Many mental healthcare advocates supported this measure. However, the de-institutionalization under the Reagan administration became the criminalization of mental illness, largely due to tax-cuts and as much as 25% cuts in funding.
Recently, the Bush administration announced his "New Freedom Initiative" that expands the failed policy of Reagan (Rosas and Jackson, 2004). According to Rosas and Jackson: "There are a few differences in approach, however. The most significant difference being, Bush is cozy-in-bed with pharmaceutical conglomerates allowing them to develop the government's mental health policy. The policy would be consumer driven, providing "State-of-the-art treatments" i.e. The newest drugs. But how can the emphasis be on the newest treatments when most government programs limit coverage to generic pharmaceuticals?"
Bush's Final Report proposes, "the early detection of mental health problems in children and adults - through routine and comprehensive testing and screening - will be an expected and typical occurrence (Rosas and Jackson, 2004)." Basically, this means that children will be tested regularly in schools and given psychiatric drugs. Unfortunately, this is rarely effective.
The practice of over-medicating, "constitutes a potential health threat to many children and has also created a new source of drug abuse and illicit traffic (Rosas and Jackson, 2004). The data shows that there has been a 1,000% increase in drug abuse injury reports involving methylphenidate for children in the 10 to 14 age group." This new group of prescription drug abusers burdens the already over loaded criminal justice system, and the Federal, State and local prison systems. Approximately 5.9 million Americans are under some type of correctional supervision and 13 million Americans are jailed every year. This is a huge number that will become worse if Bush's initiative is implemented. It is also a significant example of an Orwellian-type government controlling individuals for their own benefit.
While the United States boasts that it is the most democratic nation, today's society is becoming increasing accepting of lack of privacy. Security systems are constantly being installed, and while no government institution monitors these systems consistently,...
In 1984, this idea is demonstrated with Thought Police. It is certainly bad enough to never feel alone in one's own community but it even worse to never feel alone in one's own head. This idea is maddening, as Orwell illustrates through Winston. He says, "At home and in bed in the darkness you were safe from the telescreen so long as you kept silent" (96-7). Here we see
The Party preferred that people use the services of the prostitutes rather than have a satisfying sexual life with a partner. Procreation was the only purpose for sex. Winston thinks that the proles alone have the ability to change life. They make up such a great deal of the population of Oceania and have been able to hold on to their emotions and some semblance of life without Big Brother
ORWELL George Orwell 1984 Eerie parallels with today's online economy of words and knowledge George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 functions as a satire of many of the excesses of 20th century communism, such as everyday citizens' communal, monotonous lives, its nonsensical wars to keep the people complacent, and the creation of 'Big Lies' that are accepted, simply because the government so totally dominates the media. A symptom of this totalitarian thinking is manifested
But that's where we are now. 'We have to look at this operation very carefully and maybe it shouldn't be allowed to go ahead at all'" (Nat Hentoff, p.A19). Today we find our system of government to claim that they are the only people who know the difference between right and wrong and thus while the entire world should disarm themselves of nuclear warheads, we should keep them. Our government
In Animal Farm, Orwell more directly satirizes real world events, as the overthrow of a farmer by his animals and the progression of the new order established there to a totalitarian dictatorship closely mirrors that of Russia's sudden transition to Communism and Stalin's iron-fisted rule. Whereas 1984 drops the reader immediately into the world of a government gone wrong, Animal Farm shows the emergence of such a government. Things begin
George Orwell's last novel, 1984, was released in 1949. The world was still reeling from the effects of World War II and the Soviet Union was emerging as the next great threat to world security. That same year, the Western world watched as the Soviet Union exploded the first atomic bomb, sparking forty years of the Cold War. Supporters of capitalism and democracy quickly hailed the book as a warning
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