I’ve been arguing that the clients need to ‘make coalition’ to struggle against the NAMI ‘reform’ agenda. That means that we would develop a cooperative forum where we support each other’s struggle plans as well as communicate what each of us is doing. We have fought over the ‘closed list’ issue because it wasn’t clear to many of us that this constituted a cooperative forum. A real coalition has to stem from a principled commitment of the parties involved to work together, PRIOR to instrumental matters like working a communication channel.

 Tom Harkins informed me of the result of his outreach to Wes Chesbro. Tom went with a friend of his, a Native American who along with Tom is a member of the Humboldt Co. MHB and met with the aide. Tom reports that the conversation was a non-starter, that he couldn’t put the issue of ‘respect’ on the table, that the discussion revolved around the ‘equity’ related to helping out ‘victims’.  :-(  Chesbro seems prepared to do the bidding of the NAMI ‘moderates’ and provide ‘more services’, with the appropriate ‘balance of voluntary/involuntary services’.

 I remember in 1990 when NAMI-California (then: CAMI) was pushing the so-called Alcohol Tax Initiative, aiming to get a dedicated funding stream for mental health. They failed miserably, but Pete Wilson — a NAMI guy — pulled their chestnuts out of the fire in 1992: He introduced ‘Realignment’ & got a ‘dedicated funding’ carve-out from the state sales tax. In other words, NAMI has had a rocky road/‘learning experience’ getting heard regarding their agenda. Their latest ‘success’ has been the AB 1800 struggle, where they lost the battle, but it appears, have won the war, as it’s their agenda that’s now in line to be implemented.

 I have felt, certainly since the 80s, that the “me too” approach to services advocated by many Network leaders was a non-starter, and did not amount to advocacy for real reform. Nevertheless, these same persons want us to continue the “me too” politics and see if they can get a ‘decent cut’ out of the deal, after NAMI and DMH have taken the LION’S SHARE (good March metaphor!). They advocate we concentrate on the way NAMI’s voluntary/involuntary ‘balance’ is allotted, knock down the ‘OPC pilot’, etc. This is a worthy objective, I think; the problem is that it is a limited objective and — EVEN IF SUCCESSFUL, which is surely a challenge — it leaves all the DMH/NAMI trauma production plans intact.

 The advocacy for ‘coalition’ is an advocacy that we support one another, in lieu of the fractious conditions that now obtain. If we mean to win, and we want more than the crumbs and mediocre services being offered to us as ‘also rans’, we need to have a complex advocacy. Tom has checked it out & seen how much work needs to be done, how NAMI has a 15-year headstart on us anyway. I’m hoping the Network will ‘see the light’ and decided to stop its relentless attack on the reform movement, that it will START discussing WHAT PROCESS we can find to get into working things on a cooperative basis.

Respectfully

Andrew Phelps