Winter Patriot Community Blog

ON CHARGING AT WINDMILLS (and other things that might whack you)

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. These 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:-

Two social workers lobbed on Clare's front door step unannounced and wanted her to accompany them to a psychiatric hospital for assessment. She went with them: this is her first mistake. Instead of going with them, she should have asked to see the committal order. If none is forthcoming she should have gone back inside, closed the door and called a lawyer to get his/her arse down there asap. Never go with anyone against your will unless you have been arrested.

Secondly, never let anyone into your home unless they are a friend or they have a search warrant. It doesn't matter what your neighbours might think about 'white coats' or police standing outside your door! From this point onward, it is much more important what you think of yourself rather than what the neighbours might think of you. Non co-operation would have saved the day for Clare.

If and when you get a lawyer to turn up, you do not ask for advice so much as give him/her instructions. You tell them to go out there and get rid of the cops (or social workers) by asking to see the court order authorising your arrest, should you not have asked for this already and/ or not been shown it. They either have it or they don't. If they don't have it and your lawyer wants to negotiate with whomever is harassing you, ring for another lawyer. I'm serious. Lawyers, for the most part in my experience, are incompetent or have interests opposed to yours, or both. I'll come back to lawyers later.

Clare went on to say, “ I asked if my flatmate, Brian Kennedy could come with us and attest that I was fine and most certainly not suicidal.
I picked up my bag and appropriate evidence for the meeting.”

You don't have to prove you are not suicidal. They have to show you the authority to take you into custody. If they have that authority and you go with them, then it is the 'authorities' that have to prove they are justified in their treatment of you. Taking her magazine, Clare thought this would show she is not mistaken in her assertions re 9/11, therefore not insane and therefore not suicidal (all incorrect connections there i.e. mistakeness does not equate with insanity and insanity does not equate with suicidality). This worked against her because it distracted her from the issue of whether she was suicidal or not and allowed her oppressors later to avoid it, too.

It is important to establish what the issue is and keep this foremost in your mind.

Clare in taking the magazine is focusing on defending herself rather than demanding the social workers defend what they are doing i.e. the legality of the situation. Understandable enough, of course, if you are caught totally by surprise and haven't thought this possibility through beforehand. Never-the-less, it is her second mistake. The point, again, is to not co-operate with these people. It is in their interests to surprise you and rush you through their “process”. Never co-operate no matter what they threaten you with. These people are not on your side and never will be. They are paid by the State and you have to assume they will always do what they are told. That is what they are trained to do, after all. If they are rushing you or threatening you, count on whatever they want you to do as being totally against your interests, at the very least, and most probably illegal.

Two police turned up hot on the heels of the social workers. Police presence always implies the threat of arrest. People naturally want to avoid that and so tend to comply with whatever else the police might want to avoid being thought of as, or being treated as, a criminal. But you've already gone past that point. Never talk to the police under any circumstances. This is nicely reinforced by this law professor's talk via Distant Ocean (thanks for the link, Winter) giving many more reasons than I had ever thought of. Be sure to watch part 2 as well.

In Australia and the US, and I would assume in New Zealand, too, you do not have to talk to the police, period. They can threaten arrest, of course. Here's where you do something different. You say, “What's the charge?” You've called them on their threat. They will either back down and then have to leave or they will arrest you at which point you do not have to talk with them, anyway. If the police arrest you, you can be sure they were going to do it all along despite whatever else they might say. They have a license to lie, and they do. Some of them wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up out of their soup. Never rely on anything the police say. Check everything if and when you can.

The story continues,-
“At Whangarei Hospital, Brian and I were transferred into Ward 7, which is a secure, locked up area, and then herded into a meeting room, where we waited for several nail-biting minutes before the middle-aged psychiatric registrar, Dr Mothafar Abass entered and introduced himself. In a rather detached fashion, he advised that he would be conducting my suicide risk assessment, and then hurried through it, as if he was pressed for time.
Mindful that this was to determine whether I was to be committed under the Mental Health Act, I found his manner disturbing to say the very least. He didn’t appear to fully understand me, nor did he give me sufficient time to explain myself to a level appropriate for this kind of evaluation, and in one instance, he even spoke over me in a rush to get to the next question.”

What's wrong here? Clare is talking again. She is co-operating with the doctor: This is the third mistake. Clare doesn't realize she is slipping the noose over her own head here. She doesn't realize that the pompous fart interviewing her can't put the noose over her head himself. He needs her to do it for him. To that end, he's rushing her and not allowing her to think- “nor did he give me sufficient time to explain myself to a level appropriate for this kind of evaluation, and in one instance, he even spoke over me in a rush to get to the next question.”

To get a committal order, you need a doctors signature. Ordinarily the doctor signing the order is the treating doctor known to the 'patient'. What is going on here is this tool is establishing himself as the treating doctor. He can't do that without her co-operation. He subsequently detained her using her own words (after twisting them) as the justification. It is clear now that the social workers arrived on Clare's doorstep without a committal order. Again, non co-operation would have saved the day for Clare.

Clare describes sending 9/11 DVDs to teevee personnel and that this brought on the unwanted attention. Well, this is what is going to happen. Not only was she appealing to the wrong people (they are on the other side's team) but she was making a highly visible target of herself. I can only assume she thought the troubles were with a few “rogue elements” in the system not the whole system in its totality. Understanding the complete corruption of the whole system is vital to your longevity if you want to fight it. Automatically trusting police, lawyers, the legal system, media, psychologists and psychiatrists has led to a lot of grief for myself and friends. Believe me, it is all connected at the top and pressure can be brought down on anyone within the system. And the system includes all government departments and organisations, all corporations, most religious organisations and many community organisations and anyone dependent on any of them. Doesn't leave a lot, does it?

Clare then goes on to describe threatening emails and the threatening presence and behaviour of someone she believed (probably correctly) to be a member of the the government's 'intelligence' agency (SIS). The thing with threats of the nature that Clare describes is that if you were of enough trouble to them, you would just wake up dead one morning! Killing people is a hassle, though, even for the SIS, and there is always risk involved. Killing people also tends to make martyrs 'for the cause,' which is a cost to the system which needs to be weighed against the benefits. Killing people also tells many others surrounding the victim that there is an alternative world going on that is very different to the one on teevee and in the newspapers and to the one they were taught in school. The PTB do not want to break this spell. Their real purpose in intimidating people is to cause panic, to stop the activist doing whatever they were doing, or to continue on but in a fearful manner and upsetting their own judgement so much that they then aid in their own downfall.

If you are an activist and you are being threatened, and if you find yourself extremely fearful as a result, but you still feel committed to carrying on, I would advise you to beat a strategic retreat instead. At least until you feel confident in your ability to handle stressful encounters and think straight. If in doubt, take a break if you can, anyway. You don't want to be your own worst enemy. It's no disgrace. It's stupid to fight when you can't win and have a lot to lose when you have the option of walking away and saving your fight for another day.

Clare said further on:-
“Although I tried to get Dr Abass to listen to me about the context my statement was made in, my hopes sunk like a submarine when his body language indicated he’d stopped listening to me and his resolve to commit me was rapidly gathering momentum. . . .

. . . Nonetheless, to my horror, at my assessment’s completion, Dr Abass told me I would be held in the secure unit under the Mental Health Act for 5 days for further assessment. And as if this news wasn’t bad enough, he told me I hadn’t been threatened, I had misinterpreted the messages and that was because I was suffering from a delusional disorder. He said he was prescribing antipsychotic medication to combat this problem and as I was depressed, he told me I should go on a course of antidepressants also.”

If Clare had not talked to the doctor nor shown him the threatening emails, how would he be able to declare her delusional? If he can't determine she is delusional, how can he prescribe anti psychotic drugs? Without the anti psychotic drugs, it is much harder to manipulate Clare, which is the whole point of the exercise, after all.

Not understanding the all pervasiveness of the corruption of the system, Clare still expected common sense to prevail: the fourth mistake. She did not understand that this was all planned and that the personnel she would be dealing with would have been worded up as to what to do in advance. It's all a piece of theatre . . . . and she played her part on cue, as anyone would without prior knowledge of what is going on. If you ever find yourself being 'railroaded', expect everybody with authority that you think might help you to be “in on the gig”. Never co-operate. Don't play your part because they need you to play your part for it to work. If it were me in this situation, I'd hope I'd be stating simply and as calmly as I could manage that I will not be co-operating as I believe I am being held illegally and I will be seeking redress. If Clare had had enough alertness to the real situation, she might have asked, “have you been threatened over your residency status here in New Zealand by anyone, doctor?”, and sat back and enjoyed the 'stunned rabbit in the headlights' look! Who knows, she might have also given him that little look that says, “the gig's up, sport. I'm gonna tan your hide and hang it on the fence!”

At a minimum, you try and look like you are in control of yourself. They rely on you not being in control your emotions and therefore not in control of your thinking.

The next phase went like this-
“As a polite way of telling the staff to “piss off and leave me alone,” shortly after arriving I stuck a notice above my bed: ‘WHILE MY HUMAN RIGHTS ARE BEING COMPROMISED LIKE THIS, PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT ME TO PARTAKE IN ANY SO-CALLED “TREATMENT”.’ Of course, it didn’t work. At night-time, I was forced to take Risperidone, a mind-altering medication administered to treat schizophrenia.”

Clare made a threat she did not enforce: the fifth mistake. Never make a threat you are not prepared to, or not able to, go through with. If you don't follow through then you lose respect in others' eyes and worse, you lose respect in your own eyes. Self respect is vital for survival in situations like this. It's far better to not make any specific threats; just do it if you are going to. What Clare did was warn the medical staff so they could prepare for the encounter in advance.

If you put the pills in your mouth and swallow them, it is much harder to convince a jury later that you were forced to take them than if you were held and injected with the 'medication'. The staff will know this. If anybody makes an overt threat to you, you have to “call 'em” on it. In this case, Clare should have called their threat to inject her by not co-operating. You cannot lose. Either they will inject you forcibly or they will not. If they don't, you have had a major win. If they do you will be forcing the staff to face squarely what they are doing. One or more may crumble in the face of this. You will also be in a better position later if you are able to sue them, as I have said. Even if you don't sue in the future, you will be better off in the present because you haven't “ratted out ” on yourself. By putting the pills in your mouth, you are agreeing to their abuse. That makes you complicit in it. You are telling them that it is okay. It consequently undoes your self respect. Better to resist and keep your self respect than to not resist at all and lose your self respect. Without self respect, you are weaker and much more vulnerable.

This whole scenario is about dominating your mind. Don't co-operate in it. State again as firmly but as calmly as you can that you do not agree with the treatment and you believe it is illegal and you will be seeking redress. (Don't say how. Though this is a threat, it is non specific. Leave it open and don't be drawn into discussing it. It's purpose is to sow doubt. Being non specific, it will better play on the fears of those not committed to the system. These will be the lowest ranks and if anybody is going to help you it will be the lower ranks, not the supervisors who have more to lose by bucking the orders from on high. It may be humiliating to be held down and injected but it won't be as humiliating as taking the pills yourself (voluntarily) and then looking back later and seeing how you caved in mentally.
The more Clare co-operates the more control she loses.

The next day, Clare is talking to the head psychiatrist, the medication is having its desired (by the doctors and those behind them) effect-
“In a beleaguered manner, as the Risperidone was making me drowsy, I tried to describe my frightening ordeal and show him my e-mails and my article, Why Does TVNZ Lie to Us About 9/11? but he wouldn’t even spare 10 seconds to lean over and look at them. He said he didn’t want to hear about them and told me I was “delusional” because I believed 9/11 was an inside job."

Because Clare had started out defending herself instead of demanding her assailants defend their actions, she is off on the wrong foot in tackling the psychiatrist. The issue is about her suicidality not delusional thinking. She has let him control the discourse. This is a repeat of the third mistake; co-operating with the doctor and his narrative/agenda. She is reacting all the time and on the backfoot. You can't win from there. If you let your opponent control the narrative, you lose. By not co-operating, by not talking except to say you are being held illegally, you control the narrative and the interaction, though it may not seem like it at first. Again, she would have been much better off simply stating that she believes she has been detained illegally and that she will be seeking redress. And that's it.

You get what you want by posing the possibility that it will be more painful for them to continue to hold you than to release you. Raising the illegality issue puts him on notice. You have to assume that all 'authorities' in this situation have been leaned on, i.e. there will be penalties for them if they don't work against your interests. Appealing to their supposed good natures is not a winning strategy. Appealing to their sense of self preservation is.

All the apparatchiks in these hierarchies know that if the shit hits the fan people like them will be the first to be fed into this same fan if it all gets too hard to protect the higher ups. It's worth remembering that what they are doing is illegal and they know it. You don't have to get their agreement to anything you say. Don't get into a conversation. You just need to put it out there. You just need to hear yourself say it. You just need him to hear it. You are asserting the truth of the situation, your own mental strength and sanity. After this point, the less you say the better and by doing so the more you are in charge of not only yourself but anyone who tries to interact with you.

The story then progresses to a legal hearing. It is notable that the issue for the doctors at the hearing (and unfortunately for Clare, her own father, too) is delusional thinking and only towards the end does Clare introduce the fact that the issue is suicidality. What she finds out later (and not from her lawyer) is that she was, indeed, being held illegally.

Also notable is that the junior doctor reneged on his support for Clare when it was show time. And so did her own lawyer. This is worth repeating – and so did her own lawyer! This is not uncommon. People forget that even though you pay your lawyer, you, as a client, will be gone very soon but the lawyer needs to live on within the system for years to come. This is the sixth mistake. Many (if not most) lawyers will defer to the system and those in charge rather than do what they are payed for – defend you and your interests to the bitter end. There's also straight out incompetence, of course. Lawyers know that most clients haven't a clue what their lawyer should be doing for them and therefore have no way to assess their performance except for reflecting back on that sickening feeling the client gets walking out of the hearing or the court afterwards of, “WTF happened in there!!"

So, to sum up:-
Don't let anyone other than friends into your house without a warrant.
Never talk to the police or anybody attempting to function with that power under any circumstances.
Never go with anybody against your will unless you have been arrested
and then-
Never co-operate in your own hanging. Force them to use force.
Always call them on their threats towards you.
Never make threats in return unless they are vague, lawful and down the line time wise.
Save everything you have till you get to court. Assume that is where you are going.
If you are reasonably intelligent and articulate, defend yourself. Pay lawyers for advice (and check it) but never let them talk for you at a hearing or in court.

Oh, and never sign anything!

Your greatest ally in circumstances like Clare Swinney's is your own sense of worth. You preserve it best by resisting their mental domination. And the best and ultimately safest way to do that is through non co-operation with your oppressors and making sure some sensible ally of yours knows of your situation.

Or the Readers Digest version, - KKK:-
Keep breathing,
Keep thinking and
Keep your mouth shut!

There's a couple of counter intuitive statements in the foregoing I know and I haven't explained everything because of space, so questions are welcome.