Conspiracy is a word I’ve penned before; albeit several times, and I’ve just looked it up in the Macquarie Dictionary and its means ‘a combination of persons for an evil or unlawful purpose; a plot’. This definition implies a conscious, overt and obvious complicity in a specific purpose that’s evil and unlawful; I’m about to posit one of my many cock-eyed theories that some conspiracies are NOT conscious; a manifestation of thoughts and emotions of persons (translated into an assortment of political, socio-economic actions) that engender evil and defy the laws of the land that’s extant in their subconscious. Far more pernicious and pervasive than the corrupt conspiracy of the Mafia et al, these subconscious conspiracies often succeed in destroying our democratic and human rights and erode our embrace of pleasure to render us just mere machines; programmed robots ala ‘The Stepford Wives’ to not just satisfy the opposite sex but to acquiesce in the abandonment of our individual and unique humanness in a way that corrodes our curiosity and brainwashes our minds; our bodies swamped by swathes of spin to further sully our sensual pleasures. Common sense rendered irrelevant!
An article in a newspaper today revealed that $20 million is planned to be spent on the issue of stab proof vests to frontline staff in two Victorian hospitals following an attack on a Melbourne doctor and increasing violence towards staff. The plan has evolved after a doctor (was he a psychiatrist-the article didn’t reveal?) was stabbed more than 13 times by a paranoid schizophrenic patient (and who diagnosed him and on what basis and what medication was he administered?) who ‘apparently’ (my word) believed doctors were mistreating him. Now I’m not condoning his violence, but given that I was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and the Modecate drug I was injected with and the truly horrifying impact that’s had on my life as a misdiagnosis and mistreatment, I can only question the premise as to why the patient might have stabbed the doctor. The article is certainly ‘bad’ journalism; but that notwithstanding, I am also witness to the ‘fear’ of other patients (not just my own) of the psychiatrists at St Vincent’s Mental Health Service and the resultant anxiety by many of the patients as to what they would be given. Moreover, my previous blog on the footballer’s threat to ‘stab’ a woman in the face with a chopstick has disappeared from the news pages. Is he, possibly, an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic? I am being somewhat facetious, but the stark reality should be as subtle as a sledgehammer. Moreover, the report of the National Review of Mental Health programmes and services revealed that the system ‘has fundamental structural shortcomings…(and) is poorly planned and badly integrated’ and more significantly, ‘is a massive drain on people’s wellbeing and participation in the community…’
Is it a system based on common sense? Its findings also included :
1) a mental health system that doesn’t prioritise people’s needs with a high level of unmet need;
2) a mental health system that is fragmented and
3) a system that does NOT (my caps) see the whole person
If these findings are valid (and I’m presuming they are) what are the implications for so many thousands of patients? For myself, it has been ‘absolutely horrifying’ and I’ll be traumatised for the rest of my life, but the intensity of the trauma has abated and I mostly try to put it away (though NOT forget) as I need to.
It is in this perspective that increasing violence against staff at hospitals needs to be understood; as much as the footballer was dismissed by police maybe so should many patients! I know I should have been allowed to stay home.
However, it is a reflection of a conspiracy about common sense that seems to be absent in so many facets of our sensibilities and sanity. The Macquarie Dictionary defines commonsense as ‘sound, practical perception or understanding’; clearly lacking not just in medical environments, but across our social spectrum. The insidious treatment of asylum-seekers in our detention centres; increasing self-harm, physical and mental abuse, rape and sexual assaults are just symptoms of a malaise where commonsense is totally lacking as almost all of these incarcerated and desperate people are later found to be ‘genuine refugees’, fleeing torture and persecution in their own countries. What are we doing if not more of the same? Where is commonsense in this destructive environment? This practice is but a conspiracy of commonsense; an evil visited on innocent people simply hoping for a better and safer life. A Republican candidate for the US Presidency, Donald Trump, also appears as a ‘conspirator’ of common sense when he has suggested, vehemently and passionately, that no more Muslims should be allowed to migrate to America. It’s as if all Muslims in America are terrorists, or at least potential ones at that; a complete denial of the facts and abrogating all commonsense. Moreover, the nature of politics worldwide seems increasingly devoid of commonsense as more and more billions of dollars are invested in arms that are no less than weapons of mass destruction. At the same time as stories about these arms are published, a few pages apart is a photo of a young boy in Syria, starving to death with his skeletal frame no different to those found still alive in the Nazi concentration camp, Bergen Belsen, that were beamed across the world and occasionally, still feature in our media. Is our world one based on common sense when we subject too many millions to living on or below the poverty line on the dole or pensions? Is that sound and practical and based on what perceptions? That they are inferior, less worthy or deserving or just unlucky?
I decried our world many decades ago as ‘sick’; now I can only perceive it is indeed even sicker as I become more aware of the insanities perpetrated by humans against humans. We don’t put people in so-called concentration camps as the Nazis did, but exactly how are so many people forced to live?
I have just watched parts of a five-hour documentary series about 9/11; evidencing facts that question the ‘rational’ official version of events published by The 9/11 Commission in America. The evidence as presented in the series contradicts the official version with too many questions that highlights much of what purportedly happened defies commonsense. The facts as documented in the official version are not just inconsistent with the reality of images, witness accounts and engineering science, but illustrate that the official version is completely lacking in commonsense. They defy sound, practical perceptions or understanding. The horrifying implication of this is how gullible and/or vulnerable people can be to delusional perceptions when the facts don’t add up. Are people so complicit in this conspiracy of commonsense that they too don’t or won’t or can’t ‘think’ on a commonsense level? Or maybe it’s too alarming and disturbing to acknowledge that our ‘leaders’ in the so-called democratic West can be so conspiratorial that we prefer to nurture the ideal of human sagacity as more acceptable? Reality doesn’t seem relevant; ‘spin’ in so many professions, dominates out societies and too few people dare to question or challenge the prevailing ‘commonsense’, even when it’s revealed to be totally nonsensical; even irrational and insane. In today’s newspaper, a really frightening and tragic story was published about a young woman shot by ‘someone’ in front of three other men. The believed ‘culprit’ was charged with manslaughter, but was acquitted for lack of evidence and claimed he wasn’t in the room of the house at the time she was shot. There is a taped recording of events in the room but the judge would NOT let it be played to the jury. Why not? The story didn’t reveal and neither did the reporter raise the question. The woman’s distraught mother says her daughter’s life counted for ‘nothing’ and we await further developments if indeed there are any. It’s not just about perverting the course of justice on one level, but the situation involves too many unanswered questions and the reporter doesn’t seem interested in even raising them. Is that about ‘commonsense’ or a conspiracy amongst the legal profession and the police to thwart any attempts at a commonsense approach? I simply raise that question? What’s going on? Do we care? Certainly, the story appeared on the front page of the tabloid newspaper and that’s at least a positive, but the inadequate reportage only leaves me wondering what else is going on behind the conspiracy as it appears?
I also know from my own personal experience about cover-ups and collusion by authorities in what was perpetrated against me (Whose Mental Madness blogs); indeed, it still is by some shrinks, media personnel and people I once considered intelligent and friendly; they too are ‘operating’ against me for what purpose? Does anyone care? I told my GP some of it and he just replied: “there isn’t anything I can do”. Well, there certainly is and was when I was incarcerated in the mad asylum. He did nothing and doesn’t give a damn! It’s horrifying and I’m lucky to be alive. Furthermore, I’ve contacted lawyers and so-called investigative journalists who have also done NOTHING. Clearly, my life is totally insignificant, too! The young woman murdered is tragic, so too, are my circumstances now, and I believe we are just the tip of the iceberg. What is buried underneath in silence and a betrayal of commonsense is even more tragic in our world where sexting and twittering on social media and Facebook is how so many people now indulge their time. No more to say on this one, either.