The other day, McJ put up a link to a story of a New Zealand journalist, Clare Swinney, who was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital against her will for 11 days. She had written about the truth of 9/11 and had sent DVDs to television station personnel showing this truth. She also accused these people of lying about this truth. I felt very disturbed after reading this story because it brought to mind experiences of my own and of friends of mine who have fought for justice for themselves and others. The experiences don't match exactly Clare Swinney's, of course, but they are similar in that the weight of the State/Medical/Judicial/Police/Criminal complex has been brought down on me and my friends who are victims, supporters and/or whistle blowers. The results to varying degrees have included severe psychological stress and burnout; severe physical assaults and injuries and the loss of careers, health, money and freedom.
I mention the above experiences because I will be making some recommendations to people who are challenging the system (or may in the future) and some of these recommendations may sound risky or even dangerous. But I want to show that I am aware of the consequences of these actions and I don't recommend them lightly. They come from experience and I believe them to be, in fact, the safest way to handle “unwanted attention from the authorities”. These encounters are always scary. Don't kid yourself otherwise. But by preparing a strategy beforehand and adopting the attitude that in the immortal words of Jason Bourne, “this isn't just some story in a newspaper. This is real”, you will give yourself the best chance of maintaining the maximum level of power over your circumstances possible.
Clare Swinney repeated some of the mistakes that I have made and some that my friends have made in other situations. So I will use her story to illustrate what I am talking about. Of course, it would make it easier to follow my arguments and recommendations if you have read Clare's story beforehand. It, too, is rather long I'm afraid, so take a cut lunch with you but save a sandwich for when you get back here!
I am going to use Clare's testimony of her reactions and behaviours as examples of what not to do. There will be a few “shoulds” in my advice. I do not mean this in any way as a criticism of Clare. We all learn the hard way most of the time. I certainly have. Clare has published this account of hers, so I assume she wants others to use it and benefit. And full marks to her for doing so! This takes courage. Though this scenario deals with a psychiatric committal, the tactics and advice can be generalised to many other threatening situations. Whether you agree with my points or not, I hope you will have benefited from thinking through this situation in advance.
So on to Clare's story then:-
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