Please join Busboys and Poets Books as we welcome author Art Levine to discuss his new book Mental Health, Inc.: How Corruption, Lax Oversight and Failed Reforms Endanger Our Most Vulnerable Citizens.Â
In this special presentation, Art will address the threat the Trump administration poses to people, including veterans, grappling with mental illness, opioid addiction and chronic pain, spurring an increase in overdoses and suicides. A contributing editor of The Washington Monthly and a Contributing Writer to Newsweek, he also shows how hard-line approaches to substance abusers and mentally ill people in the criminal justice system needlessly devastates lives.
Art Levine is a prize-winning contributing editor of The Washington Monthly, a Contributing Writer with Newsweek, and a Nation Institute Investigative Fund grantee. He has exposed a wide range of corporate, political and government wrongdoing for The American Prospect, Salon, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Truthout, AlterNet and numerous other publications. Among other awards, he was honored as “Journalist of the Year†by the Florida chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill for his articles in City Link, a Florida weekly, exploring the criminalization of the mentally ill in South Florida. In 2005, as a Health Policy Fellow with the Progressive Policy Institute, he wrote a prescient major report, Parity-Plus: A Third Way Approach to Fix America's Mental Health System that looked at roadblocks to using effective treatments.Â
This event is co-sponsored by DC for Democracy, Washington's leading independent grass-roots progressive organization, found online at https://dcfordemocracy.org/about/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/2540176953. As the group says, "We take a people-powered approach to focus on issues and campaigns that impact our community the most. DC4D has mobilized its member base to support progressive victories in elections, issue campaigns, and other community based activities. DC4D has participated in nearly 100 distinct campaigns. We have knocked on doors and given small contributions to dozens of candidates running for office."Â
Books will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please contact books@busboysandpoets.com with questions.Â
