Mark Your Calendars!

We Now Have a Date: September 27, 2024

Please Help Make this Unique, Vitally Important, and Extremely Timely Conference Impactful through Our GoFundMe Drive

CONFERENCE THEME: ‘THE MUCH MORE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP’

We are at an extremely critical time.  That is why we are planning this major, unique, impacting conference, approximately one month before the 2024 election.

The year before the 2020 election we held a major conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.  “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership” conference was considered important enough that it was broadcast for all 3 hours on C-Span.  As never before, or since we brought together thirteen highly respected experts from many different areas of expertise including psychiatry, political science, economics, philosophy, fascism, politics, journalism, climate, and nuclear weapons.  The conference was convened by Dr. Bandy Lee, moderated by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and among others included Dr. Jerrold Post, the psychiatrist who established the CIA’s program for psychologically evaluating foreign national leaders who in one of his final public appearances applied all of his experience and knowledge to warning about Donald Trump.  Please watch this 17-minute video that opened the past conference as well as some highlights of the conference itself.

We have a rare opportunity to highlight the issue that has been central from the start of Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency and beyond: Trump’s danger to public health!  Refusing to do so has already had devastating ramifications, including 1.2 million American deaths, most of which could have been prevented, a violent insurrection that came too close to overturning our government, and escalating threats of continuing and expanding social and political violence.  Now, we still face an all-too-possible return of Trump to the White House, including the new Supreme Court designation of “Presidential Immunity.”  At this critical time, we now have to work even more strenuously to explain and expose how he came to power in the first place: through Trump Contagion—a theme I have been writing about for some time.  We must finally contain it, prevent it, and protect our country and our world from it.  Like any other pandemic, we cannot simply expect that it will go away on its own, especially if Trump were to return to the U.S. presidency.   

We are therefore proposing to convene a very major conference at what is now an even more critical time.

To make this a significant live event in Washington as well as online throughout the country, we will quickly need to get professionals to work with us to prepare it, widely publicize it, broadcast it live on YouTube and other platforms, as well as get C-Span once again to cover it.  This needs to be a major newsworthy event, including having members of Congress and major media attending it and covering it.  The single theme of the conference will be that Donald Trump absolutely must be kept from entering the Oval Office again, and that the three criminal trials—the January 6 insurrection in DC, classified documents in Florida, and election interference in Georgia—must all proceed to conclusion.  To make this a major talked-about event, this all-day conference will open at 9 a.m. with short, intense presentations from all of the participants in the morning.  That opening session with be followed by a buffet lunch for all who attend.  Then there will be a multi-hour afternoon question-and-answer session and discussion with major media and members of Congress as well as persons online.  To conclude the conference, there will be a reception for all attendees followed by a special limited sit-down dinner with the conference participants and major media people.  Then, after the conference is concluded, we need to have a major publicity campaign so that millions will know about it and be able to watch key excerpts from it which we will have quickly edited and made available.  Immediately after the conference, we will need to have a team of professional video editors to put together an hour summary of the key segments including key questions asked at the conference, along with a selection of short clips of key conference moment—all ready to be quickly put online and circulated to major media for their use within a day or two of the conference.

Here are the elements all coming together to make this Conference of major significance at this crucial time next month.

NEW BOOK with theme of Conference:  A short new book titled, The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew, will be published by the World Mental Health Coalition and featured at the conference.  I became nationally known through the book I edited, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, published the first year of the Trump presidency.  This will be an update as well as an expansion, applying mental health principles to what is happening nationally, globally, and how we might promote collective healing.

PARTICIPANTS:  There are the multidisciplinary persons from many areas of expertise who participated in the previous conference.  They will all be invited to join in this new conference along with a few special additional persons:

BUDGET: The overall financing for this of course has to be estimated at this time.  If we are able to do the conference, we will provide a full accounting.

Conference Planning and Preparation:  $15,000
Conference Expenses for Participants:  $5000
Conference Location Fees and Banners:  $5000
Conference buffet lunch for all who attend:  $5000
Conference reception for all who attend, including hors d’oeuvre and drinks:  $5000
Conference special dinner only for participants and invited media:  $2500
Advertising and Promotion including in The Hill and Politico both print and online : $10,000
Contacting of Major Media and Members of Congress to attend:  $2500
Online and Social Media Promotion about upcoming conference:  $5000
Arrangements for University Students to attend:  $2500
Special Opening Video as at previous conference:  $2500
Professional Multi-Camera Video of conference, segment editing, and immediate placement on major video platforms including Vimeo and YouTube:  $7500
Total:  $67,500

(We have so far raised $31,000 on our GoFundMe campaign)

TIMELINE TO PREPARE AND PROMOTE THE CONFERENCE:

·   Mid-August - initial preparations for Conference, confirmation of speakers, and meeting at National Press Club for date selection, confirmation, and deposit - done!

·   Last week of August - ongoing preparations for conference continuing throughout the next month

·   1 - 3 September - set up website devoted solely to the conference

·   12 - 15 September - final preparations for conference with the Press Club and all involved, with everything confirmed and double checked

·   16 September - arrangements this week at DC Universities to invite students to the conference with shuttles to bring students from key universities to the National Press Club

·   20, 23, 25 September - full-page announcements of the upcoming conference emphasizing inviting members of Congress and media - The Hill, Politico, and other publications both in print and online

·   27 September - CONFERENCE DATE National Press Club all-day Conference

·   28 September - many short highlight clips of key things at conference as well as full conference video all online at new website specifically and only about the conference

·   28 September - 4 November - the professional media firm works intensely on getting Dr. Lee and other conference participants on major media

·   28 September - 4 November - any remaining and additional funds intensely used to get more media attention to the importance of the conference

Additional Announcement: This week only, I will be holding our weekly session on, “Recovering from Trump Contagion – Restoring Our Collective Mental Health,” on Saturday, not Friday, at 1:30 p.m. EDT/10:30 a.m. PDT.  After this week, the sessions will resume on Fridays.