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Nearly two days ago I posted a message to the list asking for information on the differences between the US national level PD organisations and for some historical insight into why there are so many. A day ago, Janet Paterson endorsed my questions and added one of her own concerning funding of said organisations. The silence has been almost deafening. The single response I did get, whilst welcome, did not actually address my questions at all. I have been trying to work out why there has been such a lack of response. I have come up with the following, no doubt incomplete, list of possibilities: 1. No-one read the questions. 2. No-one understood the questions. 3 No-one knows the answers. 4. No-one thinks the subject warrents any of their time. 5. No-one thinks the questioner warrents any of their time. 6. Everyone thinks foriegners shouldn't delve into domestic US PD politics. 7. The answer is so complex that someone is still working on it and will post it sometime soon. Someone please take pity on me (and the others who I am sure would also like to know). Just a brief overview would help us understand why the American experience is so different to that of most other countries where the norm is a single national organisation coordinating several regional bodies. The democratic process cannot, of itself, be to blame. It is at work in many countries which have not experienced fragmentation. My questions are not idle ones. It was the combined might of the US PD community which wrung $100,000,000 for PD research out of the US govt. It is that same community which, of all the worlds PWP, stands the best chance of bringing some patient input into how that huge sum of money will be spent. Watching instead the post-Udall return to internecine warfare is bad enough, but not knowing the why and wherefore makes it worse. Its not unlike trying to read "War and Peace" for the first time without that page right at the begining which lists all the main characters. You know a lot is going on, you know it is important to the plot, but you can't quite figure out how it all hangs together. Thanks to whoever in advance. Dennis. ************************************************* Dennis Greene 48/10 [log in to unmask] http://members.networx.net.au/~dennisg/ **************************************************