who might have real problems with compliance on some of the crap the wrong doctor might throw at them.

One of Susan's friends, Kelly O'meara, wrote me an e-mail and got together with Susan. There was some gathering of Susan's spook friends at a steeple chase in rural Virginia. Susan was all excited about seeing them again. I was wondering, "Aren't these the folks that got you into trouble then left you out to dry?"

It turns out that Kelly just published a book: Psyched Out.

Here are some of the Google hits for her book:

The Expert Witness Radio Show with Michael Levine

Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Kill is an ... Award-winning investigative reporter Kelly O'Meara's coverage of the ...
www.expertwitnessradio.org/archives/kellyomeara.html - 19k - Cached - Similar pages

Psyched Out - HOW PSYCHIATRY SELLS MENTAL ILLNESS AND PUSHES PILLS ...

She stands out heroically as a beacon of honesty. Read Psyched Out for a dose of truth! ... "As always, investigative reporter, Kelly Patricia O'Meara wins ...
psychedout.net/ - 8k - Cached - Similar pages

June 2006 Archives Page

Michael Corbin interviews Kelly O'Meara, author of Psyched Out. 3rd Hour:: Michael hosts Open Lines. Kelly O'Meara's Web Site ...
www.4acloserlook.com/june2006.html - 45k - Cached - Similar pages

Lawsuits - Only Weapon Available Against Giant Big Pharma PushersKelly O'Meara's coverage of the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs is virtually ... Her new book, "Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and ...
www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/pharma_lawsuits.html - 38k -

Now, doesn't it seem strange to you that this book so closely parallels Susan's experience with the institutionalized government medical business? To me, it seems as if the government has found another way to impose it's own kind of religion: sanity. And they define the terms and persecute whoever falls outside their definition.

Of course, a real paranoid would wonder where friends like Kelly were when Susan was in trouble and the coincidence of a book that seeds paranoia about psychotropic medicines at the moment when Susan may be called upon to accept them to remain free. Maybe there really are those who want to discredit her?

One of the women on her witness list had a stroke. The lawyer's investigator had said that she wasn't a useful witness, but then I'm hearing from European contacts who claim they've sent depositions to the court via certified mail while Susan claims her lawyer is saying he has received none of this. I think there are others on the list whose health has been going. Yes, there is a lot that tempts me to think about conspiracies. Then again, where are my copies of those certified mailings?

The best answer to a conspiracy may be a better one.

Let us conspire to send a few politicians to war crimes trials, eh? Let's tell the mothers of civilian casualties abroad that they have a lot in common with the mothers of our lost soldiers. Then let's find the folks that made it all happen and have a proper trial.

The thought that has kept running through my head, reading the news accounts following Susan's last hearing is that a few things are for certain: Susan did go to Baghdad. She did meet with senior Iraqi Diplomats, and she did write letters to the Bush administration. Those are significant accomplishments for anyone. Now, they say she was delusional, and they say that what she did was illegal, but what is there excuse for not sending a sane person to receive the same messages, for not exploring every avenue for peace before going to war?

They have no excuse.

You're suppose to just swallow their bull shit, and like it, because they have money and power, and because they've convinced you that they're important.

Maybe each of us needs to empower a different kind of strength in our nation's future. Or heck, maybe it's more important to watch the next television show and just bring home the next paycheck. What is the value of being an American?

Voluntarily

2006-09-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

Susan says that, a year ago, she was given a choice of traveling to Carswell in ten days and turning herself in voluntarily, or being escourted by Federal Marshalls immediately.

Links to stories

2006-09-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

Symbol Susan -- "Though this be madness..."
ePluribus Media - USA
On Thursday, 11 March 2004, forty-one year old Susan Lindauer -- a former Congressional Aide and reporter -- was arrested and charged with conspiracy, acting ...

Susan Lindauer unfit for trial, judge rules
Anchorage Daily News - Anchorage,AK,USA
... Prosecutors said Susan Lindauer met with Iraqi intelligence officers at places in Baghdad, including Al Rashid Hotel, in 2002, where she accepted $5,000 in cash ...
See all stories on this topic

Judge won't force drugs on accused spy
San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA
Susan Lindauer is accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and engaging in banned financial transactions with Saddam Hussein's ...

Susan is Home

2006-09-09T03:23:00.000-07:00

Judge Mukasey wrote a VERY interesting decision. I've had time to read only the first 10 pages, but hope to get through the rest of it before motorcycle safety class, this morning. It was his last day in the court room. I got to hear a bit of the preceding case, and while it was the sort of financial law that might bore most folks, I found myself very fascinated with the thoroughness of the decision he was reading into the record. Also, I got to meet an attorney, in the following case who was the defense attorney to debriefed Noriega after his arrest. He allowed as to how it was Noriega who wrote the book on interrogations that the College of the America's uses for a curriculum on the topic. David Lewis? I think that was his name. Must check my notes and will correct this later if not. I'm in a bit of a hurry to get to Gaithersburg for the class.

The judge found no reason not to "enlarge" Susan, letting her return to a free on bail state. I waited half an hour, enjoying the exhibits in the Federal Marshal's office, then they opened a door and unceremoniously let her out in some reasonably unobtrusive looking prison attire. Nice tennis shoes. We had lunch at Goodies, where Parke, Karin, and I ate, at Liz Fink's suggestion, after the first hearing. Then we rode home to Silver Spring to a shrimp dinner at the American Legion where Richard Morgan and Susan, of Silver Spring's Poly Sue's boutique, and Karin Anderson joined us. We stopped briefly at home. Susan went searching for the cats, who had not heard the car arriving at that time of day. She quickly found midnight. Lulu had a hard time coming when called because of a annoying dog she needed to avoid, but snuck in the back kitty door after a few minutes, once we erected some barriers to dogs in that part of the house. Susan was delighted with what Karin had done for the house, and enjoyed meeting the other tenants who Karin had enlisted. She was very grateful to Anula for taking such good care of the cats.

After dinner we stopped at CVS on the way back to Susan's home. I'm looking forward to seeing her for a motorcycle ride this afternoon.

Happy day. Susan had many good things to say about her care at MCC, except that the food was better at Carswell, and of course was just delighted with Judge Mukasey and his decision, as am I with what I've read so far.

I'm sure the prosecutor thinks we're letting one get away, though. I'm sympathetic to the role prosecutors must play and will admit that I don't have the capacity for such a job or that of the Federal Marshals. Susan agreed, when I pointed out that the world does need governments and people in such roles, as unfortunate as that may be. Yet she believes someone was intentionally using the system to punish an asset (her) who had made the mistake of embarrassing the politicians. It's an interesting notion.

Reunion with Midnight

2006-09-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

Judge refuses to order drugging of defendant in Iraq spy case in New York - Americas - International Herald Tribune

2006-09-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

Judge refuses to order drugging of defendant in Iraq spy case in New York - Americas - International Herald Tribune

This might be good news at last. I just had a call from Susan's lawyer, telling me there will be a hearing at 11:30, tomorrow.

[later posting]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/08/america/NA_GEN_US_Iraq_Spy_Case.php

Starbucks is the Devil

2006-08-31T05:10:00.000-07:00

Won't say what led to this thought, but it just dawned on me that soon one will not be able to take liquids anywhere on public transportation. The obvious benefactor? Starbucks!

You know that the sale of themos bottles has been lackluster and since they've not been able to cash in on that end of the coffee-to-work smuggling operation, they have found a way to end it. Hindsight is 20/20, but you would think that we might have figured it out sooner that Starbucks is the real force behind international terrorism, financing the whole thing out of customer drug addiction.

Too bad international terrorism isn't funny. This could have been a good monologue.

Iraqi agents on trial in U.S., Iraq (Regime of Terror)

2006-08-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

Iraqi agents on trial in U.S., Iraq (Regime of Terror)

This may provide some perspective on what the delay is in Susan's case. They very well may have wanted to see what materialized during other trials.

Cosmic Penguin

2006-08-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

A good summary of links and information about Susan.

Included are Media Email Address

Tom Mattingly

2006-08-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

I had a call from Tom Mattingly, who picked up on this, spoke briefly with him, but have not been able to connect since.

Time for publicity

2006-08-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

Let me also say that this might be a good time to start calling your media connections and get any publicity you can to bear on her situation.

Well, today is the 9th

2006-08-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

We expected that if there was going to be good news that it might arrive sometime between the 5th and the 9th. Susan called and seems to be taking it well. Her friend, Karin, like many of us, are just about speechless that our nation can lock an unconvicted person up for so long without the benefit of a trial just by seizing on a personality characteristic they find unpleasant and declaring them incompetent. It seems like, well, picking on the handicapped.

This could be the beginning of a good rant, but I'm going to save it for a day or two more. What do you think about our Justice Department?

No news

2006-08-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

No good news from Susan's direction. There've been a few phone calls that somehow get cut off. Since I've been working full time, and teaching nights, I'm not available as much for phone calls. Karin has frequently been in touch with her and her attorney. He's not optimistic, pointing out that even if she is not forcibly medicated there is still the matter of the underlying charges.

Prophecy or just smart as a whip?

2006-07-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

Remember my earlier report of my conversation with Susan in MCC New York on July 3rd?

She was filling me in on some of the history of Syria, and told about how the son might lead Syria in a more enlightened direction? I wrote her a letter, and mailed it yesterday, speculating about how accurate what she had said might be. Imagine my surprise to read the on first page of today's Wall Street Journal reports of analysts saying the same thing.

There is a deal to be made with Syria. I think it has secretly been in the works for a long time. It might not be what Susan thinks and judging from what we've seen on the world stage recently, it might not be pretty.

I got to see a psychiatrist about my head injuries. Tonight was a third visit. He told me about how the brain heals and resolved some of my concerns about persistent bits of memory loss--that the problem should go away. He also hinted that it might be up to me to request a MRI, and that it will be easier to do so once I have medical insurance.

Returning home, I was just in time to catch the PBS special on recovering the text of Archimedes. What a story! What a shame if his science is being rediscovered on the eve of another dark age. Humans are seldom so stupid as when we try to solve our problems by force. The story was that Archimedes was killed by a roman soldier among the warring party that wassuppose to capture him for the Romans.

Reminded me of the book Once an Eagle and its key phrase:

"So in the Libyan Fable it is told that once an eagle, stricken with a dart, said when he saw the fashion of the shaft, with our own feathers, not by others' hands are we now smitten." --Aeschylus

Archimedes, whose improvements of the catapult, literally, kept the Romans at bay; killed by the sword, himself.

It's off the subject, perhaps, but while conservatives often nash their teeth upon hearing the name of Senator Frank Church, and ascribe blame to him for things that were already afoot due to previous misconduct, I would like to point out that he played a big role in forcing the DOD to improve the pay of servicemen at a time when it had remained stagnant for many years despite inflation and significant growth in the defense budget.

Air Power

2006-07-14T06:22:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Stephen Budiansky's book, Air Power. There is a passage that describes the dropping of pamphlets that accelerated the end of WW I. The pamphlets told German soldiers that POW's captured by allied forces were treated in a humane manner and received the same daily rations allowances. The pamphlets then described the daily allowance to include marmalade and tobacco. WW I, the book says, ended largely because of mutinies in the German ranks and uprisings from citizens fed up with military leadership.

Interesting to see the contrasts in POW propaganda and to consider how the treatment of modern POW's works against our larger interests.

Susan's estate

2006-07-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

Interesting rumor: I'm hearing from a couple of sources that Susan's father is asking the family trust fund, from which she borrowed some money to purchase her home, to foreclose on her. According to the pre-trial psychiatric documents, it was her father who first planted the notion that she might be incompetent, with the prosecutor. Interesting that this is happening on the eve of her expected release.

Karin, who takes care of the house for family members, says this is to get Susan a lower rate.

Letter from Susan

2006-07-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

Gosh, I have to get better at reading my mail. I got a letter from Susan, yesterday, and being on my way out, set it asside. I'm glad I ran across it this morning before it got burried under more bills.

Susan's letters have not always been fun to read. Those from Carswell were full of indignation and flailings, as one might expect, and after the first one there was seldom much that was new. The bright spots were when she spoke about the food service ladies and some of the religous leaders who got in to see them. So, it is nice to get letters that are not full of desperation.

One of the things that Susan pointed out, in this letter, that she had also mentioned when I visited on Monday, was how impressed she was that she had not already been forcibly medicated. She sees that as a reassurance--that we have a judiciary that is still largely independent of politicians and empowered to protect people in positions like hers.

More Friends

2006-07-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

One of the good things that has come out of living in Susan's basement has been all the wonderful people who I've met who are concerned with her situation. Tonight, I connected with somebody who had been reading about her on-line. Jack Cohen-Joppa is in town for an alternative energy conference. We met for dinner, and I got to hear about his involvement in the protests on the tracks at Colorado's Rocky Flats nuclear materials processing site.

I've been on the other side of the nuclear energy issue, but certainly share his interest in finding other sources of energy that are environmentally friendly. I also admire those who continue American traditions of activism and anyone who engages their mind and participates in public dialogs. Here's his signature line:

the Nuclear Resister
"a chronicle of hope"
P.O. Box 43383
Tucson AZ 85733
Now 25 years In Print!
- information about and support for imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists -
Jack & Felice Cohen-Joppa, editors
phone/fax (520)323-8697
email: nukeresister@igc.org US$15/year/US$20 Canada/US$25 overseas
- selections from recent issues
- updated prisoner addresses
- & archived issues can be read at:
http://www.serve.com/nukeresister/
* FREE SAMPLE ISSUE ON REQUEST *
(please supply a postal address for samples)

Now, Jack and Felice have some experience with situations like Susan's. Here's a bit from his e-mail to me:

"We will publish our next issue sometime in July after I return from DC. We generally ask readers to write letters of support to the folks in prison because of their anti-war activity. If appropriate and if it is the wishes of the prisoner, we also ask readers to write letters of protest or support to officials. (& it is not uncommon to prefer that those first be sent to an attorney, to be submitted formally and so the defense knows what is being said!)

"It seems Susan would believe that she is in prison related to her anti-war activity, however delusional. Her letters clearly indicate such a peace-seeking motivation. So it seems consistent with our objective as a comprehensive chronicle to report on that fact now. I wish I had known in September that she was involuntarily committed! I have visited a friend at Carswell twice - not in the FMC hospital but the women's admin-max. on the same site, and only with a monitor in the same room.

"We've also on occasion reported on people arrested and sent to jail who were mentally ill, but for one moment of moral clarity and unambiguous action ended up in custody. We try to be sensitive but straightforward. Seriously contemplating nuclear war is enough to drive most people crazy, so most people are happy not to think about it. Likewise imprisonment. The fact that the US imprisons at a greater per capita rate than any other nation is rarely contemplated.

"We also have some experience supporting people of conscience accused of espionage - see http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/20050702felice.html and that site's home page."

Walking home after our meeting at Mark's Kitchen, one of Takoma Park's favorite restaurants, I was pleased to get a call from another person who has helped bring publicity to Susan's plight, Janet Phelan, who is now in Sandpoint, Idaho. I envy her so much for being able to be so close to those mountains.

The New Yorker: Online Only: Content

2006-07-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

The current issue of The New Yorker has several thought provoking articles.

The New Yorker: Online Only: Content: "But, on 9/11, John O’Neill was no longer with the F.B.I.

In the summer of 2001, there was a damaging leak in the New York Times that exposed the fact that John O’Neill had taken classified information out of the bureau to an F.B.I. pre-retirement conference in Florida. His briefcase was stolen. It was discovered within hours and the information had not been touched, but because of this revelation he decided to retire. And he took a job as the head of security at the World Trade Center. He died on 9/11."

Nine months and counting....

2006-07-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

I visited Susan, yesterday. I must say that the anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication they are giving her at MCC New York are helping her. We talked for two hours and I was just amazed at how clear she was. At one point, she corrected herself. She was saying, "I know more about this than anyone," then immediately rephrased it: "I know as much about this as anyone. I don't need to be grandiose."

Leading up to this visit, I had been talking to one of the Scottish journalists. The Lockerbie conviction is going to be overturned. He put a call into Susan's DIA contact using the two phone numbers that Susan had given me. The person who called back was one who was presumed DIA when Susan introduced them to journalist, Ian Ferguson, during the Lockerbie trial. Susan's account of weekly meetings was quickly corroborated and she got high marks for her initiative and intelligence.

The judge is not simply retiring. He goes into some senior status where he can continue to work her case and others, but probably will not take any new cases. Susan thinks there is some chance she may be released, pending trial.

We then spoke at some length about Lockerbie, terrorism, and the drug trade. I knew that I should have been taking notes during all the conversations I had with Susan before her trip to Carswell. She corrected a number of things that I have not recounted correctly. First, she never said that Kadaffi was innocent in Lockerbie, but that we were prosecuting the wrong citizens. Kadaffi had a long history of supporting Abu Nidal and terrorism. Second, the CIA agents who got off the Lockerbie flight at the last minute were going to Washington to testify to defend the CIA against charges that others on the plane, DIA agents, were making concerning CIA participation in the drug trade that was funding terrorism, primarily terrorist Ahmed Jabril.

I'm probably not getting all the names right, but she described to me the situation in Syria, how a very feared leader, Hafez al-Assad, had been grooming his son Basil al-Assad to assume leadership, but Basil was killed by Ahmed Jabril (to intimidate Hfez al-Assad) and now younger brother, Bashar, has risen to power and is viewed as someone who might calm things. She described how Ahmed Jabril is something of a father figure to Usama Bin Laden and somebody with whom the DIA has a few scores to settle.

BTW: Did you know that Syria is on the U.N. Security Council?

Thinking about drugs, and the recent prison shooting in Florida, I asked her whether someone who has worked against such powerful figures needed to worry about the reach of terrorists into drug corruption in U.S. Prisons. She surprised me, saying that there is actually very little drug activity in prisons, not that there aren't plenty of women who would like sexual opportunities even without the added incentive of sex for drugs described in the news of that event.

She also went on at some length about how fortunate we are that the judiciary is independent of other political branches of our government. In many other governments, there would not be the protections that she is enjoying. Interesting that she could see her current predicament as preferable to some of the alternatives.

Susan will be in the news

2006-06-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

Al Jazeera picked up on Susan's story, I'm told. Expect to see them go forward with some kind of article. While I like the idea of Susan getting more publicity, and while it may be good for Susan, this kind may not be good so good for U.S. national interests. It's the the kind of reason that goes to the point of how stupid it might have been to indict her on such nervous-Nellie charges to start with. When IS the last time the FBI did anything of actual service to the country, I wonder. Are they all just sucking up big paychecks and waiting for retirement while telling homophobic jokes?

The problem is that, as I've said before, whether Susan was or was not an actual intelligence asset, and if she was, whether or not those who were handling her were do so ethically and correctly, are questions somewhat beside the point because in most every respect she looks like she was and is indistinguishable from anyone else who is. It's not beyond our expectations, of the agency that first brought us LSD, that they would, as pre-trial records describe, prescribe her medications that unbalance her and make her seem less sane to others.

Where this goes is to the issue of how intelligence assets are treated, and how little supervision various operators have regarding their employment of others and influence upon others.

It is a lot easier to recruit intelligence assets when the world things our country wears the white hat. When ordinary citizens of foreign countries do not see us holding the ethical high ground, or as a beacon of hope for enlightened civilization, then they have lost one of the best reasons that ever served us in recruitment. Beyond that, if those who work for us do not get their due, and beyond that are taken down and discredited and impoverished when they seek to serve the truth to unappreciated bureaucrats, and the word gets out. Well, then we are just the same shit as every other tin pot tyrant who ever walked the earth.

The shame of this is that we have challenges ahead of us, real challenges, not pretend Iraq WMD phobias, and we may need every friend we can find to survive in a world where military might suddenly becomes a liability.

Thomas Nephew also blogs and analyzes Susan Lindauer's plight

2006-06-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

newsrack blog: "Fair and balanced news and opinion commentary by Thomas Nephew. Can you hear me now?"

I've very envious of how thoughtful and well written this is.

Chicago

2006-06-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

On my way back from the West coast, in 2003, I travelled through Canada. By some good fortune, I found a German resort on Lake Wobegon (right). As I traveled into town the next day, I passed a young middle eastern man riding a bicycle in the opposite direction who seemed to look at me with unveiled hatred. The next night I dreamed that Al Queda members had managed to get a nuclear weapon into a Canadian port, shipped it by rail and were riding a train across the boarder into Chicago.

A breaking story: Corruption in Federal Prisons

2006-06-21T15:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/21/prison.indictment/index.html

The same organization that runs Carswell. Story is that this is one of the alternative places where FBOP sends people that they want to keep on ice as it is very hard for relatives to visit.

No news on Susan

2006-06-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

Karin called the lawyer's office, this morning. There is no news.

Susan's phone minutes

2006-06-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

One of the most tyrannical aspects of Susan's incarceration is the limitation of her freedoms of speech and the press while still unconvicted. While in prison, she is forbidden any contact with the press, limited to call only those who are approved, and we are prohibited from conference calling her in with journalists. On top of that, she is limited to four or five hours of phone calls a month, less than half of my current cell phone calling plan.

Tonight she called, sounded like she was in tears, claimed to be frightened and begged me to come visit. Then the phone went dead. Probably, she is out of minutes until the beginning of the next month.

Karin will call her attorney in the morning to find out if anything happened.

Half of me is pissed at Susan for the dramatic timing and not answering the couple of questions that I got in sideways as to whether anything had happened. The other half worries that the worst has happened and she's on her way to Carswell, never mind the assurances of additional motions and proposals.

Just a great cap on an otherwise productive day, and I'm not sure how many more days I'm going to need or allow this kind of dramatic intrusion--emotions that are always so self important and so seldom considerate of whatever situation in which the listener may be already involved. Nevertheless, being held in such uncertainty with so little regard for her own interests... well, I guess it would drive anybody crazy.

It's an interesting question: Who do I trust least, Susan or our government? Neither have great reputations for integrity at the moment.

No hearing

2006-06-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Turns out that there was no hearing. The judge has all the information that he needs to make a decsion and we will probably be hearing it in the very near future. Susan's lawyer thinks it's a tough case for the judge, so nothing is for sure.

CORRECTION: Susan's Next Hearing...

2006-06-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

...is scheduled for June 13th.

Correct that. I just called Susan's Uncle Ted. He said there will be no hearing. The judge doesn't need to call everyone into court. He will just sign some papers and that will be that.

Ted thinks there is a very good chance that Susan will not go back to Carswell, but be released to a private facility near her home in the DC area.

Sunday, Hearing Tuesday

2006-06-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well, Susan woke me up at 9:00 A.M. this morning. It wasn't her fault that I stayed up until 2:00 A.M. on the computer. The wake-up call got me out of bed in time for ten o'clock church at the Church of the Ascension on Sligo Avenue. Good thing it's only ten blocks away and no lights.

Susan is in a panic. She is of the impression that her Uncle has not gotten the family's motions into the judge. She wants me to call him? Me? Why not her? Well, because she can't leave messages on his cell phone the way the prison telephone system works. You would think there would be some human operator required to intervene when an answering machine message clearly says that it will accept all incoming calls. Oh well.

Karin, who is as close to all of this as I am and takes care of Susan's house and her two dachshunds, says that Ted filed two motions: One, to get her out of incarceration, entirely; and another to allow for her being medicated and monitored in a medical community near where she lives.

After church I went to the Takoma Park Farmers' Market. I found a park bench. I may as well be sitting outside as at home with my injuries. A gathering of people showed up discussing how the police department made a mistake on a report. They were chasing some people who had car-jacked a SUV, the SUV took out this lady's fence, but because the police wrote down a non-existent address on their report, she is not able to get insurance to fix it. As she wandered off, one of her lady friends allowed to me as to how much energy this woman had for all kinds of activist causes.

"Oh, well, I could use her," I replied and sketched out Susan's predicament.

"Oh, yes, I remember her," she replied, "They got her on treason."

How interesting. Those of us who read the indictment know that treason was not the charge. Nevertheless, by insinuating treason and espionage, the people in government empowered to prosecute managed to position her in a way that scares the bejesus out of liberals. Mother Susan, at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, was just as quick to distance herself. The ability of politicians to sever a citizen from their rights and due process just through innuendo and indictment, to so ruin someone's life over such a long period of time... well, it is exactly why the founding fathers thought up the idea of having a new country.

I venture to say we are less and less the "land of the free" because we are less and less the "land of the brave." We think bravery is sending soldiers to Afghanastan or Iraq, and dropping bombs on foreign cities from 60,000 feet. From super power to third-rate in one generation.

Treatment Simular to Susan's: Les Coleman, a previous Lockerbie figure

2006-06-08T16:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.rense.com/general/integ.htm

Key Lockerbie Witness Les Coleman - 'I Got My Integrity Back' From Rumor Mill News
6-2-00

From Rayelan --

I received this from Doretta this morning --- As soon as she knows more, she will keep us posted. I want to thank all of you for taking the time to write letters to Judge Platt. I believe your letters changed his heart.

Please take the time to write a letter to Les. If you can afford it, please send him a postal money order. He will need money to supplement food, and if he gets out in a month, he will need money to get back to Kentucky.

Lester Coleman ID #47321-019 Metropolitan Detention Center 100 29th Street Brooklyn, NY 11232

Thank you --

###

From Doretta --

Hi,

Les called this evening. The hearing of this morning lasting three hours. Present were Les and his attorney, the plaintiff (US gov) represented by Special Agent David Edward, plaintiff's attorney. Also present was a representative from the Department of Justice whose name Les was not able to determine. This fellow sat in the back of the courtroom observing the proceeding.

Who else do you suppose was present? Two old prosecutorial friends. The prosecutor in Les's Kentucky trial. And the federal probation officer from Kentucky.

The FBI took the trouble and expense of transporting these witnesses from Kentucky to the Uniondale courtroom.

The prosecution harped on Les's testimony in the Kentucky trial, contending that he renounced his affidavit and discussed the Pan Am 103 trial against the mandate of Judge Platt. They insisted on a maximum sentence of two years.

But Judge Platt wasn't moved by their argument. He said that he would not sentence Les on the basis of anything remotely to do with the Pan Am 103 affidavit or trial. He would sentence Les solely on the basis of his "violation" of the supervised release. (As you know, the fact that Les was arrested and convicted of a crime in Kentucky constitutes a violation of his release terms.)

Les was allowed to read, word for word, the transcript of his 1997 meeting with public defender Abraham Clott and his supervisor before the court. This transcript is now part of the public record. It contains evidence that Les was coerced by his public defense team to plead guilty to the perjury charges, as well as his emotional trauma and previous medical neglect/mistreatment. I believe it was presented to support Les's claim that he has no memory of pleading guilty to perjury. Judge Platt has accepted this claim as a fact.

Les put it aptly: "I got my integrity back."

Platt gave Les a sentence of 10 months in prison. Les and his attorney believe this sentence is retroactive to September 1999. If this is true, Les will be released on July 3, 2000. If the sentence will not credit him for time already served, however, he will be held until next February.

By Saturday I should know when his release date will be.

Les told me that Agent Edward was visibly outraged by the relative lightness of this sentence. He described Edward as "apoplectic."

Les truly believes that Platt was moved by the content of the many letters he received from members of Raye's group. That could very well be true. Without those letters, Platt might have taken everything the plaintiffs said at face value. But I also think Platt knows he went too far with his original sentence, and wishes to wash his hands of the matter.

Paul Rinaldo told Les that if he's called to testify in the Lockerbie trial, there is little the FBI can now do to muffle him. I know there's still the matter of a charge issued via the Chicago court. Perhaps Mike can better explain this particular issue.

I would have been happier if the sentence were lighter. The idea of Les in prison for even one more month disturbs me deeply. But Les is satisfied that this was the best outcome he could have hoped for. And he credits all of his friends and supporters with making it possible.

Paul Rinaldo, Les's attorney, will be issuing Les a transcript of this hearing, which he will make available to all of us.

I'll let you know more once I hear from Les on Saturday. For now, heartfelt gratitude to all of you from Les.

"Doretta _____

RMNews, The Uncensored National Rumor http://www.rumormillnews.com THE ONLY RUMOR YOU CAN TRUST

RUMOR MILL NEWS AGENCY P.O. BOX 1784 APTOS, CA 95001 TELFAX 831 462 3949

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To write or not to write...

2006-06-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

One of the associates in the law firm that represents Susan sends the following:

"Jay,

"Sam asked that I pass along the following. We were contacted by the
Court today and they informed us that they have been receiving
letters on Susan's behalf. We were told that these communications
are not helping Susan in any way but are actually more harmful to
the case. If you would be kind enough to let the people out there
know, either through your blog or other means of communication,
that these letters should not be going directly to the Court. If
anyone would like to send information to our office we are more than
happy to receive it. At that point we can pass it along to the Judge
through the proper channels. As always, feel free to call me with any
questions.

"John McPadden"

I'll admit that I had already gotten a package off to the court at
Susan's behest. It contained samples of her children's story and Ian
Ferguson's e-mail attesting to the connection between Susan, the
CIA, and DIA figures being real (during the Lockerbie period).
Generally, I trust her lawyers' advice as they would be in trouble
if they were to be caught intentionally deceiving anyone in such
matters.

Why they might want to get Susan? Remember Lockerbie!

2006-06-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

PEJ News

http://911review.org/Lindauer/LindauerPanAm103-SundayHerald.txt

http://www.sundayherald.com/8759

Sunday Herald
Scotland's award-winning independent newspaper Est 1999

28 May 2000

Lockerbie: CIA witness gagged by US government

A FORMER CIA agent who claims Libya is not responsible for
the Lockerbie bombing is being gagged by the US government
under state secrecy laws and faces 10 years in prison if
he reveals any information about the terrorist attack.

United Nations diplomats are outraged that the US government is
apparently suppressing a potential key trial witness. Diplomats
are now demanding that the CIA agent, Dr Richard Fuisz, be
released from the gagging order. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire
businessman and pharmaceutical researcher, was, according
to US intelligence sources, the CIA's key operative in the
Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s where he also had
business interests.

One month before a court order was served on him by the US
government gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national
security, he spoke to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer,
telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers
and claiming they were not Libyan.

Lindauer, shocked by Fuisz's claims, immediately compiled notes
on the meeting which formed the basis of a later sworn affidavit
detailing Fuisz's claims. One month after their conversation,
in October 1994, a court in Washington DC issued an order
barring him from revealing any information on the grounds of
"military and state secrets privilege".

When contacted by the Sunday Herald last night, Fuisz said when
asked if he was a CIA agent in Syria in the 1980s: "That is
not an issue I can confirm or deny. I am not allowed to speak
about these issues. In fact, I can't even explain to you why I
can't speak about these issues." Fuisz did, however, say that
he would not take any action against a newspaper which named him
as a CIA agent.

Congressional aide Lindauer, who was involved in early
negotiations over the Lockerbie trial, claims Fuisz made
"unequivocal statements to me that he has first-hand knowledge
about the Lockerbie case". In her affidavit, she goes on: "Dr
Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and
executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can confirm
absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or
executing the bombing of PanAm 103, either in any technical or
advisory capacity whatsoever."

Fuisz's statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two
Libyan accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist
organisations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine-General Command, which had strong links to Syria
and Iran.

Lindauer said Fuisz told her he could provide information on
Middle Eastern terrorists, and referred to Lockerbie as an
"example of an unsolved bombing case that he said he has the
immediate capability to resolve".

Lindauer says Fuisz told her CIA staff had destroyed reports he
sent them on Lockerbie. Lindauer also refers in her affidavit
to speculation that the USA shifted any connection to Lockerbie
away from Syria to Libya in return for its support during the
Gulf war.

She added that Fuisz told her: "If the [US] government would let
me, I could identify the men behind this attack today. I could
do the right thing ... I could go into any crowded restaurant
and pick out these men ... I can tell you their home addresses
... You won't find [them] anywhere in Libya. You will only
find [them] in Damascus. I was investigating on the ground
and I know."

The 1994 gagging order was issued following disclosures by
Fuisz during other legal proceedings about alleged illegal
exports of military equipment to Iraq. The order claims that
the information held by Fuisz is vital to the "nation's
security or diplomatic relations" and can not be revealed
"no matter how compelling the need for, and relevance of,
the information". The submission also makes clear that the
government is empowered to "protect its interests in this case
in the future", thereby gagging Fuisz permanently.

Details of Fuisz's gagging have been passed to the United
Nations, including UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Russia's UN
ambassador Sergey Lavrov and the Libyan UN ambassador, as well
as representatives of France and China. The report on the Fuisz
gagging, containing Lindauer's affidavit, refers to "the history
of US interference ... [and] ... sabotage by the United States".

One senior UN diplomat said: "In the interests of natural
justice, Dr Fuisz should be released from any order which
prevents him telling what he knows of the PanAm bombing." With
Fuisz prohibited from speaking, neither the defence nor
prosecution can call him as a witness.

A legal source close to Fuisz said: "We want the truth out. The
naming of knowledgeable witnesses who can't be called would
utterly change the face of this trial. Dr Fuisz obviously
cannot claim he has any knowledge because of national security
issues and he could face 10 years in jail. However, if he is
not allowed to talk the entire case should be dropped.

"Apart from the US government freeing him from the gag, the
only way to allow him to speak would be to subpoena him to
the Scottish Court, but the court has no power of subpoena
in America."

The Sunday Herald will make the Lindauer affadvit and Fuisz
gagging order available to both the Crown and defence if they
require the documents.

---------

And more on Lockerbie:

PAN AM 103 EVIDENCE FAKED?

Tuesday, May 09, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com

The 1989 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland may not have happened as the official story has it.

According to a story in the Scotsman, a former Scottish police chief has come forward with a signed statement indicating that a key piece of evidence in the trial of the alleged perpetrator was fabricated by the CIA.

The small shred of circuit board used in convicting Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who is currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison, was planted, according to the retired officer's statement delivered to Megrahi's lawyers, who are seeking a new trial for their client. - ST

staff reports - Free-Market News Network
----------

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/ludwig060106.htm

Susan gets called to court

2006-06-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning, Susan says she was awakened early to go to the courtroom. The judge wanted to see all concerned. Somebody had heard me on the PID radio show and downloaded her medical records from this blog site then sent them to the judge. He had not seen the pre-trial findings, earlier. Now, he says he will read everything that comes across his desk about her case.

So, it may be that letters are now a good thing... if they're on target.

Key is to document that she is not fantasizing her connections to CIA and DIA people. She may be paranoid and she may exagerate her relationship, but she is not completely fabricating things. Also, in diagnosing her as delusional, Carswell went through many of the journals that the FBI seized when they searched her home and arrested her. What nobody has explained to the judge is that she writes fiction, some for children, and some adult political satire. I personally submitted her "Joy Santa" piece to Rain Tree press, as a favor for her, last year. Probably, Karin and I will print out a few pages to send to the judge.

Somewhere there is a PDF of the CIA's letter to the UN and the Scottish court releasing Richard Fuisz from his oath of silence. Susan's deposition is also a matter of record that is easily found on the Internet.

Last, a lady friend raises the question as to why the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons had to have Susan go to Carswell, instead of St. Elizabeth's here in DC, or some place in New York or Boston. Her theory is that Carswell was chosen because the government knew that Susan had actual dealings with agency people and they wanted her to be dealt with by people who would find such claims to be far-fetched rather than folks in communities who know how politicians and their secrecy sometimes screw up so royally.

Visit with Susan

2006-05-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I drove to NYC and visited Susan. It was quite an interesting experience. I got there at 1:00 PM visiting hours closed at 2:00 PM and for while I thought I was going to get turned away, but after waiting an hour for folks who were already in the visiting room to leave, they put us in an elevator and I got to spend about an hour talking with her, one-on-one.

She looks better than I've ever seen her, and she definitely has her wits about her, but it also seems that she is as mixed up as ever about what can be done with her case. She is not alone. Her father has been telling people that she can get out anytime simply by agreeing to accept medication from a private doctor of her choosing. This is not true. It is not even on the table, and she has already proposed exactly that.

Liz Fink points out that there are rules the court must and will observe. Susan has to "cool out" and accept that she really is incompetent and needs what ever help others will give her.

It's pretty clear that Susan will be returned to Carswell for medication after the hearing of the 13th. The only thing that will prevent that would be if somebody were to come forward for the funding for a private institution. Her father's friend Joan Berlin was one of her hopes, but it seems her father may have poisoned that well with his claims that Susan did have an out and that only her being stubborn was preventing her release. Why would anybody contribute with a father making such claims?

Her father told me that Susan took a loan from the family trust to purchase her house, and the father seemed anxious to liquidate the house so that the trust can be repaid an applied to other needs in the family. In short, the father seems as responsible as anybody for Susan being declared incompetent.

I do not accept the claims of some that Susan's lawyer is corrupt or evil. It is clear to me that, while it may have been a mistake to go the incompetency route, any lawyer who has Susan as a client would find themselves in "over their head." Susan is just unmanageable and untrusting of all authority figures. Sanford did a marvelous job in the defense portions of the hearing, and can play the cards that remain as well as anybody.

While it is clear that the judge doesn't like the situation Susan is in and may be sympathetic to her plight, he will not break the rules for her. We can talk about injustice: How this seems like double jeopardy, that she must prove herself competent first, and then get to have a trial, and the Justice Department being able to treat her in a manner indistinguishable from common criminal punishment before she has been found guilty. We can talk about whether the State is imposing a form of religion by setting itself up as the arbiter of mental competency when critics become bothersome or embarrassing. Nevertheless, I have to be somewhat sympathetic to the interests of the State as well. You cannot have free agents taking up with foreign intelligence services and doing business with state sponsors of terrorism. If we prosecute the rich who pursue such profits, then we must also prosecute the more naive among us who succumb to such overtures.

Watching Judge Mukasey run the courtroom was one of the pleasures of this whole ordeal, for me. Susan has the benefit of some very professional people and a fundamentally well-intentioned court system that she would not have in many other countries. I'm not sure that my admiration carries over to the Justice Department, but I understand the prosecutor when he protests that "These are serious charges. We have video tapes of her accepting payments from the Iraq Intelligence Service when we were about to go to war." I don't envy him his role.

If I have a criticism it would be for the way our government has allowed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to operate without a lot of oversight--even outsourcing it to corporations who operate under a profit motive where there is probably even less accountability. Our prisons do not commend us. We need to listen to people who work within them and make some of the improvements that I'm sure they will have to suggest.

Bills

2006-05-26T05:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm about done with Susan, myself. Just got my cell phone bill, must have missed it for last month. Susan knows that I have free nights and weekends, and she knows that I teach on Monday and Wednesday nights from six until ten. I can't tell you how many times I've received calls during classroom hours when the phone has been silent all day, and it now dawns on me that she never calls after 9:00 when the time is free. Of course, this would have been easier when she was still in Texas.

Bottom line, I have a bill that exceeds $700 and need to come up with about $300 to keep the phone from being turned off. Probably, I'll take that out of the rent that I pay to her.

The demands to do things to call people to go on her computer and look up who else....

When I do call folks, who she is so urgent for me to call, such as Mrs. Berlin, who is wealthy enough to pay for Susan's care in a private facility, the word I get back is that they don't want to talk to her.

Someone asked me what Susan had done to get into trouble, and it wasn't just that she wrote letters. She accepted money from Iraq. The prosecution says they have video tapes of her accepting money from Iraq Intelligence. That would be an illegal transaction. Iraq was on the list of nations that supported terrorism, and as I understand it Sadaam Hussein funded some of the rewards to families of suicide bombers.

Iraq Intelligence had a habit of filming such things. She claims the money was reimbursement for expenses.

It is likely that there was some corruption in the Iraq government, and that the narration of the tapes says something different in their language than what Susan thought was going on. It seems feasable, in my mind, that Iraq Intelligence Service members were padding their expense accounts and bolstering their status reports by claiming that Susan was a spy for them, or that they were recruiting her.

I will also say that she had a lot emotionally invested in her peace efforts. Her anger over the invasion was emmense. The prosecution claims that she agreed with an undercover agent, posing as a Lybian intelligence officer, to assist Iraq troops behind their lines after the American invasion. Now, I'm pretty sure that she wasn't taken in by the undercover agent. Her friend, Park Godfrey, has told me that he remembers her describing the agent as a flake, wondering what his real game was, and saying that there was half a chance that he was FBI.

There is a part of me that lives in tension. Knowing that our invasion was a breach of international law, I must respect even enemies who defend the opposing position. At the same time, the need for loyalty to ones own country should not necessarily be cast off with every mistake.

Nonetheless, Susan is entitled to a trial. Even if she is guilty, she did not trade in secrets and contributed nothing substantial. Neither was she in a position to do so. It may be argued that the FBI's intervention prevented further crimes, but one of the roles of law enforcement is to intervene early when citizens are headed down an illegal road.

Maybe they did.

Susan and Lockerbie, Another Twist

2006-05-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday, as I was riding my motorcycle to work, I was rear-ended by a car and thrown from my motorcycle. I sustained what I thought were minor injuries. I had a headache, and felt stiff in many places. A visit to the ER, and a few days later, I realize that something has my mind playing games on me. Of course, if I were paranoid, I would think that as there is no way to control what an injury might do to someone, the trick would be to have an accident, then administer some drug through using a skin penetrating agent. Chances are that it's just a concusion, and if it were serious I think the ER doctor would have caught it.

But, over the weekend, I get a call from Scotland. Someone with ties to the old Lockerbie case says that the conviction we got on the Lybians is coming apart at the seams. He thinks Susan is being railroaded like other people associated with the original Lockrebie trial. I had heard about there having been a number of mysterious deaths & disapearances, and he reminded me of some of that.

Moreover, he knows the another person who had called me from Europe and downplayed Susan's connections to the CIA and DIA. "Don't believe a word," he says. "I think he works for MI-6. I watch my back, you better watch yours."

Great. I'm living inside a spy novel.

For what it is worth, I know one or two people who've had clerk type positions in the CIA, and probably rubbed elbows with others while traveling in the State Department--yes, I can tell a funny story about pissing some of them off, not knowing who they were. My impression is that they do not get involved in cover-ups and do not admire collegues who run rogue operations. That's how they got the Church Commission on their backs, probably. Most of them, like most government workers, want to be admired for the job they do, want to go home at the end of the day and believe they've done something useful. While the political appointees may be a slightly different story, something like Lockerbie has persisted through several changes in political leadership.

Still, my caller reminded me that the current leadership has a lot of the folks who were in the leadership, then.

Joy.

Founder of Delta Force: "There is no real threat to the US in the world"

2006-05-21T14:01:00.000-07:00

Founder of Delta Force: "There is no real threat to the US in the world"

This is an increadible read.

From the page: "Another Prominent Military Figure Denounces NeoCons, Iraq, War on Terror
Delta Force founder joins ranks who say there is no real threat to the US and war is based on lies

Steve Watson / Infowars | March 27 2006

Retired Command Sergeant Major Eric Haney, founding member of the military's elite covert counter-terrorist unit, Delta force, has stated publicly for the record that he sees the war in Iraq as an "Utter debacle" based on intentions by the Bush administration that were "not what they stated" and that "there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world"."

Quoting from BitPlayer's online Blog:

"Now HERE'S a guy with credibility! One of the founders of our own Delta Force! Not some asshole actor who is just looking for publicity. I know, I know, we should be happy when ANYONE joins the fight for truth. But, how much can Crusty the Clown add to the debate? Or, some actor for that matter!"

Rip off?

2006-05-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

Now, it just dawns on me. I have seen no proof that the letters that Susan wrote to Andy Card were ever delivered. He says that he never saw them.

If Susan never really delivered them--she says that she hand delivered them to his house--and is simply saying so out of delusion, then she never actually did anything for Iraq. She took money from them, but....

Could it be that we are prosecuting her for ripping off our enemy?

What is worse, taking money for your expenses from an enemy and doing nothing for them, or as some in government do, taking a salary from your own country and doing nothing substantial for it?

Nuts

2006-05-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

Susan just called and in the course of the call re-described her relationship with Richard Fuisz, once perhaps of the CIA, and Paul of the DIA. She talked about meeting twice a week with Paul, and at least weekly with Richard for nine years.

Then I got an overseas call from the Scotish journalist who I told you, puts them together. Well, he puts them together but not like that. His last conversation with Richard Fuisz was several years ago and it was Richard asking him, if he had any pull with Susan, to get her to quit calling him.

In the light of this, I have to re-examine what I've been thinking. Susan is certainly not an evil person, but I had considered her problems to be more exagerations than fabrications. Now, it seems I have to accept that much that has stirred me up about her case is questionable.

9/11 was an inside job?

2006-05-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

Everybodys Gotta Learn Sometime 1.0 - Google Video [google.com]
Well worth the watching.

Susan's cat, Lulu waits for Susan's return

2006-05-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

Phone call from Susan Lindauer

2006-05-11T05:24:00.000-07:00

Susan called, after I got home from class, last night.

Her view is that the government does not want her claiming that she was working as an asset for our intelligence agencies. They will medicate (with medicine that has unpleasant side effects but does nothing to eliminate delusions) until she stops claiming to be an asset. Problem is, that is her defense and without a defense they will then imprison her.

Wouldn't you freak out? Your government is talking about torturing you until you agree to go to prison. Forget the rights against cruel and unusual punishment, the right against self incrimination, the right to a speedy trial....

Carswell, in one of their first reports to the judge made the claim that she was claiming to be a CIA agent. That did not fly. She is very clear on the difference between an agent and an asset. The court knew that.

When Susan heard people like our President saying we needed to do everything that we could to fight terrorism and capture the people responsible for 9/11, she marched off to use what ever contacts she had overseas. Perhaps she has delusions of grandiosity, but we also know that her connections to Richard Fuisz, who represented himself to be CIA to journalists who met him with Susan at the Lockerbie trial, and Paul, of the DIA, who was also in attendance are well documented in the Scottish and European coverage of Lockerbie. Can we be sure that someone like Dr. Fuisz was not taking advantage of or feeding her delusions?

One might think that we would have some sworn-in testimony concerning those relationships before torture to force her to deny them commences.

This whole Carswell episode seems to me to be torture: Cruel and unusual punishment before there is a trial. The eagerness of Carswell doctors to employ medicines that good evidence says do not work to treat delusions such as Susan's, and that by all accounts can have very unpleasant side effects.... I am left thinking that this is the culture in which the reservists who were caught torturing Iraqis in abu ghraib were created. These are self-styled patriots who neglect to consider that they are handling someone who is innocent until proven guilty. They regard her as a terrorist--someone who is fair game for what ever games they have in mind, and one quickly discerns from their abbreviated attempts to diagnose her, throwing her conditions into the category of unspecified psychosis, that they are more intent upon inflicting their procedures than in the health of patients or the pursuit of truth. These seem to me to be small-minded sadists who pass themselves off as medical professions, a breed who have been with the human race for too long.

Years ago, when I was in boot camp, we had service week. This was a week of long hours working in the mess hall at boot camp. Maybe it was actually two weeks. It was Hell. We had a chief who ran one of the shifts that everyone called "Little Hitler." He enjoyed the title and would terrorize recruits. I remember being called into his office before a gathering of a few other recruits and him flattering me about my blue eyes and youthful appearance. I was glad to get out of his office when their amusements turned to someone else. A few days later, I pulled from the sack of scrub uniforms that we drew from for work clothes, a jersey that had a battle efficiency "E" on the arm. I wore it that day and other recruits were quick to notice it. They didn't know whether they were suppose to salute me or not, but if I gave an order they jumped-to. At first, I employed my new found power by reorganizing the food line, getting people to put down their laden trays then come back through the separate salad and dessert kiosks rather than trying to fit two more plates onto their trays. It was an improvement that lasted only as long as somebody stood at the line and instructed. Then I saw a fellow recruit picking up two plates of cookies, sliding the contents of one onto the other and departing with double rations. How I delighted in sounding the alarm and delivering a cookie thief to "Little Hitler" for treatment.

We need to be very careful, whenever we entrust others with power, that we protect them from its corrupting influence. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is its own fiefdom. Judges have little influence there. Your elected representatives have little influence. You can see that they are corrupted as they treat all who come there alike: whether they are convicted or pre-trial and innocent by our tradition of innocent until proven guilty. Their visitors are limited by prison rules (and her Uncle was three times denied visiting rights during visiting hours), their phone calls also, they have no Internet Access, and they are ordered not to make any contact with the press. These are fellow Americans who we have allowed to become, in too many ways, evil.

Carl Jung said, "Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you."

Susan Lindauer's Trial: The Defense Witness

2006-05-10T02:47:00.000-07:00

Susan's CJA attorney, Sanford Talken, called Dr. Goldstein from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Among Dr. Goldstein's credits was the fact that he was the Medical Director of the Supreme Court Psych. Clinic in 1970 to 1974.

Dr. Goldstein had his own diagnosis of Susan: Delusional Disorder, mixed type. This was different from the diagnosis that the Justice Department asserted, that was provided by the doctors who observed her within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, at Carswell. Carswell, we learned last Thursday, had diagnosed her as suffering from: Psychotic Disorder, not otherwise specified.

A delusional disorder of mixed type, Dr. Goldstein explained, included firmly held convictions that are irrational. Delusions of persecution and delusions of grandiosity are exhibited by patients with this medical condition. He pointed out that the delusions are irrational, but not bizarre--they are typically things that could be feasible as opposed to things that are impossible. It might be possible that somebody is trying to hurt you, but if you fear that and they really are not, then it is irrational. Bizarre would be believing that Martians are trying to hurt you.

Grandiose delusions could be thinking one has special talents, capabilities, relationships, and even spiritual gifts. The DSM code for the disease is DSM IV-TR.

Dr. Goldstein asserted that this was a proper diagnosis because it matched all of Susan's symptoms. His testimony described Carswell's diagnosis as a "Wastebasket" diagnosis. "Psychotic disorder not otherwise specified," he pointed out, "is a diagnosis that can be used if one cannot reach a more specific diagnosis.

He then testified about the article that Carswell had brought forward to justify their request for medicating Susan. The article, he pointed out, was not a publishing of scientific conclusions that were the result of any kind of double-blind testing or clinical trials such as one might expect. Rather the article was a review of other articles that described experiences some have had with patients being medicated. The problem with relying on such an article is that it is not scientifically rigourous. The number of patients described in the underlying articles was very small, too small a sample for good statistical conclusions. Most significantly, relying upon such alegorical evidence, one can be sure one is hearing mostly the good news about such treatments, as negative results tend not to become the subject of doctors publishing about their work. Moreover, the author of the article summarizing the medical treatments pointed out in his own disclaimers that the studies he had cited had very little to say about effect upon psychotic delusions.

He then went through the side effects of the medicines. They weren't pretty. Among the non-serious side effects was a category called EPS that included muscle spasms, Parkinsons-like symptoms, and other things extremely annoying to a patient. These were called non-serious because they, while extremely annoying, were not permanent or fatal. There were also fatal side effects.

Dr. Goldstein asserted that there is no medication that will effective treat Susan's condition. He concluded that as there were no benefits of such treatment and big risks that such a prescription should not be carried out.

It struck me that Susan's resistance to being medicated was perhaps more sane than the rush to medicate of doctors at Carswell. She might have delusions, but she is not stupid. It also caught my attention that the doctor, in describing delusions of grandiosity said they were merely irrational not bizarre, as one could have special spiritual capabilities. He said it pretty fast and didn't dwell upon it, but I wondered how we scientifically discern between actual spiritual gifts and imagined ones. Did Moses really see a burning bush? I'll go onto consider whether, if God talks to humans in ways that can seem delusional, it follows that by devine design there might be few possible countermeasures, and for good reason.

On cross examination, the prosecutor asked (hoping for an affirmative answer) whether side effects could be prevented by controlling dosage and monitoring. He was not prepared for Dr. Goldstein's negative reply. The evidence on side effects of psychotropic drugs shows that dosage is not much of a factor in whether or not side effects occur, although it might limit their severity, thus reducing some risk. He pointed out that once a fatal side effect has occured it may be too late.

It seemed to me that the point and methods of forcible medication is to inject time-released medicines. Monitoring for symptoms that develop due to exposure time would require a thouroughness and a level of professionalism that I would not expect to find in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Private facilities are subject to accreditation and quality reviews by different regulatory entities. Medical facilities with the FBOP are reportedly not subject to such review and by many accounts a "nightmare." As we are allowing them to treat, in some cases, people like Susan who are not yet convicted of any crime, it seems to me that this borders on malpractice and malfeasance on the part of those who manage such systems. It is sort of like cruel and unusual punishment prior to a even having a trial--torture that one must survive to get to trial. How convienient to the Justice Department and the FBOP contractors that they can punish and make money on punishing citizens with mental disabilities indefinitely because the drugs they would inflict upon the delusional patient will NEVER render them fit for trial!

You should have seen the prosecutor's reaction to the testimony during cross-examination. His emotional follow-up questions drew objections from the defense that were quickly sustained. Once the judge asked him if wanted to phrase a proper question or withdraw it. He plunged ahead then quickly drew another objection.

He asked things like:

"You mean that if she has a medical condition that cannot be treated, we should just let her go?"

"You mean that the government should just let people walk around with medical conditions that we cannot treat?"

This gave me considerable insight into the culture and mindset of our Justice Department. Interesting to me, also, that there are people walking around who need psychotroopic medication, who without treatment have illnesses that will result in crimes, but the government is more interested in providing profits to political business constituents and punishing criminals than in providing a common medical program that will promote the common good and dissuade such crimes before they occur.

The judge then inquired of the prosecution whether, since Susan has served time in Carswell that might count toward any future ordered sentance, and because the illness she suffered from was the likely nexus of her crimes thus further mitigating any future sentance whether the risks of medication for what little sentance might result were worth it. The prosecutor grew quite flustered and reiterated the charges, describing actions that Susan still claims she carried out acting as an asset for those she knew in our inteligence community. Just because one is delusionsal doesn't mean one cannot or should not try to serve ones country.

Susan may have been close to being released on bail while awaiting trial, but because the judge asked questions of the defense witness that were not asked of prosecution witnesses, there will be a delay while the same questions are posed to the prosecution witnesses, and defense gets to review them. The hearing will be continued on June 6th. Meanwhile, Susan will be held in New York and not sent back to Carswell.

Fund raising for Susan

2006-05-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember, in March of 2004, Andy Card's second cousin being arrested for letters she wrote to him conveying infomation from Iraq diplomats. Because of those letters, and her accepting expense reimbursements for trips to meet with those diplomats, the Bush Justice Department accused her of being an unregistered agent of Iraq Intelligence Service. Currently, she is in prison without having been tried and convicted.

Her court appointed attorney and the prosecutor agreed to argue that she was incompetent to stand trial. The court then sent her to Carswell FMC, in the Federal Bureau of Prisons to see whether she could be made fit for trial. Last Thursday, a hearing began in Judge Mukassey's Federal Court, the Southern District of New York, to approve the Justice Department's request to forcibly medicate her. Obstensibly, this is to render her fit for trial. However, it is somwhat clear they have no specific diagnosis for her other than "psychotic not otherwise specified" and literally proposed, in court, that as they could not determine a cause for her condition could only treat the symptoms. It gets worse. They went on to describe medications that had been proven 50% effective in two studies treating similar symptoms of patients with different diagnosis: one study with 15 people, another with only 1. Under cross-examination, they admit that some of the side effects of such medication are known to be fatal.

It seems that the Republican party and the Justice Department, in order to punish somebody who had the temerity to work for the end of sanctions and the suffering it was causing in Iraq (she had studied under a professor at Smith who argues against the effectiveness of such methods), is attempting to do to Susan what they did to Martha Mitchell during Watergate.

We need donations.

Liz Fink, a famous lawyer who defended the Attica inmates and recently won a substantial judgement for them, is interested in representing Susan. We need to raise about $25,000 so that she can say that she really is Susan's attorney, and so that we can get the public defender whose poor choice of a twinky defense (over Susan's objections and requests for a regular trial and traditional defense) out of the mix. We also will need the funds to get her into a Private facility, somewhere, and that can run another $100,000 a year! But first things first.

If you want to donate to my gas and travel expenses, you can do that over PayPal, but please don't send money until we know what to do with it. Just let me know if you can help, please.

I've posted links to news about Susan on my web site www.jbfields3.com/jbf.htm and am blogging her affairs at http://jayspolitics.blogspot.com

Any other ideas are welcom.

Psychology Today: NATURE'S PATH TO INNER PEACE

2006-05-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Psychology Today: NATURE'S PATH TO INNER PEACE

I sent the above link to Susan's lawer. It references a Dr. Kaplan so I looked up his web site and sent it, also.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~skap/

Dr. Kaplan's website says that he works at the University of Michigan and has published several books describing how nature and exposure to nature aids mental health.

It seems to me that this doctor has a lot more credibility than anybody who has testified so far.

Susan: to be continued

2006-05-05T04:29:00.000-07:00

Friends of Susan attending the hearing, yesterday. It was pretty depressing. Obviously, the federal institution has taken a toll on her and done nothing to treat her except insist on medications, which she refuses.

Her hearing will be continued on Tuesday.

Some of us are trying to raise money for a private attorney: Liz Fink. Meeting Liz at the hearing was the one spot of hope, in the day. There have been times when justice has prevailed for those incarcerated, as it did for the Attica prisoners who Liz represented.

The picture I came away with is that we have a prison system, run by for-profit enterprises, and a forensic psychology industry run by drug companies. The psychiatrists who testified seemed to be people who had only worked within the prison system or within academic circles. I heard nothing about any of their own patients who had ever been healed by their intended therapies. Their responses to the risks of side-effects for medication, some of which it turns out can be fatal or result in additional paranoia and distrust, were clearly disingenious and evasive.

It seemed to me there was a hunger, among the professionals testifying, for Susan to become a patient. The opinion of many, including some with direct experience in federal mental facilitis, is that if Susan gets sent to Carswell it is likely she will die there. The parallels with Martha Mitchell, during Watergate, are just numbing. Remember, that it was Susan's Republican father who first raised the claims that she was delusional and suicidal, and that all of the medical reports find she is not suicidal. Susan, herself, reports that the doctors in Carswell very gleefully described what they would do to her upon her return, pointing out one of the more catatonic inmates as an example of her inability to prevent them.

The situation is not entirlye without hope. The judge is regarded to be a good judge.

If funds become available to pay for private medical care, it can be prescribed instead of Carswell. But we're talking about $100,000+ a year, paid monthly.

Susan, it turns out, was declared incompetent to stand trial by a Psychiatrist appointed by the court. I'm told that this was a pretty poor strategy for a defense attorney. Susan did not wish to pursue her defense, in that manner, repeatedly requested that her attorney contact witnesses and mount a real defense. We determined that the psychiatrists who found her claims delusional had not contacted her witnesses, either. One of them, Park Godfrey, attended the hearing but was given no opportunity to testify.

No doubt, a prison sentence would be preferable to the grey uncertainty of being a guinea pig for the experiments these doctors have in mind. Should, by some miracle, she be restored to competency, in their estimation, she will then be subject to the same prison sentences as she is now.

Of course, all the studies about the usefulness of medications are based upon trials funded by grants from drug companies. How many non-drug methods do you think have been studied?

No mention of what we are recently learning about the need for patients to be exposed to nature, rather than institutional confines.

Very depressing.

The basis for the diagnosis of "psychosis not otherwise defined" was mostly the writings in her journals from previous years. It seems that if someone has religious visions, or speaks with angels, and admits it, even privately, this can become the basis for the state's intervention in your life. Moses and the burning bush is not going to be allowed by the powerful in this modern age.

My interview on P.I.D. Radio - The Strange Case of Susan Lindauer (Part 3)

2006-05-04T05:21:00.001-07:00

P.I.D. Radio � Archive � P.I.D. Radio 4/27/06: J Fields - The Strange Case of Susan Lindauer (Part 3)

My interview on P.I.D. Radio - The Strange Case of Susan Lindauer (Part 2)

2006-05-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

P.I.D. Radio � Archive � P.I.D. Radio 4/26/06: J Fields - The Strange Case of Susan Lindauer (Part 2)

My interview on P.I.D. Radio - The Strange Case of Susan Lindauer (Part 1)

2006-05-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

P.I.D. Radio � Archive � P.I.D. Radio 4/25/06: J Fields - The Strange Case of Susan Lindauer (Part 1)

Susan Knew...

2006-05-03T21:17:00.000-07:00

A few evenings ago, I received a call from Toronto, from Park Godfrey, the professor who was boarding with Susan while the FBI was conducting it's targeted investigation against her. He substantiated what she had told me, that she knew this was no Libyan agent, that he didn't check out. She figured there was at least half a chance that he was some newbie trying to make a mark in the FBI. She found it very odd that he wanted her to deposit documents that were publicly available in a clandestine manner rather than coming to her door for them as she requested.

You have to consider how desperate counter intelligence folks in the FBI were to show that they could accomplish anything. Sort of like an inept small-town police department that has to arrest a black man to be the token victim when one of their white women cries rape, and then the court and jurors who don't have the backbone to put a stop to it before there is a hanging. Well, this isn't a small town court. Things may turn out differently.

I think a lot of us are tired of being told lies by rich people who think they are the ruling class and that we'll believe anything. I think a whole lot of us liked it better when we were at least trying to be the land of the brave and the good guys in the world. Bombing the cities of developing countries from 60,000 feet counts as strength perhaps, but not much in the way of courage.

I also think that Bush, senior, knew that the world might be a more managable place with Sadaam Husein stuck with the problems of Iraq. Anytime oil prices went up, we could just loosen sanctions a little to keep the rest of the oil-prducing world in line. Are we really better off?

Coverage of Susan's plight is picking up

2006-05-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Coverage of Susan's plight is picking up on the eve of her hearing.

I'm very grateful to Greg Szymanski, Janet Phelan, and Mark Bilk for stimulating more conversation. Tomorrow will be an interesting day for all of us. I keep wondering what it all means to our country.

Global_Media_Lightning_Headlines : Message: — �"IRAQ No Threat & Invasion Was Illegal," Susan Lindauer, Andy Card's Cousin gets 6 Mo.Psych Eval. (inmate #56064-054.) - Pan Am Flight 103-an Inside Job �

Susan Lindauer's Letters to Andy Card, Cheney, and Powell

2006-04-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Here are jpg images of Susan's letters. I think this is all of them.

Susan Lindauer's Letters to Andy Card, Cheney, and Powell

Another witness for Susan

2006-04-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

As much as I write about Susan, you might not know how annoying it has been to be associated with her through the last year. I had heard enough of her story repeated so many times that I sometimes wondered how much of it was true. This whole business of being an asset of our intelligence agencies... well, I had pretty much decided that she had a bit of an inflated ego. No doubt, she knew a few people, but did they really regard her work to be as valuable as she claimed. The more I heard of it, the more I tired of hearing of it, and the more I was ready to throw that whole notion out.

Well, today I connected with a Mr. Ian Ferguson via telephone. Ian is a European journalist who has covered terrorism for a couple of decades. From his conversation, it sure sounds like he saw Susan in meetings with CIA and DIA figures who identified themselves authoritatively as such during the Lockerbie proceedings.

The picture I have in my mind, tonight, is that the administration not only cherry picked inteligence information, but went out of their way to attenuate the reach of those inside the inteligence agencies who were exploring the alternative possibilities. Indicting Susan was the administrations way of punishing their critics in the inteligence community--cutting off their arms. People in the agencies typically could not argue their own cases publicly because they sign non-disclosure agreements with the government.

My conclusion is that the present administration sold us on the need for an Iraq invasion with evidence they knew was fabricated, and only after making sure contrary evidence could be eliminated or discredited.

This just in... I think from Susan's lawyer

2006-04-26T22:43:00.000-07:00

Exactly what kind of a lawyer thinks the general public is under any obligation to keep such threats private? I did not solicit the communication and did not agree that anything I received would be off the record. Where does he get off?

For the record, the envelope these came in provided instructions as to what to do if she did not come back from Carswell... in her handwriting. Not that I'm under any contract or obligation once they've been provided to my possession. I have redacted SSN#.

"

Mr. Fields,

It has come to my attention that you have posted some of Susan Lindauer's psychiatric records online. As you are aware, these are very private records which contain highly personal information regarding past diagnoses and medication. Making these records public, without written authorization to do so, is ill advised. Furthermore, the document I was able to view contains Susan's name, date of birth, and social security number. Publicly posting this information puts Susan at risk for having her identity stolen.

Having this highly sensitive information made available for public scrutiny, especially without her consent, is not in Susan's best interests. Therefore, I must demand that you remove the medical records immediately.

Additionally, you do not have permission to post or print any portion of this communication as it is off the record. Feel free to contact me at the number below with any questions.

John N. McPadden, Esq.
Talkin, Muccigrosso & Roberts LLP

40 Exchange Place, 18th Floor

New York, NY 10005

T - (212) 482-0007

F - (212) 482-1303

"

Susan's Psychiatric Evaluation

2006-04-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

Susan Lindauer will be in Federal court in New York on May 4th. The court is holding a hearing on whether or not to declare her incompetent and commit her permanently to a mental hospital and forcibly medicate her.

Her public defender has resolutely refused to mount any serious defense. Susan refuses to plea bargain, and it seems that this is all public defenders really do, anymore.

Susan is not charged with espionage or treason. She is charged with being an unregistered lobbiest, and the Justice Department flowered up the indictment. They alleged that she conspired with the sons of the Iraq diplomat representing Iraq in weapons inspection talks. Those sons were not convicted of anything, but were shipped out of the country on immigration charges. Susan's attorney, I'm told, has no depositions even from them, and he had plenty of time to get the job done before they were deported.

Susan has witnesses who know her thoughts during the FBI's attempted counter inteligence sting operation. She told the FBI agent that she knew he was no intellegence officer from Libya, and said same to Park Godfrey, an IT professor who now lives in Toronto, who borded with her at the time. This is one of her witnesses that her lawyer has refused to interview.

Her lawyer wants to claim in court that Susans insistance that she was trying to work as an asset (or was doing so) for American inteligence agencies is delusional. Unfortunately, for him, Susan's connections were well documented by the Scottish court during the Lockerbie trial, where it seems our government, or at least its political leadership, was so eager to not look impotent that they knowingly prosecuted Libyans instead of the Syrians who Susan claimed Dr. Fuisz, reportedly the former Syria CIA station chief, told Susan he knew had planned and executed it. Susan provided a deposition to the court, and it is in the Scottish press and court documents, the PDF of the CIA's letter, not equivocating about Dr. Fuisz's employment status one bit, but releasing him from his oath of silence in that matter.

From my point of view, Susan told anybody she could what she was up to. Given the notorious lack of human inteligence assets in Iraq, it seems to me that the likelihood that the CIA was ignorant of wha Andy Card's cousin was up to, is very unlikely. The fact that she did have access to senior diplomats, and the fact that she was Andy Card's cousin all fits pretty well to argue against delusion. With such access and connections, any peace activist might feel compelled to engage.

Susan's Psychiatric records during pre-trial counseling are posted at http://www.jbfields3.com/journal/Susan/SusanMedical.tif. You will need to download the file and look at it in something like Microsoft's Office Imaging application. You will see that the doctor directly addresses the question of psychosis and finds contrary to what her lawyer and the prosecution are alleging.

He does mention that Susan has religious convictions. It seems to me that our so-called Christian president may be about to persecute a modern day saint. I'm not sure, it rises to that level, but I'm not at all sure otherwise, and so I refuse to simply watch from the side lines, however much other Americans are beginning to seem like pre-WWII German citizens.

Susan Lindauer: Hearing for fommitment and forced medication scheduled.

2006-04-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of days, we (Susan has a friend Karen who has stepped in with lots of money to keep the house going) have heard from Susan and her uncle Ted and have gained some clarity on what this hearing is and what the situation is. We now understand it to be a hearing to consider Susan's involuntary commitment an forced medication. Her uncle is proposing an outpatient alternative--or so she thinks. I've not talked to her uncle about this, specifically, but have spoken to him on other maters and see every indication that he is a good person.

Now, it is entirely serindipidous for me that I move an empty box in my hall, to take it to recycling, and find behind it a packet of documents that Susan left, "In case I don't return." She meant "from Carswell," I suspect. In this packet, I find neatly stapled, each of the letters in sequece. But, I do not see them first. What I see first is her medical records all signed by a Doctor Kennedy, and a document commenting on her state at each weekly counseling session. These do a good job of arguing against pychosis, addressing the point and finding in the negative.

Susan Lindauer discussed on "Taking Aim with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone"

2006-04-19T06:31:00.000-07:00

Coverage of Susan Lindauer

Taking Aim with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone

Susan Lindauer's letter to Andy Card 9-24-2001

2006-04-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Iraq accuses Mosad of providing disinformation to Washington concerning Iraq involvement in 9/11.

In the days just prior to our Iraq invasion, I was in a neighborhood coffee shop and heard assurances from Mosad's official Washington chief (that's who trusted friends with the connections to know told me he was) that the miltary portion of the Iraq invasion would be finished in less than 18 hours.

Susan Lindauer letter to Andy Card 7-3-2001

2006-04-17T06:13:00.000-07:00

Desperate to find a road to peace. I think Susan wanted nothing more than to be a hero.

Susan Lindauer's letter to Andy Card 3-1-2001

2006-04-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

Six months prior to 9/11, Susan describes a meeting with a Dr. Hasan and her opportunity for a visit to Baghdad.

lindauer - Google Groups: misc.activism.progressive

2006-04-11T01:21:00.000-07:00

Susan Lindauer (Takoma Park, Md.) speaks out
From http://www.gazette.net/200412/weekend/a_section/208001-1.html Lindauer defends
herself against accusations of spying by Sean Sands Staff Writer TAKOMA ...
Mar 22 2004, 2:43 am by hcotn-nyc - 1 message - 1 author

Lockerbie, Lindauer & the CIA
... but we must accept it until they decide different." (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 *** Joseph Cannon Comments: I am covering the Susan Lindauer affair in ...
Mar 19 2004, 11:42 am by n...@tania.blythe-systems.com - 1 message - 1 author

Two stories re; CIA/Lockerbie
Susan Lindauer, 40, was arrested at her $250,000 suburban Washington condominium
and appeared in federal court in Baltimore on suspicion of being involved as ...
Mar 11 2004, 9:51 pm by MichaelP - 2 messages - 2 authors

When Fascism Comes to America by Maureen Farrell
... There's a court hearing for Susan Lindauer, accused of selling out her country
to Iraq for handful of silver. For the record, Lindauer ...
Sep 21 2004, 2:22 pm by Raleigh Myers - 1 message - 1 author

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

2006-03-21T05:26:00.000-08:00

One of the main points that I've tried to make in my writing is the importance of the court in protecting our civil liberties. Without an enabled court, even people like Thomas Jefferson felt that our government could be as bad as any other tyranny. Recently, I was delighted to hear something on NPR that summed this up very well.

"Morning Edition, March 10, 2006 · Newly retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor took on conservative Republican critics of the courts in a speech Thursday. She told an audience at Georgetown University that Republican proposals, and their sometimes uncivil tone, pose a danger to the independence of the judiciary, and the freedoms of all Americans.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5255712

Shame

2006-03-12T15:22:00.000-08:00

Riding the motorcycle is a bit like meditation, at times. The fact that you have to pay attention to the road, and generally do not have a radio or a companion or a cell phone to distract you, seems to prevent me from mulling over work problems and the general neurosis of daily life.

Yesterday, I met a new house mate on the second floor. I found myself speaking a thought that I've had for some time. If you think that Bush is as bad as his critics say he is, then the really scary thing is that America elected him. The new housemate, a student of political science who has studied Alexis de Tocqueville and wonders whether our democracy is reaching the end of its life-cycle.

It brought up an idea for a bumper sticker that had been knocking around in my mind. It would just say, "We elected him?"

Today on the ride I had another thought, a bumper sticker that just says, "Shame!"

Obviously, somebody who does not like Bush would use them together. I think I could sell a few. If you do so, be sure to send me the royalty check.

That took me to the next step of thinking theologically about it. At first I looked critically at our current administration.

"Do they have no shame?" I asked myself, then continued...

"...and somebody should explain to them that righteousness has nothing to do with what others do with their lives, but what each of us does with our own."

Wasn't that Jesus's message "Do not judge lest ye be judged," and the bit about not worrying about the splinter in someone else's eye when there is a mote in ones own.

Then of course I turned that lens on myself. Here I was criticising them, in my mind. What about myself? The things they would point at that I should be ashamed of, in their minds. The question is whether I would feel ashamed of them. It occurred to me that it might be important for discernment to note whether or not we have the capacity to feel shame. Have we entirely lost our moral compass? Have I? When was the last time I felt shame for something... even a mistake? Okay, I can think back over the last year and realize that I'm not entirely without shame.

But what about us as a nation? Do we pretend that we are perfect? Do we worship a God of truth, before whom it stands to reason some sense of shortcoming would always be appropriate? Or, do we worship our own strength?

Susan's address

2006-03-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

Susan's address in Carswell:

Susan Lindauer, RN: 56064-054
FMC Carswell -- Satellite Camp
Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127

More on Susan and our need for prison reform

2006-03-05T05:23:00.000-08:00

Her Uncle went to visit her, yesterday, flying from Indiana to Texas. When he arrived at Carswell they told him they required his visit to be monitored and as they had no monitors he would not be able to see Susan. Reportedly, the judge is upset and threatening to send federal marshalls with Mr. Lindauer for the next visit, but talk is cheap. How about returning her to her previous "free on bail" status? Possibly, the Judge has too few powers to do so.

This last week, a few journalists have picked up on the story. One woman cites a young military scientist who became concerned that Mad Cow disease had some links to American biological warfare testing (I'm reading between the lines of what she said) and how the military treated him similarly.

I don't know. Susan is an attractive woman, and can be very charming, but she can also be very obnoxious. She can be easy to dislike if one doesn't have the patience to get to know her. For example, before she went to Carswell, and before Carswell became a part of her story, she conveyed how upset she was with her attorney for pursuing a "twinkie defense" instead of getting busy interviewing her witnesses and preparing a proper rebutal to the evidence of the prosecution. In some ways, I can understand a public defender being limited in the time they can devote to a particular case. Time is needed, also. It seems that when the Justice Department shares evidence, during discovery, they will turn it over along with a lot of "chaff" that is hard to wade through. You'll get the raw data they pull from a computer in a series of CD's with no indication of what among it they find incriminating, for example. This is not exactly in the best spirit of the discovery process.

It was kind of a no-brainer that she needed to visit a private shrink, proactively. If her mental health was in question, then she needed to proactively seek out good advice so that she could present the court with good findings. She could then draw the distinction between medical issues and the issues of her case. But she regards the psychiatric profession as "a bunch of witch doctors," and refused to entertain the idea to the point of becoming quite loud and argumentative whenever I tried to talk through the benefits of that approach. In some ways, she would be in a lot less trouble, now, had she just been willing to talk to someone, privately. How a conversation with anyone could be so violently resisted puzzled me. I suspect that she found such doctors to be abusers of power in earlier years.

Now, put an argumentitive, strong willed person like her into prison without a trial -- give someone who is prone to righteous indignation the sense that state powers are being abused to persecute hers truly--and you have the recipe for some unpleasantness. Add to this the fact that prison workers are accustomed to dealing with convicted criminals, and not exactly being the concierge desk at a high-fllying hotel, and trouble has the potential to create huge problems that you did not have before. I would argue that we have a much needed window into our prison system where employee abuses of power have become a too common thing for too long. The root cause of our disgrace at Abu Graib may stem from the fact that some of the reservists accused were American prison workers in private life. Dig deeper and you may consider whether an un-Christian attitude towards criminals is creating, for us, larger problems. The root cause is our own willingness to throw away people who've offended us and forget them.

Before I turn this into a sermon, let me frame this by saying that Christianity may or may not be the be-all and end-all of spiritual revelation, depending upon ones own belief. Nonetheless, even non-Christians agree that many of the words attributed to Jesus were radical, in that day. Some disagree with them in this day. Jewish friends think that "turning the other cheek" is tantamont to "condoning crime." I suggest that regardless of your spiritual convictions, the tactics of Christianity may be better tactics. Forgiveness, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile... these are ideas that go against what we might think would be the principles of self-interest, but that by many accounts end up serving us better.

Prisons are over crowded. We know that we often end up with career criminals rather than reformed citizens when we sentence individuals to them. In too many ways, they have become a tool for retribution. Judges are subject to criticisms if they do not provide the public with its pound of flesh, and few in the public are wise enough to see that the length of a sentence or the nature of a sentance are secondary to society's interest in the benefits of remediated citizens. Democracy has always run the risk of being institutionalized mob rule of the 51% over the 49%, as Thomas Jefferson warned. Without judges strongly enabled to stand up for human rights, democracy becomes one of the most evil and unjust forms of tyranny: the tyranny of the majority. When you hear public officials decrying "activist judges" be sure that it is your own Bill of Rights (if you're an American reading this) that power hungry politicians are seeking to adulterate so that they and their current majority, and not due process, may dictate the boundaries of your life.

And so it is, also, that we are a nation of people who often seek out the impoverishment of others in order that we may feel better about ourselves--a nations of crabs that won't let one of our member climb out of the bucket. There are people who come to work in prisons in order to bring vocational skills to inmates and to minister to their needs. There are also, no doubt, people who can find employment nowhere else, and who have not learned how to heal the wounds in their own self-esteem while working in a prison system full of the more seriously walking-wounded. Use to being bosses, having power, unchecked by public scrutiny, to inflict themselves on people in weaker positions, and perhaps sensing that this is the only place in life where they do have power; how do they behave when presented with someone who might be unjustly accused who is full of high-moral tone and prone to villifying them?

The analogy of John the Baptist is a good one. He, Jesus's cousin, lost his head because he villified the powerful for their doing villian-like things. But don't forget to contrast his behavior with that of Jesus, who did not criticise the state, although he did not see it as an answer to human needs. The rage of Jesus was expressed only in the cleaning of the temple of those who made a business out of the human need for spiritual help. Through the years, many public officials have heeded advice to keep their prayers in the closet and not be as those who say prayers for public attention. Our country has never lacked for solid public-service-minded leaders who had no need to bring God into their fights, as God is generally powerful enough to work through even the lives of those who do not have faith and has no need of our name dropping. Today, we have powerful people who make a habit of wrapping themselves in things we hold sacred, our flag of patriotism, and words of our faith in providence. Yet they fail in courage. The answer to any calamity is to assauge fears by endowing the state (themselves) with more power. Create another agency. Pass another law. And they fail in faith, ignoring quickly those who have born the brunt of their wars: not only the veterans, widows and children of soldiers, but also those who stood as critics. People who are secure in their faith have no problem with people who argue and believe otherwise. Some who live by faith even seek out critics knowing that the God who works in mysterious ways sometimes hides truth in plain sight, and sends the poor to humble the powerful who fail to honor truth. May we all fear that God.

The Anchorage Press Volume 15 Edition 9 - LETTERS

2006-03-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

The Anchorage Press Volume 15 Edition 9 - LETTERS

That Good Old Fashioned Texas Religion

2006-02-27T20:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.alternet.org/story/31875/

Jack Kemp

2006-02-27T20:21:00.000-08:00

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/01/23/jack_kemp_questioned_by_fbi_in_oilforfood_probe.php

Big difference in how important Republicans are treated .

Harvey

2006-02-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

Word is that Susan Lindauer will not be released from prison until she agrees to being medicated.

It reminds me of the movie "Harvey."

Then I wonder how many of the Saints could have been categorized as crazy.

Those who insists on speaking critically of others, and do so too pasionately, and especially if it concerns people wealthy or powerful, can easily be labeled as crazy. Then we don't have to listen to them. If they persist then perhaps we give them drugs that will render them less inclined to meaningful speech.

Jesus had a cousin, John the Baptist, who spoke what he saw as the truth concerning the powerful. One might consider how Jesus might feel about abusers of power.

If a country were a Christian country, then it would recognize its propensity to make mistakes, quickly repent, make restitution, and perform penance. One may reasonably doubt that such a thing will exist this side of the second coming. So, it is no wonder that the Jewish doubt that their Mesiah has come.

Truth Out

2006-02-19T09:40:00.000-08:00

My letter to Marc Ash of TruthOut:

Hi,

I heard Tom Wilner on CSPAN, this morning and decided to Google him. I see that you've covered his story well.

You might also be interested in the story of Susan Lindauer, an American citizen. Although she claims to have been working to end sanctions and to prevent war and has clear ties to American intelligence agency persons, she is accused of working with Iraq Intelligence. The indictment against her cites the Patriot Act. The government called her sanity into question and has incarcerated her without trial at FMC Carswell.

A copy of her letter to VP Chenney dated March 1, 2001 is in my possession. In it, she congratulates him on the election, lays out her history, working in Middle Eastern Affairs, and reports that she has met with Iraq delegates who are inviting the assistance of our FBI to help them root out any Al Queda operatives in their country. Chances are that this letter would have received more than the usual amount of attenction as she is the President's Chief of Staff, Andy Card's cousin.

I learned of her when I rented a basement apartment from her in Takoma Park, MD. While I do not necessarily share her politics, I am very alarmed at the Stalinist approach to justice that is being permited to railroad an American citizen.

I'm folowing the issue on my blog & web site:

http://jayspolitics.blogspot.com/

http://www.jbfields3.com/journal/landlady/ll.htm

Respectfully yours,
J Burford Fields

Indymedia on Susan Lindauer

2006-02-18T16:01:00.000-08:00

...now this is interesting. Bizarre and interesting.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/1724798.php

j

Thomas Jefferson quotes on Democracy and Education

2006-02-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

And more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_jefferson.html

2006-02-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

This from a local scooter listserv:

So, I was sitting at a busy red light a couple blocks from home on Falls
Road (at 41st) in Hampden Thursday (2-9) morning on my yellow GP200, when I
got knocked off my bike by two drug frazzled youth who attempted to steal my
scooter.

Within seconds I heard a hiss (at that moment I was very glad to be wearing
a full face with my shield down), as my mailman was hosing Perp #1 down with
pepper spray. Then Perp #2 rushed the mailman and got kicked in the groin
with a follow through of the mailman emptying his can of dog mace in the
kids face! I was well chuffed to say the least and this was all topped off
by said mailman stating to the youths that "I f---in' ride too!"

Next, the Baltimore Police show up and kids are hauled off. Perp #1 was
charged with Grand Theft Auto and Perp #2 is facing a possible 3-5 years for
"Assaulting a Federal Employee" as the bystanders gave their statements and
it was seen that Perp #2 charged at the Postie!

I now truly understand the term going postal. :^)
bart

viva baltimore!!!
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Boy that story made my week.

Don't I wish we could figure out a way to kill the chicken shits instead of punishing the brave? We seem to have become a people who would rather vote for the Patriot Act than suffer the consequences of freedom in times of peril; who think that the only people who need to brave in the defense of freedom are the children of families too poor to avoid military service. Sometimes I really want to go after my community with a weed eater.

So, I got a burr under my saddle. The landlady was not released after 4 months of observation as promised. Aparently, the authorities don't know what to make of things, despite wasting four months of her life while they "observed" it in a federal prison. So, maybe they will have a meeting in a few weeks, to decide something. Meanwhile, she sits behind bars without ever having had the benefit of a trial, no opportunity to confront acusers, no jury.... If they can do it to her, they can do it to any poor smuck and then it begins to mean less to be a citizen of this country. It's the true meaning of adultery. How can others ignore that a sacred inheritance is being adulterated by those we pay to defend it....

So, while I can't seem to defend myself from politicians who want to murder (in the biblical sense, which is not the same as killing), the act of this postman is a great solace. And I find myself wishing we could make him or her the next president.

That and a cold that won't let go. Then someone says something about TB coming back for a curtain call, and whatever happened to the public health service? We are awash in homeless people and illegal immigrants who have no health benefits. Terrorists don't need WMD's we're going to do it to ourselves. Bloody Hell.

Susan Lindauer's December 2000 letter to Andy Card

2006-02-05T14:52:00.000-08:00

...called from prison, today. She was to have been release, yesterday. It seems the government is holding her indefinitely. She says they now plan to forcibly medicate her. She kept saying Thorazine and asking how she could defend herself on drugs.

The court told her, last September, to report to Carswell for 4 months of psychiatric evaluation to determine her mental suitability for trial. Ten days later, she took the bus to Dulles Airport. Tickets were waiting for her. She arrived in Dallas and had to arrange her own ground transportation to the facility.

Hers is a weird case. But a lot that she says stacks up, and she's not stupid--a graduate of Smith and the London School of Economics.

I've come upon her letters: one to Bush's Chief of Staff, her cousin, Andy Card. One letter describes a meeting in which she conveyed a Dr. Hasan asking for FBI assistance to help root out Al Queda elements within Iraq, in March of 2001!

I have a page with links about her at: http://www.jbfields3.com/journal/landlady/ll.htm

Here is the letter she sent to Andy Card dated December 2, 2001:

Peace in Iraq

2005-11-17T06:16:00.000-08:00

I find myself increasingly intrigued by something that I think most of us would prefer to ignore. What are the real opportunities and roads to some kind of peace in Iraq? How might it come about? How might the waring factions come to be friends?

I'm reading a book "Long Way Round" about Ewan McGregor & CharleyBoorman's trip from London to New York (via Siberia) on BMW GS motorcycles. Trying to get a lead on them, I ran through a thread on a news group about their cameraman, Claudio von Planta. They speak well of Claudio in their book. I'm thinking I might like to follow or somehow participate in a next motorcycle journey, so I check out the link to Claudio's web page: http://www.vonplanta.net/

Wow. He is a story in himself. I read about his current work documenting Karzan Sherabayani's return to Kirkuk, which is pretty much the capitol of South Kurdistan, in northern Iraq. I search on Karzan and find the story of his Return to Kirkuk.

What an increadible story. It connects you to wonderful people who are at stake in the events going on, and it makes me think again as to how there must be hope for peace when afterall it is only people involved and people, like Karzan, do have the capacity for forgiveness that leads to peace and a better life. It helps, however, when those who are at fault want forgiveness.

The Washington Post, this morning, runs a story about the part of the American military that is responsible for fighting terrorism: Shortfalls of Special Operations Command Are Cited. I can't help but wonder whether these people will be able to connect with human assets in a way that will minimize the expenses and the casualties. More bullets and bombs may not be the key in a war against suicide bombers.

Global Politician

2005-10-07T02:40:00.000-07:00

Global Politician

The above is a great read. It appears to be a very inciteful account of Middle East intrigue.

Cell Phones

2005-09-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.fcw.com/article90865-09-20-05-Web&newsletter%3Dyes

The Navy is on top of things. If we were to investigate government officials who have cell phones provided by the government and who are incurring costs for personal business....

Reach Upward: Another Six Years For Hatch?

2005-09-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

Got to say that it is interesting seeing folks in Utah writing, this way.

Reach Upward: Another Six Years For Hatch?

Articles on Susan Lindauer

2005-09-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/12/12718/8399

http://www.dirtygreek.org/journal/journalId/388

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11109543&BRD=606&PAG=740&dept_id=226956&rfi=6