MENTAL ILLNESS
Response to "Asylum's dark past relived as cycle ends" News, Jan. 20
This article refers to horrific abuses of psychiatric patients over the history of Central State Hospital in Milledgeville. As a result of an investigation at Georgia’s public psychiatric hospitals by the U. S. Department of Justice, the state of Georgia averted a possible federal takeover by agreeing to widespread changes.
In Georgia, and nationwide, the widespread changes basically involve emptying the public psychiatric hospitals and providing outpatient treatment in the community. Unfortunately, the community treatment approach is failing — primarily due to underfunding, and the need for in-patient care by many people with serious psychological disorders. The “psychiatric wards” can now be found in prisons, and on the streets where the homeless live.
Horrific abuses of the mentally ill continue. Only the setting has changed.
THOMAS J. WEATHERLY JR., LITHONIA
EDUCATION
Political correctness
masks true problems
No, Georgia does not need to throw more money after the disastrous education system (“Georgia must pursue bold, yet prudent, path,” Opinion, Jan. 20).
The bold path that Georgia needs to pursue, and the only solution to improving education, is to abolish affirmative action, stop political correctness and face facts about what’s going on in the school systems across the state. Political correctness prevents an honest look at, and discussion about, the real reasons that students are not achieving. A lot of the problem must be blamed on teachers who are ill-prepared and should never have been employed in the first place.
Look at the real problem, and stop blaming it on the need for more money. Get rid of the people — teachers and administrators — in education who shouldn’t be there in the first place, and face the fact that not all students have the same ability.
FRANS DUNCAN, MCDONOUGH
PUBLIC POLICY
His rhetoric is empty;
Obama has no plan
One struggles to make sense of President Obama’s plan for our financial future.
Maintaining Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security at their present level is a pipe dream sustainable only by raising everyone’s taxes to crushing levels. At that point, why work?
We could continue to print money to pay our bills. Under this scenario, everyone will have plenty of money. It just won’t be worth anything.
His plan is no plan. His lofty rhetoric is empty, and it won’t feed your family. We can bury our heads in the sand a few more years — and then we’ll find ourselves forced to eat what we find there.
JOHN COWAN, CARTERSVILLE
Obama goals promote
growth of middle class
President Obama’s inaugural speech made me proud, and gave me hope that our country will get turned around over the next four years.
Let Vice President Biden be the point man for critical negotiations like the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. Biden is a good deal-maker in our nation of divided politics.
President Obama is the best chance we have for stopping the erosion of our middle class. Growth of our middle class is the best thing that could happen in our country. Middle-class growth will mean more jobs and more taxes being paid (and eventually, fewer mortgages underwater).
WILLIAM MCKEE JR., FLOWERY BRANCH
