104. Going Off Antihistimines

Well, today was the first day without Zyrtec. I haven't felt very good, to say the least, but so far it's tolerable. I still have 2 more days on the doxepin, though. I take that in the evening.

I still sort of find things to keep me busy, even though I feel crumby. I just pace myself and pick things to do that are reasonable, considering how I feel.

So I started portioning out my weekly meds, but I need to get some refills, and I try to do that on the first of the month so that that will count for meeting my "share of cost" for Medicaid, my secondary health insurance.

I also vacuumed and cleaned the bathroom. Did a few little things in the kitchen. Otherwise I've been working on my recipe database more.

I also did some exercises for fibromyalgia too. At least now I have a selection of exercises I can do to mix it up and also to adjust what I do according to how I feel.

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy and difficult day.

First of all, I have a whole slew of blood tests, which I have to fast for. Since my breakfast meds/supplements are by far the largest quantity of any during the day, it's hard to take them without eating to help get them down. So I'll probably have to take my pre-breakfast ones and then go to the lab to get the blood tests done. Then I'll come home and have breakfast.

I have two doctor's appointments, also, so I won't have a lot of time to dilly dally. And I promised the physical therapy place I'd stop by tomorrow with the p/t prescription and my insurance cards, and I should also get some detailed medical bills from a couple places. These things are all in the same general area, near each other.

I also have to pick up my meds from the pharmacy, because I won't have enough for the next day.

This might not sound like a lot, but it's REALLY a lot when you feel crumby and you just sort of do things even though you're only half there. At least in body you can physically be present for these things.

I bought a container of mushrooms at BJs the other day, so a while ago I decided what to do with them. I have enough (you get big containers of things at places like BJs) to make both a mushroom pirog (a Russian recipe, a large flat yeast dish with a filling and then another piece of dough on top, perhaps like a pizza sandwich, but without the sauce) and also mushroom "meatballs" to go with the marinara sauce I have frozen from my earlier roma tomato plant). I also have a couple sweet potatoes that I need to make a salad with. I'll probably do that Thursday. Cooking is sort of a fun outlet for me, something that gives me pleasure and I also try to cook healthy, although I am also planning a not-so-healthy sweet.

Last fall when I sort of went overboard on holiday baking (although, in hindsight, it may be the last time I do that for the family, so I hope that, and my putting on Thanksgiving dinner, are good memories for the others) I learned about cake balls. You can really get creative with them, and for my Christmas baking I made a walnut cake to use in the cake balls. But this time I want to make a chocolate & cherry cake. This will be a smaller cake (the walnut cake was a large sheet cake), so it won't make so many. How it works, basically, is you make (or buy, I suppose) a cake and use something as a binder, such as frosting, cake fillings, and the like. You break up the cake to make cake crumbs and then mix it with the binder (frosting or whatever). Then you make little balls out of this mixture. Finally, you melt candy coating and dip the balls in the coating like you would do for truffles. So, really, the sky's the limit on all the possible combinations you could make. The cake I've chosen this time is a single-layer chocolate-cherry round cake, and then I'll bind the crumbs with homemade cherry filling. I have a bunch of candy coating (and other holiday baking components too) left from last fall, so I could use either the light or dark chocolate coatings to dip them in.

Then I have to just try to not eat them all at once, but spread them out as little treats. That's why I don't bake much, although I've found that I have pretty good self-control when I make popsicles or put homemade ice cream, sorbet, etc. in some popsicle push-up molds I have. I have yummy Mexican mango popsicles now.

I guess that's all for now. Have a good evening.

~ Meg

103. A Busy Day

Today I had 2 doctor's appointments and also had a blood test done, and since one of the doctor's appointments was about halfway to BJs and I was down to 1/4 tank of gas, I swung by down there too to pick up some staples (such as oatmeal ingredients and fruit for my smoothies).

The first appointment didn't do much as far as diagnosing this new ailment, but I did get a new physical therapy script from it.

At the lab, the technician had to try 3 times to get a vein for just one test. So I had 3 bandaids on my arms & one hand for a while. Usually my veins aren't that hard to find.

The next appointment was the doctor filling in for my regular doctor (actually the other one was too, but he's been filling in for her all summer while she's on maternity leave). This doctor did a lot, it seems to me.

First, he said that if I was going to have allergy immunization I had to have another set of tests done. The clincher, though, is that for those tests I have to get off the two antihistimines I just started Saturday. I guess we'll find out what's helping more, my stopping my magnesium oxide-containing supplements or the antihistimines. Needless to say, I am not particularly looking forward to this.

He also ordered a whole slew of blood tests, which I'll get on Wed., when I see the neurologist about my weakness and other things with my head (some numbness in the face and a feeling of "fullness" in the head, for example). The neurologist is in the same building as the lab is. But I have to fast for the blood tests, and I usually like to do those kinds of tests in the morning, but my neurology appt. is in the afternoon. I may just end out making 2 trips down there; at least it's not too far.

I did also manage to double book myself next Tuesday for the allergy tests and the physical therapy evaluation, so I have to try to fix that tomorrow.

The rash is way lessened, but I think I still have some facial swelling and definitely also have feelings of weakness, and it's possible my vestibular neuronitis (dizziness from my left ear being "overactive") might be acting up a little too.

If anyone tells you about the many benefits of being on disability, don't believe them!

I also made a special trip up to the dollar store to pick up a bag of cat food to feed the stray cats here. Several people do it and I ran out and then didn't have any money, and it might be that others were broke the same time I was because it seemed like the cats haven't been having much food lately. They really are a reasonably nice bunch of cats and they're all able to eat together around the food dish, except for this one especially ornery one. Actually, the ornery one is sort of a Jeckle and Hyde; she can be very lovey dovey but she's also scratched me twice, once so that I got a decent bleeding going on.

Since I'm going to be getting off these medicines, it's probably going to be at least a week before I'm up to working on my autobiography again though, although I did think of another thing I could do that wouldn't take so much concentrated mental work.

~ Meg

102. Still Feeling Crummy

I went to church this morning, but I didn't stay for the special events afterward, because I thought it would be just too much.

My face is still a bit puffy and I feel pretty weak.

I did some stuff around home, including a little puttering in the garden, ironing and working on my recipe database. I also did a little exercising for my fibromyalgia, using the exercise ball and some light weights (2 lbs) & ankle weights. I dug out my cane from the bottom chest in case I end out needing it. The last time I needed it was last summer when the dizziness from my vestibular neuronitis was bad.

My head feels funny and I don't think my mental capacities are that great, so I still don't think I can work on this project, the autobiography, right now.

***

I just found out I got another deposit from what I think it Unemployment, but it's more than I've been getting by $50. I hardly know what's going on in the news, so I don't know if there was supposed to be an increase or how that works. It's not a very good way to manage finances, though, not really knowing what your income is. I think I'll be able to pay my car insurance bill this month though with that income, although it is going to be tight. I wanted to use a coupon for the Container Store to get some clothing bags to put my hanging clothes in (I have too many clothes for the small closet here, so I have one of those racks for hanging clothes on). The thing is that I'm sure that having those clothes out like they are is bad for the dust mite situation - my level 5 (out of 6 possible levels) dust mite allergy. But the coupon ended now, so I'll just have to get them when I can.

Really, I spend all my disposable money on health things it seems. I spent about $200 on a HEPA air purifier for the dust mite allergies, and the month before that I needed new glasses. And that's not to mention all the supplements I take, some of which make an incredible difference in my level of functioning.

So lately my only splurge items are little bits of fancy foods so I can be creative in my cooking. Every once in a while I might stop at Starbucks, but it's been well over a month since I've done that.

But before I moved here I wasn't necessarily this stringent with my money. I hope this health condition is just temporary (and nothing else new pops up) so that I can still work again, at least part-time, eventually.

***

I still have all these boxes of papers and files for my autobiography. I have piles of papers on the floor near my desk, a couple boxes and some books in the living room area, and another file drawer or 2 in the bedroom. So this project is staring me in the face every day and I won't forget about it. I'm just not up to it right now.

~Meg

101. Leave Continued

Today I saw the dermatologist, who wrote 2 new prescriptions for me and one over-the-counter medicine as well. He also ordered a blood test, which I'll do Monday when I'll be near a Lab Corp, where I go for blood tests (because my insurance prefers them).

Monday I see my primary care doctor and also allergy doctor. I got a call yesterday, though, that my regular allergy doctor won't be available, so someone else will see me in his place. I think I should also make an appointment with the neurologist because I'm still having some weakness and a little trouble walking.

It seemed like people were thinking this is an allergic reaction, and yesterday evening when I took my daily calcium-magnesium pill I felt worse, so after looking into it, I started wondering whether the magnesium oxide in that vitamin is to blame for all these rather sudden onset symptoms. I usually take a plain calcium supplement, but I think I started on this new bottle shortly before the symptoms started. But then my multivitamin also contains magnesium oxide, and I've never had this reaction before. Maybe it was just too much magnesium... or maybe I'm all wet and it's something else altogether. I looked online to find out more about the blood test the dermatologist is ordering and it looks like it's for checking into lupus, although it can be used for other things too.

The rash seems to be under control, but it's not going away. It's still on the same coverage area. It's just not as prominent and itchy. My face is still a bit puffy too.

So much for my grand plans to start looking for work... I haven't done anything on my autobiography.

I should probably mention, though, that I've had a couple nice conversations with mom in the last few days, so I'm glad about that. When I went to e.r. the other day I didn't tell any of my family because I consider I don't have an emergency contact now after what happened that landed me back here. I told mom today about it though.

I worked a (very) little bit in the garden. The left side is pretty barren now that I've taken the squash and cucumber plants out. There is mulch ground cover there though. And my lone stevia plant is standing tall and thriving in it's corner of my plot. I wish more plants were that easy to take care of! I will say though that the celosia seeds I planed seem to be really thriving, although they haven't bloomed yet. They're maybe 12 to 18 inches tall, but have full, healthy foliage. Underneath the air conditioner window unit I planted canterbury bells and they're growing fine, but now I see that they're getting infected with what looks like "leaf miners". That's been a common ailment too in my garden.

I think that's all for now.

~ Meg

100. Extended Leave Of Absence Requested

Unfortunately, I think this is going to go on longer than anticipated/hoped. I tried to submit a post from my Blackberry last night while in e.r., but I guess it didn't go through.

Late yesterday evening my face was getting more swollen, I was having occasional difficulty swallowing and I was feeling more sort of "out of it". So I called my primary care doctor and got the doctor on call. She said it sounded like my lips and/or tongue were swollen. I knew for sure that my lips were swollen and it felt like my tongue could be a bit swollen, so because of that she thought I should be checked out, and with the weakness I was describing she thought it would be better for me not to drive, but call 911 instead. So I did that and the paramedics gave me a benadryl shot en route to the hospital.

In typical e.r. fashion, it took me about 5 hours to get to where I was actually getting medical care, but then I was there for about 7 or 8 hours receiving i.v. medicines which brought the facial swelling down considerably and also made me feel significantly stronger. But I still have a little swelling in the face and I'm not up to my energy levels of a week ago, when I was thinking about starting to look for a job.

I got a new prescription, a histimine blocker, so hopefully that will help keep the symptoms manageable until we find out what the actual root cause it. I still see the dermatologist tomorrow (Sat.) morning and see the allergy doctor and the fill-in primary care physician (while my regular dr. is on maternity leave) on Monday. The allergy doctor's office agreed to let me come under the circumstances even though I might not have the money for the co-pay.

That's all for now, except to say that if I have some days that I feel reasonably well I might return to the subject at hand, the file I'm working through, but I don't want to try it when I'm not feeling up to it because my thinking won't be as clear to adequately address some of the issues.

Part of the reason why I was going as fast as I was in pumping out these blog entries because ever since my return to the States from Russia in 1997 it seems like I can never quite finish anything, because something always comes along to interrupt it. At least I feel like I've taken a big bite out of what I need to say and there are a lot worse points in the sequence for temporary leave taking. This is one thing, though that I'm going to try my darnedest to finish, though. Come flood or high water, I'm going to do it, by golly!


Meg

99. Interruption, Continued (Again)

My condition continues... so I'm still on sabbatical from this blog.

If I do too much I start sweating which aggravates the rash and I get don't feel very strong either. My face remains puffy, too, and I didn't use the CPAP because of this last night.

~ Meg

98. Interruption, Continued (Again)

I'm still not feeling that great, but now that I've started on the methylprednisone I'm feeling a bit better. But it seems that between doses I start feeling crumby again, including facial puffing.

But I have been doing a bit of looking for those MIA articles, and I think I'll just have to let it go. If I find them it will just be a serendipitous success. I've looked everything I can think of, most places more than once. I must have pulled them out for some reason, since they're so apropos to my autobiography. Be that as it may, I feel that I can't justify spending the time to look for them.

One thing I did try is online through my public library card, and they have the one journal that I'm sure one of the articles came from, but not far back enough. Since my dad retired in 1990, anything relating to the present wouldn't be all that helpful for my purposes.

So then the other tack I've been taking is going online and trying to find something that way. So now I have too many tabs open and Firefox is acting up (that happens when I have to many tabs open).

I still am having trouble finding someone who can help me with dad's DCII report. The last place I called said that I should call the agency that issued it. The document is not classified, but they don't list any of this kind of information on their web site - regarding the fields on these reports or the agency code acronyms. I assume that that's not an oversight, but intentional, which means that they might not want to be too helpful. In any case, even if I were to get the basic information, they wouldn't tell me the significance of it. I have another idea to try, so we'll see.

I wanted to post this quote that I found on another web site:

***

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826), Third President of the United States and principal author of the Declaration of Independence

***

Well, you can just guess who Thomas Jefferson had in mind, but I'm thinking that in my case rebellion against the Vienna mission is a rather ironic fit. After all, the mission is supposed to be doing God's work, and but if the fit the description (if not exactly on the national scale) of "tyrants" then Thomas Jefferson, for one, would think that I was justified in not submitting very well. I didn't rebel very well, though, and Thomas Jefferson may not be the last word on this from a theological standpoint. Nonetheless, I liked the quote and wanted to share it for your consideration.

***

I have to go grocery shopping now because I'm out of my main dish for lunch, which is my main meal (like dinner for most people, at least in the USA). I'm feeling reasonably well after taking the steroid not long ago and the cooler evening is better for the rash as the heat aggravates it. So I should go out now.

~ Meg

97. Interruption, Continued

I woke up this morning with a puffy face and my arms feeling heavy, but it seems that after taking my first 2-pill dose of methylprednisone there is some improvement already - thankfully.

I have a call in to the doctor, however, and am waiting for him to call me back. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to the file and my autobiography by the end of the day. I hope this steroid is a cure and not just a treatment of the symptoms, though. I haven't done anything more behind the scenes work on this blog since Sunday, but maybe I'll be able to work on that some today.

~ Meg

96. What goes up, must come down...

But I'm tenacious; I may be down, but I'm not out, not yet.

I still feel crummy and have been working on my recipe database because I can do that more in a semi remote control fashion.

After taking public transit to get my car, I drove to the pharmacy to pick up the 2 prescriptions that my fill-in primary care doctor sent in electronically yesterday. But it turns out that one of them isn't covered by my insurance. It wasn't expensive, something like $13, and earlier this spring I paid out of pocket for prescription strength vitamin D more than once. But I can't swing it now.

So I've been trying to get that taken care of, but I just found out that the doctor wasn't even in today, which explains why I hadn't heard back yet. Meanwhile, he said I should see my dermatologist. I'd called him yesterday morning and again today but no one has called back from that office. So then I used their electronic system to get some messages across, and I also just made an appointment with him. The earliest I can see him is Saturday.

The other prescription that I did pick up is the methylprednisone dose pack, which I can't start till tomorrow since it's graduated dosage.

Meanwhile, the rash has spread a bit and my head still feels funny. I think there might be some internal effects of this whatever it is. I just feel crumby. I did a little work in the garden, but only what I really had to do, and mostly I've been working on the recipe database. But I also am working on my weekly med/supplement portioning out.

I just want to get better so I can try to work a little. I think some people (family, especially) think I don't even want to work. But I lost 2 good career jobs in the past 3 or so years because of health so I want to make sure I'm well enough to take a reasonable crack at it, part time to start with, since I do have health conditions I didn't have before. I think the pastor, the one who picked me up from the doctor's office yesterday since I couldn't drive after having the benadryl shot, wants me to bring something to the potluck Sunday. It's not that I wouldn't want to, it just that I'm not sure I'm going to be well enough to go to church even.

Since I don't really have much that I've been instructed to do for this rash other than the 3 prescriptions which either I don't have because my insurance won't cover it or I can't start till tomorrow. So in the meantime I've been getting a bit creative, although I have been communicating what I'm doing to my doctors (electronically or otherwise). I though, okay, it sounds like an antihistimine might be helpful. So I looked in my medicine cabinet and all I had along those lines are Nyquil and sudafed, which I'd tried over the weekend for th mild headache (I think I mentioned it on an earlier blog), so I didn't think that would work, although I could try taking 2 pills as they're not very strong. But I decided to try the Nyquil and it does seem to help a bit and hasn't even been making me drowsy! Go figure.

The other thing I've been trying is repurposing one of my rosacea prescriptions, MetroCream, and it also seems to be helping the topical aspects of whatever this is.

So that's an exciting day in the life of Meg. (Quit yawning! I might take offense.)

~ Meg

P.S. Another side effect - so to speak - of this rash is that now I don't want to put the electrodes on it, and I virtually ALWAYS put electrodes on my shoulder/neck/upper back area. I'm talking about the stimulator electrodes. I don't even want to think about doing that. Can you imagine? Maybe it would be like someone tickling on the rash. No thank you. The muscles there might be tense and underneath the rash their could be pain... but I don't need any electrodes tickling my rash. The rash on the front part of my torso does not interfere with my stimulator use, though, because I don't put electrodes there anyway (this isn't an EKG, after all).

95. Sick Again / Still

The story of my life, I just begin to think I'm going to get on my feet again, and wham, the carpet is pulled out from underneath me and I'm back at square one.

I told you, did I, that I thought I was about well enough to try to look for part-time work? Hah! I spoke too soon.

I just returned not long ago from the doctor's office and I was given an injection of benadryl and 2 prescriptions with instructions to see the dermatologist. I called the dermatologist this morning and left a voicemail message. At least I saw him not long ago, because he's a new doctor for me. They moved to a new office and the one I had now only works there once a week, so they put me with a new doctor. And I had to re-schedule my appointment again with the allergy doctor because I don't have enough money for the co-pay. There would have been a conflict with the PCP appointment, anyway, though.

Then they wouldn't let me have the shot until we figured out a way to get me home, because they wouldn't let me drive after having the shot. It would have been very easy if I had money for a taxi, but I don't. They were trying to figure out if there was some way they could arrange a ride, and I finally thought of calling my pastor, and it just so happened (!) that he was on his way to the general area where I was to pick someone up at the airport and it was fairly easy to swing by and pick me up. Was that a miracle or not? Thank you, God!

That does mean that my car is still in the garage by the doctor's office, and tomorrow I have to go pick it up, so I hope I'm feeling better for that. I only have enough money to pick up on generic prescription (which is $1.10 with my insurance), and I'll wait anyway until I have my car back. Maybe money will be deposited in my bank account tomorrow so I can get both prescriptions. The last one I picked up, though, was a generic prescription for my acid reflux and I put the money on the counter to pay, assuming it was the regular $1.10 and the pharmacist who was helping out at the register asked if I was going to pay for it, and I pointed to the money. Then he asked, "Why? There's not charge." It was sort of funny but I was grateful too. Anyway, I hope the benadryl shot today will at least keep it from getting worse so that I can take the bus to get my car tomorrow. Since I have a handicapped permit I don't have to pay for parking at county garages & parking lots, and this garage is a county one. So I don't need to worry about having a humongous bill for leaving my car there overnight.

I'm glad I was able to see someone today and they are treating it. I hope what they're doing helps.

I did ask if they had the flu shots in yet, though, since I just got over a 9-month virus, but it's too early for that.

Anyway, I don't feel well enough to try to do much on this blog right now. Sorry to leave you hanging like that.

~ Meg

94. Interruption

I think I mentioned yesterday that I woke up with a rash on my neck. Hydrocortisone didn't help it and it's spreading, to my face and upper torso, so I have an appointment for early this afternoon with my sit-in Primary Care Dr. (my regular one is on maternity leave). I don't feel well enough to work on this blog today, so I'm taking a break. I'll be back though.

~Meg

93. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 17 (Radine, pt. 11)

I still can't find the MIA articles.

I enjoyed a walk earlier in the day than usual today because it was overcast and cooler, although my Weather Bug reading says it's currently 89.5F.

***

Chapter 7: Military Prisons and Rehabilitation

***

"Unlike inmates in the [United States Disciplinary Barracks(USDB)], soldiers who pass through the [Correctional Training Facility (CTF)] are fully expected to return to active duty, and the CTF are fully expected to reintegrate them into the rest of the Army. It does this (and maintains social control internally) by manipulating the convicted GI's self-image and his 'definition of the situation.' CTF principles may well be an anticipation of future trends in Army corrections." (p. 221)

I felt like I was experiencing some of this for the 6 months I was in the States (including time spent working at the U.S. office). I guess I was eventually deemed "reformed" enough (take that as you wish) to return to my original post, at least for a while. I never did fully conform, though, and I think they knew that, although they didn't know what I was thinking, because I never gave them any opportunity to know. But I was intentional about that too.

There are some other things I could say here, but it would be difficult without going into the narration of what exactly happened, so I'll just have to hold off and hope that I remember my train of thinking.

***

"A legal clerk, whose responsibility it was to interview stockade prisoners prior to their trials gave me his impression of stockade conditions at a large midwesern Army post:

... Once you come in, you're assigned to a barracks and you go to the barracks on the first night and that's invariably when the beating takes place... [and if] the guy says anything at all they put him in the box ["administrative segregation"] and continue to beat him, [and leave] him in the box for a couple of days... Then that subdues him... and they let him out of the box. By then they're pretty well beaten into the system... You can't get these guys who were beaten in pre-trial to testify to anything because they know they're going to be convicted and that they're going to go back." (p. 225; brackets in the original in this case)

That's a lot how I felt. Being sent to a mental hospital was like getting beat up and tossed down the stairs (this is in the original text) and scared out of my pants. The text tells about a guy with a cast on who comes to his trial and he's asked how he got the cast, to which he answers that he fell down the stairs. Then he's asked if he was beat up and he denies it. Then he's asked if anyone pushed him and he denies that too. This is how you learn to lie. This is how you learn to say "I work for an international publishing company." I know, I know, it's a partial truth. But another part of the truth is that the publishing end is NOT in Vienna. The closest thing Vienna has to the publishing end is (or was) people involved in the writing of the textbooks - authors, if you will. Just for clarification purposes I would like to explain here that authors are not the same as publishers. I know this can be confusing to certain people who've been taught to say otherwise, but I think you'll find that Webster's and Collegiate and Oxford and whatever English language dictionary source you choose will bear this out.

And yes, I was pushed down the stairs (figuratively, I mean).

***

Oh, here's a good one.

"In 1954, according to the provost marshal general of the Army, each new prisoner at the USDB was given an indoctrination session concerning the purpose of the prison and an orientation interview by the commandant or one of his representatives, where he would be assured that 'he is part of an institution where the entire staff from the top officer down through the enlisted ranks has a warm interest in her personal problems and needs and his future welfare.' Later on he would be given what GIs call an 'attitude check' to see how well he had responded to the 'warm' concern. He was also interviewed by a social worker who elicited information on previous problems with school authorities, pastors, relatives, and employers, which was then worked up into a report of the psychiatry and neurology division... Thus, the main functions of psychiatrists and social workers were in screening and classifying. Psychiatrists kept a close watch on each soldier-prisoner to determine when he had 'improved' himself sufficiently to be released before his full term had been completed. A chaplain was involved in this setting, although only in an advisory capacity to the classification board. He was to ascertain the influence of religion in the prisoner's life... Rehabilitation in 1954, then, was officially a combination of some indoctrination, vocational training programs, and several 'open doors' back to duty or out to civilian life... From the recent prison experiences of Dr. Howard Levy, the basic principles of the USDB seem relatively unchanged." (p. 227-228)

The author goes on to describe some modernizations (as of the late 70's), but I'm going to stop here for now.

The attitude check is something that was informally in place in Vienna. I don't think I ever had a problem with that - like I said, I wasn't a complainer or anything. I think my taking everything in stride might have made me more of an enigma and it would have been easier for them to deal with me if I had complained or raised a fuss.

I am not sure whether I thought about this so explicitly, but I think I felt that I didn't understand enough of what was going on to make a fuss; I was still trying to figure out the rules. So I left there not really ever understanding them. But since I didn't understand them I didn't know what kind of response I'd get anyway if I, for example, complained too much about not having enough work to do. Most of the time I was in Vienna I felt like my time and the money of my supporters was wasted because even though I did my best, including outside efforts, I was just doing grunt work which a lot of the time didn't really need to be done. But there was something else going on, I think, and these things were intentional, so I just smiled and did my job the best I could. I was friendly and sociable and took initiative in social activities several times. So I passed the attitude check.

That having been said, though, I'm not sure what kind of a change they might have expected or wanted from sending me home. I probably was somewhat subdued by that experience, but I certainly wasn't overcome by it. The last six months or so I think it was starting to get to me more so I was starting to cave in to pressures, such as attending the English speaking church (instead of the Austrian one I was going to), even though it wasn't really what I wanted. But that was about a year after I was sent back to the States, so it wasn't a direct consequence to that action they took against me (that's how I perceived it and still do).

***

"Psychology (and psychiatry) in the last few decades has taken the place of religion in maintaining mass discipline. Like religion, it operates by trying to convince the individual that it is trying to help him and has his interests at heart, all the while fairly self-consciously going about its role in creating and maintaining social order. Psychology not only provides techniques of control, such as various types of therapy and consultative assistance to those in authority, but it also parallels religion in providing an ideology. This ideology is one of 'cooperation,' 'communication,' 'normalcy,' and a distinct view of reality. In addition, psychology has a normative function, creating in individuals a sense of guilt, such as the anxiety that comes from feeling that one is not normal or socially acceptable. Instead of being sinful, today one is 'sick.' Like religion, psychology ministers to the guilt and anxiety that it was instrumental in creating." (p. 230)

This sounds a lot like Vienna: We care a lot about you and want you to succeed here, this is what you need to be able to succeed. I think the head of h.r., a military chaplain, even said something like this. Of course, under the circumstances I wasn't sure that I believed him, but that seemed to be what they wanted me to believe, and in this I don't think I was alone. It's just that I got worse treatment than others, so maybe he had to come out and say that before breaking the news, with the journal article on culture shock that they thought I was having culture shock and should go home for treatment. If taken at face value, this kind of approach cold be disarming, I think. I think I signed the papers to go not really believing it was actually going to happen. Maybe I was in shock or denial that this could be happening. And the thing was I was only having problems because of the mission, not in my Austrian activities and functioning. I'll go more in to this in the chronological narration though.

The army ideology of cooperation, communication, etc., has a counterpart in the Vienna mission, that's not exactly the same. I have a whole file on organizational behavior that touches on this too.

***

"... Another correctional therapist said that the character and behavior disorder (a category that includes most soldiers who get in trouble with the Army) must 'be made to see that there is something wrong with him and not with society.'" (p. 231)

I really feel like a fish swimming upstream here. I have a strong enough sense of who I am and my values that I'm able to get by and stick by what I believe even if I'm the only one. This might not be as bad as what the Nazis did, but Bonhoeffer is a good role model for me in standing up to what I believe is wrong. I don't always do it right, but I do the best I can in whatever given situation I'm in.

A textbook of mine from an apologetics class in Bible school has gotten a lot of use throughout the years: it describes various logical fallacies.

Here's a description of "Appeal to the People" a/k/a argumentum ad populum:

"As Immanuel Kant said, 'seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few and number not voices, but weigh them.

As C.S. Lewis was fond of saying, counting noses may be a great method of running a government (even there it has limitations), but it is no necessary criterion for truth. Another name for ad populum could be 'Misuse of Democracy.' If the majority thinks something is true, it must be true. If the majority is doing something, it should be done. The majority is reading this book, therefore it must be a good book. Non sequitor!

Nietzche quipped that 'public opinion is nothing but private laziness.' Ad populum is a lazy way of thinking, a device to bypass independent reasoning. Let the people do your thinking for you. Just drift along with the popular current." (Hoover, A. J. (1982). Poking Holes in Faulty Logic: Don't You Believe It! Chicago: Moody Press).

You will note that in my chronology Bible school came before Vienna, so I had that text with me in Vienna too and had long since studied it for class. Just because you're different doesn't make you wrong or bad.

***

"Since World War II, psychiatrists have been expanding their role in corrections. They have had a greater hand in designing corrections programs, and their participation as therapists rather than screening agents has increased somewhat. But this increased involvement has not come without costs to psychiatry. Psychiatrists have increasingly been compromising their techniques of therapy with military techniques of control.

In particular, the practice of therapy becomes much more oriented to social control of the individual by the small group or team, which is characteristic of military organization in general. I have suggested that the offenders who must see therapists do not view themselves as ill... This new role for therapists, that of forcefully attempting to transform soldiers' minds, results in a shift in the therapists' role." (p. 238-239)

My knee jerk reaction to these texts at this point in time is: Does Guantanamo and water-boarding ring a bell? How about those mental health workers involved?

Okay, that's another subject, but the Guantanamo situation didn't get where it was in a vacuum, and what this text describes sounds like it's the kind of setting that could eventually lead to the Guantanamo participation of psychologists.

Although military chaplains aren't mentioned in this text, it seems that they must at the very least be aware of this kind of thing going on in a field not so completely detached from their own. How would this be affecting them? Is it possible that the military chaplains in Vienna understood this reformative use of psychiatry? I'm not sure I want to go farther with this or not... There's a part of me that says do it, and another part that is more hesitant, but I'll just lay it out since I've been trying to be open and not have to deal with this horrible secrecy stuff that I just have grown to hate. Is it possible that the military chaplains / human resource staff at the Vienna mission intended this (mental "transformation," "personality changes") to be the end result of my going to the states for counseling?

***

"Some of these young men may be able to lead fuller, more developed lives with the benefit of some kind of therapy. But the value of personal freedom, it seems to me, requires that these people should have the choice of whether they want to undergo such personality changes. The only real alternative they have to undergoing therapy is being sent to a harsher prison." (p. 239)

In Vienna they would call this kind of thing "spiritual growth", which has a decidedly chaplain-y ring to it. I hate to say this, but over the years, including some things even after Vienna, I have come to approach pastoral leading more critically.

***

I'll just put this here for further documentation, but I've already commented on the substance of it:

"The most important function of the interview, which each prisoner went through when he arrived at the stockade, was to lay the groundwork for the rest of the program... The prisoner was shown that lack of social conformity had been of little value to him." (p. 242)

***

In another Army correctional facility the soldier-prisoners basically have to go through a repeat of basic training, perhaps with closer supervision. This process is intended to be "useful in helping to restore the offenders to duty (but this time with an acceptable attitude)." (p. 242)

Attitude was really important in Vienna too, mostly expressed indirectly, and this was part of what made my experience there feel like brain washing.

***

"The chaplain branch of the [Army's Correctional Training Facility (CTF)] appears to be quite active, offering a series of day-long retreats, formal instruction in 'Life Issues Series' classes, and group counseling sessions that stress 'freedom of expression on appropriate issues' and understanding the rights of others... In a manner consistent with my earlier commentary about psychology supplanting religion, the chaplains brought two California psychologists to the facility to present a series of lectures and conferences on gestalt psychology and transactional analysis to selected CTF cadremen." (p. 245)

I know there had to be a stronger connection between the chaplains and psychiatry! So here we have it. I wonder if either of the chaplains in Vienna had ever worked at this particular Army prison. Also, however, I don't think the chaplain/HR director in Vienna was working alone, so it's not completely fair to just single him/them (I didn't have much contact with the other one), when probably other leaders of the mission were involved in that decision. How exactly that transpired (the decision to send me back to the States) is something that we may never know.

***

"What is the best explanation for deviance? I have suggested that some correctional psychiatrists and social workers argue that deviance resides in the sick individual. Yet, oddly, psychiatry does not come into the military setting with a notion of what the diseases are that it should be curing. Psychiatry's definition of the individual as ill is based on the Army's response to that person's behavior." (p. 246).

If I may, I would like to insert a quotation from another source (I'm finding all these things in search of the 2 MIA articles):

"Security professionals must strive to be extra vigilant about their own ethics. It is too easy to say, 'everyone is doing it' and look the other way from such behavior or even join in... The bottom line is this: If your professional code of ethics conflicts with company policy and management's behavioral standards, you may have to stop being a part of the management team and uphold your professional ethics... you will be expected to make ethical decisions that may conflict with administration or corporate policy. Making these decisions won't be easy, but it is the only way to live up to - and with - your professional ethics." (Simonsen, Clifford E. (1992). what value to ethics have in the corporate world? Security Management, 36(9), 224-226)

What we have here is a clear case of the Army co-opting (not the rank and file soldiers but) professionals. How could they not have a pre-existing definition of such a basic part of their work?

Be this as it may, I submit that whether or not I was considered ill in Vienna was purely and simply seen as a matter of how I related to the mission, similar to how the Army viewed it in their soldiers.

Maybe we should send a few security professionals to Vienna (or the Army) to teach ethics to certain professionals there. Just don't send send any evangelical protestants to Vienna, please; they won't be at all objective.

***

"The result of allowing the military to define psychiatrists' problems is that the therapists dutifully adapt their definitions of syndromes to match the criminal act. Specifically, in terms of labeling the deviant, one finds circular, ex post facto clinical terms of personality and character disorders. A passive-aggressive personality is really someone who resists in a covert way. A disorder of the 'immature' category is a soldier who impulsively reacts against domination.

There are other explanations for the character of deviance. Some sociologists have asserted that there is nothing inherently deviant about any act, either in terms of individual pathology or societal needs. Deviance is something that is created 'by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.' Thus, persons in the social system take actions that define or confer on certain behavior the label as deviant. If the definition of deviance is located in the reaction rather than in the act or the actor, then there is little necessarily in common in terms of clinical characteristics among individuals who perform the same deviant behavior.

Looking at deviance as residing in the labelers might result in psychiatrists' examining their own preconceptions and affiliations. But this analysis is avoided as a consequence of focusing exclusively on the characteristics of the deviants themselves." (p. 246-247)

I like this discussion about deviance. I don't know if you follow it or not, but it's basically saying that a norm-setting group decides if someone is not following their norms and the person who is not following their norms is deviating in relation to their norms.

One thing that this does is makes deviation a very relative "truth": It only has meaning in reference to something normative. For example, lying in some cultures might be perfectly acceptable, but in other cultures it's not and the act of lying would be considered deviant in reference to their norms, but not to the norms of the other culture. So deviance is not a static thing in and of itself. It only has meaning in relationship to a particular set of norms.

On a certain level I was "deviant" in Vienna in not fully and completely 100% submitting to their norms. It felt like that's what was required to succeed there, and, like I said earlier it felt like brainwashing.

***

"Deviance is something that is created 'by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders... Thus, persons in the social system take actions that define or confer on certain behavior the label of deviant...

As I have emphasized, the self-image can be manipulated. One continues on as a soldier or an offender mostly on the basis of pressures of the small group and other reference persons. So managing the definition of the situation becomes very important for the rationalized co-optive style of corrections." (p. 247-248).

The Army sets the rules and makes the definitions, take it or leave it. Not a very forgiving (or democratic) approach to things, but you almost expect that in the Army (not that that makes it right).

But should this also be so in missions? In some ways, such as the theology, you might expect this to be reasonable. But should it be as totalitarian as an Army correctional facility? I don't think so, but the mission leaders might take issue with this either by asserting that they do have the right to do this, or by denying that they do it (the totalitarian aspects I mean).

I think this kind of thing could be true in the Army too, although I don't really know that, but sometimes I wondered how much of the social pressures were intended and sort of masterminded in a top-down way (like my feeling like I was being pitted against another gal for a certain position towards the end). Was this just sort of common office politics, or was it intentional. There were enough things going on that I wasn't always sure, and still am not. Since there was such a high level of secrecy, I think it's possible that some of these things were intentional, for whatever reason. I mention this in this context because that would also be part of the mission leadership controlling things and defining the issues and norms. I think that once you control the knowledge base you can do a lot with that by withholding something or strategically revealing something else, and in that context I don't think it would have been beneath them to have used disinformation (intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately).

***

It's late again, and I've got to start getting ready for bed. We finished this chapter and it's also the end of the book.

Good night.

~ Meg

92. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 16 (Radine, pt. 10)

It's almost 4:00 and I'm just now having lunch. Oh well.

My current hypothesis about the MIA articles is that they got misfiled, because I think I've otherwise looked in every nook and cranny that might possibly contain anything resembling paper goods. So I'm going through all my files to see if they somehow got misfiled. So far, for example, I've determined that they're not mixed in with my documents concerning my exiting Russia and they're also not in the military chaplaincy file.

While I'm sitting here eating, however, I'll continue on with the next chapter, chapter 6, which is titled: Military Courts and the Law. I don't suspect this will be a very helpful chapter.

***

"From the Army's point of view, the justice system was never intended, nor is it intended today, to protect the individual from excesses of government. On the contrary, it exists to protect the organization from individuals." (p. 181)

I must say that in this regard, the Vienna mission may have been a little closer to the Soviet view of the law. Wikipedia summarizes this as follows:

"According to Western legal theory, "it is the individual who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the government", whereas Soviet law claimed the opposite.[4] Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, but as any action which could threaten the Soviet state."

Implied in the discussion on Wikipedia, and expressed more forthrightly elsewhere as, for example, "legal nihilism, or disregard for the law."

What I mean is that we did indeed have a sort of handbook with policies, the kind you'd expect to receive as a new employee at any regular place of employment. However, in the spirit of the Soviet "legal nihilism" they conveniently and deliberately (I can't see any other circumstances, but I'll get to the specifics in my chronological narration) ignored them, even when, in at least one case, where I pointed out the rule and how it had been applied to others, but not to me.

I don't think I could or would accuse the Army of legal nihilism, but the part about the Army's justice system being intended to work in favor of the institution at the expense of the individual, might fit, the intention part. The reason I think it might fit, as not the rules themselves which would seem to point to some appreciation for the individual missionary's rights, but in the selective application of the rules they did have. Am I making myself clear.

Let me give you another example. In the former Soviet Union, using the 1977 constitution, which I wrote an undergraduate report on for a seminar class on European Political Systems, did grant several rights individual rights that the U.S. constitution doesn't, such as right to a roof over one's head and a right to work. Everyone had that right, the latter of which was actually both a right and obligation, however. BUT, and this is a big "but", these laws weren't uniformly applied. For example, let's say a Jew, Joe Schmoe, decides to apply to emigrate to Israel. After applying to emigrate he immediately has problems, and it appears that he has become one of those persons the Soviet Union has behind the scenes determined don't have all the same rights as everyone else, even though this isn't literally spelled out as a kind of criteria or limitation on the application of the law. So the next thing you know, Mr. Schmoe finds himself, for which he is given some kind of explanation or another. And since these applications to leave the country can be quite lengthy, he tries to find another job in the meantime. But, despite the law saying he had a right to a job (Constitution part II, chapter 7, article 40) and was guaranteed a job, he can't find one.

At that point appears that Mr. Schmoe has been selectively singled out to not be eligible for that right, which also states that: "This right is ensured by the socialist economic system, steady growth of the productive forces, free vocational and professional training, improvement of skills, training in new trades or professions, and development of the systems of vocational guidance and job placement."

You understand that I was speaking in the present because it's a hypothetical case (although that kind of thing really and truly happened, along with other such things), but I was speaking of the USSR before the putsch.

This is actually a pretty close fit to what I experienced in Vienna, considering they did single me out for disregard of a couple of their written policies that were in my favor. That is a pretty close facsimile to how it was in the USSR.

As I'm speaking now, I did have knowledge like this about Eastern Europe and where there were apparent similarities these weren't lost to me even at the time. I also had had lots of prior opportunity to work through a lot of ethical and ideological issues before arriving in Vienna. Others coming into the mission might not have had that questionable benefit. Since that was a major part of my training though (European studies, religion in Eastern Europe, etc.), I was biased at the time to see similarities with things in Communist countries rather than with some of the other institutions and settings I'm comparing it to via the literature I'm discussing. So at the time I felt in some ways like I was living in a micro Communist closed society right in the middle of a major Western European city.

I know when I was sent home for "treatment" (the quotations indicate my presentiment), for example, I made a very strong mental comparison to the Soviet misuse of psychiatry.

***

"Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark (in discussing the use of troops in urban riots) said, 'Generals resent civilian presence and legal guidance. Their business is war. War knows few rules and forgets them when need arises..." (p. 181)

Now this opens a whole new can of worms, regarding my dad. Is it possible that the military would have had that kind of attitude regarding protection of my dad? Just a question. I'm not sure myself, so in this area I'm walking a bit on thin ice.

The other thing I'd like to bring up from this text, though, is the part about generals resenting outside (i.e., civilian) presence and guidance. The mission in Vienna had this attitude in as much as they are impenetrable to outside accountability. Just try holding them accountable, even just using biblical standards. Go ahead, I'd really like to see that and I might even bring along some popcorn and take a front row seat too. Good luck.

As this implies, the mission had virtually built an impenetrable fortress around their inner workings, and trying to hold them accountable would probably be more akin to trying to hold a covert operations agency accountable.

***

"It is probably a rare occurrence that a commander would be impolitic enough to actually tell a court member how to vote. His ability to select the participants and 'stack the jury' may make this unnecessary." (p. 196)

The Vienna leadership stacked the deck against me, if I may take liberties with extending the similarities a bit, when they sent me to conservative Protestant Christian psychiatrists near the Stateside office. Very clever, no?

***

I just skipped over 12 pages and we're getting near the end of the chapter now, but here's something worth discussing:

"Prior to the recent volunteer Army changes, drill instructor in basic training have been reported as deliberately and explicitly attempting to drive recalcitrant soldiers AWOL." (p. 209-210)

This was published in 1976, after the Vietnam War draft. The thing of interest here is that it is a direct admission that they tried to get rid of problem recruits by driving them to skipping town.

The context in Vienna is a lot different, but one of the possibilities I've considered, is whether there was an attempt to get rid of me. The only real possibility for that would be if it was because of my dad, and there is some indication that could be the case. Eventually they could just have determined that I was unfit, but neither of these interpretations is a perfect fit either, as there are incongruencies. But the thing is, and some of the other literature I hope to eventually get to, is that there was a lot of ambiguity and mixed signals pretty much the whole time I was there, making it more difficult to understand exactly what was going on. And I believe that this ambiguity was largely intended, for whatever reason (security comes to mind). Again, some of my literature does deal with this subject of ambiguity.

***

That's all for this chapter, so I'll leave off again.

~ Meg

91. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 15 (Radine, pt. 9)

I got a few little things done now... such as taking a peak at my garden and do a little watering. There don't look to be any new little green caterpillars setting up home on my vegetable leaves, what's left of them. But after uprooting a few that seemed to be in the process of giving up the ghost, I did find that there seemed to be something wrong with the roots, which had a lot of bulges in them. So I think that could be affecting my harvest, and it's probably advisable to just uproot the rest too, knowing that's the case. The Stevia, which was all but enveloped by sprawling suspended vegetable vines seems to be escaping everything unscathed, thankfully. But the boxwood basil is showing signs that I should pick some more leaves that look unhealthy again. I'll do that later today.

I need to open some business mail and deal with that today, take a walk (for exercise) and also try some more to find the MIA articles that are probably somewhere under my nose that will bring on one of those knock-on-the-forehead how-stupid-of-me reactions. Hopefully that will be the case.

In the meantime, however, I'd like to continue with this chapter, especially as it's bringing up some things that might require some continuity of thought on my part.

***

"According to Glass and others, the prevention of psychiatric casualties can be divided into three approaches or levels. 'Primary prevention' consists of attempts to influence living, working, or fighting conditions to minimize the likelihood of disabling maladjustment and is a recognition of various influences upon morale and the experience of combat. 'Secondary prevention' is the early recognition and prompt management of emotional or behavioral problems that some individuals might develop. This is carried out on an out-patient basis, so the individual remains a member of his unit. 'Tertiary prevention' is used for persistent and severe mental disorders that require hospitalization. Here, milieu therapy is the main therapeutic tool. As in secondary prevention, this technique is oriented to rehabilitation back into military duty and the reduction of chronic disability." (p. 161)

These approaches all assume that the desired end is the continuance or return of the the soldier to active duty. Would this apply to Vienna, in particular as regards to how I was treated? It is still not completely clear that my treatment in Vienna was unique, although it certainly was unusual (not common); I was told of 2 other women (wives of workers) who had received similar treatment, but I wasn't there to know the circumstances and the like to make a comparison with them, but it does seem to at least be worth noting that these other earlier cases did exist prior to my coming to Vienna. These 2 women were still there when I was there. But since I wasn't there and can't really speak for what happened regarding them, I'm just going to discuss my case, as I know of no others.

If the Vienna leadership had similar goals vis a vis their approach to dealing with me was similar to how the Army approached apparent mental instability in it's soldiers(that is, to make me a valuable & reliable soldier / missionary according to their specifications) then it might have also used the same step-wise system described in this text, although not necessarily so. But let's just see how my treatment compares to the process described here.

Regarding primary prevention, it is very clear that there was absolutely no attempt at this kind of primary prevention. In fact, my contention has been all along (although I was afraid to say this at the time) that my stressors were contrived and intentional. This begs the question, of course, as to why they would do that, and I only wish I could give you the answer with 100% certainty. But I can't. I do have my suspicions which range from broad intentions they had toward all newcomers to intentions toward me that were very unique. But in any case I am 100% sure that primary prevention was never used in my case.

Moving on to the secondary prevention, as described in this text. This one is a little more ambiguous as far as my personal experience is concerned. The mission leadership, those involved with me, would probably say that they did this, but in my mind they might have gone through the motions of doing this, but what they were doing wasn't rehabilitative in the standard understanding of the term, not like you'd expect from counseling. Rather, it was a kind of counseling that was part counseling, part mentoring, part "discipleship" (in the sense of spiritual growth development), and a very large part socialization. In fact, the other aspects, in my belief, were all guises for socialization, and that's what it was - not counseling.

So now we see that the first level wasn't used, the second was only on a surface level (is it safe to call this manipulative?). But, and I'm dropping a bomb here, the third one was used. What would you think in such a situation? I was shocked and didn't believe it till it was reality.

Why would they do this? What kind of mindset would lead them to treat me like this? How could they use this as socialization, if that's what they were intending? And I'll tell you this, that they didn't get any professional opinion before taking this 3rd step according to the Army system. The details are chilling, but I'm not going to go there now. You'll have to wait till the chronological narration, which won't be too long now.

***

"It was discovered that the 'fixing' of psychiatric symptoms (or their becoming permanent, like an image on a photographic plate) would occur less frequently if the soldier were treated as close as possible to his own unit. This allows other, functioning, soldiers to exert a social control function over the soldier-patient." (p. 162)

This principle was apparently widely recognized because its stated in other articles I have too.

As such, if the leadership wanted to help me recover from what they, as non medical professionals of any kind, had deemed serious enough to hospitalize me for, they should have had me treated nearby, right? Wrong! Well, partially wrong.

What they did was send me back to the States near the U.S. office, where most of the publishing was actually done (not at the Vienna office), and not only that, but they sent me to a hospital where the lead psychiatrists were famous evangelical Christians. If I had opened up and told about the things going on in Vienna, how likely do you think such doctors would believe me over the missionary leadership? Now if I had been sent to just any old hospital I might have been able to open up and have someone believe me... like the psychiatrist in Syracuse in January who asked if my dad was a spy and didn't think I was paranoid either. My chances of that thing were like my chances of sprouting wings tomorrow and flying off to the moon.

So I'll just leave it to your imagination to consider how this all might have affected me. After all, I'm not a rock and no matter how strong I may be I do have a limit. At that point I had several things I had to decide between as to what was the most important:

1) spilling my guts and being determined completely and utterly insane (especially since I couldn't describe things then like I am now years and years later)

2) deciding to reconcile the dissonance I was feeling between what I felt was right and wrong and what I was witnessing and experiencing; which would mean conceding and accepting their values, which would then be internalized and become my new gold standard or rationalization

3)deciding to try to make myself strong in spite of this incredible dissonance which just exploded in size with my being treated that way

4)walking away of my own accord, which would have meant returning home and having to face all my supporters, including giving a reason for my leaving the mission; but who would believe me at that point?

That was it, really, what I faced and what my options were, and I survived and I'm here to tell about it.

There are other principles provided in the text (besides being treated near the unit, but there's not really anything to say about them).

***

In going through the rest of the chapter I don't think I have any other comments to make. So I'm going to take another break to do some other things.

~Meg

90. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 14 (Radine, pt. 8)

I overslept, so I missed church again. I need to try to get to bed earlier, but it's hard. I woke up with a rash around my neck, which I assume is a heat rash, as I've been getting those in the inside of my elbow sometimes recently, but never on my neck.

I found out yesterday (via mail) that the Vocational Rehabilitation people classified me in group II, which is the second most disabled group. Last time I, before I lost my last job which landed me up north with my brother because of resultant lack of income, I was in group I. I'm not as disabled as I was then, but now I have more health maintenance things I have to do for conditions, if properly maintained, shouldn't be too problematic. But if I stop the health maintenance things for most of them my health would deteriorate significantly. It's sort of a catch-22; I'm not as disabled as long as I keep up with these things that take more time, which in itself is emotionally discouraging (who wants to spend so much of their time - and money - on health?), but if I free myself up and for whatever reason stop doing some of these things, I might be able to do more because of having more time and money (and not having to deal with the psychological aspects of having to spend so much time and money on health maintenance) my health will subsequently deteriorate.

All the health maintenance things are a large part of why I don't think I could work more than part-time, which would continue to keep me dependent on SSDI because of the health insurance issue, because of all those other constraints on my time when my health isn't optimum no matter how you look at it.

Still, I think I'm reaching a point where I could work part-time now. But being classified as second tier disabled by V.R. means I'll have to wait longer to actually move on to the next step, which is developing a work plan with them and actually gaining their assistance. I've gone through the application process, and now I have to wait for an opening to come up so I can actually get their assistance; this waiting is because the state doesn't have enough money budgeted for dealing with all applicants as they apply and are deemed eligible.

To seriously look for work, though, I would like to have assistance because of the delicacy of working around SSDI. Since I don't know when I'll actually be able to start getting assistance from the state (V.R.), I should probably call the large legal firm that handled my SSDI hearing appeal. They have a system set up where they can help with this kind of thing, although I'm not sure exactly what they'll be able to do. I imaging it entails some kind of legal counseling regarding working around the SSDI situation. I hope to find out for sure this week though.

I still don't have money to pay my co-pay to get in to the allergy doctor for tomorrow's re-scheduled appointment (it was re-scheduled from last Monday because I didn't have the money then either). I would really like to start on allergy immunization, which the doctor said he intended to do. That would at least address one issue, and anyone who has multiple conditions can understand how there's sort of a compound effect when you start adding conditions on top of each other, and as a result dealing with even one condition can have more positive impact than you'd expect if just dealing with the one condition by itself. This is especially true when one conditions is something like fibromyalgia which can be aggravated by other things going on in the body.

***

Chapter 5 of The Taming of the Troops is titled "Psychiatry in War and Peace".

***

"There are, of course, many soldiers who are not controlled by the collective techniques analyzed in the last three chapters. These men are processed by a variety of deviance-controlling sectors, including military psychiatry, the military justice system, and military prisons...

... The balance between expulsion (through discharges or incarcerations) and resocialization (or therapy) depends on the manpower needs of the Army... I will argue that psychiatrists in garrison situations as well as those who deal with combat neuropsychiatric casualties have a strong tendency to define as ill as few soldiers as possible so the Army will not lose manpower." (p. 157)

First of all, I really don't like the word "control" as it's used here, although I'm sure it's appropriately used. Control brings up images of total institutions and authoritarian organizations.

Control through military psychiatry, however - if control is the proper term vis a vis "military psychiatry" brings up images of Soviet abuses of psychiatry. After all, wasn't the Soviet Union's purpose "deviance-control"?

Now clearly (?) there is a distinction between the chaplaincy and psychiatry, even in the military, but there certainly is some overlap, don't you think? After all, most pastoral training programs (Th.M. programs, for example) include at least one class on parishioner counseling or psychology, right? And pastors do do some kind of counseling, although the more serious cases would be properly referred to professional psychologist. I did find a file (a rather thick file) on military chaplaincy, but I haven't reviewed it yet, so I'm not sure exactly what's in it. But I wouldn't be surprised if chaplains in the Army might find themselves somehow in similar positions as in civilian settings, so they probably have to have to at least be part of the adjunct participants in military psychiatry. So I'm going to assume in this chapter that military chaplains aren't unfamiliar with the kinds of things discussed here and are even at least passive accomplices in military psychiatry.

The other thing in this passage is that it's not ultimately the condition of the soldier but the needs of the army that determine his treatment schedule. Is this consistent with the Hippocratic oath?

***

"Why would a psychiatrist succumb to these organizational pressures?...

To begin with, the structure of the psychiatrist's tasks makes long-term therapy impossible. The army places so many demands on a psychiatrist's time that he cannot function in the therapy role for which he may have been trained as a civilian." (p. 157)

The text goes on to explain demands on the soldier's and the psychiatrist's time, and also how either party being transferred can disrupt the continuity. This doesn't apply to the Vienna situation.

***

"Another source of difficulty is the fact that military psychiatrists do not enjoy the close relationship with their patients that most civilian psychiatrists do. Their communications are not privileged, and what a soldier tells a psychiatrist may be held against him in court. For example, during the Vietnam War many symptoms that soldiers complained of were related to combat violence and atrocities or violent attitudes toward superior officers. If a soldier went to a psychiatrist to talk about his problems, one of two conditions would have to prevail for psychotherapy to continue: either the psychiatrist would have to (illegally) tell the soldier he would not reveal or record anything that occurred in interviews, or the soldier would have to withhold his 'illegal' thoughts or acts from his conversation with the psychiatrist." (p. 158)

One thing here that might apply to Vienna, is that if the military chaplain/h.r. director was playing a counseling-type role (which was also one style of relating between boss-secretary), then the HIPAA-type privacy constraints of a counselor-counselee would not have been in effect, any more than it would have been in the boss-secretary relationship. That is, I think those in the higher positions discussed these kinds of things and others were fed tidbits as deemed appropriate, such as for "control" purpose. This kind of thing would be hard to prove, though, unless I had kept detailed journals of my experiences there that could have pointed to things that were said by people who couldn't otherwise have known the specific thing about me that was revealed. For example, if I'd told my boss about something and he was the only one I told, and later another secretary gave me indication to believe that she must know about it. I hope you can see how if this was indeed happening it would be very hard to trust anyone who might be part of that, and also how any information revealed could be used to sort of tow you in.

In Vienna the "'illegal' thoughts or acts" would have included anything involving serious questioning of the organization and also anything that might "blow their cover" or be what they perceived to be a potential risk to them. Since 1) I had a lot of questions about their modus operandi and the underlining assumptions that must accompany them and 2) I was sort of a loose cannon, there were a lot of things I didn't want to talk with them about, and which was why I didn't keep a journal - although I couldn't have expressed it as succinctly as I am now. But I was very cognizant, nonetheless, even at the time of there being things I could not reveal about my thoughts. This could, of course, make me look very paranoid unless there was some justification for these fears. However, my contention is that I wasn't any more paranoid than the soldier who withheld his "'illegal' thoughts or acts from his conversation with the psychiatrist." But in my case, it wasn't just the psychiatrist. It was like living in Romania under the crazy man Ceausescu who just seemed to repress everybody but not in a consistent or otherwise logical way. In Romania, where the churches were growing at a phenomenal rate, the authorities managed to pretty well divide the church against itself as no one trusted anyone else because of the seemingly all-pervasive monitoring system of informants and the like. As far as I was concerned, the whole of the mission organization was one big informant, all committed to the cause, not questioning the organization's basic underlying tenets and ready to protect the mother ship on a dime. Or maybe the illustration of being alone on a tiny raft in the middle of the ocean, away from friends and family, surrounded by sharks helps you appreciate what it was like. One wrong step and I would be toast... dinner so-to-speak, in shark terms. I was not at all convinced they had my best interests at heart, but I suppose some would say that they did and I mistakenly identified them, when they were really harmless dolphins.

***

"During the Vietnam War with the accompanying widespread anti-war sentiment among soldiers, how would a liberal, anti-war psychiatrist have resolved the role conflicts inherent in his position as an 'internal pacification officer'? Thee are probably as many resolutions as there are psychiatrists, but I think the response of one politically liberal psychiatrist is instructive. In 1970, I asked him if he would support resisters in the Army. Surprisingly, he said it never was a problem for him because he did not think there were any. This psychiatrist, however, held rather narrow standards of what constituted resistance; to him, a definition seemed to require a commitment to pacifism or some other 'ism' and therefore had to be articulated, explained, and maybe even justified in philosophical terms. His view restricts the term resistance to those who can speak in middle-class terms, particularly college-educated terms." (p. 158-159)

In my case the situation would have been more difficult, because, although I was college-educated, it wasn't just a situation of war and peace, but trying to make sense of something you were in the middle of that didn't seem right but was hard to make out - which is why I had to do all this research resulting in me having these texts to discuss now.

Like the psychiatrist described in this passage, however, I don't think the people in Vienna knew how much I was questioning them, although one person especially near the end of my time there repeatedly told me something that made me think they did think I was not completely conforming. I'll get to that in my chronological account, however.

***

"Daniels argues that military psychiatrists' definition of what constitutes mental illness has adapted to the organizational needs of the military. As a result, there is a tendency to stress adjustment rather than introspection or self-awareness. There is also a tendency to view adaptability as both a voluntary act of the soldier and a result of psychiatrist's denial of symptoms." (p. 160).

If we take this at face value and apply it to my Vienna experience (assuming, for example, that the military chaplains on staff had also been privy to this kind of thinking in their military experience and succumbed to it, then anyone who exhibited what could be psychiatric distress of one kind or another would be similar, namely, to help the troubled staff (or family) member would be encouraged to learn to adjust to live in the Vienna mission context. In my mind, this defines the problem as being one involving contextual problems - problems adjusting to Army life, or, in my case, problems adjusting to the life in the Vienna mission, rather than primarily internal problems.

Now, I'm not a psychiatrist, not even close, but my understanding of the human being is that while there are many different parts (physically or otherwise) to the person, all the parts are very closely interconnected and cannot always be readily and easily disentangled. This seems to me to be a situation where that could be the case, where the context, the relationship of the individual to the context and the individual apart from the context, could all come into play. My contention is that without a little investigation into the matter, it would often, or at least at times, be hard to quickly discern which aspect needs addressing.

It sounds to me like these psychiatrists determine fairly quickly that the situation is relational (between the person and context) and not particularly personally internal (psychological). Upon making that determination the psychiatrist then furthermore assumes that the soldier, the individual, is otherwise internally/psychologically healthy and is capable of surmounting these relational problems on his own without professional health. If I'm right, this sounds like a lot of assuming to me.

Nevertheless, we need to bring this back to Vienna. If the military chaplains in Vienna (who may or may not have been "infected" with this kind of military thinking) were to follow this line of thinking, would it result in something akin to my experiences in Vienna? The answer, I'm afraid has to be a pretty sound "no."

The kind of thinking described here is looking out for the host institution's (military's or Vienna mission's) apparent best interests in trying to keep as many soldiers as possible in circulation in a situation where manpower is needed and not easy to replace. There are several things here that don't fit the Vienna situation. First of all, I think I mentioned elsewhere that I developed a sense that no one was indispensable and also that I often had little work to do, and as such the manpower restraint would appear to not be a significant consideration in the Vienna context.

But also, if this were the case, our Vienna military chaplain (one of them in particular) would have done everything he could have to avoid taking me out of circulation, even temporarily, right? Wrong. This did not happen.

I will say, however, that although these combinations of assumptions don't fit the Vienna context, individual components taken separately do. That is, I find it hard to believe that they (not just the military chaplain) really had my interest at heart and indeed primarily had the mission's interests at heart, or maybe even the U.S's best interests at heart if this involved an indirect attempt to get me out of ministry to that part of the world in order to protect my dad and information he would have had access to. This is all hypothetical here, but I'm just laying these theories out as possibilities to be tested, in as much as is possible at this point in the game.

***

Here's a direct continuation from the previous quote:

"This approach to mental disorders is transmitted to individual line officers. Some of my interviewees have asserted that their commanding officers refer soldiers whom they do not know how to handle ('troublemakers,' for example) to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist typically will simply send them back to their unit after minimal counseling. Some psychiatrists tell commanding officers not to refer them any mental cases unless they want to (1) discharge the soldier under AR 635-212 (unfitness and unsuitability) or 635-89 (homosexuality), or (2) court-martial him and require certification of sanity, or (3) evaluate him for security clearance. In this manner, psychiatrists and line officers can cooperate in denying illness (and treatment) except in those cases where they want to get rid of the soldier." (p. 161)

First of all, if line officers are privy to this approach to "mental disorders" I would be pretty surprised if military chaplains weren't also, and even a part of this approach to mental health and the soldier.

Secondly, I'm going to look at these numbered items in reference to the Vienna mission to see if they shed any light on how things were done in the Vienna mission, and my experiences in particular.

The second item hardly implies, and certainly not in a legal sense as in the Army. The only possible corollary I can think of with the Vienna mission would be if it were suspected that there was a spy, a plant, or something along those lines in their midst. If they could prove the ill intentions of the person they could have person expelled, which they would easily have had the right to do under such circumstances. How hard could it have been to convince, given sufficient evidence, the supporters and churches back home (not to mention the mission's governing board of directors) that the person was being expelled for being an informant, or whatever the exact determination was? In fact, this kind of think would undoubtedly serve to loosen any possible accountability leash that might have existed even more so that they could strengthen security measures, which, of course, would probably mean more secrecy. The possibility of this happening or ever having happened was very small, very close to nil, I think. I'm not just talking about someone walking in the door as a visitor or repair person (for example), but about someone who was one of "them".

The first case, being referred patients as being potentially either unfit or homosexual, is more of a possibility, however. In this case, the Vienna mission might have doubted whether I was really fit to work with them, if I was emotionally stable enough to withstand the stresses of their work and how they carried it out. I find this a reasonable possibility. If it were indeed the case, they should have made every effort to see to it such a person in question was treated and restored to functionality if at all reasonably possible. So we'll keep this option in mind regarding how they might have operated and how they treated me in particular.

The third and last case given here, namely to be evaluated for a security clearance, doesn't exactly apply to the Vienna context, in as much as "security clearances," in the standard sense of the word, were not issued for that work. However, that being said, the work did involve security issues and the mission as a whole and individual colleagues in particular had to be able to trust each individual in the organization to be able to withstand the stresses that would possibly apply to their particular positions, duties and responsibilities within the organization. It could be, then that psychological-type processes (we didn't actually have a psychiatrist on staff that I'm aware of) were used in this process and that anyone with questionable emotional stability could have been referred for professional help to assist in making this determination. But since they didn't have a psychiatrist on staff and it might raise some questions or even eyebrows back home if it were known that psychiatry were used in this manner, they would have probably had to do this indirectly. That is, the psychiatrist might well not have known what the precursor was to the person's coming to him/her for help regarding institutional experiences and demands, which were, of course, secret and meant to be kept secret. In this case the person would go to counseling and manage to resolve any of his/her problems that might exist without mention of the "secret" aspects which would make him/her look paranoid or worse anyway, because who would believe such nonsense? So if the person on the receiving end of this treatment were to spill the beans and be open and frank about everything, that person would be found to have some serious mental illness and their testimony to these things would then be tainted as coming from a person who had serious mental problems, right? Or the person could avoid mentioning the "secrets" but internally not resolve the conflict of knowing what s/he had to do to overcome the conflict, and since the conflict inside remained there were signs of emotional disturbance, none of which pointed to the mission, because these things were kept "secret". So these are the options that I'm suggesting here is the security clearance case were a possibility:

1) The person resolves the internal conflicts vis a vis self vs. the mission and comes out clean and healthy

2) The person spills the beans about everything going on in the Vienna mission that is disturbing him/her in direct conflict with his/her beliefs and expectations about how things should be, and is deemed crazy, thus an unreliable witness

3) The person does not spill the beans but also does not resolve the internal conflict, thus resulting in emotional instability apparently not directly related to his/her experiences in Vienna.

4) I'll add this one here, for the sake of completeness: the person is actually mentally unstable, apart from anything particularly connected to Vienna, except maybe as that experience's being the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. In this case, one would think (speaking as a layperson here) that the person would exhibit signs of mental instability throughout his/her life, which may or may not have surfaced before the relationship with the Vienna mission.

If there are other options, I am not omitting them intentionally.

***

I need to take a break and do some things at home, but I'll be back to discuss this more later.

~ Meg

89. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 13 (Radine, p. 7)

I've looked through all the boxes of books, thinking that there might be some papers in them, but I still can't find the articles. I did find some books though that I can scan in pages from for the blog. For example, I mentioned the history atlas from the DDR (East Germany) that makes Martin Luther out to be a revolutionary; that's one of the books I found.

But for now I'll start chapter 4, which has ca. 50 pages of text followed by 15 p. of footnotes. I'm not going to use the footnotes here, but I just mention that because it's the kind of book that has references and the like. I'm just skipping over them for the purposes of our discussion here.

***

Chapter 4 of The Taming of the Troops
Co-optive Rational Control Through Behavioral Science Management

***

"The most nonconfrontive of domination on the social control continuum is based on two, but usually compatible principles. One is the liberal principle of inclusion and co-optation, and the other is the principle of rationalization - the application of social scientific knowledge to redesign human relations." (p. 88)

Basically, co-optation, as the author describes it with examples and the like, would be like giving dissidents a chance to air their grievances, so then just by virtue of having "been listened to" they are somewhat pacified and then on top of it, the army will make some other improvement completely unrelated to the grievance, and that co-opts the dissidents.

The rationalization part is the use of aptitude tests and the like to match soldiers to specific positions.

I've skipped over a lot here, because it doesn't seem to apply to Vienna. However, here's an interesting tidbit to chew on:

***

"In educational background, dissidents are more likely to have had college training than typical Army soldiers. Those having college training were most often listed as organizing dissident activities, whereas high-school graduates tended toward less serious activities." (p. 106)

I don't think this applies to Vienna either. I think I was the closest thing there was to a dissident, at least during my tenure there, and I certainly wasn't among the most educated there. I didn't even have a master's degree at that point yet, and the place was swarming with people with Th.M. and Th.D. degrees (masters and doctorate of theology).

***

"Officers could monitor potential dissidents or transfer them to some position where they would have little responsibility or contact with other soldiers. They could be kept out of power or sensitive positions, such as intelligence, aviation, or military advisers to foreign nations." (p. 107).

I was eventually side-lined in Vienna, and I also often didn't have much work to do, and the thinking described here is probably part of the reason, but there are other approaches to describing my experience than what is given here. Hopefully we'll get to them. But this reasoning here isn't completely off-base as far as my experience in Vienna is concerned.

***

After a discussion of attitude studies in the Army, the author has this to say:

"Why is such detailed information so important? Subordinated people have complex attitudes: they may, at the same moment, hold contradictory conceptions of themselves. For example, if a GI is continually told he is lowly and worthless and it is always demonstrated to him what an incompetent bumbler he is, then he beings to accept this image and to view himself in the same terms his "superiors" use to define him. He may indeed feel that he could not run the Army any better than it is already being run, and that he really is not enough of a man to measure up to Army traditions. Repression produces a feeling of worthlessness in the repressed. But simultaneously, repressed people are often conscious of their powerlessness, and they resent those who have power over them." (p. 111)

I won't say I was constantly berated like in the army, but somehow the process did result in some of the reactions described in this chapter. Except in my case fear was also a big thing, more than anger.

The author continues this discussion showing how this process can lead to an intense one-person revolt. Then he refers to Hegel:

"Hegel argues that the most important struggle is within the slave's own mind, rather than between the master and the slave. I think this interpretation of reactions to oppressive conditions is what is missing when idealism and psychopathology are given as the only reasons for resistance." (p. 111)

It sounds like there are 3 possible internal bases, on a personal scale, for responses to repressive situations: 1) from an ideological basis; 2) from a psychopathological basis (e.g., insanity); and 3) an internal struggle between being made to feel incompetent and his resentment of those over him.

I think I came from the first of these, but there are people who would prefer to say I am coming from the 2nd or 3rd basis. It's possible that the third one was used a bit in socialization, to break newcomers guards down. I certainly experienced it, but I'm not sure how widespread that was.

***

Here's one that's not related to Vienna:

"Officers, reflecting their more educated backgrounds, feel that since soldiers are resisting the army, they must be highly political and ideological and opposed to imperialism and to United States policy." (p. 115)

Are the officers really that brash about being pro-U.S. imperialism? I would definitely make a very terrible soldier on that count alone!

***

And continuing directly from that quote:

"The real explanation is precisely the reverse. Soldiers resist the Army because they find it oppressive. They do not like regimentation, pretty uses of authority, constant, useless formations and marches, and, to them, ridiculous constraints on their lifestyle. Once they express their hatred of the Army, then they are predisposed to think in more ideological terms. They being to search for a justification to legitimate their feelings because they feel no civilian would support their resistance in merely the kinds of terms that preserving their own humanity would require... So being anti-war or anti-imperialist is often the consequences of being anti-Army." (p. 115)

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Humanity is over-rated anyway, who needs it? It's really nice and pleasant to be treated like a robot...

Have you ever read the book "We" by Zamyatin? It's a satire along the lines of Animal Farm, but pokes fun at totalitarian regimes. Zamyatin predated Orwell and influenced his work. Anyway, this book is great for considering life as a human robot. It's probably almost as fun as life in the Army.

But getting back to Vienna...

My responses to what I was experiencing in Vienna probably had a tinge (or more) of wanting to preserve my own humanity. And the experiences that I've had in the last couple decades have very much been a cause of trying to understand them and thus developing changes in my ideology. I don't know that I've thought about it like this, but it's very possible that I've had hatred for those people in Vienna for how I was treated. Initially, upon arrival in Vienna, I didn't react so much to how I was being treated, but to how the mission seemed to operate. But eventually as my experiences indicated that I was being singled out for bad treatment my reaction became more personal. My problem, unlike the hypothetical resister in the Army was not so much whether a "civilian" would support my resistance, but whether those back home would even believe me... which wasn't helped by the fact that it was so hard for me to even explain what happened.

I must admit that my becoming a pacifist was initially because of my own treatment in situations that I feel were aggravated by virtue of me being my father's daughter. But I also see the things that affected me as having somewhat systemic roots, so it's not just for myself, but that I've had a glimpse into some awful things that are built into the system, sort of like a dormant virus as far as some specific emanations of the system are concerned. By "system" I mean things like the missions and military-related systems, but which are actually part of larger systems, like the missions being emanations of western evangelical Christianity. These missions, for example, didn't just sprout up from a vacuum and it's the churches back home that support them.

***

"...the Army's reluctance to present strongly ideological propaganda to its troops is a result of a variety of forces in addition to survey research, such as the civilian furor resulting a few years ago from General Edwin A. Walker's extreme right-wing ideological indoctrination programs." (p. 116)

ECM didn't have any such inhibitions or external constraints regarding right-wing ideological indoctrination, albeit it was a very minor part of the Candidate's Course. I don't know that I remember anything like this from SGA, though.

***

In this section, the author discusses some changes in the leadership style that took effect in the 70s. He finished discussing some things that are becoming more lax, but now introduces new aspects being add to the leadership repertoire.

"The change is one from a fatherly role to closer to a counselor, therapist or labor-relations expert. The change is partly one of a different attitude towards soldiers. Since many soldiers seem unwilling to learn 'followership,' the leader cannot deal with them as dependent, loyal, but errant children, but, rather, must see them as a potentially oppositional class.

..."According to a West Point leadership text... nondirective counseling is the best approach... In this way the soldier should not feel that anyone is trying to manipulate him or sway him. Nondirective counseling allows a wide range of sentiments to be expressed and many kinds of complaints can be aired. An officer could give the impression that he will redress these grievances or otherwise correct the problem, or he could deal with the soldier as a therapist, helping him surmount his maladaptive behavior and feelings.

...This emphasis on understanding social psychological processes is apparent in The AWOL Soldier - a Challenge to Leadership... This pamphlet is typical of many recent Army leadership documents that de-emphasize punishment and emphasize getting the men to set standards for themselves through exploiting knowledge of their motivations." (p. 125-126)

It's possible that this was one approach to leadership in Vienna, although there were "punishments" (negative reinforcements) in play there too, although the leadership would probably deny any use of these things. But it sure felt like it anyway, and I think this may have been used with other new people too, but not to the extent it was with me. They did use a kind of counseling approach though, and I think it wasn't uncommon for secretaries to go to their bosses for spiritual guidance and help with personal problems, for example. I didn't really do this though. I don't remember ever talking about personal problems with my boss, although it's possible I did, but if so, probably regarding something incidental.

***

"Democratic, decentralized organizations have high morale, respond well to changing conditions, and are quite productive in certain kinds of tasks. Instead, with co-optive techniques, the Army tries to create an illusion of the unity of officers and men but not the reality. Without a true unity of purpose and a diffusion of power, co-optive techniques can be only a smokescreen for class relationships." (p. 127)

This author really cuts to the chase here, and I find it refreshing. I am not sure that the Vienna mission was co-optive, although the leadership may at times may have used these approaches, and it was certainly not democratic and didn't claim to be.

***

There was a lot in this chapter that I just zipped through and didn't see at all relevant and even what I did get out of the chapter wasn't anywhere near as helpful as the previous one was, as far as a tool for making sense of my experiences is concerned. The next chapter is a shorter one, but I'll pick it up next time.

Good night.

~ Meg