Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Utah nurse arrested for defending patient's rights

So, the good citizens of Huntington, West Virginia have a problem.
What to do about the drug abuse in their fair town. The "City
Fathers" gather and ponder the problem and look for a solution. They
find that they are looking at two distinct courses of action. They
might begin a rehabilitation project, one that not only rehabilitates
people, but their living conditions. The towns citizens might begin a
massive cleanup of the housing where these drug addicts live. They
might begin a Works Program, training and placing the unemployed in
community jobs such as cleaning streets, vacant lots, parks and trash
dumped along the local roads. They might even learn to fill pot holes
and clean up the yards of elderly and disabled folks. The townspeople
might even go so far as to offer credit courses to assist in future
jobs.
Or they could levy a fine on the landlords if they fail to kick the
drug violators out of their apartments and rental homes. In other
words, simply move the problem from one place to somewhere else. As
an old rehabilitation teacher, I have certainly had my share of
"failures", heartbreaks, people who might have turned a corner and
made a new start, but who could not do so. But I have seen a greater
number of folks, given just a nudge, a small bit of kindness and
attention and positive support, pick up and go forward. The small
budget we work with has paid for greater dividends to both the
individuals and to the entire community, than to have not put one dime
toward their plight. Left alone, these elderly blind people, the
folks we are charged with serving, if left alone a great number of
them will end up costing the community for their upkeep. Not only
does the community lose, but so do the individuals.
Too many years have passed since the lessons learned from
"Hoovervilles" around the nation in the 30's and early 40's, and FDR's
solution by setting up WPA and similar projects to train and employ
people rather than to abandon them. But this is exactly what the City
Fathers of Huntington, West Virginia have chosen to do, abandon the
drug abusers. Return in twelve months and I can assure you that these
same City Fathers will be sitting at the same conference table facing
the same problem...only worse.

Carl Jarvis


On 9/13/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> It is interesting that the city of Huntington, West Virginia just passed
> an ordinance that if tenants are arrested for drug offenses the landlord
> must evict them or pay a stiff fine.
>
>
> On 9/13/2017 5:08 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
>> Bonnie,
>>
>> That's a terrible story. My feeling is that the root of the problem has
>> to
>> do with the fact that our society criminalizes addiction rather than
>> seeing
>> it as a medical problem and treating it. People who are given drugs under
>> medical supervision, don't have to engage in criminal behavior. In
>> Portugal,
>> where they have a different approach from our's, they don't have the same
>> kinds of issues. There's an excellent book about this which I've read,
>> but
>> of course, I can't remember the name offhand. I understand that it's very
>> complicated. I was married to someone who had a severe drinking problem.
>> Addiction is an illness, one that is terrible to live with, if you're
>> impacted by it.
>>
>> Miriam
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
>> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Bonnie L.
>> Sherrell
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2017 3:40 PM
>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Utah nurse arrested for defending
>> patient's
>> rights
>>
>> My first teaching contract was with the White River School District,
>> teaching in the Rainier Institution and School for the Retarded in
>> Buckley,
>> Washington. One of our teaching assistants was a former police officer
>> who
>> had lost a good deal of his hearing by refusing to wear ear protection
>> while
>> on the firing line doing shooting practice. He admits he was too macho
>> to
>> live at the time. Marv admitted that he was glad he lost so much hearing
>> to
>> the point he had to leave the force, as he'd begun to realize that
>> constant
>> exposure to the worst of human behavior was driving him to become abusive
>> and so cynical he wouldn't listen to explanations as to what had really
>> happened. He suspected that if he'd not been forced to leave when he
>> did,
>> eventually he'd probably end up being arrested himself for beating up
>> prisoners who would prove to be innocent of any crime.
>>
>> A few years after I moved to my present home, I rented my barn to a guy
>> who
>> had been close friends for years with Jack, whom Tony and I had known for
>> close to fifteen years. Even though he'd not seen this Dave for over
>> twenty
>> years, Jack was certain that Dave would be an okay tenant. After a year
>> of
>> tenancy, Dave and his live-in girlfriend got back into methamphetamines
>> and
>> began reverting to typical druggy behavior, which included stealing
>> everything that wasn't nailed down and a few things that literally had
>> been.
>> By the time they began openly stealing to me, every complaint made
>> against
>> them was responded to with, "We're sorry, but our hands are tied." I
>> couldn't get anyone to help retrieve stolen property or to help force
>> them
>> off my property, even when they'd not paid rent for months and had been
>> caught in possession of stolen cars and goods and selling drugs from the
>> barn. I had to go through the whole eviction process, which involved
>> having
>> to hire a lawyer as the judge in my county who handled eviction cases
>> would
>> not allow private citizens to represent themselves in his courtroom. Not
>> until they were finally gone did I learn that they'd been recruited as
>> police informants and thus were being protected by the very officers and
>> institutions intended to protect the general public from them, and
>> although
>> most of the officers in the region wanted them put away for good they
>> were
>> threatened when they arrested them until they accepted they couldn't do
>> anything to protect anyone from almost anything the pair did. I don't
>> know
>> what agency was protecting them, but even when they proved no help at all
>> in
>> weeding out other drug offenders or car thieves, IF they got arrested
>> they'd
>> be released usually before the arresting officer finished the paperwork
>> necessary to process them into jail. I could have lost everything I
>> owned
>> because of these yahoos, and I was powerless to do anything about it
>> except
>> to go to court to have them evicted, even when they'd begun threatening
>> me
>> with physical harm and were constantly turning off the water to the house
>> (the controls for the well and water were there in the barn where they
>> could
>> easily manipulate them while I couldn't as easily turn the water back on)
>> during the hottest summer we ever had. This summer may have been the
>> driest
>> summer on record, but the year these two were constantly denying me water
>> was the hottest I ever remember, with the heat being at record levels
>> starting in May.
>>
>> It's hell when good police officers are forced to allow people they are
>> dying to see go to prison for well documented crimes to continue on with
>> their criminal careers and decent people are forced to endure
>> exploitation
>> and threats until some legal sham is enacted forcing the criminals to
>> begone. Officers who responded to my complaints and those of my
>> neighbors
>> finally told me they could do nothing until I managed to get them evicted
>> (and the judge would not allow me to list their criminal activities among
>> the reasons for the eviction--he'd only accept the fact they'd not paid
>> rent
>> for five months as THE reason) and legally off my property. But even
>> then
>> they were not allowed to do anything to stop them from ranging around two
>> counties squatting on property and continuing to steal except finally to
>> evict them from said counties as vagrants. Oh, yeah--force them off the
>> Peninsula to become similar problems elsewhere in the state.
>>
>>
>> Bonnie L. Sherrell
>> Teacher at Large
>>
>> "Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the
>> very
>> wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
>>
>> "Don't go where I can't follow."
>>
>> We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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