The legal standard for incarcerating people in psychiatric facilities and forcing “treatment” in the US is supposed to be that a person is a danger to self or others. Armed protesters who stormed the Michigan State Capitol and had previously threatened lawmakers because of coronavirus restrictions were not labeled mentally ill, incarcerated, or made to take psychiatric drugs. Why not? Lawmakers were so frightened that at least one wore a bulletproof vest. For some reason, these protesters had a social capital that people who are labeled mentally ill, not to mention peaceful Black protesters who were met with rubber bullets, tear gas, and arrests, lack. Why are the powerful allowed to be violent and destructive, when the most marginalized among us are incarcerated against our will for being non-violent, but “mentally ill”?
Those armed protesters, who were a genuine threat, may have been seen by some as heroes fighting unconstitutional infringement of their rights. Yet anyone labeled mentally ill, especially with the most damning labels like schizophrenia, are viewed as a potential threat to the common good with the slightest misstep. Were the police waiting until the protesters started shooting and killing people before they decided they were a threat? And the protesters did this in response to coronavirus restrictions. How would they respond if their human rights were actually violated, like many who wind up with a label of serious mental illness?
When I became psychotic because of SSRI antidepressant use, I thought my parents were poisoning me with arsenic and cyanide. So, I ran away from home to find safe haven at Church, where I expected to find the Corinthians who would rescue me. It was a hot October day, and I was wearing a sweater and walking quite fast. I felt my heart pounding, and thought I was dying, overheating from poison. So, I took my sweater off and threw it in the street just to survive.
On the way to Church, I asked a woman to call 911 for me, because I needed an ambulance, because I thought I was dying from poison. Instead of an ambulance, a bunch of cops showed up. I was talking nonsensically to them when I was spooked by one of their name tags. It said, “Officer Bills.”
I thought, “Bills, bills, Officer Bills. They don’t care about me, they only care about paying their bills.” So, I ran away from them. They chased after me until I was stopped at a red light. They stopped a number of feet behind me. But I was scared. So, I ran against the red light into traffic.
The police later described me as a threat to self because of what I had done, and that was why I needed to be committed. And for this, I was expected to take a lifetime—a very shortened lifetime—of powerful, ruinous psychiatric drugs and “therapy.”
Because the “mentally ill,” especially those with the most damning labels, have been grouped together as all potentially dangerous, every thought, word, and behavior by someone so labeled can be suspect—by friends and family, the public, the police, and certainly mental health professionals. This widespread belief not only sometimes results in incarceration in a mental “hospital” or institution with forced psychiatric drugging, but also sometimes court-ordered outpatient “treatment.”
If someone has committed some heinous crime, let them pay their debt to those impacted and society in prison. But people should be free to make their own medical decisions, and psychiatry always presents itself as being rooted in legitimate science and medicine.
The mental health industry thrives on this perception that mental illness can be a menace to the public good. Without this, how could they possibly justify what they actually do to people? Just as some people believe torturing suspected terrorists is acceptable (incidentally, it was psychologists who came up with waterboarding), plenty of people feel that taking away the human rights or dignity of the “mentally ill” is fine, since we are all a potential threat.
“Advocacy” groups like to say that the majority of the mentally ill do not commit crimes. But in blaming even some horrific behavior on an endogenous mental illness—a broken brain, or some kind of a mysterious “disease”—they blame us all. It’s like attributing some terrorism to certain practices or beliefs in Islam. If it were true that Islam sometimes produces terrorists, all Muslims would become potential suspects. Pope Francis frequently points out that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism. It is also important to point out that “mental illness,” as an endogenous biological disease, never causes violence either.
Just as some extremists attribute their violence to religious ideals, some people attribute theirs to a biological mental illness, as the mental health industry has taught them to believe. That some people claim such things doesn’t make it true. And that other people associate other people’s violence with religion and/or mental illness also doesn’t make it true. The reasons behind violence don’t always lend themselves to easy answers, and may sometimes be totally unknowable.
The association—in the public’s mind—between violence and mental illness, in particular, schizophrenia, is so strong, and a diagnosis so incriminating, that “the FBI had diagnosed Malcolm X with ‘pre-psychotic paranoid schizophrenia.’” “It was a way of engendering anxiety about [him].”
If it were true that “mental illness” was a big source, or the source, of violence, and that psychiatry had safe and effective treatments that turned bad people into good people, their approach might seem reasonable. But there is nothing medical about that. You would expect that people who proclaim to have effective treatments for immorality would be highly ethical people. So, why is it that psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotics to innocent “schizophrenics,” “bipolars,” and others that not only cause brain damage, but also heart disease, diabetes, and other disabling and deadly outcomes? Previous psychiatric treatments, which were also touted as legitimate medicine, like insulin coma therapy and lobotomy, killed innocent people too. Maybe psychiatrists should take antipsychotics to make themselves moral, if that is how it works.
When I confronted my current psychiatrist with the fact that antipsychotics can shorten your lifespan by fifteen to twenty-five years, he said, “No, a few years.” And added, “That’s only if you have heart problems.” Psychiatric drugs took my bad cholesterol from a normal level to a little over 300. And he is the best, most decent, moral psychiatrist I have ever had. The others wouldn’t admit to any potential real harms from the drugs. Even if it is “only” a few years, shouldn’t I have been informed of that possibility before I was forced to take antipsychotics, so I could decide for myself whether or not I wanted to risk it? Are cancer patients denied treatment, because it would “only” extend their lives by a few years? And if quality of life is a concern, isn’t that the patient’s decision to make?
A “schizophrenic, bipolar” man, Jason Harrison, was shot and killed by two cops, because they claimed he would have killed one of them with a screwdriver otherwise. His mother had called the police to get him back to the mental hospital, because he had “gone off his meds,” and she was afraid of him. His sudden psychosis was likely to be a withdrawal symptom.
This woman obviously had no desire to harm her son. She was doing what she felt was best for him with the information she had been given. She had called the police on previous occasions and had him safely taken to the hospital.
The police who killed Jason were certainly aggressive. Is what they did less horrible, in the eyes of the public and the grand jury, because the man they killed was “mentally ill”? If he had been a “good,” hard-working, family man (a man without a psychiatric diagnosis, of course), would they have been indicted? Those policemen proved themselves to be a danger to others, using lethal force when it wasn’t necessary to protect themselves. But they go free, while the “mentally ill” are incarcerated and forced to take deadly drugs just for seeming to be a danger to self or others.
If dangerousness is a legitimate reason to incarcerate people, what about wealthy, politically powerful war criminals who are responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians? What about exploitative economic practices that deprive people of a living wage and decent working conditions, including importing things known to be produced with slave labor? What about psychiatrists who force and deceive people into taking deadly drugs? Their behaviors, more than a mere threat, actually do damage and kill people.
It may be relatively easy to subdue and control a screaming, angry “schizophrenic” chemically, but how do we subdue and control rich and powerful people who get away with crimes against humanity in fine style? It might be better stated that the “mentally ill” are deprived of human and civil rights when we are perceived to be a socially unacceptable threat to self or others. Unlike socioeconomically and legally powerful psychiatrists and wealthy politically powerful war criminals, the “mentally ill” are typically pretty powerless. And therein lies our main crime.
The fact that powerful people can literally get away with killing innocent people, while the homeless (much less the “mentally ill” homeless) can’t even get away with loitering, points to massive failures in our political and legal structures, as well as lack of awareness and indifference to others on the part of the general public.
If the cultural and socioeconomic structures of society had, from the beginning, allowed me to function, and even thrive, I undoubtedly never would have felt a need for antidepressants and “therapy.” The same is probably true for a lot of people who get caught up in the mental health industry. The industry doesn’t actually help the poor, the marginalized, the trauma victims. It exploits us.
How best to deal with violence, whether it be physical, economic, racial, ethnic, sexual, psychiatric, verbal, emotional, or any other kind, is a place for philosophers, voters, the incarcerated, the victims, economists and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, or anyone who has a stake in how societies are run, which is everyone, to discuss.
A country where people’s human rights are determined by wealth, social privilege, and power is a sick country. We aren’t supposed to be wild animals. How the weakest members of society are treated can sometimes be a bellwether for how everyone will be treated eventually.
First they came for the schizophrenics, and I did not speak out…
Well done Caroline.
“just a few years” EH? What do we call that? So he recommends drugs that will shorten your life? The “only if you have a heart problem” is his liability insurance btw, he is a doctor so no one can prove him wrong, because no court is interested in hearing the thousands of pages of evidence, which they can’t understand anyway.
“Advocacy” groups like to say that the majority of the mentally ill do not commit crimes.
Yes those “advocacy” people. I can see a bunch of people being suppressed now, who would gladly become the next psychiatry or oppression groups.
Nothing would be or is more insulting to me than having someone “defend” me, yet standing with the oppressor. I’d rather not be “defended”.
Anyway, one cannot “defend” oneself against BS systems. And really, we should all stop trying.
You are thinking what I’m thinking. Not only am I interested in genetic study of the gene that uses power for abuse of the less powerful, but in the meantime, I think since they are so dangerous, (and there is lots of proof) we need to lobby our politicians to either remove them from their positions or incarcerate them for the safety of society.
If politicians will not stand up to them, all we have left is education, which you are doing.
I consider that shortening your life by “a few years” is “murder by a few years”.
If a completely stressed person is so taxed that they walk into danger, then it would make sense to bring them to safety until the stressors have been removed.
One can break ANYONE. Psychiatrists are not immune. Take away power, and see what transpires. Even at immense pain and the threat of death, the brain/body goes into shock.
Psychology themselves along with researchers have proven it over and over that stress will alter anyone. The monkey that was taken from it’s mom. Torture seems to deserve more torture and control.
I think to talk to your shrink about his practice or drugs is a waste of intelligent conversation. They like it, it feeds them, it actually makes them feel less of a robot. They crave interaction. It makes them feel less guilty, makes them feel they are now doing theraputic work, even though it’s just about themselves. But they do not have insight to see that the talk therapy is about them.
So I would not bother, I see it better that doctors just dislike me, rather than feed them.
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wow, awesome, no BS.
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Ehhhh . . . I think you’re taking it too easy on Jason Harrison’s mom. She didn’t have to call the police on her son. And, I’m sure she was aware that Mad people are more likely to die from police misconduct than from attempted suicide. Harrison’s mom “Amy Coopered” him.
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Hi J,
Thank you for your comment. I may indeed have gone too easy on Jason Harrison’s mother. I guess I gave her the benefit of the doubt, because of the total ignorance and trust in “experts” that some of my own family and friends have had, and I have had as well. It took me so much independent research and reflection before I would even question the “experts.” I had a naive trust in doctors and “helpers.” I even felt that the police had helped me in getting me the “treatment” that I “needed.”
“Mental health” professionals and others advise people that if someone is experiencing a “mental health” crisis, you should call 911 to get them “help” that they need. So, she may have just had a naive trust in “experts” and authority figures. I guess there is no way to know for sure.
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Interesting post! I would start the Keto diet, and yes cholesterol can be a problem or become a problem. There is an incredible learning curve emerging in these pages. There is a difference when policy dictates “should” and “shall”. How I become(s) and then resonate is a I/We can continuously say in anger (rightfully so), so and so should do this becoming triggers in legal language of policy.
I wonder how language modulates to the “we phrased our words, such that when we are actually challenged to speak, not type, one can say, “Have you considered this or that approach, …”, “Could you, could We…. for the greater and I am of the opinion, the greatest valley/gap exists in an We/Them mentality. We in some sense of the creative act are being challenged to craft our “Space” program without access to financial resources and parties who really want change to occur. (Notice I said, “We”, when my bias creeps in).
Must I become anti-this or that and saw, saw and saw before there is a breakthrough, break out or application with braking as if I were skidding in the snow?
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Hi Bill,
Thank you for your comment. I am currently basically on an almost totally vegetarian/vegan diet. I do have shrimp once in a while and some bad food too. I am hoping that once I am totally off of these psychiatric drugs, my cholesterol and other health problems from these drugs will get better.
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You might be able to do both more or less at once. Niacin at the level of 1g TID has a good chance of normalizing your cholesterol and maybe your perceptions as well. It’s likely a bad idea to bring it up with your shrink because he’s likely to go on some screed about you poisoning yourself, although you can tell him if you improve spectacularly.
The drawback to this may be the flushing likely to occur when you start, although there are ways of dealing with this.
Remember niacin, not niacinamide as niacinamide doesn’t lower cholesterol.
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I accidently found something that worked for my “bad” lipids.
I started munching on raw celery every morning and throughout the day, whenever I felt snackish for a cool refreshing treat.
I wanted something low cal, but it had the surprising benefit of my doc asking me why my good lipids were higher and telling me that even though it was still elevated a tad, the ratio was no longer a concern.
I then researched online, and it seems it was the celery.
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Thanks for the celery tip! My Dad loves celery.
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I was thinkin’.
What can we write instead of “the” “mentally ill”? Why do we still use their words, even though we use quotation marks?
Who are “the”?
Perhaps we should call “the” exactly what psychiatry does to “them”.
We can change it to “dehumanized”.
The dehumanized, instead of “the” “mentally ill”
I also propose no more voting until the politicians actually fight for the dehumanized.
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You’re tapping at the edges of the cage here Sam…but the truth is that not only is “mental illness” a semantic misnomer, the idea that there is a valid category which “mental illness” describes is also faulty. As Dragonslayer would say, asking what “mental illness” “really” is is like asking what the Easter Bunny “really” is. It “really” isn’t. It’s not just a matter of being mislabeled — there’s nothing to label!
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No the easter bunny does not exist but the concept is real. I have to disagree with you here Oldhead, we do need labels and not for nothing. We need to call out the ‘medicalisng’ of distress and the ‘individualising’ of experience, of trauma, abuse, neglect, poverty, oppression, discrimination. Adversity in all its forms is increasingly responded to as ‘mental health’ problems. And this very individualising narrative approach is neutralising our collective Capacity to even discuss the adversity at the root of our troubles.
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I don’t think the analogy is taking.
The Easter Bunny is NOT real (sorry kids) so renaming “it” something else (the Spring Chicken?) doesn’t solve the problem.
I’m talking about psychiatric labels. All words are labels. Used properly they CAN call out the ” ‘medicalisng’ of distress and the ‘individualising’ of experience, of trauma, abuse, neglect, poverty, oppression, discrimination.”
“Mental illness” is a false label, as are all psych “diagnoses.” I don’t think you mean we need false labels.
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Indeed, I’m just nitpicking, we have no need for false labels – can I have my chocolate egg now. Do I really have to take those tablets? Seriously I’m struggling with some people who take these concepts very seriously indeed. You know what that’s like so until I can succeed in both putting more distance from them and get closer to more amenable folk I’ll be struggling with the thought of letting them have a piece of my mind or playing dumb.
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Miranda,
I came across the “off his meds” term yesterday, in a movie review of all things. The movie was about the apostle John, and the movie critic complained that the character seemed less like he was trying to spread the news of Jesus and more like a ranting person who had “gone off his meds.”
It burns me up that this phrase and others are so widely accepted despite their obvious connotation. I would love to read a blog post on this.
Thank you, Caroline. Great article. I would add borderline personality to the list of diagnoses in which any perceived misstep is viewed as a threat. Once I had that diagnosis, anything I did or said was questioned.
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Thank you, Kate. Yes, borderline personality is another one–what can it be called other than damning? What exactly does it mean other than that the “mental health” practitioner doesn’t like you. I am not that familiar with it as I am with the “diagnosis” of “schizophrenia,” but it is my understanding that it is just like saying that you have a bunch of character flaws. I guess the “mental health” practitioners have none.
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Consider the questions here very carefully before you even try to answer them. Then question your answers to make sure you’re correct:
1. What IS a “personality”, exactly? How much does it weigh? What color is it?
2. How is a “personality” created?
3. At what age did you begin to create your “personality”?
4. Could Santa Claus bring you a new “personality” for Christmas? Why, or why not?
5. Can’t you just throw away an old, damaged “personality”, and get a new one? Why, or why not?
6. In so-called “borderline personality disorder”, HOW FAR from the border of WHAT? Are there border guards? How wide and long is the borderline? Are there border crossing gates? In “BPD”, is it the borderline that’s disordered? Can you cross the borderline illegally? Legally? Can the borderline be crossed in both directions, or only in one direction? If only one direction, which one?
It’s my hope that you’ll print out these questions, after you’ve answered them all yourself, and give them to your psychiatrist to answer. Being a highly trained and very well educated Medical Professional, your psychiatrist should have no trouble quickly and answering ALL these questions for you….
You’re welcome….
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Hi sam,
Thank you for your invaluable words in both comments. I guess I use “mentally ill,” because that is the label that certain people give other people in order to justify all kinds of inhumanity. It’s sort of like calling a woman an “adulteress” in order to justify stoning her to death. Such words are obviously abusive and do not accurately portray the truth about a person. I would like to somehow find better language to describe the things that go on.
Using the word “dehumanized” applies to such a broad spectrum of people–far beyond people who have had contact with the mental health industry. And the “mentally ill” is so common in American language–far beyond just “mental health” professionals. People use it to label someone they feel is “odd” or “dangerous.” Even people who have been labeled mentally ill use those words to diagnose and describe other people. I once did. I guess sometimes I use those horrible words specifically in order to defeat them. But your words do give me pause to reconsider my language.
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Nono Caroline, I was absolutely not picking on you using that word with quotation marks. I do, so as does anyone else who rejects whatever it’s implications were meant to suggest.
Today I simply endeavored to escape the word altogether. Perhaps next time I will use a blank lol. That’ll mix Steve up 🙂 You keep right on writing Caroline. Keep on keeping on, the words included with quotation marks. OHH and Thank you for your contribution. I value your voice
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Thank you for your kind words, sam, and for the clarification.
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An “adulteress” is simply the word to CORRECTLY and ACCURATELY describe a married woman who has sex with a man who is not her husband. The male form of the word is “adulterer”. Maybe in the Bible long ago, or in Islamic countries, a woman might have been stoned to death for adultery. The book “The Scarlet Letter” deals with a much milder form of social shaming punishment for the “crime” of adultery.
In contemporary America, there is no formal, legal sanction against adultery, except as grounds for divorce. Although, sadly, spouses are sometimes killed by their spouses for adultery. Why? Obviously, adultery must be caused by mental illness. OK, I’m kidding about that last sentence. But serious about the rest of it…. So-called “open marriage”, and polyamory, were invented to prevent adultery. And they do….
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Caroline, I enjoy your writing but you still haven’t fully rejected psychiatry and its labels, which I encourage you to keep working on.
You are picking up on the only true reason politicians are concerned with “mental health” legislation — the public perception of crazed violent psychokillers. And no, the public perception hasn’t changed substantially in decades despite rhetoric about fighting “stigma” (i.e. bigotry against the psychiatrically labeled). It must of course be a coincidence that the incidence of “crazy” mass shootings seems to have risen in direct proportion to the increased administration of SSRI’s. The “psycho factor” is exploited by both sides of the “gun control” debate.
I would also be careful about stereotyping people who are opposed to this continuing lockdown as right wing yahoos; there is clearly something going on here that goes beyond concern about a virus, even if we aren’t yet clear about what it is. These are the most totalitarian times I have ever experienced.
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Hi Oldhead,
Thank you for your comments and for pointing out the stereotyping of opponents to various coronavirus restrictions. I agree that there may be room for debate on these issues, though I do feel that threatening to murder people over the restrictions is unacceptable.
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I doubt there was any serious threat. No one burned anything did they?
More important however is not repeating terms like “schizophrenia” as though they describe actual categories of thought and behavior, that only serves to legitimize them in the public eye (and yours). They use these terms specifically to dehumanize people, so it’s important politically not to assist the process by repeating them.
Keep writing, you’re definitely heading in the right direction.
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Also, great point about how SSRIs (and I think other psychiatric drugs) can cause people to do horrible things that are totally out of character for them. Have you ever read Medication Madness by anti-psychiatry psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin? It’s all about people doing horrible things, because of psychiatric drugs.
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Dr. Breggin has been a friend of the movement since the 1970’s. Though you might be surprised by his take on Coronavirus. Do you get his alerts?
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No, I do not receive his alerts. What is his take on the coronavirus?
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A couple links:
https://breggin.com/us-chinese-scientists-collaborate-on-coronavirus/
https://breggin.com/covid-19-sos-saving-america-from-gov-cuomo/
https://breggin.com/cdc-surge-stats-exaggerated/
https://breggin.com/why-covid-19-clinical-trials-cannot-be-trusted/
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Thanks for the links, oldhead! That’s a lot of information to sort through. He does seem to believe in masks and social distancing. I guess what Cuomo did in New York is different that what my state has experienced. Here, at first everything was shut down. As things began improving, restrictions were lifted, depending on the county, though things still aren’t quite back to normal. It’s an incredibly difficult and tricky situation to deal with.
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I am disappointed Breggin is pushing the Faux Nooze angle.
My brother died last week from complications from Covid.
Whatever it’s provenance, it’s out there and it’s killing/disabling a shit ton of us.
The longer this pandemic goes on (and it will until it’s brought under control or mutates) the uglier my fellow amuricans get.
It’s such a small thing. Wear a mask. None of us need the expense (at the very least) or the disability, and I am not ready to die, and from what I’ve read about ‘long-haul’ Covid, sounds much like what I’ve already lived thru: PWS. Hell on earth.
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@Furies My condolences on your brother’s passing. COVID killed my mother too, who was in a nursing facility. But I try to look at the situation objectively, as there is a lot of manipulation going on, maybe more than I’ve ever seen before.
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Thank you so much for writing this! The spurious association between mental illness and dangerousness is all about creating fear and scapegoating, which is the MO of politics. Politics at its core is about the distribution of power, and the fact that power — who has it and who doesn’t — often defines who is and isn’t mentally ill suggests why psychiatry is so easily weaponized for politics. Generally, the only times the powerful will self-identify as having mental illness is when they want to make an excuse for a wrong that they got caught committing. For the rest of us, mental illness is something that is imposed on us through labels and victimization. This is what Tamika Mallory meant when she said, “We are not responsible for the mental illness that has been inflicted upon our people by the American government, institutions, and those people who are in positions of power.”
Tamika Mallory’s powerful speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUvGeEQidT0
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Hi bowen,
Thank you for your comment. That is a great point about politicians identifying as mentally ill in order to avoid punishment. I have actually thought about how Jesse Jackson Jr., when he was caught spending tons of his campaign money to renovate his house, and was threatened with jail time, went to the Mayo Clinic and was diagnosed with “bipolar.” I am not aware of other politicians going this route, but I remember that one making the news.
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Am not really gelling with your post. YES I am dead against the mental illness myth and the massive long abuse of people, and harm from shrinks who are basically drug pushers for big pharma, BUT you begin with claiming that people demanding their human rights in this planned scam demic are wrong? When in fact we should be showing everyone just how this global abuse of people is exposing what has happened to the so-called ‘mentally ill’ far preceding this. That is what I have been doing. I mean we are talking about these rich and powerful threatening to FORCIBLY inject everyone on planet Earth with their untested vaccine. have you looked into the history of the harm vaccinations can do, and how the drug companies not only get away with it, or the fine they pay is a FRACTION of the profits they make from their product, but they have made sure legally not to have to compensate for any harm down. People have been virtually treated like prisoners in their own homes, been told they must wear useless masks which stop their oxygen, and cause other problems to health and skin, and being threatened with quarantine, and with their loved ones a children being taken out of their home, that they cannot freely move about without having papers, etc etc etc. People have lost their jobs, businesses , all kinds of psychological distress is being caused, with huge upsurge of suicides, and we know what horrible vultures will seek to make further profit from all of this chaos right? and yet right from the get go you suggest the ‘mental illness myth’ and those affected is some kind of separate and ‘more serious issue’…? NO, it is a continuation, an EX-POSURE of the very same evil. Only this times we are seeing more and more that it is not ONLY psychiatry we need worry about but the whole medical establishment which is utterly corrupt!!
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Tell it dude!
Forced “vaccination” = forced drugging. Fuck Bill Gates!
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Movie title + common phrase:
KILL BILL GATES OF HELL
….no living person was named in the preceeding phrase, above….
Therefore, this comment does NOT violate MiA moderation guidlines….
LOL
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Forced “vaccination” = forced drugging,” and they want to do it to the entire planet now.
At least this insanity may get millions of others on our side, when it comes to our calls for an end to the right of any doctor, to force drug anyone.
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Meanwhile some of us have the capacity to welcome certain vaccines while eschewing others. Both the hard antivaxxers and the vaccine crusaders are stifling reasoned debate…
But at least last I checked, the pro-vaxx crowd wasn’t also trying to dismantle known methods of infection control.
I despair. The only thing this conversation has achieved is to give ammunition to those who think the lot of us are simply “off our meds”. So thanks for that!
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OH said:
“COVID is pretty much burning itself out in the South & West.”
Thousands of children test positive as schools return to session. https://www.newsweek.com/over-2000-tennessee-children-test-positive-covid-2-weeks-schools-reopen-state-1526200
Cases increase tenfold in eastern Idaho: https://www.idahostatejournal.com/coronavirus/since-june-eastern-idahos-covid-cases-increased-tenfold/article_0c66b5ef-08e2-5a4c-88e3-e0a8d4fa6587.html
If COVID were a wildfire, GA would be Hell on earth: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/youre-most-likely-catch-covid-114209338.html
Mom begs people to wear masks days before dying: https://people.com/health/texas-mom-tells-people-put-your-masks-on-before-dying-coronavirus/
COVID is not “burning itself out“. Mask mandates are working. Albeit slowly and with a lot of bitter whining and gnashing of teeth from some quarters.
I think the thing I find most interesting about the vaccine issue is that We Do Not Yet Have A Vaccine. This is currently a nonissue. So until we do, discussion over who will take it and what risks or benefits it might provide are neither here nor there and truly serve to distract from the only thing we can do at this point which is to prevent infection as much as we can in order to save lives until a vaccine or suitable treatments are discovered. It’s the refusal to try to prevent unneeded deaths and disability that just really makes no logical sense to me.
This isn’t a political issue despite having been seized upon by political vampires whose lifestyles are funded and fueled by scaremongering and extremism. Viruses do not discriminate based on your chosen political totem animal.
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KS — There’s nothing to despair about, just take care of yourself. Don’t go places you’re concerned about. Even though I trust my immune system to a large extent I avoid subway cars during flu season, and since mass transportation is one of the 3 major vectors for transmission of COVID (along with medical settings and living with an infected person) I often wear a REAL respirator when I ride public trans.
This debate is NOT going on only at MIA, it’s universal, with many firmly-held beliefs on all sides. Still, if I were walking through a park with you and because of your personal health situation you wanted me to wear a mask I would do so without question or hesitation.
Still, I don’t understand how you can not see this as political, though I understand your fear, and if I had comparable physical concerns I would be more reclusive. But after being cooped up most of the time I cherish the opportunity to breathe fresh air a few times a day, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to breathe back in the air my body is trying to expel. Especially outside, where transmission is virtually nil. I don’t consider this a “little” thing.
My personal opinion is that the function of the mask mandates is to signal people to “be very afraid.” My chiropractor & veterinarian don’t require masks, and look askance at the whole thing, as do many non-allopathic healers.
Unfortunately anything I might say in hopes of reassuring you will probably have the opposite effect, since you presently accept the credibility of what I consider the “party line” put out by the medical establishment, and the neoliberal political establishment. But I’ll try anyway.
— A “case” simply means someone has come into contact with the virus, and will most likely have minor symptoms or none at all.
— In terms of “herd immunity” (though I bristle at the livestock reference) the more “cases” the better. By their standards probably 50 million people in the U.S. are already “infected,” which just means they have “met” the virus, not that they’re sick or are going to get sick. Even if your immune system immediately beats the virus back you will test positive. (Probably over 50% of the population would test positive for herpes, that doesn’t mean everyone is running around with oozing sores.)
— The death rate seems like it’s going to end up being something like .25%.
— Can’t fact check all those statistics you referenced but I note that they’re mostly all from corporate media sources, which I guess says more to me than it does to you.
You can’t contain a virus once it’s out there, regardless of how catastrophic the situation is; it basically has to run its course. But we could take measures to prevent this from happening over & over. Peter Breggin alerted people to an article in the prestigious journal Nature, written by a Chinese scientist, in which he described a successful joint effort between China and the U.S. in 2015 to re-engineer a bat virus so as to be transmissible to humans (COVID 15 perhaps?). So we know this kind of thing is going on, and unless we do something about it will continue to happen. Given the existential threat to the human race I favor the death penalty for engaging in such research. (This represents a reversal of my former across-the-board opposition to such.)
All any of us can do is speculate about how the next few months will turn out, but I believe we will be pleasantly surprised, except for those who have a motive in keeping the fear level up.
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I did not hear Kindred or anyone else saying this was not a political issue. I heard her specifically say that she understood there WAS politics going on but that politics does not cancel out basic precautions that are known to be effective. She pointed out the general recommendation of covering one’s mouth and nose when sneezing. Do you really think that recommendation is based on “conspiracy” to make people more anxious? Or is it based on the knowledge that people who are sneezing may be ill and possibly pass on a virus or bacterium to others? How big a leap is it from there to saying that selective mask-wearing could help protect individuals and slow the spread of the disease, regardless of how many scare tactics are in use?
I absolutely think that political entities are using COVID to grind their own political grist, as they do with almost anything that comes up. It doesn’t mean COVID isn’t real or that masks have no effect. It seems irrational to me to assume that because people may be trying to scare us, that everything they say should be resisted. The proper approach is to discount scary but unsupported “data” from ANY source, and to research from real data and draw our own conclusions. I also think there are people who want to scare us about the possibility that COVID is an intentional “plandemic” and I find them just as non-credible as those who claim that it’s all from some bat crap on a piece of fruit that just happened to be in the same town as a wet lab working on making coronaviruses more virulent.
We’re all getting lines of crap, and it’s coming from all directions. It’s time to calm ourselves down and return to “common sense” and rational discussion of actual data.
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Here’s the rub, Oldhead, since I keep being maligned as “afraid” and needing “courage” and other equally condescending framings of my position…
I have taken courses in biology and chemistry and have a fairly decent, albeit layman’s, understanding of the workings of cell biology and various routes of transmission of diseases. At least enough to follow along with the big words and data presented, though I readily admit I am neither a statistician nor data analyst. There was a point in time where I was preparing to apply to veterinary school but psychiatry had other plans for me. So suffice it to say I feel pretty confident in my ability to break down complex biological issues and at least understand how actual scientists have arrived at the conclusions they do.
I did my final college project on the seasonal flu virus, and in my presentation, I broke down for the class the reasons we have yet to come up with a universal influenza vaccine (in short because the head of the virus is a constantly mutating protein, so any long term vaccine would need to target the more stable “tail” of the virus.) I got every question to every exam in that course correct, even the extra credit. So perhaps I am overconfident in my ability to understand these things but somehow I don’t think so.
Now you’ve never birthed babies so I suspect that maternal mortality has never really been huge on your radar. But as a mother, grandmother and one time doula, infection control is something I’ve had to know a little about. A Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis is now famous for demonstrating that hand washing saved mother’s and babies lives. Of course, his pleas were ignored and it was another 40 or so years before hand washing in medical settings became an established norm. But I don’t *think* anyone has been recently obtuse enough to try to prove that all that handwashing medical personnel do is all a waste of time. Hand washing as a method of preventing infection is just something we all do because we know it works.
Likewise, while nobody was really quite sure in the beginning the exact method of transmission of COVID, we know now that like other respiratory diseases, the primary and most direct method of infection is inhalation. (I’m no longer gloved, or wiping down my groceries, as Steve also said.) The jury still seems to be out on just how tiny (aerozolized) those droplets may be and how long they can linger, but nobody serious is actually refuting this data. The question is one of degree only.
So, knowing that the main risk is through inhalation in enclosed spaces, like Steve has said, wearing masks inside seems both appropriate and responsible. I don’t have to be told this. I owned medical grade masks already and was wearing them when the surgeon general commanded that people stop buying masks. Although I was aghast at his suggestion that they wouldn’t help, I understood that move to be a political one to make sure that the medical personnel on the front lines would have access.
Over the last few months, I have watched all of this playing out in the news and online with a mixture of confusion, anger, despair, frustration and sadness. I am not afraid. Although I would like to see my grandchildren grow up, I am not afraid of death. I am righteously angry at the abject refusal of a certain crowd to see anything akin to reason, while risking the lives of the vulnerable.
I am not willing to throw out everything I know about biology, viruses, germ theory, infection prevention and control in order to appease my antiauthoritarian leanings. I am not going to “show it to the man” by cutting my nose off to spite my face.
I have my own criticisms of the CDC as a lyme survivor, of course, and I’ve voiced them in past comments here on MIA. I have plenty of reason not to trust the government as A sole source of information on anything. That is neither here nor there. The point is that I also am using and applying common sense, which dictates that even when the surgeon general states something emphatically, I am going to do what makes sense to me based on this lifetime’s collection of knowledge and wisdom. That knowledge and wisdom yells “cover your damn mouth” and avoid those who are too obtuse or contrarian to do the same.
I have to wonder what the folks who are repeating most loudly this nonsensical and, in my opinion quite harmful, anti-mask rhetoric are getting out of it.
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Hey Rachel, I hear your frustration. We all have different circumstances and I know that Your experiences this year are probably markedly different from mine, which have been a challenge in their own right. You have had a great deal of dependence forced on you and were well acquainted with social isolation before COVID. I’m really sorry that you’re feeling so distressed by whatever additional restrictions you’re experiencing as a result of COVID.
I still don’t think that asking the folks who can to mask up is too much to ask. We all want to get back to a sense of normal and the sooner we slow the spread, the sooner that will happen.
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She pointed out the general recommendation of covering one’s mouth and nose when sneezing. Do you really think that recommendation is based on “conspiracy” to make people more anxious?
@Steve — I think we’ve all known since early in our lives to do that when around other people. The question is why you would imply that I am accusing KS of conspiratorial thinking.
I have never even mentioned a “conspiracy,” though I do have a take on the situation. I haven’t elaborated upon it because to some it’s obvious and to others it’s crazy, and because it would generate more heat than light.
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So what’s the beef with the masks, then? And I did not intent to imply that KS was engaging in conspiratorial thinking. There were other comments (including some comments from your source person, Berensen) that suggested required mask-wearing was part of some larger conspiracy to gain control of people through fear. I am trying to decouple the idea that people are promting fear (which they are) and the idea that wearing masks can reduce the passage of pathogens from one person to another (which they can).
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Again @KS:
Here’s the rub, Oldhead, since I keep being maligned as “afraid” and needing “courage” and other equally condescending framings of my position…
Hopefully you’re not referring to me; I’m trying to stick to factual discussion.
However there is also a philosophical factor here. You speak of studying “vaccines” and go into very technical detail about why they don’t work — but you don’t question why we would even try to alter the immune systems we are borne with, which have more innate knowledge about protecting us than scientists may ever acquire.
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KS, so you believe this is temporary?
I understand where you are coming from. I only wish I shared your optimism. Google “social distancing is permanent” and see all the articles that pop up and read a few.
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There were other comments (including some comments from your source person, Berensen) that suggested required mask-wearing was part of some larger conspiracy to gain control of people through fear.
I thoroughly believe that, I think it’s obvious. Social control at its finest. Btw many people believe this will all end on November 4. I suspect it will be substantially earlier, unless they find a way to generate the famed “2nd wave.” Actually there may be a 2nd wave, but it will be likely much less severe as the virus loses strength and immune systems adapt; that’s what seems to happen as a general rule.
Why now all the sudden with the masks & all? Why not with “American” flu, or swine flu, or H1N1? Everyone is swimming in viruses all the time, why not sew on masks at birth?
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Oldhead, I think the question of whether or not it is hubristic for scientists to think they can manipulate nature (immune system, GMOs, etc) is far too broad a scope for this particular discussion. I’m not really interested in debating the merits of vaccination. I’m fully vaccinated concordant with my age, my pets are fully vaccinated. I support individual parents rights to choose when and which vaccines to give. I do not support refusing vaccines entirely as a philosophical stance without valid medical justification. My positions are generally pro vaccine and decidedly libertarian but I do not support the antivaxx agenda. That’s as much of a position on vaccines as I have and I do not want to muddy the debate about masks and infection control with a debate about whether or not vaccines as a whole are a good idea.
I have reservations about how a COVID vaccine could possibly work and how one could be developed quickly and safely. The reason coronaviruses have been studied so extensively is because we haven’t yet been able to produce a vaccine or good treatment. And we don’t become immune to them. We lose our antibodies relatively quickly and are again susceptible. I think a lot of people have reservations about potential COVID vaccines that they didn’t have about the novel 2009 H1N1. By the way, H1N1 is a misnomer. The name is Novel 2009 H1N1. There are multiple strains of H1N1 and usually one is included in the yearly flu shot often along with an H1N3 as well as a B strain. People who already got the flu shot mostly did not see anything strange with getting a new strain of H1N1 in their shot. COVID is truly novel since there are no vaccinations for coronaviruses. So you’re asking people to take something totally new. And there is increasing resistance to the flu shot because of how poorly it protects against flu, whose numbers have been manipulated for a very long time, as Steve pointed out. So I think the polls coming out showing resistance to a COVID vaccine shouldn’t be any surprise. Anyway, that’s my take on all that.
I don’t think all vaccines are good or bad but I’m with the people who are concerned about a COVID vaccine. Maybe we can find some mutual ground there.
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Ha, Rachel, I did google that. Thanks! I found this and laughed my head off. https://youtu.be/STh4RRvbKLc
If you really want to get worried and worked up about all the what ifs, you should check out Answers With Joe on Youtube. I don’t agree with him on everything but he’s a very smart dude with an interesting perspective. https://answerswithjoe.com
I don’t think that we’ll ever necessarily go exactly back to how things were. 2020 kind of shuffled the deck on a lot of traditions. But I also don’t think all of the changes are bad ones to make in the long run. I think uncertainty about the future is driving a lot of worry right now, for sure.
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Oldhead
You said:
“All any of us can do is speculate about how the next few months will turn out, but I believe we will be pleasantly surprised, except for those who have a motive in keeping the fear level up.”
This quote is unfortunately very similar to the essence of Trump’s anti-science and wishful thinking approach to the pandemic. And we sadly see where this has led to tens of thousands of more deaths in this country. And this will only get WORSE if he is not removed from power.
Where is the science to back up your view that we will be “pleasantly surprised” in the coming months?
And who are you saying “…want to keep the fear level up.”
Fear is an entirely appropriate response to Covid 19.
And those people not wearing masks are exhibiting the worst kind of stupidity (seemingly endemic to the U.S.), when it is so viciously combined with the arrogance of American national chauvinism.
This stubborn promotion of (an adherence to) an anti-science way of thinking, and the fear mongering towards people of color and those who speak other languages, is just more of the growing fascist takeover of the Trump/Pence regime.
Richard
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Oldhead said:
“…but you don’t question why we would even try to alter the immune systems we are borne with, which have more innate knowledge about protecting us than scientists may ever acquire.”
Is this not the essence of an anti-science position relative to Covid 19 vaccines and other medical treatments?
I ask: why did humanity develop a polio vaccine or a vaccine for smallpox, or various types of cancer treatments etc.etc.?
In these medical situations, apparently the “innate knowledge” of the human immune system was not up to the task of defending us against these diseases, and the power of human developed science was necessary.
Richard
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Newsflash, it is possible to think for oneself without going Full Alex Jones. It’s frustrating to see otherwise intelligent people jumping down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories when the facts we know are damning enough on their own.
It’s certainly plausible that COVID-19 is an escaped lab virus. The US military is widely known to have bio weapons laboratories now and in the past. An escaped pathogen is something they train to prevent but humans are imperfect and make mistakes. So fine, it could potentially be an escapee from the Wuhan lab. Big deal. That doesn’t mean that every conspiratorial story you hear is true. And why should that cause you to then believe that basic concepts regarding airborne pathogens and their spread is now suspect? Have we all been sneezing into our elbows or hankies for nothing or do we still believe in the ability of vapor barriers to protect us from sharing each other’s infected breathing spaces? Have we completely abandoned established science on the transmission of diseases?
I am compelled to comment again on the borderline paranoid anti-mask rhetoric I’m seeing here because for some people it’s literally a matter of life and death. Coming from someone with a compromised immune system and considerable experience in this arena pre-COVID, masks absolutely DO provide protection to both the wearer and to others. Is a barrier like this imperfect? Absolutely! Does it reduce infection rates and save lives? Yes! The protection to the wearer is WHY immune compromised people wear them! It’s why I personally owned and wore my own stockpile of masks when I was sickest early last year and why I happily wear a high quality medical grade mask in public spaces again. But it is also true that your wearing a mask protects others because if you are infected but asymptomatic, you can still shed enough viral load to make other people sick. And yes it is true that SOME people should not wear masks due to specific medical issues (respiratory and cardiac, generally), but most people can and should take precautions to protect themselves and more importantly protect the people around them that they could potentially kill. People like me are depending upon the healthy population to do the right thing and stop the spread of this virus. I don’t know how else to put that. But I suppose it is some measure of kismet that a small percentage of otherwise healthy people are going to learn the hard way.
From another perspective which makes the anti-mask diatribes of the resisters especially frustrating is that many people already wore masks for many different reasons including the immune compromised like me, infectious people, cancer patients, asthmatics in cold or polluted environments, and people who are just feeling under the weather and have the decency to not infect others. Multiple other cultures have already normalized mask wearing and have been multiple times successful in stopping prior coronaviruses like SARS and MERS and indeed brought COVID-19 under control rather swiftly. mask wearing has been practiced and studied and shown to reduce infection rates for generations without causing harm to the wearer. And last I heard there really and truly have NOT been hoards of people dropping dead from wearing masks, unlike with COVID, which at this point appears to be a willful genocide of the sickest and most marginalized American citizens, which have made up a majority of the deaths. And the tone deafness of the likes of the good Dr Breggin himself are hard to reconcile in the age of Black Lives Matter and the recognition of the role privilege plays in determining who lives and dies in this country
Neither self isolating nor wearing a mask will kill people but COVID could kill me and people like me. And it IS killing our marginalized and oppressed comrades at a frightening rate!! And since immunity after infection appears to be short lived, there is near zero chance of creating herd immunity, with or without a vaccine, so I suspect masks are going to be around for quite a while in the US. It doesn’t seem like a big ask for everyone (but especially of healthy and asymptomatic infected people) to do their part to stop the spread of this devastating disease. Wearing a mask doesn’t require a lot of effort, but you do have to at least give a shit about not killing the people at risk around you.”
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Spirit, calm yourself and remind yourself of what your name means. A being thrives on freedom. Courage counts for something now and it always will. Don’t forsake the many who want to be happy. I’m sorry if you get hurt. You wouldn’t be the first and certainly would not be the last. I could get hurt, too, but I support those who value freedom and renounce slavery. That is the direction of happiness.
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Thanks for the lecture, boomer. Science deniers are not exercising their freedom, they’re exercising their stupidity.
“I’m sorry if you get hurt.”
Yeah, I think you missed the entire point of Megan’s recent blog, too.
“I support those who value freedom and renounce slavery.”
Tone deaf, racist, repugnant.
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Well, there you go. Sorry I upset you.
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Thank you thank you thank you.
I’ve been feeling as if I’m caught in a crowd, heading toward the cliff, and I’m unable re route my path to safety!
I also have vulnerabilites, much of it incurred from psychiatric ‘meds’. It’s such a small thing; please cover your pie holes.
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KS you know how anti-psychiatry people are maligned as “science deniers,” I’m surprised you would take this approach. Where is this science? If you check you’ll see that MANY scientists, virologists, epidemiologists, etc. who don’t concur with the official hysteria are simply banned from media platforms.
I don’t wear a mask except in stores (for the benefit of the owners, as I don’t want to make the legal situation even worse for them). I am in a high risk group supposedly (age) and my mother died from COVID as you know. But I still don’t buy the hype. I may have even had a little COVID, but I’ve also spent years building up my immune system.
There are almost zero sources for reliable info, however; certainly nothing in corporate or social media. I strongly urge you to check out Alex Berenson’s Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/alexberenson Berenson is a former NYT reporter, not a Trump flunkie. He statistical analyses are based on facts provided by hospitals, government agencies etc. and he is gaining more & more respect as time goes by.
I wouldn’t have had this analysis in March, but I now see very clearly that this is a thoroughly totalitarian exercise. I think COVID will have largely run its course by Election Day, which will be bad news for the Democratic Party. But there’s no use arguing, as we’ll know within 6 weeks or so which way the tide is going to go.
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Also a recent study suggests “herd immunity” could be achieved by the time 43% of a community have had contact with COVID:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html?auth=login-email&login=email
The virus is pretty much gone from Sweden, which employed almost zero lockdown restrictions.
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Removed for moderation.
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Berenson is so far out there, some of his positions were “too extreme even for [Sean] Hannity.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/ex-new-york-times-alex-berenson-coronavirus-skeptic
There is a big difference between throwing out everything you know about how respiratory diseases are transmitted cause you’ve drunk the conspiracists koolaid and critiqueing bad science because you actually love science and want to defend it from those who use it maliciously for financial gain (PHRMA). I Am the child of engineers and the wife of a research scientist. I have a profound respect for scientific inquiry and I find it completely mind boggling that we’re having this conversation at all and that you appear to have gone full right-wing Fox News level anti-science here.
I have no problem calling out AP folks who abuse or deny science any more than I’ll call out psychiatry and it’s backers for doing exactly the same thing. Bad science is bad science is bad science and should be called out no matter who is promoting it. This anti mask rhetoric is bad science, it’s biased and it’s fueling an ongoing pandemic that is taking hundreds of thousands of lives In the US alone. It’s time to stop beating around the bush and start calling it what it is. A willful cull of the old and infirm.
The problem here seems to be that you’ve gone down the rabbit hole of thinking COVID is just like the flu (it’s not – see the death toll), that herd immunity is possible (it’s likely not since immunity is now expected to last but a few months except perhaps for those lucky folks making the right T cells), that Sweden’s very recent drop in figures means their approach is working (Sweden has had five times the death rate of neighboring Nordic countries, and no studies are controlling for voluntary behavior changes as they deal with their dead, Sweden also encouraged mask wearing), that Sweden’s rate won’t increase again when kids return to school, or controlled for differences in population health (Sweden has nowhere near the rate of underlying cardiac and metabolic conditions that the US/UK have that have a direct correlation with our high death toll – in other words, Sweden is a healthier population than the US). Strikingly, Sweden has had a HIGHER per capita death rate than even the USA because of these lax measures and there is certainly not agreement between Sweden’s government and it’s top doctors (epidemiologists and virologists) about this approach. None of these factors make Sweden’s approach look like a reasonable course of action, and Sweden has been roundly denounced for months because of it.
Barriers work at arresting vapor transmission. Full stop. We sneeze into our elbows in order to catch the large and small (aerosolized) droplets that contain our germs from floating away and into other people’s lungs. Think of it like a condom for your breathing space.
I honestly can’t think of a more abusive behavior from the dominant class right now than demanding the right to continue to spread COVID among vulnerable populations.
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I’m also kind of surprised, Oldhead, that you haven’t put two and two together yet. The whole reason for the US’s approach to COVID – essentially wait for a vaccine be damned the number of dead – was in order to justify a massive giveaway to PHRMA.
If you don’t want to be vaccinated for COVID – I don’t, and less than half of Americans do – do your part to slow the spread of the virus so it can be tamped our for good.
Herd immunity has never been established by letting a disease run rampant. There are always a continuing influx of freshly hatched humans waiting to be infected. Herd immunity IS A FUNCTION OF VACCINATION. Vaccination is aimed at the youngest of ages to attempt to induce immunity BEFORE exposure.
You know I’m not on the bandwagon of vaccinating for every ailment either. But it’s a different argument from wearing a mask. And I guess your fundamental misunderstanding of how vaccination induced herd immunity is driving some of your desire to spread COVID far and wide.
We can still stop COVID through quarantine and masks, though the effort is appearing Herculean at this juncture.
But if you don’t want to wear a mask and you don’t want to get a vaccine, let me ask, what is an acceptable number of dead and disabled in your mind? Maybe we can at least establish an acceptable death and disability rate. And I wonder, should long haulers get a seat at this discussion to let us know what the long term consequences of surviving a COVID infection will be like? Because I hear it’s very much like what Lyme Disease patients experience and I wouldn’t wish what I’ve been through (am still going through) on my worst enemy. YMMV
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https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/510922-the-problem-with-holding-up-sweden-as-an-example
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https://www.thelocal.se/20200817/maps-where-is-the-coronavirus-spreading-fastest-in-sweden
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KS:
Herd immunity IS A FUNCTION OF VACCINATION.
We’re just going to have to stay on different pages here I’m afraid. From what I have studied vaccinations do not produce herd immunity, in fact I question their producing any true immunity, and believe they are responsible for lowering our collective immunity. Most natural healers concur with this in my experience.
Did you check out Berenson’s feed? That’s where I go for my information. Corporate media and social media are in the pockets of the neoliberals, and they shamefully distort information to promote their agenda. This should come as no biggie.
Let’s just see what happens, it won’t take long to see how this is all going to play out, especially now that COVID is pretty much burning itself out in the South & West.
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These arguments might move me if I had not been touched, with my friends, by what damage can be done through a barrage of “reasonable” lies. Live and learn. “Conspiracy” is real, and has been since long before the word was used to defame those who had found one where the conspirators, now more able to control the narrative, could not tolerate one to be found (JFK). Are you not familiar with the history of Rome? How many emperors were murdered by their own Praetorian Guard? And so it goes.
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I think the point, though, is whatever conspiracy might be behind it, COVID is a very real disease and can kill people. The point about masks seems to be a big stretch to associate with any conspiracy, as I hardly see how any international criminals will be served by people wearing surgical masks, besides which, they are recognized as a reliable way to reduce the spread of disease.
Personally, I think the science says that outdoor transmission is practically nil, so arguing that people should wear masks while jogging in the park seem over the top. But big transmissions have happened in indoor spaces where people are in the same place for a longer time and where the air circulation is poor or recycled. So indoor masks are of value for both the user and for others possibly vulnerable to infection by a maskless person.
There is a lot of hyperbole on both sides, but there are people doing real research, as there are on many subjects. While spreading fear certainly can be an intentional means of controlling voting behavior or preventing or encouraging certain mass activities, mask wearing seems sensible when applied to indoor spaces. I’m not sure how any “international conspiracy” could possibly be served by people wearing masks. But having people arguing about whether or not to wear them and creating political upset over this pretty minor issue most definitely COULD serve the purposes of these ostensible conspirators.
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Yes, Steve, it is a big stretch. But we have some opinion and some studies (mostly older studies I believe) on the importance of facial expressions in human communication and in child development. On top of that, mask wearing expresses, to some extent, a desire to hide the wearer’s emotions and true feelings or intentions – or simply identity in the case of robberies. We have experience with how psychiatry has been elevated in this world out of all proportion to its results. I judge that the result of a “conspiracy,” don’t you? What lengths will they go to to cow us, make us feel humiliated? I would not for a moment dismiss the possibility that masks are a part of that. And I am inclined to believe they are.
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I have to evaluate the information for myself. It doesn’t really matter to me if someone does or doesn’t want me to use a mask, I have to decide based on what I know about science and diseases and this particular disease. It is not a matter of “deciding who I believe.” But unfortunately, most people are not scentifically literate and don’t seem to have learned how to evaluate data. So they are depending on someone else to do their “evaluation” for them, and instead of deciding WHAT to believe based on data, they have to decide WHOM to believe, based on God knows what standard.
Hence, we get “infowars” and “left-right” unresolvable arguments, because one person believes Person X who says “all psychiatrists are helpful people who are doing all they can to help humanity, despite a few mistakes” and others believe Person Y who says, “All psychiatrists are evil and they are the cause of all that is wrong with the world.” But neither person really KNOWS what psychiatrists do, so there is no real end to the argument, and it becomes easy for the powerful to dismiss antipsychiatry activists as “anti-scientific” despite evidence that they have no interest in following any scientific principles at all. Because they are doctors, after all, and so they should be trusted. And so on.
So I revert to first principles: let me see the data. The data right now indicates that masks make little to no sense to enforce outdoors (unless you are in close proximity to someone who appears to be ill), whereas indoor mask wearing makes scientific sense, since we know that all the “superspreader” events involved indoor contact and that cumulative intake of “droplets” appears to be the means of transmission. I’ve stopped washing off surfaces unless they are already wet, I don’t wear gloves. I do wash my hands when making contact with a questionable person or surface based on my perception of what may or may not have been “shared” with me, just like I always have. I was advised to consider washing off my shoes after cleaning our bathrooms – I ignored this advice. I don’t do something because the CDC says so, I do it based on the data. I did not wear a mask initially, but have become persuaded by the data regarding how the virus is passed that masking does have a positive effect indoors. So I wear a mask while shopping, etc, and avoid being in indoor spaces with other potentially infected people for extended periods of time. That’s my analysis of the data collected so far.
There ARE real scientists out there doing real work. They DO collect actual data. Some of it is hidden, some sensationalized, but with the internet, we can get back to the real source of the data. While I have no doubt whatsoever that lots of people are trying to manipulate this set of events for political or economic gain, and that we can’t trust any source without full vetting, I also know that COVID is a real thing and I neither want to get it nor to pass it along to anyone else whose immune system is less vigorous than my own.
I think the real challenge that we have failed to meet is that this is a COMMUNITY problem, and we are an extremely selfish society. Calls to reduce selfishness and work together on finding workable solutions should be supported and not denigrated, and we should be evaluating what to do based on actual information, not on “theories” propounded by people who actually have a conflict of interest in getting power or money or attention for spreading “news” that is of a questionable nature. The fact that this encompasses a large proportion of our news media is discouraging, but should not prevent us from seeking out real data and acting on it.
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To hell with psychiatry.
But I’m going to wear my mask and take my vaccines. Thank you.
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No, OH, I did not nor will I ever check out anything Alex Berensen has to say. I already know him to be a crackpot extremist who manipulates and cherry picks data to suit his own agenda. Here is where I go for my COVID news:
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/
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I. E. Cox said: “mask wearing expresses, to some extent, a desire to hide the wearer’s emotions and true feelings or intentions“
I honestly never thought I’d argue for the merits of consensus reality but this is pushing my limits. I just have to say that I think assigning nefarious intentions to those of us following common sense infection prevention measures is quite a chilling stance.
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I’m Larry. Well, we do know where you stand on all this pandemic stuff, don’t we?
What I’m trying to do is connect this to how we got sold on psychiatry and the current “model of care” (drugs). It should be noted that the same communication lines (TV and mainstream media) have been used for both that sales pitch, and the one trying to sell us on masks, etc. In both cases, an extreme lack of willingness to examine all available data has been demonstrated. And a certain radicalization based on fear has resulted. Both of these propaganda campaigns, in their day, seemed sensible and in society’s best interests. But the total failure of that earlier campaign to produce beneficial results, along with other coverups along the way, and the general tone of the media, has totally ruined it for me as a possible trusted source. I absolutely cannot trust the data and solutions it presents which have added up to little more than the promotion of a slave society. If one wishes to pick and choose between “sensible” and ridiculous content on those communication lines, be my guest. I won’t do it.
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I don’t disagree at all that the mainstream media is primarily propaganda from the current elite and is not trustable. Which is why I said I use the internet to look at actual scientific studies and data rather than trusting anyone else’s interpretation of events. There are huge exaggerations and manipulations of data from both the “left” and the “right,” but mostly from those who have an interest in keeping control of society so they can make money.
One of the things which makes me doubt that the release of COVID was planful is the fact that a lot of folks are losing money as a result. At the same time, the current surge in stock prices does suggest that some insider knowledge may exist that we don’t know about. But we will never know about that stuff for sure. What we CAN know is that there IS a virus and it IS contagious and we have some means of lessening the spread of it. That is not from the mainstream media, that is from direct research published in scientific journals. Most of the good stuff to argue against psychiatry’s insanity also comes from that kind of research. Of course, some of that is biased, but we are also capable as intelligent, rational humans to evaluate that as well.
So perhaps I didn’t make myself clear: I don’t accept anything from a media source that interprets the data for me. I look at the data as best I can. The data does exist and can be located if one is persistent enough and can filter for conflicts of interest. Far better to do the research than to assume that no truth can be found because the MSM and others with their own agendas alter the data that is easiest to find.
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SomeoneElse, Yes I agree!! I don’t like to see the MIA community get so divided on a separate issue.
I question a lot of what is out there re COVID. I saw a video of a guy putting a cigarette up to his mask and sucking in the smoke, then when he exhaled smoke came out the sides, top etc of his mask. Whatever the case is, if wearing a mask may protect someone else (even a bit) then I have no issue wearing a mask. We need to look out for each other these days more than ever.
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Berenson is so far out there, some of his positions were “too extreme even for [Sean] Hannity.”
I’m sure you understand the bankruptcy of ad hominem attacks. Who gives a rat’s ass what Hannity thinks about anything? Why not check out his research for yourself — it’s no harder to access than Newsweek.
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@Steve
What we CAN know is that there IS a virus and it IS contagious and we have some means of lessening the spread of it. That is not from the mainstream media, that is from direct research published in scientific journals.
You can’t just claim this, especially the part about “lessening the spread.” Which journals, and what are their biases? (Many people would consider the CDC to be “scientific.”) And for every source that supports your conclusion you can find another to contradict it. If you were paying attention you would realize that many respected virologists, epidemiologists and others with expertise who challenge the official line are routinely deplatformed from corporate and social media. They are uniformly astounded, saying they’ve never experienced anything like this before in their lives. This is not even debatable, Twitter and FB even give their reasoning for such censorship.
If you want actual data check out Berenson; you don’t have to read his interpretation, as much of it speaks for itself. And it is neither “left” nor “right,” just logical.
https://twitter.com/alexberenson
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Of course, I don’t consider the CDC to be “scientific” – I think I made it clear I was talking about research, and that should havee been very obvious from my comments.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/06/16/mask-covid
This is from Vox, but cites and summarizes research directly, and appears quite rational, and even goes into how false research led people to believe that running past someone put them at risk:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/24/21233226/coronavirus-runners-cyclists-airborne-infectious-dose
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/931898
No harder to come by than Alex Berenson.
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Kindred also included a number of links to valid scientific articles.
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And I just looked at your Twitter link for Berenson and found no reference to any scientific data on the entire first page.
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No, OH, I did not nor will I ever check out anything Alex Berensen has to say. I already know him to be a crackpot extremist who manipulates and cherry picks data to suit his own agenda.
This is not like you to base your conclusions on hearsay, which is all it can be without checking out the source directly. It shouldn’t even matter what Berenson’s interpretations may be; I would think you would at least want to look at the information from which he extrapolates. Then you could draw your own conclusions. I could provide links to the actual statistical info without including his commentary, but my sense is that you aren’t interested in pursuing this, so I will cease and desist.
Maybe we can revisit this in a month or two.
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Oldhead, I am already well acquainted with Alex Berensen and find him to be a disreputable source of anything akin to trustworthy information. I was asked to edit that out of a previous post and perhaps agreeing to that was a mistake.
Alex Berenson is an anti pot crusader who wrote a scaremongering book about weed. He is known TO ME to be someone who cherry picks data to fit his biases. I find him about as reputable as Judith Miller – another former NYT journalist who did significant harm. I have no desire to read another word by either of them and think they’re are best dealt with by chuckling heartily when they are quoted as a source.
I hope that clears up any confusion. I am not misinformed.
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@Steve
Also from your VOX article, a few disclaimers:
Some scientists say the new findings should be viewed with caution.
Schünemann said he and his colleagues have “low certainty” in their findings, because their observational review did not provide results as robust those that would come from a randomized controlled trial.
Separately, some scientists have criticized the PNAS study, claiming that the researchers used “poor methods” to estimate the number of infections that were avoided because of face masks and coverings, the Post reports.
In addition, the new studies do not make clear whether transmission of the new coronavirus declined directly because of face masks’ or coverings’ physical barriers or if other changes in behavior, such as people’s tendency to touch their faces less often when wearing masks or coverings, drove down transmission, according to the Post.
There’s also this assumption that surges & declines of infections MUST be due to human behavior rather than the virus running its course; people like to think they’re more significant than they are sometimes.
Incidentally today was the lowest national death count since June.
And why don’t they provide daily death counts for other diseases?
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Like I said, I know there is a lot of shimmy-shammy with the statistics. I think I noted way back that the death rates from other things dropped suddenly when COVID came in, most likely due to a preference for labeling deaths COVID-related (I think there was some financial incentive involved). I also remember the stuff about how the flu killed 60,000 a year, but we discovered that this was an “estimate” based on pneumonia deaths, and did not actually count flu deaths at all!
But again, there IS a virus, it IS contagious, it is almost always spread with extended time together indoors through breathing, and it therefore makes a lot of sense to wear a mask indoors. If it doesn’t help, it doesn’t, but there is nothing irrational about the concept, nor is it a new idea invented to expand the “plandemic.” There is plenty of real conspiracy going on, and arguing about masks seems like a pretty useless distraction at this point. It makes as much sense to me as telling people not to cover their mouths when coughing because the CDC said we should.
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Okay. You want to spend the rest of your life in isolation? Because that’s what all the experts recommend. Utter isolation at home alone for everyone forever.
The only plan out there!
Sounds like a quality life and very healthy too.
Nobody work or see friends or family ever again. Stay locked at home for 50-60 years till you die. WONDERFUL.
Funny how a lifetime of permanent isolation is healthy now. Not like any of us have social needs after all.
This will never end. Get used to permanent house arrest. Years and decades.
The New Normal means you can never have coffee with friends again. I prefer death from this alleged plague myself. The rest of you can enjoy this nightmare dystopia. Funny how I’m the only person who finds it depressing. Crazy me to want friends and fresh air instead of spending the last years of my life locked alone in a room eating beans.
Weird how everyone but me suddenly loves endless isolation, wants it to last forever and enjoys dying alone. Cause you will die even without the Covid. Utterly ALONE IN ISOLATION.
Wish I enjoyed loneliness and hated companionship like the rest of you cranks. Everyone else loves being cut off alone FOREVER.
THIS WILL NEVER EVER END.
Why is Covid death so scary? As the last person with human needs or emotions I wish it or something else would kill me.
Dr. Fauci says we’ll probably never have a vaccine and should never be allowed out of our houses till the virus completely vanishes which he is pretty certain it won’t. Ergo permanent lockdown forever according to the Experts.
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Are you not allowed out of your house? Where are you exactly? We’ve gone shopping and hiking and biking and gotten takeout the whole time. It’s a big jump from “try not to pass it on” to “permanent isolation.” Maybe things are different where you are?
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@KS — I’m aware of the pot book. He’s married to a shrink for one, so maybe needs some slack there. Also this new designer pot may well affect kids differently than more natural versions.
Still, this is an ad hominem approach. Even if he’s a broken clock being right twice a day, you need to see the actual statistical data (most of which he simply reprints) before drawing conclusions.
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My elderly friend is in isolation and may fall and break her hip. If so I guess they’ll find her body before it decomposes too badly.
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Hey Oldhead, just want to point out that it is most certainly NOT an ad hominem attack to point out Alex Berensen’s previous distortion of facts as a reason I don’t want to waste any more time with whatever he has to say. An ad hominem attack is using a characteristic of your opponent to unrelated to the subject matter as an argument against their premise. So if you say the sky is blue and I respond with “you’re ugly”. I have not refuted the sky is blue.
You have used Alex Berensen as an authority, especially noting his credentials as an ex NYT reporter. That IS an appeal to authority, which is a legit logical fallacy.
I’m more than willing to entertain data from credible sources that show that masks no longer prevent the transmission of respiratory illness. I’ll also expect pigs to fly and hell to freeze over before I see such evidence.
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I think the length of this thread suggests that we need a dedicated thread at MIA, one that doesn’t fall off the page like blogs do, specifically to discuss COVID, so people like Caroline don’t end up with their threads being hijacked (even though she cited the anti-lockdown protests in her article). It’s an emotional subject, but Rachel & I, and others, also feel much emotion from a different perspective. This situation was imposed on ALL of us, and we need to keep in mind who our friends and enemies really are. So I’m trying to be as reasoned and logical as possible. That said:
Hey Oldhead, just want to point out that it is most certainly NOT an ad hominem attack to point out Alex Berensen’s previous distortion of facts as a reason I don’t want to waste any more time with whatever he has to say.
I don’t remember you citing any previous distortions of fact, just asserting that he had made them. But even if he had it would not logically mean that everything he says from now on is also misstated. None of us would have any credibility if that were the case.
I don’t think Sean Hannity’s opinion of Berenson is “related to the subject matter.” And in less crazy times I would more expect you to consider Hannity’s negative opinion to be an endorsement. To focus on Berenson as the issue is a “kill the messenger” reaction in my view, even though the “message” should be a reassuring one. Btw I pointed out he was a NYT reporter to demonstrate that he’s a liberal, not a MAGA afficionado; it wasn’t an appeal to “authority” (though maybe to basic journalistic competence).
The masking and “social distancing” is just one aspect of this. The larger context is what is being done to people’s spirits, and how we are being conditioned to fear one another, in the name of the “new normal.” The benefits to the system in dividing people against one another seem apparent to everyone here, so I don’t see why more attention isn’t being paid to what this whole scenario is doing to our collective psyche.
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You’re right, Oldhead, I have been lax in my citations because I have a poor cell signal and pay for data by the Gb. This has not been an inexpensive conversation for me. So, no, I did not go google a citation for you.
I do not find someone who sold a book with biased misinformation scaremongering to parents which probably led more than a few kids into the hands of psychiatry to be a credible source. I’m not sorry.
The Sean Hannity mention was meant to be a quick guide to my thoughts on him as a source and was not intended to refute whatever study he had linked to. Why do you need Alex Berensen or Dr Breggin as sources to back up your position, anyway, when you could simply share the data? Do you actually understand the data and know what statistical manipulation was used on it? How do you know the data are reliable? You’re trying to get me to believe that everything we know about pandemics and disease transmission should be thrown out the window because you read things that you have yet to actually demonstrate any understanding of.
As far as Americans being propagandized to fear one another, I think there are far more egregious examples of this in the wider context of the security state we live in. I had not gotten the impression that masking was an example of being afraid of other people. Insofar as I am NOT a patriotic person, I still feel a sense of solidarity with those who have masked up for the common good. Those who know and show that your mask protects me and my mask protects you and we are in this together.
My wider opinion on COVID overall is that most or all of the economic fallout could have been avoided simply by providing a basic income. Instead the billionaire class got a massive windfall and the rest of us got fucked.
I think Bernie Sanders decision to drop out of the presidential race was honorable but misguided and now we’re all gonna get red white and blue surveillance cameras with facial recognition at every intersection and probably shoved up our collective asses, and that’s regardless of which sex offender gets elected to the next presidency.
I really don’t see how any of that has any bearing on time honored traditions of preventing respiratory illness, which was what I jumped in to talk about. I don’t honestly think that the larger issues surrounding COVID, especially the economic issues, really belong in a discussion about infection prevention.
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Well said. In France wearing a mask is mandatory whereas last year they banned the wearing of masks to stifle public protest whatever you think of it.
https://youtu.be/wZQkBHysrig
In fact one of the things I know about masks is that as anew thing when introduced first they were heavily and no doubt articulately criticised even by respected members of the medical profession in the C19th. It took a long time for them to be widely accepted even in medical circles. But earlier this year at the start of thr pandemic there was widespread hoarding going on, the price of masks sky rocketed and even medical services were sometimes finding it impossible to source supplies – that’s what initially motivated public health officials to put out the message not to wear masks – the law of unintended consequences maybe?
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I am glad that Kindred Spirit is angry and upset at some of the dangerous thinking being spewed out in this comment section.
Kindred Spirit, I support your position here 100%.
I am astonished and deeply saddened to think that such science-denying propaganda has made so many inroads among people I would have never thought would fall for such dangerous nonsense.
Richard
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Peter Breggin may have made a contribution to exposing the dangers of the Medical Model over several decades, but I would NEVER follow ANY of his political advice, or ANY of his medical advice related to Covid 19.
Peter Breggin has become a shrill for the Trump/Pence regime in promoting their cold hearted anti-science approach to the Covid pandemic.
Here is just one quote from his website about temporarily closing down the U.S. economy to save lives:
“We ask, “So what?” Was there ever any doubt that tens of millions—not a mere hundred thousand a day—would contract this highly infectious disease that mercifully rarely does serious harm to anyone but the elderly and immune compromised? This is clearly a case of the Deep State against America and our nation’s vigorous attempts to quickly recover from the draconian COVID-19 lockdown of the spring of 2020.”
Everyone, listen up! Don’t forget that Peter Breggin took a major political turn to the Right Wing following 9/11. He was a frequent guest on the nationally syndicated radio talk show hosted by Michael Savage. Michael Savage is one of the most vile promoters of fascism and racism on the radio airways.
Let’s not forget that Scientology is capable of coming up with a few descent exposures of psychiatry and psychiatric abuse, but who really wants to follow ANY other parts of their belief system?
Richard
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““Conspiracy” is real, and has been since long before the word was used to defame those who had found one where the conspirators, now more able to control the narrative, could not tolerate one to be found (JFK).”
Glad to hear that. Senior Constable who spent 15 minutes with me looking at the Triage Documents showing I had been ‘spiked’ before being interrogated for 7 hours said “This sounds like a conspiracy” to which I replied “Correct Senior Constable a conspiracy, NOT a conspiracy theory.” (a recordeed interview that I am sure has disappeared now given that it shows the Senior Constable had already tried to “refer” me back to the people who had attempted to murder me. Apparently it is a “hallucination” to have the documented proof that you had been ‘spiked’ with date rape drugs without your knowledge, and grounds for the police to make a s.195 referral back to mental health for ‘treatment’. Imagine that, they conceal their use of known torture methods in the hospital. That’s got to make it easy to conceal your use of torture from others when you can call the complainant a nutjob and have then treated for complaining about being tortured.)
People getting together to arrange to have police commit the offences is called “procuring” and involves a “conspiracy” and the victim of those crimes is NOT mentally ill (though they may be considered a “patient” for the convenience of their abusers …. i mean carers).
The two may be independent of one another, though committing crimes against people labelled ‘mentally ill’ would never result in any action being taken against the perpetrator. The opportunity for police to pervert the course of justice before the courts even have the opportunity to examine the “facts” (aka the stuff they planted and the lies they are prepared to make on statutory declarations knowing the victim is most likely to end up dead. How would one then get access to the courts given the State simply threatens legal representatives? Which is precisely what they have done in my instance should anyone ever care to look. Sidetrack the victim with a police referral to a ‘friendly’ doctor/organised criminal operating in our hospital. Tip them off if anyone aver starts asking questions and have then leave the State to avoid any accountability knowing that legal representation can not be denied outside the State and the process can be frustrated for years while the criminals sort out the problems with other corrupt public officers ) means they are best to assist the criminals (at a profit rather than those losers who end up on the street and in the morgue as a result of unintended negative outcomes)
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Steve, “The point about masks seems to be a big stretch to associate with any conspiracy, as I hardly see how any international criminals will be served by people wearing surgical masks, besides which, they are recognized as a reliable way to reduce the spread of disease.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaU40PznA9s
Some have claimed it’s a Muslim Conspiracy to get everyone wearing Niqqab (note, not a Burqa as discussed by our politicians). We are not going to ban the burqa, but are we going to make wearing face coverings mandatory after the discussion we had around this issue not so long ago?
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The drugs don’t work they just make you worse.
The coronavirus pandemic is real.
Wear a mask for crys sake. Vaccinations are safe, anyone who says otherwise is responsible for spreading diseases the consequences of which are….. Disease.
Nobody serious is seriously suggesting mandatory vaccinations.
The label your searching for is disaster capitalism OH.
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We’ll have to part ways on this one. Have you ever studied “vaccines”? Or masks? We’re being sold a bill of goods, though the reasons may not be totally clear for awhile. Definitely a neoliberal thing though.
Last year they removed anti-VAXX info from social media; next year it will likely be anti-psychiatry info, if it hasn’t been banned already.
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Almost everything left is on non-mainstream platforms. And they still have us fighting each other. The Third Party Law in action, with a vengeance.
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No Oldhead I have no expertise as a virologist or epidemiologist or anything else for that matter. But that doesn’t make me automatically distrust everything that goes on in the world. Virology is not psychiatry. Vaccinations have been responsible for very significant improvements in mortality along with other public health measures including the elimination of some diseases and the massive containment of others. Anti vax messages have been responsible for outbreaks and resurgenses of some otherwise well contained viruses. And recall that the original anti vax message was tied up with a false label which exposed it to my mind as false immediately and later this claim was comprehensively rebutted.
As far as masks are concerned it doesn’t seem to be a big ask to cooperate with seemingly sensible public health measures and easy to do to. I defer to kindred spirits comments above.
But yea we are as you say being ‘sold a bill of goods’, if nothing else covid has removed alot of otherwise significant stories from the news agenda. We should as always be deeply skeptical about any claims made in areas were alot of money is at stake. The motivation to make false claims overprescribe, oversell or overprice an otherwise acceptable treatment are of course maximised by concerns for profit over peoples health.
As far as anti psychiatry being removed from social media, well so called anti psychiatry or even critical psychology messaging is a rather marginal thing and increasingly so in my experience. For instance this feed highlighting the adverse effects of psych drugs has been flagged. https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/prescribedharm
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As far as anti psychiatry being removed from social media, well so called anti psychiatry or even critical psychology messaging is a rather marginal thing and increasingly so in my experience.
I guess it’s working then.
Anti vax messages have been responsible for outbreaks and resurgenses of some otherwise well contained viruses.
Source?
Why do so many here consider Pharma the devil when it comes to psych drugs and our savior when it comes to so-called “vaccinations”?
Like I said earlier, we’ll know better what’s up before too long.
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Exactly my concern.
Are psych meds really the only ones we are being misled about?
Is the “science” that psychiatry uses to justify its atrocities the only “science” that we should be concerned about?
I don’t see how someone could have it both ways.
If our institutions are being corrupted, then they are being corrupted. That brings every institution involved into question, on every subject it is involved with.
Perhaps that concept is just a little too overwhelming for some people. I know if I hadn’t decided to change course while I was still a teenager, and had gone into the system in a big way like my sister or brother, I would have a lot harder time disconnecting from it now. I know they do!
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In 1986, Congress granted full indemnity against any legal liability to PhRMA for vaxxxes, and set up the taxpayer-funded “Vaccine Injury Compensation Court & Program”, which has since paid out over $4Billion for vaxx injury claims including death and autism. See: Hannah Polling case. A Federal court ruled vaxxes are “unavoidably unsafe”. Vaxxes contain mercury, aluminum, and tissue from aborted fetuses. True, mercury has been removed from most vaxxes, and replaced with aluminum and other “adjuvants”.
On numerous ocassions on video, Bill Gates has stated his desire to force vaxxx and microchip all 7+Billion of us. Many other less-famous, and less rich persons have stated their desire to force-vaxxx EVERYBODY. Thank God Trump opposes mandatory vaxxxes….
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Please spend an hour or 2 online, researching and learning about “Crimson Contagion”, “Event 201”, “GAVI”, Dr. Kerry Mullis, Nobel Prize, & PCR manufacturing.process. This is indeed a PLANdemic.
pandemic = pan.dem.ic = panic, Dem//
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Like their Lyme counterparts (MyLymeData), COVID long haulers are self organizing and collecting data on recovery. The CDC has now recognized that as many as 1/3 of patients who were never sick enough to be hospitalized are also NOT getting better.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/12/1006602/covid-19-long-haulers-are-organizing-online-to-study-themselves/
Forget deaths. It seems we’ve established a thick skin against the pleas of the already aged and infirm. What is the acceptable long term disability rate for healthy folks who don’t recover?
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Oldhead, can I just say that I really really don’t want to have an argument with you about vaccinations! But can we both agree that the forces of rapacious corporate greed are indeed winning, hands down, and without any properly organised opposition the sort of which we used to have in the Labour movement and elsewhere. If I recall it may have been your good self who alerted me to what Warren Buffet, one of the world’s luckiest men, said that there is indeed a class war ongoing and the rich are winning – hands down and no dispute.
As of today one of my sources of news tells me that the loneliness and anxiety of the many during lockdown is distress to be interpreted as a doubling of the number of people showing signs of depression. So that’s another potentially huge expansion in the market, after the already near doubling during the austerity years, the expansion into schools prisons etc. This from a leading mental health charity that once upon a time used to actively harbour and fund the activities of critically inclined survivour activists.
So that’s all cause for despondency. Not to mention the almost trillion dollar handout the world’s 1000 richest people and corporations got in the bailout earlier this year.
And maybe we can agree that the profit motive is bad for your health. US healthcare costs are over twice per head as Britain’s NHS and yet people live longer in the UK despite its climate etc. This in spite of large swathes of the American population being uninsured or under insured. You can go bankrupt or end up destitute and homeless for becoming ill, that can’t happen in Europe.
A large part of the motivation however for over prescribing, over valuing, overselling meds, for disease mongering, unneccesary screening etc. is the profit motive. A good number of people below the line here are prepared to criticise the profession or the government but not tackle one of the key motivating factors in the problem – greed. We need in our solution to recognise this fact. Not for profit healthcare systems have better outcomes and are run at lower cost. I personally credit the scientists who developed life saving treatments obviously. Most of the research and all the basic research is done in non profit institutions, philanthropically or government funded labs or university labs. Failing to nationalise pharma when national free at point of use health care was established seems to have been a serious oversight.
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But can we both agree that the forces of rapacious corporate greed are indeed winning, hands down, and without any properly organised opposition the sort of which we used to have in the Labour movement and elsewhere. If I recall it may have been your good self who alerted me to what Warren Buffet, one of the world’s luckiest men, said that there is indeed a class war ongoing and the rich are winning – hands down and no dispute.
Sounds like me. I remain a “commie without a home.” Not sure what this has to do with COVID though.
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Wow, COVID-19, and the left-right misinformation campaigns have really divided the MiA community.
Divide and conquer is a war tactic. We really should realize we’re all being fed a bunch of lies and misinformation, from both sides. And remember we’re all humans, and that all decent humans should stick together.
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Wise words, SE!
Steve
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We really should realize we’re all being fed a bunch of lies and misinformation, from both sides.
What do you see as the “sides” and their motivations?
MIA is a microcosm of the world in this instance, I don’t see any more division here than anywhere else.
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I am seeing a stridency in the mainstream that I’m not seeing with other sources. Also, there seems to be more than two “sides.” There are two sides that battle it out almost totally on the basis of whether Trump is good or bad. Then there is at least one other “side” that is trying to be more sensible about things. I try to find those guys. I can’t stand the strident attack dogs which we currently call “the left” but occasionally look at “pro Trump” people to see if they have anything sensible to offer. Sometimes they do, sometimes not. It’s too bad. I used to find the “liberal” sources tolerable. But that was 40-50 years ago. I can’t stand them now.
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Absolutely nothing in particular Oldhead. Things go in opposite directions simultaneously sometimes. The master strategists with their tentacles infiltrating every avenue of human endeavour are no doubt rubbing their hands with glee. Covid is really serious even as they are delighted to have a really serious replacement for the distraction of the Trump show, who’d have thought that was ever going to fly. In politics both sides now the centre right as well as the right have seizes on to the new distraction, even if its distasteful to a say so as Covid is not just taking and ruining lives it is laying waste to whole communities. What are called the disaster capitalists and their strategists and propagandists are indeed rubbing their hands with glee carrying on with their program unnoticed, unaccountable. They couldn’t give a shit about you or me but have come to dominate the agenda determing what is legitimit to articulate. To a ‘commie without a home’ I find a lot to agree with in what you say. Its validating and occasionally enlightening, much here I’ve heard before or figured out myself but occasionally like now I need reminding and sometimes you and others give me pause for thought. But there is as yet no law that says we have to agree on anything let alone everything. I wish I could say the same about the psychiatrists who I seem to fascinate. Yes I’d Stay away from them but that’s easier said than done in the circumstances.
For now I am well and truly pissed off with hearing about Covid. From a homeless utterly isolated person living with and caring for an elderly couple obsessed with worry about the virus I dropped in on Mia to find relief from that particular news feed. Thank you.
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Of course, anyone who is paying any attention at all to what’s going on knows that the Left-Right divide is a false dichotomy in America. Compared to pretty much all other countries, what passes for Left among American Liberals would be considered center-right anywhere else. It’s only the constant propaganda we’re fed telling us that liberals are left wing that keeps this ignorant folly alive.
I can certainly understand the eschewing of mainstream news sources but since NYT was used as a source, I didn’t think this would come up as an issue in the current debate. Here are some sources that you may find more acceptable.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7253999/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7309199/
http://news.mit.edu/2020/meanings-face-masks-emma-teng-0819
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31183-1/fulltext
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/26/the-far-rights-absurd-war-on-masks/#gsc.tab=0
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/17/freedom-vs-public-health-a-false-dichotomy/#gsc.tab=0
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I don’t see any use in continuing this discussion, for the time being at least. Many will buy into the official line and trust the medical establishment, and the neoliberal political establishment, no matter what (even though we were one of the unhealthiest nations in the world coming into this). Others will look at the enormous damage being done by the lockdown and continue to question, given the vast array of deadly diseases available, why this particular one is suddenly so special.
I have provided resources for those who wish to look into this more thoroughly. I have also expressed my belief that left un-tampered with the epidemic (or whatever you want to call it) will subside fairly soon.
However the proof will be in the pudding, so it doesn’t make sense to keep arguing about what the future may hold.
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Posting as moderator:
I am agreeing with Oldhead that this topic has been thoroughly hashed out and further argumentation is not going to add much to anyone’s understanding and may lead to hurt feelings. I’m already seeing things getting more emotional and some hurt feelings being generated, yet little to no progress toward agreement for the effort. It seems there are strong feelings on both sides of the issue, and we have seen some links to data enough that people who are reading this can hear the arguments and make up their own minds.
Besides which, this is pretty far afield from the original topic. So I’m going to ask that we wind this down quickly. There are a couple more comments that I have to consider whether to post or moderate, and that may engender a reply or two, but let’s try to bring it to a civil end. Sometimes we just need to agree to disagree.
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I agree Steve.
I wish the best for all here.
Have a nice weekend everyone!
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100%.
And credit it to you, you can see from my post date that I’m writing much later. You were 100% right about what you saw in the shamdemic, but most importantly you recognize that this is all part of the same systemic issues as what the author writes about. But she was on-target too when she talks about the free pass given to the powerful pscho/sociopaths that run the ‘legitimate’ system, even if she may have been off about the specifics of the plandemic.
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This is so well put, Caroline. Thank you! We need to keep calling out the double standards.
And the expression “off their meds” should be stricken from the lexicon (I’m pondering a blog on this myself…)
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Thank you so much, Miranda! I am looking forward to reading your blog, if you decide to write it.
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Caroline, judging only from your words here, and that 1 photo of your happy smiling face, I think you’re probably one of the LEAST “DANGEROUS” people I know!…. Your valiant and courageous effort to educate and FREE yourself is very clear, very compelling, and very much appreciated by me. I read Dr. Breggin’s “Toxic Psychiatry” in 1992! He literally saved my life. And I second “oldhead’s” suggestion to read what he’s said about covid the last few months.
Hope to see more of you here….
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“Off their meds,” and the offensive, “take your meds,” which is really just a power play. There definitely needs to be more written about the language of mental illness and how it is used to put people down.
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Please spend an hour or 2 online, researching and learning about “Crimson Contagion”, “Event 201”, “GAVI”, Dr. Kerry Mullis, Nobel Prize, & PCR manufacturing.process. This is indeed a PLANdemic.
pandemic = pan.dem.ic = panic, Dem//
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Big Pharma is making money faster than ever as small businesses are forced to close. Not big chain stores though. This isn’t about preventing infection since more stores mean more distancing. It’s about cronyism and lobbying.
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I’m resigned to dying in the next year or two.
Things are unsustainable. They won’t get better, just worse.
The hope of death in the near future is all that sustains me now. Soon this nightmare apocalypse will be behind me.
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I’m sorry, Rachel, for you, for me (I feel/think the same), and for everyone who’s been victimized by psychiatry. I’ve been accused in the past (not by anyone here), by multiple people, including therapists and immediate family members, of “playing the victim”. I was just lying in bed, wondering if the overwhelming exhaustion, weakness, and trouble breathing was due to Cymbalta withdrawal or due to some other shit, knowing at the same time that it’s a moot point because it’s only getting worse and there is no help for it, medical or otherwise. I hate my apartment and thought I had it in me to move again so I gave my landlord notice. I need to be out by the end of September but day after day has gone by where, not only did I do nothing to prepare to move, I barely got out of bed. It would be so much simpler to just die in my sleep one night rather than deal with yet another move where I don’t even have a place to go and there’s no where I want to be, I just don’t want to be here because I can’t deal with my neighbors anymore, or the noise. I’m not suicidal, just done. The most positive emotion I have left is apathy. I’m sorry, it sucks, and we didn’t/don’t deserve it.
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The hope of death in the near future is all that sustains me now.
Now there’s a paradox for you. 🙂
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Sorry KateL.
This whole thing is a nightmare.
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I was brutally suicidal for a long time for many reasons. For what it’s worth, if anything to another person in dire straights, the most profound change, ironically just at the very beginning of the virus epoch, was my new generic liquid ketamine treatment prescribed by my psychiatrist. It transformed me; of course with all my other modes of operation: nutrient supplements, privacy of funded apartment (by government and parents—I know, I know), art and website building, minor amounts of other pharmaceuticals, mainly to assist my sleeping, and there are others. But my ketamine really made an important difference. It is generic, $45 a month, 15mg per day, and transcends the expensive, time consuming, and clinical over-control of the nasal spray and IV.
Maybe you didn’t/don’t want my input, and I can understand that. But I too have lived with the apocalypse, and only hold tight–now–what I can, and proceed from there. Take care.
(p.s. I think this is not the place for criticizing my use of prescribed drugs, especially from other commentators. I’m fully aware of the complexities. That conversation can be had at another time.)
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One of your concerns seems to be your lack of the human connection, socializing, etc. I made a comment earlier that didn’t even address that, and I’m sorry. I tend to be an introverted and private loner so I bone-headily over-looked that I guess. I walk with family, masked, although a lot less with the Heat in Alabama rising. I zoom with family or organizations that I am either a member or curious observer/participator. I text and talk occasionally with friends. I still see my psychologist in person, and now we both wear masks (he wasn’t). I actually like him a lot, which is somewhat unusual and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Anyway. Ok. Thanks.
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It’s important to preserve some distinction between madness and badness. People of course can be bought. I’m not sure if all people are as scared of the allegedly ‘mentally ill’, ‘nutters’ crazy people in their midst, sometimes now they just seem concerned that people take their drugs. They call this ‘care’. After that they usually don’t want to know. The violence argument ignores the institutional violence of coercive manipulative psychiatry. They call this ‘care’. The victims of which are more often the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it. In fact it seems that people being treated such are less likely to commit violent crime than the normals.
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Caroline’s difficulties in understanding some of these issues are clear in this article, and shared by many others. That it seems implausible, or even arrogant, to offer myself or my data as a source of “better” understanding doesn’t stop me from trying.
The overall situation is obviously related to the problems we have and have had in understanding ourselves and each other. That a more “spiritual” approach is indicated is not clear to many, but it is to me. And of course, the most basic understanding, in that case, would be that we are in fact spiritual beings. Unfortunately, this understanding puts a lot more power and responsibility on our shoulders than most of us are comfortable with. That, however, is the correct starting place.
Although a better understanding of the mind as a mechanism leads immediately to a more effective mental therapy and general approach to life, one soon enough discovers the more basic truth about personality. So I like to lead with it, even though it is a large conceptual step for many.
From this basic comes better understandings of how politics and social interactions work in general, and how important it is, in particular, to guard ourselves from the poisoning of these relationships by people who are seriously “unwell,” the true criminals. It is ironic that they have convinced us that the only criminals are petty thieves and drug pushers and the truly “dangerous” are the mentally ill, when they are themselves the major cause of most of the bad experiences we run into in life, including petty crime and “mental illness.”
Thus we have before us the obvious need for a self-education campaign. Such data is continuously fought against as “pseudo science” or “fraud.” If you as an individual are not able to rise above the avid craving for social acceptability that is currently being pushed by the latest generation of the criminally insane, then you will not be ale to benefit from the understandings that are – at this very moment – available to you.
I don’t expect a flood of people to take on this challenge. But I would expect a few to be willing – out of desperation if no other reason. So far I have found very very few.
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I’m not really clear exactly what “challenge” you mean? SPIRITUALITY?…. Earth 2020 is both spiritually SICK, and spiritually awakening. If enough of us wake up enough, fast enough, we’ll be fine. Otherwise not….
I made my choice decades ago. Spirituality for Life is the BEST PATH….
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The challenge is to start educating oneself outside the box of mainstream science and technology. That’s all I mean by that. I don’t care about couching it in terms like “awakening.” And I don’t want to threaten anyone that things will go bad for them if they remain ignorant. But there is a lot to know that the mainstream is not telling us that we should really be talking more about.
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N
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Hi Caroline,
I got to thinking about this article quite deeply and allowed myself the time to play devils advocate.
“It’s like attributing some terrorism to certain practices or beliefs in Islam. If it were true that Islam sometimes produces terrorists, all Muslims would become potential suspects.”
This is of course as true as it was of the Irish in London during the bombing campaign of the IRA in the 1970s. My uncle whose name was the equivalent of O’Malley couldn’t leave a bag in a pub while he went to the bathroom because of his Irish roots. He was a ‘potential suspect’ no matter where he went.
But thinking about the ‘practices’ I assume your referring to the stonings, public floggings etc. So I wondered what and when these practices develop, and think maybe it is as those who believe see the decay in a society and respond with these practices to bring people back into line. Certainly attendance at Friday prayers increases if people are flogged publicly for not attending. Certainly adultery goes down when people are buried up to their necks and stoned if caught engaging in extra marital affairs.
And then I got to thinking about the decay we are witness to in our own ‘advanced’ societies. Is the rise in psychiatric ‘care’ and ‘mental health services’ not a response to this decay? In as much as Islamic States response to the ‘straying’ of people in their own society?
The very public ‘beating’ of people like Garth Daniels by psychiatrists a warning to others not to get on the wrong side of the ‘Morality Police’.
I mean I get it that whilst I may be a ‘mistake’ or an ‘error’ as a result of people who use the system of brutality to ‘fuking destroy’ me by planting items on me and having the ‘morality police’ treat me as if I were a ‘criminal’ (the proverbial false accusers), but without my community needing this system to deal with people violating moral codes would not have come into existence.
I mean I did after all say I was going to leave my wife, and this in my community is seen as justification for subjecting me to acts of torture, kidnapping and should I complain about the fact that this was all made to appear lawful by the wife of an ‘Imam’, I can be slaughtered in the street, while the ‘authorities’ hold me down. Of course all kind of embarrassing for them when they find out that it was all done via acts of negligence, fraud and slander (all acts which attract severe punishments in Islam I might add.) But as is the case with Islamic State, the ‘authorities’ need to be supported even when they make ‘mistakes’ and the people who dare to speak out against them need to be fuking destroyed to maintain authority over the people they rule over. And this needs to be done in a very public manner, hence the reason everyone has run away and left me for dead. They are “afraid for their families” as was openly expressed by the psychologist who tried to assist me, but was then threatened by police when they realised the documents hadn’t been retrieved, and their torture and kidnapping was exposed. Fear being a great motivator as any police officer here will tell you. This in a State where the Commissioner calls a threat to have someone raped in the cells for not wearing a bike helmet a “poor choice of words” by the officer concerned.
So it is the attempts being made by good people to bring our communities back into a moral code that they believe that will not bring the wrath of god onto them. Can we blame them for trying to do this to save us all? And of course there will be mistakes, but in general they have the community living in fear and following their moral code (though I think in many ways the need to do these cover ups actually allows MORE corruption, rather than less).
So I can’t help but wonder if I should stop “kicking against the pricks” and get with the program and start reporting suspicious activities I notice in friends and family to the authorities. These mental health helplines may be just the place to call and report people who express a belief that our governments are spying on us and that the cameras that are being installed in our homes are not for our own good. Of course they are, how else are they to micro manage every waking moment? And given what I have seen certainly my government is allowing public officers the right to tamper with documents to manipulate narratives and create whatever truth they like. This will ensure that good people are never held to account for little infractions like attempting to pervert the course of justice or convenience killings in the Emergency Dept to maintain their good reputation.
It has taken me a while to come to this conclusion but I got there. Sure they tortured and kidnapped me, but it was all for the best. They knew I would come round to their way of thinking eventually, they always do. Either that or
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/mentally-ill-woman-dies-in-nsw-hospital-after-falling-25-times-20170512-gw36ee.html
So maybe we should just all get with the program and accept with blind faith that these people are doing all this for our own good, and it can’t be easy. I mean if one were to take the letter of the law into account, much of what is being done would be considered human and civil rights abuses. But that’s the ‘devil in our ears’ trying to trick us into a belief that we actually have rights, we don’t. How do I know this? Psychiatry exists.
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“So I can’t help but wonder if I should stop “kicking against the pricks” and get with the program and start reporting suspicious activities I notice in friends and family to the authorities.”
I remember reading about Cold War East Germany some years ago. Nobody knew who among their family and friends was spying on them. There was no trust among people. And today in America we are creating the same climate of fear and suspicion. We’ve become what we were fighting against.
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“Nobody knew who among their family and friends was spying on them.”
This has been the case with mental health services for some time now Bowen. What a lot of people don’t realise is that what would be considered criminal and conspiring if the person were a citizen, becomes ‘healthcare’ and ‘medicinal’ if done to a “patient”. As far as they are concerned you may as well be ‘snowed’ in a hospital bed the way they can do anything they like behind your back.
Consider, my wife and an FOI Officer conspiring to pervert the course of justice in concealing the fact I had been ‘spiked’ with date rape drugs and documented by the hospital. When I applied for the documents, they get together and try and make me into a “patient” to allow them to conspire to conceal the offences, and all that takes is for me to speak to a doctor and get a referral to a ‘friendly’. You can then go about what would otherwise be crimes because the “patient” is now having decisions made for them without them even knowing that they have been ‘hijacked’. They were being oh so nice to my face in rejecting my applications for my medical records, whilst providing fraudulent documents to my legal representatives. It makes one rather untrusting I guess is the term because you kind of know they are stabbing you in the back, and some of them even make it obvious in the hope you will get angry and then they can start the drugging without consent. In my case they tried to have me sign documets releasing them from the crime of conspiring to pervert etc, and failed. They then handed over ‘redacted’ documents which removed the police involvement and interrogation of me whilst I had been stupefied without my knowledge (consider that, police now have the ability to ‘spike’ people before interrogations and then have mental health services deal with the mess that makes of the psychological well being. And Mental Health Services are signing prescriptions for the drugs AFTER it is done.)
Trust in Haste, Regret at Leisure with mental health services. Because once they have their hooks into you, even the police will assist them with their (otherwise) criminal conduct.
I can show you how to use police services to kidnap and torture and then how to conceal this from the authorities. In fact, no need, the authorities are the ones doing the concealing lol. They are doing the work FOR the criminals lol
“We have become what we were fighting against”
Something I think of every time I see our politicians who are removing our human and civil rights with a pen, whilst those brave souls who fought for those rights paid for them in blood. Watch as they make their presence known at the parades. Al munafiqoon.
Anyone care to see how I have this letter writing away our right to NOT be arbitrarily detained? “Suspect on reasonable grounds” becomes “Suspect”? And the State snatching people out of their beds because to disagree with someone means you must be mentally ill, and therefore any resistance to ‘treatment’ is a sign of your illness?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aehwEu8SBSo
Bob obviously met these same people.
“you have no faith to lose, and you know it”
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Thanks for this piece Caroline. Yes, so true once you have a psychiatric label(s) how you are perceived by others (especially medical personnel and police) is very much colored/altered, as well as aspects of your rights, autonomy, etc. The same actions/behavior of someone without a label is viewed very differently when the same behavior involves a person with a label.
In Alberta (Canada) last week a Sudanese man went into a medical clinic and while in the examining room with a doctor (a General Practitioner) he attacked the doctor with a hammer and machete. The doctor called out for help. He was rushed to the hospital in very rough shape but died. The police said they know the motive but will not be releasing it until later. People are already speculating it’s “mental illness” and the man told the judge at his first court appearance that “he is a sick man and needs a doctor”. It is these stories that feed that whole narrative. It may be that he was on psych drugs and/or in withdrawal but that will never be covered by mainstream media.
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“The police said they know the motive but will not be releasing it until later.”
Aka, the facts don’t suit the narrative we want the people to believe. “Insufficient evidence” means we refused to accept the documented proof of the crimes and are actively tampering with the justice system, but what are you going to do about it? We know where your family lives.
I found it strange that my Government provides services for victims of torture, unless they are victims of torture by our government, then they are considered mentally ill and will be tortured until they shut their mouths, or commit suicide as a result of the gaslighting, and denial of access to remedy via the law. Either way, they win.
So as a refugee the man is a victim of torture by the Sudanese government, but if he gets treated in the same manner by my government? And I am in no way denying that the doctor was truly trying to help this man, but has something about the ‘treatment’ triggered his response? Because plugging people into electric sockets is the same even if you use the machine that goes “PING” (Monty Python fans will get the reference).
See this program to be seen by the public regarding the twisting of narratives to suit the purpose.
https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/please-don’t-judge/12579574
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Hi boans. So can you clarify if you are recommending (thumbs up?) the above program, or is it guilty of twisting the narrative? I’m curious to watch, but don’t want to be triggered.
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J.C. on a Bike: A Brief History of Gain of Function Viral Research:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TunB03Gg65Q
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Interesting video! You get to watch him riding through Pittsburgh while he talks!
One of the oddest things I found on this subject was a site that was publishing data about this disease based on information received in late November of 2019. Totally under the radars of almost everyone, of course. But interesting that someone seemed to know about it that early.
This seems incredibly off-topic but I think it relates somehow to the whole plan that resulted in the current “mental health” system.
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“This seems incredibly off-topic but I think it relates somehow to the whole plan that resulted in the current “mental health” system.”
Yes indeed.
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I’m sorry, I do not feel up to the task of responding to comments anymore, as there are so many. There are many kind and thoughtful comments that I would like to respond to. I do appreciate everyone’s comment. Thank you.
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Caroline, It has gone round to another discussion which I like about articles. Never know what comes up, and the main theme in it all is that people are tired of being oppressed.
I honestly think that the thing that really pisses people off is that psychiatry even moved into covid. Consider that the very psychiatrists who are risking people’s lives by forcing them to stay in psych jail, are also advertising for more subjects. It’s not a “helpful offering”, it’s cashing in on calling reactions to covid messages as “mental health” issues.
You are always great with articles and responses, you are appreciated.
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I think people would understand if you chose to bypass the COVID comments and focus on those pertaining to your original theme, anyway just a thought.
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Hello Caroline – you are not under any obligation to reply to any comment here (most article writers don’t) or even read them. You could be forgiven for thinking that as the feed as gone ‘off topic’ at times some commenters are ignoring the contents of your article. Anyway thanks for your words.
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“If someone has committed a heinous crime let them pay their debt to society.”
Well said Caroline. We already have the legal system to punish all of us for law breaking.
But psychiatry has the authority to punish regardless of our behavior. The unquestioned absolute authority to inflict cruel and unusual punishment (without limit) on even the most mild mannered law abiding saints–more sinned against than sinning. Just because some Expert deems them biologically unfit for basic human rights or simple kindness and decency.
Psychiatry punishes the “biologically unfit” for the crime of existing. 🙁
Because of this pseudo science our culture chooses to judge us on the word of some Ex-Spurt Sciencey Dude–who just flipped through old notes without talking to us. Not the content of our character.
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No longer in my State Rachel777.
Our Premier is talking about the use of “tracking devices” on “those who would breach quarantine potential criminals” just yesterday. And the passing of Emergency Legislation to deny one of the richest men in the country the right to access the courts to enforce his rights relly does mean “we are all in this together”. That is, until like the National Socialists in Germany “we were just doing our jobs” applies.
“If somebody with a mental illness ends up before court, then that’s a failure, in my view…it’s because they’ve not been able to, or haven’t received the appropriate care and help that could have prevented that happening.” Lawyer, Tasmania
from this page
https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/please-don’t-judge/12579574
Consider that statement carefully. They would like to take the use of logic and reason away and replace it with opinion and speculation. The crimes that were committed against me concealed by making the issue one of whether I have an illness and therefore the criminals were justified in committing their offences against me? Having a doctor sign off post hoc on the torture to have me ‘confess’ to my ‘illness’ proof that these were ‘good’ people.
Do we then consider if the bank robber had debts he could not afford to service and he was thus justified in robbing the bank? Off you go, no crime has been committed other than the failure of the rich to share my friend lol.
The ability to make citizens into “patients” post hoc will result in an absolute disaster for our court system. Way beyond anything imagined by Commissioner Kennedy when he said that ‘verballing’ was corrupting our system. Imagine providing police with the power to have people they torture ‘treated’ for the ‘illness’ they have induced via acts of known torture? And then the ability to deny access to remedy to right that wrong? You no longer have a right to speak for yourself because we don’t like what you are saying. So torture away people, because there is no avenue for remedy other than ‘referral’ to a system that is an abuse of human and civil rights.
I’d like to leave this place now please.
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I would CERTAINLY object to tracking people who have not been convicted of a crime. Mask use is certainly no reason to track or punish people. We should be working on getting agreement on how to help each other.
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Okay, so then we do what was done to me, plant items to MAKE them criminals and then track them lol. What I noticed was that if the person who has a duty to enforce the rules doesn’t do their job, then outcomes are easily manipulated. Appoint someone who is prepared to neglect their duty to the role where they are supposed to enforce the protections and hey presto, looks like a sheep, underneath is a wolf.
For example the Chief Psychiatrist as Head of the Royal College of Psychiatrists was having a certain level of effect for his colleagues. But imagine if he took the role of the person who enforces the rules and then neglected that duty? It’d be carte blanche. Which shows in this letter I have where he has openly stated that Authorised Mental Health Practitioners have the right to arbitrarily detain and torture citizens, and he won’t perform his duty under the Corruption and Crime Commission Act and report them if they do. And in fact, will accept hospital administrators distributing fraudulent documents to lawyers to conceal the criminal offences they have engaged in. Too easy when people trust you.
Good news is that very few slip through the net given the ability to use police resources to have your victims delivered to you for ‘treatment’ should they actually obtain the proof of crimes committed in the process of torturing people into confessing to their illness of not agreeing with doctor. Simply flag them on the police system and should they turn up in a station somewhere looking to lodge an Incident Report, have police refer your “patient” back to you for unintended negative outcoming. Extract as much Medicare money from them as possible whilst ECTing them into submission (see others who have been subjected to this process on this very site).
Not that I consider it any of my business anymore. I just want to go home and not be subjected to further slander and fraud by our politicians and their ‘Masters’. I note that someone in my home has decided that such abuses should not be enabled, and that they are ‘phasing out’ the use of these torture methods (for now). Quite possibly the reason the Operations Manager who hasn’t been here long is going about setting up shop here after being removed from my country.
That’s something else that leaves me flabbergasted. I have actually been to my consulate and told them that I have been subjected to torture, have the proof and would like some assistance to leave this place, and ……… crickets. That really surprises me because whilst I get it that the fraud is being maintained by the State government, surely my Nation would check such allegations before dismissing them? And of course had they checked they would KNOW what I am saying is the truth. Makes one wonder about the protections of ones Nation. Though I guess Jamal Kashoggi thought he was safe to go and get his paperwork. Not unlike me thinking police would take the proof of crimes and not simply hand me back to mental health services to be tortured and slaughtered (aka ‘fuking destroyed’).
I guess the woman who watched her daughter step in front of a car is about to find out how the Operations Manager deals with “formal investigations” and ‘fuking destroys’ anyone who dares question her preferred truths. Same hospital, same outcome one would assume. Bit of advice, just accept the fraud and slander because if your paying for your own torture, it will ruin your credit rating. And of course everyone confesses in the end, they have to lest the State have to bear the cost of torturing you lol. User pays system. Something they might want to consider in the US lol
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Hello Rachel,
I saw your post about loathing the endless isolation from the lockdown. I don’t like it either. I’m sorry you want Covid 19 to end your life. I would miss you. I rate you among the top 5 commenters on MIA. I love your anti-psychiatry stance and I am amazed that you are so articulate after all that the Psychiatric Drug Pushers have done to you.
And to Oldhead, L E Cox, and Bradford :
hank You very much for de-bunking the pro-vaccination propaganda on this site. It’s strange that those who promote this viewpoint don’t even seem to know that the same corrupt drug companies, with a very long and very bad track record of producing very nasty Psychiatric Drugs; also make Vaccines ! Duh ? Is 66 years a long enough track record ?
Also, Natural News.com and Vaccine Impact News.com have a lot of info on vaccine dangers. If my sources are not good enough; how about the PDR ( Physicians Desk Reference ) having a lot of info. on vaccine dangers. Is the PDR scientific enough for the Pro-Vaxxers ???
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Thanks.
I don’t consider myself an anti vaxxer though. At least not as far as the basic MMR shots go. Even polio shots are still a good idea.
These shots are highly effective. And the polio one saves children’s lives.
My brother and I had all four as children. But I got my Chicken Pox immunity the old fashioned way.
Dedicating my time to trying to help keep local small businesses afloat. Pam Popper’s gives some tips on how we can do this. I highly recommend looking up her interview with Peter Breggin on YouTube.
A lot of people are desperately afraid they will lose their homes or be unable to scrape enough beans and rice together to feed their children. I visit a cafe near me and promised the owner’s daughter working behind the cash register that if another lockdown takes place I will still get carry out there regularly.
She thanked me profusely.
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Justsayno — Interesting about the PDR. It’s only online now I guess? Wonder if the PDR will be banned by social media.
If I drove a rusty nail an inch into my foot or got bit by a rabid animal I would get tetanus/rabies shots, out of terror, science be damned. But the general mentality behind vaccines is that our bodies need constant help from the medical industry to help them carry out their basic functions, which include an advanced immune system if we treat them right. So it seems logical that “vaccines” would make our immune systems lazy, hence vulnerable.
While capitalism is totally the culprit here, it is not so in the ways propagated by “leftists,” who equate people’s exasperation with their lives and businesses being locked down with selfish “capitalist” greed.
It is the corporate/capitalist “Standard American Diet” (SAD), with extra sugar and salt, that has left vast swaths of the population with weakened immune systems insufficient to fight COVID effectively. Along with generally poor health practices, including over reliance on the medical industry and its drugs.
Hooking people on mass diets (with a few variations) not only benefits food corporations, but the ensuing disease is exploited by the medical industry. Profits all around. Plus a trimmer more manageable population.
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“Hooking people on mass diets (with a few variations) not only benefits food corporations, but the ensuing disease is exploited by the medical industry. Profits all around. Plus a trimmer more manageable population.”
And the chicken farmer obviously doesn’t want his chickens to be sick, but will also cut corners to maintain large profits. Despite the long term consequences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnyB0a8G71Y
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Not sure if Caroline will see this now that she’s ‘bowed out’, but I always find her articles stimulating. I agree with another commentator that these feeds have a tendency to hijack the author’s focal point and there could be a separate dedicated area for extending conversation.
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p.s. I actually believe that the war instinct, perceiving AND projecting enemies, and wrathful and vengeful God is built into The Bible, despite its good persona. It was God that unleashed the seven plagues and who violated Job. So violence done in its name isn’t exactly unusual. I won’t speak for Islam though.
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MIA has a discussion forum, but it doesn’t get much activity. Maybe when the conversations go off topic, the moderators can nudge the commenters to go to the forums.
https://www.madinamerica.com/forums/
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Closed Bowen. Personally I liked it but I think it was a lot of work for others so…… Steve will explain.
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All the talk about virology and epidemiology above reminded me that the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) used for research in psychology was developed from epidemiology. Taking something that is real, aka a virus, and applying it to metaphors or ‘personality traits’ has been a great means of deceiving the public that this is “science”. Look, we’ve got the numbers lol. Of course like the three card monte it is, knowing how the con works takes the ‘magic’ out of the equation, and your left with nothing but a trick not even worthy of a clown at a kids birthday party.
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https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-victoria-melbourne-tv-show-masked-singer-millionaire-hotseat-studio-outbreak/73913611-1522-4e1e-a858-b76007b39e01
Tell me there isn’t a joke in this? The Masked Singer shut down due to Corona virus? And they are telling us masks work? lol Anyone remember the episode of the Young Ones titled “Sick”?
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Speaking of funny, ……. I just went back to bed (5am) and a house over the back fence is having the door kicked in and some woman is screaming “Nooooooooo, get your hands off me”.
Now years ago I might have been concerned that she was the victim of domestic violence and needed assistance, but after my experience I am of the opinion that it might actually be ‘assistance’ from mental health services she is receiving. And I certainly wouldn’t wish to be a witness to the ‘treatment’ given that they ‘fuking destroy’ anyone who speaks the truth when they don’t like that narrative and have a fraudulent preferred one already prepared. So. I might stay silent on this one for now and hope it isn’t another person being set on fire as a result of the ‘Covid stress’.
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KindredSpirit
Thank you for all the effort you put into this comments section. You provided a lot of information and a look into life in ‘Murica 2020.
Onward, thru the Covid fog…
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Hi Caroline,
thank you for sharing your story. I’m so sorry your family didn’t know how to help you when you needed them most. I hope some day that common problem begins to change.
Sam
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