Citizens Commission on Human Rights St. Louis

As an English word, “attention” can mean one of many definitions:

• applying the mind to something
• selective focusing one’s perception or awareness
• consideration with a view to action
• an act of civility or courtesy
• sympathetic consideration of someone’s needs and wants
• a position assumed by a soldier
• considering or taking notice
• dealing with or taking special care
• focusing interest

[From Latin attendere, from ad- ‘to’ + tendere ‘stretch’.]

Attention is a built-in attribute of living beings. For people (and some animals), it’s generally the ability to self-determinedly focus awareness (to greater or lesser degree); for plants, one might observe a more physical characteristic such as motion toward a light source.

There are two extremes of attention. Introversion is looking inward. Extroversion is looking outward. Attention can be aberrated such that it becomes too fixed and unable to sweep, or too dispersed and unable to focus. Somewhere in between these extremes is an optimum level for a given situation.

A simple remedy for excessive introversion is extroversion — a good look at and communication with the wider external environment; Take A Walk and Look At Things! A simple remedy for excessive extroversion, which is sometimes called “being buttered all over the universe”, could be “mindfulness” — which is just being in Present Time.

Attention is actually a flow of energy; it can flow outward, inward, or appear relatively motionless. As long as you can keep someone’s attention fixated or confused they can be controlled; this is how hypnotism works.

In the current environment of society, especially in psychiatric mental health “care”, it is all too common for attention to be manipulated by drugs, shock or impact. Picture being slapped in the face: got your attention, did it? Unfortunately such an impact can have two entirely opposite outcomes. On the one hand it might cause one to focus fixedly on the source of the impact. On the other hand it might cause one to lose consciousness and be unable to focus attention at all. Which way it goes depends on the suddenness and strength of the force. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or shock treatment, is an extreme but prevalent example of psychiatric brutality.

Another often unsuspected cause of attention issues is illiteracy or study problems. The many side effects of reading and comprehension difficulties are a main barrier to one’s ability to focus attention. For example, the July 2002 George W. Bush President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education revealed the source of a deeply troubled Special Education system: 40 percent of kids are being labeled with “learning disorders” simply because they have not been taught to read.

The Attention-Deficit Fraud

In 1987, “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD) was literally voted into existence by a show of hands of American Psychiatric Association members and included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Within a year, 500,000 children in America alone were diagnosed with this fake disease.

ADHD actually represents the spontaneous behaviors of normal children. When these behaviors become age-inappropriate, excessive or disruptive, the potential causes are limitless, including: boredom, poor teaching, inconsistent discipline at home, reading difficulty, tiredness, street drugs, nutritional deficiency, toxic overload, and many kinds of underlying physical illness.

The main “treatments” for so-called ADHD are psychotropic drugs which have known side effects of violence and suicide. Some of these drugs are no more than amphetamine-like stimulants, designed to shock one into focusing attention. Aside from the physical impact, there are also severe emotional conditions caused by even short-term use of such drugs. Hallucinations and psychotic behavior are not uncommon.

Due to the hazards of these drugs, in order to receive federal funds under the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act), the “Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment” (H.R.1350) was signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 3, 2004 and requires schools to implement policies that prohibit schoolchildren being forced onto psychiatric drugs as a requisite for their education. The law states, “The psychological/psychiatric system should not be able to abuse Special Education by diagnosing childhood and educational problems and failure as ‘mental disorders.'”

Recommendations

People do not have a deficiency of attention, nor do they have a deficiency of attention drugs. They may have barriers that prevent or inhibit effective use of attention, but these have non-psychiatric-drug solutions.

1. Support legislative measures that will protect children from psychiatric and psychological interference and which will remove their destructive influence from our schools.

2. Ultimately, psychiatry and psychology must be eliminated from all education systems and their coercive and unworkable methods should never be funded by the State.

3. No person should be given psychiatric or psychological treatment against their will.

4. Government funding should never be used for mental health screening or treatment programs and should be allocated, instead, to better educational facilities, teachers and tutoring to improve the literacy and educational standards of students.